Friday, June 16, 2017

THIS JUST IN! HILLARY WEEK IS COMING UP!


BULLY BOY PRESS &   CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL AID TABLE



Michael Phelps to race a great white during "Shark Week"



NO WORD YET ON HOW HILLARY CLINTON INTENDS TO CELEBRATE THE WEEK NAMED IN HER HONOR.





Poverty and the poor were not addressed in last year's presidential campaign.

We can't expect the media that ignored the topic or the duopoly candidates who refused to talk about the issue to bring it up now.


So let's do our part to break the silence by again noting Senator Patrick Leahy's opening remarks at last week's Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on the proposed HUD budget:



Senator Patrick Leahy: I am very concerned about President Trump’s budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This budget would leave low-income, elderly and disabled Americans out in the cold.  It would deny shelter to victims of domestic and sexual violence.  It would bring to a screeching halt programs that spur economic development and help ensure that safe, sustainable and affordable housing is available in our communities.
Bluntly, Secretary Carson, this budget is a travesty.  It slashes $7.3 billion from the work of your Department.  It decimates Section 8 rental assistance grants that help keep very-low-income families, as well as elderly and disabled Americans, in decent, safe housing.  It eliminates the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and the HOME programs, which help drive economic development in more than 1,200 American cities, including in Vermont.  Eliminating these programs doesn’t just eliminate a Federal investment; these projects leverage  other public and private sources to make them a reality.  For every dollar we invest in CDBG projects $3.65 is leveraged in other public and private resources.  And, while I recognize that this does not fall under the jurisdiction of your Department, the administration’s attack on housing programs is only amplified with the elimination of NeighborWorks, which in one year alone provided affordable housing for more than 360,000 families, created and maintained more than 53,000 jobs, and leveraged its appropriation at a ratio of 91 to 1.  Let me repeat that leverage ratio:  91 to 1.  Under this budget, all of those dollars disappear.  Secretary Carson, where are the people who rely on these programs supposed to go?
The President’s budget fails to include tenant-based rental assistance for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking.  In 2013, Senator Crapo and I worked together to strengthen, expand and reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.  Too often, victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault or stalking remain in dangerous living situations simply because they have nowhere to go.  That in and of itself is devastating, but all too frequently families have to make the tragic decision between becoming homeless with their children, or staying in a house where either they and/or their children may be subject to physical abuse.  Your Department should be working hand-in-hand with the Justice Department, which administers the successful transitional housing assistance grant program, to find effective ways to support these survivors and ensure they have access to safe and affordable housing.  Secretary Carson, what will you tell these victims since you fail to support these programs in this request?
Poverty is “no state of mind.”  Housing is not a political issue; it is a moral one. In Vermont, we know that housing people first is key to helping them step out of poverty.  With the help of Federal investments like Homelessness Assistance Grants, states like Vermont have reduced chronic homelessness by 45 percent, but this is only possible with help from your Department.  Communities across the country know that, instead, your budget will close emergency shelters and put people back on the streets.  Secretary Carson, how will this budget help the Department meet its mission?
Now is the time to invest in our Nation’s affordable housing infrastructure – not to decimate it.  This budget will eliminate the investments and hands-on efforts that help families succeed.   This isn’t a “foundation for greatness.”  This budget is a travesty.


Poverty's become the forbidden word in the US media (unless they're speaking of conditions in another country).



RECOMMENDED: "Leftism's Moment"


















Thursday, June 15, 2017

THIS JUST IN! MSNBC HIRES ALL THE WAR MONGERS!

BULLY BOY PRESS &   CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL AID TABLE


AMERICAN CITIZEN OTTO WARMBIER HAS FINALLY BEEN FREED FROM NORTH KOREA WHERE A FORCED CONFESSION AND A KANGAROO COURT TRIAL THAT LEFT HIM WITH A 15 YEARS OF HARD LABOR CONVICTION.




"The question is, 'Do I think the past administration could have done more?' I think the results speak for themselves," Warmbier, wearing the same light-colored sport jacket his son wore when addressing the media in North Korea in early 2016, told reporters in Wyoming, Ohio on Thursday.
He added: "We met everyone in the last administration from [then-Secretary of State] John Kerry to... our senators, our congressmen... Those were our efforts."


MSNBC: THE 'LIBERAL' CHANNEL.

IT'S HOME TO ALL THE WAR HAWKS: RACHEL MADDOW (SUPPORTED THE IRAQ WAR), JOE SCARBOROUGH (DITTO) AND NOW HANSY NICHOLS WHO TOOK TO PRINT IN 2002 TO EXPLAIN HE WAS CONSERVATIVE AND A LOVER OF WAR.

REACHED FOR COMMENT, MSNBC EXPLAINED, "WE'LL HIRE ANYONE.  WE'RE ACTUALLY IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH JUDITH MILLER RIGHT NOW."








Jack Moore (NEWSWEEK) notes:


The U.S-led coalition, responding to Newsweek ’s request for comment, said it was “looking into” the accusations. But a general, New Zealand Brigadier Hugh McAslan acknowledged late Tuesday that the forces had used the munition in Mosul, but not to target combatants. “We have utilized white phosphorous to screen areas within west Mosul to get civilians out safely,” he told NPR.


Of that admission, Alison Meuse (NPR) notes, "Coalition spokesmen previously have confirmed the use of the incendiary substance in less-populated areas of northern Iraq in the fight against ISIS. But this is the first confirmation that white phosphorus has been used in Mosul."


In the US, media attention has gone to the efforts to round up and deport Iraqi Christians.  Nahal Toosi (POLITICO) explains:

President Donald Trump is facing anger and potential political blowback as his administration ramps up efforts to deport Iraqi Christians, a group he’d pledged to protect from what the U.S.  calls a genocide in the Middle East.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents over the weekend detained dozens of Iraqi Christians and others to send back to Iraq. Many of them were picked up in Michigan, a swing state that Trump barely won in 2016 and the home of a sizable number of Christians from Muslim-majority countries who backed Trump during the presidential campaign.


We noted the Detroit round ups in yesterday's snapshot.

Round ups are taking place elsewhere as well.  Ariana Maia Sawyer (USA TODAY) reports:

Bayan Taro thought the 6 a.m. knock was a neighbor asking her or her husband to move their car.
Had she known who was actually at the door, she wouldn't have sent her husband to open it.
Sarkaut Taro, a 53-year-old Nashville filmmaker, padded out in his pajamas, his wife said in an interview on Monday. After a few moments, he called out for his wife.
When she came to the door, she said she saw her husband in handcuffs surrounded by unidentified men and unmarked vehicles.
He was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement — just one of at least 12 Iraqi nationals who've been taken into custody over the past week.
[. . .]
In Nashville's Kurdish community, Drost Kokoye, of the American Muslim Advisory Council , said officers have been knocking on doors and asking questions without warrants, surrounding people with vehicles and going to their workplaces.



RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"