The NRA: Important facts to remember before their crazy attack ads scare the hell out of you.

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The NRA is apparently angry about something, if the recent NRA ad is to be believed. No one is entirely sure what has caused this sudden burst of anger, but they certainly sound angry.  

If anything, the NRA should be happy. For eight years, they claimed that President Obama was coming for the guns, and that never came close to happening. They should be celebrating. 

Instead, they produce this. Frankly, it's kind of frightening. 

But before anyone gets too worried about the hyperbole of the NRA, perspective is important.

The NRA has approximately 5 million members. This number is disputed by many agencies and media outlets, because the NRA reports different membership numbers at different times and seems to be uncertain or deliberately misleading when it comes to an actual count, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they have 5 million dues paying members.

Five million represents about 1% of the US population and about 7% of all gun owners in the United States. This is a politically powerful organization, but it has a relatively small constituency.

99% of Americans do not belong to the NRA, and 93% of gun owners do not belong.

It's also important to remember that NRA members often disagree with the NRA on key issues. For example, a vast majority of NRA members (over 75%) support comprehensive background checks before purchasing a gun, but the NRA stands opposed to this. 

Almost half of all NRA members (and over half of all gun owners) support a ban on assault rifles and high capacity magazines as well, but the NRA stands in opposition to this as well.    

In many ways, the NRA is a politically motivated organization that does not align itself to the opinions of its members. 

In summary:

Crazy, irrational attack ads: Absolutely. 

Politically strong organization? Undoubtedly.

Representing the opinions and beliefs of its members well? Not really. 

Encompassing a large segment of the Americans (or even gun owners): Not even close. 

We knew exactly what we were getting.

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Perhaps you've heard about or even read Donald Trump's recent tweets targeting Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. Disgusting personal attacks on a woman's physical appearance that are, according to photographic evidence from the evening in question, untrue. 

In a series of two connected tweets about that night, he managed to categorically lie three times. 

Then there was the video of Trump body slamming and choking a man with a CNN box superimposed over his head that he tweeted on Sunday, less than 24 hours after his spokesperson said, "The President in no way, form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence.”

People are shocked. Stunned. They can't believe how the President of the United States has engaged in such petty, infantile behavior with so many real problems in need of solutions. They are worried that Trump is unhinged. Out of control. Dangerous, even.

No one should be surprised.

Let me remind you that we had ample warning of this long before Trump was elected President. One television commercial in particular laid out the case rather concisely.

Shameful Betsy DeVos can't say what most human beings can say with ease

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Here is the Secretary of Education for the United States of America, the caretaker of our public schools, the protector of our children's future, and also a person who has never taught in a school, never worked in a public school, and never sent her children to a public school, trying her hardest to avoid saying that children in her charter school program won't be discriminated based upon race or LGBTQ status.

It's remarkable. She is asked, rather simply, if discrimination will be forbidden in these schools based upon religion and LGBTQ status, and she refuses to say it.

It's shameful and disgusting. 

No one who works in education should have this much difficulty standing against the discrimination of children for any reason. No educator who I have ever known would struggle with this question like Betsy DeVos does. 

Then again, she is not an educator. She doesn't understand education. She knows nothing about the American public school student. She is literally the child of one billionaire and the wife of another. A wealthy, white woman who was sent to elite private schools for her entire life and never had to fear for her future. She has never known want or need or hunger.

And now she is the steward of our public schools. Teachers and children are depending upon her for their support, and she can't say, "No child will be discriminated against in these charter schools, for race, religion, LGBTQ status, or any other reason." 

Suck less

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I love this sign. 

We live in a world where the President of the United States opened his very first Cabinet meeting by having each of his Cabinet members praise him as the television cameras rolled. Then he praised himself by declaring himself the post effective President in history with the possibility of Franklin Roosevelt. 

Americans laughed at this demonstration of fealty. Ridiculed him incessantly. Even the President's closest allies mocked this ridiculous display.

What people like Donald Trump fail to realize is that actions like these do not project strength. In fact, they do exactly the opposite. They demonstrate weakness, desperation, a lack of self confidence, and the cloying need to be loved. 

If you want to appear strong, you must do exactly the opposite. Vulnerability projects strength. Honesty and authenticity project strength. A willingness to acknowledge one's flaws, foibles, and failures is the way to demonstrate to others than you are strong in both mind and self. 

We all suck. We can all suck less. And if we all sucked less, we might just save the world.

The first step to sucking less is knowing that you suck. 

I suck. You suck.

Donald Trump really sucks. The sooner he acknowledges that, the better off we'll all be.  

Wherever you stand on the political spectrum, you have to admire and hopefully agree with everything that James Comey says here during last week's hearings.

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Some people may not believe everything that he said during the hearings (and yet simultaneously and inexplicably claim that his words serve as vindication), but these particular words are spoken by a patriot who loves his country deeply. 

The sad things is that In terms of actual wordsmithing, I can't think of anything that Trump has said as President that is as clear, forceful and inspiring as this, and Comey managed to say these words in the midst of questioning before the Senate. 

It was kind of fantastic. 

Of course, one must have a basic understanding of history in order to make speeches like this, and I am quite confidant that Trump wouldn't understand Comey's references to "a shining city on a hill" and "this great experiment."

A basic lack of knowledge makes makes it very difficult to say smart things. 

  • The man thought Frederick Douglass was still alive.
  • He asked a Women's Empowerment Panel if they knew who Susan B. Anthony was.
  • He could not explain the nuclear triad.
  • He thought NATO was funded through monies paid to the organization.  
  • He claimed that Andrew Jackson had profound thoughts about the Civil War and its prevention, even though Jackson died 16 years before war broke out and owned slaves himself. 

And he spoke this gem about Abraham Lincoln:

“Great president. Most people don't even know he was a Republican. Does anyone know? Lot of people don't know that.” 

Since the Republican Party constantly refers to itself as "the party that Lincoln founded," I suspect most people already knew that Lincoln was a Republican, but apparently not the current leader of that political party. 

Fear not. This is not an example of bigotry as I initially thought. It's simply stupidity.

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Behold. The White House published this photograph of First Lady Melania Trump and the other spouses of NATO leaders at the Royal Castle of Laeken in Brussels during the recent NATO summit.

Initially left off the captioned list of names was the First Gentleman of Luxembourg, Gauthier Destenay, who is married Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, making Bettel the first European Union head of government to marry a same-sex partner. 

The man in the photograph is gay, and his name was the only name left off. 

I was inclined to assume that the omission of Bettel's name was an act bigotry given Trump's complete abandonment of his campaign commitment to the LGBTQ community, but in addition to the omission of Bettel, Melania Trump's name was listed twice, Brigitte Macron, the first lady of France, was listed as “Brigitte Trogneux,” and the year of the photograph was listed as 2917.

The trifecta of stupidity. 

So the omission was probably typical Trump incompetence rather than Trump bigotry.

Though possibly both.  

This should not be surprising coming from a President who didn't know that Frederick Douglass was no longer alive.

A President whose administration who invented The Bowling Green Massacre, the Swedish Incident, and "alternative facts."

A President who continues to assert that his Electoral victory was one of the largest in American history when it was actually one of the narrowest. 

A President whose administration managed to unbelievably include a typo in Trump's official Presidential portrait.  

It's almost always correct to assume the worst from this President. It's just difficult to determine if the worst is the result of his complete incompetence or his despicable nature. 

Even in the darkest of times, you can find pinpricks of light. Here are a few from this week.

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Sometimes the world can seem so dark.

Between despicable acts of terror like the one in Manchester, despicable acts of fake terror created by the Trump administration like the ones in Bowling Green, Sweden, and Atlanta, and a Republican Congress seeking to take healthcare away from 23 million Americans while simultaneously giving enormous tax cuts to the wealthy, the world can seem like a dark place. 

In these times, we need to look for the light. Even when it's a little silly, possibly trite, and fairly ineffectual.

Here's some light from this week:

Ben and Jerry's has announced it won’t serve “same scoop” orders in Australia in protest of Australia’s Marriage Act, which doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages.

“We are banning two scoops of the same flavor and encouraging our fans to contact their MPs to tell them that the time has come — make same sex marriage legal!”

Clever and daring, Ben and Jerry's.

Michael Jordan once said that Republicans buy shoes, too, indicating his purposeful, financially driven, apolitical stance. 

Ben and Jerry's has a different approach to politics. They stand on the side of decency and righteousness, and I suspect that they will be rewarded for it in the long run. 

Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and exceptionally wealthy neurosurgeon, said that poverty is a “state of mind.”

Dictionary.com, who along with Merriam-Webster has been like word-nerd superheroes ever since Trump took office, trolling his administration every time they poorly define or attempt to redefine a term, swept in with this tweet:

Fox News host and Donald Trump propagandist Sean Hannity, who has been promoting a heinous and false conspiratorial account of the slaying of a former Democratic National Committee staffer, began to lose advertisers yesterday in response to his ridiculous and offensive claims. 

Even Fox New staffers have expressed disdain and discomfort over Hannity's conspiracy theory. 

Perhaps he'll go the way of Bill O'Reilly...

Then there was this photo of the Trump family and the Pope. 

It's often said that a picture is worth 1,000 words, and this picture says at least that. The facial expression. The subtle distance between the Pope and Trump. I know it doesn't change anything in terms of policy or politics, but for a man who is obsessed with appearance and pomp, these little moments of embarrassment and resistance begin to add up.

 Well played, your Excellency. 

Speaking of appearances, I'll end with this:

Regardless of your feelings about Melania Trump, you have to love the public embarrassment that she bestowed upon her husband after slapping his hand away upon arriving in Saudia Arabia and then executing a similar move one day later in Rome.

Anytime Trump's brand or image is tarnished, I rejoice.

Until I can cast another vote in favor of his opponent, I will continue to call my Representatives and Senators, support my friends who feel forgotten or attacked by this administration, attend rallies and protests, and take great pleasure in these little moments of resistance, whatever the source. 

Incompetent, racist, or both?

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I just don't get it. 

Last summer, it was Paul Ryan taking a selfie with a sea of white Republican interns.

Last November it was Mike Pence taking a selfie with a sea of white Republican Senators and Congresspeople.

Last week it was Donald Trump announcing the passing of House's healthcare bill in the Rose Garden with a seas of white, almost exclusively male Congressmen standing behind him. 

Then there was this:

The new header on Donald Trump's Twitter feed, which featured a sea of white faces standing behind him (and the most oddly placed, overly defensive message in the history of Twitter embedded within).

This header was so viciously mocked on Twitter that it came down hours after being posted. 

Now Republican Senators have begun drafting their version of the healthcare bill. The Republican's working group:

13 white men. No women. No person of color.

One of two things is happening:

  1. The Republican leadership is completely blind to the optics of these photos and are clueless when it comes to the image they are presenting. 
  2. These photos are serving as dog whistles to those conservative voters who don't want their President to be black ever again.

So incompetent or racist. Or possibly both. 

The one thing about Sean Spicer's recent bout of stupidity that I haven't heard mentioned

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There isn't much left to be said about White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's recent inane comparison between Hitler and Assad and his declaration that Hitler did not use chemical weapons in World War II.

It was so, so stupid.

But I think one thing has been missed in all the coverage that this moment has received:

In addition to the stupidity of his statements, Sean Spicer is an inarticulate person. Just listen to his attempts to string actual sentences together into a coherent, cohesive message as he struggles to clarify his Hitler comment. He's a verbal disaster. His inability to pause, think on his feet, slow down, and speak clearly should alone disqualify him for the position.

Being a White House Press Secretary is not an easy job. You face enormous unpredictability and a room filled with professional journalists who are hell bent on finding the truth. You have to keep enormous amounts of information at your fingertips at all times and be able to articulate the administration's position on any number of issues.

Still, you're the White House Press Secretary. You need to speak in complete sentences. 

It only got worse when Spicer released an explanation (but not an apology) of his comments. It took at least three separately-released revisions of his statement before he finally got it right.  

In the first explanation (but apology), Spicer mentions the tactic of dropping dropping chemical weapons on "innocent people."

In this second version, "innocent people" is replaced with "population centers," probably because the millions of people who Hitler murdered using chemical weapons were also innocent.   

In this final version (I think), he removed that offensive "however."

"In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust, however..." was not received well by anyone. 

He also added a sentence of extreme obviousness to the end of the statement, which is the closest he will come to an apology and yet is nowhere close to an apology. 

Saying dumb things is unacceptable for a White House Press Secretary. Though we are all permitted to make mistakes, Spicer has been making a lot of them. He has been caught in many, many lies, including that infamous fake terrorist incident in Atlanta and those record-breaking inauguration crowds. 

Saying dumb things is very bad. Lying is worse. 

But the inability to say anything clearly or release a statement without at least three revisions to that statement should disqualify you from the job. 

Meals on Wheels: My grandparents (and science) understand the importance for this program

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My grandparents - my mémère and pépère - delivered Meals on Wheels to senior citizens for years. I once asked Pépère to explain Meals on Wheels to me. He said that he was visiting seniors. Saying hello, bringing them food, and making sure they didn't need anything else.  

"It's hard to get old," he told me. He said that the food was important to these people, but the smile and the hello was just as important. 

As you may have heard, Donald Trump's proposed budget cuts funding to Meals on Wheels, which feeds 2.4 millions seniors every year, including 500,000 veterans.  

Here's the good news:

  • Meals on Wheels receives most of its funding from corporate and private sources, so even if these cuts were to happen, Meals on Wheels would continue to exist. 
  • Presidential budgets are wish lists that are often "dead on arrival" to Capitol Hill. Given the scope of the proposed cuts, the opposition within his own party to many cuts, and his recent string of losses, this budget is especially "dead on arrival."
  • While Donald Trump may see this program as a waste of money, it is unlikely that Congress will cut its funding given the infinitesimal percentage of the budget that it requires.    

The most offensive aspect of Trump's proposed cut to Meals on Wheels is the accusation that the program is "just not showing any results.” 

If you want to argue that the money could be better spent, fine.

If you want to argue that more seniors could be helped if the money was shifted to a different program, great.

But lying about the ineffectiveness of a program that by all accounts makes an enormous difference in the lives of seniors is a disgusting and cowardly act. 

Research reported in the New York Times includes:

“In 2014, researchers explored the evidence on whether home-delivered meal programs improved the diet and nutrition of older Americans. They found eight studies, two of which were randomized controlled trials. Six of the eight showed that programs like Meals on Wheels improve the quality of people’s diet, increase their nutrient intake, and reduce their food insecurity and nutritional risk. They also noted that the programs increased chances for human contact and improved quality of life.

It’s important to recognize that the program’s benefits are not merely nutritional. A 2016 study showed that participants in the Meals on Wheels program had lower loneliness scores. A 2013 study showed that spending on services like Meals on Wheels was associated with less reliance on institutionalized care, because more people could live independently at home. They may even have fewer falls at home and less worry about being able to remain there.

It’s important to recognize that the program’s benefits are not merely nutritional. A 2016 study showed that participants in the Meals on Wheels program had lower loneliness scores. A 2013 study showed that spending on services like Meals on Wheels was associated with less reliance on institutionalized care, because more people could live independently at home. They may even have fewer falls at home and less worry about being able to remain there.

Researchers conducted economic analyses in 2013 and showed that if all states had increased the number of older Americans who had received Meals on Wheels by just 1 percent, the states would have saved Medicaid more than $109 million. Most of those savings would have come from reductions in the need for nursing home care.”

If my Pépère were alive today, he probably could've told Trump most of this without needing to spend a dime on research. He volunteered his time to help these senior citizens in need of help. He understood the importance of the program. He knew the people whose lives were substantially improved by this program.

As a person who has experienced food insecurity and hunger in my life, you can't underestimate the value of a dependable meal every day. 

Donald Trump grew up in a wealthy home and was given a multi-million dollar handout at the start of his career. He hasn't been hungry a day in his life.  

In the absence of my grandfather's advice, Donald Trump could follow this simple rule:

When you can afford to spend more than three million dollars of taxpayer money nearly every weekend in order to play golf in Florida (and then lie about playing golf despite photographic evidence proving otherwise), you can afford to continue to feed impoverished senior citizens and veterans who depend on this program for their daily nutrition.  

A bunch of white men apparently too stupid to realize that they are all white men.

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Earlier in the week, I wrote about my belief that the country would be in better hands if more women were in charge.

Perfect example:

This is the photograph of the yesterday's healthcare negotiations between Mike Pence and the Freedom Caucus, where attempts were made to negotiate away birth control, maternity care, abortion from the bill. 

Two dozen white men - apparently too stupid to realize that there were only white men in the room - determining how women's healthcare will be administered in the future. 

Their attempts to deny women of this basic healthcare coverage is horrendous.

Their obliviousness over the lack of women or anyone of color in these negotiations is equally appalling. And this was the photograph that the White House chose to release to the public.

Astounding. 

This is hardly the first time that Republicans (including Pence and Ryan) were this stupid.

What I try to teach my girls

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As a fifth grade teacher, I am often shocked at the disparity in maturity between ten year-old boys and girls.

I've known many fifth grade girls who could effectively enter the workforce if they so desired. 

I've known many fifth grade boys who still can't get their food from plate to mouth without a sizable portion landing on their shirt. 

I shouldn't be surprised. Science has repeatedly shown that girls mature faster than boys. In fact, researchers have recently discovered that female brains mature up to ten years earlier than boy's brains.

As a result, I am equally shocked at boys' ability to somehow catch up to girls. Despite the enormous lead that girls enjoy in fifth grade, boys will somehow catch up to girls along the way, and as a result, we end up with a world ruled by men.

In the House, there are currently 362 men and 76 women.
In the Senate, there are 83 men and 17 women.
In the White House, we have had 45 men as President and 0 women. 

I have long thought that our country would be run more effectively if we flipped these numbers.

I know that many factors contribute to boys ability to catch up and surpass women when it comes to positions of power.

An entrenched, often religiously supported patriarchy.
Draconian laws relating to maternity leave and childcare.
Unchecked sexism in the workplace.

But I also think Amal Clooney is right when she suggests that women must stand together rather than competing and criticizing one another.

It's a message I send to my fifth grade girls every year:

Never fight over a boy. Boys are a dime a dozen, and most of them are worthless in terms of boyfriend potential until they're at least 24 years-old. 

Never insult another girl's physical appearance. You need to stand together. You can't allow the length of a length of a hemline, the height of a heel, or the size of a waistline get in the way of your much needed solidarity.

Compete with boys rather than chasing after them. Seek to push them off the mountain at every turn. The boys worth your time and attention will be the ones who respect your willingness to compete and desire for greatness.  

I don't know if these messages leave a lasting mark on the dozen or so girls in my class every year, but I hope so. They have so much potential and possibility when they are ten years old. They are ready to take over the world at this age.

I also know that hormones and peer pressure can be powerful forces, too.

But I dream of a day when this potential and possibility is fully realized, and women can take assume their rightful place at the mantle of leadership and steer our country along a more rationale, compassionate, and sensible path.   

I think Amal Clooney's message is a good one. Not the answer, for sure, but a small step in the right direction. 

Details matter. They matter a hell of a lot.

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This was the fundraising letter sent to supporters upon Trump's announcement of the new travel ban, which was thankfully halted by a federal judge last night.  

The failure of communication from this administration is astounding. 

The first bullet, for example:

  • Temporarily Restricting immigration from six countries comprised by radical Islamic terrorism: Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, and Yeman

The first two words of the sentence are capitalized, which also makes no sense. 

The first two words of the next bullet are also capitalized, but not the first two words of the third bullet. 

This is a mess. And the actual content isn't much better. 

Despite Trump's argument that this is not a Muslim ban, he indicates in this letter that these countries were chosen specifically because they are "comprised by" radical Islamic terrorism, which clearly implies (if you can get beyond the grammar) that one religion is being targeted over another (which is one of the very reasons the federal judge halted the ban), even though the majority of terrorist attacks in this country are committed by Americans.

In fact, no act of terrorism has been committed on American soil by anyone from these six nations since 9/11, and Saudi Arabia, where almost all of the 9/11 terrorists originated, is not on the list. 

And Iraq, the very center of ISIS activity in the world, has now been removed from the list. Logic would dictate that if your travel ban is essential for keeping terrorists out of America, the first country on the list should be Iraq. 

Of course this is a Muslim ban. Trump referred to it as a Muslim ban many, many times on the campaign trail and after the election. His own words have doomed these Executive Orders right from the start.

You may say I'm nitpicking here. Who cares about grammar and capitalization? But details matter. When a President who is attempting to change something as complex as the American healthcare system, details matter. They matter a lot. They are the difference between the elderly having access to affordable healthcare and the ultra-wealthy receiving massive tax breaks as part of the proposed plan.

For many Americans, the details in this healthcare plan will be the difference between whether they live or die.

Details matter. 

This administration doesn't seem to think so. 

Trump's Housing and Urban Development Cabinet chief, Ben Carson, recently referred to slaves as immigrants.

His chief White House counselor Kellyanne Conway introduced the world to the notion of an "alternative facts."

His national security advisor, Michael Flynn, was an agent for a foreign power who lied about communication with the Russians during the election - facts which Trump knew about for weeks before finally firing him. 

Trump accused a former President of wiretapping based solely on a right-wing report based upon the unsubstantiated claims of a right-wing talk show host. He claimed - once again - that his Electoral victory was the largest since Reagan, only to be corrected by a White House reporter again.

His response: "I was given that information. We had a very, very big margin."

"Given that information?" By who? The President's team can't conduct a simple Google search? Or more likely, Trump was either lying or spitballing because details don't matter to this administration.

His Electoral win, by the way, was not as large as George Bush, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama. In fact, it was one of the narrowest Electoral victories in American history. 

Details matter.

But when you have the resources of the Republican party and the United States government at your disposal and you can't produce a letter that is grammatically correct, you make it clear that details don't matter at all to you.

This might be the most frightening aspect of the Trump administration.

In case you missed it, an important comment from a reader

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On February 13, I wrote a piece about the astonishing number of typos and errors that had proliferated from the Trump administration on a single day, including the imaginary Bowling Green Massacre and a typo on the official inaugural photo of Donald Trump.

I just noticed that I received a comment on the post from someone who identifies himself as "Mike Pruitt" and worried that perhaps regular readers (like me) failed to notice Mike's scintillating prose. 

I post it here for your reading enjoyment:

“I wonder if this special little snowflake wrote an article on all of the Obama Administration’s typos? Nah, he was too busy trying to figure out a way to detach himself from Obama’s nutsack to bother with that.”

I always appreciate it when readers take the time to comment on something I have written. I wish that Mike's level of discourse was slightly elevated, but not everyone can adhere to the "no name calling" and "avoidance of vulgarity" policies that I have self-imposed. Nor should they.   

I also wish that Mike hadn't fallen back on the too-often used insult of "snowflake," which is a common refrain from right wing Internet trolls these days. It's not that "snowflake" hurts me in anyway. I just appreciate variety, creativity, and ingenuity too much to enjoy an overused zinger like "snowflake."

Mike is also correct that I did not write a post about all of the Obama administration typos. I'd remind Mike that I'm not a journalist and therefore have no ethical requirement to balance my commentary in any way whatsoever, but I'd also tell him that I have no recollection of any prominent Obama-administration gaffs of the kind I wrote about that day.

  • No typos on either of Obama's inauguration photos. I checked. 
  • No memorable misspellings of famous people's names.
  • No false attributions of quotations to former Presidents.
  • No fake terrorist attacks. 

Obama, to my recollection, never mistakenly asserted that a famous American like Frederick Douglass, who has been dead for more than 150 years, was still alive, and his administration, to my knowledge, never referred to African slaves as "immigrants."

Obama's administration was simply more precise in my admittedly imperfect memory.  

 An examination of President Obama's last 200 tweets also reveals no typos that I can see.

By contrast, there are THREE typos in Donald Trump's last 10 tweets, and that doesn't include the tweet that he posted and deleted FOUR TIMES before finally getting the word "hereby" correct.

Count that one and he has SEVEN typos is the last 10 tweets.

Writing a post about the Obama administration's typos might have simply required far too much research to write. There may not be enough of them to make the post worthwhile. I like low hanging fruit, and the Trump administration provides it in bushels.  

Still, I always appreciate the feedback, even when it's not entirely positive and slightly vulgar.  

 

 

 

 

Critics of food stamps need to experience a childhood of hunger

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There's a lot of talk amongst Trump supporters and the far right about the way in which food stamps are decimating the federal budget and costing American taxpayers millions.

If you hear people speaking like this, I would like you to consider saying something in response. These are criticisms that cannot be allowed to stand. 

As a child, my family received food stamps. My parents worked full time until my mother was injured at work and permanently disabled. She received a settlement for her disability, but even with these two incomes, my parents received food stamps at certain times in our lives. We also received cheese and milk from the WIC and an occasional donation of food from the church.

Despite all of this support, I was hungry as a child.

I was hungry a lot. 

This is why I become so enraged when I hear people talk about food stamps as the bane of the federal budget. 

The annual report from the United States Department of Agriculture showed that about 45 percent of food stamp benefits went to children under 18, totaling about 20 million youngsters. Nine percent of recipients were age 60 or older, and nearly 10 percent were disabled adults who were under 60, according to the analysis of food stamp usage for the fiscal year that ended in September 2014.

I know that there is fraud and abuse in the food stamp program (as there are in MANY PARTS of our nation's budget, including the military), but this does not make it bad or unnecessary. When I hear someone complain about the less than two percent of our annual budget that feeds people who would otherwise go hungry, I ask:

Do you really think that I should have been hungrier as a child?

Did I not deserve the food that I received as a child thanks to food stamps?

Do you really think the wealthiest nation on the planet should allow children, the elderly, the disabled, and even those abled bodied adults who are experiencing unexpected difficulties to go hungry?

Hunger is a terrible thing. When I was homeless later in life, I was often hungry, but because I had no address or phone number, I was not eligible for many of the benefits that might have otherwise been able to receive, including food stamps. Nor could I find a job without an address or phone number. Had it not been for friends and former employees who took me in when I was in desperate need of help, I might still be hungry today. 

I am not opposed to rooting out waste and fraud. I am not opposed to making things more efficient in order to save money. But when I hear well fed people talk about cutting back on food stamps for people who genuinely need them to eat, it makes me wish that these lawmakers could experience hunger in the way that so many Americans have experienced it in their lives.

It's easy to cast judgment on others with a full belly.