making the environment more friendly … are you participating?

 

Have you started reclaiming, reusing, recycling, repurposing and or reducing items from your life that will cut the amount of material going into landfills or buying locally to hopefully reduce your eco-footprint as well? I’m in; even PBO alluded to a big change being needed for the next generation.

Unfortunately, the House of Representatives, led by Republicans are the minority party but they control the purse strings and if you listen closely, they sound like they had different school books, syllabus and teachers, so the path

to sustainable 21st Century living was is going to be a struggle.

Though after NAFTA the struggle for American workers was bad it also made most us all rely on goods made in foreign lands with questionable ingredients and on the cheap; I for one have looked at my clothes and sighed after finding brands that once sold mostly “made in the USA”   went to the dark side. I guess it really is too addictive. cheap labor cheap cheap is addictive

Addictive, but the question is -  will authorities at the top recognize that NAFTA needs reforming due to an increase of carbon foot-print,  allowed foreign companies to possibly use toxic chemicals, use less than 100% organic and in some cases, let our children play with toys made with excessive amounts of lead.  We need a quick acceptance an apology and a big change implemented in every state regulating not just what comes into the US of A, but how, what is dumped, recycled and where; it makes sense on so many levels given what we now know about pollution, climate change, landfills and the effects on Americans …and our at risk population, whether folks want to admit it or not a reality check is needed.  Washington State, along with a few others decided they are all in on banning plastic bags though the effort needs to be much more vigorous as cooperation from big corporations who do not always implement the process fast enough, but we have to start somewhere right.

However, it is obvious that as those at the top debate and delay changes in our man-made and natural global warming experiences, they are leaving minorities and the poor out of the conversation of sustainable living, let alone offer up alternatives or commit to viable restorations of communities most impacted by bad urban planning. We have all heard or know that certain populations are definitely unable to control the negative impact that some big corporations are having on their communities or environments as more and more cases are revealed, aired and reported. It is disturbing to know that some cases are over twenty thirty years old or older, the sad truth that there were are too many middle class, minority and poor communities built on or near landfills, gas lines, ex-chemical plants, manufacturer plants or smokestacks with dirty air while providing jobs at those same facilities though the people had no idea that they and the lives of their families could be negatively affected and life in some cases probably cut short. The abuse of land in rural and or urban settings is not just offensive it is still unchecked and just one more thing the EPA needs to revisit.

The idea of sustainable living is not new, yet, it means something different depending on what State you live in and how your officials deal with the agencies we are supposed to trust whether the issue is about fracking, mad cow, GMO ,salmonella etc. or bird flu.  Most people I know love all kinds of food and are careful about at home preparation, but I do believe that the way food is inspected, accepted and processed is still suspect and an update in federal laws regarding food inspection are overdue.  I hope we all agree that our food should not be considered a state’s rights issue; it is a keep American population safe issue. I come from a fishing based family that believed in staying away from so-called store freshly caught and to always smell the fish, ask if wild or hatchery and if it’s wrapped in plastic question it all because It may look like the real deal but… I will admit I remember when most if not all seafood caught,  was sold and bought fresh and or wild but not farmed because my family preferred to buy at the market or at the pier, but mostly from my family’s fishing for it. When farm fisheries started popping up my family felt it might be a good way to keep wild off the endangered list, but unfortunately some collateral damage was created when farmed and wild fish crossed paths lest we discuss the nasty toxic developments at some not all farmed hatcheries.

Unfortunately,

folks did not know in the early stages the influx of farmed fish to grocery stores and restaurants meant insufficient labeling or the profound lack of available information for consumers to make independent and or intelligent decisions by leaving out info whether it’s about fish, beef, chicken, clothes or toys they are selling comes from the most “environmentally friendly” way possible instead of taking risks that could hurt lives

written 2/1/2013

Congressional Budget Office :

 

Glossary of Terms Related to Dual-Eligible Beneficiaries of Medicare and Medicaid

 

Dual-Eligible Beneficiaries of Medicare and Medicaid: Characteristics, Health Care Spending, and Evolving Policies

H.R. 1691, Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range Transfer Act of 2013

a Reminder -Gov. Christie Thinks A Family Making $6,000 A Year Is Too Rich To Qualify For Medicaid-does he still feel this way?

 by Marie Diamond on June 2, 2011

Despite recent polls that show Americans are just as protective of Medicaid as they are of Medicare, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is trying to gut the popular program in his state and prevent 23,000 people from receiving benefits. Christie has proposed cutting Medicaid eligibility to absurdly low levels: from the current maximum income of $24,645 to $5,317 a year for a family of three. Apparently, the governor believes a family of three making $6,000 a year is simply too rich to receive Medicaid.

The New Jersey press has reported that the main effect of his proposal would be to slash help for the working poor, tearing a huge hole in the state’s social safety net:

Adults in a family of three that makes as little as $103 a week would earn too much to qualify for health care provided by Medicaid under a sharply curtailed program Gov. Chris Christie wants the federal government to approve this year, according to state officials and advocates briefed on the proposal.[...]

The Christie administration is expected to propose cutting the maximum income level of Medicaid from $24,645 to $5,317 a year for a family of three [...]

“That is about a third of the poverty level,” Castro said. “That means that an uninsured parent working full time at a minimum-wage job wouldn’t be eligible. … A parent who works half-time for minimum wage wouldn’t even qualify.

“Unfortunately, the only way these parents can become eligible for health coverage in the future is if the parent applies for and is eligible for welfare,” Castro added. “That sends the wrong message.”

Democratic lawmakers are furious that Christie is insisting on making $300 million in cuts on the backs of poor and disabled residents. They point out that apart from the morally bankrupt idea of denying care to the neediest population, having more people uninsured will ultimately be more costly for New Jersey.

“Those 23,000 people are going to get sick this year,” said Louis Greenwald (D), a committee chairman. “Where are you suggesting they’re going to go?”

State Sen. Joseph Vitale (D), who sponsored the legislation creating FamilyCare in 1998, explained, “This completely dismantles the progress made over the last 12 years, and then some…I can’t imagine how it could be any worse.”

Since Medicaid — which provides health care services to at-risk populations including the indigent, blind and disabled — is jointly funded by the federal government, states must apply for a waiver before making major changes. That means Obama administration officials can still block Christie’s radical attempts to curtail enrollment.

Another Reminder: Gov. Christie -did what to Seniors and the Disabled of NJ in 2010?

source: www.NorthJersey.com

Hispanics say N.J. Gov. Christie’s proposed budget cuts would hit them hard

Sunday, June 20, 2010
Last updated: Sunday June 20, 2010, 10:27 AM

 BY ELIZABETH LLORENTE

The Record

STAFF WRITER

Hispanic leaders are warning that Governor Christie’s proposed budget cuts will devastate their communities by leaving little or no funding for programs that assist the unemployed, disabled and the destitute, among others.

Leaders are particularly concerned about the pending elimination of the Center for Hispanic Policy, Research and Development, which funnels funds to some 40 agencies that they say serve about 300,000 mostly low-income Latinos annually. The 35-year-old department, they note, is the only state agency that focuses on Hispanics.

The cuts are the latest source of frustration among Hispanics over Christie. They were angered by his decision to drop legal immigrants who are not naturalized U.S. citizens from NJ FamilyCare, a health insurance program for low-income parents, and by the possibility that he would eliminate the Commission on New Americans, a long-awaited initiative by his predecessor to address immigrant issues in New Jersey.

“This is not shared sacrifice,” said Guillermo Beytagh-Maldonado, executive director of the Hispanic Directors Association, an umbrella group, referring to the proposed cuts. “He’s cutting our head off. So many people in New Jersey are talking about how Hispanics are going be profiled in Arizona because of the new immigration law. But right here in New Jersey we’re being profiled, we’re being treated outrageously.”

Hispanics say Christie seems indifferent to the problems and needs of their communities, though Hispanics are now the state’s largest minority group, making up 16 percent of the population. Nearly 30 percent of the state’s Hispanics in New Jersey are uninsured and about 16 percent live in poverty.

Deborah Howlett, the head of New Jersey Policy Perspective, said that about 80 percent of residents will be affected by Christie’s cuts to varying degrees.

“The economic recession has hit minorities harder than other people,” Howlett said. “People in lower income brackets, which include a disproportionate share of Hispanics, are being asked to shoulder more of the burden because they’re more reliant on the social services being cut.”

A spokesman for Christie said the governor was not singling Hispanics out, or acting insensitively toward them.

“No one can possibly say they’re being singled out,” said Michael Drewniak, Christie’s spokesman. “That’s just ridiculous. It’s a wrong assumption. By that logic, we’re targeting every group of every kind.”

“The governor is trying to tackle an $11 billion deficit that he inherited,” Drewniak said. “The cuts must be deep and wide.”

Drewniak said the cuts were not made thoughtlessly.

“We tried to be as careful as we could,” he said. “Everyone is pretty much in the same boat.”

Hispanic leaders say they understand that the governor faces a tough job in trying to deal with the deficit.

“We’re all willing to tighten our belts,” said Lorenzo Hernandez, who heads the Hispanic Information Center of Passaic, one of the agencies that gets funding from the Center for Hispanic Policy, Research and Development.

But Hernandez and other leaders say it is a mistake to slash funding for Hispanic community organizations that serve a group that not only is one of the most needy in the state, but one whose language and cultural barriers make access to services difficult.

“When I lost my job, my employer did not pay me vacation or holiday pay that I was owed,” said Maria Cristina Caballero, a Passaic resident who came to this country from Colombia two years ago. “I tried going for help to public agencies but got nowhere, and I felt I was in a hopeless, dead-end situation.”

Caballero went to the Hispanic Information Center, which provides a wide range of services, including assistance to domestic violence victims, the unemployed and people who need shelter, food and medical attention. The center helped Caballero get the money owed to her by her former employer.

“I would not have gotten it on my own,” Caballero said. “I was truly lost and overwhelmed.”

Many people who turn to the Paramus-based Hispanic Institute for Research and Development, which offers classes such as word processing and English, have lost jobs and are trying to get back on their feet, said Emilio Fandino, the non-profit group’s executive director. Many of the clients of HIRD, which gets about $75,000 from the state, have taken free English and job skills classes elsewhere, but those usually cover only the basics, Fandino said. The institute offers classes in conjunction with Bergen Community College.

“If we stopped getting the funding from the state, maybe about 200 people wouldn’t get the scholarships we give them, and couldn’t take the classes because they can’t afford it,” Fandino said.

Beytagh-Maldonado has met with legislators to drum up support for restoring funds for programs on which many Hispanics depend. Hispanics in New Jersey typically have received inadequate resources from the state government, he said.

“I don’t think the state has ever really adjusted to the reality that Hispanics are the group with the most needs,” he said. “We have the highest dropout rates, highest uninsured, high poverty rate, and the community is growing in New Jersey.”

Of the community-based agencies, he said: “They go with the people to the schools, talk with the teachers, with social workers. These are the people on the front lines who provide preventative services so that problems don’t get bigger and become crises.”

Many of the agencies and programs were set up in the 1970s and 1980s in response to the growth of immigrant residents who lacked the linguistic skills and knowledge about U.S. public agencies to access services on their own.

“So the idea was to have people from the community, who knew the language and culture, to guide these immigrants,” said Frank Argote-Freyre, a professor at Kean University and head of the state Commission on New Americans, an advisory group that has expressed concerns about Christie’s willingness to keep it alive.

Like other Latino leaders, Argote-Freyre and Beytagh-Maldonado called Christie’s decision to drop legal immigrants from the state’s insurance program for the poor a harsh move.

Nearly 12,000 legal immigrant parents are being removed from the program. U.S. citizen parents are also to be denied coverage if their annual family income exceeds $24,000 a year for a family of three.

“They’re taking people from FamilyCare and are going to force them into charity care,” Beytagh-Maldonado said. “When immigrants can’t get access to health care, everyone is affected, everyone’s health is at risk. All these cuts are just going to end up being more expensive for New Jersey in the long run.”

E-mail: llorente@northjersey.com

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N.J. Assembly fails to override Christie veto of millionaires tax

Monday, June 21, 2010
Last updated: Monday June 21, 2010, 5:01 PM

 

BY MATT FRIEDMAN

State House Bureau

STATE HOUSE BUREAU

 

TRENTON — Democrats have failed to override Governor Christie’s veto of a tax that would increase taxes on income more than $1 million.The bills, which would devote the proceeds to restoring property tax rebates for seniors and the disabled, died on the Assembly floor Monday when Democrats could not convert any Republicans who voted against it last month, when it passed strictly along partisan lines.Although a majority of Assembly members (47 to 33) voted for the bill, Democrats did not reach the two-thirds majority needed to override it. The override would have required flipping seven Republican votes. Because the override attempt failed in the Assembly, where the bill originated, the Senate will not attempt it.

The Assembly and Senate both passed the millionaires tax last month strictly along partisan lines, only to see it vetoed by Christie minutes later.

The bill would have raised the tax rate on income over $1 million for approximately 16,000 households. A companion bill, also vetoed by Christie, would have devoted the funds to restoring property tax rebates for the seniors and disabled as well as cuts to state-supplemented senior drug programs that have since been reversed.

The Assembly first took up the companion bill, which Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-Monmouth) said would not help seniors because there is no money to restore rebates.

“What can help (seniors) is a hard 2.5 percent cap on property taxes,” she said.

*****************************************************

 

N.J. Senate resolution urges Christie not to join health care reform lawsuit

Monday, June 21, 2010

 

BY MATT FRIEDMAN

State House Bureau

STATE HOUSE BUREAU

 

The state Senate Monday approved a resolution urging Governor Christie not to join 20 other states in a lawsuit against the federal health care reform law.Christie has faced pressure from conservative activists to join the suit, which argues the law’s penalty on individuals for not buying insurance is unconstitutional. Senate Democrats, in turn, responded with the resolution, which points out that Christie was able to restore proposed cuts to subsidized senior drug programs in part with money allocated from the law.Christie has not said whether he plans to join the suit. Most of the states challenging the law have either Republican governors or elected Republican attorneys general.

“You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be for the senior citizens and use the Obama health care plan to fund their programs and then challenge it in court,” said state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), a sponsor.

The state Senate Monday approved a resolution urging Governor Christie not to join 20 other states in a lawsuit against the federal health care reform law.

Christie has faced pressure from conservative activists to join the suit, which argues the law’s penalty on individuals for not buying insurance is unconstitutional. Senate Democrats, in turn, responded with the resolution, which points out that Christie was able to restore proposed cuts to subsidized senior drug programs in part with money allocated from the law.

Christie has not said whether he plans to join the suit. Most of the states challenging the law have either Republican governors or elected Republican attorneys general.

“You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be for the senior citizens and use the Obama health care plan to fund their programs and then challenge it in court,” said state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), a sponsor.

Gov. Chris Christie … on 3/2011

– NEW JERSEY: Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) budget raised taxes on the working poor and middle-class by cutting the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit and homestead rebates — yet still found money for lucrative corporate tax cuts. This year, Christie has called for $200 million in business tax cuts, while proposing to cut mental health services, cut $540 million from Medicaid, and withhold property tax rebates for seniors until public workers give up many of their health and pension benefits. Many New Jerseyans have said they prefer a tax on millionaires to Christie’s draconian cuts.

Reproductive Rights and Ken Cuccinelli

Politicians should stick to politics, NOT controlling our personal health care decisions.

Cuccinelli: Our Reproductive Choices are None of Your Business!

H.R. 45, a bill to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

H.R. 45, a bill to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010

 

ACA is a job creator

 

click on

The Affordable HealthCare Law resolves health care and jobs issues.

 

If you believe in moving into the 21st Century, believe in health care being accessible to all , if you believe it is a right not a privilege or that the overhaul is long overdue; then you are on the right side of history. Please do not believe how some are portraying ACA, as a law for the poor.  I do not believe that parents with kids in college would say they are poor nor rich and these days most families have two or more in college at the same time. Therefore, having children covered until 26 is considered a relief to some families

The fact is over 32mil people will now have access to an improved health care system that will need more doctors, PA, and those great nurses who we usually see when we feel bad. Think about it, what does it take to run a Hospital? Our current workforce cannot possibly handle that many new customers and will need to hire more folks from the so-called bottom up such as grounds, parking lots, security, maintenance, janitors to gardeners to receptionists, and more.  I have no idea how many people go to the doctor each day, but if you have an appointment during the workday, your child is in school, goes to daycare or you take them with you … most people do not; bam more jobs needed.

I cannot begin to list the impact of 32million more people added to the health care system, but the proof of it being a jobs bill is obvious.

 

In Solidarity …

Information : from www.Whitehouse.gov

For a comprehensive overview of the Affordable Care Act, visit WhiteHouse.gov/HealthReform and HealthCare.gov.

Let’s take a look at what today’s ruling means for the middle class:

• Insurance companies no longer have unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny you coverage, or charge women more than men.
• Soon, no American will ever again be denied care or charged more due to a pre-existing condition, like cancer or even asthma.
• Preventive care will still be covered free of charge by insurance companies–including mammograms for women and wellness visits for seniors.
• By August, millions of Americans will receive a rebate because their insurance company spent too much of their premium on administrative costs or CEO bonuses.
• 5.3 million seniors will continue to save $600 a year on their prescription drugs.
• Efforts to strengthen and protect Medicare by cracking down on waste, fraud, and abuse will remain in place.
• 6.6 million young adults will still be able to stay on their family’s plan until they’re 26.

A major impact of the Court’s decision is the 129 million people with pre-existing conditions and millions of middle class families who will have the security of affordable health coverage.

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo

The 5th of May is not Mexican Independence Day, but it should be! And Cinco de Mayo is not an American holiday, but it should be. Mexico declared its independence from mother Spain on midnight, the 15th of September, 1810.  And it took 11 years before the first Spanish soldiers were told and forced to leave Mexico.

So, why Cinco de Mayo? And why would Americans savor this day as well? 

Because 4,000 Mexican soldiers smashed the French and traitor Mexican army of 8,000 at Puebla, Mexico, 100 miles east of Mexico City on the morning of May 5 1862.  For more info:  history.com

Save Bristol Bay: ~ repost from 2009 ~ sigh

ANCHORAGE – Seattle diners who order the salmon will get their meal with a message.

Chefs at more than a dozen restaurants are cooking up fish dishes that come with a special side: a warning that the creature’s future could be threatened by a giant gold and copper mine proposed for Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska, home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon runs.

Kevin Davis, co-owner of the Steelhead Diner, is an avid catch-and-release fly fisherman who recently returned from Washington, D.C., where he lobbied for permanent protection of Bristol Bay.

“Wild seafood is a rare and special commodity,” Davis said Thursday. “When I heard the news about the Pebble Mine and how it could potentially affect what is probably the world’s remaining strongholds of salmon, I became very concerned.”

To encourage his customers to help in the cause, the Steelhead Diner will feature three dishes using Alaska salmon: Tomato-Crusted Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon, Meyer Lemon-Crusted Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon and Hot-Smoked Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon Cheesecake.