TANF and the Greater Depression

I am horrified by the current TANF rules.
If there are 2 adults in the family they are both required to work or volunteer 133 hours per month. In a family of 4 their benefit amount is $604--if they have no other income. (If they have income it's decreased.) This amounts to "paying" them $2.29/hr. They also must make a co-pay for their state funded child care.
A family with 2 parents has NO window for time off for a new baby. A single parent has 3 months off. A single parent "earns" $4.54/hour, for $604.
These rules have been developed over the past 15 years since Newt Gingrich's glorious "Contract w/ America" put in place by "liberal Bill Clinton".
These are "family friendly" policies under which a family during the Greater Depression must function. How do these help families? $600 is not enough for rent and power bills, not to mention toilet paper, laundry soap, tooth paste or any other item needed for daily life. (We will not discuss food-as if a family is this poor we hope they receive Food Stamps(SNAP) and WIC.) IF this was not during the greater Depression AND there were jobs, this might be somewhat excusable by the thinking, "these people just need to get jobs!"(Lazy SOB's implied). BUT during these times when thousands are unemployed, or underemployed, who have college degrees, and decades of experience, how do the elite 1% expect young families to survive?
I was told by the #2 person @ my state's Dept. Of Health and Human Services TANF office, that TANF is "meant to be a training program" so "these people" can get "job skills", and learn a "work ethic", so that they "can get jobs".
What jobs? Where are the jobs?
She was not at all concerned that these families are struggling.
All she could suggest was "write to your legislators". SHE wasn't worried.
Snotty 1%-no she's not even there, and yet has no compassion for those on the program she oversees.
Sad, unbelievable, annoying, maddening, frustrating.

Black & White Chili

Brown 1/2 -1 c onions in 2 TBs olive oil. Add 2 cloevs garlic
(Opt. Add & Brown 1 #meat)
Add 1 can diced tomatos (chipolti or other) black beans, 1 can garbonzo beans.
Let simmer 20 min, till hot.
Top with sour cream and cheese, serve with corn bread.

Leftover Chicken Stew

Cut up two or three leftover cooked chicken breasts.  (If you are using uncooked chicken, cut it into chunks, brown in hot olive oil, then continue with the recipe as written.)

Throw in:
3-6 cloves of garlic, mashed & or diced
Salt
1/4 ± tsp pepper
1/2 tsp lemon zest
Marjoram, Herbs d'Province, basil, savory, etc, etc.(Your favorites)

When chicken is heated through, add:
2-4 cups chicken broth-enough to cover your "stuff" (depends on the amount of other ingredients)

leftover potatoes
3 med carrots-sliced
6-8 new small red potatoes- quartered
Throw in anything in your fridge that is looks acceptable.(I have used a doz. grape tomatoes and some cabbage spinach & carrots salad.)
Cook for 1-2 hours, till all vegies are done. Top with dumplings. Cook 10 min.

(For those of the anit-meat persuasion- just make it all veg and add a can of garbanzo beans or black beans for protein!

Great for a cold night.

I Have ALWAYS Hated Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh Loses 43 Advertisers
This is the best news I have seen in a long time. I have been an avid hater of him for 2 decades and think his brand of vitriol is noxious and inflammatory. I listened to his show in 3 mile increments (the longest I could stand before turning my AM car radio off) and was forced to listen at various work places during the 90's. His mysoganasic view of women was has been the re-occuring theme that pisses me off the most, but his constant harping on any Democrat (Clinton when he was in office and now Obama) for any and every real or imagined failing and his refusal to even consider the rampant evil and lying exhibited by oh, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfield, Bush, etc, etc, etc during the Bush regime...is nothing but blind obedience to the GOP's most extreme right, for money and lots of it. If that is not prostitution, then what IS?
His brand of pathetic showmanship consists of taking an average of 3 statements and repeating them for 1.5 to 3 hours in 5 minute tirades interrupted by a slew of commercials. It is hardly "reporting" or "broadcasting" and certainly not "journalism", I would have to say it is much more like brain washing, and it seems to work on people without much brain.
From his coining of the word "feminazi" for anyone who thinks women should have civil or human rights, to his fake "I'm going deaf (or was it blind)" schitck, to his hypocrisy regarding drug addition (saying drug users should be killed-all the while abusing oxicodoine), to his probable involvement with under-age boys in foreign countries (while spewing anti-gay, moral outrage rhetoric) to calling ANY one a slut, for the crime of voicing an opinion not endorsed by the extreme Right wing of the right wing of the GOP.(While he was once a left wing rock jock, before he sold his soul to the GOP hate mongers.) I have had more than enough.
I hope this latest uproar over his attempts to discredit, humiliate, and hurt Ms. Fluke will be his death warrant as a mouth piece for hate. We have endured his idiotic rantings for too long and the day he leaves broadcast for good is a day all those who love truth and justice can celebrate.

Greed is NOT Good

How the hell did we get to this place? I am not a religious person. I don't believe in God(big g) much, or often. Nor do I believe in Hell(except what happens to people here on earth, sometimes of their own making-often what humans do to eachother). BUT I do know that for most of human history there were some things people thought were "sins". And the Catholic church, which ruled much of that world for many years had a list of things that were "deadly" sins which would send you to Hell. One of those "SINS" was greed.
Definition of GREED⁠(merrium webster-online dictionary)

: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed.

And somehow people like gazillionare Mitt Romney and selfish, self-centered, ego manaic Newt Gignriech manage to be the poster boys for "fiscal conservistism" and "family values". What the WTF?!

Con Game

It occurred to me lately that one of the bad things about our culture and even in the world now is the fine print.
The business atmosphere of "free market capitalism" that adheres to the axiom,"let the buyer beware" , has devolved into business operations counting on buyers NOT being "ware", indeed, it manipulates the games to insure that buyers CANNOT  "beware", and now seeks to protect the business from the buyer, when their shoddy practices are exposed. ANd this attitude of hiding the bad aspects of ingredients, (lead,corn syrup) products,(pharmaceutical drugs) business practices(slave labor, price gouging, insurance companies who increase premiums, but refuse to pay claims, due to pre-existing conditions"),business by-products, (all kinds of pollution, etc.) has not only permeated the business world it's firmly entrenched in politics.
In politics it either comes out as "spin" when something "not politically correct" which means it is a universally agreed truth-like say, "torture is wrong", "killing children and unarmed on-combatants is wrong-EVEN in war time", is now somehow "spun" to be "necessary" or "acceptable loss". And when the facts of these actions taking place is revealed, the people who exposer the truth are now portrayed as "evil" or "wrong" or "criminal".


Maybe these things -shoddy business (where the owners engage in many levels of bad practices, and don't want it commonly know), and politicians, (who call an act to increase air pollution levels, "Clean Skys") maybe they aren't related-but they seem like the same type of con to me.
And to get to my original thought on this-when Bjorn was charged w/ disorderly conduct and tried, 2 times, to appear in court and was told there was no charge, it seems like subterfuge on the part of the police that they then somehow magically "find" the charge 6 or 8 months later and use it to cause all manner of fines, and hardship. Because he exercise his right to free speech. Because that's the bottom line. "If you speak out against our rulers' shoddy business or the status quo, we will "get" you, we will fuck you up. You will NOT disobey or question."
Even if you take *only* the part where they "lost" his ticket so they could then later arrest him-and impound his car, it cost a couple hundred dollars, which is still a hardship. Add on the new no-insurance rules-and it becomes a sever hardship, which I really thought it was in the constitution that fines were NOT to be a sever hardship.(So that it's. A bit like kidnapping when the fines are so high).
Anyway. My summation is: the business con which requires fine print, robo signing of real estate papers, and fast taking commercials to "protect" businesses from "consumers"(aka customers) is the same con that is practiced on the public by governments who advocate "austerity measures" for their own people and torture for other countries' people, and it is the same slimmy police practice of "loosing a ticket", hiring a child molester to be a drug informant-and then refusing to arrest him for child molestation, grand theft auto, or assault.
We are at the mercy of con artists, how do we stop it?

Sick of all hypocrites

I am so sick of the extreme right and the extreme Christians running the debate in this country. That Obama has to be conciliatory to them to the point that what used to be the center is now so far to the right there is no "left" left.
I am sick of these holier than thou hypocrites who preach their version of "good", vilifying anyone who disagrees with them in a new 21st century witch trial. It makes me sick, because they DO exactly the opposite of what their "christian" values stand for. They hate the poor. They hate the children(of the poor), they hate women, they hate the homeless, they hate brown people, they hate workers. Oh yes they hate gays and lesbians. They hate science. They hate clean air, clean water, clean food.
They are the party of "no" to anything accept blind obedience to their fake religion and "leaders" who love money and power beyond all else. They have sold their mother earth and her children to corporations.
And I am also sick to death of the "liberal" democratic whores who sit on their fat rich asses and play along with those conservative bastards so they can suck more money from the poor, by allowing it to happen, without a word of protest. They are just as evil as the conservatives. I really have no hope re: the future. I'm just sick.
The end.