Rep. Jack Kingston Proposes That Poor Students Sweep Floors In Exchange For Lunch. WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) wants kids to learn early in life that there's no such thing as a free lunch. To make sure they absorb that lesson, he's proposing that low-income children do some manual labor in exchange for their subsidized meals. On Saturday, Kingston, who is vying to be his party's nominee in Georgia's Senate race next year, spoke at a meeting of the Jackson County Republican Party about the federal school lunch program.
Under that program, children from families with incomes at or below 130 percent of the poverty line are eligible for free meals. Students from families with incomes between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty level can receive lunches at reduced prices. But on Saturday, Kingston came out against free lunches, saying that children should have to pay at least a nominal amount or do some work like sweeping cafeteria floors. Watch Kingston's remarks in the video above. Ted Cruz isn't far from the only Tea Party nut. There's plenty more of them | Ana Marie Cox. It's instructive to remember that when the Tea Party first began to gather steam, the name referred to a "party" in the celebration sense – the Boston Tea Party, specifically: an event of planned chaos, a protest that masqueraded as an Indian attack. Over time, the name has lost its punny puckishness much as the movement has steadily shifted from a proudly anacharical – even populist – response and rebellion within the GOP to a smoothly functioning alternative to it.
The government shutdown proved that attempts by the GOP establishment to co-opt the Tea Party as a source of energy just created a network of political sleeper agents. With its own mechanism for drafting (and supporting) candidates, its own agenda, and its own media eco-system, the Tea Party is a third party by almost any criteria but ballot affiliation – and leadership. For when that happens: here's a look at some of the Tea Party's once and perhaps future leaders. Most likely to succeed: Sarah Palin. How's Obamacare Turning Out? Great If You Live in a Blue State, and 'Screw You' If You Have a Republican Governor. Photo Credit: Andy Dean Photography/ Shutterstock.com May 25, 2013 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email.
Obamacare implementation is becoming the latest dividing line between blue- and red-state America, with Democrat-led states making progress to expand healthcare to the uninsured and the poor—and Republican-led states saying "screw you" to millions of their most vulnerable and needy residents. The latest sign of the Republican Party’s increasingly secessionist tendencies comes as Obamacare passed a major milestone in California, which late last week announced lower-than-expected healthcare premiums for its 5.3 million uninsured, less than many small businesses now pay in group plans. The federal government plans to step in later this summer and offer uninsured people in recalcitrant red states the option of buying plans via federally run heath care exchanges. Progress in Blue States. Social Security's Explosive Injustices. (Image: Woman covers face via Shutterstock) People over 65, a growing share of the US population, are suffering a crisis-ridden capitalist system.
High unemployment, reduced private pensions, fewer job benefits, less job security, high personal debt levels, and falling real wages make Social Security payments more important than ever. Yet President Obama and Congress recently agreed to bargain over how much to reduce Social Security payments from current levels. That would not only hurt seniors - but also the children who help them. Consider these statistics covering 2010 [New York Times, April 20, pp B1 and B4]. Cutting Social Security is an outrageous injustice that may provoke historic shifts and splits in the political landscape. Since its 1935 beginning, the Social Security system has collected trillions in payroll taxes, half paid by employees and half by employers. Worse still: Wage and salary earners had to pay excess payroll taxes for the last several decades. Mad Men - By David Rothkopf. America is rightly on edge.
When a man with the power to make life-or-death decisions affecting thousands of U.S. citizens recklessly shows contempt for decency and international norms of behavior, it is no wonder the American people would be both angry and fearful. When his threats are so clearly contrary to the interests of those he represents and even those who might otherwise support him, it is natural to wonder whether he has somehow become unhinged. But we should react calmly. We should not let such disregard for the public good and such an imminent threat to the lives of so many of our neighbors and our children cloud our thinking. The mad man must be stopped. And nothing underscores the grotesque nature of the threat he poses than the existence of another mad man seeking the spotlight at the very same time. But Kim Jong Un is no Mitch McConnell. Let's put the threats in perspective. This is not a public safety issue. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
Obamacare Faces Near-Solid Block In The South. ATLANTA -- As more Republicans give in to President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul, an opposition bloc remains across the South, including from governors who lead some of the nation's poorest and unhealthiest states. "Not in South Carolina," Gov. Nikki Haley declared at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. "We will not expand Medicaid on President Obama's watch. We will not expand Medicaid ever. " Widening Medicaid insurance rolls, a joint federal-state program for low-income Americans, is an anchor of the law Obama signed in 2010.
But states get to decide whether to take the deal, and from Virginia to Texas – a region encompassing the old Confederacy and Civil War border states – Florida's Rick Scott is the only Republican governor to endorse expansion, and he faces opposition from his GOP colleagues in the legislature. Tennessee's Bill Haslam, the Deep South's last governor to take a side, added his name to the opposition on Wednesday. Have We Ever Gotten to the Bottom of Exactly 'Why' Bush and the Neocons Disastrously Invaded Iraq? March 22, 2013 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. A decade after President George W. Bush ordered the unprovoked invasion of Iraq, one of the enduring mysteries has been why. There have been other more plausible explanations: George Bush the Younger wanted to avenge a perceived slight to George Bush the Elder, while also outdoing his father as a “war president”; Vice President Dick Cheney had his eye on Iraq’s oil wealth; and the Republican Party saw an opportunity to create its “permanent majority” behind a glorious victory in the Middle East.
Though George W. That rationale has often been dressed up as “democratizing” the Middle East, but the idea was more a form of “neocolonialism,” in which American proconsuls would make sure that a favored leader, like the Iraqi National Congress’ Ahmed Chalabi, would control each country and align the nations’ positions with the interests of the United States and Israel. Neocons Celebrate. White House Tours Remain The Only Sequestration Casualty Anyone Cares About. Life isn’t easy. It’s filled with many inconveniences. The train doesn’t run on time. You shelled out a few hundred bucks to see a Broadway show and you got the understudy.
There’s raay-ayy-ayyn, on your wedding day. Of course, life is also filled with what I would call “problems.” So, where on the inconvenience-to-problem spectrum would you put “a bunch of White House tours have been canceled"? The White House tours situation is the one-day story that ate the world. Keep in mind that all members of the White House press corps are ostensibly real-live human beings with free will and the tacit permission to ask Carney just about any question they want in the world. In a perfect world, we could have a fully staffed Secret Service and White House tours. In a twist that I can only describe as deeply strange, the press has decided that pursuing the White House tours story is something approaching journalistic heroism. But I’ve got news for you guys! Also on HuffPost: Latin America takes action to decriminalize abortion. This month is the 40th anniversary of one of the most important legal decisions of our time: Roe v. Wade. This legislative victory changed the course of history for women not only in the United States, but also throughout the world.
It provided a framework for sexual and reproductive rights used by advocates from San Francisco to Santiago, and the past year yielded significant progress on abortion rights in Latin America. For decades, advocates in Latin America have come together to demand that governments decriminalize abortion, provide access to safe and legal abortion services, and bring an end to the stigma faced by women who have had an abortion.
The region has some of the most restrictive laws against abortion in the world. These policies have major implications for the health and well being of Latin American women and families. Women who are poor and live in rural areas are disproportionately affected. Mandy Van Deven is a writer, advocate, and online media strategist. Hagel hearings reinforce congressional support for whatever Israel does. OWLS HEAD, Maine — The Senate Armed Services Committee — surely one of the most important committees in what we euphemistically refer to as the Upper House of our Congress — gave a nice, day-long display at the end of last week as to why Congress's approval rating, in a new survey, remained in single digits.
The committee was questioning former Senator Chuck Hagel to assess his qualifications to become Secretary of Defense. While Hagel seemed somewhat nonplused by the aggressive questioning and its bizarre focus, it's too bad some of the questioning senators weren't also undergoing job scrutiny because they surely would have flunked the test. These will be years when China's unsurprising interest in expanding its influence in Asia may collide with the growing nationalism of a Japan generations removed from World War II. Momentous years. So how did some of the Senate's finest minds seek to evaluate Hagel's qualifications? McCain: "I would like an answer, yes or no? " 'Judge Me On My Record,' Says David Cameron. So We Did... "I want to be judged," David Cameron told Andrew Marr on his Sunday show.
"I'm very happy to be judged on the record that I have as Prime Minister over the last five years. " Alright then, Dave... (Created by David Schneider, Andrea Mann and David Beresford) "I want my fair share--and that's ALL OF IT": The Kochs & the XL Pipeline. Wisconsin | Rep. Paul Ryan says small businesses are now taxed at higher rate than corporations. Emerging after a quiet post-election period, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan sat for questions from David Gregory, moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, who posited that many business owners want Washington to cut a fiscal deal that includes tax increases.
Ryan begged to differ. "They believe we should have tax reform," Ryan, the 2012 GOP vice presidential candidate, said during his Jan. 27, 2013 appearance. It’s well established that the U.S. corporate tax rate of 35 percent is the highest in the world, at least on paper. But is America "taxing our small businesses now at rates higher than corporations"? The starting point here is the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, the law spawned by the New Year’s Day deal that prevented the nation from heading over the "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts that was set to trigger in 2013. Among many other things, the cliff deal left the federal corporate tax rate at 35 percent, but raised the top personal tax rate to 39.6 percent. So there is a basis for Ryan’s claim. LSE Student Daniel Wickham's Epic Tweets Expose Hypocritical World Leaders Who Attended Charlie Hebdo Rally.
Ayn Rand's Gospel of Selfishness and Billionaire Empowerment Is Plaguing America. February 7, 2013 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Thirty years after her death, Ayn Rand’s philosophy of selfishness and billionaire empowerment rules the world. It’s a remarkable achievement for an ideology that was pushed to the fringes for most of her life, and ridiculed on national television in a notorious interview with Mike Wallace.
But, it’s happened. With each new so-called Free Trade agreement – especially the very secretive Trans Pacific Partnership, which has less to do with trade and more to do with a new law of global governance for transnational corporations – Ayn Rand’s reviled “state” (or what we would call our democracy, the United States of America) is losing its power to billionaires and transnational corporations.
Ayn Rand hated governments and democracy. She divided the world into makers and takers (or what she called “looters”). On one side are the billionaires and the industrialists. Pennsylvania Republicans To Introduce New Election-Rigging Plan. By Ian Millhiser on February 4, 2013 at 9:05 am "Pennsylvania Republicans To Introduce New Election-Rigging Plan" Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Domini Pileggi (R) Last month, Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus called up “states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red” to rig future presidential elections by changing the way electoral votes are allocated.
Even as Republicans in key states such as Michigan, Ohio, Florida and Virginia came out against this election-rigging plan, however, Pennsylvania Republicans have been eerily quite. How This Election-Rigging Plan Works Unlike the plan Priebus backs, the New Republican Plan would not tie electoral votes to congressional districts. Why Republicans Are Likely To Back This Election-Rigging Plan In 2011, both Pileggi and Gov. The New Republican Plan, by contrast seems designed to allay this fear among Republican U.S. Republicans Could Ram Their New Election-Rigging Plan Through In Just Four Days. Noam Chomsky, Why It's "Legal" When the U.S. Does It. Credit the Arab Spring and what’s followed in the Greater Middle East to many things, but don’t overlook American “unilateralism.” After all, if you want to see destabilization at work, there’s nothing like having a heavily armed crew dreaming about eternal global empires stomp through your neighborhood, and it’s clear enough now that whatever was let loose early in the twenty-first century won’t end soon.
If, from Tunisia and Egypt to Syria and Libya, the Arab Spring was a series of popular uprisings, it was also a series of unravelings. Two decades late, the Cold War system of great power control in the Middle East, in which the U.S. was the dominant partner and the Soviet Union the lesser one, is finally disintegrating. In any case, when you see what’s happening these days, first thank the American unilateralists of the 1990s, our own financial jihadis. They dreamed of organizing a planet subservient to American financial power and ended up, in 2008, blowing a hole in it instead. Progress Reports - ThinkProgress. Barack Obama accused of 'dark money' hypocrisy by non-disclosing nonprofit. Randy Turner: Missouri House Speaker: 'Close, Personal Constituent' Made Me a Birther.
‘Death Spiral’ States? Wyoming Wingnut Launches Unconstitutional Attack on Nonexistent Gun Laws. Outrageous: North Carolina Restaurant Owner Hands Anti-Gay Letter to Lesbian Couple. Fox "News" Claims that Algebra Classes Are a Conspiracy of Liberal Indoctrination. Fox news coin ignorance. Pat Robertson Outrage: "Hard-Nosed," "Awful Looking" Women Are Ruining Marriages! Florida Gov. Rick Scott Exaggerates Cost Of Medicaid Expansion He Opposes. Jon Stewart Asks ‘What Would Anyone Who Isn’t An A**hole Do?’ Cougartwinkie500.jpg (JPEG Image, 500×986 pixels) - Scaled (81. Redford500.jpg (JPEG Image, 500×321 pixels) Who Better To Call Out The B.S. Of The NRA Than A Police Commissioner? GOP Uses Government to Hurt, Not Help. Christian Guest Calls Rape Victim "Evil," Gets Reamed Out by Atheist Host. America's Craziest Sheriff Sends Vigilantes To Arizona Schools.
Violence Against Women Rages On. Thanks To Gerrymandering, Democrats Would Need To Win The Popular Vote By Over 7 Percent To Take Back The House. With Millions Still Waiting For Sandy Relief, Republicans Reintroduce Obamacare Repeal. Whaddya Know? Professional Economy Wrecker Alan Greenspan Is at the Heart of the Insidiious 'Fix the Debt' Campaign. One Woman’s War on Debt Gains Steam After Years in the Making. The Tea Party Mindset Still Dominates the GOP. Meet the Grandfather of the Fiscal Cliff: He Works for ALEC. The 8 Craziest Republican Legislative Proposals Of 2012. Washington's Revolving Door Is Hazardous to Our Health. Michigan ‘Right-to-Work’ Bill Is the Wrong Economics for the Middle Class. Lots Of Confused People Looked Up The Word 'Socialism' In The Dictionary Because Of The Election. Like Newt Gingrich, John Boehner May Drive the GOP Tea Party/Corporate Express Off the Cliff. Senate rejects treaty to protect disabled around the world. How To Stop The Father Of Fox News From Entering Your Living Room.
What If Religious Fanaticism Killed Someone You Love?
Publicist confirms it: Fox News banned book critical of George W. Bush - The Plum Line. Thad Cochran Seeking Gulf Coast Comeback In Runoff Against Chris McDaniel. Google and Facebook can be legally intercepted, says UK spy boss. Fight for the Future. Glenn Greenwald: how the NSA tampers with US-made internet routers. HTTPS Everywhere. Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping | World news. Terrible Net Neutrality Plan Will Get A Makeover, Still Be Terrible. Adrian Mendez Runs Girl Over Multiple Times Because She Refused Sex: Cops. NSA Spying. Google: Come on world, find the holes the spooks will find in our 'End-to-End' crypto tool.