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President Barack Obama isn't talking about it and neither is Mitt Romney. But come January, 163 million workers can expect to feel the pinch of a big tax increase regardless of who wins the election.
A temporary reduction in Social Security payroll taxes is due to expire at the end of the year and hardly anyone in Washington is pushing to extend it. Neither Obama nor Romney has proposed an extension, and it probably wouldn't get through Congress anyway, with lawmakers in both parties down on the idea.
Even Republicans who have sworn off tax increases have little appetite to prevent one that will cost a typical worker about $1,000 a year, and two-earner family with six-figure incomes as much as $4,500.
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Fliers offering $40 worth of free medical-grade marijuana were reportedly passed out in Eagle Rock to try and draw residents to vote in the local election.
Was the free pot an incentive to get a larger turnout? Politics ranked "high" on resident’s list of priorities. Nearly 10 times as many voters – 792 residents – turned out to the polls during the recent Neighborhood Council elections than last year.
The fliers asked citizens to support the Progress and Collaboration Slate, which ran against the neighborhood council’s opposition to pot dispensaries.
The council had tried to ban pot dispensaries but residents collected enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot.
No one is claiming responsibility for the flier.
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A beef over chicken is the excuse a man in Zimbabwe is using to explain why he assaulted his wife.
Jabulani Ncube, 40, said he was angry when his wife, Nomusa Sibanda, 24, served chicken for dinner,
but saved the breast and one drumstick for herself, leaving her husband the gizzard, wings and the other drumstick.
Local traditions apparently dictate the tastiest parts of the chicken -- the back, breasts and drumsticks -- be reserved for the man
of the house.
Enraged, Ncube assaulted his wife, who took refuge with her grandmother.
The following morning,
Ncube reported his wife's poultry transgression to a tribal court. She was found guilty and fined one chicken for the offense,
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Viewers tuning into a recent episode of TLC's new hit show "Breaking Amish" saw the cast discussing Amish men having sex with animals, sparking questions about bestiality and incest in the Amish community.
The
new series that debuted Sept. 9 claims to follow the lives of five fresh-faced Amish and Mennonites. The cast members, who are from Pennsylvania and Ohio, were purportedly taken to New York City to explore life outside their culture.
The conversation during the Oct. 7 episode, "
What is Really Happening, was filmed at a restaurant in New York and involved the entire cast -- Rebecca Byler, Abe Schmucker, Jeremiah Raber, Sabrina Burkholder and Katie Stoltzfus.
Leading into the human-on-animal sex discussion, Byler opines that there was a lot of incest within the Amish community. "I feel like where we come from everyone's incest[uous] honestly," Byler says. "Like first and second cousins getting married ... that's disgusting."
Schmucker counters that there are a lot of "good Amish people out there, but there are a lot of perverts too."
This apparently opens the door to taboo sex acts, as Raber says, "You would be surprised how many Amish married men confess to having sex with animals. You would be surprised."
