The GOP Assault on Social Security!

Republicans want to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social safety net programs. 

What's Going On Here?

We are in one of the most exciting times in the history of our nation regarding Social Security and other social programs. We are back to a very blunt difference between the two parties. These differences are more divided than we have seen in generations. 

Trump who vowed on the campaign trail not to cut these programs has joined forces with the GOP  traditionalist by proposing significant cuts to social security, Medicaid and Medicare. All of these programs contribute to retirement security or disability security of people who receive social security. 

For example, Medicaid pays 65% of all nursing home cost.[See Source]  Social safety net programs are vital for our nation's seniors many who are poor. Besides, these cuts we have Trump falling in line with the standard GOP assault on retirement security and the security of disabled people. The exact opposite position he took while running for office.

6 Times Donald Trump Promised Not to Cut Medicare

OnThe Flip Side

Now we have something going on we haven't seen in a generation. Which are appropriate hearings in the House, in this case, a Social Security Subcommittee on expanding Social Security? There are a couple of proposals to do that, and the recent hearings were on representative John Larson's (D-CT) proposal to extend social security benefits. Now it's not the most left of the recommendations out there, but it has enormous support, and it does increase benefits.[See Source]

Its got more than 200 co-sponsors meaning it's well on the way to passage before it even gets put up for a vote. The recent hearings to this writer say as much as anything else the crossing of a symbolic barrier. Because as far as the House of Public Discourse knows it hasn't been since Social Security expanded in several ways in the 1950s that we've had the House of Representatives holding serious hearings about expanding Social Security.[See Source]

Dwight D. Eisenhower

In the 1950s, Social Security was very much part of the political landscape. At the time, President Eisenhower a Republican boasting in 1956 in the Republican Party platform that Social Security benefits should expand or increase to ten million people. [See Source]  So what you had was a consensus in support of expanding the program. What our research has discovered is a majority consensus again in favor of expanding Social Security. 

What About Medicare and Medicaid?

In the case of Medicare for all its support for it has almost become an affirmation of moral values for a society. Also, the aid of a specific policy because of it words like access are words that some of us have come to view with particular concern and healthy skepticism. 

Access to something you can't afford for example isn't accessing at all. " We the People" can debate the specifics of the " Medicare for All" bill put together by representatives; however, in the House of Public Discourse, we think it's excellent and compelling.

But the underlying values behind it are that its costs should not be a factor in getting the medical care you need that medical care is a right. In the same fashion, people are now saying it is a shame when someone dies because they feel they can't afford a  co-payment for prescribed medicines they need to control a severe illness. 

Trump wants to cut administrative budgets.

In doing so, whenever someone who is on Disability case is challenged or upon appeal, there will not be enough personnel to prosecute the claims. People could have their benefits cut off, and it is another way and draconian one 1984 way of demonizing the people who these benefits are supposed to be here when we need them. 

Just another way for Republicans including Trump to depreciate people who do need this help and make them seem like the other. Isn't it comical that the Republicans have always complained about intrusive government want to impose such a kind of police state activity on our own lives?

Bernie Sanders DESTROYS Trump's 2020 Budget

Written By: Johnny Hill

Poverty Is Not A Crime

There is a very significant problem in America that very few media outlets are paying attention to. The criminalization of poverty is becoming an issue in America, and no one seems to care. What's disheartening is that this trend  is coinciding with a growing number of Americans falling into poverty.  The increasing inequality in America has been well documented, and the results are more and more people showing up on our cities' streets.  While none of us were looking, state and federal agencies have been waging an undeclared war against the poor and homeless in this country.  Just the basic human biological needs ---like sitting, sleeping, or lying down have been labeled as loitering thus causing persons to be fined or arrested.  Here are some specifics:
 

Homeless Camp In New Jersey

 

• Over 1/3 of the large American cities have imposed city-wide bans on public homeless camps.  A 60% increase since 2011. These camps often in a metropolitan city are under a bridge, beneath the overpass on the freeway or railroad trestles. 
• In a growing number of American cities like Tampa, Florida, a person deemed homeless gets thrown in jail.[See Source] 
• There have been bans on asking for food in public and giving out food to the homeless in public.[See Article]

Let's put this into perspective. What are the implications of this? Could you envision a police officer walking through a city park or any other common public area, seeing  a white male dressed in a suit and tie taking a lunch time nap on a park bench and arresting him?  No!  No,  those people are seen as hard working and just taking their mid-day power nap before they have to go back to work. The people who aren't permitted this same luxury are the homeless.  For fear of being arrested,  the homeless person must wander around all day long, continuously on the move.  Why?  Because in many cities now, you can be incarcerated for just simply being homeless,  and to take a nap on a park bench with your bags would draw the eye of the authorities.

Even Charity Is Being Banned In Some Cities!

A 2009 study  from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which found that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with ticketing and arrests for more “neutral” infractions like jaywalking, littering or carrying an open container of alcohol.

The House of Public Discourse has found through our research one glaring motivation behind all of this legislation by our nation's municipalities regarding the homeless; to legislate the homeless problem out of sight and mind and to punish people who do not comply.  Taking away essential services to assist the homeless will force these needy Americans to go somewhere else with their problems .  One of the many trains of thought is that providing services for the homeless enables them to remain homeless.  Factoring in a political dynamic that caters to the racist and anti-tax crowd that believes these people should be left to fend for themselves, we easily see that idea is not only narrow-minded and wrong, it's un-American. People are homeless for a variety of reasons. Many areas in this country lack affordable housing, jobs, mental and physical health care and a working wage that is not indicative of the cost of living in a particular area.[See Article]

Increasing Need for Food Assistance across the U.S.

The 2013 Hunger and Homelessness Survey, conducted

by the United States Conference of Mayors

•     83% (19 of 25) of cities surveyed, in 2013, reported

an increase in the number of emergency food

requests from the previous year

•     91% reported an increase in persons seeking

food assistance for the first time

•     80% reported an increase in frequency of visits

to food pantries and emergency kitchens each

month

No matter these findings and despite the growing need for food assistance, cities have chosen to target the homeless by prohibiting their access to food sharing programs.

With a growing increase in need:

•     78% of cities had to reduce the number of times

a person could visit the food pantry each month

•     66% had to turn people away due to lack of resources

No Safe Place

As if homelessness was not hard enough on an individual within itself,  turning it into a criminal offense is, in a word, horrific.  For instance, in Bakersfield, CA, it is now against the law to panhandle for money.[See Source] This law is just one example of how communities all across America are clamping down on the plight of homelessness.  In another California city, an ordinance was passed making it a crime to sleep in your car.  That's right, sleeping in the car you own can land you in jail for six months.  The explanation given for this ridiculous ordinance was that it ruined the quality of life for the cities' elitist community.  The end goal for these so-called quality of life laws is to make no safe place for the homeless to rest. These type requirements are expanding nationwide. What all these facts and figures and ordinances amount to is an all out assault on homelessness. Unfortunately, it does not stop with these measures.  The mere act of being a good Samaritan to the homeless can land you in jail.  One of the most bizarre restrictions we uncovered was in New York City.  In that city, it was made illegal to donate food to a homeless shelter based on the fact that the food given could not be accessed for salt, fat, and fiber content!

So with corporate profits soaring to record levels while income inequality falls to record level lows it begs the following question:

When Did The War On Poverty Turn Into A War On The Poor?

Despite the slow but sure economic recovery from Bush II era politics, poverty in the U.S. is on the rise.  Poverty in America is becoming mainstream.  4 out of 5 Americans are one paycheck away from homelessness. Why do we see this downward slope after 50 years of the so-called " War on Poverty?"   One of the main factors that jumps from the page is capitalism.[ See: The American Dream Has Been Hijacked By The Capitalists]  We see an all out assault on every social program to assist the poor, and a total attempt to turn back the hands of time on civil rights legislation passed back in 1964.  There has been a stealing of people's pensions, a living wage that has not kept up with the growing cost of living, the outsourcing of jobs to other countries--- all tenants of the Mitt Romney-style of vulture capitalism.  Unions are being attacked and disbanded.  Even the smallest of measures to help the poor have been cut or done away with while there is an ever increasing trend to subsidize corporations and to sponsor arguably  unconstitutional amendments to make them appear as a person.  The bottom line is that measures that help poor people are being mitigated away while actions to help the rich have been enhanced.

According to a 2013 Census Supplemental ,  almost 50 million in the U.S. are poor.  Food Stamps keep five million out of poverty, and without Social Security,  more than half of America's elderly would be in poverty.[ See Additional Source] 

How much is the present assault on social services increasing this gap?

We have seen Republicans in every state work to cut food stamps while adding benefits for the wealthy. We have seen Democrats cave on their principles in relevant matters to Republicans who use these cuts to the poor as leverage to enact legislation for their deep-pocket political donors;  The old-Washington two-step.  The reality is these social services that are kicked around like a football on Super Bowl Sunday are a lifeline for a vast amount of American citizens.

What Are The Solutions?

Firstly, we must address the living wage issues in America. Increasing the minimum wage to $15 would be a nice start. Secondly, "We The People," must not lose our rights to organize on all fronts... labor, health care, and education just to name a few. We need to ensure and bring back guaranteed pensions for people who are long time employees and work hard all their lives for an employer.  We need to move away from a system that rewards profits over people. The free-markets have freed a few and enslaved the masses. We need as a collective society to change our priorities to those that put the common welfare of the people ahead of the common welfare of the corporations and their so-called free markets. 

It is the position of the House of Public Discourse that the steps needed to combat this war on the poor and the services they depend on should originate at the local levels of every community in this country. We who care must step up our advocacy for a positive change to make a brighter tomorrow for all Americans. The real unspoken and often under-disclosed fact is that the majority of Americans are, in fact, themselves one paycheck away from poverty and the streets.  Being poor is a condition with many variables.  But the one truism this writer holds close to the heart is " Poverty Is Not A Crime."

Written By: Johnny Hill

Do We Need Police Reform In America?

Do we need police reform in America? After recent events this past week, is there still any need for this question? The events of Ferguson and the New York killings have set off protests across the nation.

Street View

Following the announcement that a New York grand jury would not indict police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, D.C. protesters took to Dupont Circle and other parts of the city to demonstrate.

Who Is Policing The Police?

There is a movement happening across this country. The narrative of this campaign asks the question "How do we police the police?" Right now, it has become clear that We The People do not have a proper mechanism in place. Our research has found this to be a problem spanning  several decades. Who will police the police has been a nightmare for the American citizen for decades. There has been some action in the form of citizen's review boards, but they have proven to be ineffective. 

 It's the position of the House that we need to up our standards for police officers and provide better pay as well. We need to push for an independent faction other than the criminal justice system policing cops.What is not working is prosecutors and judges in big and small cities and towns across this nation who work hand-to-hand every day with police being the agency to oversee the cops behaviors in this country. 

There is an apparent bias in the criminal justice system towards cops.

It's  now common knowledge of the total miscarriage of justice in the Michael Brown Ferguson case. 

But surely there will be justice for the Eric Garner family in that  police choking murder case. Wrong! Even with a video that was, in this writers' view,  proof of the homicide by cop, the police officers in this matter were set free. Disappointing!

The Ferguson failures are an enormous eye-opener in the American psyche. This event has shed light on a process run amuck.  It should be clear there was no trial in the Ferguson case. We now know a rigged Grand Jury process has set officer Darren Wilson free and a whole bevy of New York's finest have just been set free as well.  Lest we forget, there was no cross-examining of witnesses in the Ferguson case. In the Ferguson case, there was no sharing of evidence and the bottom-line is that most legal scholars, both left and right, agree this was a  deliberately botched job by the prosecutor. These outcomes are bizarre and are major focal points of the growing tensions in America.  What should be human and justice issues have now become partisan politics, and that cannot continue.

The right-wing of the Republican Party tactics, with their racist dog-whistles, the Nixon southern strategy, a  healthy dose of Reganomics and what we have today is the worst of the Republicans. The party's 1% are pandering to the least common denominator of their base. See Article]  It's evident the Republican machine is stirring up the natives for 2016.

What Does The World Think Of These Events?

Human Rights in America are under attack!

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a statement that they had "legitimate concerns" over two separate U.S. grand jury decisions not to indict the white officers involved in the deaths of unarmed, black men, Michael Brown and Eric Garner.[See Source]

"The Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases have added to our existing concerns over the longstanding prevalence of racial discrimination faced by African-Americans, particularly in relation to access to justice and discriminatory police practices," said Mireille Fanon-Mendes-France, the OHCHR’s chairperson of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent. 

Black Life Matters! 

Times are testy in America today, maybe worse than ever. We have seen for two straight years a regression in Civil Rights legislation. We are moving backward to what some have called  the "stone-age," to a time when women and minorities had zero rights. 

The Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases have become the poster children of police corruption from the streets to the courthouse. 

We are hearing the term " Police State," being bandied about in these times. Just what is a police state and what does it look like?

Part 2

Will Racism Be The End of America?

Taking care not to be hyperbolic, it's imperative America rights its course on human rights, civil rights, and common sense.  Most whites in this country believe in white supremacy and black inferiority even more than they believe in God. Racism is an issue that can no longer be avoided. For those who don't think it's an issue,  answer the question why do lobbyists spend billions to overturn civil rights legislation? There has been an overall simplifying, stereotyping, and distorted view about minorities propagated  in this country.

The House Of Public Discourse Calls for an open dialogue about Racism in America. 

A History.

Racism as we know it originated back in the 16th century when the Europeans were enslaving Africans and offering them to people of the New World for trade. Racism in the Western World is associated with slavery over which a significant Civil War was fought. From the earliest of times, non-Europeans  have been enslaved by Europeans. From day one, racism has been a factor in American culture. It started with the Indians, and we all know how that turned out. However, it was the Europeans having to deal with non-Europeans that facilitated the term "racism." The British Empire used slaves to expand their vast empire. Many of the attitudes about blacks from white people today trace back to the attitude of the British. The engine driving the slave trade was clearly economics.

The Color Of Money!

Africans were a commodity to the British Empire.  Some experts claim as many as 11 million slaves were chained and thrown into the hull of a ship with little food or water. Some estimate 2 million slaves died on the journey and were thrown overboard. Slaves were viewed as sub-human. The master had absolute power over them. The masters had the whips and chains and most of all the weapons to administer punishment for those who stepped out of line.  Because of early fear of a slave revolt slaves were watched  carefully by their masters. When they became too stubborn, they were hung or shot.   It is unknown how many millions of slaves were murdered. 

Christendom Approved of  Slavery.

Much of the torture and capturing of slaves by Spain was done in the name of God, backed by the Catholic church. There are many accounts of  the massacre of the inquisition. In fact, history tells a horrific story. As a writer, one of my primary narratives is that history does repeat itself. We know from our research that religious councils helped to determine even if these slaves were humans. Many were put to death in the name of God.

How Is this behavioral history relative Today? 

What is an underlying question of both the Ferguson and New York cases is how frequently are there occurrences of police involved deaths happening  in America? According to a national statistic that tracks police killings, hundreds of homicides by law enforcement were not included in records kept by the FBI. 

From 2007 To 2012

A Wall Street Journal analysis of the latest data from 105 of the country’s largest police agencies found more than 550 police killings during those years were missing from the national tally or, in a few dozen cases, not attributed to the agency involved. The result: It is nearly impossible to determine how many people are killed by the police each year. [See Source]

There Has Been A Long Standing " Lack of Information," About Killings By Police! 

Jeffery Fagan

 “When cops are killed, there is a very careful account and there’s a national database,” said Jeffrey Fagan, a law professor at Columbia University. “Why not the other side of the ledger?”





According to the Wall Street Journal  

To analyze the accuracy of the FBI data, the Journal requested internal records on killings by officers from the nation’s 110 largest police departments. One-hundred-five of them provided figures.

Those internal figures show at least 1,800 police killings in those 105 departments between 2007 and 2012, about 45% more than the FBI’s tally for justifiable homicides in those departments’ jurisdictions, which was 1,242, according to the Journal’s analysis. Nearly all police killings are deemed by the departments or other authorities to be justifiable.

The System Needs To Be Reformed.

The American Justice System seems to be falling apart. With the Michael Brown and Eric Garner decisions sparking nationwide multi-racial anger and frustration, we are witnessing protests against the legal process run amuck. Our nation is on pins and needles right now, right here, this second. The Trayvon Martin case is not so long ago not to still sting when pondered. It would be an understatement to say everyday American citizens are losing confidence in the Judicial System.  Our Judicial System is supposed to be a pillar of our democracy. The African-American community has been targeted by law enforcement since crime statistics have been kept. The relativity of evil tells us if you have more  white officers in black neighborhoods their arrest rates will be higher than in the white areas. There is a history of a battle between persons of color and law enforcement in America. These recent events are but the tip of the iceberg. 

A Cry From The House: ADDRESS THE ISSUE AMERICA! 

In closing, we will be exploring and addressing the issues of Racism In America. These recent decisions to set murdering cops free is no big surprise for fair-minded people who have been following the overall regressive current our nation is on. Some will argue that the system works, that we just don't like the results. The House of Public Discourse holds a position the system is not broken but, in fact, works just fine for the powers that be, whose agenda is overall control of the population. We call for total and complete reform of how the police in this country are allowed to protect and serve us,  not control us.  

Discourse Unplugged with Johnny Hill #2

The day of the bird is history. Great for us, not so great for the turkey. The House of Public Discourse has much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving weekend. I have been overwhelmed and overjoyed by the awesome, real, and quality associations I have made this year with all of you. However, as a person where the holiday season was a depressing time of year, let us not forget those who hurt inside no reason the wherefores.

Let's Be Thankful For What We Got. 

Voices From The House?

What is angering me is how many businesses are boarding up in surrounding areas of Ferguson now. I do not blame them, but what this is doing to the livelihoods of hundreds of innocent people is astounding! And of course, with the holidays upon us, timing couldn't be worse. What are people thinking? [HOPD Staff Editior Bev Cowling]

For Some, The Holiday's Are Just Another Day In Paradise.

Voices From The House. 

If you are a Christian and you don’t like the “separation of church and state,” then that means that you are unhappy with the Constitution that you so vehemently defend when it aligns with your beliefs. So let me ask you this: what other parts of the Constitution do you want to change? What else doesn’t align with your beliefs? Because if we start changing it to accommodate you, you can no longer claim that you’re working from the mindset of Constitutionalism and patriotism.

Indeed, the Constitution was created as a living document that could be amended. So when you “take our country back,” what else are you going to change about the fundamental basis upon which our nation was founded?[ Friend of House: Pauline Polly Risteau]

From The Streets Of The House

Everyone meet Marty. He just a man on the streets in my neighborhood. Marty is a proud man. Marty is a smart man. Marty has issues. Marty needs medical attention both physically and mentally. Marty is homeless. But mostly, Marty is a person.

Hi my name is Marty and I am somebody

We Are  Only  Humans Born To Make Mistakes!