March 6, 2012: Congress without Conscience and The Broken Safety Net: Part Two in a Series:UPDATE March 8 LEADS
S.RES.380: A resolution to express the sense of the Senate regarding the importance
of preventing the Government of Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability.
As of March 8, AIPAC
lobbyists on Capitol Hill have persuaded 56 Senators to co-sponsor
S.Res.380 and on the House side the list of co-sponsors to the companion resolution is now 81.
These Senators and Representatives need to hear from citizens of conscience to remove their name
and vote against this resolution that is pushing the United States closer to war with
Iran.
Toll-free number is 855-686-6927
Part One: Days of Awareness and About The Money: Part 1
This week in D.C. thousands of Jewish and Christian AIPAC lobbyists
have inundated the Capitol to push Congress to vote YES on Senate Resolution
380, introduced by Zionist Senators Lieberman, Casey and Graham, who call for a
military attack on Iran.
War is the ultimate failure of intelligence and so far 44 members of Congress have co-sponsored this AIPAC bill and are
listed here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:SE00380:@@@P
This week in Florida a Congress without a Conscience, zeroed
out of the 2013 budget, $2.38 million for the homeless that Governor Rick Scott had earmarked.
If Scott signs onto the revisions, another failure of
intelligence will result for Florida will also loose $77 million in 2013 Federal
funding for HUD’s office of homelessness which will close down many homeless
shelters.
As
a resident of Florida and foremost a Christian of Conscience [meaning I take
Jesus very seriously and he warned that whatever one does or does not do for the "least among us" one is doing it or not unto God] I left a voice message for Florida
House Speaker Dean Cannon – 850-488-2742, and Senate President
Mike Haridopolos – 850-487-5056,
to express my disappointment in the legislature’s failure to fund homeless
services.
In my role as a reporter I also asked,
“What does the state intend to do with all the homeless people when these
shelters close down? And do you have a Conscience?”
As of this writing-neither have
responded.
Florida’s proposed 2013 Budget
has millions for projects in leaders' hometowns including $10 million for
Senate President Mike
Haridopolos, a Baptist and Republican from Merritt Island, for his Space
Coast "economic development commission," which will promote commercial research.
House
Speaker Dean Cannon got $5 million for the "Central Florida Life Sciences
Incubator Consortium," a group that includes the Tavistock Group, the
real-estate developer behind Orlando's Lake Nona, a private upscale residential
golf and gated community.
Dean
Cannon’s website and WIKI page do not include any religious affiliation, but he
is supported by Conservative Ministers of Central Florida as well as Central
Florida Realtors, Builders and Contractors.
Florida Budget negotiators agreed on the size of cuts to
hospitals, nursing homes and mental health programs and lawmakers are also considering
robbing $300 million from universities’ reserve accounts!
Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine noted, “The reserve
issue is problematic. A lot of schools thought they were doing the right thing
by saving money, but they can be hit the hardest.” [1]
Hitting
Hard:
Recently, Mitt Romney admitted that he was "not
concerned about the very poor" but would fix America's social safety net
"if it needs repair."
It most certainly does and Governments have obligations while people have rights!
America is a Member State of the UN UNIVERSAL DECLARATION of HUMAN RIGHTS and Article 25 affirms:
“Everyone
has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of
himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care
and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of
unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of
livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
Taking Control:
During America’s Great Depression, the Mormon Church
launched a welfare system designed by church leaders to match multitudes of
unemployed faithful with nearby farms that needed temporary labor so that goods
and services could be bartered or traded.
Heber Grant,
one of the church leaders in 1936, explained, "Our primary purpose was to
set up insofar as it might be possible, a system under which the curse of
idleness would be done away with, the evils of a dole abolished and
independence, industry, thrift and self respect be once more established among
our people. The aim of the Church is help the people to help themselves. Work
is to be re-enthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church
membership." [2]
Reverend
Martin Luther King. Jr. warned from his cell in Birmingham jail:
“There
was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early
Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In
those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and
principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores
of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power
became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being
"disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."'
“Small
in number, they were big in commitment and by their effort and example they
brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.
Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak,
ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch defender of
the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the
power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's
silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.
“If
today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church,
it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be
dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twenty-first
century.”
King
wondered if organized religion was too inextricably bound to the status quo to
save our nation and the world. King knew that "Any nation that year after
year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the
neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death."
The Mormon Church has members on the ground around the world to bring food and
supplies to the impoverished and victims of natural disasters.
Recently
the Department of Defense visited the Bishops Central Storehouse in Utah, and Gov.
Romney’s church dedicated the Bishops Central Storehouse, which contains a
two-year supply of food to support the Mormon Church's welfare system in the
U.S. and Canada for church members in need.
Its humanitarian program also sends food, medical supplies and other
necessities to the needy of all faiths worldwide.
The facility is equipped with emergency generators, 43 tractors, 98 trailers, a
one-year supply of fuel, parts and tires for the vehicles and was built to
withstand earthquakes with a magnitude as high as 7.5.
When Hurricane Katrina struck, the Mormon storehouse worked
with a military sense of efficiency and strategy, but most of the inventory in
the central storehouse goes to supply more than 100 smaller storehouses and hundreds
of soup kitchens and homeless shelters run by religious communities around
North America.
Seventy percent of the items on the shelves are produced by
the church itself and the remainder are purchased at steep wholesale discounts.
Most people depend on the food at the storehouse for an
average of three to six months because the church's goal is to help them return
to independence and they offer employment counseling and family services.
The primary source of capital support is the Mormons' monthly
fast and church members are asked to donate what they would have spent on two
meals, but many give much more.
Follow the Money:
In 1949, the United States provided Israel with its first form of U.S.
foreign aid: a $100 million Export-Import Bank Loan. This loan to Israel
marked the beginning of an evolutionary process that resulted in Israel
becoming the largest recipient of total U.S. foreign assistance in the
post-World War II era. From 1949 to 2008, the United States provided
Israel with more than $103.6 billion of total foreign assistance, composed
primarily of military aid—$56.0 billion—and economic aid—$30.9 billion.
All military loans to Israel were ended in 1985 under the Reagan
Administration, and replaced exclusively with military grants during a period
of economic crisis in Israel.
In July 1996, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed
Congress and initiated a process to phase out U.S. economic aid to Israel while
simultaneously increasing military aid during a 10-year Memorandum of
Understanding covering FY1999-2008.
As Israel no longer needs any economic aid, Netanyahu praised the
United States for giving Israel, "apart from political and military
support, munificent and magnificent assistance in the economic sphere. With
America’s help, Israel has grown to be a powerful, modern state. I
believe that we can now say that Israel has reached childhood’s end, that it
has matured enough to begin approaching a state of self-reliance."
Talking Childhood:
Annually more than 83,500 of Florida’s children experience
homelessness.
Homeless children have increased rates of acute and chronic health
problems and are sick four times more often than children with a permanent roof
over head.
Homeless children go to bed hungry at twice the rate of their peers and
experience three times the rate of emotional and behavioral problems.
Homeless children are four times more likely to have delayed
development and twice as likely to have learning disabilities.
A homeless child is a state of emergency for people of conscience!
It has been written, “a little child shall lead them”-Isaiah 11:6
Amen on that and Amen means So Be It!
I am Eileen Fleming for US HOUSE of Representatives and I approve of
this message which will be continued in Part 3 of this ongoing series.

1. http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/04/2675823/florida-legislators-grapple-with.html#storylink=cpy
2. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204792404577227173888056682.html
3. http://aidtoisrael.org/article.php?id=3178
Part One: Days of Awareness and About The Money: Part 1
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