Month: November 2013

Categories
Healthcare Politics

President Obama Defends “You Can Keep Your Insurance” Claim – Video

They’re attacking from all angles. Republicans are circling the president like sharks tasting blood in the water. They think they have the upper hand this time and they’re going all out to convince you that having affordable health insurance is not a good thing for you.

They’re now attacking the claim the President made during the campaign when he said, “if you like your insurance you can keep it.” Republicans are now using this claim to say the President lied to you, because Insurance companies are now forced to cancel the garbage plans some people had, and upgrading those plans to acceptable plans.

Some people just don’t get it, so now the President has to explain his phrase, if you like your insurance you can keep it. “What we said was you could keep [your plan] if it hasn’t changed since the law was passed,” Obama said, as quoted by CBS News. “If the insurance company changes it … they’ve got to change it to a higher standard.”

But these people don’t care about getting a better plan or having their garbage plans upgraded to a higher standard. This is not about health, it is about winning a political argument. So the garbage collectors will happily give up their healthcare – some wouldn’t even look at the upgrades available – if it means winning the argument.

Dumb, yea, I know…

Categories
Featured

Police Forced Brooklyn Man to ‘Rap’ for his Freedom

Racist police acting as judge and prosecution? What else is new?

A Brooklyn man claims that “vicious, wicked and cold-hearted” cops forced him to rap an entire song in exchange for his freedom – but only if the rhymes were up to their discriminating standards.

The 28-year-old aspiring hip-hopper “was thus compelled to perform a rap song for his freedom,” the complaint states.

Shingles was at the Brooklyn home of a pal when a crew of cops – including at least one officer under investigation for other illegal entries – demanded access to perform a search, the suit states.

Homeowner Donyale Kitchens refused to allow them in until they produced a warrant. The cops agreed to come back later with the paperwork and Kitchens left, the suit states.

But the plainclothes crew eventually convinced a building super to give them keys to her pad, according to the suit.
Once inside, the officers handcuffed Shingles and two other men while they searched the apartment, the suit states.

But the cops abruptly decided to break for a musical interlude after learning that Shingles was an aspiring rapper.

“The defendant officers then told the plaintiff Quinshon Shingles to show them some “spits and bars,” specifically to perform a rap song, and that if he was ‘hot’ they would let him go,’ the suit states.

With his freedom on the line, Shingles burst into his verses – and passed the test.

“Apparently satisfied with the plaintiff Quinshon Shingles rap performance, the defendant officers indeed released him and allowed him to leave the subject premises,’ the suit states.

The search did not turn up any illegal items, the suit states.

Kitchens and Shingles are suing the NYPD for illegal search and false imprisonment for an undisclosed sum

Categories
Politics shooting

New Jersey Mall Shooter Found Dead

The crazed gunman who brought terror to a New Jersey mall on Monday night by casually strolling through the building firing bullets into the air, has shot himself dead, authorities claim.

The body of 20-year-old Richard Shoop was discovered at 3:20 a.m. this morning in an area of the Westfield Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus N.J., which was still under construction.

Shoop, who was wearing body armour and a motorcycle helmet, walked into the Garden State Plaza mall shortly before 9.30pm on Monday night and opened fire.

Bergen County prosecutors said Snoop, of Teanick, NJ, was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in an area deep withing the mall described as ‘a literal Byzantine area of new construction’, NBC reports.

Authorities say he had a history of hard drug abuse and was a frequent user of MDMA. But they said they do not believe he had intended to harm anyone but himself.

He reportedly left a note to his family at his home, before stealing his brother’s gun and setting off to the Westfield mall.

No one is understood to have been injured in the attack although up to 1,000 shoppers were left barricaded inside the building.

Categories
ObamaCare Politics

Republicans: Defending the Garbage Collectors of the Insurance Industry

Why would anyone want to keep an insurance policy that give them absolutely nothing in the unfortunate event of them getting sick, is beyond my level of understanding. But for the 5 percent of Americans who have received cancellation letters from their insurance companies, these Americans are apparently angry. And the Republicans are using this anger as their launching pad for yet another Obamacare is the worst thing to ever happen to the United States of America campaign.

You all have heard the president made this claim time and time again while campaigning fo the Affordable Health Care Act, akso known as Obamacare. The president said, “nothing is going to change for those people with insurance. If you like your insurance you can keep it.”

The president’s only mistake when  he made that statement was not anticipating that there are people out there who loves garbage. And given the opportunity to get rid of the garbage for some quality insurance, these people would prefer the garbage instead.

What Mr. Obama should have done was made an exception for these garbage collectors. He should have said something like, if you like your insurance you can keep it, especially the garbage collectors. You wouldn’t know what to do with quality insurance anyway.

Yes, Mr . Obama should have let these people know that they are special. That they belong in a special class all by themselves, and that the rest of the country knows how special they really are.

Health insurance is not a political game. For many, it is literally the difference between life and death. And given the opportunity to choose life, sensibility should overcome partisan gamesmanship. Instead, it’s the other way around with Republicans and the garbage collectors of the insurance industry complaining that they cannot choose death instead.

Yea, you folks are special alright!

Categories
Entertainment money

How Much Money does Candy Crush Make Daily?

For a game that involves lining up confectionery in a row, smartphone app Candy Crush is notoriously addictive and is played by more than 45 million users a month, AppData reports.
It is a fine way to entertain yourself but some have lost control of their habit.

The game’s manufacturer, King, makes $670,000 a day from users purchasing extra lives or access to the next level.

Users are blocked from playing for a period of time after completing various levels until they choose to pay.
Hooked readers said they regretted spending hundreds and even thousands of dollars on Candy Crush.

An upset wife fumed that her husband had cracked the triple digits with his addiction. “My husband spent over $100 on it, which made me mad,” Lexie said.

But that’s nothing compared to Jeanna. “I spent more than $1,000 on tokens via PayPal,” she wrote. “That was a huge mistake”.

How do these expensive addictions come about?

Technology blog Gamasutra calls it “fun pain” where so-called reward mechanisms “defeat a consumer’s ability to make informed choices about the costs and value of these products.”

Mobile gaming companies are also using the latest technology to replicate the “appetizing” qualities of poker machines, according to Professor Sudhir Kale, a marketing and gaming expert from Bond University.

He said the same combination of “fixed” and “variable” rewards perfected in poker machines is being programmed into mobile phone games such as Candy Crush.

Only a small number of people become addicted to games such as Candy Crush, Kale explained. Addicts become stimulated by a secretion of dopamine by the brain.

Categories
Politics voter suppression

Texas’ Voter Suppression Law Denied Former House Speaker the Right to Vote

Former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright (D) was denied a Photo ID for voting purposes in Texas over the weekend by the state’s Department of Public Safety (DPS).

The 90-year old Wright, who is lucky enough to have an assistant to drive him to and from the DPS office, says that while he believes he’ll be able to get an ID in time to vote in this Tuesday’s election, he’s concerned the state’s “unduly stringent requirements on voters” will reduce turnout.

According to the Star-Telegram, Wright’s driver’s license expired in 2010 and — because he no longer drives — he didn’t bother to renew it. That expired license, he learned Saturday, is not good enough to obtain a Photo ID to vote under the law TX Republicans passed in 2011. That law will be in effect, for the first time, on Tuesday. The state statute had previously been nixed just last year by the U.S. Dept. of Justice and by a 3-judge federal court panel after being found discriminatory, in violation of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), as based on statistics supplied by the state itself.

Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court gutting a key provision of the VRA over the summer, however, Texas announced the law would finally be enforced for the upcoming election.

Wright is hardly the only well known figure to be stung so far by the Lone Star State Republicans’ purposely disenfranchising law. And the hoops that many voters — even ones like Wright, who says he’s voted in every single election since 1944 — must now jump through in order to have a chance at their vote even being counted at all, is remarkable…

Last month in Corpus Christi, for example, 117th District Court Judge Sandra Watts was forced to sign an affidavit when trying to vote early, after the name on her driver’s license didn’t match the one she was registered under. Her driver’s license included her maiden name as her middle name, as once required by Texas law, but her voter registration didn’t. “What I have used for voter registration and for identification for the last 52 years was not sufficient yesterday when I went to vote,” she explained to local media. The name on her license had been the same for 52 years, and she’s voted in every election for the last 49. “This is the first time I’ve ever had a problem voting,” she said.

Categories
Politics shooting

LAX Shooter Carried Propaganda From “Patriot” Movement

The Associated Press, quoting a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation, reported that suspect Paul Anthony Ciancia, 23, said in the note found in the duffel bag he carried into the airport on Friday that he wasn’t targeting a specific TSA employee.
“Black, white, yellow, brown, I don’t discriminate,” the note read, according to a paraphrase by the law enforcement official, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Ciancia was charged Saturday with murder of a federal officer and commission of violence at an international airport. A federal criminal complaint said that Ciancia also shot at least two other uniformed TSA employees and a civilian passenger.

It was not immediately clear why Ciancia wanted to lash out at the agency, but a leading organization that tracks U.S. hate groups and extremist organizations reported Saturday that the suspect  may have been influenced by propaganda of the antigovernment “patriot” movement and fringe conspiracy theories.

As reported Friday by NBC News, the suspect was carrying anti-government literature outlining an alleged conspiracy to create a single global government, possibly prepared by a group known as the “New World Order,” when he opened fire on workers with the Transportation Safety Administration, killing one and injuring several others.

Categories
Featured Teacher

Chris Christie Yelled At Teacher, The Teacher Responds – Her Letter

Chris Christie hopes to continue his job as New Jersey’s governor after the vote on Tuesday November 5th. But until then, he is apparently continuing to do what he does best – yelling a anyone who has the nerve to ask him a question.

Melissa Tomlinson was the latest New Jersey citizen to feel the wrath of the Christie, when she had the audacity to attempt ask him a question on Saturday. Christie showed his true colors then, but Melissa is intent to have the last word.

Here’s her letter to the Governor!

Dear Governor Christie,

Yesterday I took the opportunity to come hear you speak on your campaign trail. I have never really heard you speak before except for sound bytes that I get on my computer. I don’t have cable, I don’t read newspapers. I don’t have enough time. I am a public school teacher that works an average of 60 hours a week in my building. Yes, you can check with my principal. I run the after-school program along with my my classroom position. I do even more work when I am at home. For verification of this, just ask my children.

I asked you one simple question yesterday. I wanted to know why you portray NJ Public Schools as failure factories. Apparently that question struck a nerve. When you swung around at me and raised your voice, asking me what I wanted, my first response “I want more money for my students.” Notice, I did not ask for more money for me. I did not ask for my health benefits, my pension, a raise, my tenure, or even my contract that I have not had for nearly three years.

We got into a small debate about how much money has been spent on education. Too me, there is never enough money that is spent on education. To invest in education is to invest in our future. We cannot keep short-changing our children and taking away opportunities for them to explore and learn. As more money is required for state-mandated curriculum changes and high-stakes standardized testing, it is our children that are losing. Programs are being cut all over the state as budget changes are forcing districts to cut music, art, after-school transportation, and youth-centered clubs.

But let’s put money aside for a moment. What do I want? What do ‘we people’ want? We want to be allowed to teach. Do you know that the past two months has been spent of our time preparing and completing paperwork for the Student Growth Objectives? Assessments were created and administered to our students on material that we have not even taught yet. Can you imagine how that made us feel? The students felt like they were worthless for not having any clue how to complete the assessments. The teachers felt like horrible monsters for having to make the students endure this. How is that helping the development of a child? How will that help them see the value in their own self-worth. This futile exercise took time away from planning and preparing meaningful lessons as well as the time spent in class actually completing the assessments. The evaluations have no statistical worth and has even been recognized as such by the NJ Department of Education. I am all for evaluation of a teacher. I recognize that I should be held accountable for my job. This does not worry me, as long as I am evaluated on my methods of teaching. I can not be held wholly accountable for the learning growth of a student when I am not accountable for all of the factors that influence this growth. Are you aware that poverty is the biggest determination of a child’s educational success. If not, I suggest you read Diane Ravitch’s new book Reign of Error. Take a moment and become enlightened.

Getting back to the issue of money. I am fully aware of our educational budget. Where is all of this money? To me it seems like it is being siphoned right off into the hands of private companies as they reap the benefits of the charter schools and voucher programs that you have put into place. It certainly hasn’t gone to improve school conditions in urban areas such as Jersey City. The conditions that these students and teachers are forced to be in are horrifying. Yet you are not allowing the funds needed to improve these conditions. Are you hoping that these schools get closed down and more students are forced to go to private charter schools while the districts are being forced to pay their tuition? I know for a fact that this is what has happened in Camden and Newark. Yet these charter schools are not held to the same accountability as our public schools. Why is that? Because deep down you know that you are not really dealing with the issues that influence a child’s education. You are simply putting a temporary band-aid into place. Unfortunately that temporary fix is already starting to be exposed as Charter Schools are showing that they actually are not able to do better than public schools.

You are setting up teachers to take the blame for all of this. You have portrayed us as greedy, lazy money-draining public servants that do nothing. I invite you to come do my job for one week Governor Christie. I invite you to come see my students, see how little they really have during the school day as they are being forced to keep learning for a single snapshot of their educational worth. For that one end-all, be-all test, the NJASK. The one that the future of my job and my life is now based upon.

Why do you portray schools as failure factories? What benefit do you reap from this? Have you acquired financial promises for your future campaigns as you eye the presidential nomination? Has there been back-room meetings as you agree to divert public funds to private companies that are seeking to take over our public educational system? This is my theory. To accomplish all of this, you are setting up the teachers to take the blame. Unfortunately, you are not the only governor in our country that has this agenda. What do “we people’ want, Governor Christie? We want our schools back. We want to teach. We want to be allowed to help these children to grow, educationally, socially, and emotionally. We want to be respected as we do this, not bullied.

BadAss Teacher,

Melissa Tomlinson

Categories
Education New Jersey News Politics teachers

Uh Oh: Christie Shows His True Color

If you haven’t seen the picture, here it is:

This is Governor Christie scolding a teacher on Saturday for questioning his education policies. A full accounting of the event can be found on Jersey Jazzman’s site. But as always with this governor, the picture really tells the story.

Here is a man who wants to be president, who wants to be a role model, and who wants to brook no opposition. He’s only succeeded at the latter. This is what we get when we elect former prosecutors to public office. Prosecutors, remember, are true believers who are always, always, always right. Even when they’re wrong. But they never are wrong, so the point is proven. Challenging them is a challenge to the natural order of things.

Remember when New Jersey missed out on some wonderful federal Race to the Top dollars because Christie nixed the application that included some concessions to the New Jersey Education Association? That couldn’t be Christie’s fault, even though it was, so he fired Education Commissioner Brett Schundler.

And when Christie’s budget numbers didn’t add up and the state economist, David Rosen, called him on it? And it turned out that Rosen was right? The governor never admitted he was wrong on the numbers because, well… Christie is never wrong.

So now we have an example of a teacher asking the governor why he’s against teachers, and his response is clearly venomous. Does he really think that teachers are supposed to like what he’s said and done over the past four years? Has he convinced himself that trying to tear down the NJEA, overtly accusing teachers of bringing pro-union sentiment into their classrooms, and saying that the public schools in New Jersey are failing would be popular among the education set? If this is his response to a teacher when his reelection is looking promising, just imagine his response in a national race when the press won’t let a story go just because the governor wants it to.

As for being a role model, Christie said in the first debate that he didn’t think his style was anything but telling people the truth and that New Jerseyans appreciated his candor. Now we know what that really means: I’m right, you’re wrong and I’m going to bully you into believing me. This man is no role model, and he never will be.

But there is a remedy to all of this. On Tuesday, vote for Barbara Buono. She knows how to speak to people, but more importantly, she knows how to listen to people. She will make us proud as our governor. And she will do right by families, workers, the environment and our long-term future.

Remember this on November 5.

For more please go to:
www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and Twitter @rigrundfest  

Categories
Featured News

Boston Marathon Bombing Victim Halloween Costume Prompts Online Fury

According to BuzzFeed, the cyber attacks on Lynch very quickly took a turn for the nasty, as netizens scoured the web for more information about the young woman.

Identifying information about Lynch was circulated, as well as nude videos and pictures that she had allegedly appeared in.

Lynch, whose Twitter account has since been suspended, says her family has been subjected to death threats in recent days.

“Plz stop with the death threats towards my parents. They did nothing wrong. I was the one in the wrong and I am paying for being insensitive,” she tweeted Friday.

She later wrote that she had lost her job over the costume fiasco.

Some very upset Tweets!

h/t – huffingtonpost

Categories
Featured Halloween

Mother Allowed 7 Year Old to Wear KKK Hood as Halloween Costume

This is how you teach hate to your young. This so-called “mother” allowed her 7-year-old child to wear a KKK hood as a Halloween costume. And she sees nothing wrong with it. She thinks the KKK and the look on her child is “meaningful.”

A 7-year-old boy’s homemade Ku Klux Klan Halloween costume is continuing to stir controversy and threats days after he was photographed trick-or-treating in his Craigsville, Virginia neighborhood.

Jessica Black, the pint-sized boy’s mother who made his white robe and cloak, says her son understood the risk when putting it on. Not only that, it’s a “family tradition,” she argued.

“I did tell him that if you do it, you know there’s going to be people talking about you, there’s going to be people saying bad things about you when you do wear it,” Black defended to WHSV.

True to her word, Black says she has received several online threats since word and pictures spread of her son’s attire.

Black’s son, appearing oblivious to those threats — and the outfit’s meaning — told a WHSV reporter he first saw it in the 1991 movie, “Fried Green Tomatoes.”

Asked why he wanted to wear it, he answered, “Cause it was cool.”

Black argues it being more than just cool but meaningful.

“It’s supposed to be white with white. Black with black. Man with woman and all of that. That’s what the KKK stands for,” said Black. “The KKK every year raises money to donate to the St. Jude’s.”

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which describes the KKK as “the most infamous – and oldest – of American hate groups,” there are at least eight active chapters in the state of Virginia.

Texas has the most with 26 chapters. Mississippi has 17 and Georgia 11.

Craigsville neighbor Wendi Sprouse, who saw Black’s son donning the cloak on Halloween night, called the costume and his ignorant upbringing completely unacceptable.

Categories
Food And Recipes Health

Top 10 Food Additives to Avoid

Statistics show that the average American household spends 90% of their grocery budget on foods with over 300 processed chemicals. The human body treats manmade chemicals as foreign objects, this can lead to allergies and many other health implications and side effects, for example, MSG can cause overeating and weight gain. The top ten:

Aspartame – found in foods that are diet or sugar free; neurotoxin and carcinogen

High Fructose Corn Syrup – found in everything; number one source of calories in U.S.

MSG – Asian food, some canned soups, chips, snacks, frozen foods; neurotoxin

Trans Fat– margarine, chips, baked goods, fast foods; increases LDL, lowers HDL

Common Food Dyes incl. blue #1, blue #2, red #3, red #40, yellow #6, and yellow tartrazine – candy, sports drinks, soda, cherry products, cheese; can cause ADD, ADHD

Sodium Sulphite (sulfite) – wine, cheese; 1 in 100 people are sensitive to this chemical, can cause illness, rashes, among other things

Sodium Nitrite or Nitrate – hot dogs, bacon, ham, lunchmeat, smoked fish, many processed foods; carcinogen

BHA and BHT – potato chips, gum, lard, shortening, jello; affects neurological center of brain, can cause cancer, alters behavior

Sulphur Dioxide – beer, soda, juice, wine, dried fruit, vinegars; sulphur additives are toxic, can cause asthma, bronchial and respiratory problems, destroy Vitamin E and B1, should never be given to children

Potassium Bromate – found in most bread and rolls; known to cause cancer in animals, even small amounts can cause problems in humans.

The more you know about what you’re putting into your body, the more you can find healthier ways of doing things. For more information about food additives, click here.

Source:

http://www.hungryforchange.tv/article/top-10-food-additives-to-avoid

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