I Was Shocked and Appalled to Not See a Plethora of Stories on What the Republicans Did To Veterans in the Senate Yesterday

Republicans Are NOT Supporting Our Troops!

They Killed a Crucial Veterans Bill in the Senate Yesterday!

And Yesterday February 28, 2014 They Killed A Crucial Veterans Bill in the Senate – Photo meme by http://www.cognidissidence.blogspot.com

I subscribe to, and receive literally over 100 e-mails every morning and about as many throughout the day, I was really shocked and astounded to not see even one that addressed what the Republicans did in the Senate yesterday.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced S 1982 the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014 on February 3, 2014. Senator Sanders chairs the Veterans Affairs Committee. The vote on the motion to move it to committee needed 60 votes to pass. Only two (2) Republicans voted “Aye” or for it’s passage, the motion failed.

2/27/2014 Senate floor actions. Status: Motion by Senator Reid to commit to Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs with instructions to report back forthwith with amendment (SA 2767) fell when the bill was committed in Senate. Printer friendly version of S 1982.

S 1982 – The Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014

This is a summary of what the bill would do:

Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014 – Amends federal veterans provisions to revise or add provisions concerning medical services and other benefits provided to veterans and/or their dependents through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) relating to the following areas:

• survivor and dependent matters, including benefits for children of certain veterans born with spina bifida;
• education matters, including the approval of courses for purposes of the All-Volunteer Force and the Post-9/11 Educational Assistance programs;
• the expansion and extension of certain health care benefits, including immunizations, chiropractic care, treatment for traumatic brain injury, and wellness promotion;
• health care administration, including extension of the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Professional Scholarship Program, and
• complementary and alternative medicine;
• mental health care, including an education program and peer support program for family members and caregivers of veterans with mental health disorders;
• dental care eligibility and expansion, including a program of education to promote dental health in veterans;
• health care related to sexual trauma, including appropriate counseling and treatment and a screening mechanism to detect incidents of domestic abuse;
• reproductive treatment and services, including fertility counseling as well as adoption assistance for severely wounded veterans;
• major medical facility leases;
• veterans’ employment training and related services;
• veterans’ employment, including within the federal government and as first responders;
• career transition services;
• employment and reemployment rights of members of the Armed Forces after active duty service;
• small business matters, including contracting and subcontracting participation goals with federal departments and agencies;
• administrative matters, including regional support centers for Veterans Integrated Service Networks;
• the revision of claims based on military sexual trauma as well as claims for dependency and indemnity compensation;
• jurisdictional matters, including with respect to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals and the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims;
• the revision of certain rights under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, including protections with respect to the expiration of professional licenses, a prohibition on the denial of credit or the termination of residential leases due to military service, and the temporary protection of surviving spouses under mortgage foreclosures; and
• outreach and miscellaneous matters, including: (1) repeal of the provision of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 that reduces the cost-of-living adjustment to the retirement pay of members of the Armed Forces under age 62, and (2) the accounting for discretionary accounts designated for overseas contingency operations/global war on terrorism.

 Republicans Block Veterans Bill – The legislation failed to overcome a Republican parliamentary maneuver that required 60 votes to keep the bill alive. American Legion national commander Daniel M. Dellinger called the Senate action “inexcusable.”  He was equally blunt in an interview with The Washington Post. “I don’t know how anyone who voted ‘no’ today can look a veteran in the eye and justify that vote.” Read More on Sen. Sanders “This Week in Review” on his website.

The cost of the bill would be approximately $21B” and the TeaPublicans demanded that it be paid for before they would take any action on it. That requirement was met when Democrats proposed using an account, the OCO (Overseas Contingency,) where money is sitting since President Barack Obama ended the Iraq War. The fund was used to finance (on the credit card, the deficit) the Iraq war. The Iraq war, which you should remember former President George W. Bush absolutely and unequivocally lied about the reasons to start that war,  ended and the funds are sitting idle in the OCO account. The Republicans don’t want to use these funds to “support” the troops that fought the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, they want to use them to start another war, this time with Iran. That’s why they tried to attach an amendment onto this Veterans benefits bill, to impose more, and stricter, sanctions on Iran, and destroy the diplomatic process which is showing promising signs of working. They would much rather start another war than support our veterans.

That’s Outrageous’ Do you remember what happened near the end of the State of the Union address in January? Members of Congress rose to their feet for a standing ovation when President Obama introduced Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsburg, an Army Ranger who was wounded in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan. On CNN on Friday, New Day host Chris Cuomo showed video of congressmen applauding and contrasted that show of support for Americans who serve their country with what happened in the Senate on Thursday. “Republicans did what they do best these days. They just blocked. But blocking our veterans? I don’t have to tell you that that’s outrageous,” Cuomo said.

Watch CNN

What’s Iran Got to Do With It? Republicans insisted on adding a provision to the veterans bill that would slap sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. Regardless of the merits of the sanction proposal, Sanders called it “disrespectful” to veterans to insist on putting the unrelated provision in his bill. “Whatever your views are it just does not belong in a veterans bill,” he said.

Watch the floor speech

War Hawks and Deficit Hawks The Senate Republicans, “apparently believe it’s O.K. to give tax breaks to the largest corporations, the wealthiest families in this country, to spend trillions of dollars on war without figuring out how to pay for it, but when it comes to $21 billion over a 10-year period to take care of veterans and their families, apparently they have difficulty with that.”

Listen to the Ed Schultz radio interview

 Who can forget when Tea Party member Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) led the entire Republican party to shut down the government, which they deeply regretted later, and all the media coverage at the War Veterans Memorial with Stupid Palin, Ted Cruz, and many others blamed President Obama for using veterans as pawns in a political agenda. Video on Ted Cruz and Veterans at the War Memorial during the shutdown of the government.

 Please help stop the madness. Share this with every veteran that you know, everyone that you feel needs to know what their Republican and Tea Party members are actually doing AGAINST their better interest. If we don’t get the vote out we are going to suffer even worse. The TeaPublicans, with all the state governments that they control, thanks to the 2010 midterm elections, have gerrymandered (redrew district lines to favor Republican and Tea Party members,) and imposed voter ID (suppression) laws which are going to make it very hard to keep the U.S. Senate, and much harder to take the house. The Koch brothers (America for Prosperity), Karl Rove (USA Crossroads) and the other SuperPACS have already started and it will be much worse than the 2010 midterms if we don’t get involved, especially if the SCOTUS rules for Shaun McCutcheon in McCutcheon v FEC (Federal Election Commission) which will lift the limits on individuals campaign contributions like Citizens United did for corporations, unions, and organizations such as the SuperPACS listed above.

Read the American Legion statement

Read The Washington Post

Watch Sanders’ news conference

Ripoffs Capitalists Don’t Want you To Know – How J.P. Morgan Profits From Food Stamps

 

Seven Ripoffs That Capitalists Would Like to Keep out of the Media

Photo by www.richgibson.com

 In an article by Common Dreams – Seven Ripoffs That Capitalists Would Like to Keep Out of the Media by Paul Buchheit on December 16, 2013he explains how “Tax-avoiding, consumer-exploiting big business leaders are largely responsible for these abuses. Congress just lets it happen. Corporate heads and members of Congress seem incapable of relating to the people that are being victimized, and the mainstream media seems to have lost the ability to express the views of lower-income Americans.”
  

Corporations Profit from Food Stamps

 

It’s odd to think about billion-dollar financial institutions objecting to cuts in the SNAP program, but some of them are administrators of the program, collecting fees from a benefit meant for children and other needy Americans, and enjoying subsidies of state tax money for services that could be performed by the states themselves. They want more people on food stamps, not less. Three corporations have cornered the market: JP Morgan, Xerox, and eFunds Corp.

According to a JP Morgan spokesman, the food stamp program “is a very important business to JP Morgan. It’s an important business in terms of its size and scale…The good news from JP Morgan’s perspective is the infrastructure that we built has been able to cope with that increase in volume..”

 Furthermore;

•  Crash the Economy, Get Your Money Back. Die with a Student Loan, Stay in Debt. The financial industry has manipulated the bankruptcy laws to ensure that high-risk derivatives, which devastated the market in 2008, have FIRST CLAIM over savings deposit insurance, pension funds, and everything else. 

•  Almost 70% of Corporations Are Not Required to Pay ANY Federal Taxes. And that’s even before tax avoidance kicks in. The ‘nontaxable’ designation exempts 69% of U.S. corporations from taxes, thus sparing them the expense of hiring tax lawyers to contrive tax avoidance strategies.

•  Lotteries Pay for Corporate Tax Avoidance. This means revenue comes from the poorest residents of a community rather than from billion-dollar corporations. Many of the lottery players don’t realize how bad the odds are. Fill out $2 tickets for 12 hours a day for 50 years and you’ll have half a chance of winning.

•  The National Football League Pays No Federal Taxes. One of the most profitable organizations in America, with billions in tickets, TV rights, and merchandise sales, and with an NFL Commissioner who earned more money than the CEOs of Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, and AT&T, is considered a non-profit. It has a tax-exempt status. 

•    Live on Park Avenue, Get a Farm Subsidy. A disturbing but fascinating report called “Farm Subsidies and the Big Dogs” lists Washington, DC, Chicago, and New York City, in that order, as the worst offenders.

• In New York, “Many entities receive the federal subsidies at their downtown office buildings, such as 30 Rockefeller Plaza, or at their million dollar residential condos.”

• In Chicago, “Nearly every neighborhood in the city receives federal farm subsidy payments – including the Gold Coast, Downtown-Loop, Lincoln Park, and even the President’s neighbors in Hyde Park.”

• In Washington, “Even U.S. Senators are receiving farm subsidy checks.” 

• Profit Margin Magic: Turning a dollar into $100,000. Which costs the consumer more, printer ink or bottled water? Calculations by DataGenetics reveal that the ink in a $16.99 cartridge comes to almost $3,400 per gallon. The cost of a gallon of cartridge ink would buy enough gasoline to run the average car for over two years.

 

What They Don’t Want You To Know About

 Capitalism and Socialism 

Photo by stevensonfinancialmarketing.wordpress.com

In an article by David Gruder in The NewIQ.com David asks; “Do you know the real difference between socialism and capitalism?” He explains that quite a number of politicians and pundits today are counting on you NOT knowing, so they can manipulate you into believing whatever serves them and their ideology for you to believe. Here, in the spirit of spin-busting, are the secrets about capitalism and socialism that those particular pundits and politicians don’t want you to know.

Capitalism has each person pay only for the cost of whatever they choose to purchase. Not more, not less. In contrast, socialism spreads among financially capable citizens the cost of projects or services that a society (or a group) needs in order to function.
Capitalism works best with purchases you alone are free to make as an exercise of your personal freedom. Socialism works best with costs connected with infrastructures deemed necessary for the common good.

Do you believe in emergency services like police, fire, paramedics, military? Emergency services are forms of socialism.

Do you believe in epidemic prevention infrastructures like sewers, garbage removal, water purification, etc? Public health strategies are forms of socialism.

Do you believe in the importance of transportation infrastructure, such as properly maintained roadways, public transportation, and air traffic control? Transportation infrastructure maintenance is a form of socialism.

Do you believe in insurance? Yes, even health insurance, and in fact all insurance, is a form of socialism. Why? Because it spreads costs evenly among everyone in an insurance category even though each individual uses uneven amounts of their health coverage.

So What Does All This Mean To Me?

Well, it goes back to realizing how much power and influence that the ultra-rich and corporations have over our lives. It was made much worse when the Supreme Court, on January 21, 2010 made the Citizens United v FEC (Federal Election Commission) decision. Removing limits on how much corporations could contribute to campaigns gave the corporations a tremendous amount of influence over politicians and corrupted our Republic, our elections, and our politicians. Top donors in the fossil fuel industry donated $11,504,213 in campaign contributions in the 2012 election cycle.

  The Supreme Court heard another case McCutcheon v FEC on October 8, 2013 in which an Alabama businessman, shaun McCutcheon has sued to have aggregate limits removed from individuals, which would allow those same individuals to contribute 27x more, or $312,455,200. That’s only the top donors in the fossil fuel industry.

What Can I Do?

Photo by corporationsarenotpeople.com

 The information below was compiled by Democracy is For People, a Public Citizen project. See www.democracyisforpeople.org for more information. Also see NY 4 Democracy for additional information.

There is a grass-roots movement underway to get the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United decision overturned through getting states to get resolutions to get the Congress to pass a Constitutional Amendment to overturn the decision. This will not be easy but so far, 16 states have passed resolutions, and in New York, 16 municipalities have passed local resolutions. More than 120 national organizations have endorsed the United For The People collaborative’s unified Call to Action for a Constitutional Amendment. Contact them and get involved at www.United4ThePeople.org 

Polling has long indicated robust popular support for an amendment, across party lines. For example, a 2010/2011 Peter Hart poll found that 79% of Americans, including 68% of Republicans, 82% of Independents, and 87% of Democrats “support a Constitutional Amendment that would overturn the Citizens United decision and make clear that corporations do not have the same rights as people.”

Further, a 2012 Associated Press poll found that 83% of Americans, including 81% of Republicans, 78% of Independents, and 85% of Democrats believe “there should be limits on the amount of money corporations, unions, and other organizations can contribute to outside organizations trying to influence campaigns for President, Senate, and U.S. House.”

The use of so-called Super PACS by wealthy individuals has driven up the cost of elections (altogether, Super PACS spent $609 million during the 2012 election cycle) to over $6B in the federal elections alone and reduced local voices in the democratic process. 

A March poll conducted by ABC News/Washington Post showed that over two-thirds of Americans (69%) felt Supers PACS should be illegal – over half of these people (52%) said they strongly supported such a move.  Among Tea Party supporters the number was the same: 69% of Tea Party supporters felt that Super PACS should be outlawed.

Get involved, contact your State Senators, Congressmen/women, and Assemblymen/women. Go to Vote Smart to your STATE Senator and Assembly members.

McResource’s Hotline Pushing Employees to Apply for SNAP and Medicaid

 

McDonald’s Taking Cues from Walmart – Who Cost Taxpayers $80M Per Year for Assistance with Food and Healthcare

 

McResource’s Hotline pushes people to join SNAP and Medicaid

California Discourages Eligible Applicants From Applying for SNAP (Food Stamps)

 I posted about an article back in August of this year based an article by the L. A. Times about how people were being discouraged from applying for food stamps even though they were eligible, because they probably wouldn’t get them. You heard right. Here’s the article I based my post on: L. A. Times article “California discourages needy from signing up for Food Stamps”

 You would think that someone who truly needs help to feed themselves and their children would get it if they are eligible. Not so, not where onerous paperwork requirements, inhospitable county benefits offices and confusing online applications often prevail. In California, sometimes even those who qualify get rejected, as understaffed agencies prove unable to properly process applications.The state’s participation rate is the lowest in the U.S. — only about half of those that qualify get assistance — making it the envy of more-conservative states. 

Wal-Mart: Leader in Costing Taxpayers for Employees Benefit

   The cost of low wages at Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) are at the center of a new report released last week by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Low wages are an issue across the economy, but Wal-Mart, as the country’s largest private employer, has long faced closer scrutiny than other companies.Wal-Mart’s low wages and refusal to offer healthcare to their employees cost taxpayers $80 Million per year. money.cnn.com June 5, 2013

McDonald’s Wants Taxpayers to Pay Their Employee’s Food and Healthcare 

This is a NOT COCA-COLA  But it is THE REAL THING – McResource’s Hotline for Employee Assistance

 Listen to an actual call from an employee of McDonald’s asking the McResource’s Hotline for help and how their help line pushes her to the SNAP (Food Stamps) program, and Medicaid programs, to have taxpayers support their employees. Mind you this employee is full-time worker making $8.25/hr and has not received av raise in TEN YEARS!

Here’s a link to the article from ABC News: McDonald’s Helpline article by GMA

I was outraged when I saw Zain Asher of CNN Newsroom play a phone conversation between this 10-year employee, who has not received a single raise in that 10 years, making $8.25 /hr.

This is a link to a very informative article from CNN on the same topic: CNN article on McDonald’s 

Here is an article from rt.com on the same: rt.com/usa article  

These companies are making HUGH profits and their workers often make less than $25,000/yr, making them eligible for food stamps and Medicaid.  Please contact your Congressmen/women and Senators and tell them it is time to raise the minimum wage to $11.00/hr.

To Find and or get contact information for YOUR Congressmen/women and Senators use the links on the left margin of this blog.

 

 

 

In California Only About Half of Those People Who Qualify Actually Get Food Stamps

Photo by dpss.co.riverside.ca.us

 An article by the L. A. Times about how people were being discouraged from applying for food stamps even though they were eligible, because they probably wouldn’t get them. You heard right. 

L. A. Times article “California discourages needy from signing up for Food Stamps”

 Even though Republican Gov. Rick Perry ultimately got rid of the policy, Texas — always seeking to whittle down “big government” — remains one of the most effective states at keeping its poor out of the giant federal food stamp program.

Liberal California discourages eligible people from signing up for food stamps at rates conservative activists elsewhere envy. Only about half of the Californians who qualify for help get it. The program is called CalFresh.

In California, where onerous paperwork requirements, inhospitable county benefits offices and confusing online applications often prevail. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture‘s latest study reflects the participation rate in 2010, agency enrollment figures released since then leave California stuck in last place.

In California, sometimes even those who qualify get rejected, as understaffed agencies prove unable to properly process applications. Edlyn Countee had no idea she was eligible for food stamps until a friend who volunteered at a food bank brought it up. The 61-year-old from Oakland applied. She was rejected. “They said I made too much money,” she said. “I figured, ‘There goes that.'”

The friend insisted that there had been a mistake and that Countee should keep at it. The advice was solid, but it took an attorney from Bay Area Legal Aid calling social services officials, and Countee filling out an affidavit, before she got her $101 per month.

It is unconscionable that we have so many people out of work, disabled, veterans, elderly, and children, that are going hungry in the richest country in the world. There are also people who work full-time, 40 hours, but are paid so little that they live below the poverty line and are eligible for Food Stamps and Medicaid. Employees of Wal-Mart cost the taxpayers $80M a year, and those who work at McDonald’s and other fast food establishments fall into the same category. The real “Welfare Queen,” a phrase coined by President Reagan is Wal-Mart.