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On Monday, word broke from John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal that the 15 NBA franchises that have local TV rights deals with Bally Sports will get their rights back at the end of this season, no matter how long their current contracts run, as part of a new deal with Diamond Sports Group as part of their ongoing bankruptcy case.

Because every team in the NBA is on a different local TV contract for varying lengths of time, there has never really been a time like this where half of the league will be shopping their rights at the same time. This presents a unique opportunity for the NBA to finally reshape its long-standing issues with local TV rights and take back some control going forward, building towards a vastly improved League Pass model that could benefit the league and teams.

The first step is for teams to negotiate that they have control over their streaming rights. We’ve seen a few teams debut direct-to-consumer streaming services in recent years — the Clippers, Suns, and Jazz all moved to that model recently with their current TV deal, and it should be the standard going forward. What must change is the need to purchase both a DTC service and League Pass to watch the league as a whole.

One of the biggest issues with selling teams on a leaguewide streaming service has been the biggest franchises — Lakers, Knicks, etc. — make a ton off of their local rights, while smaller markets do not. Those big teams don’t want to share that much of the pie, and understandably so. However, it would benefit the league greatly to find a way to sell a League Pass option without blackout restrictions locally, and the shift to DTC models could provide a way to bridge that gap. From a fan perspective, having to bounce between apps to watch different games is incredibly annoying. It’s also annoying to have to pay a significant amount for multiple services to watch the league as a whole.

So, what if instead of having to pay $125 for a local option and $99/149 for NBA League Pass (regular/premium), the league brought those under one umbrella (the current DTCs already sell through NBA.com) and let teams sell a local streaming option and also a League Pass without blackout restrictions for $199, much like MLS’ new structure with Apple. Teams could still sell their broadcast TV rights to bring in that revenue, and it would be easy to track streaming sales to ensure teams get their cut of the League Pass purchase. That would mean the big market teams could still reap the benefits of being in the big market, while small market teams would get some help from the league in terms of running the streaming service rather than having to get it off the ground themselves. That would also (hopefully) cause the league to be more invested in the League Pass product and it would mitigate a lot of the previous concerns for bundling everything together.

As pretty much anyone that has tried to cobble together different streaming services is aware, the value is largely gone at this point as things become more fractured, and this is a rare opportunity for the league to look to take control of their own streaming rights to avoid further splintering as the RSN model becomes more fraught. Adam Silver has noted that the RSN model has to change and the league has to be proactive in figuring out what the shift should be, and with the opportunity to get half of the league under one umbrella next summer, this is the best chance to take a major step forward in that.

There might be a short-term financial hit teams would take by splitting up the broadcast TV rights and the streaming rights to sell those themselves, but with franchise valuations ballooning and a new national TV deal set to make everyone lots and lots of money, that seems like a worthwhile gamble. Silver has been adamant that the NBA needs to make it easier to watch games and he is clearly skeptical of the TV bundle still being the answer long-term.

If that’s the case, then why wouldn’t you look to bring everyone’s streaming rights under one umbrella and control it as a league, letting the teams be the ones to sell it directly to their fans? There won’t ever be a better opportunity to do so than next summer when you could get 15 of your franchises on board, and then look to add the rest whenever it’s their turn to renegotiate.

TV used to be lousy with Peanuts specials. They started in 1965, with the beloved A Charlie Brown Christmas, and there used to be about one a year into the ‘80s, when they slowed down and, well, got not so good. Apple scooped up the specials back in 2020, with plans to make new shows. Now they’re working on a new movie — the gang’s first since the pretty good one from 2015.

Per Variety, the as-yet-untitled film will follow Snoopy, Charlie, et al. as they go on, per Apple, “an epic adventure to the Big City.’ Which big city? Maybe it’s an amalgam of a bunch, as in Babe: Pig in the City. Along the way they’ll be “ learning the true meaning of friendship, while meeting some surprising new friends along the way.” The story, if not the script, is credited to Peanuts creator Charles Schulz’s son Craig, his son Bryan, and Bryan’s writing partner Cornelius Uliano, keeping it all in the family.

It’s good news, and maybe it’s good enough to make up for one sad development: This year the aforementioned Christmas special won’t air on ABC, as it did for decades. There is a very popular Change.org petition to get it back on the airwaves this year, but that might not be enough to fix rights issues, which is what’s keeping it off the air. At least those with an AppleTV+ subscription can watch it at their leisure, along with plenty of other classic Peanuts specials, like that one where Charlie spends the New Year’s school break lugging around a giant copy of War and Peace, which is honestly a good way to spend the holidays.

(Via Variety)

(Spoilers for The Iron Claw will likely be found below.)

The cast of A24’s The Iron Claw has commenced promotional touring after the project secured a SAG-AFTRA strike exemption to do so. The means that we’re gonna hear many anecdotes about in-the-ring training and diets that Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, and Stanley Simons endured to portray the jacked-and-tragic Von Erich brothers in a wrestling biopic. The first three on that list got a raging start in an Entertainment Weekly feature shoot, and you really should follow the link to see them eat ribs in slo mo while rubbing sauce all over their shirts.

I’ve got no clue how they maintained serious faces while doing so, but that’s one reason why they are professionals. Additionally, the group of course discussed how many thousands of calories per day they ate to maintain wrestling physiques. Let’s just say that Efron has done this before (for Baywatch), but the experience was a novelty for White. Even though he’s surrounded by food on The Bear, he’s not necessarily a Chef stuffing food in his face for fun. The avocados and waffles sound delicious, but everything else sounds monotonous. Yet The Bear‘s notoriety helped the team:

White shakes his head at the memory of their diet. “I was just eating frozen turkey patties and avocados and protein shakes and waffles and almond butter,” he says. Sometimes the four brothers would go out to dinner, and together, they’d order a minor mountain of food.

“Jeremy, thankfully, had just done The Bear,” Simons, 22, says of the culinary TV star. “So, we’d go to restaurants and [the employees] would be like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Jeremy!’ and bring out a free dish. We were eating a lot.”

Yes Chef? It would appear so, and we will be able to see how well they bulked up when The Iron Claw arrives in theaters on December 23. In the meantime, go enjoy this Yellowstone-esque photoshoot from EW.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

With over three and a half decades under its belt, “The Simpsons” have more than few recurring bits that fans have come to expect—Bart’s cheeky chalkboard writing during the opening sequence, Homer arguing with his brain, greeting every Halloween season with a new “Treehouse of Horror” episode, just to name a few.

However, one of the show’s longest running gags has seemingly come to an end.

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In a recent Season 35 episode titled “McMansion & Wife,” Homer and Marge go next door to visit their new neighbor Thayer, who greets Homer with a handshake.

“Whoa, that’s quite a grip,” Thayer remarks, to which Homer boasts, “See, Marge? Strangling the boy paid off,” referring to his impulse to yell “why you little!” while putting his hands around Bart’s throat.

But then Homer, apparently reformed, looks back to Thayer, saying, “Just kidding, I don’t do that anymore. Times have changed.”

Watch the moment below:

In a new Simpsons episode, Homer Simpson reveals that he stopped strangling Bart as times has changed. pic.twitter.com/LUR06RbqbY

— ToonHive (@ToonHive) November 5, 2023

Homer strangling Bart has been a staple of cartoonist Matt Groening’s iconic show since its humble debut as a series of animated shorts on the “Tracy Ullman show”, inspired by the real temper of Groening’s father. While he never actually strangled Groening, he would get so mad that it “felt like the next move sometimes.”

Over the years, “The Simpsons” would address Homer’s penchant for violence, especially in Season 22’s episode titled “Love is a Many Strangled Thing,” where Homer takes a “fathering enrichment class” and gets strangled by a much larger man (played by Kareem Abdul Jabbar).

Traumatized, Homer isn’t able to perform his standard punishment on his son. That is, until Bart pranks him with a whoopee cushion in the following season.

But now, Homer seems to have completely mended his ways. And while some longtime fans expressed disappointment, most are on board with the change.

“I knew my man Homer was gonna learn,” one person quipped on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Another added, “Y’all call it “woke”, I call it good character development for Homer.”

This certainly isn’t the first time “The Simpsons” has made a few tweaks to adapt to the changing times. A prime example being in 2020 when Hank Azaria confirmed he’d no longer be voicing Indian convenience store owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon after receiving criticism that the character perpetuated racial stereotypes.

via GIPHY

It stands to reason that adapting to more modern views is essential for any long running television show. “The Simpsons” is no exception. And really, whether or not you consider the gag removal as necessary, we can probably all agree that it follows along with the Simpsons theme of mirroring—not to mention poking a little fun at—society’s ever shifting perspective.

There are a few big reasons why 70% of divorces in the United States among heterosexual couples are filed by women. Women have more economic opportunities than in decades past and are better positioned to care for themselves and their children without a husband’s income.

Another big reason is that even though the world has become much more egalitarian than in the past, women still bear the brunt of most of the emotional labor in the home. Gilza Fort-Martinez, a Florida, US-based licensed couples’ therapist, told the BBC that men are socialized to have lower emotional intelligence than women, leaving their wives to do most of the emotional labor.

Secondly, studies show that women still do most of the domestic work in the home, so many are pulling double duty for their households.

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A TikTokker with two children (@thesoontobeexwife) shared why she decided to leave her husband of two decades and her story recounts a common theme: She did all the work and her husband did little but complain.

The video, entitled “Why women leave,” has received over 2 million views.

@thesoontobeexwife

Y’all I laughed when I realized he truly does treat me better now then when he was trying to be in a marriage with me. How is this better?? How did I ever think before was ok?? #toxicrelationship #divorce #mentalloadofmotherhood #divorcetok #divorceisanoption #chooseyou #mentalhealth #mentalload #fyp #mentalload #emotionallabor

“So for the men out there who watch this, which frankly I kind of hope there aren’t any, you have an idea maybe what not to do,” she starts the video. “Yesterday, I go to work all day, go pick up one kid from school, go grocery shopping, go pick up the other kid from school, come home. Kids need a snack–make the snack. Kids want to play outside – we play outside.”

Her husband then comes home after attending a volunteer program, which she didn’t want him to join, and the self-centeredness begins. “So he gets home, he eats the entire carton of blueberries I just purchased for the children’s lunch and asks me what’s for dinner. I tell him I don’t know because the kids had a late snack and they’re not hungry yet,” she says in the video.

She then explains how the last time he cooked, which was a rare event, he nearly punched a hole in the wall because he forgot an ingredient. Their previous home had multiple holes in the walls. Dr. Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist and host of the Power of Different podcast, says that when punch walls it’s a sign that they haven’t “learned to deal with anger in a reasonable way.”

“Anyway, finally one kid is hungry,” the TikTokker continues. “So I offered to make pancakes because they’re quick and easy and it’s late. He sees the pancake batter and sees that there’s wheat flour in it and starts complaining. Says he won’t eat them. Now I am a grown adult making pancakes for my children who I am trying to feed nutritionally balanced meals. So yes, there’s wheat flour in the pancake mix.”

Then her husband says he’s not doing the dishes because he didn’t eat any pancakes. “Friends, the only thing this man does around this house is dishes occasionally. If I cook, he usually does the dishes. I cook most nights. But here’s the thing. That’s all he does. I do everything else. Everything. Everything.”

She then listed all of the household duties she handles.

“I cook, I clean the bathrooms, I make the lunches, I make the breakfasts, I mow the lawn, I do kids’ bedtime. I literally do everything and he does dishes once a day, maybe,” she says.

@thesoontobeexwife

I HAVE OFFICIALLY FILED FOR DIVORCE 🎉 #divorce #divorcetok #toxicrelationship #divorceisanoption #fyp #mentalhealth #chooseyou #iamenough #iwillnotbeafraid #mentalloadofmotherhood #emotionallabor

The video received over 8700 comments and most of them were words of support for the TikTokker who would go on to file for divorce from her husband.

“The amount of women I’ve heard say that their male partners are only teaching how to be completely independent of them, theirs going to be so many lonely men out there,” Gwen wrote. “I was married to someone just like this for over 35 years. You will be so happy when you get away from him,” BeckyButters wrote.

“The way you will no longer be walking on eggshells in your own home is an amazing feeling. You got this!” Barf Simpson added.

This article originally appeared on 5.21.23

You may think the Illuminati secretly rules the world, but it’s actually cats. Cats have been treated like gods since the start of human civilization, whether it was the ancient Egyptians or those of us in the modern world who would do anything for our furry friends.

And to conquer the world, cats need cutting-edge military technology. That’s why Suck UK creates awesome cardboard gadgets you can buy for your cats.

“These fun and playful toy houses for your cats are designed to add a sense of adventure to their daily lives about the house. Why spend an afternoon relaxing in a boring, plain old box, when there’s the opportunity to become a life saving fireman, thrilling tank driver or LA socialite?!”

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“Sit back and have a giggle at your cat ‘doing human things’ and help keep them away from clawing your favorite sofa!”

“These cardboard playhouses come in various humorous designs; the Tank, the Catillac, the Fire Engine, Plane, and for those kitties with a bit more style, the Cabin and Tepee.”

“There’s no need to glue or tape and they easily fold away if you need a bit more space around the house.”

Just look at these guys having so much fun…

They even have a plane, every army needs an air force after all.

As you can probably imagine, people are loving the vehicles, though their cats are still turning them down for plain cardboard boxes. One customer writes:

“A few weeks down the line, they both play with it but not as much as the huge cardboard box I got for free from a supermarket… But I like it, so maybe that’s what counts! It does look impressive, with color printing on the inside and outside.”

And they don’t only do vehicles. Your cat could be a superstar DJ, too.

This article originally appeared on 12.12,.19

Have you listened to the miscellaneous voices of your miscellaneous items on the floor lately?

Oh yours don’t speak? Well these do.

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And they have something to admit.

THEY ARE MURDERERS!

Conveniently enough, they offer four easy steps to make them not murderers.

ONE:

TWO:

THREE:

FOUR:

*phew*

And now for some follow-ups…

YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO…

Less murderous miscellaneous items, safer babies, better world.

This article originally appeared on 1,14.15

I was promoted a few weeks ago, which was great. I got a lot of nice notes from friends, family, customers, partners, and random strangers, which was exciting.

But it wasn’t long until a note came in saying, “Everyone knows you got the position because you’re a girl.” In spite of having a great week at a great company with great people whom I love, that still stung, because it’s not the first time I’ve heard it.

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Every woman who works in tech — heck, likely every woman on Earth — hears “because you’re a girl” dozens, if not thousands, of times in her life.

It starts young, of course:

Why can’t I join that team? Because you’re a girl.

Why can’t I study physics? Because you’re a girl.

Then, the comments age with you.

Why can’t I manage that project? Because you’re a girl.

Why can’t I join that group? Because you’re a girl.

And after you’ve reached any level of attainment in a profession you love, the comments are used to minimize your success.

Why did you get that award? Because you’re a girl.

Why were you chosen to participate in that class? Because you’re a girl.

Like so many women before me, I have shaken off the comment.

I’ve gotten angry. I’ve gotten sad. I’ve doubted myself and my abilities. I’ve ignored it entirely. I’ve challenged it. I’ve recruited support from men and women I respect. Yet every time it stays there in the back of my mind, screaming for attention after every failure or setback.

But today is the day I’ve decided to change that.

I did, in fact, get the job because I’m a girl.

A girl who was called “bossy” growing up.

A girl who wasn’t afraid to play with the boys.

A girl who didn’t hesitate to raise her hand if she knew the answer.

A girl who stood up for other kids.

A girl who was always the first one to volleyball practice and the last to leave.

A girl who was told she was too assertive and aggressive to advance in her career.

A girl who went to MIT anyway.

A girl who asked her company to do more on diversity and inclusion and won’t stop pushing until it’s truly remarkable.

A girl who has made big mistakes, both personal and professional.

A girl who swings for the fences even when no one is watching.

A girl who puts in hours when other people are asleep

A girl who tells young girls how smart and strong they are.

A girl who hates to lose.

And a girl who won’t stand silently while people still use “because you’re a girl” as any limitation for girls who want to grow, challenge the status quo, and be something, anything, greater than society tells them they could or should.

So yeah. I guess you could say I got my job because I’m a girl, but not for any of the reasons you might think.

This story first appeared on the author’s Medium and is reprinted here with permission.

This article originally appeared on 04.14.17

The legality of abortion is one of the most polarized debates in America—but it doesn’t have to be.

People have big feelings about abortion, which is understandable. On one hand, you have people who feel that abortion is a fundamental women’s rights issue, that our bodily autonomy is not something you can legislate, and that those who oppose abortion rights are trying to control women through oppressive legislation. On the other, you have folks who believe that a fetus is a human individual first and foremost, that no one has the right to terminate a human life, and that those who support abortion rights are heartless murderers.

Then there are those of us in the messy middle. Those who believe that life begins at conception, that abortion isn’t something we’d choose—and we’d hope others wouldn’t choose—under most circumstances, yet who choose to vote to keep abortion legal.

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It is entirely possible to be morally anti-abortion and politically pro-choice without feeling conflicted about it. Here’s why.

There’s far too much gray area to legislate.

No matter what you believe, when exactly life begins and when “a clump of cells” should be considered an individual, autonomous human being is a debatable question.

I personally believe life begins at conception, but that’s my religious belief about when the soul becomes associated with the body, not a scientific fact. As Arthur Caplan, award-winning professor of bioethics at New York University, told Slate, “Many scientists would say they don’t know when life begins. There are a series of landmark moments. The first is conception, the second is the development of the spine, the third the development of the brain, consciousness, and so on.”

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that a human life unquestionably begins at conception. Even with that point of view, there are too many issues that make a black-and-white approach to abortion too problematic to ban it.

Abortion bans hurt some mothers who desperately want their babies to live, and I’m not okay with that.

One reason I don’t support banning abortion is because I’ve seen too many families deeply harmed by restrictive abortion laws.

I’ve heard too many stories of families who desperately wanted a baby, who ended up having to make the rock-and-a-hard-place choice to abort because the alternative would have been a short, pain-filled life for their child.

I’ve heard too many stories of mothers having to endure long, drawn out, potentially dangerous miscarriages and being forced to carry a dead baby inside of them because abortion restrictions gave them no other choice.

I’ve heard too many stories of abortion laws doing real harm to mothers and babies, and too many stories of families who were staunchly anti-abortion until they found themselves in circumstances they never could have imagined, to believe that abortion is always wrong and should be banned at any particular stage.

I am not willing to serve as judge and jury on a woman’s medical decisions, and I don’t think the government should either.

Most people’s anti-abortion views—mine included—are based on their religious beliefs, and I don’t believe that anyone’s religion should be the basis for the laws in our country. (For the record, any Christian who wants biblical teachings to influence U.S. law, yet cries “Shariah is coming!” when they see a Muslim legislator, is a hypocrite.)

I also don’t want politicians sticking their noses into my very personal medical choices. There are just too many circumstances (seriously, please read the stories linked in the previous section) that make abortion a choice I hope I’d never have to make, but wouldn’t want banned. I don’t understand why the same people who decry government overreach think the government should be involved in these extremely personal medical decisions.

And yes, ultimately, abortion is a personal medical decision. Even if I believe that a fetus is a human being at every stage, that human being’s creation is inextricably linked to and dependent upon its mother’s body. And while I don’t think that means women should abort inconvenient pregnancies, I also acknowledge that trying to force a woman to grow and deliver a baby that she may not have chosen to conceive isn’t something the government should be in the business of doing.

As a person of faith, my role is not to judge or vilify, but to love and support women who are facing difficult choices. The rest of it—the hard questions, the unclear rights and wrongs, the spiritual lives of those babies,—I comfortably leave in God’s hands.

Most importantly, if the goal is to prevent abortion, research shows that outlawing it isn’t the way to go.

The biggest reason I vote the way I do is because based on my research pro-choice platforms provide the best chance of reducing abortion rates.

Abortion rates fell by 24% in the past decade and are at their lowest levels in 40 years in America. Abortion has been legal during that time, so clearly, keeping abortion legal and available has not resulted in increased abortion rates. Switzerland has one of the lowest abortion rates on earth and their rate has been falling since 2002, when abortion became largely unrestricted.

Outlawing abortion doesn’t stop it, it just pushes it underground and makes it more dangerous. And if a woman dies in a botched abortion, so does her baby. Banning abortion is a recipe for more lives being lost, not fewer.

At this point, the only things consistently proven to reduce abortion rates are comprehensive sex education and easy, affordable access to birth control. If we want to reduce abortions, that’s where we should be putting our energy. The problem is, anti-abortion activists also tend to be the same people pushing for abstinence-only education and making birth control harder to obtain. But those goals can’t co-exist in the real world.

Our laws should be based on reality and on the best data we have available. Since comprehensive sex education and easy, affordable access to birth control—the most proven methods of reducing abortion rates—are the domain of the pro-choice crowd, that’s where I place my vote, and why I do so with a clear conscience.

This article originally appeared on 01.22.19

Nearly 12 percent of the U.S. population lives in poverty. That’s more than one in ten Americans—and the percent is even higher for children.

If you’re not up on the current numbers, the federal poverty line is $12,760 for an individuals and $26,200 for a family of four. If those annual incomes sound abysmally low, it’s because they are. And incredibly, the Trump administration has proposed lowering the poverty line further, which would make more poor Americans ineligible for needed assistance.

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However, debates over the poverty line don’t even capture the full extent of Americans struggling to make ends meet. For many people, living above the poverty line is actually worse. These are the folks who make too much to qualify for aid programs but not enough to actually get by—a situation millions of working American families find themselves stuck in.

Amy Jo Hutchison is a single mother of two living in West Virginia, and a community organizer for West Virginia Healthy Kids and Families and Our Future West Virginia. She has also lived in poverty and been part of the working poor herself. In an impassioned speech, she spoke to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform about what poverty really looks like for working families—and even called out Congress for being completely out of touch with what it takes for a family to live on while they’re spending $40,000 a year on office furniture.

Watch Hutchison’s testimony here (transcript included below):

Ms. Hutchison Testimony on Proposed Changes to the Poverty Line Calculation

“I’m here to help you better understand poverty because poverty is my lived experience. And I’m also here to acknowledge the biased beliefs that poor people are lazy and the poverty is their fault. But how do I make you understand things like working full-time for $10 an hour is only about $19,000 a year, even though it’s well above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour?

I want to tell you about a single mom I met who was working at a gas station. She was promoted to manager within 30 days. She had to report her new income the DHHR within 60 days. Her rent bumped from $475 to $950 a month, she lost her SNAP benefits and her family’s health insurance, so she did what poor people are forced to do all the time. She resigned her promotion and went back to working part-time, just so she and her family could survive.

Another single mom I know encouraged her kids to get jobs. For her DHHR review she had to claim their income as well. She lost her SNAP benefits and her insurance, so she weaned herself off of her blood pressure medicines because she—working full-time in a bank and part-time at a shop on the weekends—couldn’t afford to buy them. Eventually the girls quit their jobs because their part-time fast food income was literally killing their mother.

You see the thing is children aren’t going to escape poverty as long as they’re relying on a head of household who is poor. Poverty rolls off the backs of parents, right onto the shoulders of our children, despite how hard we try.

I can tell you about my own with food insecurity the nights I went to bed hungry so my kids could have seconds, and I was employed full time as a Head Start teacher. I can tell you about being above the poverty guideline, nursing my gallbladder with essential oils and prayer, chewing on cloves and eating ibuprofen like they’re Tic Tacs because I don’t have health insurance and I can’t afford a dentist. I have two jobs and a bachelor’s degree, and I struggle to make ends meet.

The federal poverty guidelines say that I’m not poor, but I cashed in a jar full of change the other night so my daughter could attend a high school band competition with her band. I can’t go grocery shopping without a calculator. I had to decide which bills not to pay to be here in this room today. Believe me, I’ve pulled myself up by the bootstraps so many damn times that I’ve ripped them off.

The current poverty guidelines are ridiculously out of touch. The poverty line for a family of three is $21,720. Where I live, because of the oil and gas boom, a 3-bedroom home runs for $1,200 a month. So if I made $22,000 a year, which could disqualify me from assistance, I would have $8000 left to raise two children and myself on. And yet the poverty guidelines wouldn’t classify me as poor.

I Googled ‘congressman salary’ the other day and according to Senate gov the salary for Senators representatives and delegates is $174,000 a year so a year of work for you is the equivalent of almost four years of work for me. I’m $24,000 above the federal poverty guidelines definition of poor. It would take nine people working full-time for a year at $10 an hour to match y’all’s salary. I also read that each senator has authorized $40,000 dollars for state office furniture and furnishings, and this amount is increased each year to reflect inflation.

That $40,000 a year for furniture is $360 more than the federal poverty guidelines for a family of seven, and yet here I am begging you on behalf of the 15 million children living in poverty in the United States—on behalf of the one in three kids under the age of five and nearly 100,000 children in my state of West Virginia living in poverty—to not change anything about these federal poverty guidelines until you can make them relevant and reflect what poverty really looks like today.

You have a $40,000 dollar furniture allotment. West Virginia has a median income of $43,000 and some change. People are working full-time and are hungry. Kids are about to be kicked off the free and reduced lunch rolls because of changes y’all want to make to SNAP, even though 62 percent of West Virginia SNAP recipients are families with children—the very same children who cannot take a part-time job because their parents will die without insurance. People are working full-time in this country for very little money.

They’re not poor enough to get help. They don’t make enough to get by. They’re working while their rationing their insulin and their skipping their meds because they can’t afford food and healthcare at the same time.

So shame on you. Shame on you, and shame on me, and shame on each and every one of us who haven’t rattled the windows of these buildings with cries of outrage at a government that thinks their office furniture is worthy of $40,000 a year and families and children aren’t.

I’m not asking you to apologize for your privilege but I’m asking you to see past it. There are 46 million Americans living in poverty doing the best they know how with what they have and we, in defense of children and families, cannot accept anything less from our very own government.”

In addition to Hutchison’s testimony, a coalition of 26 patient organizations, including the American Cancer Society Action Network, American Heart Association, and United Way, wrote a joint letter opposing the proposed lowering of the poverty line, stating:

“The current Official Poverty Measure (OPM) is based on an old formula that already does not fully capture those living in poverty and does not accurately reflect basic household expenses for families, including by underestimating child care and housing expenses. The proposed changes to the inflation calculation would reduce the annual adjustments to the poverty measure and therefore may exacerbate existing weaknesses, putting vulnerable Americans – including those with serious and chronic diseases – at great risk. Further lowering the poverty line would also give policymakers and the public less credible information about the number and characteristics of Americans living in poverty.”

This article originally appeared on 03.10.20