I like it when politicians say what they mean. If you’re all about the working class, then be about it and stand by your decision. Those poor people will always have the government to lean on (just ask Newt). Right?

The Democratic National Committee has used this misspeak to their advantage in their latest ad.

 

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The most recent Department of Agriculture report on the general characteristics of the SNAP program’s beneficiaries says that in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2010:

• 47 percent of beneficiaries were children under age 18.
• 8 percent were age 60 or older.
• 41 percent lived in a household with earnings from a job — the so-called “working poor.”
• The average household received a monthly benefit of $287.
• 36 percent were white (non-Hispanic), 22 percent were African American (non-Hispanic) and 10 percent were Hispanic (Table A.21).

We don’t argue that the program is either too large (as Gingrich does) or too small. It has certainly reached a historically high level, and may or may not grow even larger in the months to come. But the plain fact is that the growth started long before Obama took office, and participation grew more under Bush.

Now, I don’t want you to think I’m blind to the fact that there are people abusing the system. Just like the tax code is abused, I’m sure there are many getting over on the good ol’ US of A. But for the most part, in my special world, I’d like to think it’s beneficial to those who need it most.

As an added bonus, I thought I’d add a link to the WIC PARTICIPANT AND PROGRAM CHARACTERISTICS 2010:  SUMMARY.

 

Wednesday – Friday: Office Hours marathon of online question and answer sessions on Twitter
To participate, anyone can ask a question on Twitter with the hashtag #WHChat, and administration officials respond to questions in real-time via Twitter.  Follow the Q&A through the @WHLive Twitter account.  If you miss the live session, the full Q&A will be posted on WhiteHouse.gov to cross-post and Storify.com/WhiteHouse.

1/25: Answering general questions about the speech

All-day: Josh Earnest, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary

1pm: Mark Zuckerman, White House Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council

3pm: Dan Pfeiffer

1/26: Constituency focused sessions

10am: Veterans

• Matt Flavin, White House Director of Veterans and Wounded Warrior Policy

11am : LGBT

• Miriam Vogel, White House Senior Policy Advisor and Gautam Raghavan, Assoc. Director for Public Engagement

Noon : Women

• Racquel Russell,  Special Assistant to the President for Mobility and Opportunity Policy and Avra Siegel, White House Deputy Executive Director for the Council on Women and Girls

1pm: Seniors

• Jeanne Lambrew, Deputy Assistant to the President for Health Policy and Nick Papas, Assistant Press Secretary

2pm: Latinos

• Felicia Escobar, White House Senior Policy Advisor and Julie Rodriguez, White House Associate Director of Public Engagement, and Luis Miranda, White House Director of Hispanic Media

3pm: Native Americans

• Kimberlee Teehee, Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs

4pm: Small Business owners

• Christine Koronides, Senior Advisor for Economic Policy, National Economic Council

5pm: African Americans

• Danielle Gray, Deputy Assistant to the President for Economic Policy

6pm: Asian American Pacific Islanders

• Chris Lu, Assistant to the President and Cabinet Secretary

1/26: Specific Issue focused sessions

10am: Rural Issues

• Doug McKalip, Senior Policy Advisor for Rural Affairs

11am: Foreign Policy

• Ben Rhodes, Deputy NSA for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting

Noon: Education

• Roberto Rodriguez, Special Assistant to the President for Education Policy

1pm: Health

• Jeanne Lambrew, Deputy Asst. to the President for Health Policy and Nick Papas, Asst. Press Secretary

2pm: Energy

• Heather Zichal, Deputy Asst. to the President for Energy and Climate Change and Dan Utech, Deputy Director for Energy Policy

3pm: Consumer Protections

• Brian Deese, Deputy Director National Economic Council

4pm: The Economy

• Jason Furman, Principal Deputy Director National Economic Council

5pm: Job Opportunities

• Portia Wu, Senior Policy Advisor for Mobility & Opportunity Policy

6pm: Urban Issues

• Racquel Russell,  Special Assistant to the President for Mobility and Opportunity Policy

Monday, 1/30: Your State of the Union Interview with President Obama
In the first, completely virtual interview from the White House, President Obama will answer questions that have been submitted by Americans from across the country via YouTube. The virtual event with the President will happen through  Google+ Hangout, a live multi-person video chat.  Your readers can submit questions now through the 28 ^th at youtube.com/whitehouse.

 

President Obama urges both Republicans and Democrats to take action to avoid defaulting for the first time in our nation’s history.

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Funny how all of a sudden raising the debt ceiling has become a big deal. When the previous Republican administration started handing out dollars for the war and banking industry, no one had anything to say. The debt to be handed down to our children wasn’t as big an issue because we had more important things to do.

I have never seen a bigger group of babies than the ones who serve in Congress today. Each group wants their way and when they don’t get it, they fold their arms and storm out of the room. What’s the big deal with putting a balanced deal together where both groups get something they want and lose something they want to keep. Is putting a deal together really that complicated or are they making it harder than it should be? This is politics at its worst and the American People are the ones who are going to suffer in the end. Maybe their paychecks should be the first thing put on hold if a resolution is not met before the deadline. But then all they’d do is get money from lobbyists and special interest groups. Oh well.

Playing “chicken” with the economy is not a good thing to do right now. I honestly thought Boehner would be more open to working things out. Guess I was wrong.

 

This is what I love about this administration. They aren’t afraid of trying new things to keep voters involved. On July 6th at 2pm ET, the White House (@whitehouse), will be hosting the first ever Twitter Town Hall.

This is the opportunity for Twitter users to tweet President Obama questions regarding jobs and the economy. To submit your questions you must have a Twitter account and  use hashtag #AskObama so they can track your question. On the 6th, President Obama will answer select questions in a live event moderated by Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder and Executive Chairman.

If you’d like to try your luck in being a part of the live audience, you can submit your information to register online. For recent updates follow @townhall.

And for those who hate on the President no matter what he does, lets please be respectful during the event.

 

But despite the lack of posts, I still get a decent amount of hits and readers are still leaving comments on some of my older posts. I’m not the most prolific writer and I don’t consider myself to be well-versed in a lot of the stuff I blog about. But there’s something about this blogging thing that keeps sucking me back into it. I’ve grown to love the black blogger community and it has allowed me to meet some amazing people. There are a lot of people out there with some strong opinions about society and the world as they see it. Those are the people who I like to showcase and support.

I’m making some changes to the blog and what I blog about. I love the current theme and focus of theotalks, but I want to remove the restraints and give myself the opportunity to be all over the place. The new theme of the site is “Random thoughts about everything and nothing”. While it may be a little vague, that’s how I want to run the site from now on.  My current theme of focusing on the black community is great, but there are so many other great bloggers out there consistently doing it. It takes time to put those posts together and right now, I’m at a different place in life.

So from here on out, expect the unexpected. As I feel moved, I’ll post about whatever is on my heart at the moment. I’ll also be showcasing some of my favorite bloggers and will work to get some of the guest writers back (you know who you are) to help a brotha out.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to start the podcast back up, but I might try my hand at video blogging. Only time will tell. Thanks to everyone who supports and reads this blog. It definitely keeps me motivated to stay at it.

God Bless.

Theo

 

Sure we don’t have our American utopia critics felt he promised in 2008, but let’s remember the downward spiral our country was going in before he was elected. Money was being thrown all over the place to fund the Iraq war, the housing sector was trash and companies who were too big to fail were in the corporate welfare line waiting for their share of the taxpayers’ money. It wasn’t pretty and I til this day can’t understand why he wanted to run for office in the first place. But he won and the country has never been the same since.

Our previous president told us that holding the office of  Commander in Chief is hard work and I agree. I couldn’t imagine having to be responsible for making decisions that affect millions of people, but I feel President Obama has done what he feels is best for America and deserves a second term. I feel confident that despite all the political bickering, he thoughtfully considers every decision and moves after he’s heard all the options. Yes, not every decision is effective. But what president, CEO or executive can make the claim that all of the decisions they’ve made have worked? In the end, he’s the one held responsible. So let’s give him four more years to see if the laws he’s implemented work.

 

This is sad and shows how much our representatives in Texas care about the future of our youth. While my kids might not personally benefit from all of these programs, there are a lot of kids who will. For those parents who might not have the money to send their kids to private school or get outside help for their kids, these programs and grants are needed. If you live in Texas, take a little time to call your representative and ask them to fund public education.

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WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!

PLEASE CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE TODAY

ASK HIM/HER TO FUND PUBLIC EDUCATION

IN HB 1

THE BUDGET BILL FOR 2012-2013

CALL TODAY!!!

What you need to know:

Friday, April 1, the Texas House of Representatives will vote on the budget for the next two years. The budget on which they will vote makes deep cuts to public education.

• HB 1 proposes giving $7.8 billion less to the Foundation School Program (FSP), the main source of funding for local school districts. This is 18% less than is required by current law.
• Depending upon how a local school district chooses to address this reduced funding from the state, Texas could expect layoffs of thousands of school employees.
• In addition to cuts to the FSP, HB 1 cuts or severely reduces funding for
  • Reading, Math and Science Initiatives
  • Pre-Kindergarten Early Start program
  • Early Childhood School Readiness Grants
  • Science Lab Grants
  • Texas Advanced Placement Incentive Program
  • Virtual School Network
  • Middle School Physical Education Grants
  • Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program
  • Extended Year Programs
  • Limited English Proficiency Student Success Initiative
  • Communities in Schools Programs
  • Student Success Initiatives
  • High School Completion and Success Initiative

What you can do:

CALL YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE TODAY

ASK HIM/HER TO SUPPORT AMENDMENTS TO HB 1

THAT INCREASE FUNDING FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION

To find contact information for your state representative, visit http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us. Enter the requested information into the fields listed (this includes your street address and ZIP code) and then select “HOUSE” from the District Type pull-down field and click the submit button. You will be taken to a page that lists the name of your state representative as well as their Austin (512) phone number. This is the number you should dial to register your concerns about HB 1.

Partnership For A Healthy Texas Conquering Obesity

Members and Friends of the Partnership for a Healthy Texas -

Both the Steering and Legislative Committees have been quite busy of late reviewing legislation, serving as issue area experts and making sure the Partnership priorities are both promoted and reflected appropriately in the budget and in legislation. We appreciate your patience during our lack of communication.

We have developed two documents; one, outlining the bills that fall into the Partnership’s legislative priority areas and; another, outlining the bills related to obesity and nutrition that the Partnership is tracking (click on the links to download each in PDF format). Below, is a rough outline of the budget as it relates to our issues. As you are probably well aware, the Senate version of the budget is still being hammered out while the House will discuss HB 1 on the floor tomorrow.

We anticipate calling upon our membership more as the process moves along. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions.

TEA – HB 1

HB1 would cut $66 million from School Health and Safety, which includes implementation of coordinated school health, counseling and mental health, physical activity, nutrition, and health education, and health services. This is a 70% reduction in funding compared to the current budget.

In addition to the 70% reduction in School Health and Safety, HB1 would end the state’s investment in:

• Prekindergarten grants and Early Childhood School Readiness programs (down $223.3 million), meaning 144,000 fewer children would benefit from quality-assured public prekindergarten and school readiness programs each year
• Middle School Physical Education grants (down $20 million), resulting in 425,000 middle school students no longer having access to programs proven to increase performance on Fitnessgram physical fitness assessments and with demonstrated positive correlation with TAKS Reading and Math scores
• Life Skills Teen Parenting (down $19.7 million), meaning that 26,000 pregnant and parenting teens will have supportive services for graduating high school and learning healthy parenting skills
• School Bus Seat Belt grants, reduction of $10 million that would have gone to assist school districts acquire school buses with three-point seat belts
• Communities in Schools (though $9.7 million in federal TANF funds remain). 64,000 fewer students at risk of dropping out of school each year would no longer receive services that connect them to community resources that supports their success in school and beyond

The HB1 proposed cuts would be on top of reduction already made to the TEA budget in the current biennium:

• $2 million cut to the Education Service Centers that provide technical assistance for implementing coordinated school health
• $3.5 million cut to Communities in Schools
• $41,000 for School Lunch matching
• $850,000 for AVANCE family support

DSHS cuts

• Community-based obesity prevention (HB1: 53% cut equaling $15.6m to all chronic disease prevention, SB1: same)
• WIC Nutrition Supplements and Farmer’s Markets (HB1: $33.5m cut, which is 25,500 fewer recipients on monthly WIC Nutrition caseload, a 1% caseload cut, SB1: same)

TDAg budget recommendation:

There is a rider in the TDA component of the budget supporting the Texas Department of Agriculture’s capacity to coordinate existing farming resources and expand the Farm-to-School program by raising the Department’s full-time equivalent employee cap. This will allow the Department to create a Farm-to-School Coordinator position that will not require any appropriation of state funds. This coordinator position represents an opportunity to support the health of Texas children in a Legislative Session where cuts to children’s health services are endemic. A Texas Department of Agriculture Farm-to-School Coordinator position would additionally help support the growth of Texas farms, increase the availability of quality of food in Texas schools, and create valuable opportunities for nutrition education amid a costly obesity epidemic.

Carrie Kroll
Partnership for a Healthy Texas Chair

 

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