Number Of Americans Without Income And On Food Stamps Increasing

And we still have a President elected by the poor who can't even the utter the word "poverty:"

A new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows the number of poorest Americans continues to grow and county assistance experts say it's growing at an alarming rate.

[...]"These are families that are trying to survive on basically a hand full of food stamps alone but have no cash whatsoever which means they have no money to pay for rent. They have no money to pay for diapers, to pay for soaps, to pay for toilet paper or transportation. I think people don't necessarily understand that food stamps are only intended to provide 75 percent of the food that you need."

Frech adds, "cash assistance programs don't cover as many people as they used to. They're time limited now, a lot more families have been sanctioned. There are fewer programs out there for people who don't have children. The consequence in cutting back on our safety net programs has resulted in this."

Explosions, shooting heard at U.S. base in Afghanistan

The idea that we will be able to stay in Afghanistan until 2014 and be able to hold off the Taliban is foolish. And the politicians and Generals who think that we can have no business governing this great nation. Either that or they are lying to us:

Two explosions and shooting were heard at a U.S. base in the Afghan city of Islamabad on Sunday, a Reuters witness said.

The Taliban said they carried out an attack on the compound and inflicted casualties. NATO officials were not immediately available for comment.

Walmart Workers Reflect Economy's Future

We are well on our way to becoming a third world country. And that's exactly what the corporatocrats want:

A half-century ago, America's largest private-sector employer was General Motors, where full-time workers earned an average hourly wage of around $50 in today's dollars, including health and pension benefits.

Today, America's largest employer is Walmart, where the average sales associate earns $8.81 an hour. A third of Walmart's employees work less than 28 hours per week and don't qualify for benefits.

There are many reasons for the difference - including globalization and technological changes that have shrunk employment in American manufacturing while enlarging it in sectors involving personal services, such as retail.

But one reason, closely related to this seismic shift, is the decline of labor unions in the United States. In the 1950s, more than a third of private-sector workers belonged to a union. Today, fewer than 7 percent do. As a result, the typical American worker no longer has the bargaining clout to get a sizable share of corporate profits.

At the peak of its power and influence in the 1950s, the United Auto Workers could claim a significant portion of GM's earnings for its members.

Walmart's employees, by contrast, have no union to represent them. So they've had no means of getting much of the corporation's earnings.

Walmart earned $16 billion last year (it just reported a 9 percent increase in earnings in the third quarter of 2012, to $3.6 billion), much of which went to Walmart's shareholders - including the family of its founder, Sam Walton.

The wealth of the Walton family now exceeds the wealth of the bottom 40 percent of American families combined, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.

Bankrupt Hostess Brand Workers Laid Off, Executives Get Bonuses

Why do we put up with this. Working people in America are not allowed minimum increases in pay. And if they protest their employers fire them, move abroad, or file for bankruptcy. The CEOs who mismanage a company are given massive bonuses. Don't take it anymore: