House GOP votes to cut SNAP

These people are the worst. I just don’t understand. The Huffington Post had a piece by Arthur Delaney and Michael McAuliff on the cuts. As I mentioned earlier in the week they want to take $40 billion over the next ten years starting in 2014. This bill requires beneficiaries to pass income and asset tests to prove poverty. It would allow drug tests because that is working so well with welfare. It would allow states to deny all able-bodied adults who don’t work or enroll in training for at least 20 hours per week. So let’s see what these ignorant asshats had to say:

• Eric Cantor: “This bill is designed to give people a hand when they need it most. Most people don’t choose to be on food stamps. Most people want a job. Most people want to go out and be productive so that they can earn a living, so that they can support a family, so that they can have hope for a more prosperous future. They want what we want.”
• Tim Huelskamp: “If you’re a healthy adult and don’t have someone relying on you to care for them, you ought to earn the benefits you receive. Look for work. Start job training to improve you skills or do community service. But you can no longer sit on your couch or ride a surfboard like Jason in California [man profiled by Fox News, so completely true you guys, stop implying Fox is propaganda network] and expect the federal taxpayers to feed you.”
• Frank Lucas (feel his desperation for this bill to pass): “I admit to you, that has been an unusual process. But it remains my goal to get a five-year bill [farm bill] enacted. I’m doing everything possible to make sure that happens this year.” Continuing on to say, “We have a responsibility to get this done, and quite simply, and I repeat, quite simply, it shouldn’t be this hard to pass a bill that ensures all of us in this economy has enough to eat. And that’s what a farm bill does.”
• Steve Southerland: “Work is not a penalty. Work is a blessing.”

And what are the Democrats saying?

• Marcia Fudge (O-H-IO): Today’s exercise is nothing more than a waste of out time and an insult to every American in need. The fact that we are considering this legislation makes me question whether the Republican leadership even wants a farm bill.” She added, this bill “guts nutrition for those most in need and says to the poor, to hungry children, to the disabled, seniors and our veterans, ‘You don’t matter, you are not worthy of our help.’ They deserve better.”

These bastards need to loss their jobs. Let’s see what we can cut from the federal budget if these people who voted in favor of this bill wouldn’t collect a salary next year:

In 2021: 233 Republicans in the House.

11 in Leadership collecting $193,400 and 1 Speaker $233,500.

221 members collecting $174,000

This comes out to $40,804,900 for the Republicans.

For the Democrats $35,052,200. So if everyone in the house didn’t collect a salary this year we’d have $75,857,100 to put toward SNAP. And that is before their staff.

With staff: $128,261,368 in 2012. But I’m not heartless, staffers should make a salary because they didn’t actually vote against the poor, but in DC the minimum wage is $8.25, and the living wage bill was vetoed by Mayor Gray as you remember, but there is a bill to raise it to $10.25 so we’ll pay them for a 35 hour work week at $10.25 an hour. I know what you’re thinking, but they work so many more hours that that, yeah, but this is the Wal-mart way.

This comes out to $10.25*35*52= $18,655. And multiply that by the 5,336 staffers listed in 2009 is $99,543,080, which leaves $28,718,288 from what was spent on them this year. All of this would be $104,575,388 is government salaries from the House of Representatives. Think about adding the Senate and the White House. Obviously, this isn’t going to be effective, because if we paid staffers minimum wage, even an increased minimum they’d be in poverty. Secondly, this doesn’t raise enough money. In reality I’m in favor of cutting DoD spending. I just find these numbers astonishing while they attempt to starve the poor.

Aside, thirteen people were killed last night in Chicago in a mass shooting. After my post yesterday, and how the nation forgot to grieve for DC, we’re not grieving for Chicago either. The Chicago PD isn’t releasing any information at this point about the shooting. They did release some information about the victims (pulled from the article linked to):

• The 3-year-old boy, shot in the ear, in critical condition at Mount Sinai;
• A 17-year-old girl, shot in the foot, condition stabilized at Holy Cross Hospital;
• A 15-year-old boy shot in the arm, stabilized at Holy Cross;
• A man, 27, shot in the leg and wrist, serious condition at Mount Sinai;
• A man, 24, shot twice in the stomach, serious condition at Mount Sinia;
• A man, 21, shot in the leg, serious condition at Mount Sinai;
• A man, 41, shot in the buttocks, serious condition at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital;
• A woman, 33, shot in the shoulder, condition stabilized at Northwestern Memorial Hospital;
• A man, 31, shot in the buttocks, condition stabilized at Northwestern;
• A woman, 23, shot in the foot, condition stabilized at St. Anthony Hospital;
• A man, 37, shot in the leg, in good condition at Stroger;
• A man, 25, shot in the knee, in good condition at Northwestern;
• And a man, 33, who drove himself to Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park with a gunshot wound to the leg and who was treated and released.

DC City Council fails its residents, and the nation fails DC residents

 In These Times had a piece by Cole Stangler on the epic failure of the DC City Council to override Mayor Gray’s veto. On Tuesday, Mayor Gray vetoed the Large Retailer Accountability Act (LRAA), which would have increased DC’s minimum wage from $8.25 to $12.50. The bill would require a higher minimum wage on city retailers with $1 billion or more in revenue and 75,000 square feet or more of space. The council voted to override the veto by failed with seven votes in favor of the override and six opposed, which was two votes shy of what is needed to override a mayor’s veto.

Of course, this was a sign to local leaders (and maybe national?) because separate legislation was introduced that raises DC’s minimum wage to $10.25, and then pegs it to cost-of-living increases. This bill had nine-cointroducers.

Of course, the defeat of LRAA is a victory for Wal-mart, and possibly indicates the last bit of Mayor Gray’s soul has been taken by corporations. It was a defeat for the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) backed Respect-DC, but also really any resident in DC that works for low wages. I’m not going into too much detail about the bill or the legislative process in DC. There are a few more important things to note about the bill though. First, seventy-one percent of DC voters support the bill. Secondly, Wal-mart was terrified of this bill. They threatened not to open the stores they promised, threatened they wouldn’t be able to hire as many people, etc, and they mounted a serious campaign against the bill.

DC has record inequity, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who lives here. After all class stratification is happening everywhere, but in DC it is evident in every aspect. However, there is cause for some hope after all New York City just elected a “progressive” (enough) Mayor who backs wage reform. So this could be a sign that government leaders are going to have to sign on with living wages or risk losing elections. I never thought I’d write that line. Finally, backers of the bill say they are going to push for a living wage regardless of this defeat.

Because we’re talking about DC, I thought I’d bring up the shooting at Navy Yard on Monday morning. That was horrifying. As awful as it sounds, I’m getting used to this. There is always some mass tragedy happening now, and it is hard to generate enough anger anymore. That said, I also don’t have cable (one day I’ll share my thoughts on Comcast and their monopoly) so all I know is the local reaction to the shooting via local news sites and social media sites. Everyone I know in DC reacted the way people always do in tragedies, but then I read a piece on the shooting, which we’ll get to in a moment, and it occurred to me: my family and friends in Ohio, West Virginia, California who didn’t have ties to the community had nothing to say.

The post I read is entitled “This Town,” and it was posted by Cynthia from Brunch Bird. I wanted to post an excerpt from the piece that really resonated with a lot of people in DC:

“Unless you know us personally, the men and women who work and live here [DC] are considered faceless, pointless bureaucrats. They pay taxes and do not have a vote in Congress. Our work and our city is held up as a symbol of everything wrong with politics, government, media. Tourists from Real America come here and ask us for directions on Metro or to snap a photo of their family in front of a landmark and then they go home and talk about how terrible ‘Washington’ is. Nice to meet you, too.

“A New York Times writer just sold a lot of books by reducing us to a catchphrase: This Town. That he opened the book by making fun of a man’s funeral here spoke volumes, and foreshadowed the non-reaction to what happened yesterday.”

Cynthia then goes on to note, no one changed their profile pictures to ribbons on Monday. No one said the nation stands “D.C. Strong.” She has a point. The nation doesn’t seem so broken up that twelve people were murdered Monday in DC.

“When 12 people are massacred in This Town, our nation shrugs collectively and offers justifications for its apathy that all translate to: ‘There’s a viable reason we don’t care too much.’

“Beyond the Beltway, our fellow Americans can be forgiven for not knowing the geography of the city. For not knowing that everything here happens within a few miles. That the site of the massacre is about a block from a park where we all take our kids to splash in the fountain. What cannot be forgiven, if it persists, is the dehumanization of an entire town and the disinterest when 12 of its residents do not make it home at night.”

I first read this when my friend F posted it. Her husband works in that building. He’s fine, and she knew pretty quickly that he was. He was in another building when it happened. But I have to wonder where is the outrage? Where are those clamoring for gun control, not that I think we’ll get it, but where are they? Why are the lives in DC less? I have a few theories that go beyond Cynthia’s assert that the nation thinks of DC residents as faceless, nameless bureaucrats. That is true, but as mentioned in the beginning of this post, there are two DCs. There is the wealthy DC, and the murder of those citizens should spark outrage, and those were the victims Monday. Then there is the DC like Chicago; the DC in poverty and no one mourns on a national scale because those victims are seen as less. After all no one is mourning those in Chicago the way they mourn the victims of mass gun violence.

“Lambs to the slaughter here”

I spend the first few minutes every morning reading The Nation, and there is always something awesome to discuss. This morning it was Patricia J. Williams’ article entitled, “The War on Drugs Is a War on Kids.” I should probably state I really hate the war on drugs. I see it as nothing more than a racist, sexist, and classist system used to oppress people, specifically poor men of color. The title quote is from The Wire, season 4 when our boys start school. Say what you want about my deep love of Stringer, but reading about the “school-to-prison pipeline” immediately makes me think of that show.

Williams begins her piece by depicting the differences between the privileged and the impoverished. Students at university are surrounded by pot and amphetamine while poor students in public schools endure a police presences daily complete with drug-sniffing dogs, full-body pat downs, searches of bags and lockers, and hallway stops.

Williams says: “Drugs are ubiquitous in this county, and yet we know that some people have the privilege of doctor-prescribed intoxication, while other are thrown into dungeons for seeking the same relief. We know that the war on drugs is heavily inflected with Jim Crow-ism, economic inequality, gun culture myths and political opportunism. We know that Adam Lanza’s unfortunate mother was not the sole Newtown resident stocking up on military-style weapons; plenty of suburban gun owners keep similar weapons to protect their well-kept homes against darkly imagined, drug0addled marauders from places like Bridgeport. We divert resources from mental health or rehab, and allocate millions to militarize schools. The result: the war on drugs has metastasized into a war on children.”

Yeah. This is actually my nightmare that these gun grabbing people are actually buying into the same stand your ground garbage that killed Trayvon Martin. You know, men of color are coming to your neighborhood with their drugs to get you. This logic is obviously rooted in racism; I doubt a black man would get away with murder under stand your ground. Williams provides summaries of the daily situations for young people in Meridian, Mississippi and New York City. She also continues to draw parallels with Newtown. Of particular note, police officers outnumber guidance counselors in New York City by 2,000.

Williams then discusses how we handle guns in the US, and posits that we should consider treating drugs the way we do guns. Even the best efforts of gun control will not overcome the installation of armed overseers in public schools. Why haven’t the left opposed to the war on drugs not employ the same tactics as the guns nuts? There are just too many we can’t get them all so no regulation at all *sarcasm*. Well I obviously don’t support that. I think treatment over incarceration, and that the punishment should fit the crime, so no more harsher penalties for drugs traditionally used by the low-income while people abusing prescription meds get a pass.

Williams continues to depict public education in low-income neighborhood in a way that can only be described as chilling, “This ‘school-to-prison pipeline’ has emerged suddenly. Over just the last two decades, we got scared. We sent guns and billy clubs into our schools on purpose. We provided federal funds for massive surveillance systems—for cameras like they have in Oakland, monitoring every inch of school life from a command center. We slashed budgets for books, salaries, computers, psychologists, librarians, and buildings. We dealt with classroom overcrowding by segregating those with learning difficulties, shunting them into tracks where they have no chance.”

Then the article discusses the use of metrics like testing where teachers lose pay or their jobs over test scores without any concern about the difficulties in the students’ lives; the teachers are solely held responsible. Williams concludes by pointing out while the easy targets are low-income kids of color it won’t be long before these tactics find their way into suburban schools as well.

Sandy Hook

I’m not really sure what to say about the massacre on Friday except that no one should be shot and killed regardless of age, gender, sex, race, class, sexuality, etc. Yeah, the list can go on and on. A few things did strike me particularly the discussions around mental illness and disbelieve that something like this could happen. I don’t plan on diving into either topic at length.

We should have accessible mental health services for everyone. The End. But everyone with a mental illness doesn’t kill people. Actually the mentally ill are more likely to be the victims of violent crime; we see it all the time with the homeless.

Secondly, the idea that something like this shouldn’t have happened here implies that there are places where this is acceptable. I wonder where? Intimate partnerships where one partner plays for the NFL? Poor black communities? Pakistan? This shouldn’t happen anywhere. It shouldn’t be perpetrated by white teenage boys (who may be mentally ill), intimate partners, gangs, or the US military (or CIA).

This is unacceptable behavior. Personally, I think this is the time we address the lack of fire-arm regulations in this country. I think we should also make mental health services available, and take a good hard look at the culture where these acts of violence have become commonplace. That means dismantling masculinity that promotes violence, ceasing violent foreign policy, and perhaps even pulling back the unquestioned funding of military weaponry.

This link takes you to information about Sandy Hook heroes, those who were murdered protecting children.