Israeli Colonel captured by Iraq army among a group Islamic State (ISIS) members. Under interrogation spills the beans about Netanyahu’s IDF role in supporting IS.

25.11.2015 Author: F. William Engdahl

Israeli Colonel Caught with IS Pants Down

This was definitely not supposed to happen. It seems that an Israeli military man with the rank of colonel was “caught with IS pants down.” By that I mean he was captured amid a gaggle of so-called IS–or Islamic State or ISIS or DAESH depending on your preference–terrorists, by soldiers of the Iraqi army. Under interrogation by the Iraqi intelligence he apparently said a lot regarding the role of Netanyahu’s IDF in supporting IS.

In late October an Iranian news agency, quoting a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, reported the capture of an Israeli army colonel, named Yusi Oulen Shahak, reportedly related to the ISIS Golani Battalion operating in Iraq in the Salahuddin front. In a statement to Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency a Commander of the Iraqi Army stated, “The security and popular forces have held captive an Israeli colonel.” He added that the IDF colonel “had participated in the Takfiri ISIL group’s terrorist operations.” He said the colonel was arrested together with a number of ISIL or IS terrorists, giving the details: “The Israeli colonel’s name is Yusi Oulen Shahak and is ranked colonel in Golani Brigade… with the security and military code of Re34356578765az231434.”


Why Israel?

Ever since the beginning of Russia’s very effective IS bombing of select targets in Syria on September 30, details of the very dirty role of not only Washington, but also NATO member Turkey under President Erdogan, Qatar and other states has come into the sunlight for the first time.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that at least a faction in the Obama Administration has played a very dirty behind-the-scenes role in supporting IS in order to advance the removal of Syrian President Bashar al Assad and pave the way for what inevitably would be a Libya-style chaos and destruction which would make the present Syrian refugee crisis in Europe a mere warmup by comparison.

The “pro-IS faction” in Washington includes the so-called neo-conservatives centered around disgraced former CIA head and executioner of the Iraqi “surge” General David Petraeus. It also includes US General John R. Allen, who since September 2014 had served as President Obama’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) and, until she resigned in February 2013, it included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
 
Significantly, General John Allen, an unceasing advocate of a US-led “No Fly Zone” inside Syria along the border to Turkey, something President Obama refused, was relieved of his post on 23 October, 2015. That was shortly after launch of the highly-effective Russian strikes on Syrian IS and Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front terrorist sites changed the entire situation in the geopolitical picture of Syria and the entire Middle East.






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slamic State warns the heart of other countries will suffer the same fate as Paris, including Washington

Islamic State threatens attack on Washington, other countries

Reuters

 

An ISIS operative holds

a shoulder-fired anti-aircr

aft missile on the background of a black ISIS flag

(Picture sent by ISIS via Twitter)

slamic State warned in a new video on Monday that countries taking part in air strikes against Syria would suffer the same fate as France, and threatened to attack in Washington.

The video, which appeared on a website used by Islamic State to post its messages, begins with news footage of the aftermath of Friday's Paris shootings in which at least 129 people were killed.
The message to countries involved in what it called the "crusader campaign" was delivered by a man dressed in fatigues and a turban, and identified in subtitles as Al Ghareeb the Algerian.

"We say to the states that take part in the crusader campaign that, by God, you will have a day, God willing, like France's and by God, as we struck France in the center of its abode in Paris, then we swear that we will strike America at its center in Washington," the man said.

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the video, which purports to be the work of Islamic State fighters in the Iraqi province of Salahuddine, north of Baghdad.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security would not comment on the video but said it has not received information indicating a potential attack.

Read More Here+

The Power of False Narrative

President Barack Obama addressed the nation from the White House on Wednesday, saying the U.S. is leading a broad effort with allies to defeat the terrorist group ISIS that could include airstrikes in Syria, and an expanded air campaign and troop deployment in Iraq. (Saul Loeb/Associated Press)

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Consortium News

September 28, 2015

Exclusive: “Strategic communications” or Stratcom, a propaganda/psy-op technique that treats information as a “soft power” weapon to wield against adversaries, is a new catch phrase in an Official Washington obsessed with the clout that comes from spinning false narratives, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
In this age of pervasive media, the primary method of social control is through the creation of narratives delivered to the public through newspapers, TV, radio, computers, cell phones and any other gadget that can convey information. This reality has given rise to an obsession among the power elite to control as much of this messaging as possible.
So, regarding U.S. relations toward the world, we see the State Department, the White House, Pentagon, NATO and other agencies pushing various narratives to sell the American people and other populations on how they should view U.S. policies, rivals and allies. The current hot phrase for this practice is “strategic communications” or Stratcom, which blends psychological operations, propaganda and P.R. into one mind-bending smoothie.
I have been following this process since the early 1980s when the Reagan administration sought to override “the Vietnam Syndrome,” a public aversion to foreign military interventions that followed the Vietnam War. To get Americans to “kick” this syndrome, Reagan’s team developed “themes” about overseas events that would push American “hot buttons.”
Tapping into the Central Intelligence Agency’s experience in psy-ops targeted at foreign audiences, President Ronald Reagan and CIA Director William J. Casey assembled a skilled team inside the White House led by CIA propaganda specialist Walter Raymond Jr.

Read More Here

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A collage showing the frequency of words used in President Obama's speech, as prepared for delivery. (Photo: USA TODAY)

Read More and Watch Video Here  : Obama prepared to order airstrikes in Syria against ISIL   David Jackson, USA TODAY

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Oratory as a Weapon of Mass Deception

Posted on September 29, 2015 by johnrachel

 

I used to say President Obama is a great orator.

In retrospect, particularly in view of his speeches over the past two years, I would have to modify my appraisal: Mr. Obama is a mind-numbingly effective orator — with major emphasis on ‘mind-numbing’ — whose powers of persuasion are both awe-inspiring and reality-altering.

But great? I think not.

You see, great orators don’t insult their audiences by lying and using their enormous gifts to wreak havoc on the world, demean other world leaders, and generally inflict listeners with self-serving propaganda.

Great orators ennoble, enlighten, inspire!

There is so much deception, obfuscation, manipulative innuendo, faulty logic, sheer raw hypocrisy in his recent U.N. speech, I could write volumes. But it’s not worth your time or mine, since so many of the lies upon which he built this petty and self-aggrandizing show have been repeated with such relentless regularity, they are part of the accepted collective wisdom of both the American public and the government propaganda apparatus, aka the main stream media.

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At least 40 U.S. veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system, many of whom were placed on a secret waiting list. Depraved Indifference or Premeditated Murder?

.....

Deaths tied to VA hospital's secret list

(CNN)

The secret list was part of an elaborate scheme designed by Veterans Affairs managers in Phoenix who were trying to hide that 1,400 to 1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor, according to a recently retired top VA doctor and several high-level sources.

For six months, CNN has been reporting on extended delays in health care appointments suffered by veterans across the country and who died while waiting for appointments and care. But the new revelations about the Phoenix VA are perhaps the most disturbing and striking to come to light thus far.

Internal e-mails obtained by CNN show that top management at the VA hospital in Arizona knew about the practice and even defended it.

Dr. Sam Foote just retired after spending 24 years with the VA system in Phoenix. The veteran doctor told CNN in an exclusive interview that the Phoenix VA works off two lists for patient appointments:

There's an "official" list that's shared with officials in Washington and shows the VA has been providing timely appointments, which Foote calls a sham list. And then there's the real list that's hidden from outsiders, where wait times can last more than a year.

Deliberate scheme, shredded evidence

"The scheme was deliberately put in place to avoid the VA's own internal rules," said Foote in Phoenix. "They developed the secret waiting list," said Foote, a respected local physician.

The VA requires its hospitals to provide care to patients in a timely manner, typically within 14 to 30 days, Foote said.

According to Foote, the elaborate scheme in Phoenix involved shredding evidence to hide the long list of veterans waiting for appointments and care. Officials at the VA, Foote says, instructed their staff to not actually make doctor's appointments for veterans within the computer system.

Instead, Foote says, when a veteran comes in seeking an appointment, "they enter information into the computer and do a screen capture hard copy printout. They then do not save what was put into the computer so there's no record that you were ever here," he said.

According to Foote, the information was gathered on the secret electronic list and then the information that would show when veterans first began waiting for an appointment was actually destroyed.

"That hard copy, if you will, that has the patient demographic information is then taken and placed onto a secret electronic waiting list, and then the data that is on that paper is shredded," Foote said.

"So the only record that you have ever been there requesting care was on that secret list," he said. "And they wouldn't take you off that secret list until you had an appointment time that was less than 14 days so it would give the appearance that they were improving greatly the waiting times, when in fact they were not."

I feel very sorry for the people who work at the Phoenix VA. They all wish they could leave 'cause they know what they're doing is wrong.
Dr. Sam Foote

Foote estimates right now the number of veterans waiting on the "secret list" to see a primary care physician is somewhere between 1,400 and 1,600.

Doctor: It's a 'frustrated' staff

"I feel very sorry for the people who work at the Phoenix VA," said Foote. "They're all frustrated. They're all upset. They all wish they could leave 'cause they know what they're doing is wrong.

"But they have families, they have mortgages and if they speak out or say anything to anybody about it, they will be fired and they know that."

Several other high-level VA staff confirmed Foote's description to CNN and confirmed this is exactly how the secret list works in Phoenix.

Foote says the Phoenix wait times reported back to Washington were entirely fictitious. "So then when they did that, they would report to Washington, 'Oh yeah. We're makin' our appointments within -- within 10 days, within the 14-day frame,' when in reality it had been six, nine, in some cases 21 months," he said.

November: A dire situation in South Carolina

Thomas Breen was so proud of his time in the Navy that he wanted to be treated only at a VA facility, his family says.

In the case of 71-year-old Navy veteran Thomas Breen, the wait on the secret list ended much sooner.

"We had noticed that he started to have bleeding in his urine," said Teddy Barnes-Breen, his son. "So I was like, 'Listen, we gotta get you to the doctor.' "

Teddy says his Brooklyn-raised father was so proud of his military service that he would go nowhere but the VA for treatment. On September 28, 2013, with blood in his urine and a history of cancer, Teddy and his wife, Sally, rushed his father to the Phoenix VA emergency room, where he was examined and sent home to wait.

"They wrote on his chart that it was urgent," said Sally, her father-in-law's main caretaker. The family has obtained the chart from the VA that clearly states the "urgency" as "one week" for Breen to see a primary care doctor or at least a urologist, for the concerns about the blood in the urine.

"And they sent him home," says Teddy, incredulously.

Sally and Teddy say Thomas Breen was given an appointment with a rheumatologist to look at his prosthetic leg but was given no appointment for the main reason he went in.

Read More and Watch Video Here

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Veterans dying waiting for healthcare

Are we fulfilling our promise to veterans?

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The Obama Administration issues simultaneous threats to the enemy it is making out of Russia and to its European NATO allies

Barack Obama
Author  :  Elizabeth Cromwell
A/SA - 3.0 Unported


......

Obama Issues Threats To Russia And NATO — Paul Craig Roberts

April 6, 2014  

Obama Issues Threats To Russia And NATO
Paul Craig Roberts
The Obama regime has issued simultaneous threats to the enemy it is making out of Russia and to its European NATO allies on which Washington is relying to support sanctions on Russia. This cannot end well.
As even Americans living in a controlled media environment are aware, Europeans, South Americans, and Chinese are infuriated that the National Stasi Agency is spying on their communications. NSA’s affront to legality, the US Constitution, and international diplomatic norms is unprecedented. Yet, the spying continues, while Congress sits sucking its thumb and betraying its oath to defend the Constitution of the United States.
In Washington mumbo-jumbo from the executive branch about “national security” suffices to negate statutory law and Constitutional requirements. Western Europe, seeing that the White House, Congress and the Federal Courts are impotent and unable to rein-in the Stasi Police State, has decided to create a European communication system that excludes US companies in order to protect the privacy of European citizens and government communications from the Washington Stasi.
The Obama regime, desperate that no individual and no country escape its spy net, denounced Western Europe’s intention to protect the privacy of its communications as “a violation of trade laws.”
Obama’s US Trade Representative, who has been negotiating secret “trade agreements” in Europe and Asia that give US corporations immunity to the laws of all countries that sign the agreements, has threatened WTO penalties if Europe’s communications network excludes the US companies that serve as spies for NSA. Washington in all its arrogance has told its most necessary allies that if you don’t let us spy on you, we will use WTO to penalize you.
So there you have it. The rest of the world now has the best possible reason to exit the WTO and to avoid the Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic “trade agreements.” The agreements are not about trade. The purpose of these “trade agreements” is to establish the hegemony of Washington and US corporations over other countries.
In an arrogant demonstration of Washington’s power over Europe, the US Trade Representative warned Washington’s NATO allies: “US Trade Representative will be carefully monitoring the development of any such proposals” to create a separate European communication network. http://rt.com/news/us-europe-nsa-snowden-549/
Washington is relying on the Chancellor of Germany, the President of France, and the Prime Minister of the UK to place service to Washington above their countries’ communications privacy.
It has dawned on the Russian government that being a part of the American dollar system means that Russia is open to being looted by Western banks and corporations or by individuals financed by them, that the ruble is vulnerable to being driven down by speculators in the foreign exchange market and by capital outflows, and that dependence on the American international payments system exposes Russia to arbitrary sanctions imposed by the “exceptional and indispensable country.”

Read More Here

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U.S. may lose clout at IMF due to refusal to OK reform: Lew

WASHINGTON Wed Mar 12, 2014 11:37am EDT

1 of 2. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew testifies before the Senate Budget Committee about the President's 2015 Budget on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 12, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

(Reuters) - The United States is hearing that its refusal to approve previously negotiated reforms for the International Monetary Fund could reduce the nation's influence at the institution, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Wednesday.
U.S. lawmakers have been reticent to approve the IMF quota reforms that were agreed to in 2010 and would give developing countries a bigger say at the international lender.
The reforms would not reduce Washington's power at the IMF, where the United States is the sole country with veto power.
The Obama administration hoped Congress would tack approval of the IMF quota reforms onto legislation for an aid package for crisis-stricken Ukraine, but the outlook for that happening remains uncertain.

Read More Here

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Ukraine : EU Style Austerity and The Plunder of Natural Resources. For Those Defending The Intentions of The West Have Now Been Educated.

DAHBOO77

Published on Mar 7, 2014

Let the world learn from this. The ukraine people got a reward for joining the EU,...That reward was a %50 cut in their pension and forced into an IMF Plan!

http://www.kommersant.ua/doc/2424454
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/1...
.....

Paul Craig Roberts

Institute for Political Economy

The Looting Of Ukraine Has Begun

March 6, 2014 

The Looting Of Ukraine Has Begun
Paul Craig Roberts

This supporter of the Ukraine joining the EU has received her reward: a 50% cut in her pension.

According to a report in Kommersant-Ukraine, the finance ministry of Washington’s stooges in Kiev who are pretending to be a government has prepared an economic austerity plan that will cut Ukrainian pensions from $160 to $80 so that Western bankers who lent money to Ukraine can be repaid at the expense of Ukraine’s poor. http://www.kommersant.ua/doc/2424454 It is Greece all over again.
Before anything approaching stability and legitimacy has been obtained for the puppet government put in power by the Washington orchestrated coup against the legitimate, elected Ukraine government, the Western looters are already at work. Naive protesters who believed the propaganda that EU membership offered a better life are due to lose half of their pension by April. But this is only the beginning.
The corrupt Western media describes loans as “aid.” However, the 11 billion euros that the EU is offering Kiev is not aid. It is a loan. Moreover, it comes with many strings, including Kiev’s acceptance of an IMF austerity plan.
Remember now, gullible Ukrainians participated in the protests that were used to overthrow their elected government, because they believed the lies told to them by Washington-financed NGOs that once they joined the EU they would have streets paved with gold. Instead they are getting cuts in their pensions and an IMF austerity plan.
Read More Here
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Ukraine signs $10 billion shale gas deal with Chevron

By Pavel Polityuk and Richard Balmforth

KIEV Tue Nov 5, 2013 9:11am EST

(L-R, front) Chevron Exploration and Production Europe Derek Magness, Ukraine's Energy Minister Eduard Stavytsky, Chairman of the National Joint Stock Company ''Nadra Ukrayny'' Viktor Ponomarenko, (L-R, back) U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Payette, Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovich and President of Chevron Europe, Eurasia and Middle East Exploration and Production James Johnson attend a signing ceremony in Kiev, November 5, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Mykhailo Markiv/Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via Reuters

(Reuters) - Ukraine signed a $10 billion shale gas production-sharing agreement with U.S. Chevron (CVX.N) on Tuesday, another step in a drive for more energy independence from Russia.
The deal to develop its western Olesska field followed a similar shale gas agreement with Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) in January and boosts Ukraine's leadership at a time of fraught relations with Moscow over gas supplies.
"The agreements with Shell and Chevron ... will enable us to have full sufficiency in gas by 2020 and, under an optimistic scenario, even enable us to export energy," President Viktor Yanukovich told investors shortly before the signing.
The highest end of expectations for Olesska's potential reserves would match around three years of European Union gas demand, but similarly sunny hopes for shale reserves in neighboring Poland have been very sharply downsized.
Shale development in Europe is far behind the booming U.S. sector and progress is patchy. Chevron pulled out of a shale exploration tender in Lithuania and has suspended work at a Romanian shale well after local protests.
Ukraine Energy Minister Eduart Stavytsky, who signed the deal with Chevron executive Derek Magness, set it in the context of a high price Ukraine pays Russia for its gas.

Read More Here


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US, EU begin looting Ukraine resources: Analyst

French President Francois Hollande (L) welcomes the head of the Ukrainian opposition UDAR party Vitali Klitschko (R), and the Ukrainian MP Petro Poroshenko at the Elysee Palace in Paris on March 7, 2014.

Sat Mar 8, 2014 12:18AM

The United States and the European Union have begun “looting” Ukraine’s resources to obtain stability and legitimacy for their new “puppet government” in Kiev, an analyst writes in a column for the Press TV website.

“Before anything approaching stability and legitimacy has been obtained for the puppet government put in power by the Washington orchestrated coup against the legitimate, elected Ukraine government, the Western looters are already at work,”  Dr. Paul Craig Roberts wrote on Friday.
Roberts pointed to the EU plan to grant Ukraine an 11-billion-euro ($15 billion) aid package over the coming years. The plan was announced by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Wednesday.

“The corrupt Western media describes loans as “aid.” However, the 11 billion euros that the EU is offering Kiev is not aid. It is a loan. Moreover, it comes with many strings, including Kiev’s acceptance of an IMF (International Monetary Fund) austerity plan,” he added.

Read More Here

Related Interviews:

• ‘US criticism of Russia sheer hypocrisy’
• ‘NATO, OSCE fail to gain Russia trust’

Related Viewpoints:

• Looting of Ukraine has begun

.....

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State lawmakers take action in the US as individuals prepare a globalized mobilization against encroaching digital surveillance

Published on Wednesday, February 5, 2014 by Common Dreams

Not Waiting for Feds, 'Fight Back' Against Surveillance Goes Local, Global

- Jon Queally, staff writer

Not content to wait for action at the federal level, those opposed to the ongoing mass surveillance of the NSA and other agencies are speaking out and pushing laws at the state level to ensure privacy rights are protected. (Image: thedaywefightback.org)Concerned about the government's increasing surveillance powers but unimpressed with the congressional response in Washington so far, state lawmakers from both major political parties are now taking it upon themselves to protect the online and communication privacy of their constituents.
Meanwhile, individuals and privacy groups are planning their own grassroots response to mass surveillance, hoping to repeat past victories by harnessing the power of digital communications to ensure they are adequately protected from government overreach.
As the Associated Press reports Wednesday, efforts are now underway "in at least 14 states are a direct message to the federal government: If you don't take action to strengthen privacy, we will."
According to AP:

Republican and Democratic lawmakers have joined in proposing the measures, reflecting the unusual mix of political partnerships that have arisen since the NSA revelations that began in May. Establishment leadership has generally favored the programs, while conservative limited government advocates and liberal privacy supporters have opposed them.
Supporters say the measures are needed because technology has grown to the point that police can digitally track someone's every move.
Devices such as license plate readers and cellphone trackers "can tell whether you stayed in a motel that specializes in hourly rates, or you stopped at tavern that has nude dancers," said David Fidanque, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon.
"It's one thing to know you haven't violated the law, but it's another thing to know you haven't had every one of your moves tracked," he said.

Next week, on February 11, privacy advocates and online freedom groups are mobilizing against NSA and other government surveillance in a day of action they've dubbed 'The Day We Fight Back.'
According to Katitza Rodriguez at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the groups organizing the action, those participating will be demanding "an end to mass surveillance in every country, by every state, regardless of boundaries or politics."
Galvanized by what they see as 13 Principles of internet and communication freedoms, activists will use the day to call attention to those goals, lobby on their behalf with their representatives, and declare an end to the encroaching, unaccountable, and unregulated surveillance apparatus.
"The Principles spellout just why mass surveillance is a violation of human rights," explained Rodriguez, and they "give sympathetic lawmakers and judges a list of fixes they could apply to the lawless Internet spooks. On the day we fight back, we want the world to sign onto those principles. We want politicians to pledge to uphold them. We want the world to see we care."

_______________________________

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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North Carolina's poorest hit by federal cuts: 'Unless someone helps, we're bust'

As Congress wrangles with whether to restore long-term unemployment benefits, North Carolina is already experiencing the hardship likely to unfold unless the program is restored

• • Paul Lewis in Hertford, North Carolina
  • 
    
  • The Guardian, Wednesday 15 January 2014 14.12 EST

Theresa Whidbee-Walker first found the Food Bank of the Albemarle as a customer and returns now to volunteer. Photograph: James Robinson

Eight hours may seem a long time to wait for a meal. But the line of cars that formed in a derelict parking lot in Hertford, North Carolina, early last Thursday morning, full of people waiting for a few cans of soup and some pasta from a local food bank, was nothing unusual. Almost every morning now, there is a line like that somewhere in North Carolina.
From a distance, the rows of cars look innocuous enough. But they are a symbol of the desperation that has gotten worse in North Carolina since July, when a swathe of cuts to unemployment benefits made it arguably the worst state in the US to be out of work.
The cars appeared in Hertford shortly before 8am, though the truck bringing the food was not scheduled to arrive until 4pm. Volunteers who hand out the food said it is not uncommon for cars to start lining up before dawn.
“I had a man the other day who said: ‘All I want is a bar of soap,’” said Laura Williams, a volunteer at the storage depot in nearby Elizabeth City. “Another man came in here and said: ‘Can you get me some toilet paper? I’ve been having to use coffee filters.’”
She added: “We get that a lot – people asking for toilet paper. But we can’t stock too much of that as we’ve got to concentrate on canned food.”
Washington has this month been dominated by a political fight over whether to restore a federal benefits program for the long-term unemployed, which was allowed to expire on 28 December, cutting off a lifeline to more than 1.4 million Americans. The White House and Democrats want to reinstate the benefits. Republicans are reluctant.
What North Carolina is currently experiencing is a foretaste of the economic story likely to unfold across the country unless the federal benefits are restored.
The people in line on Thursday constituted a cross-section of America’s poor. Of those who wound down their windows and agreed to talk, the eldest was 77, the youngest 19. They included pensioners, students, people working for minimum wage and some who had recently been laid off. They were there so early, and willing to wait so long, because they wanted to increase their chances of receiving perishable items rather than just canned goods. Get a spot near the front of the line, and you might get some fresh vegetables, bread, or even some frozen chicken.

Charles Christman has been volunteering at the Food Bank of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City, North Carolina for the past three years. Photograph: James Robinson

By 4pm, there were more than 100 cars in the dilapidated parking lot – once a bustling shopping mall. At the very front were Floyd Liston, 59, and his friend, Bobby Bass, 65. Their story was not atypical.
Bass is retired after years working in a cotton mill. Liston, a diabetic, worked all his life but had to give up in 2011 after a routine blister on his foot deteriorated. Married with two daughters, Liston didn’t have health insurance and did not visit a doctor until it was too late. “The infection had eaten all the bone. They told me to go to the hospital and that night they took my leg off,” he said.
In February, in an attempt to address a $2bn debt that it owed the federal government, North Carolina passed a law that slashed both the number of weeks for which a job-seeker can receive state benefits and reduced the amount that it pays out in unemployment, from $535 a week to $350.
In doing so, North Carolina knowingly violated a contract with the federal government, resulting in the automatic cutting off of federal assistance for the long-term unemployed. The changes, which came into effect in July, therefore didn’t just cut the amount of support that people who lost their jobs received from their government by a third, it also meant the maximum length of time they could receive such benefits plummeted from 99 weeks to just 19.
“What happened in North Carolina was one the harshest cuts in unemployment benefits we’ve ever seen in this country,” said Mike Evangelist, a policy director at the National Employment Law Project. "Nothing I know of compares to it."
The precise impact of the benefits reduction in North Carolina is difficult to discern, said Larry Katz, a Harvard professor. But he and other economists have recently been pointing to figures that hint at an alarming phenomena: people have been dropping out of an already bleak labor market, and in record numbers.
Since July, when the cuts came into force, North Carolina has experienced the largest contraction in its labor force since record-keeping began in 1977. Remarkably, the sharp decline in the workforce in North Carolina, which has a population of 9.75 million, has even altered the national picture.
Timothy Littke, 55, from Lumberton, gave up looking for work in North Carolina in October. He was laid off from his job building hog feeders in June, a month before the benefits cuts kicked in.
He has since relocated to live with his daughter in Pittsburgh. The story of Littke’s departure says much about about deprivation in his old home of Lumberton – a small city in the south of the state which, by one measure, is the poorest in America.

Read More here

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