Breaking News Events

[Shystonefem]

Originally Posted by Kobi

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- It will be hard to tell where your beef and pork comes from with the repeal of the country of origin labeling in the United States.

Congress repealed the rules, which began in 2009, with a measure added to the omnibus budget bill passed on Friday. Obama signed the bill into law Friday.

The repeal comes after the World Trade Organization found the labels were unfair to meat producers outside the United States. Canada and Mexico last week were granted permission to impose more than $1 billion in import tariffs on U.S. goods if the labels were not removed.

A wide range of industries lobbied Congress to remove the labelling requirement out of fear that tariffs would spread to other U.S. exports, from furniture to frozen orange juice.

Story

HuffPost
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The unintended hazards of a global economy, global law, and global sanctions.

I don't eat meat so this doesn't affect me personally, however, if I were a meat eater, I would be kind of concerned. We all know how careful China is with food production.

I always wonder the motive behind the laws that are enacted. I believe that people have the right to know where their food came from and the right to make the decision if they believe it is safe enough to ingest.

[Shystonefem]

So, there have been no details released yet but all of the schools in one of NH's cities were ordered closed due to a "detailed and credible threat".

Welcome to the 21st century I guess.

[*Anya*]

Communities across the country are mourning the loss of six American airmen killed Monday when a suicide bomber on a motorbike attacked their patrol near Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

Major Adrianna Vorderbruggen

Major Adrianna Vorderbruggen, 36, of Plymouth, Minnesota, was assigned to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations at Elgin Air Force Base in Florida.

As a gay service member, Vorderbruggen was a strong advocate against the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that prohibited gay and lesbian service members from openly serving in the military. The policy was repealed in 2011.

One year later, Vorderbruggen married her partner, Heather Lamb. Vorderbruggen, 36, leaves behind her wife and young son, Jacob.

“It is important to us that she be remembered first as an Air Force officer, loving mother, wife, daughter and sister, above all else, not primarily by her sexual orientation," Lamb told The New York Times.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=35923348

[Kätzchen]

I recently read lots of inspiring articles about Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.


From what I have read, it makes my heart feel good for those who live in Canada that they have elected such a beautiful example of leadership, to lead their country during perilous times.

The article below gives the reader a chance to learn about Mr. Trudeau. It's a breath of fresh air. For those who read the article, I hope you'll take delight in this story about his life, his ambitions, and what he hopes to accomplish, as he collaborates with like-minded souls in Canada.

Link to article, below:

https://www.liberal.ca/rt-hon-justin-trudeau/

[Kätzchen]

National Stalking Awareness occurs annually in January.

In my state, we have some of the toughest laws on the books which includes being able to prosecute an stalker to the fullest degree possible.

If you're stalking someone, please stop.

Stalking is not romantic, it's not okay, it's not a joke:
Stalking is an crime.

[Jesse]

I never know which news thread to put this type of news, here, the feminist news thread or ?. Please feel free to move it elsewhere if this is not a good place for it.

"Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has given Marine Corps brass two weeks to submit a plan to train male and female recruits together at boot camp and fully integrate officer candidate school.

He's also calling for the Marines to make all job titles gender-neutral as the service opens currently closed ground combat jobs to women..."

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...=dod_160108.nl

[Lecheloco]

Kim Davis to Attend State of the Union Address, Attorney Says
by EMMA MARGOLIN

Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, who spent five nights behind bars last year for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, will attend tonight's State of the Union address, the conservative legal group representing her said in a statement Tuesday morning.

Also in attendance will be Davis' attorney, Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. According to the group, their presence "will be a visible reminder of the Administration's attack on religious liberty and an encouragement for people of faith to stand."


Kim Davis speaks after being released from jail. NBC News
"Kim and I are encouraging all people of faith to get involved in the political process, to vote for people who support your values, and to never give up," Staver said in a statement. "Our 'one nation under God,' is worth our continued prayers and active support."

Davis has earned many fans in the Republican Party for her defiant stand last year against a Supreme Court ruling that required her to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Doing so, she said, would violate her Christian beliefs -- an argument that failed to convince a federal judge she should be exempt from the landmark decision making marriage equality the law of the land. That judge found Davis in contempt of court and sent her to jail for five nights.

Despite becoming a hero to many in the GOP -- including two Republican presidential candidates, Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz, who were with Davis on the day she was released from jail -- Liberty Counsel will not say which Republican lawmaker invited her to attend tonight's State of the Union.

"We are not publicizing that information," Charla Bansley, Liberty Counsel's communications director, told MSNBC. "I don't think we'll ever publicize it."


Of course the will not publicize who invited her. It is enough to know Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee support her it's like they found their new Sarah Palin, in Kim Davis. Now they want to use her for a demonstration during the SOTU address, Surprising, not, I am sure as the weeks start to get closer we will be seeing much more of this woman.
I find it tacky and tasteless to use her to make a statement like this.
It just shows me the GOP will grab at whatever they can to try and swing it towards the GOP. Kim Davis should still be in jail and definitely not attending Obama's address to Congress.

[Cin]

The super bowl is here once again and it has long been believed that this event is responsible for the highest incidence of human trafficking in the form of sex trafficking in the US. Now I am reading stories that this is not the case. That labor trafficking is much more of an issue than sex trafficking and that authorities use the belief of the increase in under age sex trafficking to harass and endanger consensual sex workers. It is also noted that much of the 686 million in federal funding to combat human trafficking goes toward maintaining the six-figure salaries of the leaders of anti-trafficking organizations. Most of the biggest anti-trafficking organizations like the Polaris Project do not provide direct services to victims. Groups like the Erotic Service Providers Legal, Education and Research Project claim the anti-trafficking efforts are more about making sure lobbyist groups get their grant money. To quote an ESPLERP board member, “I am outraged that the Polaris Project gets millions a year in funding, to create policies that violate the human rights of sex workers, and put them at great risk of violence, often from the police during the raids they claim are rescues."

A 2011 report put together by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women reads, “There is no evidence that large sporting events cause an increase in trafficking.” Some are saying that money that is spent on efforts to combat what many in the trenches believe to be a myth during the super bowl could be better allocated to support year-round services like emergency shelters. The raids around and during the sporting event put consensual sex workers in danger. Consensual sex workers are harassed and arrested not sex traffickers. Treating sex work as if it is the same as sex trafficking both ignores the realities of sex work and endangers those engaged in it.

Sex is only one aspect of human trafficking. So, what about labor trafficking? Labor trafficking another serious form of human trafficking is often lost in the concern for sex trafficking. People leave their homes for the promise of a good job in the US, enter the country legally and find themselves forced into what can only be described as slave labor. Their complaints are silenced with threats of deportation, abuse and even harm to their families at home. According to Safe Horizon, one of the largest providers of services for victims and survivors of human trafficking they hear "from survivors every day what it is like to be a human link in a cruel and profiteering business supply chain that allows us to have a clean hotel room on vacation, at a sporting even or get food at a restaurant."

Here are the links to a couple of articles that believe increased sex trafficking during the super bowl is a myth and takes away money and support from the real issues of human trafficking. People can read about it if they wish and come to their own conclusions about the validity of the claim.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ariel-...b_9163046.html

http://www.alternet.org/sex-amp-rela...ry-likely-myth

[JDeere]

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/gov...ersion-therapy

[Orema]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slate...ies_at_79.html

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by Orema

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slate...ies_at_79.html

Senior U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia found dead at West Texas ranch

By Gary Martin Updated 4:14 pm, Saturday, February 13, 2016

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead of apparent natural causes Saturday on a luxury resort in West Texas, federal officials said.
Scalia, 79, was a guest at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend region south of Marfa.

According to a report, Scalia arrived at the ranch on Friday and attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found a body.

Chief U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia, of the Western Judicial District of Texas, was notified about the death from the U.S. Marshals Service.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery said he was among those notified about Scalia's death.

"I was told it was this morning," Biery said of Scalia's death. "It happened on a ranch out near Marfa. As far as the details, I think it's pretty vague right now as to how," he said. "My reaction is it's very unfortunate. It's unfortunate with any death, and politically in the presidential cycle we're in, my educated guess is nothing will happen before the next president is elected."

The U.S. Marshal Service, the Presidio County sheriff and the FBI were involved in the investigation.

Officials with the law enforcement agencies declined to comment.
A federal official who asked not to be named said there was no evidence of foul play and it appeared that Scalia died of natural causes.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/us-...nd-6828930.php

[Corkey]

A certain song from OZ is running through my head right now....

[Cin]

Here’s a Way to Hold Wall Street Accountable

By Margaret Flowers and Jill Stein

In the past 15 years, the U.S. has weathered devastating aftereffects of two financial bubbles: the “dot-com” bubble in the late 1990s, which burst in early 2000, and the housing bubble, which burst in 2008. Many pundits contend that the 2008 financial crisis is over and that we are in recovery, but the reality is that the “recovery” has really been only for those at the top who were bailed out by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve. Foreclosures and high levels of non-participation in the economy continue, as do underemployment, temporary jobs and wage stagnation.

Half the people in this country have no savings and two-thirds cannot handle an unexpected expense of more than $500, including not being able to borrow what they need from family or friends. The low-wage “recovery” has devastated the middle class, with 51 percent of workers now earning under $30,000 a year. Economist Jack Rasmus describes the current situation:
“The real US economy since 2008 has grown at only roughly half to two-thirds its normal rate. Decent-paying jobs in manufacturing and construction today are still a million short of 2007 levels. Median wages for non-managers are still below what they were in 2007, and households are piling on new debt again to pay for rising medical costs, rents, autos, and education. Retail sales are slowing.”

In fact, major retail chains in the U.S. are planning to close hundreds of stores this year, and many that stay open are carrying low inventories of goods.

Part of the reason for the “recovery” was a massive buyback of bonds and toxic derivatives that were based on risky mortgages that brought on the crash. This was done in the form of “quantitative easing,” through which the Federal Reserve bought up tens of billions of bonds and bad bank debt each month for a total of $3.5 trillion. A 2011 audit of the Federal Reserve found that $16 trillion had been allocated to banks and corporations for “financial assistance” after the 2008 collapse. As a result, the Fed is currently leveraged 77 to 1—more than double what Lehman Brothers was when it failed in 2008.

Bill Black, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a financial fraud expert, says that “fraud is “pervasive” among “most elite financial institutions.”
The reality is that there are no ethics on Wall Street. Everyone is playing against each other and using whatever tools there are—even some they do not fully understand—to make money without regard to the impact they will have on others. It is an “As long as I get mine, then screw the rest” mentality. This mentality has been enabled over the past decade or so by the lack of meaningful oversight. Basically, this behavior occurs because those involved are getting away with it and raking in millions, if not billions, of dollars as their reward. If fraud creates wealth, people will engage in it until they are stopped.
During the savings and loan debacle in the late 1980s, Black oversaw the re-regulation of the industry. He reports that the savings and loan crisis was 1/160th the size of the 2008 financial crisis, yet it led to 30,000 criminal probes, which in turn led to 1,000 felony convictions. In the 2008 crisis, no top-level bank executive has been held accountable for the widespread fraud.

According to Black, “The three epidemics that drove the [2008] crisis are appraisal fraud, ‘liar’s’ loans (collectively, these were the loan origination frauds), and the resale of those fraudulently originated mortgages through fraudulent ‘reps and warranties’ to the secondary market and the public.” In liar’s loans, the bank agrees not to verify important information, such as income of the borrower.

Contrast this with the response to the 2008 financial crisis in Iceland. There they prosecuted the heads of the banks, sending 29 to jail, and let the big banks fail and nationalized them without taking on their outstanding debt. Iceland also maintained its social safety net, unlike the United States, by rejecting austerity measures. The result is that today Iceland’s economy is stable.

If the U.S. had followed a similar path out of its crisis, we would probably be in a better situation than we are today. It’s not too late to take action.

Bill Black recently co-founded Bank Whistleblowers United (BWU) with three other whistleblowers. Their biographies are impressive. Gary Aguirre, a lawyer, is a Securities and Exchange Commission whistleblower. Richard Bowen, a Citigroup whistleblower, has 35 years of banking experience. And Michael Winston blew the whistle on Countrywide Financial’s liar’s loans.

The founders of BWU created a 19-step plan that a president could implement within a minimum of 60 days, without much action by Congress, to rein in the corruption on Wall Street and immediately shrink the big banks. They are currently reaching out to President Obama and all of the presidential candidates, looking for someone who has the courage and integrity to implement the plan.

So far, negative interest rates are being imposed by central banks in Japan and the European Union on commercial banks, but there is no guarantee that negative interest rates won’t trickle down in some way, overtly or through fees, to depositors. Most banks are reluctant to do this out of concern that people will switch banks. One financial institution in Switzerland has started to use negative interest with large depositors.

There are signs that negative interest rates could spread to the United States. On Thursday, Janet Yellen, head of the Federal Reserve, told the Senate Banking Committee that her agency is studying negative interest rates again in case they become necessary. And recently there have been murmurs of large financial institutions urging a move to a cashless society.

As late-stage capitalism rears its ugly and predatory head, we have a narrowing opportunity to tame, and hopefully defeat, the beast. Money is an institution that can be used for public good or as a weapon to drive widening wealth inequality. It’s up to us as a society to decide.

We can bail out the people through bottom-up approaches such as a basic universal income, which would immediately eliminate poverty. We can invest in local solidarity economies. We can create public banks at the municipal, county and state level to fund infrastructure projects and local needs, and postal banks to provide services to the unbanked, who make up nearly 30 percent of the population. We can even rein in Wall Street and end the culture of corruption.

These solutions and others are already being put into place. The city of Utrecht in the Netherlands is experimenting with a basic income. Latin American countries such as Brazil and cities in the U.S. including New York are building solidarity economies that promote worker-owned cooperatives and other forms of community wealth-building entities. Public banks are common in other countries, and movements for public and postal banks in the U.S. are gaining ground. North Dakota has had a public bank for nearly 100 years.

It’s up to us to be aware that these solutions exist and take action collectively to demand that they be enacted. This begins by asking the basic question: Will we continue to allow the financial elites to control the global financial system and extract wealth from us and our communities, or will we take control collectively and democratically to create economic institutions that serve everyone?

If you believe, as we do, that Wall Street’s looting and plundering should end and money should serve the public interest, then we urge you to raise awareness of the BWU’s 19-step plan. And we urge you to find out what you can do in your community to take back control of money from Wall Street. In addition to the sources cited above, we recommend the Democracy Collaborative as another resource for information on how to do that.
A different world is possible.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/...table_20160213

[Kobi]

On Monday a St. Louis jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $72 million to the family deceased plaintiff Jacqueline Fox, who alleged the company’s talc-containing products contributed to the development of her ovarian cancer. Fox died at age 62 just before the trial began.

She had been using Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower body powder for feminine hygiene for more than 35 years. Shower to Shower in particular was marketed by Johnson and Johnson for feminine hygiene with the memorable slogan “Just a sprinkle a day helps keep odor away.”

When the company introduced the slogan in the ’80s, there was already decade-old published research linking talc to an increased risk for ovarian cancer including one study where a majority of ovarian tumors had particles of talc embedded in them.

Bloomberg reports that “J&J is facing about 1,200 suits claiming studies have linked its Johnson’s Baby Powder and its Shower-to-Shower product to ovarian cancer. Women contend the company knew of the risk and failed to warn customers.”

The St. Louis jury found Johnson and Johnson guilty of negligence, conspiracy and fraud. Ted G. Meadows, a Principal with Beasley Allen and plaintiff’s attorney, said, “Jacqueline Fox was an incredible lady whose life was cut far too short by the callous decisions by the bosses at Johnson and Johnson. Inside J&J folks have known for decades, literally decades, that the talc contained in its products could cause cancer. Instead of warning customers, J&J executives made the deliberate decision to hide the risk and keep on selling. The internal documents tell a horrifying and infuriating story of corporate greed and indifference to human life. We are honored to represent the family of Ms. Fox and to bring to light the misdeeds of this company.”

According to Bloomberg the jury agreed with this assessment: “The jury foreman, Krista Smith, called the company’s internal documents ‘decisive’ for jurors, who reached the verdict after four hours of deliberations. ‘It was really clear they were hiding something,’ said Smith, 39, of St Louis. ‘All they had to do was put a warning label on.’”

The company also could have switched to the safer alternative of corn starch, which in 1999 the American Cancer Society advised women use for feminine hygiene.

http://www.rightinginjustice.com/new...llion-verdict/

[*Anya*]

Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupts in violence; three stabbed, 13 arrested

James QueallyContact Reporter

Three people were stabbed, including one who was critically wounded, and 13 were arrested when a Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupted in violence Saturday, police said.

A small group of people representing the Klan had announced that it would hold a rally at Pearson Park at 1:30 p.m., police said. By 11 a.m., several dozen protesters showed up at the park to confront the Klan.

About an hour later, several men in black garb with Confederate flag patches arrived and were escorted by police around the edge of the park.

Violence erupted and some of the protesters could be seen kicking a man whose shirt read "Grand Dragon." At some point, a protester collapsed on the ground bleeding, crying that he had been stabbed.

A Klansman in handcuffs could be heard telling a police officer that he "stabbed him in self-defense." Several other people were also handcuffed.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...227-story.html

[*Anya*]

Supreme Court reverses Alabama court that denied lesbian woman's adoption

Richard Wolf, USA TODAY 6:02 p.m. EST March 7, 2016

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously reversed an Alabama court's refusal to recognize a same-sex adoption.

The justices upheld a challenge brought by an Alabama woman after her state's highest court refused to recognize the adoption she and her former lesbian partner were granted in Georgia.

The couple never married and have since split up. But the case presented a test of an issue that crops up occasionally in state and federal courts since the Supreme Court struck down state bans on same-sex marriage: Can gays and lesbians be denied adoption rights?

The case was brought by "V.L.," as she is identified in court papers, against her former partner "E.L.," who gave birth to three children between 2002-04 while the couple was together. To win adoption rights for V.L., they established temporary residency in Georgia.

Now that they have split, E.L. agreed with the Alabama Supreme Court, which ruled in September that Georgia mistakenly granted V.L. joint custody. E.L.'s lawyers argued that "the Georgia court had no authority under Georgia law to award such an adoption, which is therefore void and not entitled to full faith and credit."

Not so, the Supreme Court ruled. "A state may not disregard the judgment of a sister state because it disagrees with the reasoning underlying the judgment or deems it to be wrong on the merits," its reversal said. Rather, Alabama must give "full faith and credit" to the Georgia court's decision.

The high court previously had blocked the Alabama court's action while considering the case, temporarily restoring V.L.'s visitation rights.

Adoption rights for same-sex couples are among the issues remaining in the wake of the high court's June decision legalizing same-sex marriage. About 30 states grant "second-parent adoptions" to gay and lesbian couples by law or lower court rulings. Such adoptions benefit adults who do not share a biological connection, while ensuring that children have two legal parents — particularly in case one dies or is incapacitated.

Lawyers for V.L., including the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the case has broad implications for any gay or lesbian adoptive parents who travel or move to Alabama.

“The Supreme Court’s reversal of Alabama’s unprecedented decision to void an adoption from another state is a victory not only for our client but for thousands of adopted families,” Cathy Sakimura, the center's family law director, said. “No adoptive parent or child should have to face the uncertainty and loss of being separated years after their adoption just because another state’s court disagrees with the law that was applied in their adoption.”

The case could affect other states that challenge or deny same-sex adoptions, according to a brief submitted by adoption and child welfare agencies.

"While at least 30 states have permitted second-parent adoptions, almost all of them have done so under statutory frameworks that, like Georgia’s, do not expressly embrace the concept," the brief says. "As a result, the number of children who could be adversely affected by the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision is large."

The lawyers told the justices in court papers that same-sex adoptions "have been granted since at least the mid-1980s, long before same-sex couples could marry." They estimated that hundreds of thousands of such adoptions now exist.

The most recent statistics from the Williams Institute at UCLA indicate an estimated 65,000 adopted children live with a lesbian or gay parent.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2...iage/78760574/

[Cin]

This April Fools’ Day, Congress will play a cruel trick on the country’s most destitute people: It will make their food disappear. They will lose access to food stamps—not because they’re no longer in need of assistance, but because, in a way, they need it too much.

A twisted legislative quirk embedded in the Clinton-era welfare reform law is timed to go into effect after March 31 in several states, blowing a gaping hole in the already threadbare social safety net.

The cuts purport to impose fiscal discipline on poor people who are “able-bodied adults without dependents” (ABAWD)—meaning adults without young children. The rule sets a three-month limit on food stamps for across a three-year period “when they aren’t employed or in a work or training program for at least 20 hours a week.”

The formula, which suggests a lack of “work ethic,” does not account for how long you’ve been searching for a job, or local social conditions. The main defining characteristic of the “able-bodied” is apparently that they’re breathing—and hungry. “These are not people who are sitting on their sofas eating bonbons,” says Margarette Purvis, head of Food Bank for New York City. “Our system does not have the adequate resources for all of these ‘able bodies’ to do exactly what the government is supposedly saying what they want them to do. The systems are not there. Plain and simple.”

The Center on Budget Policy and Priorities (CBPP) estimates that between 500,000 and 1 million people nationwide, most of them living in extreme poverty, “will lose SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits as a result of states’ reimposition of the three-month time limit.”

In many areas, the cuts will be triggered automatically because previous legislative waivers, which temporarily shielded local households from the time limit, have lapsed. Of the 23 states where the cuts will be newly instituted this year, according to CBPP, 19, including New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Connecticut, have waivers that are losing eligibility this year. Lawmakers in Mississippi, New Mexico, South Carolina, and West Virginia are voluntarily “choosing to reimpose the time limit,” presumably because they think taking people’s food aid away is worth the “savings” for state coffers.

New Yorkers are casualties of the city’s tragic arithmetic of inequality. The huge wealth gap has skewed the area’s economic profile enough to push Manhattan out of waiver eligibility, so local socioeconomic indicators essentially price the neediest out of their benefits. Local antipoverty organizations project that 53,000 people across New York State are due to lose their benefits (typically around $190 per month). These households will experience funding reductions equivalent to an estimated 31 million meals per year.

The cuts are one component of the Clinton administration’s infamous 1996 welfare reforms, which imposed harsh limits on benefits through bureaucratic “sanctions” and onerous work requirements, which exacerbated extreme poverty and pushed many out of the welfare system altogether.

The victims of the cuts do not match the facile stereotype of the single jobless male deadbeat sponging off welfare. It simply means they are childless adults—half of a childless couple, a single parent of a 19-year-old, or a caregiver to an elderly parent.

About half of the affected individuals are white, a third are black, and 10 percent Latino; about 40 percent are women. About 40 percent live in the suburbs, with the same portion in cities. Arguably, the people targeted for cuts are those who can least afford them: CBPP reports that the individuals in the ABAWD group generally “either don’t qualify for unemployment insurance or any other federal or state cash or food assistance benefit,” or they’ve been out of work for so long (generally more than half a year) that they’ve used up their unemployment insurance.

According to CBPP, the ABAWD population “are more likely than other SNAP participants to lack basic job skills like reading, writing, and basic mathematics”—hampering their prospects in a “recovering economy” where over four in 10 unemployed people have been jobless for 15 weeks or more. Besides, a job alone doesn’t preclude deep poverty; about half of families with children on food stamps actually earn income from work.

Whether states are proactively implementing the SNAP cap or just letting benefits lapse out of malign neglect, antipoverty groups argue that a more comprehensive approach to hunger is needed—not merely through emergency aid, but programs that look beyond whether people are superficially “able” to work and that contemplate the social burdens the poor face when struggling toward self-sufficiency.

Since most of the affected states lack comprehensive employment assistance programs, advocates argue that simply cutting benefits would only ensure they show up to their next job interview even more miserable and hungry.

Antihunger groups are now pinning their hopes on pieces of corrective legislation pending in Congress, to at least provide some economic support to the affected populations by preventing SNAP termination until emergency job-training programs are implemented.

In some cases, CBPP warns, underfunded and understaffed local welfare office caseworkers may neglect to flag individuals with “temporary disabling injuries or mental illness” who should qualify for an individual exemption. And those private charities that conservatives praise as a surrogate for public assistance for the hungry are themselves resource-starved.

According to Food Bank surveys, in the city’s shadow sector of food aid, roughly half of the food pantry network is running on empty: driven by volunteer labor alone, or struggling with dwindling stocks and budget deficits.

“If the average soup kitchen or food pantry in this city was a person, they too would be low income,” Purvis says. “And that’s where we’re telling these people, who have nothing, to go.”

So on April 1, an unknown number of able bodies will be told the government has no relief left for them. Then, perhaps, their bodies will line up at their local church pantry, only to find empty shelves. That’s what they get for being too able, yet too poor, while living amid too much wealth.

http://www.thenation.com/article/con...le-in-america/

[Kobi]

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's emerging migration policy is looking increasingly like Donald Trump without the hair.

Except that, unlike the Republican presidential frontrunner, who wants to make Mexico pay for a wall to keep migrants out of the United States, the Europeans are willing to pay their neighbor Turkey to do the job for them.

Seven months and a million migrants after Chancellor Angela Merkel declared a "welcome culture" for Syrian refugees in Germany, the European Union is rushing to erect "No vacancy" signs along its internal and external borders.

Under fierce political pressure in her own conservative camp and from an insurgent right-wing populist party, the Alliance for Germany (AfD), Merkel's mantra of "We can do this" is morphing into "The Turks can do this for us".

In a surprise overnight deal she negotiated with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu last week, Ankara offered to take back all migrants, including Syrian refugees, who cross from its shores into Europe from now on or are intercepted off its coast.

Having thus sealed its most porous border to irregular migrants, the EU would admit a limited number of carefully vetted Syrian refugees directly from Turkey - one for each Syrian asylum seeker Ankara took back from Greek Aegean islands.

The lucky few would be chosen with the help of the U.N. refugee agency from among those who had waited patiently in camps in Syria's neighbors, not those who had paid smugglers thousands of euros for a risky sea crossing. They would be sent to those EU countries that agreed last year to take in a quota, although some states are resisting that.

Stifling doubts about the legality of such a blanket return policy, discomfort at outsourcing it to a partner many of them see as worryingly authoritarian, and irritation at the price Turkey is demanding, stunned EU leaders gave their provisional assent.

DESPERATION

European public opinion is so petrified by images of tens of thousands of bedraggled migrants trekking across muddy fields and highways toward western and northern Europe - and populists have made such capital out of those fears - that governments are desperate to halt the flow.

Another summit in Brussels this week is due to conclude the Faustian bargain, granting Turkey 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion)in aid to keep refugees on its soil, an accelerated path to visa-free travel for Turks and faster EU membership talks in return for its agreement to act as Europe's gatekeeper.

European Council President Donald Tusk says regaining control of Europe's external borders is a condition for gaining public acceptance to take in refugees. In practice, it looks more like a way of keeping them out, if it can be implemented.

Human rights groups and volunteers who work with refugees are outraged to see Europe slamming shut its open door for victims of war and persecution.

EU lawyers are working overtime to try to make it legal. The Geneva Convention on refugees requires signatories to examine individually each claim for protection submitted by an asylum seeker on their soil.

The German-Turkish deal would get around that provision by declaring Turkey a "safe" third country to which irregular migrants could be returned under a bilateral Greek-Turkish readmission agreement.

The United Nations' top human rights official has said that could entail illegal "collective and arbitrary expulsions".

Apart from the moral issues raised by this dodge, there are several legal problems. Turkey restricts its application of the Geneva Convention to refugees from Europe. People fleeing war or persecution in the Middle East and Asia will not be covered unless Ankara amends its laws.

Turkish officials say they will ensure Turkey complies with international law to fulfill its part of the potential EU deal.

Even so, lawyers say asylum seekers who reach Greece have a right to appeal against being sent back to Turkey if they fear for their personal safety there. A Greek court would have to hear each appeal before a person could be removed.

There is no appropriate court on the Greek islands, and Greek justice is notoriously slow.

EMBARRASSMENT

At the same time, the rush to declare Turkey "safe" could hardly have come at a more embarrassing time for the EU.

President Tayyip Erdogan has stepped up a military crackdown on Kurdish militants, the government has seized Turkey's best-selling newspaper, critical journalists face prosecution and jail, and businessmen and public officials close to a dissident Muslim cleric have been purged.

Unlike Trump, most EU leaders do not declare they want to prevent more Muslims settling in their country, with the exception of Hungary's Viktor Orban and Slovakia's Robert Fico, who have stressed preserving their countries' Christian identity.

However, anti-immigration campaigners like Marine Le Pen in France and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands openly cite Islam as a reason for rejecting refugees, and they are increasingly setting the agenda for mainstream politicians. They oppose visa-free travel for Turks in Europe for the same reason.

France, which has a tradition of political asylum and took in tens of thousands of Vietnamese "boat people" in the 1970s, is limiting its intake of Syrian refugees now, citing security concerns following last year's Islamist attacks in Paris.

Like other west European countries, France has struggled to integrate second and third generation young people of Muslim or north African origin. The place of Islam in public life is fiercely contested in these secular societies, and resentments from Algeria's war of independence still simmer.

European politicians may be aghast at the rhetoric of Trump, who has said he wants a database to register and track Muslims in the United States and would bar any Muslim entering the country until Congress could act.

But if the pact with Turkey goes through as conceived, the EU will be retreating into a "fortress Europe" policy for fear of its own Trumps.

http://news.yahoo.com/trump-without-...153030643.html

[Cin]

I get a kick out of reading articles in the corporate owned media like the NY Times and the Washington Post. Well, not so much a" kick out of" as a "kick in the gut" leaving me positively winded when I realize how much of this crap is fed on a daily basis to a really large percentage of the country. Mainstream corporate owned media is the only source they have from which to form their understanding of the world. It's disturbing as the media slants the public view against its own best interests perpetuating corporate propaganda, using ideas and phraseology geared to advance the agenda of the elite. Almost without notice they slip in terminologies, using them frequently in numerous articles until they becomes accepted as fact. Ideas like manufacturing jobs being a part of an "Old economy" and that there has been "a generation-long transition of the US away from manufacturing and into a diverse, information-driven economy deeply intertwined with the rest of the world." There is so much wrong with these kinds of statements that I am awe struck at the audacity of these corporate shills. I shudder at the callous and harmful intentions behind perpetuating these distortions.

America has lost over 6 million manufacturing jobs since 1998. Is this because manufacturing is part of an old economy and now the US has transitioned to a diverse information-driven economy deeply intertwined with the rest of the world? Have corporations stopped manufacturing things? Is that what we should believe? Or maybe we are to believe that manufacturing jobs, agricultural jobs, this kind of work, is now simply beneath us as a country; that it is part of the old economy and now we are all about the new economy? We simply transitioned away from all that old stuff and we did it by choice, on our own. Our newly evolved selves intertwined with the rest of the world into that diverse information driven economy. Apparently engineering, high-tech and service industries are poised to become the next members of the "old economy" that we will transition away from, since something like 42 million jobs in those industries are at risk of being outsourced next.

As a college education becomes so expensive that a whole generation of Americans will begin adult life already in soul crushing debt, the possibility of finding employment that will support them dwindles before their eyes. It might be puzzling for them to understand that while they live in a diverse information driven economy there are less and less jobs. Perhaps we need to consider the possibility that the old economy worked quite well for 98% of the population. That is until our government sold us out and gave corporations a free ride with free trade. That gave them the ability to exploit cheap labor in other countries and to get away with never needing to consider the implications of their actions on the environment. Here is a good article on the problem with "free trade".


http://commondreams.org/views/2016/0...lem-free-trade

Our country’s “free trade” agreements have followed a framework of trading away our democracy and middle-class prosperity in exchange for letting the biggest corporations dominate.

There are those who say any increase in trade is good. But if you close a factory here and lay off the workers, open the factory “there” to make the same things the factory here used to make, bring those things into the country to sell in the same outlets, you have just “increased trade” because now those goods cross a border. Supporters of free trade are having a harder and harder time convincing American workers this is good for them.

“Free Trade”

Free trade is when goods and services are bought and sold between countries without tariffs, duties and quotas. The idea is that some countries “do things better” than other countries, which these days basically means they offer lower labor and environmental-protection costs. Allowing other countries to do things in ways that cost less “frees up resources” which can theoretically be used for investment at home.

Opponents of free trade ask for tariffs to “protect” local businesses, jobs, wages and the environment from being undermined by low-cost goods from countries where people and/or the environment are exploited.

Free trade is generally sold as offering lower prices to consumers. It is also sold with claims that it “opens up foreign markets” to U.S. exporters. But it also opens up U.S. markets to imports.

Does Trade Really “Open New Markets?”

“When more than 95 percent of our potential customers live outside our borders, we can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy.”
– President Barack Obama

“[W]hen 95 percent of the people we want to sell something to live outside of the United States, we must open foreign markets to American goods and services so we can create jobs at home.”
– U.S. Chamber of Commerce

“Ninety-five percent of America’s potential customers live overseas, so closing ourselves off to trade is not a solution.”
– Hillary Clinton

It is a fact that only 5 percent of the world’s population lives in the United States. The problem is that the line of argument that opening up trade “opens markets” brings with it certain misleading assumptions. It assumes first that non-U.S. markets are not already being served by local companies. Second, it ignores that free trade also opens our own markets to others. Third, it ignores that U.S. companies already can and do sell to most of the world’s markets and vice versa. (For example, U.S. companies were already moving production to Mexico before NAFTA, the North American Free-Trade Agreement.) Suggesting that alternative approaches to trade would “close us off from trading” or “wall our economy off from the world” are ridiculous straw-man arguments.

If local companies are already meeting the needs in U.S. and non-U.S. markets, what does a trade deal really enable? Trade deals indeed “open up new markets” – for giant, predatory multinational corporations. They enable large, predatory companies that have enormous economies of scale to come in and dominate those markets, putting smaller, local companies out of business. So trade deals mean the biggest multinational companies get bigger and more multinational – at the expense of all the other companies. This includes enabling non-U.S. corporations to come to the U.S. and take over markets already served by smaller companies here.

The net result of allowing goods to cross borders without protecting local businesses is a “more efficient” manufacturing/distribution system powered by the biggest and best capitalized operations. The rest go away. Economists will tell you that these increased efficiencies allow an economy to best utilize its resources. But obviously one effect of this “increased efficiency” is fewer jobs, resulting in lowered wages on all sides of trade borders.

After NAFTA, for example, smaller, more local Mexican farms were wiped out by large, efficient American agricultural corporations that were able to sell corn and other crops into Mexico for low prices. The result was a mass migration northward as desperate people could no longer find work in Mexico.

Economists say even this is good because when costs are lower the economy can apply its resources more efficiently and increased investment can put the displaced people to work in better jobs. But we can all see that in our modern economy that’s not what is going on. Investment in our economy is not increasing, partly because the resulting downward wage pressure has resulted in an economy with decreased demand. Fewer customers with money to spend is not a good environment for investment. Instead of these “freed up” resources (money) being used to provide better jobs with higher wages for everyone, they are instead being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.

As for opening new markets for American exporters, note that the record since the ascendance of free-trade ideology in the 1970s we have seen continuing and increasing U.S. trade deficits, with imports exceeding exports, resulting in flat wage growth.

Freeing up trade does not “open new markets” as much as it enables giant, multinational corporations to become even more giant and more multinational – at the expense of smaller companies and the rest of us.

Comparative Advantage

Economists say that free trade allows us to take advantage of the “comparative advantages” offered by other countries. A comparative advantage exists when one country can do something better than another country. For example, Central and South America can grow bananas better than the U.S., and we can grow wheat better than they can. So trading wheat for bananas makes sense.

Unfortunately, economists also say that low labor and environmental-protection costs are a comparative advantage. They say it is good for U.S. companies to take advantage of countries with governments that exploit labor and the environment, because they offer lower costs for manufacturing. (Of course, the ultimate form of such a comparative advantage would be slavery.)

Here’s the thing. Buying goods from low-wage and low-environmental protection countries means not making them here anymore. “Trade” increases, but so does our country’s trade deficit as imports rise and exports fall. Factories here close, people here get laid off, wage pressures here increase and overall demand in our economy decreases.

When “thugocracies” that exploit workers and do not protect the environment are able to offer a comparative advantage over our democracy, then free trade makes democracy with its good wages and environmental protections into a comparative disadvantage.

Free Trade Undermines Democracy And Wages

“Give us a protective tariff, and we will have the greatest nation on earth.” – Abraham Lincoln.

Democracy has a short term “cost” with a longer-term gain. In countries where people have a say, the people say they want higher wages and benefits, good infrastructure, good education, a clean environment, safety on the job, and other services. These things all lead to a prosperous economy later, as long as benefits from this system are fed back into maintaining that infrastructure, education and services. This prosperous economy made America a desirable market to sell things to.

When the country and the idea of democracy were young we “protected” this concept with tariffs, so that goods from places where labor was cheap (or free) did not undermine our democracy. Those tariffs in turn funded investment in infrastructure and other common needs that enabled productivity gains that made our goods competitive elsewhere. But generally companies here served the population here and grew and prospered along with the rest of us.

At some point elites and free-market “economists” began an effort to convince us that “free trade” is a good thing and “protectionism” is not. We used to “protect” our country’s manufacturing base from being undermined by goods from low-wage countries that don’t protect workers or the environment. Then we didn’t.

“Free trade” broke down those borders of democracy. It enabled goods from low-wage countries into the U.S. with no protective tariffs. This made the low wages and lack of environmental and worker protections in some countries into a “comparative advantage” – which meant democracy because a comparative disadvantage. We stopped “protecting” American jobs, and allowed companies to freely lay off workers and close factories here and we have seen what has happened since.

The fact is, a democracy cannot “play by the same rules” as a country that can make people live in barracks at the factory and call them out to work at midnight if an order comes it, make them stand all day, pay them very little, pollute the environment, etc. The rules should instead be that we impose a tariff on goods from such countries unless they “level the playing field” and “play by the same rules” as democracies by giving people a say, paying more and protecting the environment.

Free trade became a scam intended to get around those costs of democracy – good wages, environmental protection and other common goods – but also to use cheap foreign labor and low regulation as a wedge to drive down those costs here as well, and ultimately weakening democracy itself. Every time you hear that regulations make “us” “less competitive” etc. you are hearing an appeal for our country to become more of a low-wage, low-cost “thugocracy.”

Does Protecting Democracy Cause Trade Wars And Depressions?

Free-trade advocates claim that restoring tariffs to protect wages and democracy would start trade wars and even cause recessions and depressions. One claim they make is that tariffs helped cause the Great Depression of the 1930s. Economist Paul Krugman took on that argument in 2009’s “Protectionism and the Great Depression,” writing,

I’ve always seen this as an attempt at a Noble Lie; there’s no good reason to believe that it’s true, but it has been used to scare governments into maintaining relatively free trade.

But the truth is quite different, as a new paper by Barry Eichengreen and Doug Irwin shows. Protectionism was a result of the Depression, not a cause. Rising tariffs didn’t even play a large role in the initial trade contraction; like the spectacular trade contraction in the current crisis, the decline in trade in the early 30s was overwhelmingly the result of the overall economic implosion. Where protectionism really mattered was in preventing a recovery in trade when production recovered.

As for trade wars, economist Ian Fletcher points out in “Free Traders Can’t Name a Single Trade War“:

Trade wars are mythical. They simply do not happen.

If you google “the trade war of,” you won’t find any historical examples. There was no Austro-Korean Trade War of 1638, Panamanian-Brazilian Trade War of 1953 or any others. History is devoid of them.

[. . .] Trade wars are an invented concept, a bogeyman invented to push free trade.

The giveaway, of course, is that free traders claim both that a) trade wars are a terrible threat we must constantly worry about, and b) it’s obvious no nation can ever gain anything from having one. Think about that for minute.

Voters Finally Pushing Back

These are the reasons that voters across the country are finally pushing back against politicians selling “free trade.” Friday’s post, “‘Free Trade’: The Elites Are Selling It But The Public Is No Longer Buying” explained how Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are gaining from their opposition to free trade deals like NAFTA and the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership. From the post: “Voters have figured out that our country’s current ‘free trade’ policies are killing their jobs, wages, cities, regions and the country’s middle class. Giant multinational corporations and billionaires do great under free trade, the rest of us not so much.”

Free trade encourages further exploitation of workers and the environment in other countries and here. It helps fuel calls inside of our own country for “less regulation” (fewer environmental protections), “right-to-work” laws (that break unions and lower wages) and “more competitive” tax policies (that defund democracy and our ability to provide public services) to “attract” companies back to the U.S.

It is time for Washington elites to scrap our current “free trade” negotiating model that allowed giant, multinational corporations to dictate our trade policies, and open up the process to all of the stakeholders, including labor, environmental, consumer, human rights and other groups. Then we can begin to negotiate trade policies that lift American workers along with workers across the world, while protecting the environment.

[*Anya*]

Brussels attacks: Zaventem and Maelbeek bombs kill many

More than 30 people are believed to have been killed and dozens injured in attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station.

Twin blasts hit Zaventem airport at about 07:00 GMT, with 11 people reported killed.

Another explosion struck Maelbeek metro station near EU headquarters an hour later, leaving about 20 people dead.

Brussels police have issued a wanted notice for a man seen pushing a luggage trolley through the airport.

He was pictured in CCTV footage with two other suspects who are believed to have died in the blasts.

The Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind the attacks in a statement issued on the IS-linked Amaq agency.

Belgium has raised its terrorism alert to its highest level. Three days of national mourning have been declared.

Prime Minister Charles Michel called the latest attacks "blind, violent and cowardly", adding: "This is a day of tragedy, a black day... I would like to call on everyone to show calmness and solidarity".

'The worst thing I've seen'

Two blasts tore through the departures area of Zaventem airport shortly after 08:00 local time (07:00 GMT).

A suicide bomber was "probably" involved, the Belgian prosecutor said.

Eleven people were killed and 81 wounded in the blasts, Belgian Health Minister Maggie de Block said.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35869254