food stamps

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is relevant these days with many in Congress playing the role of Scrooge before he was visited by the Christmas spirits. Dickens was greatly concerned about the plight of children forced to work under dreadful conditions and about the lives of the poor in Britain under industrial capitalism in the 1840s.
Pope Francis recently echoed these ideas when he expressed concern about unfettered capitalism. The Pope also called on world leaders to address poverty and growing inequality. Specifically, he said:

House Republicans may not have "the time" to vote on important measures with wide popular support like comprehensive immigration reform, ending workplace discrimination against the LGBT community (ENDA) or raising the minimum wage-- none of which Boehner will allow onto the 2013 schedule-- but they do have time to further attempt to steal the food out of the mouths of children by

Earlier today I got into a bit of a revery about my days working at the Rainbow Cattle Company and the Cinch in San Francisco. What I didn't get into is that it was part-time work and the pay didn't even cover my meager pre-gentrified Mission District rent. Without food stamps… well, I don't know what I would have done. Certainly not start a record label that led to eventual payments of millions of dollars in taxes into the U.S. Treasury.

The Republican position on food stamps is to cut the program back by $40 billion. If the U.S. had a political party that represented working families instead of just wealthy campaign donors, it's position would be to raise taxes on multi-millionaires to stimulate the economy and get people off food stamps by providing a vibrant economy that creates jobs.

John Mica (R-FL), no friend of veteransToday, every candidate and every congressmember who ever managed to get their grubby paws on my e-mail address-- both parties-- sent out Veterans Day greetings. They were all pretty much the same pious ass-kissing, many from conservatives who expect the most from the military and who had actually voted against veterans over and over again.

As you probably noticed, progressives have been up in arms because Steve Israel and the DCCC have recruited Jennifer Garrison, "the Sarah Palin of Ohio," to run for Congress… as a Democrat. Most of the complaints have come from women's groups over Garrison's fanatic anti-Choice history and from LGBT groups because of her similarly fanatic history as an anti-gay crusader. Having been in the state legislature she has a long and sordid record on these, as well as environmental and ethical issues.

You probably saw the anti-union, food stamp-cutting governor of Ohio, John Kasich, publicly bitching the other day that his political party is engaged in a merciless war against the poor. “I’m concerned," said Kasich, "about the fact there seems to be a war on the poor. That, if you’re poor, somehow you’re shiftless and lazy.” He may well have had Republican House budget chairman and class warrior Paul Ryan in mind.

The Ted Cruz/Koch brothers-inspired government shutdown cost the American taxpayers an unfocused and gratuitous $24 billion. Conservatives in Congress can at least tell them selves they're recouping part of that loss by cutting back on food stamps.

Earlier I was criticizing Beltway Democrats for hypocrisy. Maybe I just should have said Beltway politicians. It was hard to watch Tennessee Republican Stephen Fincher, a Methodist gospel singer aside from the congressman for the 8th district (Jackson, Germantown, Dyersburg and the whole western part of the state minus Memphis), voting to cut $40 billion from the food stamp program for the neediest American families.

On Thursday Justin Amash (R-MI) told a crowd of libertarians at the Liberty Political Action Conference that Senators John McCain (R-AZ), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) "are on the extreme fringes of American society in terms of their views on war.” Amash is correct about McCain and Graham but this week he voted to slash $40 billio