Thursday, December 27th, 2018
Stephan: Several months ago I covered a Forbes article on the trillions of tax dollars sucked up by the military industrial complex of corporations and unaccounted for; just writing this sentence leaves me gobsmacked. Here is an update. When you read this think about the 16 million children in the U.S. who struggle with a lack of food and hunger each year because we supposedly have no money for food support.
Credit: Dominik Meissner / Flickr
New York Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was ruthlessly attacked recently, and I feel a bit responsible. I might have accidentally tainted her Twitter feed with truth serum.
But that sounds weird—so let me back up.
A few months ago, I covered the story of the $21 trillion that has gone unaccounted for at the Pentagon. That’s right—trillion with a T—an amount of money you can’t possibly come to terms with, so stop trying. Seriously, stop. It’s like trying to comprehend the age of the earth.
(The earth is 4.5 billion years old. To put that into context, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we have 11 years left to completely change our ways or climate change will make the earth uninhabitable. If you were to take the age of the earth and lay it out on the span of a calendar year, this means we would have less than a millisecond left on Dec. 31 to utterly change our ways or all is lost.)
Anyway, the $21 trillion includes $6.5 trillion unaccounted for at the Pentagon […]
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Wednesday, December 26th, 2018
Jake Johnson, Staff Writer - Common Dreams
Stephan: It's Christmas time in America and our government directed by our vulgar criminal president is behaving like ... read this story then ask yourself what adjective comes to mind?
I'm tired of this inhumanity. It repulses me. There is no justification for what this article describes, but it is a powerful lesson. When you studied the Nazis in school did you ask yourself how did the workers in the camps that slaughtered millions live with themselves? I certainly did. It seemed unimaginable to me. Surely Americans could never behave in such a way, I thought. And yet... A second child this month died in custody, one of over 14,000 children now being held in concentration camps for no crime other than their brown skin, and wanting to escape their violent failed societies. As ICE and the Customs Bureau prove, getting Americans to behave in heartless ugly life-destroying ways is easy; just give them a little authority and a paycheck and you discover there are lots of Americans willing to do this nasty work. It is time we acknowledge this about ourselves and stand against such policies, and shun such people.
Members of a caravan of Central Americans who spent weeks traveling across Mexico walk from Mexico to the U.S. side of the border to ask authorities for asylum on April 29, 2018 in Tijuana, Baja California Norte, Mexico.
Credit: David McNew/Getty
“ICE, without a scintilla of human empathy, just dropped more than 200 migrants at an El Paso, Texas bus station a day before Christmas, leaving families with no money or food, most of whom do not speak English and have no means of communication.”
Without notifying local charities and shelters, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) quietly released hundreds of asylum-seekers from federal custody on Christmas Eve, leaving them at an El Paso, Texas bus stop without money, food, or anywhere to go.
According to the Texas Tribune, ICE “agents began dropping off the migrants late Sunday at a local bus station without warning local shelters that usually take in large groups after they seek asylum and are released by federal agents. About 200 arrived Sunday, about 200 more arrived Monday and the total number could […]
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Wednesday, December 26th, 2018
Julian Borger , - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: I find in conversation with almost every American with whom I speak that they do not understand or even know the role America played in creating the conditions in Central America that have led to refugees fleeing their countries and trying to come to the United States. So here's a little background.
In the new year we need to go into the streets to demonstrate against what the government is doing. The only thing that changes government policies is the concerted intention acted upon by masses of Americans that change must occur, and be life-affirming.
Central America’s inequality and violence, in which the US has long played a role, is driving people to leave their homes.
Credit: Carlos García Rawlins/Reuters
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Jakelin Caal Maquín, the seven-year-old Guatemalan girl who died this month in US custody, is the latest victim of a long, dysfunctional relationship between the US and its southern neighbours that has cost countless lives over the past half-century.
The forces driving ordinary people to leave their homes and put their lives at risk crossing deserts with smugglers to get to the US border are deeply rooted in Central America’s history of inequality and violence, in which the US has long played a defining role.
The flow of migrants trying to cross the border illegally is not all blowback from US foreign policy. Much of the poverty, injustice and murder in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras is homegrown, harking back to the age of Spanish conquest. Small criminal elites have long prospered at […]
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Wednesday, December 26th, 2018
Marisa Fernandez, - Axios
Stephan: Most publications at Christmas time publish "feel good" stories of cute children, cuddly animals, and happy families. I have a rather different view. I think Christmas and the New Year are a time when we should be taking stock of who we are and making commitments as to how we can change to improve our country. How we can stop things like the action described in this article, and replace such policies, with policies that will make our society more compassionate, life-affirming, and fostering of wellbeing.
A woman uses an electronic benefits transfer card to buy groceries in Portland, Maine.
Credit: Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald
The Trump administration announced a plan Thursday to use its executive power to tighten the work requirements for the nation’s food assistance program, the Washington Post reports.
What’s happening: Americans without dependents are required to work if they collect food stamps for three months in a three-year period, but that requirement is scrapped if they live in an area where the unemployment rate is 20% higher than the national average — currently 3.7%. The Trump administration wants to allow the waiver to stand only in areas with an unemployment rate above 7%, which could force hundreds of thousands of Americans out of the program.
Tougher food assistance requirements were part of the House’s version of the farm bill, but they were not included in the Senate version, which is expected to cross President Trump’s desk today.
- Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue defended the policy on a […]
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Wednesday, December 26th, 2018
Molly Harbarger, Reporter - The Oregonian
Stephan: Racism against Blacks in the United States has reached levels I would not have believed even in the late 1950s and early 60s. As you celebrate Christmas with those you love, let that love extend to people who don't look like you, and commit to fair treatment for all, regardless of gender, race, or religion. Let's become the people we claim to be in the lies we tell ourselves, about ourselves.
Jermaine Massey
Jermaine Massey had just seen Travis Scott perform at the Moda Center on Sunday night and returned to his hotel when he saw that his mother had called.
She lives on the East Coast, so he assumed if she called so late, something must be wrong. So he sat down in the lobby of the DoubleTree Hotel in the Lloyd District to take the call before going up to his room.
Massey recounted what came next in a series of Instagram videos that have gone viral. Massey, from Kent, Washington, says in them that he was targeted by a security guard because he is black and that this led to Massey being kicked out of the hotel and having to find a new one near midnight.
It was his first time in Portland.
DoubleTree management released a statement that said the whole incident was a misunderstanding and that the hotel staff does not discriminate against people based on race.
Several people picked up the hashtag #HotelEarl after the name on the security guard’s […]
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