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SOLUTION FOR GREAT RECESSION / DOUBLE SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS
Allen L Roland
Seniors take note and unite ~ here's the solution for the current Great Recession and it makes total sense. Double the current Social Security payment and make it a true National Retirement Plan. This would not only financially bolster the 75% of Retirees whose main source of income is an average benefit of $1,072 a month but would instantly increase consumer spending and GNP.
Here's an issue that all seniors can unite around and should become an instant campaign issue. The Social Security Administration said last Friday that inflation has been too low since the last increase in 2009 and has decided to not award its annual Social Security cost of living increase in 2011 ~ the second straight year this has happened since these adjustments were first adopted in 1975.
Here's the big picture ~ while Congress spends 12 billion dollars a month on our two ongoing illegal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as bailing out Wall Street to the tune of over a trillion dollars ~ 58.7 million retirees and beneficaries on Social Security benefits are asked to survive and thrive on an everage benefit of $1,072 a month.
Criminalizing Nature’s Most Perfect Food: FDA's war on private food contracts
By Rady Ananda
In his latest book, The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle over Food Rights, David Gumpert details several cases of malicious prosecution against the natural dairy industry, reporting the myths, exaggerations and deceptions by authorities charged with protecting the food supply.
What you won’t get from the book is a whitewash of the raw milk movement. Even advocates were caught exaggerating claims or ignoring evidence. Gumpert also includes tender, heart-wrenching stories in the words of mothers whose children became critically ill from drinking contaminated raw milk, or so they believe. Though the link was never scientifically made in those cases, it was in others, including a raw milk herd share. Gumpert bridges compassion for those mothers with compassion for dairy owners who are financially wiped out by the government’s strategic war on private food arrangements.
Is Eric Holder Serious About Enforcing the Marijuana Laws?
By Kevin Zeese
When the majority says marijuana should not be a crime the law looses its legitimacy.
It is hard to imagine that Eric Holder’s letter threatening to "vigorously enforce" federal law if California votes for legalization of marijuana is serious. It seems timed to manipulate voters in California, but in this year when political elites are hated it is likely to backfire and lead Californians to vote to end the failed marijuana war.
During one of the greatest failed experiments in American history, alcohol prohibition, a turning point was when New York told the federal government it would no longer enforce laws against alcohol. That left it to the federal government to enforce the law. Already “the feds” as they were derogatorily known were hated in rural areas where alcohol was often produced and the feds came in and disrupted their commerce. Then, the biggest urban area refused to enforce the law. The result, alcohol prohibition ended a few years later.
Attorney General Eric Holder last week promised "We will vigorously enforce the [Controlled Substances Act] against those individuals and organizations that possess, manufacture or distribute marijuana for recreational use, even if such activities are permitted under state law." Does he mean that the federal government will start enforcing laws against possession of marijuana? Or, be looking in people’s homes to see if they are growing or using marijuana? That they will be searching people’s backyards for their marijuana victory garden?
Major rabbi says non-Jews are donkeys, created to serve Jews
by Khalid Amayreh
A major Jewish religious figure in Israel has likened non-Jews to donkeys and beasts of burden, saying the main reason for their very existence is to serve Jews.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual mentor of the religious fundamentalist party, Shas, which represents Middle Eastern Jews, reportedly said during a Sabbath homily earlier this week that "the sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews." Yosef is considered a major religious leader in Israel who enjoys the allegiance of hundreds of thousands of followers.
Shas is a chief coalition partner in the current Israeli government,
Yosef, also a former Chief Rabbi of Israel, was quoted by the right-wing newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, as saying that the basic function of a goy, a derogatory word for a gentile, was to serve Jews.
Electoral Coup d'Etats
by Stephen Lendman
They're commonplace in developing countries in different forms, at times through what Edward Herman calls "Demonstration Elections," the title of his 1980 book on sham ones in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Vietnam. They also occur regularly in countries like Egypt, where for the past 20 years president Hosni Mubarak has gotten around 98% of the vote when he runs. Sadam's Iraq, much of the Middle East, and elsewhere work the same way, holding mock elections pretending to be real, while in the West, especially America, real elections are, in fact, mock ones.
Of course, elections held in occupied countries, like Iraq and Afghanistan, install puppet regimes, not legitimate ones, both countries run from Washington, not Baghdad or Kabul.
Lazy rich people
Mary Shaw
Two clean-cut preppy-type young men emerged from the late-model Jaguar that shared a parking lot with my 10-year-old Corolla. There was a homeless person standing nearby, rattling a can and begging for donations.
"Get a job," yelled preppy #1 at the homeless man.
"Yeah, I'm not gonna give you money for being lazy," said preppy #2.
This reminded me of George W. Bush, who allegedly told one of his Harvard Business School professors that "poor people are poor because they're lazy."
“For Your Own Protection”: The US Government’s Long Campaign Against a Decorated Disabled Military Veteran
Rebecca Campbell
During the past decade, there has been a well-orchestrated campaign of hostility and prejudice toward Muslims throughout the American Empire to justify its illegal conquest of the largely Muslim lands of Central Asia:
Steps Toward Taking Back America
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
The U.S. is bankrupt, literally owned by China who tops the CIA's World Fact Book with the world's largest positive Current Account Balance. The U.S. is on the very bottom as a result of the policies of four incompetent, corrupt and/or crooked U.S. GOP Presidents: Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr and, more recently, Bush Jr.
The U.S. position on the very bottom may be traced to Richard Nixon's visit to China in the 1970's, a trip which George H.W. Bush laid the groundwork. Prior to this trip, the United States was competitive in world markets, known for its steel production in Pittsburgh, its automotive industry in Detroit, its oil production in West Texas.
The United States fights and pays for Israel's wars: Maidhc Ó Cathail
Interview by Kourosh Ziabari
Maidhc Ó Cathail is a widely-published Irish author and journalist. He has been living in Japan since 1999. Ó Cathail's articles and commentaries have appeared on a number of media outlets and newspapers including Tehran Times, Khaleej Times, Antiwar.com, Foreign Policy Journal, Information Clearing House, Intifada Palestine, Pakistan Daily and Palestine Think Tank.
Maidhc joined me in an exclusive interview and responded to my questions about the 9/11 attacks, the influence of Israeli lobby over the U.S. administration, the prospect of Israeli – Palestinian conflict, the prolonged controversy over Iran's nuclear program and the freedom of press in the United States.
Kourosh Ziabari: The Iranian President’s recent proposal for the establishment of a fact-finding group to probe into the 9/11 attacks stirred up widespread controversy in the United States. American politicians reacted to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s plan with frustration. Is it because they are aware of some evidence which suggests that Israel was behind the attacks?
Earthquake Stricken Haitians Victimized by World Indifference
by Stephen Lendman
Over 10 months post-quake, Haitian suffering continues, victimized by world indifference, contempt, and paralysis, a new Refugees International (RI) report saying they're "Still Trapped in the Emergency Phase."
Under appalling conditions, camp inhabitants face evictions, violence, arbitrarily appointed absentee camp managers, and lack of concern for their needs, including by UN personnel. They're trained to know better and act responsibly, or they should be under all emergency circumstances they face.
Committed personnel, more resources, and direct action are needed, what hasn't been forthcoming so far. Instead, camps remain squalid, ill-served, and overcrowded under "appalling standards of living." Moreover, landowners threaten evictions, and they're happening. However, with nowhere to go, those displaced end up crammed into other camps or in new ones formed on their own.
Despite egregious conditions, "the UN coordination system (isn't) prioritizing activities" to help. The current Humanitarian Coordinator (HC), in fact, also serves as MINUSTAH Resident Coordinator and Deputy Special Representative, effectively compromising his other mission.
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