new budget deal: fed employees pay more for pensions; long-term unemployed, who have paid dearly for Wall Street's excesses, will receive no extension of benefits

read more : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/the-budget-deal-a-dirge-f_b_4422976.html

''There will be time to review the budget deal which was just struck by congressional negotiators in more detail. To that end, the open windows on my computer show the latest labor statistics and economic trends. But the phrase that keeps coming to mind, especially when it comes to the unemployed, is more than 200 years old -- 229 years, to be exact. And while its gender-specific phrasing may render it antiquated, the expression's meaning is sadly relevant in today's political world:

Man's inhumanity to man.

I know, I know. That's a pretty depressing thing to say. But let's look at the facts: Federal workers will be expected to subsidize this deal with an increase in their out-of-pocket pension costs. There will be cuts to Medicare. Airline passengers will pay a new tax. Military retirees -- military retirees -- will see their benefits cut.

And the long-term unemployed, who have paid dearly for Wall Street's excesses, will receive no extension of benefits. The sequester's cuts were disastrous, but this deal is needlessly punitive. It's mean-spirited toward people who are struggling through no fault of their own, people who have chosen a life of public service, and the middle class in general.

And presumably it will pass.

Ezra Klein says that "Democrats flatly got beat on sequestration. Republicans are keeping -- and increasing -- the deficit reduction without ever giving up a dime in taxes."  We agree with our colleague Dave Johnson: this was the ideal time for Democrats to take a strong stand, especially on behalf of the unemployed. And now the time has passed.

The deal.

Still, this outcome isn't a surprise, and the basic contours of the deal have been reported for days. The dynamics of the negotiations have been pointing in this direction even longer. Despite their crushing political defeat after shuttering the government earlier this year, Republicans took a firm budgetary stand while Democrats seemed again to go soft.

The Freudian overtones in those words aren't accidental: a conservative group chose the words "stand firm" to describe its own position in a friendly news outlet. And Democrats like Sen. Dick Durbin might as well have been tapping out the gelatinous texture of their own position in Morse code when they said, as Durbin did Sunday, that the inclusion of an unemployment extension in the budget deal was not a "take it or leave it" proposition.

Durbin added, "I certainly hope ... that the negotiators will take to heart what the president had to say: there are working families across America that are struggling."

The failed experiment.

"Standing firm" versus "hoping": No wonder the Republican Party has set the terms of political debate for the last decade. The Right has been allowed to test its economic theories on the American people extensively. The results? Deregulation, which the GOP implemented the cooperation of many Democrats, dealt a harsh blow to the economy in 2008.

Wage suppression and loss of economic opportunity are crushing the middle class. Tax breaks for wealthy individuals and corporations, which were supposed to produce a trickle-down flood of jobs, led to eight years of stagnant job growth even before the 2008 crisis.

You'd think Republicans might express some remorse. Instead they are insisting that the public be subjected to more of the same. They're not even willing to extend mercy to the victims of their recklessness - the long-term unemployed who they would apparently rather see discarded than rescued.

The phrase "man's inhumanity to man" first appeared in a 1784 poem by Robert Burns. Burns called his poem a "dirge," a word which is defined as "as a song or hymn of grief or lamentation." In Burns' dirge an old man warns a young traveler about humanity's cruelty toward the less fortunate. One verse describes the hardship faced by the elderly person who is discarded for not being "useful to his kind."

Which reminds us: Don't even ask what they have in mind for Social Security.

The numbers.

The "better than expected" figures in the latest employment data were far below the level of job creation needed to put unemployed Americans back to work on any kind of reasonable schedule. It was even below the average monthly job creation during most of the 1990s. But it may have been enough to provide Republicans with cover for a cut they been pushing for many months - and timorous Democrats with an excuse to look the other way.

That's tragic. The jobs picture is still far worse than many people would have you believe. The current unemployment rate doesn't include the workers who have become discouraged and left the workforce, and workforce participation rates remain at historic lows.

The jobs numbers don't include the underemployed who are working part-time and prefer to work full-time. And, as economist Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute explains, the ratio of job seekers to available jobs remains discouragingly high. There are no jobs for nearly two out of every three job seekers, no matter how hard they look.

The discarded.

For the long-term unemployed who have been abandoned by this deal, the statistics are even worse.

'

New budget deal: cuts to Medicare, new airline tax, retired military get benefits cut

read more http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/the-budget-deal-a-dirge-f_b_4422976.html

Obamacare Enrollments Surpass 1 Million

read more http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/11/obamacare-enrollment_n_4421797.html?ir=Politics&utm_campaign=121113&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-politics&utm_content=Title

''WASHINGTON -- More than two months after Obamacare's ugly debut, the number of Americans using the system is starting to grow: Nearly 1.2 million people are on track to have health coverage in place next year from the law's health insurance exchanges, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday.

From Oct. 1 through Nov. 30, almost 365,000 people enrolled into private health insurance via the federal and state marketplaces and more than 803,000 were deemed eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program, according to the department.

The federally run exchanges in more than 30 states accounted for 137,000 of the enrollments in private coverage, and the remaining states signed up 227,000. About 1.9 million more people had been determined eligible for coverage through the marketplaces, but hadn't yet chosen a health plan. The new data don't include an apparent flurry of enrollments in the early days of December.

HealthCare.gov, the federal portal to health coverage in more than 30 states, still has problems, but appears to doing what it's supposed to do: enabling consumers to do shop and sign up for health benefits for next year.

Eric Rawlings, 42, of Decatur, Ga., breezed through HealthCare.gov in about 10 minutes to enroll in a private health plan for himself and his infant daughter in late November, he told The Huffington Post.

"Everybody talks about how horrible this website is and all the glitches and stuff, but I tell you, it was the best experience I ever had shopping for insurance," said Rawlings, who owns an architectural design firm. Rawlings chose the highest level of coverage, a Platinum plan that includes dental benefits, for $550 a month, or about $50 more than he pays for a medical-only policy for just himself this year. He earns too much to qualify for tax credits to reduce his premiums.''

New York Times expose on NYC child homelessness: known among NYC homeless advocates as “the lost generation”

read more http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/#/?chapt=1

She wakes to the sound of breathing. The smaller children lie tangled beside her, their chests rising and falling under winter coats and wool blankets. A few feet away, their mother and father sleep near the mop bucket they use as a toilet. Two other children share a mattress by the rotting wall where the mice live, opposite the baby, whose crib is warmed by a hair dryer perched on a milk crate.

Slipping out from her covers, the oldest girl sits at the window. On mornings like this, she can see all the way across Brooklyn to the Empire State Building, the first New York skyscraper to reach 100 floors. Her gaze always stops at that iconic temple of stone, its tip pointed celestially, its facade lit with promise.

"It makes me feel like there's something going on out there," says the 11-year-old girl, never one for patience. This child of New York is always running before she walks. She likes being first — the first to be born, the first to go to school, the first to make the honor roll.

Even her name, Dasani, speaks of a certain reach. The bottled water had come to Brooklyn's bodegas just before she was born, catching the fancy of her mother, who could not afford such indulgences. It hinted at a different, upwardly mobile clientele, a set of newcomers who over the next decade would transform the borough.

Dasani's own neighborhood, Fort Greene, is now one of gentrification's gems. Her family lives in the Auburn Family Residence, a decrepit city-run shelter for the homeless. It is a place where mold creeps up walls and roaches swarm, where feces and vomit plug communal toilets, where sexual predators have roamed and small children stand guard for their single mothers outside filthy showers.

It is no place for children. Yet Dasani is among 280 children at the shelter. Beyond its walls, she belongs to a vast and invisible tribe of more than 22,000 homeless children in New York, the highest number since the Great Depression, in the most unequal metropolis in America.

Nearly a quarter of Dasani's childhood has unfolded at Auburn, where she shares a 520-square-foot room with her parents and seven siblings. As they begin to stir on this frigid January day, Dasani sets about her chores.

Her mornings begin with Baby Lele, whom she changes, dresses and feeds, checking that the formula distributed by the shelter is not, once again, expired. She then wipes down the family's small refrigerator, stuffed with lukewarm milk, Tropicana grape juice and containers of leftover Chinese. After tidying the dresser drawers she shares with a sister, Dasani rushes her younger siblings onto the school bus.

"I have a lot on my plate," she says, taking inventory: The fork and spoon are her parents and the macaroni, her siblings — except for Baby Lele, who is a plump chicken breast.

"So that's a lot on my plate — with some corn bread," she says. "That's a lot on my plate."

Dasani guards her feelings closely, dispensing with anger through humor. Beneath it all is a child whose existence is defined by her siblings. Her small scrub-worn hands are always tying shoelaces or doling out peanut butter sandwiches, taking the ends of the loaf for herself. The bond is inescapable. In the presence of her brothers and sisters, Dasani has no peace. Without them, she is incomplete.

Today, Dasani rides the creaky elevator to the lobby and walks past the guards, the metal detector and the tall, iron fence that envelops what she calls "the jail." She steps into the light, and is met by the worn brick facade of the Walt Whitman projects across the street.

She heads east along Myrtle Avenue and, three blocks later, has crossed into another New York: the shaded, graceful abode of Fort Greene's brownstones, which fetch millions of dollars.

"Black is beautiful, black is me," she sings under her breath as her mother trails behind.

Dasani suddenly stops, puzzling at the pavement. Its condition, she notes, is clearly superior on this side of Myrtle.

"Worlds change real fast, don't it?" her mother says.

In the short span of Dasani's life, her city has been reborn. The skyline soars with luxury towers, beacons of a new gilded age. More than 200 miles of fresh bike lanes connect commuters to high-tech jobs, passing through upgraded parks and avant-garde projects like the High Line and Jane's Carousel. Posh retail has spread from its Manhattan roots to the city's other boroughs. These are the crown jewels of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's long reign, which began just seven months after Dasani was born.

In the shadows of this renewal, it is Dasani's population who have been left behind. The ranks of the poor have risen, with almost half of New Yorkers living near or below the poverty line. Their traditional anchors — affordable housing and jobs that pay a living wage — have weakened as the city reorders itself around the whims of the wealthy.

Long before Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio rose to power by denouncing the city's inequality, children like Dasani were being pushed further into the margins, and not just in New York. Cities across the nation have become flash points of polarization, as one population has bounced back from the recession while another continues to struggle. One in five American children is now living in poverty, giving the United States the highest child poverty rate of any developed nation except for Romania.

This bodes poorly for the future. Decades of research have shown the staggering societal costs of children in poverty. They grow up with less education and lower earning power. They are more likely to have drug addiction, psychological trauma and disease, or wind up in prison.

Dasani does not need the proof of abstract research. All of these plights run through her family. Her future is further threatened by the fact of her homelessness, which has been shown, even in short spells, to bring disastrous consequences.

Dasani's circumstances are largely the outcome of parental dysfunction. While nearly one-third of New York's homeless children are supported by a working adult, her mother and father are unemployed, have a history of arrests and are battling drug addiction.

Yet Dasani's trials are not solely of her parents' making. They are also the result of decisions made a world away, in the marble confines of City Hall. With the economy growing in 2004, the Bloomberg administration adopted sweeping new policies intended to push the homeless to become more self-reliant. They would no longer get priority access to public housing and other programs, but would receive short-term help with rent. Poor people would be empowered, the mayor argued, and homelessness would decline.

But the opposite happened. As rents steadily rose and low-income wages stagnated, chronically poor families like Dasani's found themselves stuck in a shelter system with fewer exits. Families are now languishing there longer than ever — a development that Mr. Bloomberg explained by saying shelters offered "a much more pleasurable experience than they ever had before."

Just three days before the mayor made that comment at a news conference in August 2012, an inspector at Auburn stopped by Dasani's crowded room, noting that a mouse was "running around and going into the walls," which had "many holes."

"Please assist," the inspector added. "There is infant in room."

Dasani was about to start sixth grade at a promising new school. This would be a pivotal year of her childhood — one already marked by more longing and loss than most adults ever see.

A tangle of three dramas had yet to unspool.

read more http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/#/?chapt=1

New York Times exposé on the realities of homeless children in NYC; NY Post heartlessly calls BS

rea9d more http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/12/10/nypost-editorial-board-homeless-shelter-with-se/197213

''A New York Post editorial dismissed the decrepit and dangerous condition of homeless shelters in New York City, claiming a New York Times exposé of the realities of poverty for homeless children demonstrated how "generous" the city had been.

On December 8, the New York Times published the first in a five-part series on poverty in the city titled "Invisible Child," which featured the story of one of the city's 22,000 homeless children whose family currently resides at the Auburn Family Residence, a homeless shelter. The Times described the shelter as "a place where mold creeps up walls and roaches swarm, where feces and vomit plug communal toilets, where sexual predators have roamed and small children stand guard for their single mothers outside filthy showers."

The Post editorial board responded to the story on December 9 by dismissing the family's problems, claiming that because they lived in a 540 square ft. shelter, they "aren't really homeless at all," and concluded that the city of New York had been "too generous" to provide the family with any shelter, even one that featured "mice and reports of sexual assaults and other crimes":

Begin with the family at the center of this story. The mother, father and eight kids aren't really homeless at all. True, they live in housing meant for "homeless families." But their 540-square-foot unit gives them a solid roof over their heads, in addition to city-provided meals and services.

[...]

Yes, the family's housing has problems, including mice and reports of sexual assaults and other crimes. But the Times and Elliott, like much of the liberal establishment, seem to think it's the city's job to provide comfortable lives to outrageously irresponsible parents. In this case, that's a couple with a long history of drug problems and difficulty holding jobs.

Something's wrong with that picture.

If the city is at fault here, it might well be for having been too generous -- providing so much that neither the father nor mother seems much inclined to provide for their kids. That would be a story worth reading.'

surprising list of investmets of @gatesfoundation Gates Foundation including private prisons @melindagates

read more http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/12/gates-foundations-24-most-egregious-investments

Massively Different Pricing Of 2 Identical Drugs Shows Something Deeply Wrong With The US Healthcare System

  Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/drug-pricing-2013-12#ixzz2n6T1Y93x

"Washington Post has a great piece today on how two drugs manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Genentech both treat a chronic disease that causes blindness in many seniors.

They have identical risks, but one costs 40 times as much as the other. Yet, doctors often prescribe the more expensive drug.

This costs Medicare more than a billion dollars a year, but the agency can do little to stop it. Unlike other health agencies, Medicare does not have the right to negotiate prices and cannot tell physicians which drug to prescribe.

To make matters worse, doctors have a financial incentive to prescribe the more expensive drug, Lucentis, because Medicare reimburses them for the average price of the drug ($2,000), plus 6%. Doctors prescribe it more than half a million times per year.

In contrast, Avastin, the cheaper drug, costs just $50.

Lucentis was developed in the mid-2000s and won FDA approval in 2006, after Genentech spent $1.4 billion developing it. But just two years earlier, the FDA approved Avastin to treat colorectal cancer. 

The drugs are created using different processes, but come from the same antibody, meaning they are functionally the same. One researcher noticed this and in 2005, before Lucentis had received FDA approval, decided to test his theory on a patient who gave her approval. The scientist injected a small dose of Avastin into the patient's eye and the results were amazing. The drug worked perfectly.

The problem is that the FDA has not approved Avastin for eye injections and the company continues to adamantly state that they are different drugs with different side effects and purposes.

The evidence says otherwise. Scientists have now conducted six clinical studies comparing Avastin and Lucentis and have concluded that the drugs are the same. In fact, the major impediment for doctors to use Avastin in place of the more-expensive Lucentis is created by Genentech itself. The pharmaceutical company only sells the drug in large doses since it is not officially intended for eye injections. This requires it to be repackaged in smaller doses and puts it at risk of contamination.

While there have been a couple of isolated incidents of contamination, the overall risk is very small with hundreds of thousands successful injections taking place every year.

Despite this evidence, according to the report, Genentech refuses to ask the FDA for approval of Avastin for eye injections and will not distribute the drug in smaller doses. They say that the price difference between the two is because Lucentis costs significantly more to produce, but scientists disagree with the company on that as well.

This looks like rent-seeking in its purest form. Lucentis has the same effects as Avastin, but for forty times the price. In order to ensure that physicians still prescribe Lucentis, Genentech has created artificial barriers and benefits from a health system of misaligned incentives. For those reasons, the firm has made more than two billion dollars in the U.S. alone off Lucentis last year. The firm is quick to point out that that is revenue, not profits, but the numbers are still astounding.

Lucentis is a great example of why health care is so expensive. Pharmaceutical companies spend vast amounts of money to keep this system, which allows them to profit from an overpriced drug has no additional benefits than one much cheaper. Doctors favor it so that they can take an additional fee for prescribing more expensive drugs.

Medicare and ultimately taxpayers are the ones who lose. They are forced to pay exorbitant amounts while receiving nothing in return. Making our bloated health care system more efficient will have to involve reducing this rent-seeking, in the process fighting two of the most powerful lobbies in the country."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/drug-pricing-2013-12#ixzz2n6T9ZFCG

.@tedcruz A Look Inside Ted Cruz’s Insane Coloring Book #p2 #tcot

read more here http://iacknowledge.net/a-look-inside-ted-cruzs-insane-coloring-book/

"A coloring book publisher has released a brand new comic book/coloring book inspired by the "greatness" of Senator Ted Cruz.

The book that no one asked for is called "Ted Cruz to the Future™ — Comic Coloring Activity Book" and according to the publisher, Really Big Coloring Books, Inc., is made to be a:

"non-partisan, fact-driven view of how Texas Sen. Rafael Edward 'Ted' Cruz became a U.S. senator and details, through his quotes and public information his ideas for what he believes will help America grow." [source]

It's also completely insane."

No, Sen. Santorum, you fighting Obamacare is NOT like Mandela Fighting Aparthied

read more http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/06/1260677/-No-Sen-Santorum-you-fighting-Obamacare-is-NOT-like-Mandela-Fighting-Aparthied?detail=email#

"in fact, you yourself are much more like former South African President Botha, fighting to return us to a system of Medical Aparthied - to torture the analogy - that we've been suffering under for decades.

This he said, after of course, O'Reilly had to toss a few Dead Commie shots at the Late South African President and Nobel Peace Prize Winner.

"Nelson Mandela just died," O'Reilly said. "I don't know if you're aware. Ninety-five years old. Nelson Mandela — I spent some time in South Africa, he was a communist, this man. He was a communist. But he was a great man anyway. The sacrifices he made for his people were just stunning. But he was a communist. A great man, but a communist."

"I would never attack Nelson Mandela," O'Reilly continued. "I told Bishop Tutu, who's like that too, but I told him 'I respect you.' Why can't you guys in the Republican Party bring that to the forum?"

"Well, Nelson Mandela stood up against a great injustice," Santorum replied. "And he was willing to pay a huge price for that. And it's for that reason he — he — he is mourned today, because of that struggle he performed. But what he was advocated for was not necessarily the right answer, but he was fighting against some great injustice."

"I would make the argument," Santorum continued, "that we have a great injustice going on too, in this country, with an ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people's lives, and Obamacare is front-and-center in that."

Oh. NO! He didnt!"

Colin Powell Calls for Universal Health Care in U.S.#p2 #tcot

read more http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/06/1260750/-Colin-Powell-Calls-for-Universal-Health-Care-in-U-S?detail=email

"Former Secretary of State and longtime Republican Colin Powell is calling for a universal health care solution in the U.S.

"We are a wealthy enough country with the capacity to make sure that every one of our fellow citizens has access to quality health care," he said Thursday at a Seattle fundraiser for prostate cancer. "(Let's show) the rest of the world what our democratic system is all about and how we take care of all of our citizens."

...

"I am not an expert in health care, or Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, or however you choose to describe it, but I do know this: I have benefited from that kind of universal health care in my 55 years of public life," Powell said. "And I don't see why we can't do what Europe is doing, what Canada is doing, what Korea is doing, what all these other places are doing.""

20 things the poor really do every day

read more http://benirwin.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/20-things-the-poor-do-every-day/

Al Sharpton stops Meet The Press panel from revising the torrid American apartheid stance

read more http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/08/1261194/-Al-Sharpton-stops-Meet-The-Press-panel-from-revising-the-torrid-American-apartheid-stance?detail=email#

"NBC's Meet the Press was very adoring to Nelson Mandela today. In their adoration they were attempting to discount the fact that America was complicit in apartheid survival as long as it did.

President Obama's remarks glossed over how vehemently the government of the United States, specifically Republicans, for a long time was against Nelson Mandela and the ANC. They never accepted that the African National Congress (ANC) was no different than our founding fathers, who picked up arms for freedom.

Al Sharpton silenced the round table as he placed into context America's role in South Africa's liberation. The USA was not a supporter of Nelson Mandela. Conservatives are attempting to rewrite history. Al Sharpton ensured that all around that table were forced to accept that fact. He ensured that all of those listening were well aware that Conservative stalwarts like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher did not embrace freedom. They uttered the words but it was just for a select few.

"I think it is a betrayal of history to act as though as Nelson Mandela evolved the world embraced it. There was a real battle in this country," Al Sharpton said. "So when Randall Robinson and Maxine Waters and Reverend Jackson led that fight … there was major contention. They were attacked for supporting communists. Let's remember the ANC that he refers to, they were pursuing freedom. Many of the communist nations embraced them. This country did not. So it is not like they were born Marxist. They were born people seeking to be free. Some of the Marxist nations, either genuinely or in a self-interest way, tried to embrace that. This country did not, and fought that, and denounced them, and denigrated them. And I think that for us now to sugarcoat that is a betrayal of history. We chose sides. We chose the wrong side

Later when the Conservative panelist tried to sugarcoat Ronald Reagan's role in the eventual liberation of South Africa, Al Sharpton would have none of it."

Top @gop Republican uses the theft of Detroit's pensions to justify cuts to veterans' benefits #p2 #tcot

READ MORE http://www.nationalmemo.com/top-republican-invokes-detroit-to-call-for-cuts-to-veterans-benefits/

"At least one top Republican is invoking the bankruptcy of Detroit and the rescue of the auto industry to call for cuts to the benefits of military veterans.

"Forty-four cents of every dollar we spend goes to military personnel," House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) told Politico. "You look at Detroit, you look at General Motors, you look at what happens when you build up these costs, but we aren't doing anything about it in our [defense] bill this year."

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Department of Defense received $155 billion — about a quarter of its budget — for personnel costs.

As the Baby Boomer generation begins to retire and the passion for cutting taxes has underfunded many obligations to retirees, cuts to public retirement benefits have become a passion for many Republicans. The first budget written by Paul Ryan privatized both Social Security and Medicare while slashing Medicaid, the program that pays for nursing home coverage for Americans who cannot afford it otherwise. Subsequent versions of the Ryan Budget maintained the cuts to Medicaid while revising his Medicare proposal to include a "public option" for retirees.

The mania to revise or eliminate pension benefits will likely heighten after a judge ruled that pension obligations can be erased in Detroit's ongoing bankruptcy.

"This is nothing short of theft, as pensions are simply deferred wages, that is, money that workers could have taken as cash in their regular paychecks had they not opted to set it aside," writes David Cay Johnston.

Also last week, the Illinois legislature approved a gradual reduction in pension benefits that will eventually reduce the state's obligations by 43 percent after underfunding their commitments to state workers. This deal will cut cost-of-living increases and raise retirement ages for younger workers.

Public sector workers and retirees in Detroit, however, could see their pensions slashed and even eliminated, even though most do not qualify for Social Security. Employees of the auto industry have given up an estimated $7,000 to $30,000 in annual compensation since 2005, as part of compromises with employers and the government to keep the companies afloat.

After a decade of war, the promises made to those who served in the armed forces seemed sacrosanct. But this statement from a power broker like McKeon shows that military personnel may not be spared as Republicans in Congress seek to maintain the size of the military while also shrinking the deficit."

This Is What Kind of Home Minimum Wage Buys You In American Cities

read more http://blog.estately.com/2013/12/this-is-what-kind-of-home-minimum-wage-buys-you-in-american-cities/

"Fast food workers in hundreds of cities across America are striking today to demand a wage increase to $15 per hour, more than double the current federal minimum wage of $7.25. Estately compared these two wages to determine what kind of homes each afforded in ten of the most populous cities in America.

For single-income families, a wage of $7.25 (not factoring in taxes or allowing for vacation days) would earn $15,080 per year, and qualify for a 30-year mortgage for a home priced at $52,437.  For single-income families, a wage of $15.00 (not factoring in taxes or allowing for vacation days) would earn $31,200 per year and qualify for a 30-year mortgage for a home priced at $108,490. Here's how the two wages compare…"

Remembering The Religious Right's Attacks On Nelson Mandela

READ MORE http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/remembering-religious-rights-attacks-nelson-mandela

"The news today of Nelson Mandela's passing is also time to reflect on the complicated relationship between Mandela and his anti-apartheid African National Congress (ANC) with the US, which did not always support the anti-apartheid struggle. In fact, American conservatives lobbied the federal government in the 1980s to withhold support from the anti-apartheid movement.

President Reagan added the ANC to the US terrorism watch list, a designation not removed until 2008, and unsuccessfully vetoed sanctions against the apartheid regime. Many Republican lawmakers did break with the Reagan administration's stance, but "all 21 [Senate] votes to sustain the veto were cast by Republicans."

Mandela faced criticism from Republican leaders including Dick Cheney, who described Mandela's ANC as a "terrorist organization," and Jesse Helms, who "turned his back during Mandela's visit to the U.S. Capitol." Even in 1998, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly lumped Mandela together with notorious dictators.

The late Jerry Falwell urged [PDF] his supporters to write their congressmen and senators to tell them to oppose sanctions against the apartheid regime. "The liberal media has for too long suppressed the other side of the story in South Africa," he said. "It is very important that we stay close enough to South Africa so that it does not fall prey to the clutches of Communism."

"South Africa is torn by civil unrest, instigated primarily by Communist-sponsored people who are capitalizing on the many legitimate grievances created by apartheid, unemployment and policy confrontations," Falwell continued.

Finally, we should, if possible, invest in South Africa, because this inevitably improves the standard of living for nonwhites there.

Now is not the time to turn our backs on South Africa. The world has witnessed the Soviets capture nation after nation. They have been particularly aggressive in Africa. South Africa must not be the next victim!"