We still make TaterTots!
We just passed the OreIda factory on our drive to Idaho. The factory sita near the Oregon Idaho border, hence the name Ore-Ida!
According to Fox, Obama should be giving into religious intolerance and bigotry from the Tea Party folks.
Oh wait, was that too harsh?
Let me rephrase it the way Fox does:
Obama should be more sensitive to those who still feel pain toward Muslims – because they are the ones who attacked America – and he should care about the 9/11 families.
According to Fox News, their viewers believe Muslims have the “right” to build a Mosque. They shouldn’t go through with it – near ground zero – because it’s inappropriate” to offend the “sensitive” amongst them.
I love how Fox News uses words like “sensitivity” as an emotion on par with racist, gender, and religious bigotry.
That because you can’t let them act out their hatred and desire to get rid of those they don’t like. In their eyes, you are the oppressor who is insensitive to their need to be who they are.
But don’t you dare call them a racist… Because that would make *you* the racist for suggesting such an awful thing.
This morning on Fox & Friends, I saw this.
Wow.
Fox News is simply amazing at promoting racial inequality, religious intolerance, and stoking fears about “the brown people”.
S TOP YOUR HATE
T EA PARTY LIARS
F RIGGIN WAKIN UP LATE
U IGNORED 8 YRS OF BUSH
A ND DIDN’T CARE ONE BIT
H ANDED US 2 WARS AND A PILE OF DEBT
O BAMA WANTS TO FIX IT BUT YOU
L OSERS JUST CAN’T SEE
E VERYONE IS HURTING NOW, YOU AND ME
Before I start, let me just say that my sister had to go on welfare for a short time last year. The qualifications to go on welfare are, quite literally, insane. You must be destitute before you can even get a case worker to see you. You must not own any assets, must not have any kind of credit-related expenses (like a mortgage, auto payment, etc).
Luckily, my sister, after all the hoops she had to jump through, qualified for food stamps. And she was extremely limited in how her money could be spent, which thankfully, was not a problem for her, as she’s kind of a health nut. It also does not allow for the purchase of alcohol, cigarettes, and junk food or sodas, either.
Oh, there’s one more doozy – you can’t even own your own car (in most states, if you are allowed to own a car, it must be so low in value that you shouldn’t be able to sell for a reasonable amount to get out of poverty – most states max out between $1,500 to $5,000).
So, you’ve got no car, no job, and no home to call your own. It is only up until you’ve reached that point that you are allowed to file an application for food stamps (which is really more like a debit card, only usable in some stores, and is not issued for very much money).
My sister moved up north to Washington to live with me when she ran out of those benefits. She was living with my brother until that point. She owned no car, relied on public transportation, and her most expensive asset, by that point, was a portable DVD player and small color T.V.
I count her and myself as one of the lucky ones.
Visit the USDA FNS website, before applying in person, to learn about the program and your possible eligiblity. Have some idea of your standing before you make the trip. Note: Living in a disaster area may also qualify you for one or more of the programs.
Locate the closest Eligibility Services office in your state. Call them to make an appointment. While on the phone, learn what documentation is required to prevent multiple trips. Locate your state’s hotline phone number at FNS Contact Information website.
Gather your latest utility and rent bills, paycheck stubs or income statements, and Social Security card. Call again to ensure you have everything.
One of many requirements is a statement that you buy and prepare food separately. If you live with a roommate, whether or not they are also applying for assistance. This can be also true of relationships where the couple is not married or a mother and a grown child. Please see your state requirements for exact wording. This can help your total amount of benefits.
Be prepared to spend much of the day in the office. There will be several forms (be legible and neat) and interviews. Take some bottled water and snacks. If with a child, be bring all necessary childcare items: formula or food, diapers, a quiet toy or two, etc.
Expect finger imaging. Many states now use finger imaging to help prevent identity theft and other types of fraud. This information is confidential, used only if fraud is indicated. Typically this is done with a scanner (it’s not messy).
Don’t put yourself down for applying. Bad things happen to good people, and this program exists because it is desperately needed. Just because you need help right now is not a reason to be ashamed. You probably don’t need that stressful emotion in your life right now.
Protect your card once approved. (The FS card resembles a credit card.) If your card is lost or stolen it is hard to replace.
There’s something I want to start blogging about, and I’m hoping it will create awareness, or hopefully even contribute to a discussion that will help destroy stereotypes people have of Mexicans & “illegals”. Naturally, anytime someone doesn’t know a culture’s history, they are instantly prone to whatever misinformation & stereotypes they are given.
My family had some very close friends that had come from Mexico. Everything they represented defied the stereotypes people suffer with even today. They were extremely well educated, benefiting from a free education system. They were all bumped up a year ahead of everyone else in their age groups. They had even already had classes in chemistry (!!) in their elementary years. I was stunned by this.
I had a pen pal in England who had also already completed chemistry. I wasn’t even in junior high school yet and everyone foreign around me was a year ahead (!). I found out later that most kids in foreign schools – ones we consider “third world nations” – study English early on, take math and chemistry seriously, and know far more about our own country’s history than we do before we’re even required to study it in junior high school or later on.
People who are coming here from Mexico and other countries “illegally” are not people who have benefited from their country’s system because they come from rural areas of Mexico – where farming & agriculture is – or rather *was* the main staple of life. The central and northern regions of Mexico are dry, arid and consist largely of ranchers.
Imagine if the roles were reversed — the midwest lost all of its government support of farming and agriculture (no more farm subsidies, etc) and their best bet was to move down south, where wages were a little more guaranteed than an annual crop could provide. (Corporate farming isn’t just hurting the U.S. ya know.) What if “white farmers” started moving down south because they found out that Mexican farmers were subsidised for their work in a better way than they are in the U.S. They aren’t now – but what if roles changed and the average American farmer could find a better life somewhere else?
These rural Mexican families who came here have had to swallow their pride and simply move to a place where they could get an hourly wage instead of an annual one with crop production. They already have a skillset – farming. Now they just need some way of providing a better life for their families. They’re just trying to survive.
Imagine what it would – or could be like – and if people knew how great an education their kids could get for free (and benefit with two languages!), health care, etc, is available in another country. What if they found that oh-so-scary *socialist* country of Mexico could give them a better life – especially they were open to learning a new language and customs? They’d up and leave the U.S. in a flash. But people are so pre-occupied with hating brown people, they’d sooner starve here than leave.
Just my two cents….
There is another right-winger following me on Twitter now…
At first glance, I thought it was a progressive because of the name — “Save US Energy Jobs”. But upon reading the description of the user, their bio, and their Twitter feed, it is immediately apparent that is just another wolf in sheep’s clothing.
After reading the tweets from this user, you can see that they care more about Energy Sector Executive Jobs, even though they are trying to say that drilling moratoriums will affect gulf residents, businesses, and the overall job market.
I think we can all agree on the fact that a job is not just a job – and they know this. If a guy has to work on an oil rig, he’s only going to do it because the pay is good. But he’s not getting any kind of protection – health or financial – from his employers. They have proven time and time again that they are even worse than the coal industry when it comes down to job safety, the environment, regulations and – let’s face it – the job market.
People like these are the LAST ones I’d listen to about protecting jobs.
They have nothing but utter disdain for the environment, progressive green energy goals, and are incredibly – criminally – greedy. They demand everything on a silver platter, and will steal your wallet as you’re walking out the doors. They are *ruthless*.
They will talk your ear off about global warming somehow being a hoax – and they will never, ever apologize for the incredibly irresponsible, criminal behavior for how they’ve treated the planet.
We’ve gone to effing wars for these a-holes. I think we should all watch our backs and block these crooks before trusting anything they have to say about protecting “U.S. jobs”.
Click below to take a look at the screen capture:
Save US Jobs (U.S. Energy Jobs) = Energy Executive Jobs
I’m an opera fan – yet, I don’t need to know the words to know what’s happening on stage.
Right-wingers don’t really understand what’s being said to them by the left. They *want* to believe the person who’s telling the truth. But they lose faith easily when they see their side out-screaming the opponent.
On any kind stage, you know who the bad guys are by simply watching their actions. You might not have heard the words clearly – You might not even know who the real villain is.
All you know is that your *heart* wants the underdog to win – and that the bad guy will lose in the end.
When your a liberal and you back down to avoid a screaming match, you have basically made a statement that says “I don’t believe in myself enough to want to win”.
And an innocent bystander who might’ve given you points for standing up to the thug is now looking at your opponent as an ally in his own “fight against evil”.
And we’re talking about an “innocent” by-stander who doesn’t know what the truth is. A church-going Fox News viewer who isn’t interested enough in the facts – but only interested in feeling like a “winner”. He’s convinced that the “left is evil” because the loudest “superhero” said so.
The “innocent” don’t care about what’s true or false. They are generally so insecure about what the truth *might* be that they are quite sure they are themselves evil – because of their inherent racist tendencies, their chauvinism, their backward thinking ways. They think that the left has called them “evil” and now all they care about is helping the opponent stomp out the guy who is basically “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
In other words, they know their racist, pro-corporate, and think women are stupid. But they don’t know how to change. So instead of changing, they seek out to destroy those who are deemed evil by their “superheroes”.
Hope that made a little bit of sense. I’m in a very bitchy mood today.
You ever wonder why facts just don’t seem to matter to the right-wingers? And why don’t they have any kind of heart or compassion about real people?
We’ve been bringing the wrong ammo to our arguments.
I’ve discovered that right-wingers are actually very frightened people deep down inside. Like a child watching his parents fight. He doesn’t want either side to win or lose – he just wants the arguing to stop. So he hides for cover – eventually with which ever side seems like the “winner”.
Right-wingers aren’t very good at school or learning, but they have a lot of heart or passion about what they “think” is supposed to be right.
Their heroes come from comic books and action movies. The hero is the underdog – who is filled with a passionate drive to wipe out evil.
Their basis for knowing what is true and false comes from whoever their heroes deem evil and pure.
They don’t care about who’s right and wrong – they basically only care about winning.
Lesson:
If you roll over to a RWNJ, you are deemed too weak to fight – thus you must be the “evil” one.
To them, only winners “win” and only losers “roll over and play dead”.
Original Letter posted here:
I am the mother of an Iraq vet who endured two horrific and lengthy tours in Iraq. I have just written a letter of support to Pvt. Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old intelligence analyst suspected of passing videos and documents to Wikileaks.
Manning is now in pre-trial confinement in Quantico, VA, facing decades in prison and, if Congressman Mike Rogers has his way, the death penalty. I encourage you to write a letter to this brave young man and CODEPINK will deliver it to him during a rally on Sunday in Quantico, near Washington DC. To submit a letter to be delivered please email it to us! letters@codepink.org
In the midst of all the grief my family has endured and the sorrow I feel for the Afghans and Iraqis who have died, I am grateful that someone out there was courageous enough to bring the powerful and dreadful truths about these wars into the light.
Admiral Mullen said that those responsible for the leaks have blood on their hands. But no one could possibly have more blood on their hands than the Bush/Cheney regime and now the Obama administration–the blood of our troops, the tears of their families, the legacy of the innocents killed and maimed in these immoral wars.
With these Wikileaks horrors revealed, it will not be so easy for politicians to convince us that these wars are just, that they are worth bankrupting our nation, or that we can achieve peace by more killing. My hope is that the national discussion that has emerged from the videos and documents will hasten the day when our troops come home. For that, the whistleblowers deserve our deepest thanks.
Cynthia Benjamin
CODEPINK, member of Military Families Speak Out, Mt Vision NY
