School, meet Life.

Hate the Sequester? Don’t know what to do to fight it? Here’s something super easy and fast to do; takes 10 seconds - just click the link and sign the petition to urge Congress to pass HR 900: The Cancel the Sequester Act of 2013.

And some extra info from The Hill: 

“If Congress can’t or won’t come together to craft bipartisan agreement, I believe we have a duty to avert these catastrophic cuts by any means necessary,” Conyers said. “The Cancel the Sequester Act of 2013 would give the leaders of both parties the time needed to reach some consensus on budget issues without forcing the average American to pay the price for Washington’s dysfunction.”

[…]

The Congressional Budget Office says the sequester could lead to 750,000 job losses around the country  […]

Republicans have said they oppose the across-the-board nature of the cuts, but have refused to trade the total number of cuts for any increase in taxes.

Democrats, in contrast, have proposed legislation that would raise billions of dollars in new taxes to help offset the cuts.”

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On a personal note, you know how military families have been affected? Some units haven’t left for deployment because funding is up in the air (e.g., USS Truman, USS Gettysburg; info here), which means that units that have been deployed for months aren’t getting relieved, which means their deployments have been extended for an unknown amount of time. Imagine spending 6 months away from your husband, and you’re 2 weeks away from welcoming him home, only to find out that he’s going to stay on deployment for who knows how much longer… (sidenote: there has been no official word whether Casey’s deployment will be affected or not, so don’t fret about him, but just because it’s not affecting us doesn’t mean that there aren’t other military families affected by it. Here’s a post from a military spouse that expands on it a bit more)

As a milspouse who works in health care and social services… this is just terrible.

Things not cut: Congressmembers’ pay.

(Source: think-progress)

Those jerks.

generalbriefing:

shortformblog:

• 61 the number of bills that have become law to date in 2012
• 3,914 the number of bills that have been introduced by lawmakers

More from usatoday: These statistics make the 112th Congress, covering 2011-12, the least productive two-year gathering on Capitol Hill since the end of World War II.

Can you say “concerted effort to fail”?

Can you say “Republic obstructionism”? More from the article:

In 2011, after Republicans took control of the U.S. House, Congress passed just 90 bills into law.

[…]

When Democrats controlled both chambers during the 111th Congress, 258 laws were enacted in 2010 and 125 in 2009, including President Obama’s health care law.

Why why why are these our Congressional leaders? Clearly if our Congressional leaders can’t distinguish between real fruits and vegetables and processed foods, how can we expect children to choose healthier foods over pizza and french fries?

Also, I wonder how much some of these Members are getting paid by big food companies. Or how many of these food companies are lobbying their Representatives to not regulate foods in schools b/c of “jobs.” Big companies can always pull the jobs-card to get a Rep to listen to them…

#oyvey

daughterofartists:

“some conservatives argue that the federal government shouldn’t tell children what to eat.” 

because we all know that a 7-year-old is perfectly capable of choosing a healthy, balanced meal even in the presence of pizza and french fries 

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to teach or model or provide options for healthier meals. I want my kids to be obese ::sarcasm::