Hawaii Department of Labor & Industrial Relations officials investigating construction practices in Ala Moana Center's new Ewa wing say that at least seven contractors involved in the project violated state labor laws by not providing temporary disability and prepaid health insurance to their workers. The findings were released on Thursday, the same day that Ala Moana Center officially opened its newly, redeveloped Ewa wing to the public and close to two weeks after the state Department of Labor… Reported by bizjournals 8 hours ago.

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone!

Since it's such an auspicious day, perhaps it's time to have a discussion about the increasingly-real possibility that Donald Trump or Ben Carson could actually become the Republican nominee for president next year. It's a scary, scary thing for most to contemplate, but the punditocracy's inside-the-Beltway strategy of just clapping our hands real hard and hoping that Tinkerbell quietly lies down somewhere to die just doesn't seem to be working. Pretty much every pundit under the sun -- from the hard left to the hard right -- has so far written a column this year predicting Trump's imminent political demise. To date, none of them have proven even slightly true. Trump is now challenged for the lead, but he's still polling at roughly the same level of support that he has pretty much ever since he got in the race. Ben Carson has risen to Trump's level in the polling much more than Trump has fallen back. The "Trump (and now, Carson) is going to fade -- it's inevitable" line of thinking is getting more and more divorced from the polling realities. So perhaps it's time to start thinking the unthinkable: either of these two men could actually become the Grand Old Party's nominee for the highest office in the land.

Democrats mostly ponder such an outcome with what might be called orgiastic schadenfreude. Wouldn't it be fitting, they think, for Republicans to torpedo their own chances in such a fashion? What this line of thinking ignores is that should either man win the nomination, he's going to be a lot stronger than you might now think. Winning a nomination means winning a whole lot of votes. Democrats might laugh throughout the primary season, but could stop laughing when the polls for the general election get a lot closer than they expect.

Republicans are already freaking out. Here's a quote from a "veteran operative and fundraiser now advising former governor Jeb Bush," to show the depths of these fears: "If we don't have the right [nominee], we could lose the Senate, and we could face losses in the House. Those are very, very real concerns. If we're not careful and we nominate Trump, we're looking at a race like Barry Goldwater in 1964 or George McGovern in 1972, getting beat up across the board because of our nominee." Pretty apocalyptic stuff, and he's not the only one thinking such dark thoughts on the Republican side.

One way or another, both sides are just beginning to come to grips with the fact that Trump and Carson have -- by an incredibly wide margin -- the best chances of winning the nomination. No other Republican candidate has caught fire with the base in anything close to the love they're now showing Trump and Carson. A sobering thought for all, on this Friday the 13th. Yes, it could happen. No, Trump and Carson's fall is not inevitable. No, Jeb Bush is not going to be president. Deal with it.

In other news from the Republican campaign trail, we have what is possibly the stupidest question ever being debated. Jeb Bush would cheerfully go back in time and kill baby Hitler, while Ben Carson would refuse to abort fetus Hitler. No word on what Marty McFly would do, yet. Stay tuned....

A White House spokesman was rendered utterly speechless when asked about Ben Carson's claim that the Chinese military was a big faction in Syria, which we suppose is a sign of the times. Jaw-dropping idiocy is what passes for "political truth-telling" these days, and being rendered speechless is as good a response as any to such sheer lunacy.

Three Republicans (Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal) campaigned at an event organized by a preacher who wants to just kill all the gay people, and the media didn't even blink. Imagine if a Democratic candidate listened to a preacher who said something controversial... oh, wait a minute... that already happened, didn't it? I don't remember the media ignoring it, back then, do you?

There was a Republican debate this week, which we'll address in more detail in the talking points section, but we do have to point out that Ben Carson is so much better at the whole "word salad" thing than Sarah Palin ever was. Toss a random bunch of key phrases together, and people don't even realize you have not said anything at all!

John Kasich appeared on Stephen Colbert's show (YouTube has the relevant segment), and Colbert forcefully asked a question we've been waiting a long, long time to hear asked of any politician who ever admitted to marijuana use in their past. The question? "How do you think your life would be different -- would you be where you are today -- if you had been caught and arrested for using marijuana back then?" We've been waiting pretty much ever since Bill Clinton tried his whole "didn't inhale" shtick, back in the 1990s, in fact. Kasich absolutely ignored the question, trying to lump marijuana in with heroin, but we certainly applaud Colbert for even asking it.

The times they are a-changing on the entire political issue of marijuana. It used to be treated as a joke -- any politician could use some form of: "Why are you asking me that, what have you been smoking? Hyuck-yuck-yuck!" to skate away from even discussing the issue in any sort of serious way. Now, every Republican candidate for president supports medical marijuana in one form or another. Democrats are about to debate whether rescheduling marijuana down to Schedule II is enough, or whether it should be descheduled altogether -- the most substantive debate on the issue since at least the 1970s. Which is one of the reasons we're looking forward to tomorrow night's debate.

If you're sick of hearing about the presidential race, there is a very different (and fascinating) election happening in Hawai'i which could determine how the native Hawai'ians organize themselves politically.

And finally, some (mostly bad) news from the Secret Service. The non-bad part: they've given Trump the code name "Mogul," which is kind of amusing (he got to pick it from a list of "M-words," apparently, so it's anyone's guess what else was on that list). What is not amusing, however, is the news that a Secret Service agent has been arrested for "[sending] obscene images and texts to someone he thought was a young Delaware girl, sometimes doing it while on duty at the White House.... [Lee Robert] Moore sent naked photos of himself to the undercover officer and asked to meet in person to have sex, according to the complaint." This is a guy who worked gate security for the White House, deciding who to allow into the grounds. What is wrong with this agency? It's seen several changes in leadership, and still seems to be nothing more than a fraternity of sex-obsessed morons. Story after story emerges, and still the culture doesn't seem to change.

 

Hillary Clinton moved toward the position Bernie Sanders had already staked out on marijuana legal reform this week, but it was a half-measure at best. Clinton is now in favor of moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II of the controlled substances list, which is indeed long overdue. Bernie, of course, wants it off the schedules altogether, and under the control of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, which is where it logically should be. Still, because Hillary's move virtually guarantees the most substantive discussion on changing federal marijuana laws ever to be included in a presidential debate (tomorrow night), she at least deserves an *Honorable Mention*. Her half-measure will be contrasted with Bernie's full support for descheduling, which is a discussion we've been waiting to hear for a long time.

President Obama came out in support of amending the Civil Rights Act to include gays and lesbians, which is truly the end of the road for the gay rights movement. Marriage was an important step, but knowing you can't be fired or evicted for who you are is much more fundamental. This effort is going to take years, but Obama's support is an important step, so he gets an *Honorable Mention* as well.

This week, we're going non-partisan, because although (obviously) it will be Democrats who will fight for their goal, the organization itself is not technically a partisan entity. So instead of our usual *MIDOTW* award, this week we're changing it to the *Most Impressive Progressive Of The Week*. Our first-ever *MIPOTW* goes to the Fight For $15 group, which has been instrumental in the fight to raise the minimum wage. Fast food workers across the country demonstrated this week, as they've been doing for years. However, they've been racking up some impressive victories, not least the fact that Democratic presidential candidates are now fully on board with a $15-an-hour minimum wage for all.

Progress happens slowly. Persistence is needed, as well as a whole lot of stamina. The concept of a $15 minimum wage was once seen as a pipe dream, but more and more localities (cities, counties, etc.) are going ahead and passing their own minimum wage increases, because they're tired of waiting for Congress to act.

The more this movement grows, the more potent a political issue it becomes. Which (again, obviously) helps Democrats. More than that, it helps Democrats build a critical mass to actually make it happen. So this week, we salute the Fight For $15 movement with the *Most Impressive Progressive Of The Week* award, and wish them further political success in the future.

[Congratulate Fight For $15 on their contact page, to let them know you appreciate their efforts.]

 

We're not entirely sure he's a Democrat, but since he was appointed by Barack Obama we're going to consider him fair game.

The acting head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, Chuck Rosenberg, needs to go. It took years of public pressure for Obama to get rid of his last D.E.A. chief, so hopefully he'll act faster on this one.

Now, we do realize that, for a very long time now, the head of the D.E.A. was expected to -- on a regular basis -- make up bizarre assertions which were backed up by absolutely nothing. I mean, it was part of the job description, almost: "Must be able to pull nonsense out of your butt during a press conference, and then act as if whatever you've just made up is the actual truth." The same went for the "drug czar," the head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (who was really nothing more than Chief Propagandist on the subject).

But those days should be in the past. However, the memo apparently hasn't gotten to Chuck. This week, Rosenberg baldly stated that medical marijuana was "a joke."

Medical marijuana is not a joke. In fact, almost half the states allow it to happen legally, and if you add in all the states that have approved some form of marijuana as medicine, it comes out to eighty percent of them.

You know what's a joke? Federal law that states unequivocally that marijuana "has no accepted medical use" in America. That is the joke, and it's not exactly a funny one.

There's a Change.org petition to convince Obama to fire Chuck Rosenberg. As of this writing, it had over 56,000 signatures. Feel free to add your name to the list, as we do our part by awarding Rosenberg the *Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week*.

[Contact Chuck Rosenberg via the D.E.A.'s contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]

 

*Volume 369* (11/13/15)

We have a cohesive group of talking points this week, to offer up to all and sundry, whether you're discussing politics around the water cooler or a guest on a political talk show airing on Sunday morning (Sundry morning?).

This week's talking points are all, essentially, rebuttals to the biggest nonsense espoused on the stage of the fourth Republican debate. It was hard to pick only seven, as there was a bumper crop of nonsense in this particular debate, so forgive us if your favorite didn't make the cut. You can always offer up your own talking point for anything we've missed, in the comments. If you're a real glutton for punishment, you can read the entire transcript of the Republican debate to mine more nuggets of lunacy.

 *   Wages are too high*This is one of the Democrats' strongest issues, and Donald Trump just gave them a gift.

"When asked whether America should raise the minimum wage in the Republican debate, pretty much every candidate who responded said they would leave the minimum wage where it is. Except for one. Donald Trump thinks, and I quote, 'wages are too high.' Got that? The federal minimum wage is too high, not too low. I would like to see, in the next debate, all the Republican candidates asked whether they agree with Trump or not -- and whether they'd lower the minimum wage. Perhaps they'll get in a bidding war to see how low a minimum wage they each would support."

 *   Yeah, that's the answer!*It being a debate hosted by Fox Business Network and the Wall Street Journal, the candidates' tax plans didn't come under a whole lot of scrutiny.

"When asked about the fact that the jobs market does much, much better under Democratic presidents, the Republicans on the stage, as usual, just ignored the facts. Instead, they all advocated tax plans which would blow gigantic, multi-trillion-dollar holes in the federal budget. Even when they use their patented Republican pixie-dust budgeting math, the results still show massive, trillion-dollar additions to the national debt. This, from a party who supposedly cares about such things! But the biggest insanity isn't their deficit problems -- or problems with basic math -- but actually the philosophy behind pretty much every single tax plan discussed. They'd all give enormous tax breaks to the wealthiest of the wealthy, and about the only thing they disagreed upon was whether they would simultaneously raise taxes on the poor or not. Because giving gargantuan tax breaks to the wealthy and then turning around and taxing the poor is obviously the way to fix America's income inequality problem, right?"

 *   Dig a hole straight through the Earth, maybe?*Two unrelated subjects, with one common thread: ignorance.

"I heard Ben Carson inexplicably say, during the Republican debate, that we should be worried because China is intervening militarily in Syria. There are precisely zero facts to back this up, and it even caused absolute speechlessness when a White House press spokesman was asked about it this week. It isn't remotely true, but that didn't stop Carson from making the claim -- and nobody on the stage challenged him on it. Rand Paul did actually point out, later in the debate, that Donald Trump's focus on China when asked about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal was insane because the TPP does not cover China at all and China would actually love to see the TPP go down in flames. This led me to wonder -- about pretty much all the candidates on stage -- whether any of them could actually find China on a map, or not."

 *   Um... what?*As Hunter S. Thompson famously pointed out, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

"Here's Donald Trump's answer as to what we should do about ISIS: 'I said, keep the oil.... We should have kept the oil. And, you know what? We should have given the oil... to the people that lost their arms, their legs, and their families, and their sons, and daughters, because right now, you know who has a lot of that oil? Iran, and ISIS.' So, America's foreign policy should be to finance our soldiers' retirement by invading the Middle East and stealing all their oil? Excuse me? Does Trump think he's running for Roman Emperor or something? Take their oil by force, and give it to the veterans? Wow. And he's leading the Republican pack, followed by a man who would, presumably, fight the Chinese in Syria? Boy, the Republican Party sure ain't what it used to be on foreign policy, folks."

 *   Except for tens of millions, that is....*Trump and Carson weren't the only ones up there telling whoppers, though.

"You can tell Carly Fiorina is lying because her mouth is open and words are coming out. She tried to attack Donald Trump by claiming that meeting Vladimir Putin in a green room wasn't the same as her wonderful meeting with the man -- which she herself has described as taking place in a green room. But her biggest whopper was that Obamacare 'hasn't helped anyone.' That's funny, because the Senate Republicans are now having problems agreeing over a bill they're working on passing (under reconciliation rules) which would totally repeal Obamacare. Seems some Republicans, from states that expanded Medicare under Obamacare, are now worried that taking health insurance away from millions of voters back home -- and replacing it with nothing -- might not be such a great idea, politically. Carly should go talk to some of these Republican senators, who might be able to point to a few million people Obamacare is definitely helping."

 *   Live, from an alternate universe*Seriously, didn't they have wonderful reception from their inter-universal satellite feed?

"I almost expected, when the moderators came back from commercial breaks, to hear them state: 'We bring you back, live, from an alternate reality.' I mean, how else to explain such insane statements being taken at face value? The biggest idiocy of them all was probably asserting that the bank failure and Great Recession was caused by too much government regulation. Are you kidding me? Wall Street tanked because they were over-regulated? That is so jaw-droppingly wrong it boggles the mind. Ben Carson, in trying to answer what he'd do about big banks getting even bigger stated that he wouldn't have allowed it to happen in the first place. Well, excuse me, but a newly-sworn in president simply does not get to go back in time and change things. It's just not an option. You can't go kill baby Hitler, and you can't just wave a magic wand and have reality be different when you take office. I mean, what universe are these people from? The one where Wall Street would have behaved with decorum and fiscal responsibility with less oversight? Sheesh."

 *   What color will the shirts be?*Your papers, please....

"Donald Trump is now saying he'll have a 'deportation force' to round up 11 million people, which he promises to do in two years' time. This raises a few important questions, of course. Will this deportation force be allowed to smash windows, while performing their duties? And what color will their shirts be -- brown or black? Finally, 'deportation force' is kind of a clunky term... maybe it'd sound better in the original German?"

 

Chris Weigant blogs at:Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com
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-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 8 hours ago.

People living in these states could see Obamacare health insurance premiums climb by the most in 2016. Reported by Motley Fool 22 hours ago.

The Democratic presidential candidates got some tough questions during Saturday night's debate about how they’d pay for their domestic policy proposals. They didn’t really answer them.

All three candidates -- Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders -- have endorsed ambitious agendas. They would make paid family leave available to all workers, while providing new financial assistance to help people pay for child care, college and medical bills. Sanders has also proposed creating a single-payer health insurance system, which would basically make Medicare available to everybody.
When asked about how they would finance these plans, all three candidates implied they could do so without broad tax increases, except on the very wealthy.

“It isn't the middle class,” Clinton said. “I have made very clear that hardworking, middle-class families need a raise, not a tax increase.”

Sanders and O’Malley were less definitive, though both talked about raising income taxes on the very wealthy.

But it’s hard to see how enacting these agendas fully would be possible with at least some higher taxes on non-wealthy Americans. The paid leave plans many Democrats endorse, for example, all envision a new payroll tax. (California’s law, which is a model for such proposals, works that way.)

To be clear, the middle-class tax increases necessary to finance these schemes would mostly be modest. The family leave plans, for example, call for a payroll tax of just 0.2 percent. Yes, that’s zero-point-two percent. The exception would be Sanders’ vision for single-payer health insurance -- that is, making Medicare available to all. But, as Sanders has noted, those taxes would be in lieu of private insurance premiums. Middle-class consumers might actually come out ahead.

And there’s a big difference between Democrats being less-than-candid about the finances of their domestic agendas, which would run in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and Republicans totally dodging questions about how they'd pay for their tax plans, which come with price tags in the trillions.

But tax levels are already insufficient to finance current government operations, let alone an agenda that calls for new programs. At some point, Democrats need to stop pretending that ambitious domestic initiatives wouldn’t cost more money and start arguing, simply, that those initiatives would be worth the price.

See the latest updates on the debate here.

*See photos from the debate below:*
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 5 hours ago.

Employees of midsize and large companies in 2015 paid an average of $4,700 for their health insurance, up from $2,001 in 2005, according to recent analysis from Aon Hewitt. Because they are looking for solutions to high costs, companies are changing the design of their benefit programs, Aon Hewitt Senior Vice President Mike Morrow said,... Reported by NY Post 1 day ago.

Your employer expects you to foot a greater portion of the bill for your health insurance, and we have the numbers to prove it! Reported by Motley Fool 23 hours ago.

With rare exceptions, Medicare doesn't cover prescription drugs at all unless you're in the hospital. There are two ways to fill the gap if you don't have retiree health insurance. You can either get a Medicare Part D prescription-drug plan (paired with a Medigap plan for your other out-of-pocket... Reported by ChicagoTribune 17 hours ago.

Not a week passes without some incremental revelation showing precisely what happens when Congress passes a bill just to see what's in it.

Well, since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, also known as the Obamacare *tax, *we have watched in horror as shocker after shocker are revealed.

Some examples:

· In Latest Obamacare Fiasco, Most Low-Income Workers Can't Afford "Affordable Care Act"
· The Stunning "Explanation" An Insurance Company Just Used To Boost Health Premiums By 60%
· Your Health Insurance Premiums Are About To Go Through The Roof -The Stunning Reason Why
· Obama Promised Healthcare Premiums Would Fall $2,500 Per Family; They Have Climbed $4,865
· Largest Health Insurer On Colorado Exchange Abruptly Collapses
· Co-Op Insurers Across America Are Collapsing, And Now There Is Fraud
· "$19,000 Premiums, Up 4x Since Passage": The 'Crippling Effect' Of Obamacare On The Middle Class

Now we can add one more thing that "was in it": soaring deductibles, which give the fake impression of contained, low all-in costs... until one actually needs expensive medial help (and these days there is no other kind).

The latest expose against Obamacare comes not from its usual nemesis, but the hard-left NYT, suggesting that even the ideological supporters of Obama's "crowning achievement" are losing faith. To wit:



Obama administration officials, urging people to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, have trumpeted the low premiums available on the law’s new marketplaces.

 

But for many consumers, the sticker shock is coming not on the front end, when they purchase the plans, but on the back end when they get sick: sky-high deductibles that are leaving some newly insured feeling nearly as vulnerable as they were before they had coverage.

 

“The deductible, $3,000 a year, makes it impossible to actually go to the doctor,” said David R. Reines, 60, of Jefferson Township, N.J., a former hardware salesman with chronic knee pain. “We have insurance, but can’t afford to use it.”

 

In many states, more than half the plans offered for sale through HealthCare.gov, the federal online marketplace, have a deductible of $3,000 or more, a New York Times review has found. Those deductibles are causing concern among Democrats — and some Republican detractors of the health law, who once pushed high-deductible health plans in the belief that consumers would be more cost-conscious if they had more of a financial stake or skin in the game.

 

*“We could not afford the deductible*,” said Kevin Fanning, 59, who lives in North Texas, near Wichita Falls. “Basically I was paying for insurance I could not afford to use.” *He dropped his policy.*



In other words, Obamacare's "affordable care" is affordable, *as long as one doesn't actually have to use it*!

Here is the damage when one does:

· In Miami, the median deductible, according to HealthCare.gov, is $5,000.
· In Jackson, Miss., the comparable figure is $5,500.
· In Chicago, the median deductible is $3,400.
· In Phoenix, it is $4,000;
· In Houston and Des Moines, $3,000.

Considering far more than half the US population has less than $1,000 in savings, there are quite literally tens of millions of people who are one ER visit away from the poor house. And they are unhappy. But at least the liberal think tanks have words of advice:



To those worried about high out-of-pocket costs, Dave Chandra, a policy analyst at the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, has some advice: “*Everyone should come back to the marketplace and shop. You may get a better deal*.”



But you almost certainly won't, because the whole structuring of Obamacare was to lower future costs at the expense of a surge in deductible payments, aka the oldest trick in the insurance book. And America fell for it.

So here is what happens when one *does *find out what is in the "affordable" care law, after it was passed.

Meet Mr. Fanning, from North Texas, who said he and his wife had a policy with a monthly premium of about $500 and an annual deductible of about $10,000 after taking account of financial assistance. Their income is about $32,000 a year.



*The Fannings dropped the policy in July after he had a one-night hospital stay and she had tests for kidney problems, and the bills started to roll in.*



And just like that a family of two spent half their annual income on insurance and deductibles courtesy of the "Affordable" care act.

It gets better:



Another consumer, Anne Cornwell of Chattanooga, Tenn., said she was excited when Congress passed the Affordable Care Act because she had been uninsured for several years. She is glad that she and her husband now have insurance, because he has had tonsil cancer, heart problems and kidney stones this year.

 

But with a $10,000 deductible, it has still not been easy.



Her conclusion: "*When they said affordable, I thought they really meant affordable," she said.*

Nothing more to add. Reported by Zero Hedge 10 hours ago.

Open enrollment for coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace runs through Jan. 31, 2016.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Reported by Delawareonline 7 hours ago.

Trust Guard, a leader in website security and data protection, has launched a new European website, http://www.trustguard.eu, to further their existing global reach and better accommodate their international clients. On October 14th, 2015, Vice President of Business Development, Todd Brandley, kicked off the launch with a visit to The Hague, Netherlands where he spoke at the US Embassy about data and security along with global security experts.

Ogden, Utah (PRWEB) November 16, 2015

Trust Guard has launched a European website, http://www.trustguard.eu, to further their existing global reach and better accommodate their international clients. On October 14th, 2015, Vice President of Business Development, Todd Brandley, kicked off the new website with a visit to The Hague, Netherlands where he spoke at the US Embassy about data and security.

Trust Guard, a leader in website security and data protection, has provided merchants with tools to keep their websites safe, secure, and converting, for over a decade in the United States and globally. While the company has made their products and services available all over the world for many years at http://www.trust-guard.com, they recently saw an opportunity to improve their international client’s experience with a multi-lingual site. Now, Trust-Guard’s products and services will be available on http://www.trust-guard.eu and http://www.b2u.nl, a partner located in the Netherlands, in both Dutch and English. Trust Guard plans to add German, French, Spanish, and more languages in the very near future.

“Launching our new website could not have happened at a better time. We are eager to broaden our horizons, and help merchants all over the world to easily secure their website, reduce their liability, and give them the safety and peace-of-mind they deserve,” said Brandley.

During his presentation at the US Embassy, Brandley discussed website application attacks, and important preventative measures to protect website data and POS (point-of-sale) terminals from hacking attacks. Brandley spoke alongside security experts such as Kevin M. McCleary, security officer of the US Embassy and former member of the secret service, and Hans Bouman, PCI specialist and owner of Business To You. Among the many guests in attendance were CEO’s and representatives from hosting companies, payment providers, and eCommerce experts. Top CEOs interested in cybersecurity also attended the event.

“The wide range of industries present at the conference, from banking to telecom hosting, health, insurance, hospitality and more demonstrate that no industry is immune from hacking and other cyber crimes. It was a pleasure to participate in such an important event and I am truly honored to have had an opportunity to speak about a topic as crucial as security among so many respected experts in the field,” said Brandley.

About Trust Guard:
Trust Guard has over 15 years of experience in eCommerce and security. Trust Guard started in 2006, helping companies build trust and make more sales online. Founders, Dave and Scott Brandley, have worked hard to help make the world a little bit more trustworthy, through Third-Party Verification and website Security Scanning. Trust Guard protects data, reduces liability, and increases sales, so business owners can enjoyed a boost in conversion rates and peace-of-mind.

For more information about Trust Guard, or Trust Guard’s new website:
Contact Todd Brandley 1-877-848-2731
visit http://www.trust-guard.com. Reported by PRWeb 3 hours ago.

Private insurance companies, he has said, should be little more than "non-profit service organizations," with government capping their profit margins. [...] the federal government could offer catastrophic care coverage akin to the National Flood Insurance Program, paid for with taxes on insurers' profits. Once he declared his candidacy, Carson said he'd scrap Medicare and Medicaid — two longtime targets of conservatives — and spend the money instead on giving every American $2,000 a year for a health savings account. [...] his proposal for health care savings accounts is standard fare among Republicans advocating "free-market" health insurance policy. Yet the subsidies he has proposed for health savings accounts could end up as another version of existing subsidies that, under Obama's health care law, help working-class citizens buy private coverage. Carson has blamed for-profit insurers for squeezing out providers' ability to offer more indigent care because hospitals and physicians spend so much money getting claims paid by insurance firms, which give providers low reimbursements. Reported by SeattlePI.com 2 hours ago.

When Hilda Sims earned her release from prison last year after serving 22 years for murder, she got something that could dramatically reduce the odds that she'd ever have to return: health insurance.

For years, many who left California lockups on parole or probation would do so without easy access... Reported by L.A. Times 23 hours ago.

RESTON, Va., Nov. 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- hCentive, the leader in health insurance exchange solutions, announced today it was ranked #12 on the Washington Business Journal Fast 50 and #62 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 in North America. hCentive's technology platforms and solutions... Reported by PR Newswire 22 hours ago.

*Henry Wallace with Franklin D. Roosevelt*Henry Wallace, who died 50 years ago this week (November 18, 1965), was one of the most fascinating and controversial political figures in American history.

One of the great "what if?" questions of the 20th century is how America might have been different if Wallace, rather than Harry Truman, had succeeded Franklin Roosevelt in the White House.

In fact, Wallace almost became the nation's president. In 1940, he was FDR's running mate and served as his Vice President for four years. But in 1944, against the advice of the Democratic Party's progressives and liberals -- including his wife Eleanor -- FDR reluctantly allowed the party's conservative, pro-business and segregationist wing to replace Wallace with Senator Harry Truman as the Vice Presidential candidate. Had Wallace remained as Vice President, he would have become president when FDR died in April 1945.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, only FDR eclipsed Wallace -- Roosevelt's Secretary of Agriculture (1933-1940) and then his Vice President (1941-1944) -- in popularity with the American people.

Today, if Wallace is remembered at all, it is as a fringe candidate who ran on the Progressive Party ticket against Truman in 1948 and garnered less than three percent of the popular vote. That is unfortunate, because Wallace was a remarkable public servant -- a visionary on both domestic and foreign policy. He was, according to John Kenneth Galbraith, "second only to Roosevelt as the most important figure of the New Deal."

These days, some political observers are comparing Bernie Sanders to Wallace. They both challenged the economic and political establishment of their time. But there are significant differences between these two men. Wallace ran for president as a third party candidate, guaranteeing that he'd be marginalized. Sanders is running as a Democrat, giving him great visibility on the campaign trail and in the media, including the televised debates.

Like Sanders, Wallace was ahead of his time on most issues. He opposed the Cold War, the arms race with the Soviet Union, and racial segregation. He was a strong advocate of labor unions, national health insurance, public works jobs and women's equality. He would have been, without question, the most radical president in American history. He would have served out the remaining three years of FDR's fourth term and certainly would have sought to be elected on his own in 1948.

The "what if?" questions are titillating but unknowable. Had Wallace become president, would the United States have dropped the atom bomb on Japan? Would the country have spent several decades engaged in a costly cold war and arms race with the Soviet Union? Would America have created a permanent war economy (one that President Eisenhower later warned had become a "military-industrial complex") and replaced England as the world's most assertive imperialist and colonial power, leading the country into numerous military adventures, including Vietnam? Would our society have postponed for at least a decade the civil rights and women's rights revolutions?

Wallace was born on an Iowa farm in 1888. After graduating from Iowa State College in 1910, he went to work for his family's newspaper, Wallaces' Farmer, which was widely read by farmers and was influential in educating farmers about new scientific techniques and political issues shaping agricultural life. In 1921, Wallace took over as editor when his father became Secretary of Agriculture in the administrations of Warren G. Harding and then of Calvin Coolidge.

Wallace had a great passion for what was then called "scientific agriculture" and a talent for agricultural research. In 1926, he started the Hi-Bred Corn Company -- later renamed Pioneer Hi-Bred -- to market a new high-yield corn seed he had developed during his years conducting scientific experiments on a part-time basis. The company was hugely successful, making Wallace rich and his heirs secure. The new company revolutionized American agriculture. (DuPont bought the business for $9.4 billion in 1999.)

Wallace recognized that farming followed an unpredictable boom-and-bust cycle due to the weather, overproduction and consumers' ability to pay for food. In the 1920s, almost half of all Americans made their living directly or indirectly from agriculture. Wallace saw that farmers had not shared in the decade's prosperity and that their plight worsened when the economy crashed in 1929. Between 1929 and 1932, farm income fell by two-thirds. Farm foreclosures were occurring at a record pace. Farming communities were emptying as family farmers and sharecroppers abandoned the land looking for jobs elsewhere, a situation portrayed in John Steinbeck's 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath and in the film based on it.

As Adam Cohen recounts in Nothing to Fear (2009), his book on the first 100 days of FDR's administration, these experiences radicalized many farmers throughout the farm belt. In May 1932, for example, 2,000 farmers attended a rally at the Iowa state fairgrounds and urged fellow farmers to declare a "holiday" from farming, under the slogan "Stay at Home -- Buy Nothing Sell Nothing." In effect, they were urging farmers to go on strike -- to withhold their corn, beef, pork and milk until the government addressed their problems. They threatened to call a national farmers strike if Congress did not provide farmers with "legislative justice." In Sioux City, Iowa, farmers put wooden planks with nails on the highways to block agricultural deliveries. In Nebraska, one group of farmers showed up at a foreclosure sale and saw to it that every item that had been seized from a farmer's widow sold for five cents, leaving the bank with a total settlement of just $5.35. In Le Mars, Iowa, a group of farmers kidnapped Judge Charles Bradley off the bench while he was hearing foreclosure cases and threatened to lynch him if he did not agree to stop foreclosures.

Wallace, a scientist and economist as well as a farmer, believed that the solution to the farm crisis was a combination of better farm management and government relief. Both Wallace and his father had been loyal Republicans, but in 1928, the younger Wallace changed his allegiance, supporting Democrat Al Smith for president. Four years later, Wallace endorsed FDR in the pages of his newspaper. Iowa, a traditionally Republican state, gave FDR almost 60 percent of its votes. Soon after winning the presidency, FDR recruited Wallace to become his secretary of agriculture. At 44, Wallace was the youngest member of the cabinet.

The Farm Belt protests continued after FDR took office in March 1933. Wallace used the growing farm rebellion to persuade the president to support a number of innovative and controversial programs, including crop subsidies, to keep farmers afloat. Wallace was the key advocate for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the Rural Electrification Administration, the Soil Conservation Service, the Farm Credit Administration, and the food stamp and school lunch programs. Wallace added a program for erosion control. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) sponsored research to combat plant and animal diseases, to locate drought-resistant crops, and to develop hybrid seeds to increase farm productivity.

As a result, the USDA changed from a marginal department into one of the largest agencies, in size and influence, in Washington. Wallace's agency was also widely considered the best-run department in the federal government.

Business groups and Republicans in Congress opposed Wallace's plans, as they did most of the New Deal initiatives. Radical farm groups, like the National Farmers Union, thought the plans did not go far enough. But it is clear that the New Deal farm programs saved the farm economy and helped stabilize rural areas.

Wallace, Frances Perkins, Harry Hopkins, and Rex Tugwell formed the progressive wing of FDR's inner circle. Wallace had FDR's ear on a wide variety of issues, and he used that influence to push for policies to help industrial workers and the urban poor as well as farmers. Wallace became the New Deal's evangelist. In 1934 alone, he traveled more than 40,000 miles to all 48 states, delivered 88 speeches, signed 20 articles, published two books, and met regularly with reporters to promote the president and his program.

Because the fate of American farming was closely linked to global issues -- particularly the export and import of food, but also hunger and famine around the world -- Wallace was well versed in foreign affairs. In the late 1930s, he became alarmed by the rise of fascist dictatorships in Germany, Italy and Japan. Many Midwesterners, including progressives, were still isolationists, but Wallace had become a vigorous internationalist and a strong advocate for "collective security" among the United States and its allies.

During FDR's first two terms, Wallace developed a broad following among farmers, union activists and progressives. FDR was impressed by Wallace's popularity, his intelligence, and his integrity and believed that they shared a common view of government's role in society. In the summer of 1940, having decided to run for an unprecedented third term, FDR picked Wallace to be his vice presidential running mate.

During World War II, FDR involved Wallace in many military and international matters. Wallace also traveled throughout the war-torn world. FDR encouraged him to speak out about the possible shape of the postwar world. "Henry Wallace," wrote columnist James Reston in The New York Times in October 1941, "is now the administration's head man on Capitol Hill, its defense chief, economic boss and No. 1 post war planner."

Wallace faced significant opposition from the Democratic Party's conservative, business and segregationist wings. He feuded openly with Jesse H. Jones, a one-time Texas banker and businessman who was FDR's secretary of commerce and head of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), which controlled the purse strings for purchasing wartime supplies. For example, Wallace and Jones disagreed over the importing of essential materials for the war effort, such as rubber from South America. Wallace knew that about 40,000 workers were needed to extract the 20,000 tons of rubber that the United States needed each year. But each year, one-third of the rubber workers died and another third were too sick to work, afflicted with malaria, malnutrition, venereal disease, contaminated water, and other conditions. To guarantee a steady supply of rubber, Wallace (with the support of Perkins, the labor secretary) wanted the United States to provide the workers with healthy food and to require labor clauses in contracts with South American suppliers that mandated health and safety standards. Jones was adamantly opposed to Wallace's proposal and rounded up allies within the Roosevelt administration (including the State Department) and in Congress, including Republican Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio, who accused Wallace of "setting up an international WPA."

On May 8, 1942, Wallace delivered a talk in New York City that became famous for his phrase "the century of the common man." It was, noted John Culver and John Hyde in their biography, American Dreamer: A Life of Henry A. Wallace, "as pure an expression of progressive idealism as Wallace could muster." Wallace defined America's wartime mission as laying the groundwork for a peaceful world of global cooperation, "a fight between a slave world and a free world." Modern science has made it possible for everyone to have enough to eat, Wallace said, but it will require cooperation among the major nations to raise the standard of living for the common man in every corner of the world.

The speech was Wallace's response to a 1941 article by Henry Luce, the publisher of Time and Life magazines, which called for an "American century" after the war -- meaning a century dominated by the United States, "to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit."

Wallace's rebuttal was very explicit. He envisioned an end to colonialism, a world in which "no nation will have the God-given right to exploit other nations. Older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization, but there must be neither military nor economic imperialism." Wallace was aiming for a kind of global New Deal.

Millions of copies of Wallace's speech were distributed around the world in 20 languages. It drew praise in liberal and progressive circles, but it also stirred controversy. The British prime minister, Winston Churchill -- who hoped that Britain would still have an empire to run after the war -- was upset by Wallace's stark anticolonial sentiments. American business groups objected to Wallace's views about economic imperialism. The New York Times and, of course, Luce's publications, thought it was too radical.

In April 1944, Wallace penned an article in the New York Times, "The Danger of American Fascism," that warned about the growing right-wing movement in the United States -- words that resonate today with the emergence of extremists like the Koch brothers, the Tea Party, and the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party. Wallace wrote:
The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.
Wallace's speech and his writings framed the debate between progressives and conservatives. Opponents viewed Wallace as naive, a dreamer and a radical. These opponents included influential Democrats who worried that FDR might anoint Wallace as his successor, or at least give Wallace a big enough stage from which to launch a presidential bid once FDR had retired.

Led by Robert Hannegan, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, local and state party bosses quietly lobbied FDR to replace Wallace with Truman. Going into the 1944 Democratic convention in Chicago, Wallace was strongly favored to keep his position as FDR's running mate. Too ill to attend the convention and too busy overseeing the American war effort to get in the middle of an intra-party battle, FDR let it be known that either Wallace or Truman (a little-known senator from Missouri with few accomplishments to his credit) would be an acceptable vice presidential pick. On the first ballot, Wallace beat Truman, but lacked sufficient votes needed to secure the nomination. Then the party's conservative influence-peddlers went to work making deals with leaders from different states to gain votes for Truman. They maneuvered successfully and handed Truman the nomination.

Wallace was deeply hurt by FDR's failure to back him. After the election, FDR appointed Wallace to be secretary of commerce, but he stripped Wallace of control of the RFC, which he left in Jones' conservative hands. Wallace had a prestigious title, but he was no longer an influential insider. After FDR died in April 1945, Wallace continued to speak out in public, often in terms critical of Truman. Within a year, Truman had purged most of FDR's key appointees. In September 1946, he fired Wallace, too.

Why didn't Wallace run against Truman within the Democratic Party, like Bernie Sanders is now running against Hillary Clinton to win the party's presidential nomination? In 1948, the party machinery was tightly controlled by urban bosses and Southern segregationists. There were no wide-open primaries, like we have today, where an insurgent like Sanders has a chance to build a grassroots following and win a significant number of delegates to the party convention.

So Wallace campaigned for president on the Progressive Party ticket. On the major issues facing postwar America -- the cold war and the arms race (particularly the atomic bomb), strengthening New Deal social policies and boosting organized labor, and addressing segregation and racism -- Wallace believed that Truman was too cautious and conservative. He attacked Truman's support for loyalty oaths to root out communists and radicals from government jobs, unions, and teaching positions in schools and universities. He called for national health insurance, an expanded public works program, and reparations for Japanese Americans who had been interned during the war. He said it was time to elevate women to "first-class citizenship." And when Wallace campaigned in the South, he refused to speak to segregated audiences.

On foreign policy, Wallace opposed the Truman Doctrine, which aimed to contain communism through military intervention if necessary. He refused to support the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, considering it an instrument of the cold war. He preferred a multilateral aid program that would be administered through the United Nations.

Some early polls showed that Wallace had the support of more than 20 percent of the voters. Democratic Party officials, as well as some left-leaning union leaders, feared that even if Wallace could not win the election, he might attract enough Democratic voters that the White House would fall into the hands of the Republicans. Although his campaign initially attracted support from a wide political spectrum of liberals and radicals -- including high-profile figures like scientist Albert Einstein and singer and actor Paul Robeson -- much of that support soon withered as Wallace became closely identified with communists.

There were communists in key positions within the Wallace campaign, particularly among the left-wing unions that supported him after most other unions had abandoned his crusade. In some ways, Wallace was naive about the Soviet Union. He visited the port city of Magadan in Siberia in 1944 and described it as "combination TVA and Hudson's Bay Company." In reality, it was a slave-labor camp filled with political prisoners. Only later did he acknowledge that he had been conned by his Soviet guides.

Wallace believed in what would decades later be called "détente" -- finding ways to cooperate with the Soviet Union rather than getting trapped in a spiraling arms race. Even as cold war tensions were growing, Wallace simply did not subscribe to the anticommunist hysteria that emerged after the war. "I say those who fear communism lack faith in democracy," he said.

In the 1948 contest, Truman beat New York Governor Thomas Dewey, the Republican candidate, in a historic upset. Wallace received only 2.38 percent of the national vote. He even trailed third-place Strom Thurmond, the Democratic governor of South Carolina, who was running on the segregationist Dixiecrat Party ticket.

After this humiliating defeat, Wallace bought a farm in New York State, where he enjoyed working with plants and keeping chickens and made only occasional forays into public life. He was soon forgotten or reviled as a misguided radical. He died on November 18, 1965.

It is easy to see, with 20-20 hindsight, that running as the Progressive Party's presidential candidate transformed Wallace into a marginal figure. But an honest examination of his 1948 platform reveals that most of the ideas for which he was condemned as a radical are now viewed as common sense.

*Peter Dreier is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department, at Occidental College. His most recent book is The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame.
*

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Health care costs for employees at midsize and large companies are up 130% since 2005, Aon Hewitt says.  -More- 

*What's in store for the Q3 and Q4 job market?*
Hiring conditions are in their strongest stretch since the recession and job openings are at a 15-year high. This means new demands for human resource professionals. SHRM empowers HR professionals with resources to take on HR challenges with confidence. *Stay informed by joining SHRM!* Reported by SmartBrief 19 hours ago.

Due Date Plus now available in Spanish and English for the 23% of new mothers who are Spanish speakers; launches in Texas.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) November 16, 2015

Today, Wildflower Health announced a Spanish version of its mobile health platform, Due Date Plus (Mi Embarazo http://www.duedateplus.com/spanish), to engage the Spanish-speaking pregnant population. Due Date Plus helps moms-to-be track their pregnancy milestones and connect to appropriate health resources from health plans, employers, federal and state programs. Mi Embarazo will be rolled out initially to Medicaid and CHIP members in Texas.

Due Date Plus is available in Spanish and English on iOS and Android. To find out more about it and other Wildflower engagement programs, please visit: http://www.wildflowerhealth.com.

According to KFF.org, Spanish speakers make up 41% of the U.S. population with 30% enrolled in Medicaid. In Texas alone there are over 2 million residents who speak Spanish only, and 20% of births in the state are by mothers of Hispanic origin. Medicaid also finances 48% of births in Texas. On a national level Medicaid finances 40% of all births and plays a key role in healthy child and maternal outcomes. By tapping into the Due Date Plus/Mi Embarazo platform, commercial and Medicaid health plans are better positioned to reach lower-income expectant mothers, who often rely on their smartphones to access the Internet for resources and information.

Due Date Plus/Mi Embarazo is a HIPAA-compliant, smartphone-based program that tracks more than 50 pregnancy risk factors, manages pregnancy milestones and encourages members to engage with providers. Ultimately, health insurance companies will be better able to predict pregnancy complications and connect their members to preventative care based on their health plan. The interventions in the application will help healthcare payors address complications such as preterm birth, low birth weight, C-section rates and other issues in the pregnant population. Additionally, members can connect to a nurse line or look up programs available in their area. Only members of sponsored health plans can access these features.

“Due Date Plus and our Spanish-language version, Mi Embarazo, are a promising combination for Medicaid states that want to reach an underserved population of pregnant women,” said Leah Sparks, CEO and co-founder of Wildflower Health. “We enable our clients to engage with their pregnant populations to help them make smarter health care decisions that ultimately reduce medical costs.”

Wildflower contracts with commercial and Medicaid health plan clients nationwide and identifies about one-third of women as having pregnancy risks. About 70% of Due Date Plus users tap into its enterprise features to make better healthcare decisions based on their health benefits.

About Wildflower Health
Wildflower Health produces mobile health programs that help families better connect to healthcare and help clients drive behaviors that lower costs and improve quality. The company's flagship program is Due Date Plus, a smartphone-based maternity program that engages women on mobile devices, identifies high-risk pregnancies, and drives appropriate actions based on health plan benefits, provider resources, and local programs. Due Date Plus is configured for health enterprise clients to reflect their health services and benefits, and is distributed through enterprise channels. The program includes fully HIPAA-compliant data analytics and reporting services as well as enterprise-level software maintenance and support. Due Date Plus is used by health plan and Medicaid clients nationwide to improve health engagement and clinical outcomes during the prenatal and postnatal period. Reported by PRWeb 18 hours ago.

Dear Readers,

With time rushing by and the end of 2015 in sight, you may be lamenting that you haven't accomplished all that you had planned. But even if you'll have to put off certain things until 2016, you still have time this year to make some smart financial moves.

To help you finish out 2015 with a flourish, here's my list of top 10 year-end financial to dos.

*1) Max out retirement contributions*
Make sure you're on target for retirement--and save on taxes, too--by contributing the maximum to your tax-advantaged retirement accounts, whether you have an IRA, a 401(k) or both. For 2015, you can contribute $5,500 to a traditional IRA, plus a $1,000 catch-up contribution if you're 50 or older. Hopefully, you're already contributing enough to your 401(k) to capture any company match. If you can do more, you can contribute up to $18,000, plus a $6,000 catch up for 50-plusers. Even if you have a Roth IRA or Roth 401(k) with no upfront tax deduction, max out your contributions. It's a yearly opportunity you don't want to give up.

*2) Take advantage of an HSA*
If you have a health savings account (HSA) tied to your high-deductible health insurance plan, now's the time to max it out. An HSA lets you make tax-deductible contributions that you can later withdraw tax-free for qualified medical expenses. HSA contribution limits for 2015 are $3,350 for singles, $6,650 for a family, with a $1,000 catch-up for age 55 and up. And if you're lucky enough not to need the money immediately, you can save it for future use.

*3) Harvest capital losses to balance gains*
As you consider your year-end portfolio rebalancing, see if it makes sense to take some capital losses to cancel out capital gains. Not only will it save you money on capital gains taxes, it will give you the chance to clear out some of the losers, reset your asset allocation, and reinvest in areas that you think may have more potential for gain.

*4) Prepay where possible*
If you have the means, prepaying things such as property taxes, medical bills or estimated state taxes can give you added deductions to further reduce your taxable income.

*5) Use--don't lose--the money in your Flexible Savings Account (FSA)*
Unlike an HSA, with an FSA you generally have to use the money you put into it during the calendar year or lose it. While new rules allow an employer to let you carry over $500 or give you an extra two and a half months to use the funds, it's not required. Either way, now's the time to check the balance in your FSA and put those funds to work.

*6) Take your required minimum distribution (RMD)*
This won't save you on taxes, but it will save you a hefty penalty. You must take RMDs from traditional IRAs and 401(k)s by December 31. The only exception is your very first RMD, which you can delay until April 1of the year following the year you turn 70½. This isn't to be treated lightly. Miss the deadline and the penalty is 50 percent of the amount that should have been withdrawn.

*7) Get a jump on tuition*
Will you be facing a big college tuition bill this spring? If you can pay it before the end of the year, you might be able to ease the pain a bit with up to a $4,000 tax deduction. There are income limits ($80,000 for single filers/$160,000 for married filing jointly; not available if married filing separately), but if it works for you, it's worth considering.

*8) Give your health insurance a checkup*
Make sure you have the most complete and cost-effective coverage available. Open enrollment for 2016 coverage on the Health Insurance Marketplace is from November 1, 2015 to January 31, 2016, so now's the time to do some comparison-shopping.

*9) Make tax-free gifts*
If you can afford to be generous, Uncle Sam makes it even easier to give gifts to special people on your list. In 2015, you can give up to $14,000 each to any number of individuals with no gift tax or reporting requirements. And there's no tax for the recipient.

*10) Be charitable*
Giving to charity not only feels good, it has tax advantages as well. Consider opening a Charitable Gift Account (also called a donor advised fund) and get an upfront tax deduction for your charitable contribution. If you fund your account with appreciated stock, you'll get the added advantage of avoiding capital gains taxes while getting a tax deduction for the full market value of the donated stock.

Get these to dos out of the way now and you'll have that much more time to enjoy the rest of the year. There's no time like the present!

*For more updates, follow Carrie on LinkedIn and Twitter.*

Looking for answers to your retirement questions? Check out Carrie's new book, "The Charles Schwab Guide to Finances After Fifty: Answers to Your Most Important Money Questions."

This article originally appeared on Schwab.com. You can e-mail Carrie at askcarrie@schwab.com, or click here for additional Ask Carrie columns. This column is no substitute for an individualized recommendation, tax, legal or personalized investment advice. Where specific advice is necessary or appropriate, consult with a qualified tax advisor, CPA, financial planner or investment manager. Diversification cannot ensure a profit or eliminate the risk of investment losses.COPYRIGHT 2015 CHARLES SCHWAB & CO., INC. (MEMBER SIPC.) (1115-6827)

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The good news: Smoking rates in the U.S. continue to decline. In fact, the number of adults who smoke is at its lowest since cigarette smoking was first recorded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1965. 

A reported 16.8 percent of American adults smoked in 2014, compared to 17.8 percent in 2013.

The less good news: The national numbers obfuscate specific trouble spots and demographic skews. For example, 43 percent of people with a GED smoked, compared to 5 percent of those with a graduate degrees. More than a quarter of people who live below the federal poverty line smoked, and close to a third of multiracial Americans smoked. 

“These findings underscore the importance of ensuring that proven strategies to prevent and reduce tobacco use reach the entire population, particularly vulnerable groups," Brian King, deputy director for research translation in the CDC's office on smoking and health, said in a statement.

"Comprehensive smoke-free laws, higher prices for tobacco products, high-impact mass media campaigns and barrier-free access to quitting help are all important. They work to reduce the enormous health and financial burden of tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure among Americans," he added. 

The CDC researchers expect skewed rates to continue to decrease as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 improves the number of Americans with access to health insurance and to smoking cessation help through that insurance. Currently, 27.9 percent of uninsured adults smoke, compared to only 12.9 percent who have private insurance policies.

Smoking is the number one cause of preventable death in the U.S., and greatly increases a person's risk for lung cancer, heart disease, diabetes and stroke.

H/T The New York Times

*Related on HuffPost:*
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Open enrollment under Obamacare is underway. Now’s the time to consider options.

 
 
 
 
 
 
  Reported by USATODAY.com 16 hours ago.

Photo: Courtesy of Eunice Gonzalez-Sierra
Twenty-two year old Eunice Gonzalez-Sierra, is immersed in the hopeful yet anxious process recent grads experience when looking for their first professional job. Confident that she will land a job at one of the local law firms in Santa Maria, California, she takes to her Tumblr blog and sends messages of support to others who are steeped in job applications and checking their email constantly for any replies. But Eunice is no newbie at managing pressure brought on by high expectations and a Mexican work ethic.

This work ethic led her to cross the stage and receive a bachelor's degree in Chicana/a Studies and a double minor in Labor and Gender Studies from UCLA in June. She is the first college graduate in her family. Eunice was also co-chair of UCLA's 42nd RAZA Graduation with the largest participation of graduates since its inception in 1972, where students' culture, language, and family are an integral part of the celebration, allowing for multilingual and multicultural experience. Participation is open to all students.

Photo: Courtesy of Eunize Gonzalez-Sierra
As she spoke to her peers at the RAZA Graduation she congratulated them in Spanish and English about their achievements. But Eunice was quick to point out that their success was only due to the hard work of the people that gave them the strength to keep going and graduate.

She made it clear, that the coveted college diploma, that has meant access to a different future from that of their parents for thousands of immigrants before her, was not just a prize earned by the individual but a communal achievement made possible by fathers, mothers, and extended family members who willingly faced physical danger and the brunt of social and institutional racism in hopes that the youngest among them could carve a different life for themselves.Eunice remembers her parents' life over the last twenty-two years and honors her mother for laboring in the strawberry fields since she was born, so that she could sit in a classroom. She gives her credit for making her the woman she is today and also honors her father, who worked alongside her mother in the fields, for making her a true chingona, a badass.

Eunice with her parents at her post-grad photo shoot in the strawberry fields they work in. Photo: Courtesy of Jorge Mata Flores
They crossed the border from Mexico into the United States twenty-two years ago. Similar to the 1,713,251 European immigrants that crossed the Atlantic Ocean between 1841-1850, according to the Harvard Open Collections Program on Immigration from 1789 to 1930, and to the millions more that continued to arrive seeking access to opportunity.For Eunice's parents access came in the form of the ability to gain work immediately picking strawberries in what became California's billion dollar strawberry industry according to the USDA statistics service. This meant getting up at five in the morning to go to a field to carrying two empty boxes across a field that weigh about eleven pounds each when filled.

Photo: Courtesy of Eunice Gonzalez-Sierra.
The boxes are then carried back and checked in where someone keeps a tally on the boxes each worker fills to pay them at the end of the day. They then pick up two more empty boxes and cross the field again, with temperatures ranging from the 60's-80's in one day for the next 12-16 hours. In Eunice's parents case they did this for twenty-two years.

As Eunice recalls her parents' journey with me, she is still in awe that for living such a physically demanding and harsh life, she has never heard her parents complaint. Her dad's greatest wish was to see the day he could get a driver's license and pay taxes.

They stay in the shadows, as most undocumented workers must , working from sun up to sun down for minimal pay, to ensure that the rest of America can have strawberry short cake, strawberry ice cream, strawberries in their cereal.

But it also meant steady work and access to elementary, middle, and high school education for their daughters. And for Eunice, one of five, an opportunity to go to college.

Photo: Courtesy of Eunice Gonzalez-Sierra.
However, as many college students know making it into college is not enough to keep you there. There is a vast social and academic system that students must navigate and resources they need to tap into to manage the work load and community expectations.
For students whose language, culture, and economic means is vastly at odds with the majority of the students, figuring out the knowhow of how college works is layered in a series of foreign and sometimes, what can appear to be, invisible rules.
Maylei Blackwell, Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies and Women's Studies at UCLA and one of Eunice's former professors, whose research focuses on indigenous migration, discusses what it means to have a degree when you are a child of indigenous field laborers.
Students like Eunice are super heroes. They really have come such a long way, sometimes, with a lot of the support of their parents who have such important educational aspirations for their children and really push them to strive. [They] have a lot of discipline themselves but don't have the cultural capital to move their children along. Often times they don't speak Spanish or English but an indigenous language making access that much harder. It is kind of a miracle. It shouldn't be but it is. It represents their heart and dream and the perseverance and courage of their families and of themselves.
It is a dream not specific to Mexican immigrants but to immigrants worldwide as far back as human need has propelled groups of people in search for stability. Each immigrant wave has received a different reception often depending on who is coming, who is receiving, and the reason behind the move. The indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere were not necessarily excited to have their land taken, people massacred, and food sources taken by Europeans seeking a better life.

In the 1840s and 50s Germany's agricultural problems, Ireland's infamous Potato Famine, and general social upheaval due to industrialization led to higher rates of European immigration to America. Neither group was openly welcome by earlier waves of European immigrants already established in the U.S.

Courtesy of Creative Commons
The Gold Rush led to Chinese immigration which was then fiercely blocked for decades about twenty years later with the exception of labor to build the railroads.

Courtesy of Creative Commons
The Bracero Program was created, a guest worker program for able Mexicans, when the United States needed quick and ready labor to fill U.S. labor shortages in low paying agricultural jobs during WWII.

Courtesy of Helguera, Leon. Americans all, let's fight for victory : Americanos todos, luchamos por la victoria.. Washington D.C.. UNT Digital Library.
Mexico's economic crisis of the 80's and 90's led to waves of immigration to the U.S. As of 2013 Oaxaca, where Eunice's parents are from, is one of the poorest states in Mexico where over 50% of the population live on $62 a month. But jobs are not the greatest obstacles- access to water and safe childbirth are at the top. According to the World Bank in 2012, 78.9 of women out of 100,000 died of child birth and only 69% of the population had running water.

Today immigrants, in particular Mexican immigrants, are once again bearing the brunt of fear based thinking. Cries of "these people are taking our jobs" or "these people are criminals" are still used as anti-immigration arguments.

However, one of the leading organizations for immigration reform, which has existed since the eighties and serves as a model for immigration advocacy for undocumented workers is The Emerald Isle Immigration Center (EIIC).) It lobbies for the Irish Immigration Reform Movement. In 2007 there were at least 50,000 undocumented Irish 30,000 in NYC area alone as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

A crossing of undocumented people supported by Hilary Clinton. Support that their Mexican counterpart has never had.

Photo by: irishvoices.blogspot.com
In response to this age old scapegoating, the United Farm Workers created the Take Our Jobs Campaign in 2010 in an effort to "give back" the jobs they had "stolen" to American born citizens. The UFW offered work to anyone who was willing to work in the fields. Out of 8,600 who expressed an interest in seeking employment as farm workers, only eleven people actually took a job in agriculture.

Gabriel Thompson was one of these people. He wrote the memoir, Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won't Do. Listen to the NPR interview with him and United Farm Workers president, Arturo Rodriguez, about the Take Our Jobs Campaign and Thompson's experience in the fields.

Three years later none of the people continued as farm laborers. Watch this video to see the update.
This has been a civil rights movement, says Professor Blackwell, for many people in the shadows they don't understand the prejudice. The way the media has distorted the issues and focused on the hysteria not on the actual global conditions that have created the conditions of migration. The U.S. has played a lot on those conditions so it isn't by accident that people embark here. We should stop kidding ourselves that the U.S. economy doesn't need these migrants. The response of the U.S. is a breeding ground for racism and hatred rather than one of understanding of global conditions.
The reality for Americans is that we are so far removed from the source of our food production and general goods and services that we will literally bite the hand that feeds us. Grocery stores are packed with produce year round, shelves are stocked with canned goods, refrigerators can't seem to get big enough, summer picnics never miss a watermelon, Napa Valley has not seen a decline in wine tours, but yet many people are still in denial of what it takes to get that food and drink there.

Field workers flanked four by four on each side of a rigged school bus, clearing a watermelon field by throwing watermelons to each other and then into the bus. August 2015, Salisbury, MD. Photo: Courtesy of Catalina Sofia Dansberger Duque
Imagine not having to go to the gym or go on a diet because your job was so physically taxing you never consume more calories than you spend, actually you can't even eat what you pick. Then try living on less than minimum wage, without health insurance or benefits, and having the rain determine your work for the season. Rain can often ruin an entire crop of strawberries. Food many times picked by children and pregnant mothers, as child labor laws for agricultural work are different.
Immigrants are propelled by the vision for a future that often becomes stagnant from wars; corrupt governments; violence; racial, religious, and ethnic intolerance; and back room deals that favor the elite and leave the masses to bear the brunt.

Opportunity wrought by hard labor and fueled by the collective desire of masses of people willing to face the unknown for the ability to simply survive, to feed themselves, clothe themselves, have shelter, clean water, and maybe something different for their children. Just look at Cesar Montelongo's experience as an MD-PHD student.

Let us try to remember this as we celebrate in a few weeks the very crossing that defines American agriculture, the feast of the first harvest,Thanksgiving. A feast to celebrate when Pilgrims, the first undocumented immigrants to America, were fed by the kindness of Native Americans, from brown hands to white hands, only to be massacred in return.

At the end of Eunice's speech she spoke directly to the future of this country- her peers, younger siblings, and cousins, cheering from the stands, "To you, we are waiting to go to your graduations, to see your diplomas because, "¡Sí se pudo! ¡Sí se puede! y ¡Sí se va seguir pudiendo!""It was done! It can be done! and It will continue to be done!" A thunder of applause broke out.

An anthem for an immigrant nation where crossing borders and cultures out of necessity, in hopes of greater opportunities, are as American as apple pie (which, by the way, was brought by British and Dutch immigrants.)

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