Day: May 16, 2014

Never Too Young

America has had a proud tradition of fighting against child labor…….especially in the early years of the 20th century……but in case my reader needs a reminder…….

1904 National Child Labor Committee forms……… Aggressive national campaign for federal child labor law reform begins

1916 New federal law sanctions state violators……. First federal child labor law prohibits movement of goods across state lines if minimum age laws are violated (law in effect only until 1918, when it’s declared unconstitutional, then revised, passed, and declared unconstitutional again)

1924 First attempt to gain federal regulation fails……….. Congress passes a constitutional amendment giving the federal government authority to regulate child labor, but too few states ratify it and it never takes effect

1936 Federal purchasing law passes Walsh-Healey Act ………..states U.S. government will not purchase goods made by underage children

1937 Second attempt to gain federal regulation fails…………. Second attempt to ratify constitutional amendment giving federal government authority to regulate child labor falls just short of getting necessary votes

1937 New federal law sanctions growers Sugar Act makes sugar beet growers ineligible for benefit payments if they violate state minimum age and hours of work standards

1938 Federal regulation of child labor achieved in Fair Labor Standards Act……… For the first time, minimum ages of employment and hours of work for children are regulated by federal law.

I know….thanks for the history lesson but why bring all this up?  I read some news the other day that made me think about the history I just wrote about………

Children are toiling in unsafe conditions, suffering everything from breathing problems to vomiting, and putting in 12-hour days and 72-hour weeks. Think we’re talking a third-world sweatshop? It’s what’s happening right now on US tobacco farms, Human Rights Watch alleges in a report today. The group spoke to 141 tobacco farm workers aged 7 to 17, and found that many came in bare-skin contact with tobacco plants. That can cause acute nicotine poisoning—and indeed, 66% of those polled reported symptoms consistent with that, including dizziness, nausea, and headaches.

“On the first day when I was working [chemicals] got on my face a lot and I didn’t know until I got home later that my face was burning,” one 13-year-old worker tells the BBC. US labor laws protecting child laborers have exceptions for agricultural jobs, the group explains, allowing children of any age to work the fields, and those 12 and older to work unlimited hours. An attempt to change that for tobacco farms died in 2012. HRW shared its findings with tobacco producers, and most expressed concern. Philip Morris, which has the toughest child labor policy, tells Reuters that it believes there’s an opportunity to impose an industry-wide standard. The complete report is here.

Child labor is something we here in the US condemn 3rd world countries for allowing to exist…..it is not something that needs to be watched in our country, right?

There was a time and a place when child labor could have made some sense…..but today a child needs to be educated….not working his ass off in some field.

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party’s Pro-War, Anti-Civil Liberties Front-Runner « Antiwar.com Blog

Back in 2008 I had my best day on this blog with a post on Hillary Clinton……it is not election time just yet but maybe I can generate some action with another post on America’s fave lady…….

For some Clinton is already the frontrunner for the Dem nomination in 2016…….and if she decides to run then she will most likely be the frontrunner…..but I say let her announce before you anoint her.

It is no secret that I am not a cheerleader for the Clintons….I think her hubby did more damage than good and was the cause of the crash of ’08.

But if you are on the Clinton bandwagon there are a couple of things that maybe you should consider before you throw your vote at her….

 

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party’s Pro-War, Anti-Civil Liberties Front-Runner « Antiwar.com Blog.

Say Good-Bye

A couple of months ago we were having a helluva argument on the future of the net…….there have been many attempts to control it and do away with the neutrality………those thoughts have not gone away just replace with some bloated nutbag in Nevada and resurgence of Benghazi.

While i was surfing the web yesterday I found something that needs to be posted over and over and over……net neutrality may soon be just a fleeting thought………

The FCC today voted to move forward with a controversial proposal that could allow Internet service providers to create “fast lanes,” in a 3-2 vote along party lines. The proposal rolled out today could allow Internet companies to strike deals to speed delivery of their content, though those deals would be scrutinized by the FCC. But Mashable reports the proposal also includes an option in which broadband services would be treated as a more tightly regulated utility; that would “make it easier for the FCC to enforce net neutrality provisions,” per the Wall Street Journal. The proposal also asks whether the fast-lane deals should be banned entirely. Those last two changes were added this week to appease Chairman Tom Wheeler’s two fellow Democrats, who had expressed misgivings, the LA Times reports.

Still, Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel voiced misgivings all the same, criticizing the process as rushed. “I would have done this differently. I would have taken the time to consider the future,” she said. “We cannot have a two-tiered Internet.” The proposal now enters a four-month public comment period, which will be followed by a final vote. “Agencies almost always change their rules from the initial proposal,” the head of one technology public interest group tells theWashington Post. “Do not freak.” For more on the issue, click here.

we need to stop obsessing over bullsh*t issues and keep an eye on our freedom to surf the net………I am sure there is a hashtag I could use……..you figure that part out………if you like your internet freedom then keep an eye on this situation.

Where Does The Money Go?

We have people yelling constantly about all those lazy people that are sucking our country dry…….few mention all the corporate welfare that is doing just what they accuse the poor of doing……and there is another fault in our system…….we cannot seem to account for all the money that is spent by the Defense Department…….there is probably more money being mis-spent, misplaced or stolen than anywhere else in the budget……..

i saw this piece and thought what a great job our bureaucrats are doing…..(that is sarcasm in case you missed it)………….

The Pentagon’s Chief Financial Officer, Undersecretary of Defense Robert Hale, today conceded that the Congressionally mandated auditing requirements are “more of a challenge than I expected.”

That’s putting it mildly. Congress required full financial accountings of Pentagon spending in the 1990s, and in 2010 ordered the Pentagon to be ready for a “full audit” by 2017. The halfway point to 2017 is here, and the Government Accountability Office says the Pentagon is well short of where it would need to be to meet those goals.

20 solid years of work by military financial managers hasn’t amounted to much in the grand scheme of things, and while Undersecretary Hale says he is determined to “eventually” get the military ready for an audit, eventually is starting to add up to an awfully long time.

Navy comptroller Susan Rabern says she is “cautiously optimistic” about meeting the goals sometime next year, but that the cultural shift in the US military’s “worldwide business operations” has been enormous, and getting old data on decades of unaccounted-for spending has been a formidable task.

The initial push to get the Pentagon’s financial house in order came from the notorious reports of $640 toilet seats and $435 hammers. Interest in reining in Pentagon spending slowed after 9/11, however, when budgets soared again to record highs, and interest in where hundreds of billions of dollars ended up was minimal, at best.

The GAO’s latest report warns that military reports to Congress remain “inconsistent and sometimes unreliable,” and that the Defense Department simply has no ability to produce a full accounting of all of its assets, let alone tracking whether payments they’re making to contractors are appropriate.

All those people that are screaming for the poor to be held accountable for the sin of being poor……have NO problem with the cash that disappears annually from the Defense Department…….I hate to admit it but it is looking more and more like racism than misinformation……..billions upon billions disappear yearly from the defense budget and yet school lunches and snap are the culprits of a dwindling revenue………

Something smells!