... perpetually propagate the views of these right-wing fringe nutcases who are of no real importance?

If Jesus Christ was nominated for the Supreme Court they would be slamming him for his judge not that ye be not judged quip, his alleged communism, and for practicing medicine without a license.

I know that Obama likes to cast Limbaugh as the leader of the Republicans, but let's not go overboard on that. As for Buchanan, he is an amusing polemicist, but nothing more.

I just turned down a big promotion

After the 42% marginal tax rate (Medicare/State/Fed) the extra hours just were't worth it, even for a 30% gross increase. So because of the government's greedy demand to take almost half of my next dollar of income, they will get none at all.

... you only pay social security on the first $106,000, which could be a factor some time in the future.

The real problem appears to be that the 30% gross raise represents an after tax raise of about 18% for, possibly, 18% more hours, hence no raise at all, though it might be a stepping stone for an even more senior position in the future.

If the new job was the same hours as the old one, then you would be in clover. Also if you bought a more expensive home, you might be able to deduct more interest against taxes. Additionally, you might be able to fund retirement plans with more pretax dollars if you are not already maxed out on that.

...a future president of the USA.

Seems like a reasonable decision given the impossibility of all the available choices, but what would a wise Latina woman have decided?

Diamonds may be forever, but as others have said, they don't necessarily hold their value very well.

You could put the ring on E-bay with a reserve price and see if you get an acceptable bid, but I suspect that at this time the number of distressed wives exceeds the number of ardent suitors wanting to win over ladies with huge sparkling rings.

As others have said, you should be able to get a divorce lawyer who will take his chunk of the family's assets out of the settlement proceeds.

You may have a very hard row to hoe going solo, but since the current situation is unbearable, what choice do you have?

... radio comic buffoon Rush Limbaugh as the current leader of the rudderless Republican party.

It is nice to see the Republicans in a tailspin at the present time, but the next election cycle is far away. As erstwhile British prime minister Harold Wilson famously said: A week is a long time in politics.

However a democracy needs the dialectic of opposing views to keep the executive wing on its toes, and one hopes that the Republicans will not be spending too long crying in the wilderness.

Here is what you are actually communicating:

Because so many black people are poor and stupid and envious of the middle class, it's no surprise they turn to crime and end up in jail.

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Sotomayor was poor, so I guess it's a good thing she is a latina and not a black male, otherwise she would have been mugging people and peddling crack instead of getting an education.

No, because some poor black and Hispanic people do well in school and move into upper-echelon careers.

However, since you raise the point, black women seem to move into professional jobs more often than men. One might note that Sotomayor's mother, who raised her alone, was more literate than her father and ended up as as Licensed Practical Nurse, which is a pretty skilled job and well-paid relative to unskilled jobs, usually with a lot of overtime available.

My observations on the crimes committed are based mostly on my experience of working in prisons and examining the case records of inmates, and talking to inmates.

If you have better information on what the majority of black inmates are in prison for, then share it. And while you are on the subject tell us what legislative or legal actions could reduce the number of those whom you believe are wrongly imprisoned.

If all of your drug dealers have been white, this just reinforces my point that whites tend to monopolize the upper-level entrepreneur class. Probably a lot of my black prisoners have been locked up for robbing your white drug dealers!

What sort of crime do you think they turn to the most? Besides some mish-mash covered under the term "gang-activity", that is? You sound like you've done the research, can you shed some light on which crimes socio-economically challenged black people turn to most?

Robbery and drug related crimes, mostly, but whites seem to be overrepresented when it comes to pedophilia.