Sorry, readers, but it is what the Globe served me:
"Farm measure OK’d by House; $1 trillion bill heads to Senate for final passage" by Ron Nixon | New York Times, January 30, 2014
WASHINGTON — Compared with earlier, more contentious votes on the farm bill, Wednesday’s vote was largely bipartisan. Many Democrats who had opposed it because of cuts to the food stamp program supported it. A number of Republicans, including many who wanted deeper cuts to the food stamps, also voted for the bill’s passage that cut food stamps and expanded crop insurance.
Oh, WOW!
Food stamps for hungry woman and children are cut while corporate subsidies were increased!
Related: State of the Union Set the Tone For 2014 Elections
I couldn't hear it over the growling stomach.
The new farm bill, which had been mired in partisan gridlock, makes fundamental changes to both nutrition and farm programs. It cuts the food stamp program by $8 billion, and about 850,000 households will lose about $90 in monthly benefits under the change.
That may not seem like a lot per week, and believe me, it isn't; however, that meager amount can at least guarantee some sustenance.
"The deal buoyed Wall Street investors. Guggenheim Partners, a financial services firm, concluded that as a result overall Pentagon spending will remain relatively the same for the next several years before it begins to grow once again, at about 2.5 percent per year."
"A strong stock market and better business climate have continued to concentrate American wealth in the top 1 percent of earners even as the wealthiest philanthropists did not give as much in 2013 as they gave before the Great Recession."
Related: Majority of Congress members now millionaires
Yeah, none of them are going hungry; hell, your misery is fattening their table.
The bill does provide a $200 million increase in financing to food banks, though many said the money might not be enough to offset the expected surge in demand for food.
Literally tossing you back crumbs.
Farm programs were not spared from the cuts in the new bill. The most significant change to farm programs is the elimination of a subsidy known as direct payments. These payments, about $5 billion a year, are paid to farmers whether they grow crops or not and the issue had become politically toxic over the last several years as farm income has risen to record levels.
What that vague and generalized statement from the whoreporate pre$$ means is Big Agro corporations are cleaning up when it comes to profits -- and now the program has been expanded!
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I know there is fraud in the programs, but let's not go to extremes. Whatever the amount, it's a hell of a lot le$$ than the trillions in bank$ter frauds and war profiteer cost overruns.
Staying on the campaign trail:
"Flood insurance bill on track in Senate" by Andrew Taylor | Associated Press, January 30, 2014
WASHINGTON — Hundreds of thousands of homeowners would get a reprieve from higher flood insurance premiums under legislation speeding through the Senate, powered by coastal lawmakers telling horror stories of people at risk of losing their homes.
Okay, the first thing I notice is I haven't seen the Senate move this fast since the Wall Street banks extorted trillions in bailouts way back in 2007.
The second thing is the Senate didn't seem too concerned during the years banks were fraudulently foreclosing on homes. Now all of a $udden(?) they have noticed because insurance rates are rising?
The bill, which is on track to win Senate passage on Thursday, faces a rockier road in the House, where a more modest plan is being developed to ease the impact of Congress’s overhaul of the federal flood insurance program two years ago.
The legislation would delay for up to four years huge premium increases now set to phase in next year under updated government flood maps. It also would allow homeowners with subsidized insurance policies to pass them on to people who buy their homes.
The sweeping overhaul passed in 2012 was designed to make the federal flood insurance program more financially stable and bring insurance rates more in line with the real risk of flooding.
Opponents of the new legislation say it essentially unravels changes to the flood insurance program that put taxpayers on the hook for $24 billion in losses by encouraging building in risky areas.
The pre$$ isn't saying it, but the rising rates were mostly hitting richers with beachfront homes serving as their second. That's why Senate action is so swift as unemployment has elapsed and food stamps are cut.
The changes were aimed at making the program more financially sound and would stop requiring homeowners in less risky areas to essentially subsidize below-market insurance rates for homeowners in locales more at risk of flooding.
‘‘This passed unanimously out of the Banking Committee in 2011, and we’re already undoing it,’’ griped Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican. ‘‘It’s just so depressing.’’
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I'd like to put a cork in this guy:
"Obama takes new initiatives on the road" by Peter Baker and Michael D. Shear | New York Times, January 30, 2014
WEST MIFFLIN, Pa. — President Obama began a two-day, four-state campaign-style swing on Wednesday aimed at promoting an “opportunity agenda” that he said would create jobs, raise incomes, retrain workers, and improve education.
Already in campaign mode. I notice it is NOT an EQUALITY AGENDA.
At a steel plant in West Mifflin, outside Pittsburgh, and at a Costco warehouse in suburban Maryland outside Washington, Obama declared that he would move forward on his priorities even if lawmakers continued to block many of his top initiatives.
“I’m hoping Congress goes along with this, but I’m not going to wait,” he told a crowd of steelworkers here as he described his ideas for enhancing retirement security, echoing a refrain from his State of the Union message on Tuesday night.
Why not? He has waited five years while enabling, encouraging, and abetting the very problem he is saying he will fix.
And here is another consideration since the conventional wi$dom is anything Obummer does will be good: what if the measures he takes waving his wand, 'er, pen around makes things worse?
Summing up the litany of small-bore initiatives he plans to enact using his executive authority, he said, “These are real, practical, achievable solutions to help shift the odds back a bit in favor of working Americans.”
You don't have any god-damn authoritae!
The tour, which was to continue Thursday in Milwaukee and Nashville, is meant to build momentum for a president who has struggled to advance major policies and has lost some support in the polls since his reelection. Aides said he wanted to escape the restrictions of being a virtual prime minister, absorbed by what Congress is doing, and demonstrate a broader leadership less dependent on the legislative process.
When are we going to have to salute him?
“The president is not president of Washington,” said Jay Carney, White House press secretary. “He’s president of America, and there’s a lot of activity happening around America.” But he added that Obama was not giving up on Congress to focus on his executive power. “He’s doing both,” Carney said.
At his Pennsylvania stop, Obama signed an executive memorandum and handed it to Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, telling him to create a new “starter” retirement savings program called MyRa. The program is meant for lower-wage workers who typically do not put money aside for retirement.
Wait until you get a load of how HE wants to "help" you!
The new program will allow workers to start a fund with as little as $25 and contribute as little as $5 per pay period.
Now let's see, with the cut in food stamps per week let me $ee if I can $till make ends meet that I couldn't meet before with an additional $5 a week out of available funds.
What an A$$HOLE PRESIDENT!! STEALING MONEY from POOR PEOPLE while the WEALTH continues to be CONCENTRATED at the top!
The contributions would come after taxes, but the income built over time would not be taxed until retirement, and there would be a guaranteed return with no risk of losing the investment. After accumulating $15,000, the fund would be converted into a regular Roth IRA.
Oh, it is going to be TAXED TWICE, too! That is the "FAVOR" Obummer is doing for you!
And DON'T WORRY! This government is going to sit on and safeguard your loot for you! You can TRUST THEM! If you believe that one, Amurkn, I've got some of Saddam's nuclear weapons to sell you! This is so OFFENSIVELY OUTRAGEOUS!
Lew said the idea was to provide an opportunity for people who otherwise would not save.
Do you understand how ill this breakfa$t is?
Robbing the poor while wealth and corporations sit on billions and trillions in ca$h.
“We think this fills a space that, very importantly, we can do by our own authority,” he told reporters on Air Force One as the president flew to Pennsylvania on Wednesday. “When people start saving, they get into the habit of saving.”
Translation: you will never miss the $5 the government wants so it can wave a revenue stream at bond buyers!
What a F***ING THIEF is this PRESIDENT!
At his earlier stop in Maryland, Obama focused on his support for raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, something Congress has resisted amid criticism that it could hurt businesses in a still-fragile economy. During his national address Tuesday, he said he would raise the wage floor for future federal contract workers on his own authority.
Cheap talk!
"Democrats would love to make raising the federal minimum wage a major issue in the midterm congressional elections this year, but the debate has shifted to individual states…. In Massachusetts, House Speaker Robert DeLeo, a Winthrop Democrat, has balked at that plan, saying any increase in the minimum wage should be offset by other measures that would reduce business costs. Specifically, he has linked a wage increase to overhauling the state’s unemployment insurance system."
Which is already a pos, but we already have one of the mo$t generou$ minimum wages around and the one-party Democrat rule to assure that people are not in poverty and treated like s***.
Related: What to Expect for the 2014 Elections
And it is exactly what we are getting, pffffft!
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He and his had a chance to do this when they had a filibuster-proof majority, and all we got was a crappy corporate health law that doesn't work.
Let's take a look ahead:
"Party insiders exaggerate their own wisdom as 2016 looms" January 30, 2014
…. Voters often resist premature coronations of candidates by insiders. And even when those insiders succeed in pushing a nominee through, they don’t guarantee wins for their party in the general election. Lengthy, grass roots-driven campaigns, though, can provide an invaluable service to voters and parties.
I read that and think unreal after what happened to Ron Paul, but then, well, you know…. I gue$$ it is just a way to let off steam.
In 2012, top Republican donors tried to hasten the selection process by rallying behind Mitt Romney, bludgeoning his competition with a barrage of super PAC ads. Restore Our Future, the main pro-Romney super PAC, spent about $40 million on negative ads targeting other Republicans; at times during the primary, it was outspending the Romney campaign itself. GOP voters flirted with a succession of alternatives to Romney, but the overwhelming advantage created by his super PAC support hastened the exit of Romney’s competition, leaving many GOP voters frustrated with their lack of choices. The Republican super PACs got their way. Then Romney lost that November.
For the Democrats, on the other hand, the drawn-out 2008 primary ought to have demonstrated the value of widespread participation. Democratic donors rallied to Hillary Clinton early on. But the slog from state to state provided a much better testing ground than the party backrooms, exposing Clinton’s surprisingly brittle campaign organization. Barack Obama went on to win two successive presidential elections, both by comfortable margins, and passed health care reform, a goal that has eluded Democratic leaders for decades.
Now, some Democratic leaders are again trying to clear the field for Clinton long before the primaries even begin, with a top Democratic super PAC already backing her. Meanwhile, the Republicans are tweaking their rules to make it even easier for a well-funded candidate to wrap up the GOP nomination quickly. The parties would be better off staying on the sidelines and letting voters decide, even if it takes longer to produce a nominee….
I agree with that, but for the propaganda pre$$ the usefulness is in the long-running distraction of politics for the public and people.
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Related: Did Mormons want Romney to win?
Must not have been good for Jews.
The whole thing at bottom is really a bummer if you ask me:
"The new American isolationism; Support for our global role is eroding at a time when it’s sorely needed" by Nicholas Burns | Globe Columnist, January 30, 2014
The unsettling conclusion from a poll conducted last autumn by The Pew Research Center and Council on Foreign Relations (where I serve on the board of directors).
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On the surface, American public skepticism about our global role is understandable. Since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has fought two deeply unpopular land wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — the longest in our history. We suffered through the most damaging economic crisis since the Great Depression and watched as pressures rose on the poor and middle class. President Obama spoke for millions of Americans when he said in 2011 that it was “time to focus on nationbuilding here at home.”
But there are worrisome signs that support for US international leadership is breaking down in Congress. On the far left of the Democratic Party, there is visibly less support for sustaining world-class military and diplomatic capabilities.
They are taken for granted if not ignored so no need to listen.
Meanwhile, the Tea Party sometimes gives the impression it wants to dig a giant moat around the country with drawbridges pulled up — permanently — to separate us from the rest of the world.
Oh, I LOVE IT!
Nick Burns just validated me!
Of course, us true Tea Party people (not controlled opposition corporate fronts) are not for a moat; we are anti-militari$m, anti-imperiali$m, and antiwar! I'm all for fair trade and exchange between peoples, but not in the form of corporate governance from globalist overlords! That's failed.
The problem with this line of thinking, of course, is that while isolation and retreat may have been perfectly rational responses to the world of 1814, they are recipes for foreign policy failure in the more highly integrated world of 2014. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans did not stop the 9/11 hijackers and won’t deter cyber criminals and terrorists waiting to strike in the future.
What CRAP!
See: AmeriKa Media Missing the Target
As for 9/11, whatever happened down there it wasn't Muslims that did it; it was Israel and her helpers in various western governments and intelligence agencies that did.
The global economy knits together every nation on earth. That is why an increasing number of American jobs depend on our ability to export, trade, and invest competitively overseas.
In a very real way, the fate of every person on earth is now linked as never before. That is the tangible import of climate change, human trafficking, and the drug and crime cartels that plague every country in the world.
You left out nuclear annihilation, Nick -- the only link I see us sharing in that list you laid out. As for the rest, tell the government to stop doing such things.
The United States serves, as Princeton’s John Ikenberry puts it, as the global “system operator.” By any metric of power — political, military, economic — the United States is still, by far, the most influential country in the world. China, India, and Brazil — the three great rising powers — are neither ready nor willing to replace us. And we should not want to live in a world dominated in the future by an autocratic and bullying Beijing.
Interesting how he did not mention Russia.
As for the rest of the world, what is the difference between one autocratic bully or another?
The difference is China builds, EUSrael destroys.
In her gripping 2013 book, “Those Angry Days,” Lynne Olson chronicled the titanic public battle between the isolationist hero Charles A. Lindbergh and the interventionist President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the eve of the Second World War. It was not at all a given in 1939 to 1941 that FDR would finally defeat the isolationists who would have kept us criminally neutral in the battle against Hitler.
Lindbergh was indeed a hero (interesting date of speech, 'eh?). That is why he is demonized.
Fortunately, we face no isolationist movement in 2014 as dramatically powerful as Lindbergh and his allies in the US Senate before Pearl Harbor.
Actually, the whole country feels that way because of the endless wars and lies that led to them. The American people have made it clear that we want no more wars. The failed effort in Syria shows that.
The main lesson of that time, however, applies today. The United States needs to lead internationally, however burdensome that may sometimes be.
How many of your kids or grandkids serving, Nick?
But, many of America’s closest friends are worried about us.
He means Israel and Saudi Arabia.
In London last week, I listened to a litany of concerns about the consistency and durability of US global leadership. Could it be, some wondered, that in our understandable desire to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, we may have pulled back too much from the rest of the Middle East, especially Syria and Egypt?
See where he wants us going next?
In a recent column that should be read carefully in Washington’s corridors of power, the influential British Financial Times columnist Philip Stephens warned starkly: “The US remains the only power that matters everywhere, but Washington no longer thinks that everywhere matters.”
OMG!
See: CIA Chauffeur
It shouldn't effect anyone!
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The eagle reminds me; he never mentioned the threat of Fukushima to us all.
Related:
Brown Out in New Hampshire
In N.H., GOP weary of waiting for Scott Brown
Scott Brown tied with Jeanne Shaheen in N.H. poll
Looks like a green light to me!
Also see: Patrick’s charisma hides real issues
Light can hide darkne$$.
