RSN: Millions of Honeybees Killed in Attempt to Prevent Zika, ALABAMA: The Criminalization of Poverty: Woman Fined and Arrested After $1.07 Check Bounces

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Hillary’s GOP Outreach: Could It Do More Harm Than Good for Democrats? 
 
Gary Legum, Salon 
Legum writes: "Could Hillary Clinton’s outreach to some traditional Republican constituencies cost the Democrats the House and Senate? That is the implication of a poll released on Thursday." 
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Latino Trump Supporter Warns of ‘Taco Trucks on Every Corner' 
teleSUR 
Excerpt: "The founding member of the “Latinos for Trump” group made a strange argument to support U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, saying that a loose U.S. immigration policy would lead to “taco trucks on every corner." 
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Socialize the EpiPen 
Adam Gaffney, Jacobin 
Excerpt: "The ongoing EpiPen debacle has served one useful purpose: it has plainly revealed the uninhibited avarice — and general dysfunction — at the core of the American pharmaceutical system." 
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The Criminalization of Poverty: Woman Fined and Arrested After $1.07 Check Bounces 
Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzales, Kristen Clarke, Democracy Now! 
Excerpt: "We continue our look at what the ACLU calls an illegal debtors’ prison in Arkansas by speaking with a former resident who wrote a check for $1.07 for a loaf of bread. She describes how after her check bounced, her debt ballooned with fees and fines to nearly $400, and police officers twice came to her job to arrest her." 
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22 Mothers Are Fasting Inside an Immigration Detention Center 
Esther Yu Hsi Lee, ThinkProgress 
Lee writes: "Almost two dozen immigrant mother detainees begun fasting inside a Pennsylvania detention center this week, hoping to force a harsh spotlight on the one-year detention anniversary of at least four families." 
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The Death of Alan Kurdi: One Year on, Compassion Towards Refugees Fades 
Patrick Kingsly, Guardian UK 
Kingsly writes: "Sitting in a refugee camp in northern Greece, Mohammad Mohammad, a Syrian taxi driver, holds up a picture of three-year-old Alan Kurdi. It is nearly a year since the same photograph of the dead toddler sparked a wave of outrage across Europe, and heightened calls for the west to do more for refugees. Twelve months later, Mohammad uses it to highlight how little has changed." 
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Millions of Honeybees Killed in Attempt to Prevent Zika 
Dan Zukowski, EcoWatch 
Zukowski writes: "Aerial spraying of the pesticide naled in a South Carolina county, done in an attempt to prevent Zika-infected mosquitoes from gaining a foothold in the state, resulted instead in the massacre of millions of honeybees." 
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Benghazi again...and again....Mississippi Criminalizing Poverty and displaying their racism to the world

Salon

 

Shameful: Republicans are now trying to prevent investigation transcripts that exonerate Clinton from being released...

It’s time to investigate these clowns: Mendacious lying liars are making a joke of Congress, GOP and us all

Republicans want you to believe they are truth-seekers on Benghazi, but they're actually trying to suppress facts

SLNM.US|BY AMANDA MARCOTTE

Media Matters for America

 

One thing to keep in mind about ‪#‎Benghazi‬ today.

When A Cable News Host Got A GOP Congressman To Admit Republicans Cut Funding For Embassy Security

Soledad O'Brien didn't mess around.

MEDIAMATTERS.ORG

Guardian US

Sponsored · 

This is what happens when poverty is criminalized.

Pay up or go to jail: how a Mississippi town resurrected the debtors' prison

A poor single mother seeks justice against Biloxi after she was imprisoned for not paying $400 in court fees, a practice that systematically criminalizes poverty

THEGUARDIAN.COM

Stop the World, the Teabaggers Want Off

 

Hillary is so poised.

Stop the World, the Teabaggers Want Off
Via Occupy Democrats

Arizona Governor Brewer: Penalizing the poor

Steve Marmel shared Lady Grey's photo.

This is monstrous.

 

States are allowed to use contingency funding or move money around to fund the cash-assistance payments, and other states have done so. In a letter to state welfare directors this week, federal officials said states would be reimbursed once the budget impasse is resolved. Many of the state's lawmakers have called on Brewer to bring legislators into a special session to tap the state’s $450 million “rainy day fund.”Read more here: http://is.gd/gswXG9 ~ @[462078790535124:274:Lady Grey] -- http://fb.com/LadyMEGrey and @[205004693011069:274:ConScare]See More

Where's Your MORAL OUTRAGE?

The hungry children in American don't line up.

They don't perform well in school because they're HUNGRY.

Yet Republicans condemn, complain and slash SNAP -- FOOD FOR KIDS, FOOD FOR VETERANS, FOOD FOR ACTIVE MILITARY, FOOD FOR THE DISABLED.

Where's your MORAL OUTRAGE?

Robert Reich

While attention is focused on Syria, food stamps for the nation’s poor are about to be cut. So are funds for low-income housing. And although jobs are slowly returning, the median wage continues to drop, adjusted for inflation. At the same time, both income and wealth continue to become more concentrated at the very top. A single income of one of the ten richest Americans could buy housing for every homeless person in the United States for an entire year. (Based on a typical day last winter, when over 633,000 people were homeless, and the typical monthly rental cost of a unit with single room occupancy of $558 per month.) The 400 richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million put together. But we are not talking about any of this. We are not debating about what’s happening to our nation. We are not raising the minimum wage or reforming our tax code or fixing our schools or getting big money out of politics. We are paralyzed at home, and now turning our attention to a potential quagmire abroad. This is the great tragedy of our time.

This, That......

 

 

 

Stunning.

Thanks to Real Truth Now for the image.

 

I Acknowledge Class Warfare Exists

Meme GOP added a new photo.

Being Liberal

(M) Well said.

Thanks to Living Blue in a Red State for sharing this.

Stop the World, the Teabaggers Want Off

#AmericanTaliban

www.TheEverlastingGOPStoppers.com

TheBlueSquirrel.org: My Left Nut shared Tracy Knauss's photo.

Roberts is and always has been a conservative...and those hat bought into his statements during his confirmation hearing didn't pay attention to those conservatives confirmed before him. Justice Ginsburg wants to stick around to do the left thing...Blue is looking for good 'long life' karma thoughts for this sassy, intelligent, astute and kind woman.

 

ROBERTS'S ACTIVIST COURT — When Chief Justice John Roberts was interrogated in his Senate confirmation hearings, he pledged to abide by the concept of stare dec...isis (settled law). If a law has withstood the test of time, he would honor that. Now that he has led the Big Bench long enough to have a record, he should be sued for perjury because his court has reversed more settled law than any SCOTUS in modern history. His recent gutting of the Voting Rights Act is a prime example. In fact, Roberts should have recused himself from this case, let alone penned its Majority Opinion. As a member of the Reagan Administration, John Roberts authored several legal briefs for Reagan about changes to the Voting Rights Act. This should have been more than enough to have caused him to sever his ties to the recent decision, the reality of which has encouraged Red Plague states to enact new laws preventing minorities from voting. Thanks John. Your legacy will be in the john for your poor judgment. And now, Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, has confirmed the Roberts Court, led by racist Antonin Scalia, as stunningly activist, which supposedly is something Scalia and his Gang of Five disdain. It's a sad state of affairs when our great nation's highest court is being led by radical frightwing zealots, determined to destroy the middle class and any remaining hopes of "promoting the General Welfare" as the Constitution dictates. (See my comment for a link to the story.)

Regulators, mount up. This ride has only just begun. (c)

And Republican say Obama is bad for businesses.

Thanks to Liberals Are Cool for sharing this.

 

Underground Health

 

 

Amazing!

The Pragmatic Progressive Page

What is our country coming to when perfectly kind and generous people cannot feed the hungry without the threat of being arrested? Please share this so people can see the contact information included in this article and get some answers to this atrocity. ~Cris

Raleigh, NC Police Threaten To Arrest Good Samaritans Who Feed The Homeless

Posted by Progressive Populist | on August 24, 2013

Fresh on the heels of a law being passed in Columbia, South Carolina that makes being homeless illegal, we have yet another situation where the homeless and the downtrodden are basically being treated like savage animals and kicked to the curb.

In Raleigh, North Carolina, a group of good Samaritans from Love Wins Ministry, along with five other churches who contribute funds and manpower, have been going to a local park on virtually every Saturday and Sunday, bringing food to homeless people for years. They would bring breakfast sandwiches and coffee and give them away, for free, to anyone who wanted it. By all means, it has been a very kind and generous deed that these folks have been doing over the years. A true grassroots effort to help others who are in need, and a huge testament to human compassion and spirit.



By all means, this act of human kindness was not causing anyone any problems. Until one recent day when the group showed up with around 100 sausage biscuits and hot coffee. Some 70 people were waiting in line to be served their free meal. Also present were officers from the Raleigh Police Department, and they were not there for a free sausage biscuit sandwich. They told the group that if they served any of their food to the homeless folks who were waiting in the line that they would be arrested. Clearly, no food was going to be served today to those 70 people, and apparently not on any day going forward.

The group has never had any prior run-ins with the police. They were not allowed to use the park itself without paying for an expensive permit, so they have always set up shop on the sidewalk near the park, as long as they were not blocking it and cleaned up their messes.

The reason given by the cop for not being able to provide food to the homeless and the hungry was this: “I am just telling you what is. Now you pass out that food, you will go to jail.”

There were no apparent ordinance violations. Just a simple message from a cop that obviously came from someone higher up the chain of command. And the good Samaritans have every intention of continuing their good deeds, but have not yet determined the logistics of doing so.

And apparently, it’s still legal to feed animals at the park – just not humans.

On their blog, the Love Wins Ministry has posted ways that we can help with this atrocity. We are posting this information below. Please share this so that others who are willing to help can do so too! We can’t turn our backs on the needy and the poor – especially in this day and age where close to half the country believes that being poor, homeless, and jobless are to be treated as some kind of moral shortcoming.
1. Below are the email addresses and phone numbers of the Mayor and of the City Council members. We encourage you to email them and ask A) why organizations, such as Love Wins Ministries, are being prevented from feeding people in the park, when the City of Raleigh has no means of or plans to feed them and B) encourage them to allow said feeding to continue.
Keeping in mind that we win over no one with anger or rudeness. Anger does not cast out fear – only love can do that.
* Out of town folks, call any and all of the City Council members.
* Raleigh residents, call the City Council member representing your district. You can find your district by entering your address here.
City Council At Large
Mary-Ann Baldwin – Email – 919-996-3050
City Council At Large/Mayor Pro Tem
Russ Stephenson – Email – 919-996-3050
District A
Randall Stagner – Email – 919-996-3050
District B
John Odom – Email – 919-996-3050
District C
Eugene Weeks – Email – 919-996-3050
District D
Thomas Crowder – Email – 919-996-3050
District E
Bonner Gaylord – Email – 919-996-3050
Mayor
Nancy McFarlane – Email – 919-996-3050
2. Post the link to this post on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit or any other social media outlets you have access to. Again, we have done nothing wrong, and have no desire to hide.
3. If you have contacts with people of influence (media, celebrities, etc.), please pass this story along to them or give them my email address – hugh@lovewins.info.
4. Stay up do date. The most current information will be on our Facebook page, which you can like to receive those updates automatically.
5. Pray for our friends who are hungry, and now have nowhere to eat. And pray for us, so that we do not lose our tempers and along with it, our soul. And pray for the officers and people in power, who are working against our goals.
Pray for all of us, in fact, because we all need it, and our liberation is bound up in each other.

Cheapening Life!

We are becoming a morally bankrupt nation when we fail to object!

(illustration: Mr. Fish)

The Business of Mass Incarceration

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig

29 July 13

ebbie Bourne, 45, was at her apartment in the Liberty Village housing projects in Plainfield, N.J., on the afternoon of April 30 when police banged on the door and pushed their way inside. The officers ordered her, her daughter, 14, and her son, 22, who suffers from autism, to sit down and not move and then began ransacking the home. Bourne's husband, from whom she was estranged and who was in the process of moving out, was the target of the police, who suspected him of dealing cocaine. As it turned out, the raid would cast a deep shadow over the lives of three innocents-Bourne and her children.

The murder of a teenage boy by an armed vigilante, George Zimmerman, is only one crime set within a legal and penal system that has criminalized poverty. Poor people, especially those of color, are worth nothing to corporations and private contractors if they are on the street. In jails and prisons, however, they each can generate corporate revenues of $30,000 to $40,000 a year. This use of the bodies of the poor to make money for corporations fuels the system of neoslavery that defines our prison system.

 

Prisoners often work inside jails and prisons for nothing or at most earn a dollar an hour. The court system has been gutted to deny the poor adequate legal representation. Draconian drug laws send nonviolent offenders to jail for staggering periods of time. Our prisons routinely use solitary confinement, forms of humiliation and physical abuse to keep prisoners broken and compliant, methods that international human rights organizations have long defined as torture. Individuals and corporations that profit from prisons in the United States perpetuate a form of neoslavery. The ongoing hunger strike by inmates in the California prison system is a slave revolt, one that we must encourage and support. The fate of the poor under our corporate state will, if we remain indifferent and passive, become our own fate. This is why on Wednesday I will join prison rights activists, including Cornel West and Michael Moore, in a one-day fast in solidarity with the hunger strike in the California prison system.

 

READ MORE:The Business of Mass Incarceration


The Old “Story” Of Poverty
By Farooque Chowdhury

http://www.countercurrents.org/chowdhury290713.htm

Poverty in the poor part of the world is not an exclusive case. It’s globe-encompassing. Societies touting as rich and prosperous are failing to escape the devastating “aroha”-touch of poverty. An exclusive Associated Press report by Hope Yen once again presents the fact. It’s an old fact with new data that reaffirms capitalism’s incapacity to eradicate poverty