What Should We Be Talking About?

Continuing the bandwagon of looking for scandals……….There are some things that should be more important than they are in the media…..sensationalism is rampant not accurate reporting….personally, I think we are all dunderheads for falling for the stories the media hands us as news……..I feel there are more important issues that need to be discussed and then handled…….unfortunately these things will hold NO weight in the media….why?  They are looking for keywords like Benghazi, IRS and AP….without those terms in the post few will read anything else….sad and a bit pathetic!

Think Progress has an excellent list of issues that should be a priority……

1. Carbon pollution reaches historic highs, threatening human existence. The concentration of climate warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere “has passed the milestone level of 400 parts per million (ppm),” scientists estimate. “At the beginning of industrialisation the concentration of CO2 was just 280ppm,” said Prof Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “We must hope that the world crossing this milestone will bring about awareness of the scientific reality of climate change and how human society should deal with the challenge.” The last time the Earth saw carbon dioxide levels that high, humans did not exist. The West Antarctic ice sheet also did not exist, and sea levels were as much as 82 feet higher than they are today. During an earlier period when CO2 levels were this high, temperatures were 5° to 10°F warmer globally.

2. The devastating impact of sequestration on kids, cancer patients and first responders. On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the budget deficit will shrink to its smallest level since before the Great Recession in 2013, and it will continue to decrease through 2015. But despite the smaller deficits, Republicans remain focused on spending reductions — even as the most recent round of cuts has kicked children out of preschool, left cancer patients without needed screenings, undermined public health and fire safety, and gutted programs that help low-income Americans in a variety of ways. Those cuts have also threatened to derail the economic recovery, which has sputtered along despite the headwinds created by a consistent focus on deficit reduction.

3. Massive cuts to food stamps for the most vulnerable Americans. The House Agriculture Committee approved a farm bill late Wednesday night that would cut federal food stamps by $20.5 billion — more steeply than any legislation since the welfare reforms of the 1990s. Earlier this week, the Senate Agriculture Committee also agreed to a $4.1 billion reduction. The program keeps hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Americans out of the deepest pits of poverty, and even as the Great Recession swelled SNAP rolls, the program continued to push its erroneous payments rates to record lows.

4. 1100 workers die in garment factory collapse in Bangladesh and most American retailers plan business as usual. Since a factory collapsed in Bangladesh, killing 1,100 clothing industry workers, American retailers have been hesitant to adopt safety plans that could prevent similar tragedies. Abercrombie & Fitch announced it would sign a safety upgrade plan that has been approved by six major European retailers and one other American company, but many other manufacturers — including Walmart and Gapare holding out. Although some retailers fear the costs of upgrades, they could pass them on entirely to consumers and only raise prices by 10 cents per garment.

5. 4,000 gun deaths due to gun violence since Newtown. A crowdsourced effort to count every person killed by a gun in the United States since the Newtown tragedy is currently being hosted by Slate. As of this writing, the count is 4,150. The Senate rejected gun safety legislation in April and has not yet set a date for reconsidering the measure.

I realize that Righties will not agree with much on this list….but I feel that the American people see the need for actual talks, negotiations and then solutions……beyond the clowns getting up in front of a camera and call for jail time for nothing or impeachment for little……

Here is an inside tract for the GOP……Obama will survive and he will finish his term…..accept the fact you cannot find a descent candidate and get to work fixing the country…..we need leadership not some babbling buffoons that could not find their asses with both hands and a flashlight.


OpenSecrets.org’s Resources on Politically Active Tax-Exempt Groups – OpenSecrets Blog

Unless you are a hardcore stoner you are aware of the latest “scandal” making the rounds on the media outlets….the IRS targeting conserv non-profits……nothing new sports fans!  Nixon used the IRS to target “radical Left” organizations and I would bet he was not alone…

Anyway, how many people even know what the faux scandal is all about?  Answer–501(c)(4) or most commonly known as the social nonprofits.

I thought I would help my readers out and explain what the classification is all about……educate yourself and help defeat the misconceptions of the media and its ilk.

 

OpenSecrets.org’s Resources on Politically Active Tax-Exempt Groups – OpenSecrets Blog.


Bangla Texas

BanglaTexas


One Last Gun Post (Hopefully)

The time is nearing for the Senate to take up the newest piece of crap on guns…….I was hoping to move on from this issue and ficus on more pressing things…..they will not let me…..

The big deal now is the Manchin/Toomey bill or the Toomey/Manchin bill depending on whether you want the lib or the conserv listed first….anyway few people debating this in the media are giving real facts about the piece, they instead want to debate the merits of such a piece of work…..

Let me help you understand what this bill will do and want not………thanx to Talking Points Memo for the breakdown….

The Gaps It Closes

The legislation closes the so-called gun show loophole by requiring an FBI background check for all firearm sales conducted at a gun show. It requires a criminal check for all commercial gun transactions, including listings posted in a newspaper or on the Internet. It expands an existing law that only requires background checks for licensed dealers, letting unlicensed dealers sell firearms without background checks in accordance with state and local laws.

Gun control supporters are also pleased that the bill ensures record-keeping by the seller on transactions, akin to those already required on background checks that are mandatory. The dealer would need to keep a record of the sales he or she conducts in the event that police need to trace a weapon used to commit a crime.

“I think it does cover a lot of new additional sales and that’s important,” said Horwitz. “The good part about this bill is it has a really strong record-keeping requirement. It extends the requirements in current law for background checks, which we thought was really important.”

The Manchin-Toomey bill gives the FBI 48 hours to block a transaction at a gun show due to a red flag in a buyer’s background, with the aim of reducing that to 24 hours in four years. Current law gives the FBI 72 hours to block a sale from a licensed dealer. If the sale goes through, the FBI would have 24 hours to destroy the data on the buyer. Contrary to a popular myth from pro-gun activists, the bill would in no way create a national gun registry.

The Gaps It Leaves Open

The crucial exemption that worries gun control supporters is that background checks would not be required for private, non-commercial sales or transfers between family and friends. In other words, if two people meet and one decides to sell his gun to the other, he can do so without a background check as long as the sale wasn’t initially advertised.

“The bill covers only purchasers who buy at a gun show or via some kind of advertised sale,” said Jim Jacobs, a law professor and gun control expert at New York University. “It doesn’t require every secondary purchaser to be background checked.”

That same exemption weakens the gun show requirement. A buyer and seller who meet at a gun show can potentially — and legally — make the transaction afterward outside the event without a background check.

“There’s nothing in the law that prevents someone from going to a gun show, finding the gun he likes, then meeting the seller off-site to complete the sale without a background check,” said Adam Winkler, a law professor at UCLA and gun law expert.

“You can simply go to the McDonalds or Starbucks across the street and make the transaction,” said Horwitz.

The Manchin-Toomey legislation beefs up gun rights in other areas. It seeks to make it easier for gun dealers to advertise and sell their firearms across state lines, and protects sellers from lawsuits if the buyer passes a background check but later uses the gun in a crime. And to quell right-wing concerns, the bill includes a penalty of 15 years in prison for any federal officer who seeks to use data to create a gun registry.

Read over all that again and then explain to me where this was anything but a colossal waste of time….where will this help make our children safer?

If it passes the Senate it will crap out in the House…..beyond that it is an illustration of our Congress….toothless and impotent.

Welcome to the world of cowards!


School Violence Solution

 NRA School


Eugene Robinson: The racket with standardized test scores – The Washington Post

Eugene Robinson: The racket with standardized test scores – The Washington Post.


Society’s Problem

Handle With Care


Health study: Austerity is costing lives in Europe | NHS FightBack.org

Another good reason to stave off any attempt at imposing austerity in this country……..

 

Health study: Austerity is costing lives in Europe | NHS FightBack.org.


An Answer To Immigration

Yes, we have a pope today!

While the battle of the budgets is playing out…..there is another issue that will be arriving………

Soon, very soon the airways will explode with the rhetoric on the path of immigration that the US will travel…..we will have hard core people that thinks this country is only good enough for white people and then those that think everybody should be welcome……the truth be known the answer will be somewhere in between the two extremes and a very watered down bill that everyone can claim victory when it is signed………and then there is the answer that I like…….and it would not cost much money to implement……

(Newser) – Hey buddy, wanna be a US citizen? How much is it worth to ya? Because if it’s enough, you can stay, as far as two writers at Stanford’s Hoover Institution are concerned. “We propose that, instead of the current maze of rules and formulas, the US should sell the right to become a citizen,” argue Gary Becker and Edward Lazear in an op-ed via Real Clear Politics. A $50,000 price tag “would attract those who place the highest value on citizenship,” pulling in young, enterprising immigrants “more likely to be positive contributors to the economy.”

This proposal, they argue, would “enhance the country’s stock of human capital,” spur growth, and even reduce the federal deficit. Poorer immigrants could pay with a loan, with installments extracted directly from their paycheck to ensure they don’t default. Current citizens could “pay the fee of immigrant relatives who matter the most to them,” encouraging “the best kind of family reunification.” All of this may sound radical, they admit, but it would “be a more open and fairer system than the one we have now.” Click for the full column.

Since the US is the capital of capitalism then this is the best answer for the country and we could not be accused of being so much socialist or whatever derogatory form one chooses to accuses of in the future…..

Whatcha think?  Good idea?


Founderstein: Why Obama Is Not, Actually, Destroying the Constitution: Thoughts on Federalist #31

Founderstein: Why Obama Is Not, Actually, Destroying the Constitution: Thoughts on Federalist #31.


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