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Our Lady of Perpetual Profit

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Hail Money Full of Greed

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Food Stamps 

Key to Wal-Mart Profits

For the first time, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is citing its dependence on customers using food stamps in order to maintain its revenues and profits.

Wal-Mart's annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission included a required cautionary statement which informs the public of factors that could harm future profitability, such as natural disaster and civil unrest; the public assistance inclusion was new. 

"Wal-Mart for the first time in its annual reports acknowledges that taxpayer-funded social assistance programs are a significant factor in its revenue and profits," according to the International Business Times. 

"This makes sense, considering that Wal-Mart caters to low-income consumers. 

But what's news here is that the company now considers the level of social entitlements given to low-income working and unemployed Americans important enough to underscore it in its cautionary statement."

Violence Against Women

Dot--

Christin was a 35-year old mother of two from Washington who appealed to the courts for protection against her ex-partner who had already been convicted of stalking in a previous relationship.

Five days later, she was found dead in her home - a murder-suicide made possible because of lax laws that enable deadly violence against women trying to escape dangerous relationships.

Tragically, her story is far too common. In the United States, 76% of female homicide victims are stalked before their death, and the vast majority of their assailants use a gun to carry out the crime.

It’s time for Congress to protect women from gun violence.

Current law prevents domestic violence offenders or those under a restraining order from possessing firearms.

The legislation, named after the late Senator Frank Lautenberg, saves lives, but it is due for an update.

Far too often, domestic abusers will plead down to a lesser charge … like stalking.

During my time in Arizona’s State Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, I used my voice and my vote to protect victims of domestic violence, and I see this letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee as an extension of that work.

I hope you’ll add your name to it today:

http://action.americansforresponsiblesolutions.org/domestic-violence-letter

The gun lobby would say that women should arm themselves for protection, but studies show that keeping guns out of the hands of their abusers is a more effective way of keeping women safe.

Congress should act to keep women safer, and - working with you - I will be calling on them to do so in the year ahead.

Thank you for joining me,

Public School Education Under Attack

Don’t Let Them Do It!    
     
From the landing at Plymouth Rock to today, educators and community members have debated over the best way that government should fulfill its responsibility to educate citizens.

Underlying these debates are three central questions: What is the purpose of a public education?

Who is to receive the educational services provided by the public?

And, how does government ensure the quality of these educational services?

In various forms, these questions lay beneath all educational changes and reform measures in American history.

Today, school choice, bilingual education, and testing are the hot issues being debated in communities, government chambers, and newspaper op-ed pages.

These reform initiatives have lofty goals of increasing access, raising standards of quality, spawning innovation, and empowering students.

But as promising as each of these initiatives may be, each produces unintended consequences, thus increasing the complexity of the debate.

Our goal in this material is not to encourage debate but to start deliberation.

Contemporary issues cannot be reasonably discussed outside the context of history.

To understand where we want to go, we need to first understand how we have come to this point.

What follows is an exploration of these issues and their antecedents in history.

These topics and timelines are intended to inform community members about the legacy of these vital issues in education today.

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British man assaults wife who kept singing

Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead after death
 of his mother

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from BUZZFLASH this morning. 

ENABLERS
U.S. Keeps Saudi Arabia's Worst Secret
<http://elink.thedailybeast.com/4e55776ae018bee76c36578d1hwxo.17yq/UzFvUeYQTTPkxxI9D1b3d>

A comprehensive study of Saudi textbooks by the U.S. government was completed in 2012 but the State Department has declined to release it, Eli Lake reports. For example, previous textbooks have likened Christians and Jews to apes and pigs. The materials are used not only in the kingdom’s schools, but in others around the world..