Tag Archives: Food

a repost

What You Need To Know From The Latest Social Security Trustees Annual Report

The latest annual report from the trustees for Social Security and Medicare came out today. It provided some very good news on the health care front: the report extended Medicare’s solvency by four years from 2026 to 2030. This improved financial health can be attributed in part to the Affordable Care Act, which is helping to reduce costs.

Just a few years ago, before the Affordable Care Act was fully implemented, the trustees predicted that the Medicare trust fund would run out by 2016. Another reason to be thankful for the ACA.

On the Social Security front, some news reports are focusing on the financial shortfall that the program faces in the next 75 years. But it is both expected and manageable. Here are the four key takeaways, from a post by Center for American Progress experts Rebecca Vallas and Christian E. Weller:

1. Social Security can continue to pay all promised benefits for the next two decades. As was the case in last year’s report, the Trustees continue to estimate that Social Security will be able to pay all scheduled retirement, disability, and survivorship benefits through 2033. Social Security has two trust funds: one for the retirement and survivorship benefit programs, and one for the much smaller Disability Insurance (DI) program (although experts generally consider the two funds together due to the interrelated nature of Social Security’s programs). Individually, the Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund is projected to deplete its reserves in 2035, and the DI trust fund will do so in 2016. After 2033, the Trustees project that Social Security income from payroll taxes will be sufficient to cover 77 percent of promised benefits after 2033, unless policymakers implement changes before then.

2. Social Security’s shortfall is modest. The Trustees project that the entire Social Security shortfall for the next 75 years will be about 1 percent of GDP, or 2.88 percent of taxable payroll. The bulk of this shortfall, 2.55 percent of payroll or 88.5 percent of the entire shortfall, is attributed to OASI. The Trustees have long projected both the OASI and DI shortfalls. While an aging population is frequently discussed as the driving factor, recent analysis by Monique Morrissey at the Economic Policy Institute finds that as much as half of the shortfall is attributable to rising inequality and wage growth that has lagged behind gains in productivity.

3. The fact that action will soon be needed to address Disability Insurance’s finances has long been expected. As with last year’s report, this year the Trustees continue to project that the DI trust fund will be exhausted in 2016—something that has been expected for nearly 20 years.

4. A routine step would ensure that Social Security can pay all benefits in full through 2033. Rebalancing—an adjustment in the share of payroll taxes allocated to each of the trust funds—has occurred in a bipartisan manner 11 times in the program’s history to account for demographic shifts or other changes. About half the time funds have been reallocated toward OASI, and about half the time toward DI.

BOTTOM LINE: The trustees for Social Security and Medicare brought the good news that Medicare’s financial health is better than expected. And the predictions it makes for Social Security are both expected and manageable–permitting our elected officials can take action to strengthen this program that is a bedrock of economic security for working Americans.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Dad: Affordable housing plan led to son’s demotion in league

06/29/2016 Nativegrl77

by dave collins

DARIEN, Conn. (AP) — In one of the country’s richest towns — where Mercedes, BMWs and Land Rovers cruise tree-lined streets of multimillion-dollar homes — a man who proposed building more accordable housing says fellow residents took out their anger on his son: a 9-year-old boy demoted to a lower-level Little League team.

Christopher Stefanoni says in a federal lawsuit that residents of Darien are so worried that affordable housing will draw black people to town that they’ll do just about anything to stop it, including using his son to retaliate against him. Town and Little League officials say that’s completely false.

“Darien is a little white enclave, sort of a holdout segregated town,” said Stefanoni, 50, a Harvard-educated father of five who has lived in town since 2000. “The attitudes that people in Darien have are very exclusionary, demeaning. When they go after your kids, they’ve crossed the line.”

The town of nearly 21,000 people on Connecticut’s Gold Coast consistently appears in Top 10 lists of America’s wealthiest towns, with a per-capita income around $95,000. About 94 percent of the population is white, with about 620 Hispanics and 70 blacks, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

The lawsuit and a federal housing investigation reopened old wounds in Darien, a New York City suburb depicted in the 1947 Oscar-winning movie “Gentleman’s Agreement” starring Gregory Peck where residents conspired not to sell their homes to Jews

Stefanoni and his wife, Margaret, filed the lawsuit in 2013 against the Darien Little League and its leaders at the time their son was demoted in the fall of 2010. The demotion came just days after he filed an affordable housing application for property right next to the home of a former league official. Several months later, Stefanoni was banned indefinitely from coaching in the league.

Lawyers for the Little League deny the allegations. A federal judge in Bridgeport is now mulling the league’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. According to court documents, league officials say they made a mistake placing the Stefanonis’ son on a higher-level team, after the housing application was filed, and corrected the error by moving him to another team.

“Mr. Stefanoni is pursuing a baseless litigation as a means to harass and retaliate against defendants for an imaginary slight that has no connection to reality or to the civil rights laws that he purports to vindicate,” the defendants’ lawyers, Michelle Arbitrio and Fred Knopf, wrote in the motion to dismiss. Knopf has since withdrawn from the case.

Former Little League board members named in the lawsuit declined to comment.

Stefanoni said he has had three affordable housing proposals rejected by the town. They include a 16-apartment complex with five affordable units and a 30-apartment development with nine affordable units. A court sent both of those back to the town’s planning and zoning commission for review and approved a third. The commission cited traffic safety and other concerns.

The lawsuit includes allegations about city officials blocking affordable housing applications to keep blacks from moving into town, claims identical to those in another pending federal lawsuit against the town by a different affordable housing developer whose project was rejected.

The U.S. Department of Justice in 2010 began investigating whether the town was violating the Fair Housing Act with a zoning policy approved in 2009 that gave top priority for new affordable housing to Darien residents and other people with ties to the town, including town employees. The planning and zoning commission rescinded the policy later in 2010, and the Justice Department closed the investigation in 2012 without taking any action, the Darien Times reported.

According to state data, 2.6 percent of Darien’s nearly 7,100 housing units qualify as affordable. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has called affordable housing one of the state’s most pressing needs and has committed hundreds of millions of dollars for more affordable housing.

In 2010, Darien won a four-year exemption to a state law making it easier for developers to build in towns with less than 10 percent affordable housing and town officials expect to win another after resolving a dispute with the state. The town says it is entitled to the exemption under a complicated formula involving existing affordable housing units.

Darien First Selectman Jayme Stevenson said the town has made significant efforts to increase affordable housing and its housing practices aren’t discriminatory.

“The Darien of today bears no resemblance to the allegations that the Stefanonis … are intending to propagate,” she said. “These folks are developers and they’re looking to develop housing and make some money.”

Rob Williamson, owner of Uncle’s Deli in downtown Darien, said he doesn’t believe the town is being discriminatory in rejecting affordable housing applications.

“The town’s small, very tight knit,” the resident of nearby Stamford said. “That doesn’t mean we want to keep anyone out. It’s a small, little New England town and I think they want to keep it that way.”

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Making Our Communities Stronger Through Fair Housing – reminder

06/29/2016 Nativegrl77

In this week’s address, the President discussed a new rule announced by his Administration earlier this week to make it easier for communities to implement the Fair Housing Act.

For nearly 50 years, the Fair Housing Act has prohibited landlords from turning away tenants because of race, religion, sex, national origin, or disability, and has made a big difference in this country. This week, the Administration announced new steps to provide communities with the tools they need to ensure that housing is fair, and that no American’s destiny is determined by a zip code.

Watch the President’s Weekly Address here.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Deodorant Ingredients to Avoid

06/08/2016 Nativegrl77

photo ~John Foxx/Getty DCL

by Megan Winkler

With ingredients that have been linked to breast cancer, Alzheimer’s, hormonal imbalance and neurological issues, I think it’s time we start looking a little more closely at what’s going into our deodorant. I’m pretty horrified at the information I dredged up on the topic. I know this isn’t a glamorous topic, but it’s an important one. So important, in fact, that I’m going to try a natural deodorant recipe out this week. But before I get to the recipe, let’s talk about what we’re applying to our armpits on a daily basis.

THE ALUMINUM-ALZHEIMER’S CONNECTION

Yeah, we’ll start off with a big one. Aluminum—as in the metal—is used to block pores from releasing sweat. The problem is, aluminum has been linked to breast cancer in women, prostate cancer in men and an increased chance of Alzheimer’s. Now to be fair, the Food and Drug Administration has never said it’s a carcinogen, but there is definitely a case for drawing a correlation between the two. It might be something to look out for.

POTENT PARABENS

Parabens are synthetic preservatives that are sometimes present in health and beauty products. There are two interesting bits of information that I’d like for us to consider with regards to this ingredient. The first is that the Centers for Disease Control conducted a study to see how many of us have parabens in our system. Of 100 subjects tested, 100 percent—each and every one of them—showed paraben presence in their urine. This research told scientists a lot about how easily chemicals enter our body via the skin. The other bit of information is that parabens have been linked to hormonal imbalance in early puberty. Food for thought.

OH GEEZ, PROPYLENE GLYCOL

The petroleum-based ingredient propylene glycol is present in many antiperspirants and deodorants. It’s the ingredient that gives deodorant a slick consistency so we can slather it on our skin. Bad news is that in large quantities it can do damage to the central nervous system, the heart and the liver. To be fair, this is like saying that broccoli in large doses is lethal, but no one would ever eat that much anyway, so it’s a moot point. The amount of propylene glycol used in the average stick of deodorant is probably completely safe, but it’s worth mentioning.

FUNKY PHTHALATES

Phthalates help ingredients to dissolve, and because of this they are sometimes found in deodorant. Unfortunately, phthalates are also linked to birth defects and the disruption of hormone receptors in the body. Yuck!

TRICKY TRICLOSAN

After finding out that triclosan was classified as a pesticide by the FDA and as a probable carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency, most companies that produce deodorants and antiperspirants have removed this ingredient from their formulas. It’s still a good idea to read the product label just to make sure triclosan isn’t hiding inside.

A DIY NATURAL ALTERNATIVE

I did some research to see if I could talk about some great mainstream companies that have eliminated these ingredients from their products, but with the exception of Old Spice, none of the companies I investigated even go so far as to display the ingredients for their deodorants online.

There are a few all-natural deodorants on the market, but I found a couple of homemade recipes via Wellness Mama that are supposed to be amazing, assuming the above information doesn’t sit well with you either. Using coconut oil, baking soda, shea butter, and some optional arrowroot and essential oils, you can make your own quite easily. Simply melt the coconut oil and shea butter in a double boiler and add the other ingredients to create an all-natural alternative that really works. Another option is to combine coconut oil, baking soda and cornstarch in a small glass jar. Neither recipe requires refrigeration, which is nice.

~ Culture & History

Tell the USDA to ban all sales of Lion Meat … Cheryl Semcer

10/01/2015 Nativegrl77

I started a petition this summer asking a restaurant to stop serving lion meat, and won. Now I’m calling on the USDA to ban all sales of lion meat.

Sign My Petition

I never imagined the impact I would have when I started my first petition on Change.org asking a restaurant in Kansas to stop serving lion meat. But I won with the help of other Change.org users!

I still wondered if the sale of lion meat was happening in other places, and who was letting this happen.

It turns out there are a lot of problems with lion meat: it’s not only bad for lions, but also humans. The origins of lion meat are nearly untraceable, with some of it coming from farms where they’re raised for circus entertainment, their hides, and slaughter. Killing lions for human consumption also falls between the cracks of federal agency responsibility, and therefore the meat is rarely inspected. Since the processing goes unregulated, lions aren’t even protected by humane slaughter laws.

It’s unbelievable to me that any restaurant would be allowed to sell lion meat — especially when the meat is potentially unsafe. Thats why I started a new petition on Change.org, this time calling on the United States Department of Agriculture to ban the sale of all lion meat. Click here to sign!

Lion meat isn’t regulated by the USDA or the Food and Drug Administration — even though it’s often deceitfully marketed this way. This lack of clear oversight makes it nearly impossible to trace the origin of lion meat and how it’s processed.

And to make matters worse, experts say that serving lion meat at restaurants in the U.S. could further drive the dwindling wild population into extinction.

Restaurants market lion meat because it’s shocking — but the government shouldn’t be allowing a gimmick like this that could decimate the lion population and make people sick. My petition asking a local restaurant to stop serving lion meat won — and was widely covered in the media. By showing popular support for a ban on all lion meat, I believe the USDA will be forced to listen.

Sign my petition now asking the United States Department of Agriculture to ban the sale of lion meat.

Thank you for your support.

Cheryl Semcer

Hoboken, New Jersey