Report: 80 percent of U.S. deportations involve minor offenses

By Agence France-Presse
Monday, April 7, 2014 17:03 EDT

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The United States is mostly deporting undocumented immigrants who have committed only minor offenses or have no criminal record, despite President Barack Obama’s promises to the contrary, the New York Times reported Monday.




The newspaper said it found that only 20 percent of the two million people deported since Obama took office in January 2009 were involved in major crimes like drug trafficking.




Obama, whose quest for comprehensive immigration reform has run aground in the Congress, has assured Hispanics that his government was going after “criminals, gang bangers, people who are hurting the community, not after students, not after folks who are here just because they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families.”




But the Times said its analysis of records of more than 3.2 million deportation cases over the past decade showed that deportations actually increased under Obama.




Moreover, two thirds “involve people who had committed minor infractions, including traffic violations, or had no criminal records at all,” it said.




It found that deportations of people who only had traffic violations quadrupled in Obama’s first five years in office, over George W. Bush’s last five years as president — 193,000 over 43,000.




The Times also discovered that in 2013 immigration charges were filed in 90 percent of deportation cases involving people with no prior criminal records.




For those deportees, it means they face up to a year in prison if they return to the United States within five years.




Faced with growing criticism, Obama last month announced a review of his administration’s deportation policies to see if there was a “more human” approach.




He blamed Congress for the high number of deportations, claiming he had no option but to apply the law as long as the legislature failed to approve comprehensive immigration reform.




The US Senate last year approved an ambitious reform bill that offers a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.




The bill also provides for strengthened border controls and a complete overhaul of the US system for issuing visas, among other initiatives.




But the bill is stalled in the House of Representatives, and analysts agree that it is unlikely to come to a vote before mid-term elections in November.




[Image via Agence France-Presse]








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Report: 80 percent of U.S. deportations involve minor offenses

Data Shows 15-20 Percent of ACA Enrollees Haven"t Paid Premiums

Blue Cross Blue Shield has data that shows 15 to 20 percent of Americans that are signed up for Obamacare have not paid their premiums, making the actual number of sign-ups closer to 6 million.

National Journal reports that 80 to 85 percent of people who enrolled with the insurance company through the Obamacare exchanges paid their first month’s premium. The rest have not paid, meaning they are not actually covered under any insurance plan.

Other insurance companies have reported similar numbers, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

“Insurance companies… tell us from their initial customers it’s somewhere between 80, 85, some say it’s as high as 90 percent have paid so far,” Sebelius said. “Lots of companies have different timetables for when their new customers have to send their first payment. You are not fully enrolled until you pay your premium.”

National Journal estimates that if the national average of non-paying Obamacare enrollees is between 80 and 85 percent, the overall number of Americans covered under the Affordable Care Act is between 5.7 and 6 million — not the 7.1 million that have reportedly signed up.

On Thursday, the Obama administration announced the final day to enroll in an insurance plan through the Obamacare exchanges will be April 15. People who started to fill out an application online are being granted the extension to complete the process.

“For those in line on the 31st, we encourage consumers to finish the process as soon as possible,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spokesman Aaron Albright said, the Wall Street Journal reports.

“They must complete their enrollment by no later than the 15th for coverage this year.”

The later deadline is seen by some Obamacare critics as a way to get more people to sign up for healthcare plans, since there will not be a way to verify if someone actually tried to sign up before the March 31 deadline.

Deadlines to sign up for plans have been fluid since the website rollout last fall. The deadline to get coverage for Jan. 1 was changed from Dec. 15 to Dec. 23, and then the March 31 date became a soft deadline.

Open enrollment for 2015 is set to begin Nov. 15, a change from the initial date of Oct. 15.

Related Stories:

• GOP Slams Obamacare Figures: ‘Ultimate April Fools’ Day Joke’


• Bill Clinton: Commend President For Obamacare, Stop Repeal Efforts

© 2014 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Newsmax – America

Data Shows 15-20 Percent of ACA Enrollees Haven"t Paid Premiums

Crybabies of the 1 Percent: The Rich Complain While Getting Away With Everything

Forget affluenza. The rich"s real "disease" is failing to get that their privileges come at a price: our contempt.

More than half a century ago, “West Side Story” satirized the idea that what was then known as juvenile delinquency was a product of poverty and the psychological maladjustments it produced, and that therefore “this boy don’t need a judge, he needs an analyst’s care.”

Since then, America has been busy transforming itself into an unabashed plutocracy: while median household income has barely budged since the mid-1960s, the annual income of the top 1 percent has increased by an average of approximately 200 percent in real terms.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that the belief that economic deprivation leads to psychological hardship, which in turn inspires youthful crimes, has not merely been discarded but, in some cases, actually inverted.

Consider the case of a Texas teenager who killed four people and severely injured two others while drunk-driving in his father’s pickup truck. Prosecutors wanted to send him to prison for 20 years, but a judge decided to give him no jail time at all after an expert witness for the defense testified that the defendant was suffering from “affluenza.”

This affliction, the psychologist testified, was a product of the defendant having spent his life in the lap of luxury. Having his parents’ cash between himself and reality had left the killer of four of his neighbors unable to make the connection between his decisions – such as his decision to drive a two-ton truck down a residential street at 70 miles per hour while drunk out of his mind – and the potential consequences of those decisions.

In short, the defense team argued, their client was depraved because he wasn’t deprived.

This argument seems to have worked on the judge, who sentenced the defendant to 10 years of probation after his wealthy family offered to pay for their son’s confinement in a $ 450,000-per-year in-patient facility, where apparently young scions are therapeutically guided toward the insight that randomly slaughtering your fellow citizens as a predictable consequence of your own selfishness and stupidity is a bad thing to do.

Understandably, the judge’s decision has outraged many people, including the families of the victims. Eric Broyles, whose wife and daughter were killed by the defendant, argued that “had he not had money to have the defense there, to also have the experts testify and also offer to pay for the treatment, I think the results would have been different.”

That’s probably true.  The rich can to a significant extent buy their way out of suffering the full consequences of their crimes and those of their children – not primarily through crude (and, and in the American justice system, fairly rare) mechanisms such as bribing judges and prosecutors, but because to be rich means that you will have almost limitless opportunities to manipulate the system toward working in your favor.

All this brings to mind the recent controversy over Tom Perkins’ remarks, comparing animosity toward the rich to the kind of hatred that eventually culminated in the genocidal persecution of the Jews by the Nazis. Perkins’ absurd exaggeration elicited a storm of condemnation, and rightly so.

Perkins’ remarks (which have been echoed by various other 1 percenters) point to the real affluenza, rather than the fake syndrome conjured up by an expert witness to help get a rich kid off the hook for four homicides. The real affluenza is the failure of the rich to appreciate that their special privileges – such as the privilege of operating under what is, from a practical perspective, a substantially different justice system than everyone else – must come at a price.

That price is paid in the form of the growing contempt of their fellow citizens, a contempt that grows in proportion to the ever-increasing gap in America between the children of privilege and everyone else.

 

 

Related Stories

• Why Widening Inequality is Hobbling Equal Opportunity


• Texas Teenager Suffering "Affluenza" Avoids Jail Time . . . Again


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Crybabies of the 1 Percent: The Rich Complain While Getting Away With Everything

Spain"s "black" economy worth 25 percent of GDP

The black economy was worth €253 billion ($ 344 billion) in 2012, the report by Spanish tax office workers union Gestha shows.

That’s €60 billion higher than at the start of the crisis in 2008, and means the submerged economy was worth a whopping 24.6 percent of GDP in 2012.

In 2008, by contrast, this underground activity was valued at a still-high 17.8 percent of GDP.

The Gestha report ties the massive growth in Spain’s submerged economy to high levels of corruption, the lingering effects of the country’s building boom — which created a huge pool of black money — and massive unemployment.

BlackListedNews.com

Spain"s "black" economy worth 25 percent of GDP

Consumer Reports: 97 percent of all purchased chicken contaminated

The last several decades have seen the U.S. food production system privatized and deregulated to the point that it has become a menace to public health and a major contributor to climate change. It’s amazing that in the richest country in the world it’s “consumer beware.” It’s left to consumers to empower themselves with information to even begin to navigate healthy food choices for themselves and their families.

Some non-governmental, nonprofit groups are trying to take up the slack left by a governmental system which most often represents the interests of multinational corporations rather than the American consumer.

One of the nonprofit groups which has gained consumer trust is Consumer Reports, which since 1936 has published reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services based on reporting and results from its in-house testing laboratory and survey research center.

Please read below the fold for Consumer Reports’s findings.

Daily Kos

Consumer Reports: 97 percent of all purchased chicken contaminated

Consumer Reports: 97 percent of all purchased chicken contaminated

The last several decades have seen the U.S. food production system privatized and deregulated to the point that it has become a menace to public health and a major contributor to climate change. It’s amazing that in the richest country in the world it’s “consumer beware.” It’s left to consumers to empower themselves with information to even begin to navigate healthy food choices for themselves and their families.

Some non-governmental, nonprofit groups are trying to take up the slack left by a governmental system which most often represents the interests of multinational corporations rather than the American consumer.

One of the nonprofit groups which has gained consumer trust is Consumer Reports, which since 1936 has published reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services based on reporting and results from its in-house testing laboratory and survey research center.

Please read below the fold for Consumer Reports’s findings.

Daily Kos

Consumer Reports: 97 percent of all purchased chicken contaminated

Networks’ Discussions of Fed Stimulus 91 Percent Positive

ABC, CBS and NBC mostly ignore criticism of quantitative easing and evidence it has done little to stimulate economy.

After spending about $ 2.3 trillion in stimulus since 2008, the Federal Reserve’s controversial quantitative easing (QE) strategy’s days may be numbered. MarketWatch expected a decision on the policy from the Fed on Dec. 18, following their two-day meeting.

The policy has many critics including the former Fed employee who lashed out at it in a “Confessions of a Quantitative Easer” op-ed. Studies also show that QE hasn’t been the economic stimulus the Fed had hoped. Yet, when the broadcast networks have discussed how QE impacts the economy they almost unanimously supported the Fed’s purchase program.

In three months of coverage, from Sept. 1 to Dec. 1, ABC, CBS and NBC news programs were overwhelmingly positive about the Federal Reserve spending $ 85 billion per month. Out of 11 stories that discussed the effect of QE on the economy, 10 of them were positive (91 percent), while only one suggested continuing the fiscal policy could harm the economy. An additional 13 stories during that time mentioned QE, but did not discuss its relationship to the economy at all so they could not be viewed as positive or negative.

Despite the broadcast network’s positive portrayal of QE, academics and even former Fed officials have criticized the efficacy of the program and described it is a massive subsidy to big banks and Wall Street.

The Federal Reserve announced Sept. 18 that it would continue QE, although there had been much speculation that it would begin to taper the program. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos praised the decision on “Good Morning America” Sept. 19. He called it a “welcome surprise to traders that kept markets climbing around the world.”

Like Stephanopoulos, the networks overwhelmingly supported the Fed’s quantitative easing process, heralding the continuation of Fed stimulus as good news. They emphasized its role in supporting the economy and boosting the stock market.

Prior to that September meeting, the networks hyped the extent that the Fed helped support the economy and create jobs. On Sept. 6, CBS Senior Business Analyst Jill Schlesinger told “This Morning” viewers that “It’s like the economy is an athlete and we’re injured, and the Fed’s been pumping steroids into that athlete until the athlete’s better.”

Later on ABC’s Rebecca Jarvis also praised it for boosting the stock market, saying on “Good Morning America” Nov. 18, “The last six weeks, stocks have gained every single week. And a big part of this is the Federal Reserve continuing to pump billions of dollars in stimulus into the markets.”

Of the 11 network stories that discussed QE’s effect on the economy, only one NBC story indicated possible problems. NBC’s Savannah Guthrie suggested the decision to continue the policy could have negative consequences on “Today” Sept. 19. She said the Fed’s announcement to continue QE “has spurred a global rally in stocks. But it may not necessarily be good news for the economy.” But Guthrie did not explain why the continuation might be bad news.

QE: Not So Stimulative

Under quantitative easing, the Federal Reserve has spent billions on bank assets and bonds each month since late 2008. The purpose was to increase bank reserves and lower interest rates for loans and mortgages. By lowering interest rates, the Fed hoped to help consumer and business spending and borrowing, ideally stimulating the economy and creating jobs.

Critics generally described quantitative easing as ineffective, despite the incredible amount of money involved. The financial paper Investor’s Business Daily reported on Aug. 19 that two Fed economists found QE’s benefit to the economy was “virtually nonexistent.” The economists analyzed the second phase of quantitative easing (QE2), between 2010 and 2012, and found that it“likely boosted GDP by a mere 0.13 percentage point,” resulting in $ 200 billion added to the economy. Not a lot of bang for $ 600 billion.

Moreover, one academic study into quantitative easing found that the program was actually harmful to the economy. Dr. Robert E. Hall, Stanford professor of economics and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, argued that “an expansion of reserves contracts the economy.” When the Fed buys assets as part of quantitative easing, it swells the amount of money that private banks have on reserve. According to Dr. Hall, these increasing reserves actively damaged the economy.

Rather than restoring the overall economy, some say quantitative easing has benefited a particular group of people: wealthy bankers. Andrew Huszar, who managed Fed security purchases in 2009 and 2010, explained this phenomenon in blistering critique of quantitative easing published in the Nov. 11 Wall Street Journal.

Huszar claimed that QE provided “only trivial relief for Main Street,” while it was “an absolute coup for Wall Street.” Building on Hall’s criticism, Huszar explained how the banks, despite growing reserves, “were only issuing fewer and fewer loans” and weren’t “helping to make credit any more accessible for the average American.”

In the end, Huszar argued that, as a result of quantitative easing and its benefits for big banks, “the Fed had lost any remaining ability to think independently from Wall Street.”

Despite such benefits for Wall Street, many bankers are still critical of the program or at least of its continuation. According to the Des Moines Register, Mark Vitner, Wells Fargo’s senior economist, claimed that uncertainty over the end of quantitative easing “is creating a lot of angst for businesses and households, and folks are putting off key decisions.” He said the policy had done all the good it would and that it was time to “rip the Band-Aid off.”

In addition, Barry Sternlicht, CEO of the investment firm Starwood Capital Group, likened quantitative easing to “a heroin addition” in a Nov. 5 CNBC interview. He urged the Fed to discontinue the program, saying “It’s not good. This is not good, and – and this is not smart.”

— Sean Long is Intern at the Media Research Center. Follow Sean Long on Twitter.

Networks’ Discussions of Fed Stimulus 91 Percent Positive

The One Percent Is Hogging so Much of Our Income That It’s Holding the Economy Back

Are the rich intentionally trying to make the rest of us poor, thus preserving their own power?  Anthony W. Orlando writes at Informed Comment:

We all know that inequality has been rising and the average American household has been suffering. There is a myth that says all this suffering is necessary, that extreme inequality is the by-product of a rapidly growing economy—or worse, that it’s a good thing because it motivates everyone to work hard and climb the long ladder to the One Percent.

Even a brief glance at the historical record reveals just how perverted this hypothesis is.

For one thing, the economy has not been growing rapidly since inequality started climbing. From 1950 to 1980, “real gross domestic product (GDP)”—the output of the economy, adjusted for inflation—grew by 3.8 percent per year. From 1980 to 2010, it grew by 2.7 percent per year. (Since then, it’s been even worse.)

So income inequality hasn’t been “growth-enhancing” at all. In fact, just the opposite.

The United States isn’t alone in this experience. Economists at the International Monetary Fund recently compiled the most comprehensive data set to date: 140 countries over 6 decades. They consistently found that countries with less inequality experienced stronger, more sustained economic growth and fewer, less severe recessions.

It’s been widely publicized, for example, that Europe has suffered from higher unemployment than the United States in recent years. Many Americans falsely believe that Europe is more equal than the U.S., but a new data set compiled by the economist James Galbraith and the University of Texas Inequality Project shows inequality between countries and regions across Europe for the first time—and they find that Europe has had higher inequality than us since the 1970s. It’s only within specific countries that inequality is lower than the U.S., and guess what: Those countries tend to have lower unemployment than us.

The reason is quite simple: Those workers are also consumers. When the 99 Percent earn more, they spend more, and the One Percent can produce more and earn more themselves.

“In this sense,” says the wealthy entrepreneur Nick Hanauer, “an ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than a capitalist like me. […] Anyone who’s ever run a business knows that hiring more people is a capitalist’s course of last resort, something we do only when increasing customer demand requires it.”

Or, as the late economist Michal Kalecki used to say, “The workers spend what they get and the capitalists get what they spend.” What he meant by that was that the rich can afford to save more of their income—and, indeed, we find that the One Percent continue to save 15 to 25 percent, while the saving rate of the 99 Percent has plummeted close to zero. If too much money goes to the One Percent and not enough to the 99 Percent, the economy will save more and more and spend less and less, until there isn’t enough consumer demand to justify increasing production and investment. Thus, the economy will slow down.

Read more here.

The post The One Percent Is Hogging so Much of Our Income That It’s Holding the Economy Back appeared first on disinformation.

disinformation

The One Percent Is Hogging so Much of Our Income That It’s Holding the Economy Back

Washington, DC: Home of the 1 percent

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Washington, DC: Home of the 1 percent

EADS to cut up to 20 percent of Airbus Defense & Space jobs: paper

EADS to cut up to 20 percent of Airbus Defense & Space jobs: paper
http://currenteconomictrendsandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/03bcc__p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif

Visitors look at aircraft models at the EADS booth during the ILA Berlin Air Show in Selchow near Schoenefeld south of Berlin, September 13, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Tobias Schwarz

Reuters: Business News

Read more about EADS to cut up to 20 percent of Airbus Defense & Space jobs: paper and other interesting subjects concerning Business at TheDailyNewsReport.com

US budget deficit falls 24 percent in October

US budget deficit falls 24 percent in October

WASHINGTON (AP) — The partial government shutdown and steep federal spending cuts helped lower the U.S. federal deficit last month, signaling more improvement in the government’s finances.
Business Headlines

Read more about US budget deficit falls 24 percent in October and other interesting subjects concerning Economy at TheDailyNewsReport.com

Govt. Workers’ Unemployment Rate 66 Percent Better Than National Unemployment Rate

Ali Meyer
CNSNews.com
November 8, 2013

Government workers have an unemployment rate of 4.4 percent, which is 66 percent better than the national unemployment rate of 7.3 percent, according to the latest data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The unemployment rate increased in October compared to September, when it was 3.9 percent, but improved overall since its peak in 2013 when it stood at 5.3 percent in July.

Since Obama has entered office, the unemployment rate for government workers has changed little. The average unemployment rate for government workers in 2009 stood at 3.6 percent, and it has risen to 4.4 percent since then.

Full story here.

This article was posted: Friday, November 8, 2013 at 12:28 pm

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Govt. Workers’ Unemployment Rate 66 Percent Better Than National Unemployment Rate

70 Percent of Consumers Strongly Influenced By ‘Free From’ Labelling

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70 Percent of Consumers Strongly Influenced By ‘Free From’ Labelling

Poll: 76 Percent of Americans Are True Believers

Most Americans believe in God, but they don’t always follow God’s instruction on how to live their lives, according to a new survey that found 76 percent of respondents are true believers.

The survey of 764 adults by YouGov.com, taken Oct. 17-18, also found that 38 percent of respondents said they had taken some kind of action because God told them to.

The survey showed that Republicans — about 42 percent of those polled — were more likely to follow God’s instructions, but only slightly more than Democrats, 40 percent of whom told researchers they responded when God called them to action.

Breaking down the respondents by faith, the survey found that evangelical Christians — about 65 percent — were the most willing to follow God’s orders.

It also revealed that about 44 percent of Southerners believe that God has told them to do something, compared to 41 percent of respondents in the West, 32 percent in the Midwest, and 30 percent in the Northeast.

But even though more than three-quarters of respondents said they believe in God, only about 31 percent said God has complete control over the weather and natural disasters; 17 percent said God has no control over those matters.

In 2011, a poll by Public Religion Research Institute found 38 percent of Americans though God used natural disasters to dispense judgment.

Related Stories:

Poll: Belief in Evolution is Up, Majority of Americans Believe God is Involved

AP Poll: Nearly 8 in 10 Believe in Angels

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Poll: 76 Percent of Americans Are True Believers

Maine governor says 47 percent of state’s residents choose not to work

By Travis Gettys
Tuesday, October 22, 2013 11:38 EDT

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Maine’s tea party-backed governor suggested during a conservative gathering last week that nearly half the state’s residents who could work do not.




Gov. Paul LePage said he had two points to make last week when he was told the gathering in Falmouth, Maine, was about to end.




His first point consisted only of the word “energy,” but then LePage began sketching out a point about “workplace development.”
“About 47 percent of able-bodied people in the state of Maine don’t work,” LePage said.




One woman in the audience loudly called out, “What?”




“About 47 percent,” LePage repeated. “It’s really bad.”




Audience members grumbled and agreed that such a scenario was bad.




But it’s also not accurate.




According to Maine’s Department of Labor, about 65 percent of residents over 15 years old are working or unemployed and actively seeking work.




The remaining 35 percent are nearly all retired or caring for children or other family members, while others are pursuing education or training or have a disability that prevents them from working.




LePage’s comment was remarkably similar to a remark made by 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who suggested 47 percent of Americans were dependent on the government and saw themselves as victims.




Romney’s remarks were recorded on video and are frequently cited as a factor in his eventual defeat by President Barack Obama.
LePage says he plans to run for re-election next year.




Watch a recording of LePage’s remarks uploaded to YouTube by Bangor Daily News:




[Image via YouTube]













The Raw StoryPost id = does not exist.



Maine governor says 47 percent of state’s residents choose not to work

40 Percent of Your Chicken Nugget Is Meat. The Rest Is...

Nuggets: Tim UR/Shutterstock; Close-up: kikujungboy/Shutterstock. Photoillustration by Matt Connolly.

Marketing isn’t about giving people what they want; it’s about convincing people to want what you’ve got—that is, what you can buy cheap, spiff up, and sell at a profit. Take the chicken nugget, that staple of fast-food outlets and school lunches.

The implicit marketing pitch goes something like this: “You like fried chicken, right? How about some bite-sized fried chicken chunks, without the messy bones?” When most people think of eating chicken, they think of, say, biting into a drumstick. What they get when they do so is a mouthful of muscle—popularly known as meat.

What people are actually getting from chicken nuggets is a bit different, according to a new study by University of Mississippi medical researchers. (Abstract here; I have access to the full paper but can’t upload it for copyright reasons.) They bought an order of chicken nuggets from two (unnamed) fast-food chains, plucked a nugget from each, broke them down, and analyzed them in a lab.

One of them contained just 40 percent muscle. The rest? “[G]enerous quantities of fat and other tissue, including connective tissue and bone spicules.” Mmmm, chicken bones.

The other sample had a whopping 50 percent muscle. The remainder consisted “primarily of fat, with some blood vessels and nerve present,” as well as epithelium, the stuff that glands are made of.

Now why would national fast-food chains be mixing bone and fat and whatnot into the chicken meat they grind into nuggets? I doubt anyone ever woke up and thought, “I’m craving some mechanically formed orbs of chicken parts, including meat, but also with plenty of fat, connective tissue, glands, and bone.” Offal is a lot cheaper than meat—the more you can work in, the more profit you can eke out of this popular menu item. Granted, people should eat more offal, as I’ve argued before. But (a) they have a right to know when they’re eating it; (b) one reason people eat chicken meat is because they think it’s lean—cutting it with chicken fat turns such eaters into suckers; and (c) bone matter, really? Bones are great when they’re gently boiled into highly nutritious broths and stocks. That seems like a much more reasonable use for them than hiding them in chicken nuggets.

I like the way the research team, doctors at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, described the impetus for their study:

Mississippi leads the nation’s epidemic of obesity, and Jackson, Mississippi, the state capitol, is the epicenter. The metropolitan area, which has just over a half million citizens, boasts 50 different companies offering varying numbers of fast food outlets. Restaurant food restrictions are prohibited by state law. Because chicken nuggets are a favorite of children, and the obesity epidemic now extends to them as well, we thought knowing a bit more about the content of the contemporary chicken nugget could be important.

Of course, their analysis doesn’t necessarily apply to the entire vast world of chicken nuggets—they pulled samples from just two chains. But there’s evidence that some widely marketed nuggets may be quite a bit different from straight chicken meat. Chicken breast meat, for example, delivers about 20 percent of its calories as fat (28 fat calories of a total of 141 calories for a full serving) and brings 27.6 grams of protein per 86 gram serving. In dinosaur-shaped a supermarket product made by the meat giant Tyson, fully half of the calories come from fat, serving up just 10 grams of protein in a roughly equal serving.

I contacted Tyson to ask about the composition of Fun Nuggets. A company spokesperson referred me to the National Chicken Council, which issued a statement in response to the Mississippi study. “This study evaluates only two chicken nugget samples out of the billions of chicken nuggets that are made every year,” the statement reads. “It is not scientifically justifiable to make inferences about an entire product category given a sample size of two.” It adds:

In making chicken nuggets, our members use quality ingredients and adhere to all food safety laws and regulations to create a product with high quality their customers and consumers expect. Chicken nuggets are an excellent source of protein, especially for kids who might be picky eaters.

The marketing of Fun Nuggets to kids has taken on a new and interesting form. In a recent sponsored post on a site that accepts “cash advertising, spon­sor­ship, free prod­ucts for review or other forms of com­pen­sa­tion,” blogger Sara W. urged parents to pack their kids’ school lunches with Fun Nuggets. Each bag of the product, Sara W. reports, bears a label that can be clipped and “redeemed for $ .24 for your school!” Paging Anna Lappé.

Tom Philpott Feed | Mother Jones

40 Percent of Your Chicken Nugget Is Meat. The Rest Is...

Survey - 83 percent of US doctors have considered abandoning their practices over Obamacare

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(NaturalNews) The implications of the so-called Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, are apparently so drastic that as many as 83 percent of private physicians have considered calling it quits. This is according to a new survey recently released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association (DPMA), a nationwide physicians group dedicated to maintaining and protecting individualized care for all patients.

The survey, which included nearly 700 doctors from at least 45 U.S. states, revealed that most doctors and care providers are incensed by the nationalization of medicine, and believe that the transition from privatized care to government-run care will further erode the quality of healthcare in America. Not only will demand for patient care increase dramatically as a result of the Affordable Care Act, but pay for doctors will also decrease, which will drive many practices out of business.

“Doctors clearly understand what Washington does not — that a piece of paper that says you are ‘covered’ by insurance or ‘enrolled’ in Medicare or Medicaid does not translate to actual medical care when doctors can’t afford to see patients at the low-ball payments, and patients have to jump through government and insurance company bureaucratic hoops,” said DPMA co-founder Kathryn Serkes to The Daily Caller about the survey results.

Out of the 36,000 doctors surveyed, only 4.3 percent actually responded, according to DPMA. The vast majority of those who responded work in solo or small group practices, and are office-based rather than hospital-based, representing a true cross-section of America’s most personalized physicians. And more than three-quarters of respondents are considered to be mid-career, meaning they have been practicing for between 11 and 30 years.

A whopping 65 percent of respondents indicated that their existing problems are a result of too much government involvement, and that more government involvement in the form of the Affordable Care Act will make things work. 95 percent of doctors also said that private practice is already suffering as a result of “corporate medicine,” which will only get progressively worse under the Affordable Care Act.

Interestingly, nearly 75 percent of the doctors surveyed said less government, rather than more government, would help fix the existing problems with the medical system. These problems presumably include things like government oppression against so-called alternative and non-mainstream medical treatments and procedures, as well as the persistent dilemma of “too many hands in the financial cookie jar,” which raises medical costs for everyone.

You can view the complete results of the DPMA survey here: http://www.doctorsandpatients.org

Sources for this article include:

http://www.doctorsandpatients.org

http://dailycaller.com

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA606.html

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Related Articles: • The great direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising con: how patients and doctors alike are easily influenced to demand dangerous drugs • Why Doctors are Idiots: 150 Years of Disastrous Advice on Children’s Health (satire) • Experiment shows medical doctors to be glorified drug dealers, easily manipulated by drug companies • Physicians and bribery: a closer look at this common medical industry practice • Revealed: The “Secret Language Codes” Used by Doctors and Drug Companies to Manipulate Patients • Glaxo Birth Defect Litigation Reveals Paxil Promoters on Speed Dial

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Survey - 83 percent of US doctors have considered abandoning their practices over Obamacare

NPR Offering Buyouts to Cut Staff by 10 Percent

NPR said Friday that it was offering across-the-board buyouts in hopes of cutting its staff by 10 percent and eliminating its deficit.

The buyouts, which are to be offered across the entire public radio organization, were approved by NPR’s board of directors to help with a projected operating deficit of $ 6.1 million.

NPR, formerly known as National Public Radio, also announced Friday that Paul Haaga Jr., a board member since 2011, will take over as acting president and CEO effective Sept. 30. A search committee has been appointed to find a permanent replacement.

“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to lead one of the world’s leading providers of news, music and cultural programming on an interim basis and I look forward to working with my colleagues on the board and senior leadership team to help this great organization build on its success,” Haaga said in a statement. He was not available for an interview Friday, NPR said.

Haaga has served as chairman of the board at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and is the retired chairman of the Board of Capital Research and Management Company.

He succeeds Gary Knell, who is leaving after less than two years to become president and CEO of the National Geographic Society. Knell’s predecessor, Vivian Schiller, resigned under pressure after calling the tea party racist.

The leadership change was announced as the board approved a fiscal 2014 budget that includes $ 178.1 million in operating and investment revenues and expenses of $ 183 million. NPR says its voluntary buyout plan is intended to reduce that deficit.

NPR distributes news, information and music programming to 975 public radio stations, reaching 27 million listeners a week. It also has focused heavily in recent years on expanding its digital presence.

In April, NPR moved to a new $ 201 million headquarters with all digital equipment in Washington. The organization consolidated its staff in one building north of the U.S. Capitol after being spread across several sites for years.

In late 2008, NPR announced it was laying off 7 percent of its staff, the first time it had downsized in 12 years, after experiencing sharp declines in funding, especially from corporate sponsors. The layoffs affected 64 full-time staff, of which half came from news and programming.

© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Newsmax – America

NPR Offering Buyouts to Cut Staff by 10 Percent

Tax take is down: OK general revenue collections drop 10 percent in August

BEARER OF GLAD TIDINGS: Oklahoma state government tax revenues subject to appropriation were down in August, Finance Secretary Preston Doerflinger reports. The decline resulted from taxpayers accessing exemptions and credits allowed under state law, Tax Commission analysis showed.

By Patrick B. McGuigan | Oklahoma Watchdog

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma state government tax revenue subject to appropriation (known as general revenue receipts) declined in August, but that’s not a subtle hint of bad news for the economy.

Turns out, taxpayers in the Sooner State accessed exemptions and credits to keep more of their own money.

In his monthly analysis of general revenue fund (GRF) receipts, Secretary of Finance Preston L. Doerflinger said, “This was a single-month collection anomaly rather than any reflection of Oklahoma’s economy. One month does not diminish the strength Oklahoma’s economy has shown for going on three years now.”

Doerflinger and officials at the Oklahoma Tax Commission attributed the dip in direct revenue to reduced income tax collections, which were 27.9 percent ($ 40.2 million) below last year’s level.

Doerflinger stressed the commission “is processing far more corporate and personal income tax refunds at this time of the year than it normally does, which has led to temporary distortions of income tax collections. As a result, the GRF received no corporate income tax collections in August because corporate income tax refunds exceeded corporate income tax collections.”

His staff’s release on the August data continued, “Personal income tax collections fell $ 36.2 million or 25.9 percent from a year ago due in large part to an $ 11 million increase in personal income tax refunds processed compared to the same month a year ago.”

Total revenue for state government from all sources continues to be robust, previous analyses have found. The state has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, at 5.3 percent.

You may contact McGuigan, bureau chief for the Watchdog.org in Oklahoma City, at Patrick@capitolbeatok.com

Please, feel free to “steal our stuff”! Just remember to credit Watchdog.org. Find out more

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Tax take is down: OK general revenue collections drop 10 percent in August

VIDEO: Sen. David Vitter"s Own 47 Percent Moment

Video taken by YouTube user Fireezdragon (Courtney C Horne)

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) appeared at a town hall in a local library in East Baton Rouge Parish on Thursday, where he made some news by saying he favored a complete shutdown of the US government over funding Obamacare.

Near the end of the event, Vitter responded to a audience member’s criticism of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, with a comment of his own that veered awfully close to Mitt Romney’s infamous “47 percent” moment, when he said at a private fundraiser that 47 percent of Americans were Obama-loving government mooches who wouldn’t take responsibility for their lives.

Here’s what Vitter had to say in response to a questioner’s criticism of Obamacare:

The only thing I’d add is, I wish you were right that nobody wants Obamacare; that’s not true. And in fact, the other side, who absolutely wants it, most of whom are getting something for nothing, came out in droves for the last election and our side sat at home.

Vitter didn’t expand on what he meant by “getting something for nothing”—free health care? Free food? Free Obamaphones?—but the gist was clear enough. By “the other side,” he means Obamacare supporters and also those people, most of them Democrats, who voted for President Obama last November. These Obama backers, Vitter seems to say, are mostly deadbeats living off the government.

There’s been plenty written about how accusing Democrats of being government leeches, as Romney and now Vitter have, isn’t fair or accurate. These kinds of comments also ignore the fact that Republicans rely on the welfare state, too. A recent Bloomberg News analysis found that Romney won 213 of the 254 counties in the United States where the number of food stamp recipients doubled from 2007 to 2011.

In Louisiana alone, 914,196 people receive food stamps. That’s 20 percent of the state’s population. Does Sen. Vitter think all of those people are Obama-loving government mooches?

Political Mojo | Mother Jones

VIDEO: Sen. David Vitter"s Own 47 Percent Moment