Racism in America.... Double Standards.

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We live in a world where you have to literally watch every word you say, every action you take, every association you make for the fear that it might be considered racist or intolerant.  Recently we have seen a bombardment of front page articles, news stories, and talking points surrounding Phil Robertson and Duck Dynasty and his comments about homosexuality and the Black community.  

We have been told by the media that Phil is a terrible person because he spoke his mind and what he believed in.  He did not shame anyone, he did not mock anyone, he did not damn anyone to their death, or call for people to treat anyone any differently.  He said what he believed in and said what every liberal in this country dreads…. He said he leaves the judgment to God and he loves all his brothers and sisters.  A&E suspends him for his intolerant beliefs and the GLAAD community wants him fired.  Phil lives in America where we have the freedom of speech and the freedom to believe what we want. He is entitled to his opinions and if we are going to get up in a huff about what Mr. Robertson said, then I believe that we need to call a spade a spade and be just as upset about what happened to the Romney Family on Melissa Harris-Perry's MSNBC panel.

Ms. Harris-Perry had a panel discussion about the most memorable photos of the year and the one of the Romney's and all their grandchildren was the topic.

 Well, not so much a discussion of  the photograph itself, more like the fact that Mitt and Ann's son Ben Romney and his wife adopted a baby boy named Kieran.  Kieran also happens to be black. 

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There has been no outcry from the media or the general public for an apology, for Melissa Harris-Perry to be suspended, or for MSNBC to fire her for her actions.  In fact, the people on her panel laughed and made jokes at the expense of an innocent little boy, who was brought into a family that loves him unconditionally, and does not look at the color of his skin.  

Ms. Harris-Perry's next segment was "Is it Racist?"  Clearly, she missed that lesson in school.

Looking forward to 2014 Politics in the U.S.

Christmas is over and gone, most of us are looking at making resolutions and a new year. As we look forward to a new year, 2014 has many issues on the horizon. As we mentioned before, Congress last year was one of the least effective in decades, it has many policy questions lying in front of it. Additionally we have midterm elections.
So here are some of the thing to look at come next year:

1. Austerity, deficit spending and the debt ceiling. We saw a government shutdown last year what will happen when the debt ceiling needs to be raised again come mid February. Our debt has already passed 17 trillion dollars, what is the plan moving forward?

2. Midterm elections, many think it's a given that the house will remain in Republican hands, but how many seats will change hands? The Senate is more of a toss-up and recent polling shows Democrats and republicans in a dead heat in polling.

3. Will immigration reform or gun control be addressed? These two hot button issues affect a large population of the United States, and most people think some form of reform is needed. What will happen though, especially as both sides remain sharply divided.

4. Will the economy have a better recovery next year and will it be substantial? Unemployment continues to lag, what will be done to turn things around? What will our leaders do to improve things?

5. The vast majority of Americans support minimum wage increases, but with the current gridlock in washington, what will become of it? Should it be raised and what will the effect be?

6. Foreign policy in Iran, North Korea and Cuba what will happen here? Will Iran and North Korea be forced to abandon their Nuclear policies, will Cuba and the U.S. warm in relations?

One thing is for sure, next year won't be a boring one in the political field. Be sure to follow these issues and more next year on the Political Discussions blog.

From all of us at Political Discussions we want to wish you a  Happy New Year!

The Jobless Recovery: What the Media Isn't Telling You

As I said before, often the mainstream media doesn't report the whole truth of what is going on in our country. While they may be aware that we are still coming out of a recession, the media reports that unemployment is around 7 percent nationwide. The truth is that our unemployment is closer to 23 percent according to government shadow statistics.

The 7 percent number makes things not sound as bad right? Well that's because it doesn't include people who have been out of work for more than a year, those in part-time positions who’d prefer full-time jobs and people who are so discouraged that they’ve stopped looking for work. This is the lie that the media is telling you.

What you haven’t heard is jobless claims unexpectedly went up 40,000 more than expected last week. Initial claims were at a seasonally adjusted 379,000 according to the Labor Department. That is the highest level since march and it was the second straight week that claims have risen.

Additionally, More than 4.4 million people received unemployment benefits in the week ended Nov. 30, the latest data available. That was 600,000 more than the previous week. The majority of recent college graduates cannot find work in their field, and many who are often are underemployed.

For those who are job hunting, many are ending up at temp agencies, hoping somehow to get enough money to pay next month's rent. But that'll be one more job added to payrolls next month, when that college grad starts temping for 9 dollars an hour.

To top it off, congress was the least productive it has been in decades, and is considered to be the worst ever according to a recent CNN poll. Between government shutdowns and debt ceiling debates it's clear that our leaders aren't focused on helping us.

So what has the media been focused on? Well let's see, Mega Millions, Duck Dynasty, Miley Cyrus, not to mention the whole Black/White  Santa scandal, all of which the CNN, MSNBC and FOX News have spent countless hours debating, discussing and picking apart every detail.

We need to wake up to what is going on in America, unemployment and underemployment are much higher than we are being told, and there must be further discussion on what can be done to solve these problems by the media and our leaders.

FEC Vastly Underfunded, Allowing Corporate Interests to Rule

It is no surprise to anyone that money is flooding into federal elections in the post-Citizens United era.  The surprise is how little of it is being regulated. The agency tasked with monitoring and regulating all elections is severely limited due to staff cuts and partisan bickering.

The commission over the past year has reached an all-time low in its ability to reach consensus, stalling action on dozens of rulemaking decisions, as well as audit and enforcement matters, some of which are years old.

Additionally, partisan bickering among the appointed commissioners has led to a drop in agency fines for political committees that break election rules. In 2006 the FEC assessed a total of more than $6.7 million in fines. By 2012, however due to the inefficiency of the agency, it collected less than $1 million in fines.

Despite dramatic increases in election spending sped up by key Supreme Court decisions, the agency’s funding has remained flat for five years and staffing levels have fallen to a 15-year low overall.

Analysts who are charged with scouring disclosure reports to ensure candidates and political action committees are complying with laws have a nearly quarter-million-page backlog. One of the aims of the agency was to have all non-presidential committee audits finished 10 months after the election. At 10 months only 27% had been completed.

The agency is also seriously out of date when it comes to online donations, where few regulations have been put into place. The FEC does not require donations under $200 to be reported.

This means that $1.8 million of the donations received by Obama in September of 2012 required no associated names or addresses because they were under the $200 limit. This lack of regulation could easily allow corporations and foreign donors to make donations illegally, threatening the credibility of our election system.

In election after election, record amounts of money continue to be spent on campaigns. Last year topped 6 billion dollars, more than half of which was spent on the presidential campaign.

With more money flowing into politics, issues such as partisan divides and low staffing affecting the FEC one thing is for sure: this is a recipe for disaster.

So why does this matter so much? In 2010 only 9 House challengers who spent under $1 million won their seats. Similarly, in most presidential elections the winner is the one who raises the most.

This type of system, an increasingly plutocratic one, leads to corruption, where our leaders do the bidding of those who fund their campaigns. While our nation was designed to be secured with a system of checks and balances, we are now being ruled by whoever writes the biggest check and has the biggest balance, and that is not what our founding fathers wanted. 

As we continue to allow special interests to rule through powerful lobbying our nation's foundation crumbles beneath our feet. We need to wake up and get involved in our government especially in our communities.

Congress the Least Productive in Decades

While the Senate is expected to end session today, the house has already adjourned for the holiday season. Election after election it seems we hear of members of Congress running on jobs and the economy and after the election is over, they go back to partisan infighting while our economy and infrastructure disintegrate. It is becoming apparent that Congress has forgotten about the biggest concern facing most americans—jobs and the economy. While most Americans are struggling to make ends meet, Congress continues to sit back and do nothing.

We continue to see debate over debate on the same old issues of raising the debt ceiling and funding the government and we are left to wonder, where are the bills to restore American jobs? These issues of debt and spending will be solved by fixing the economy. If we fix our economy and restore the middle class the tax base will increase, fewer Americans will be dependent on welfare and our debts will decrease. But Congress is not acting on these issues, even though most Americans would prefer they focus on restoring the middle class, lowering the unemployment rate, strengthening our infrastructure and improving our economy.

According to the Senate calendar, from when the government reopened on October 16th until the beginning of December , there were only been three bills (S. 815, H.R. 3204, S. 1197) considered on the floor. Two of these are appropriations bills, and the third adds protections for minorities in the workplace. None of them will provoke any significant change to improve the economy.

That is an entire month and a half where they only considered three bills. As citizens of the U.S. we should expect more than this from our representatives.  There have been only 58 bills signed into law so far this year, one of the lowest totals in recent history. This is not an insignificant feat. After all, the 112th Congress (2011-2013) was the most unproductive since the 1940s and even they had passed 62 bills by this point in 2011. That is simply unacceptable.

While Congress waits, our economy continues to sputter and our unemployment rate remains high. From infrastructure to trade, there are many issues Congress needs to act on now, not postpone further. We continue to see unfulfilled campaign promises and we need Congress to get to work now to help the economy and rebuild our infrastructure.

FDA and USDA Our Regulations are Costly and Risking Our Lives

Overlap of government organizations is nothing new, but it is causing us undue difficulties with food contamination. Combine this with knowledge that often foods which come from foreign nations often are contaminated and it is  creating a toxic food supply for our nation. The way we have divided the responsibility of inspecting our imported food may prevent us from fully resolving the issue.

Two government agencies, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), share the majority of the responsibility of food safety inspection. The rules that determine which agency is responsible for which food can be complex, and sometimes it defies categorization altogether.

One good example of this is inspections of eggs. The FDA inspects shelled eggs, while the USDA is responsible for inspecting egg products, including liquid, frozen and dehydrated eggs. Further examples abound. The FDA regulates feed the chickens eat, but the laying facility falls under USDA regulation. Open-faced sandwiches under the USDA, while closed-face sandwiches are inspected by the FDA. The FDA is in charge of  regulating bagel dogs, while the USDA is in charge of corn dogs.

This may sound confusing; it’s because it is.

For example, an investigation into the Salmonella outbreak in Iowa eggs may be complicated by the fact that the USDA is responsible for the pile of manure next to the laying facility, but the FDA is accountable for the danger of the eggs themselves.

The USDA conducts continuous daily inspections of foods in its domain(especially meat), whereas FDA inspections have no regular schedule. The FDA is only more likely to inspect an installation after a tip about a possible food safety violation, so random inspections can occur up to 10 years apart or, in some cases, not at all. The reason they don’t inspect more is because they simply don’t have the funding to do so.

This becomes even more frustrating when it comes to food imports. While the USDA conducts inspections of all meat and poultry, the FDA is tasked with other items including most types of fish and shrimp. The FDA is only able to inspect 2% of all food imports into the U.S., leaving the vast majority uninspected.

Between 1998 and 2007, U.S. food imports grew from $41 billion to $78 billion per year. Now, about 85% of the seafood Americans eat comes from outside the country, and as much as 60% of U.S. fresh produce isimported.

TheAlabama Department of Agriculture tested 258 samples of catfish and a related species from China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Cambodia from 2002 to 2010. Forty-four percent of samples tested positive for an antibiotic used to treat pneumonia and tuberculosis. The FDA banned the same antibiotic for use in fish in 1997.

Foods turned away by the FDA have been found to contain illegal fungicides, antibiotics, and sometimes even fecal matter. 

With these side by side dual roles, the U.S. would be much better served by having one agency tasked with inspecting domestic food and another tasked with inspecting foreign food. Charging an inspection fee upon arrival, it could be added, would help pay for these services.

Eliminating duplicative roles in food inspection would save time and money and ensure that a greater percentage of our food is inspected to keep our food supply safe. It would make sure there is a standard operating procedure for inspecting all food and make sure that regular inspections occur on a timely basis. Investigations would be easier to conduct and regulations would be more streamlined. 

This would make it easier for corporations to know how to navigate the system, and encourage similar standards for all food. As newer technologies become available that increase the efficiency of testing , they can be introduced more quickly, ensuring even better methods of testing. It is easy to understand that it would be incredibly expensive to inspect 100% of imports, but 2% is unacceptable. 

We need to protect our food supply by enacting changes that both eliminate government waste and increase  the efficiency of food safety inspections.

Mainstream Media Control

I read a lot of news articles every day, and I try my best to read articles from across the country and world, from different viewpoints. But until recently I didn't know that really many of these organizations are the same at the core.

Did you know that in 1983 the mainstream media was made up of a collection of more than 50 companies, and that now power and control of our news outlets has been condensed to 6 mega huge corporations — News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS, and Comcast — who work in conjunction with various political figures to literally decide what news is delivered to the public, and what level of truth is behind that news. They control everything we watch, read, and hear in regards to the news.

The truly terrifying thing about our current reality is that there are so many things wrong with America, with our presidential administration, and our overall standing on the global stage that the media simply isn’t reporting on. This translates to ordinary Americans who are completely unaware of the poor economic health of our country.

While they may be aware that we are still coming out of a recession, the media reports that unemployment is around 7 percent. The truth is that our unemployment is closer to 23 percent according to government shadow statistics.

The 7 percent number makes things not sound as bad right? Well that's because it doesn't include people who have been out of work for more than a year, those in part-time positions who’d prefer full-time jobs and people who are so discouraged that they’ve stopped looking for work. This is the lie that the media is telling you.

So wake up and do your own research! Shake up the world and get involved. Read and observe and most of all get involved in the world around you! The core of American Democracy is civic engagement and it has begun to wither as people have slumped into their chairs and left it up to politicians to decide their fate. In honor of Peter O'Toole I will add this one quote from Lawrence of Arabia "Nothing is written."