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	Fox News claims that feeding Seniors in Need is an effort to buy their Vote by Remington Shepard Media Matters & agencies USA   Aug 2013   Fox News continued its campaign to demonize programs that provide necessary food assistance to millions of Americans by attacking the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) effort to enroll eligible seniors in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, baselessly claiming the program was an effort to buy their vote and change "what America really is" and dismissing the fact that many eligible seniors find it difficult to enroll in the food assistance program they need.   A July 27 Tribune-Democrat article reported that the Pennsylvania chapter of the AARP "has launched an effort to use the organization"s volunteers to encourage seniors to apply for food stamps." According to the AARP, nearly 350,000 Pennsylvania seniors "do not always have enough money to buy food."   On Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy asked why the AARP would want to enroll eligible seniors in the program and "encourage a welfare state." Fox Business host Stuart Varney responded by dismissing the need to feed seniors -- even those in extreme poverty -- and claiming that the effort in Pennsylvania was about buying votes. He expanded:   VARNEY: Now the AARP, huge supporters of President Obama politically and financially. Big supporters of Obamacare. And now they"re out there signing people up for food stamps. This is part of the buy the vote campaign. They"re really shifting America, changing what America really is.   Outside of the 350,000 Pennsylvania seniors who lack food security, millions of seniors nationwide are food insecure and do not know how to access programs to assuage their food security concerns. According to Feeding America, a domestic hunger relief charity, "In 2011, 4.8 million Americans over the age of 60 were food insecure. This constitutes 8.4% of all seniors." Additionally, only 35 percent of eligible seniors are enrolled in SNAP. The Food Research and Action Center noted that the low enrollment rate can be attributed to things like a lack of mobility and technology allowing for seniors to enroll in the program.   Fox has previously demonized government SNAP outreach efforts and the program itself. On the March 15 edition Fox & Friends, Stuart Varney attacked SNAP, calling it a "feel good" program that creates "an entitlement nation," and added that SNAP outreach was an effort to secure votes for Obama during the 2012 presidential election. Varney has not limited his attacks to food security for the elderly. On July 9, Varney attacked the government for feeding children through initiatives like the free school lunch program, suggesting that food assistance programs that keep millions out of poverty were a sign of economic failure.   http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/07/30/fox-claims-that-feeding-seniors-in-need-is-an-e/195129 http://www.dailykos.com/news/Fox%20News   Aug 2013   Republicans are destroying civilization, writes VL BakerFollow for Daily Kos.   The evidence could not be stronger. Over 30 years have passed since Reagan laid out the Republican economic agenda. It was simple and people wanted to believe. Keep government out of peoples lives and let them keep what they earn. Government is the problem. Make things easy for business to flourish by loosening regulations and lowering their taxes because if business can flourish all will benefit as their profits will "trickle down" to bring prosperity to all.   Fast forward to the present; after more than 30 years of Republican political dominance, the results of Republican/conservative policies are all too apparent. The free market supply side forces have been responsible for creating the greatest income disparity since the gilded age. The United States has lost ground internationally in most demonstrable criteria including: median income, access to health care, infant mortality and economic dominance. And the Republican era of power culminated in an economic free fall which cost the American economy $12.8 trillion dollars and 8 million jobs. The failure of the republican/conservative economic agenda is stunning in its totality.   But there is nowhere the Republican failure is more devastating than in the global response to climate change.   At the end of World War II the United States emerged as the world leader economically and politically. The advantages and responsibilities of world leadership was in our hands. We built on the New Deal to strengthen the middle class with Social Security and Medicare and then focused on human rights with the Civil Rights Act. Then in 1981 came the Reagan revolution. And in a symbolic act President Reagan took down the solar panels which had been installed on the Carter White House. This act symbolized that new guys were in town and it also meant that government was being pushed out of the way for business to take its place as the rightful representative of the American people.   That was about the same time that understanding about our species contribution to climate warming was being discussed in the global scientific community. It was already recognized that our industrial consumption based on fossil fuels was the leading cause of our atmospheric pollution. It was also recognized that global warming would require a global response, with nations working together to advance and implement solutions. Our global economic and political leadership placed us in a position of responsibility to the global challenge of climate change; but here is where we abdicated our global leadership responsibility and the Republican ideology of laissez faire collided with the needed response to our changing climate.   In the over 30 years of Republican political dominance, the evidence of anthropogenic climate change has only strengthened to the point that 97 percent of credible climate scientists support the overwhelming evidence of human caused climate change. Yet over that time the Republican/conservative response has been to use its power to misinform and to obstruct any progress to mitigate. The Republican political leaders have taken the side of their business buddies—the fossil fuel industry, who have rewarded them with obnoxious sums of money for their support which has assured them of unrivaled control of the energy market. In the 112th GOP-controlled congress alone there have been 317 votes taken against the environment.   The cost of this obstruction and misinformation? It increasingly looks like the cost the world will be paying for this political idiotic malfeasance is a safe future for our children and grandchildren. We have lost too much time and already many in the world especially the most vulnerable are on the road to mass suffering and hunger. Republicans: The blood is on your hands.   http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/04/1223739/-Time-to-say-this-Republicans-are-destroying-civilization http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/26/1182365/-Dollars-for-Deniers-Big-Oil-Funds-Climate-Science-Denialism/ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/aug/08/global-warming-denial-fox-news http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/Is-News-Corp-Failing-Science.pdf http://billmoyers.com/segment/bill-moyers-essay-the-end-game-for-democracy/ http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3266976.htm Visit the related web page
	Conflict has changed, and this needs to be reflected in the future development agenda by Jordan Ryan UNDP: Perspectives   Ever since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, the global community has focused on addressing the challenges of inter-state conflicts.   But in 2013, the face of conflict is changing. Today armed conflicts that cause 1,000 or more deaths per year have declined. More than 526,000 people still die violently every year, but the majority of conflict deaths occur during internal clashes, as opposed to during wars between states.   New forms of violent conflict have emerged to take the place of traditional wars. These include inter-community violence, as in the DRC, Somalia and Syria, and violence linked to crime, as in many parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. Today, for every death from a recognized war, there are nine casualties from gang violence and crime. This violence stunts efforts to lift people out of poverty, scars communities and makes women and girls more vulnerable to abuse.   As world leaders prepare to discuss the new global agenda that will succeed the Millennium Development Goals from 2015 onward, recognizing the changing nature of conflict and addressing armed violence as a barrier to development have become top priorities.   This will demand the building of institutions able to respond effectively to the problems of street gangs and arms trafficking, as well as gender-based violence. We must help states to protect citizens and to deliver justice fairly and transparently, address livelihoods, reconciliation, social exclusion, security and the rule of law.   We must help countries invest in better monitoring systems that help predict violence with sufficient early warning to allow for prevention to work. Likewise there is need to focus on building national capacity for reconciliation and finding solutions that will offer young people viable alternatives to crime.   And there needs to be a modified approach to peace building. Traditional peace agreements between elite groups that exclude women and the vulnerable – or that don’t address the underlying causes of conflict – are doomed to fail.   Amazingly, we have significantly reduced the number of wars between states. We need the same sense of purpose and dedication to fulfill the vision of a world that is also free of other types of violence and conflict – a planet free of fear, poverty and inequity.   http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourperspective/ Visit the related web page
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