"U.S. Militarism Brings Chaos": As Obama Plans a War on ISIS, a Call for...

Susan Robens Photography

As we train foreigners and provide weapons for war, we are creating more chaos into the Middle East Region and spending more of our tax money on the Syrian incursion.  I feel that this is likened to our war into Iraq.  Think about it.  Think about the preparation for the acceptance from American's to go yet into another war and destroy another country.  Oh!  So we can rebuild!  Who benefits?  Ask yourself that question.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Net Neutrality (HBO)

When Bad Things Happen to Good People: Journalism

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crossing borders project: Poverty, Homelessness, Food Stamps and the Middle Class

crossing borders project: Poverty, Homelessness, Food Stamps and the Middle Class

The house just passed a cut of $38 billion in the food stamp program.  Read some facts about the program and poverty.

My Letter to Chuck Todd

In response to Chuck Todd's statement that "It is not his job to point out Republican Lies" regarding Obama Care and the Republican stance. 

 I say really? Is not journalisms responsibility to report the facts and the truth as we investigate them, check them, double fact check and then report those truths to the public and allow THEM to make their own decisions?

 Here is what happened: MSNBC host Chuck Todd said Wednesday that when it comes to misinformation about the new federal health care law, don't expect members of the media to correct the record.

During a segment on "Morning Joe," former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) speculated that most opponents of the Affordable Care Act have been fed erroneous information about the law. Todd said that Republicans "have successfully messaged against it" but he disagrees with those who argue that the media should educate the public on the law. According to Todd, that's President Barack Obama's job. "But more importantly, it would be stuff that Republicans have successfully messaged against it," Todd told Rendell. "They don't repeat the other stuff because they haven't even heard the Democratic message. What I always love is people say, 'Well, it's you folks' fault in the media.' No, it's the President of the United States' fault for not selling it." Chuck Todd is the chief White House Correspondent for NBC News who is viewed by millions of Americans. Yes, Chuck you do have a responsibility for the American public along with your six figure income.

Here is my letter to Chuck:
Dear Mr. Todd,

I have been a reporter for over ten years all over the world.  I am a member of the NPPA and I adhere to sound ethical reporting, proudly.  It is my responsibility to tell the story, the facts from all sides and to allow the readers to make decisions and judgements on their own.  Without those facts, the public is being misled and that is not good journalism.  It denies the public to take a stand on where they feel it is needed, it denies the public true democracy and it misrepresents realities that could very well affect the very lives of many people or a population.

Shame on you negating the ethics of journalism to the American public and all other journalist who work hard to investigate and report top and compelling news to the world.  Shame on you for downgrading journalists responsibility for accountability to thousands of journalism students who look up to people like and and want to be in your shoes one day.  Your statement that it is not your job to point out Republican lies about Obama Care is like saying that there are weapons of mass destruction without ever fact checking before you help to start a war.

Yes, it is your responsibility.  You offer a service and your service is to the American public to report the facts and to point out untruths.  Are you telling journalism students that it is okay to be lazy and unethical in your job?  Are you teaching the future journalist that it is okay to take a majority stance on issues that may even cause millions of people to suffer and to bend under corporate pressure?

That is not true journalism and I am ashamed.  You are not helping your colleagues to gain "trust" to gather stories and in the readership.  These type of comments does not make my job any easier and I say thank you.

You have a greater responsibility than I do, to have integrity in your reporting because so many eyes are on you and on what you say and report.  Society depends on reliable journalism to gather information regarding important issues.  Even the facts on Obama Care where millions of people have the need to be informed.  It is not a case of Republican or Democrat, it is a place of journalism...plain and simple.

Did you loose sight of this?  I wonder and I am mad.

I am not in your position to tell the world what is and what is not although I would like to be and earn your six figure income.  

Did you forget ethical journalism because you got caught up in the power?

I am ashamed and you are making journalism shameful.

Susan Brannon

Write you own letter to Chuck voicing your concern for lazy journalism here is his email:

Chuck.Todd@nbcuni.com

his twitter: @chucktodd

facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/chucktodd‎

Stop Monsanto Protection Act..Again; Call Congress ACTION

Last week the U.S. House of Representatives decided to introduce the same language for the Continuing Resolution spending bill (H.J.RES.59) that contained the Monsanto Protection Act that Congress passed last spring.

This past March, Monsanto succeeded in sneaking the controversial rider into a must pass spending bill, which is set to expire onSeptember 30th. But now, with the new continuing resolution, the Monsanto Protection Act would be extended for 3 additional months!

The Monsanto Protection Act undermines the basic concept of judicial review and forces the USDA to allow the planting of untested GMO crops even if a federal court ruled that the USDA had not properly considered the environmental or economic risks these new crops pose to family farmers.

If allowed to pass again, this new provision would undermine agency oversight and this dangerous provision could eventually become permanent, allowing Monsanto to succeed in stripping judges of their constitutional mandate to protect consumer rights and the environment, while opening up the floodgates for the planting of new untested GMO crops.

Is Congress Trying to Kill GMO Labeling?

Even worse, right now Congressman Fred Upton (R-MI) is working behind the scenes to introduce a bill that would kill state GMO labeling efforts by preempting it with a bill that would place GMO labeling under federal authority, circumventing successful citizen led efforts in Maine and Connecticut and trying to invalidate the ballot initiative in Washington state before it even passes.

We need your voice today more than ever to stop Monsanto’s shenanigans in Congress!

Click here to make a call to Congress to tell them to vote no on the continuing resolution if it contains any protections for Monsanto or undermines state’s rights to label genetically engineered foods!

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/607?t=7&akid=971.312785.0kPDL9

Even now as we are close to winning, Monsanto, DuPont and the biotech seed and chemical giants are working desperately behind the scenes to thwart our efforts.

While the previous Continuing Resolution that was passed this March is set to expire onSeptember 30th, Roll Call reported this week that House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers, (R-KY) has introduced the short-term Continuing Resolution, with the exact same language as last time, which could be voted on as early as next week.

While members of the House are desperate to pitch this new continuing resolution as a “responsible” effort to pass a temporary budget to avoid a shutdown of the federal government, Monsanto and the biotech industry are using it as another opportunity to corrupt our basic democrat rights and protect their bottom line.

Last spring Food Democracy Now! members exposed the initial Monsanto Protection Act to the world when more than 300,000 of us stood up and demanded an end to the special interests handouts to Monsanto and the biotech seed and chemical giants.

Right now, we are once again calling on you and your friends and family to stand with us again to help expose this corruption of our basic democratic process once again!

Monsanto’s days are numbered and they know it! This year, you helped passed GMO labeling bills in Connecticut and Maine and right now we’re working hard with our allies to help win a citizen led ballot initiative in Washington state that would mandate labeling of genetically engineered foods.

Unfortunately, Monsanto, DuPont and the largest junk food companies in the world are determined to try to steal our basic democratic rights to protect their corrupt corporate profits. Just this week Monsanto dumped $4.5 million to defeat our efforts to win Yes on 522 and GMO labeling in Washington state while DuPont dropped $3.4 million. 

Right now is the critical window where we need to stand together to stop Monsanto and these corrupt corporations from trying to betray our basic democratic rights once again.

Please stand with us to help stop Monsanto, DuPont and the biotech seed and chemical companies from corrupting our laws and democratic process.

Remember, democracy is like a muscle, either you use it or you lose it!

My Letter to the Senators: Against Attacking Syria

Click on the link after the letter to send your own through The Nation Magazine.  They made it simple, you can change it into your own words...their words were different than mine!

I agree that it is not acceptable to ignore such action by any political leader on their own people and such an action is plainly against international human rights justice.

I too have seen horrible injustice in times of conflict and war, being a war photojournalist in the Middle East for almost ten years.  The evil than man is capable of is unbearable.  I have walked in regions of utter poverty, hunger, and social inequalities where those is power are full of both greed and pride allowing others to suffer in extremes without blinking an eye.

However, it is my deepest hopes that the United States of America waits just a bit to gather global and national approval through the UN before we fly one plane, drone or take one step upon Syria's soil.  After living and working in war torn area's and analyzing conflict worldwide, I am highly concerned that this action will greatly harm hundreds if not thousands of innocent people.  It will put our country and American's on foreign soil at high risk for their own safety.  If we do not wait the few weeks that it takes to gain allies at this time, we will not only increase our security concerns but gain many new enemies who were once allies.

Not only is our security at risk, but also our national debt.  This may sound cruel, but in the name humanity should we not first spend the billions for our own people who are downtrodden and sleeping in cars, behind bushes and under bridges or those who work full time at an unsustainable living wage, or those who cannot get medical care when they are diagnosed with cancer?  Are we not then like the other countries who spend their nations wealth making themselves and others more wealthy while their citizens die of hunger?

Are we not then becoming the global police who ignores international law and does as we please?  It is time to show the world that we are not like that, we are patient to wait for the pieces to be put into place to have the ability to have the support of the rest of the world and the courts use just cause for the crimes that Assad has committed.  We are just to adhere to international protocol before jumping into action.  It is our chance to undo the damage that was done during and before the incursion in Iraq.  It is our chance as a nation to shine and become the example that we presented during the Vietnam war and WWII.

CLICK HERE FOR easy letter writing to your Senators

Quick History of U.S. Wars: Plain and Simple

Korea and China 1950-53 (Korean War)
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-1961
Guatemala 1960
Congo 1964
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Grenada 1983
Lebanon 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1980s
Nicaragua 1980s
Iran 1987
Panama 1989
Iraq 1991 (Persian Gulf War)
Kuwait 1991
Somalia 1993
Bosnia 1994, 1995
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia 1999
Yemen 2002
Iraq 1991-2003 (US/UK on regular no-fly-zone basis)
Iraq 2003-2011 (Second Gulf War)
Afghanistan 2001 to present
Pakistan 2007 to present
Somalia 2007-8, 2011 to present
Yemen 2009, 2011 to present
Libya 2011
Syria 2013?

Putin: Russia doesn't defend Assad, we defend international law

In mediation; we must listen to the other that is the first step.  Consider their voice (thus the crossing borders project) throw down our personal and national pride and be patient to agree for a positive and peaceful result is a virtue.  Guys this is serious.  Do you want your tax money to increase the hatred of the rest of the world?  Do you want to use our tax money to shed more blood upon our nation?

Think about it.

'Attack on Syria to change balance in whole region, not just one regime'

Like I said in my previous post, The U.S. attacking Syria is against International Humanitarian law if the other countries do not agree and at this time, they do not.  France is "waiting" for the results on who committed the chemical warfare crime.  We cannot move on our emotions for such a serious move.

What Went Wrong in the Middle East: It's the Maps

A realistic comedy of what went wrong in the Middle East.

The Daily Show
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Dalai Lama - Conquer your "self"

If our global leaders would conquer their selves, then I believe that wars would end and compassion would begin.  The answers are right there, so simple.

Dalai Lama Finding Purpose in Life

Dali Lama on success

A great and logical explanation on success and purpose.

Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran - By Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid | Foreign Policy

It's about time that this information is published other than in my small little blogs that not many people read.  I find it interesting that when I tried to publish this information years ago, I could not find any takers.

These are things that we should know.

Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran - By Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid | Foreign Policy

New Jobs? 97 percent are Part Time

This is how it goes.  New jobs are created and the public remains happy and live in a delusion.  The thing that no one really thinks about is what "type" of jobs are created.  Are they the union high paying manufacturing jobs?  No.  Are they lawyer jobs or accounting jobs or nursing and teaching jobs?  The answer is plain no, no, (shaking the head) NO!

They are the run of the mill retail, restaurants, staffing agencies, and home health care type of jobs.  Yep!  Going to college does not pay off any longer.  In my area, the HR departments are telling me that for every job they post there are around 450 applicants applying.  The problem with the wonderful "new jobs" is that they are the low paying wage jobs and the part time jobs.  You know, the ones that no one can really live on.  The ones where the workers will need food stamps, medical assistance, housing subsidies, and other welfare services.

Of course the major companies would rather hire 40 part time workers than 20 full time workers and need to pay benefits when the government will pick up the bill instead!  That makes the CEO's really happy.  Please search for my previous articles and research on the great WalMart and their corporate model.

A recent study reveals that 97 percent of these "new jobs" in the past 6 months are part time, low wage jobs.  That is not good news and that is not growth.  It only makes our country poorer than it already is.  (Please read a recent post on "Drastic Growth In Extreme Poverty in the U.S.")  Currently there are 8.2 million workers who are part time.  Not because they want to work part time, but because they cannot find full time work. US employers added 162,000 nonfarm jobs in July according to the government's Establishment Data Survey.   "Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work," said Keith Hall, a senior researcher at George Mason University's Mercatus Center quoted by McClatchy Washington Bureau.  Hall was head of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2008 to 2012.

61% of the jobs created this year are from the low paying industries. For those who cannot find full time sustainable work and are basically forced into part time work suffer higher depression, increased health problems due to the depression and lack of a balanced and healthy diet.  Many of the workers must dip into their retirement plans, sell their homes or their cars just to survive.

These folks are out there and nothing has changed or gotten any better.

The only difference is that our wonderful media does not make a sound about the realities of the state of our country.  Maybe it is because of the fear from all the arrests made on "whistleblowers" who dare to tell the truth.  Maybe they will get fired from their journalism jobs is they inform the public like they should.

Drastic Growth in "Extreme Poverty" in the U.S.

Posted from WSWS.org
written by: Debra Watson

Blog note:  This is a great article with vital research on poverty in America.  Please pass this around to extend our knowledge base and stand up for our rights.  For example, instead of writing a check for their employees, McDonald's now issues pay cards with $1.50 charge for each withdrawal and penalties for non use.  When employees ask for a check, they are refused.  In the good ole' days, it used to be that those who worked at McDonald's were high school students saving up to buy a car.  However, these days nearly 70 percent of their workers are over 20 and a quarter of them are workers with children.  It is not surprising that the report referenced in the article below reflects a substantial increase in poverty levels in America.  

If a worker at McDonald's was paid a living wage of $15.00 per hour, the cost of the burger would go up by .05 cents.  Wouldn't you pay the extra $.05 for a burger knowing that the people behind the counter can survive and not need welfare benefits? The excuses the corporations give for NOT increasing wages does not prove factual.  McDonald's is not the only corporation that pays their workers way under living wages, folks like WalMart, Target and other box stores do the same.  WalMart Superstores costs the American taxpayers 1.7 billion a year in subsidized food stamps, medicare/medicaid, and other welfare programs totaling $5,185 per year per worker.  

I think that it is time to organize a nationwide boycott campaign with all the workers going on strike for a few days.  Don't you?

A report this summer from the National Poverty Center (NPC) reveals that the number of people in the US living on less than $2 a day per person, termed “extreme poverty,” increased by 160 percent from 1996 to mid-2011, rising from 636,000 households to some 1.65 million households. The findings throw light on the terrible plight of children in America. Concentrating on non-elderly households with children, the report found that 4.3 percent of these households were in extreme poverty, with 3.55 million children living in them.

The number of households in extreme poverty in the US began to climb irreversibly after the Clinton administration ended cash welfare for vulnerable families in 1996. Over a dozen years, between 1996 and late 2008, the number and extent of extreme poverty roughly doubled, rising by more than 600,000 households. The increase continued after the recession of 2008, but the pace was now accelerated. Over roughly three years following the financial meltdown, 450,000 more families joined the ranks of the utterly destitute, with a sharp increase in numbers in the first six months of 2011.

The report, published in Social Service Review, was authored by H. Luke Shaefer, University of Michigan, School of Social Work, and Kathryn Edin, Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government. Measuring extreme poverty uncovers a further income stratification among those below the official poverty level. The sharply rising income inequality in the US has created in its wake a new phenomenon: massive numbers of US families that live in daily conditions once relegated the poorest of the poor in the economically underdeveloped world.

It throws light on particular aspects of the growth in inequality in the US that have not been examined in reports from the Census Bureau and other sources that compare income for different quintiles of the population. Some recent research has developed a category called “deep poverty” or a yearly income below half the official poverty line. Both these methods of research have revealed drastically rising inequality and the growth of deep poverty in recent years.

The researchers used the figure of $2 a day per person, the United Nations measure of poverty in developing countries. The official poverty line for a family of three would equate to roughly $17 per person per day averaged over a year. Deep poverty, below half the poverty line, would equate to an average of approximately $8.50 per person per day.

At $2 per person per day, the extreme poverty category examined in this report finds a family with virtually nothing to live on, or roughly 13 percent of what is considered official poverty. Social science researchers have estimated that it requires an income twice the Census Bureau’s official poverty level to actually support a family.

Counting food stamp benefits, now called SNAP, as cash only reduces the number of extremely poor households with children by half. The current food assistance benefit for a family of three tops out at $526. Since it only is available to families with income below 130 percent of the official poverty level, receiving the benefit does not bring any family to a livable income. If counted as the equivalent of cash income, the assistance actually would barely move a family in extreme poverty to deep poverty.

In addition, the SNAP benefit itself is facing serious cuts and even outright elimination for many poor families. In November, a family of three will lose $29 a month when the SNAP per person benefit allotment is cut as the federal government eliminates stimulus measures instituted in the immediate aftermath of recession. Five million people will be entirely cut off from SNAP benefits if limits in eligibility are imposed under plans to cut the program that emerged during discussion of the new Farm Bill this summer.

The number of SNAP households has nearly doubled since 1996, according to the report, indicating the huge rise in need. In 1996, there were an average of 25.5 million recipients per month, and by the end of 2012, this had gone up to 47.5 million. Earlier this year, a new Census Bureau Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) counted a record 49 million people considered poor in America. Still, 1.7 million children are left behind in extreme poverty because they do not get these benefits.

While SNAP-assisted households were doubling, cash welfare was plummeting. The researchers note: “Subsequently, cash assistance caseloads have fallen from 12.3 million recipients per month in 1996 to 4.5 million in December 2011, and only 1.1 million of these beneficiaries are adults. Even during the current period of continued high unemployment, the cash assistance rolls have increased only slightly. ‘Welfare,’ in the form of cash assistance, is a shell of its former self.”

In Clinton’s infamous acceptance speech for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in 1992, he laid out the plan to end the New Deal-era Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which for the previous five-plus decades provided monetary assistance to families with little or no income.
Under the continuing economic crisis, states are accelerating the pace at which families in need are being driven off the welfare rolls. For example, in March 2013, there were 47,460 households in Michigan that received welfare payments, according to the latest Economic Security Bulletin from the Michigan League for Public Policy. They note: “This is the first time since the Family Independence Program was implemented in 1996 that the caseload dropped below 50,000.”

By June 2013, the caseload in Michigan dropped to 43,400 welfare cases, nearly half the number counted in late 2011 when new state measures eliminated exceptions to strict federal and state time limits for welfare. A 60 months’ lifetime limit for welfare was imposed under the Clinton administration in 1996 and was cut to 48 months in Michigan by Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm in 2007.
In fall 2011, the Republican Michigan state legislature eliminated exceptions, such as those that kept people living in high unemployment areas in the state from losing their benefits. There are still more than 400,000 unemployed in Michigan today.

The report also explores long-term unemployment and the increase in extreme poverty. There were 4.8 million workers in the US in 2012 unemployed for more than six months. That year, half the unemployed in Michigan were in this category.

The report’s authors note: “While the Great Recession era has ushered in a prolonged period of high unemployment, its real legacy may prove to be the unprecedented duration of unemployment spells: the average spell was 38.1 weeks as of December 2012.” This has increased the number of people in the US in extreme poverty, struggling to survive on practically nothing.

The researchers also point to the trend to shift already drastically inadequate government-funded income support from the unemployed to those working low-wage, part-time and temporary jobs—most of the new jobs being created in the US. The minimum wage is a poverty wage, still $7.40 an hour, about half what has been computed as a living wage.

time5

time3, a photo by Davidhg on Flickr.

and...of course another

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time4, a photo by Davidhg on Flickr.

and another...

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time1, a photo by Davidhg on Flickr.

and another...