Friday, May 24, 2013

Senate Republicans and Democrats vote to deny felons food assistance



5:00PM EST

Senate Republicans and Democrats agree to pass Farm Bill that includes an amendment attached by Republican Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) which would exclude people who have selective felonies from being eligible for food assistance through the SNAP program. In an assault on States Rights, the amendment would prohibit State's ability to include those singled out by Vitter. Although people convicted of felonies have served their sentences for their crimes, they are often picked on by a nation that claims to be based on Christian values preventing them from getting their lives back on a positive track. WWJD?

In the same Farm Bill which would prohibit felons from receiving food assistance, the States Rights issue took another blow when the Senate overwhelmingly rejected an amendment that would allow States to decide if they wanted to require labeling for genetically modified foods. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) sponsored the amendment and before the vote said, "The concept we're talking about today is a fairly commonsense and non-radical idea, all over the world, in the European Union, in many other countries around the world, dozens and dozens of countries, people are able to look at the food that they are buying and determine through labeling whether or not that product contains genetically modified organisms."

As if transnational corporations do not get enough special breaks from loopholes in regulations from the US government, the Obama administration is being accused of negotiating secretly on two trade deals that allegedly further create a loss of jobs for American workers. Naked Capitalism reports that "The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the US-European Union “Free Trade” Agreement are both inaccurately depicted as being helpful to ordinary Americans by virtue of liberalizing trade. Instead, the have perilous little to do with trade. They are both intended to make the world more lucrative for major corporations by weakening regulations and by strengthening intellectual property laws. The TPP has an additional wrinkle of being an “everybody but China” deal, intended to strengthen ties among nations who will then be presumed allies of America in its efforts to contain China.

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