So this happened awhile ago…

Yeah.

And then I was all like “LOL! YOU GUISE! You’re gonna hate it here!”

Just sayin’

cognitivedissonance:

You wanted it, so I made it. (Click through to make it larger)

Here’s the follow-up to the GOP Family Values Bingo game for the next debate. The next one is Nov. 22 at 8 PM EST on CNN and is over national security issues. I’ll be live-tweeting it like usual. Follow me @meglanker. Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul are all confirmed to attend.

This debate is sponsored by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, who proudly endorse the poor people can’t have nice things meme.

Send me your filled out bingo card, and I’ll post it here. Good luck! I’m not sure if getting a bingo is winning or losing in this game.

So who’s gonna play tonight? Send me your card so I can post it tonight. I think I’ll award gifs for any cards that match mine.

You wanted it, so I made it. (Click through to make it larger)

Here’s the follow-up to the GOP Family Values Bingo game for the next debate. The next one is Nov. 22 at 8 PM EST on CNN and is over national security issues. I’ll be live-tweeting it like usual. Follow me @meglanker. Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul are all confirmed to attend.

This debate is sponsored by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, who proudly endorse the poor people can’t have nice things meme.

Send me your filled out bingo card, and I’ll post it here. Good luck! I’m not sure if getting a bingo is winning or losing in this game.

grrrlscoutcookie:

mylifeasafeminista:

azspot:

Basic appliances do not a middle-class family make (via cognitivedissonance, tamaraleach)

To those fine individuals at the Center for American Progress:

Your privilege is showing.

Are you suggesting that families should sell their refrigerators, so that they do not have somewhere to store their food and can only eat packaged/canned products instead?  Should families sell their microwave so they don’t have somewhere to heat up their food?  Should they not use an air-conditioner, even though the United States experienced a severe heat wave this summer?

What happens after a family sells their refrigerator and eats for eight days?  Are they suddenly not middle-class anymore?

Your logic is appalling and your lack of humanity is disgusting.

I read it as the opposite? I thought the point of this was to point out that just because a family has these things does not make them financially stable. Obviously the appliances serve much more purpose in the home than the returns they would get by selling them. I think that was the point this was trying to make. It’s in opposition to people who think that poor people are not entitled to have appliances (“nice things”) if they’re receiving welfare or aid. 

Bingo ^^

Center for American Progress is a progressive foundation, and so’s the Half in Ten organization. This is why I put a click-through link on the picture from ThinkProgress that discusses what the graphic means.

(via mia-the-wonder-slut)

Recently, The Heritage Foundation released a report on poverty in American, largely trying to debunk the idea that poor people are poor. They included facts like the majority of people living in poverty have refrigerators, microwaves, and air conditioners. Never mind these things might be attached to a rental unit of some kind… it’s not like those items listed are big-ticket items, particularly when bought used. 

I met a family the other day who, according to the Heritage Foundation, is living in the lap of luxury. I’ll let you folks make up your minds. 

I was at the Salvation Army last week and was looking at the appliances. There was an older microwave for $5. A woman in front of me (I’ll call her Ann) at the register bought the microwave and was telling her kids they’d get microwave popcorn again. It looked like that $5 microwave made those kids’ day. Now, that microwave would have been included in The Heritage Foundation’s analysis because she also receives WIC, and Heritage Foundation is especially interested in those receiving federal benefits.

I know she receives WIC, because she asked me if all the grocery stores in town took it. Ann just moved here about three weeks ago and was staying with a friend who was now in the process of moving away. I talked to her for about half an hour outside the store. She asked if I knew which hotel was the cheapest and cleanest, because she couldn’t afford the rent here (college is about to start, so the cheapest rentals are gone) and she’s on a list for a housing voucher.

I helped her put a suitcase on a luggage rack on the top of her car to make room for the microwave in her trunk. She mentioned she was glad to have a place to work and, she hoped, a place to live. I asked where she moved from. She said Denver, and that she and her kids were living in their car for a few months (in the midst of a heat wave) because her landlord kicked her out and she had nowhere to go. Ann said she never signed a lease and the landlord evicted her with just a few hours notice because her two-year-old was too noisy. She was afraid to go for DFS for help because she thought they’d take the kids, what with them living in the car. She interviewed for a job at a fast food place here about a week ago and starts this Monday. She’d been out of work for about 5 months when she moved up here.

I gave her the phone numbers for every community resource I could think of, pointed her towards the hotels I knew were cheap and clean, and offered to help in any way I could. Ann said that I’d helped, that she already knew how to get along the best she could, and that “being poor takes skills you don’t know you have ‘til you need them.”

But according to Heritage Foundation, she’s not poor. She and her 3 kids are living in a hotel here that has a fridge, a queen bed (or two), a $5 microwave she bought, and she’s living in the lap of luxury (as defined by them)? I don’t think so. Their report exemplifies what I (and others) call “Poor people can’t have nice things.” Basically, if you have a very basic amenity, like a microwave, you’re obviously not poor. Apparently, being poor involves some kind of “noble suffering” and if you aren’t suffering Oliver Twist-style, you aren’t poor. 

I can see Ann and her kids were struggling. But that’s seemingly not “low” enough for folks at the Heritage Foundation. I don’t care what “amenities” people in poverty supposedly have - to me, one person being one paycheck away from homelessness or food insecurity is one too many. One in seven Americans currently rely on food stamps to eat. And never mind those folks trying to subsist on the goodwill of others and/or unemployment. I’m not going to quibble about a cell phone or a television. 

I hope she’s doing alright, the job works out, and the kids get microwave popcorn.