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The 99 Percent Politcs Part III

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Noam Chomsky: Why America and Israel Are the Greatest Threats to Peace. September 3, 2012 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. It is not easy to escape from one’s skin, to see the world differently from the way it is presented to us day after day. But it is useful to try. Let’s take a few examples. The war drums are beating ever more loudly over Iran. Iran is carrying out a murderous and destructive low-level war against Israel with great-power participation. Iranian leaders are therefore announcing their intention to bomb Israel, and prominent Iranian military analysts report that the attack may happen before the U.S. elections.

Iran can use its powerful air force and new submarines sent by Germany, armed with nuclear missiles and stationed off the coast of Israel. All unimaginable, of course, though it is actually happening, with the cast of characters reversed. Like its patron, Israel resorts to violence at will. Corporate Welfare vs. Social Welfare Statistics. Time Magazine, Vol. 152 No. 19 About $59 billion is spent on traditional social welfare programs. $92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent 50% more on corporate welfare than it did on food stamps and housing assistance in 2006. Before we look at the details, a heartfelt plea from the Save the CEO’s Charitable Trust: There’s so much suffering in the world.

“It felt like a slap in the face. It doesn’t have to be this way. For just $93 billion a year the federal government is able to provide a better life for these CEO’s and their families. Definition: social welfare n. When one thinks about government welfare, the first thing that comes to mind is the proverbial welfare queen sitting atop her majestic throne of government cheese issuing a royal decree to her clamoring throngs of illegitimate babies that they may shut the hell up while she tries to watch Judge Judy. TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) Graph Source: n. A Highlight and Note by SpiritMoon from a Personal Document. Large, Profitable Companies Employ Most Minimum-Wage Earners. A female Walmart employee goes down an aisle, stocking shelves, Tuesday, June 22, 2004 in Warminster, Pennsylvania. Walmart employs 1.4 million Americans and a vast majority of them at wages under $10 per hour. (Photo: William Thomas Cain / The New York Times)If you’ve ever had a conversation about the minimum wage with friends and family, you invariably hear an argument about how raising it would hurt small businesses.

There is compelling academic research that increasing the minimum wage doesn’t dramatically impact employment levels, but a new study underscores another important point—most people earning minimum wage work for large, profitable corporations. The National Employment Law Project looked at Census data from 2009–11 and found that 66 percent of low-wage workers are employed by large businesses with over 100 employees. Moreover, it found that the fifty largest employers of low-wage workers have all recovered from the recession and are in strong financial positions:

Poverty: The New Growth Industry in America. Recent trends in poverty rates should have the country furious at its leaders. When we get the data for 2011 next month, we are likely to see yet another uptick in poverty rates, reversing almost 50 years of economic progress. The percentage of people in extreme poverty, with incomes less than half of the poverty level, is likely to again hit an all-time high since the data has been collected.

The situation is made even worse by the fact that so many of those in poverty are children. In 2010, 27 percent of all children in the country were reported as living below the poverty level. For African-American children, the share in poverty is approaching 40 percent. Many will blame the welfare reform law in 1996 that passed with bipartisan support. Advocates of this bill who now profess surprise at the result need to turn to a new line of work. However, there is the other side of the story, the overall state of the economy, which is the more important cause of the increase in the poverty rate. Goodbye, Liberty! 10 Ways Americans Are No Longer Free. August 29, 2012 | Like this article?

Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Our most fundamental rights, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, are under assault. But the adversary is Big Wealth, not Big Government as conservatives like to claim. Life? Liberty? The pursuit of happiness? These changes didn't just happen. Corey Robin notes in the Nation that this conservative appeal to “economic freedom” has been met by Democrats who present themselves as “new Victorians,” standing for “responsibilities over rights, safety over freedom, constraint rather than counterculture.” Not only is this politically and emotionally unappealing, it's demonstrably wrong. Is that how you feel when you're dealing with your bank?

While the Right portrays popularly elected government as a faceless oppressor, large corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals – what we're calling “Big Wealth” -- are trampling on our individual rights and liberties every day. 1. Fact Sheet: Paid Family and Medical Leave. SOURCE: AP/ Louis Lanzano Rabita Sarkar and her husband Aditya Saurabh pose with their newborn baby boy at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York.The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee workers paid time off to provide care to a new child.

By Sarah Jane Glynn | August 16, 2012 Fact Sheet: The Wage Gap for Women by Sarah Jane Glynn; Fact Sheet: Workplace Flexibility by Sarah Jane Glynn and Joanna Venator; Fact Sheet: Child Care by Sarah Jane Glynn; Fact Sheet: Paid Sick Days by Jane Farrell and Joanna Venator; Ask the Expert: The Need for Paid Sick Leave by Sarah Jane Glynn Download this fact sheet (pdf) Read this issue brief in your web browser (Scribd) Most Americans are working hard to pay their bills and to take care of their families, yet too many employers make it impossible to juggle those work and family obligations. About half of all workers on U.S. payrolls today are women. Fact Sheet: The Wage Gap for Women by Sarah Jane Glynn. College Students Are Going Homeless and Hungry -- And Corporate America Is Trying to Exploit Them. Photo Credit: Monkey Business Images via Shutterstock.com August 27, 2012 | Like this article?

Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. As the mainstream press frets that the much-touted "economic-recovery" appears to have lost steam, the economic crisis continues to escalate for ordinary people. With official unemployment holding steady at 9.5 percent (real unemployment is much higher), and with the state budget cuts producing yet more tuition increases, a growing phenomenon is sweeping the nation: homeless and hungry college students.

National Public Radio (NPR) reported in late July: "For many college students and their families, rising tuition costs and a tough economy are presenting new challenges as college bills come in. While no exact figures are available, the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth reports a large increase in homeless students. U.S. Annual Income Fell More During Recovery Than Recession: Study [GRAPHS] We may technically be in a recovery, but it sure doesn't feel like it. Median annual income has declined 4.8 percent from $53,508 to $50,964 since the recovery technically began in June 2009 , according to a new study from Sentier Research. That's nearly double the 2.6 percent drop during the recession. One especially hard-hit group: Americans aged 55 to 64, who saw their annual income drop nearly 10 percent. But African-Americans have felt the pain the most during the recovery as their incomes declined 11 percent. “Based on our data, almost every group is worse off now than it was three years ago,” Gordon Green, co-author of the report, wrote in a press release.

Household median income has fallen since the recovery: However, there are some groups that have actually been faring better since the beginning of the recovery; Americans over 65 saw their income levels rise. Still, another recent report has shown that America's middle class has been shrinking since 2008. Loading Slideshow 10. A Highlight and Note by SpiritMoon from a Personal Document. Find It By Topic - Work Hours - Breaks and Meal Periods. Breaks & Meal Periods Federal law does not require lunch or coffee breaks.

However, when employers do offer short breaks (usually lasting about 5 to 20 minutes), federal law considers the breaks as compensable work hours that would be included in the sum of hours worked during the work week and considered in determining if overtime was worked. Unauthorized extensions of authorized work breaks need not be counted as hours worked when the employer has expressly and unambiguously communicated to the employee that the authorized break may only last for a specific length of time, that any extension of the break is contrary to the employer's rules, and any extension of the break will be punished. Bona fide meal periods (typically lasting at least 30 minutes), serve a different purpose than coffee or snack breaks and, thus, are not work time and are not compensable.

DOL Web Pages on This Topic Wage and Hour Division's Frequently Asked Questions Answers questions about breaks. Living Paycheck To Paycheck: Two-Thirds Of Americans Are Struggling To Get By. SAN ANTONIO, Sept 19 (Reuters) - More than two-thirds of Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck, according to a survey released on Wednesday by the American Payroll Association. The survey of 30,600 people found that 68 percent said it would be somewhat difficult or very difficult if their paychecks were delayed for a week. These results show Americans are still struggling with the recession's effects, the association said. "This study clearly shows that Americans are finding it hard to save," said Dan Maddux, executive director of the San Antonio-based association of payroll managers.

In 2006, 65 percent of respondents reported living paycheck to paycheck, a figure that shot up to 72 percent in 2010 in the wake of the recession. The survey was released during a week when a video of Republican Mitt Romney sparked a national conversation about the 47 percent of Americans who, Romney told donors, don't pay income taxes and are dependent on government. "Cable used to be a luxury. Shocking Report Explodes 5 Myths About American Education. September 18, 2012 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. A new international report demolishes several deeply held myths about our educational system. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report, which compares the educational systems of over 30 developed nations, provides data that, when it comes to education, proves we’re so far from being number one, that the entire idea of American exceptionalism should be called into question.

Rather than thumping our chests, we should be going to school on how other developed nations, especially those in Europe, invest in education. Myth #1: Our educational system provides more upward mobility than any other in the world. It’s practically a sacred oath to proclaim that we lead the world in upward mobility. Not true, says the OECD report. Just how low is our ranking? Myth #2: Our teachers (protected by their greedy unions) work less and get paid more. Wrong! 10 Questions to Help Determine if Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened. Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com September 9, 2012 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. It seems like this election season "religious liberty" is a hot topic. Rumors of its demise are all around, as are politicians who want to make sure that you know they will never do anything to intrude upon it.

I'm a religious person with a lifelong passion for civil rights, so this is of great interest to me. 1. A) I am not allowed to go to a religious service of my own choosing. 2. A) I am not allowed to marry the person I love legally, even though my religious community blesses my marriage. 3. A) I am being forced to use birth control. 4. A) I am not allowed to pray privately. 5. A) Being a member of my faith means that I can be bullied without legal recourse. 6.

A) I am not allowed to purchase, read or possess religious books or material. 7. A) My religious group is not allowed equal protection under the establishment clause. 8. 9. 10. A Highlight and Note by SpiritMoon from a Personal Document. Knit a Uterus to Donate to a Congressman in Need. Occupy's New Offshoot Set to Cancel Millions in Medical Debts.

Click here to support news free of corporate influence by donating to Truthout. Help us reach our fundraising goal so we can continue doing this work! (Photo: Steve Rhodes / Flickr)Medical debt is the cause of 62 percent of bankruptcies, say organizers of Strike Debt, which threw last night's offbeat fundraiser for their new “Rolling Jubilee.” Ordinary people donated enough money to collectively buy an estimated $5.9 million in bad debt in order to cancel it. On the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street's eviction from Zuccotti Park, celebrity and local performers donated their time for a "post-modern variety show" last night at Manhattan's Le Poisson Rouge nightclub. The tactic is to buy private debt the same way collection companies do—on the debt market, at tiny fractions of its original worth—and then cancel it in hopes of freeing debtors from their piled-up medical bills.

Of the money raised this week, Strike Debt has already spent $5,000 on purchasing medical debt. No Conspiracy Theory -- A Small Group of Companies Have Enormous Power Over the World. October 31, 2012 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. In October of 2011, New Scientist reported that a scientific study on the global financial system was undertaken by three complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. The conclusion of the study revealed what many theorists and observers have noted for years, decades, and indeed, even centuries: “An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.” As one of the researchers stated, “Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it’s conspiracy theories or free-market… Our analysis is reality-based.”

The mapping of ‘power’ was through the construction of a model showing which companies controlled which other companies through shareholdings. Legalising marijuana: The view from Mexico. How Someone Could Win The Popular Vote And Electoral College, But Still Lose The Election. How Higher Education in the US Was Destroyed in 5 Basic Steps. Photo Credit: Steven Frame via Shutterstock.com A few years back, Paul E.

Lingenfelter began his report on the defunding of public education by saying, “In 1920 H.G. Wells wrote, ‘History is becoming more and more a race between education and catastrophe.’ In the last few years, conversations have been growing like gathering storm clouds about the ways in which our universities are failing. To explain my perspective here, I need to go back in time. I suspect that, given the opportunity, those groups would have liked nothing more than to shut down the universities. So: here is the recipe for killing universities, and you tell me if what I’m describing isn’t exactly what is at the root of all the problems of our country’s system of higher education.

Step I: Defund public higher education. Again, from Anna Victoria: Under the guise of many “conflicts,” such as budget struggles, or quotas, defunding was consistently the result. Step IV: Move in corporate culture and corporate money. Reclaiming Socialism,or: Economic Democracy (Recovering a Stolen Word): Brian Rush: Amazon.com. Facebook. HILARIOUS! Jon Stewart Cracks Up While Destroying Fox News. TN House votes to allow criminal prosecution for harming embryos. The real drug kingpins are on Wall Street. The Twinkie Manifesto. How The Government Chops Up Your Tax Dollar.

Facebook. Why Free Birth Control Will Not Hike the Cost of Your Insurance. The Most Disturbing Quote Of The Week From Ann Romney. Debt Collectors in the E.R. and Delivery Room: Is Profit-Driven Medicine at a Breakpoint? Facebook. Facebook. Conservatives’ War On Children And Young Adults. Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell vote against the Violence Against Women Act – FatLip. Anonymous: Message to United States Citizens [CISPA] Student Loan Interest Rate Bill That Cuts Health Care Program Passes House.

Real Time With Bill Maher New Rules April 27, 2012. Facebook. Poor Economy Tied To Rise In Domestic Violence, Survey Finds.