12.12.13
by

American Future Fund Draws Nearly All Revenues From Two Koch-Linked Groups – OpenSecrets Blog

These guys are priceless – is it any wonder the IRS has been working overtime to track all this money laundering activity?

And, they always claim social welfare, not politics. How did they catch Al Capone?

American Future Fund, a politically active nonprofit based in Iowa that reported spending more than $25 million in last year’s elections on ads and other communications benefiting Republicans, received more than 92 percent of its 2012 revenues from two organizations connected to Charles and David Koch.

According to the group’s annual tax form, filed with the IRS in mid-November and obtained by OpenSecrets Blog, its income came to $67.9 million last year — a sharp increase from the $2.6 million it registered in 2011, a nonelection year. AFF is a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization that is supposed to spend most of its resources for social welfare purposes, not politics.

American Future Fund Draws Nearly All Revenues From Two Koch-Linked Groups – OpenSecrets Blog.

12.12.13
by

Is TFA Your Favorite Charity?

Reblogged from Diane Ravitch's blog:

Teach for America is a powerful organization. It has collected hundreds of millions of dollars in the past few years. One of its most recent IRS forms showed $300 million in assets. Its board of directors includes some of the nation's biggest corporate and media leaders.

Yet TFA is considered a charity, and many corporate funders ask you to make gifts to it, as if were the Red Cross or a homeless shelter.

Read more… 1,100 more words

Diane Ravitch writes a very insightful article about Teach for America which is considered a charity for teachers - it's actually a 5 week program for training teachers who will go into charter schools. Not 6 years of college education, but 5 weeks of training. She also provides a list of companies who support this so-called charity - have no idea why the government would consider this organization a charity, except for the fact our government looks more and more like corporate America every day...
12.11.13
by

FDA Plan For Livestock Antibiotics Phase-Out Is Too Little, Too Late | Environmental Working Group

Washington, D.C. – The federal Food and Drug Administration’s call for the livestock industry to voluntarily stop dosing healthy animals with antibiotics is “is long overdue and inadequate”, Heather White, executive director of the Environmental Working Group, said today.

“Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are omnipresent in much of the U.S. meat supply,” White said.  “We need a bold and aggressive plan to address this public health problem.  Instead, the FDA has developed a weak proposal riddled with loopholes that could allow industry to continue its widespread use of antibiotics in animal agriculture.”

FDA Plan For Livestock Antibiotics Phase-Out Is Too Little, Too Late | Environmental Working Group.

12.11.13
by

SBOE Webpage Taken Over By Govenor Pence

Governor Mike Pence wants all Hoosiers to know that he’s a good guy and wants to get along with everyone. Yes, even the democratically elected Glenda Ritz.

However, he leaves trails of evidence revealing the contrary.

His latest power grab from the SBOE was quietly removing the State Board of Education website from the Department of Education’s servers overnight and recreating it under a different website. Guess who claimed the web page?

You guess it! Pence had the website recreated under his newly created Center for Education and Career Innovation (CECI).

According to the ISTA post:

Not only is the State Board of Education website now under the CECI, so is the streaming of the board’s meetings. Like all other board information, live streaming video of the board’s meetings so that the public can watch has forever been under the Department of Education. However, the CECI has now taken over this responsibility too.

Read more at SBOE website disappearance and botched video just another example of Pence power-grab.

12.09.13
by

Stress Management and Your Diet

Reblogged from The Flexi Foodie:

Click to visit the original post
  • Click to visit the original post
  • Click to visit the original post
  • Click to visit the original post

In order for our nervous system to truly relax, so do we! If we don't, our stress can destroy our health.  The body is CLEVER. When your body feels danger (like being attacked by a woolly bear or being screamed at by your boos) - the part of the brain that controls fear doesn't know the difference.  And so our repair mechanisms within the body that kill cancer cells, fight infections and yes, my favourite, slow the aging process, shut down during periods of stress. 

Read more… 489 more words

12.08.13
by

Indiana: Manure is a Threat to Rural Health

Thanks to the legislative bill mill, ALEC, Wisconsin and Indiana have much in common by creating legislation that does little to stand in the way of Big Ag. For some reason, Hoosiers seem okay with it even when it makes us sick.

We’re guessing it will take the death of a small child of a prominent family in Indiana before someone will even care to make changes.

According to a former chief of DNR in Wisconsin,

“In order to compel a farmer to do anything in this state, for the most part, (it) has to come with the offer of lavish taxpayer supported cost-shared dollars,” he said. “The one regulatory program that does apply — that applies to (concentrated animal feeding operations) — is still too meek and mild to be effective.”

Pay attention in Hoosierville as our state legislators are pushing the “Right to Farm” bill in Indiana giving the same protections to CAFOs as WI, meaning they will be protected against local ordinances trying to stop the spreading of their toxic manure on land surrounding their farms contaminating food or causing runoff into local ditches or creeks.

But we still have DNR doing their job in Indiana right?

Stevenson said. “DNR staff has no time to conduct their once-every-five-year inspections, and even if they did inspect, and even if they did find violations, guess what? The current administration has abolished the office of enforcement at DNR.”

Eli Lilly gave $63 million to Indiana universities to research why educated kids are leaving the state. Who wants to live in a state giving free reign to toxic shit dumps?

Read more at: Former DNR water chief calls manure a threat to rural health – The Country Today: Front Page.

12.08.13
by

The Everywhere Store: Civil libertarians welcome Amazon's drone army

Reblogged from PandoDaily:

Click to visit the original post

After 60 Minutes broke Amazon's ambitious plan for a drone-based delivery system, all sorts of hell broke loose in the bloggershpere.

Some raised alarm over safety issues and compiled photo slideshows of gnarly hobby drone accidents, with flesh and fingers and noses sliced and mangled by drone props. Others worried about the threat to privacy posed by swarms of flying Amazon delivery drones.

Read more… 2,187 more words

Folks, you need to be aware of this...we didn't even know about the lawsuit against Google, but we have heard the ACLU isn't as liberal as it claims. I'd hate to think our libertarian free market schemers haven't somehow hijacked the ACLU, but their stance on private sector drones makes no sense - more precisely, they're advocating for no restrictions on private sector drones while imposing on government drones is tightening. As Yasha points out with her referral to a TruthOut article, many states are outsourcing their data collecting needs to private sector companies.