Tea, Oil, Drugs and Mortgages

Did you know that Jefferson wanted to include an amendment in the Constitution to keep us free from monopolies? In his February 12, 1788 letter to Mr. Dumas he wrote:

With respect to the new Government, nine or ten States will probably have accepted by the end of this monty. The others may oppose it. Virginia, I think will be of this number. Besides other objection of less moment, she will insist on annexing a bill of rights to the new Constitution, i.e. a bill wherein the Government shall declare that, 1. Religion shall be free; 2. Printing presses free; 3. Trials by jury preserved in all cases; 4. No monopolies in commerce; 5. No standing army. Upon receiving this bill of rights, she will probably depart from her other objections; and this bill is so much to the interest of all the States, that I presume they will offer it, and thus our
Constitution be amended, and our Union closed by the end of the present year.

Jefferson also argued against the creation of a pseudo-aristoi, an artificial aristocracy created by wealth and lack of accountability. He didn't like the idea of the appointed Senate and wrote about it to Adams in 1813:

The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy.... I think that to give them power in order to prevent them from doing mischief, is arming them for it, and increasing instead of remedying the evil.

The problem with monopolies in commerce during colonial times at came from the colonists experience with the East India Company, owned by British royals and given full government cooperation in taxation and other protectionist laws. It was one of the big reasons for the American Revolution as colonists trying to compete with it were crushed by the crown with taxes and criminal penalties for piracy and privateering (trying to trade in tea outside of the British protectionist laws for EIC--that's where the word privateering came from). However, after the revolution there were many fat and happy American corporations in the making and the Federalists killed the no monopoly amendment. The artificial aristocracy initially flourished in the US and then got cut down a few pegs by Andrew Jackson. It grew again post-civil war under early republican regimes and was again cut down by the progressive and populist movements of the early 20th century as people saw the detriments to labor, health and safety. You can read all about this little discussed part of the American History in Unequal Protection, The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights by Thom Hartmann. Howard Zinn writes about it in A People's History of the United States.

We are seeing the same problems today as our government supports oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, telcoms, financial institutions to the detriment of its people and it's failure to regulate corporations has left us with serious problems in food and drug safety and a disfunctional credit industry. I think differing opinions on how we regulate corporations are the main issue that separates the republican party from the American people. Corporationists like Bush, McCain and Kirk believe corporations should get full benefit of American law and constitutional protections while human beings, the real American citizens, should have only limited rights and be regulated in action, speech and thought. They want corporations to have the freedom to distribute inadequately tested drugs on the market and put meat from downer cows into the food chain, and they also want to limit your right not to be dragged out of your home and imprisoned without a warrant and your right to privacy in your calls and emails to grandma.

Cases in point #1 - 5 are the oil, agricultural, food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies. These republicans have supported subsidizing the oil companies that hold us hostage to 19th century technology, eliminating price negotiation with the pharmas allowing prices to rise and hampering safety regulation of the food, cosmetic and drug industries . I've written extensively about both topics in the past.

Case in point #6 takes us back to Jefferson's ealiest problem with corporations, financial institutions. Jefferson's first argument was against the national bank offering to take up the Revolutionary war debt. He was afraid of what mischief government favored financial institutions could wrek. Now we know. In our time and absent adequate regulation requiring fair dealing with consumers, the mortgage companies, with the help of Wall Street securitization of mortgage loans, plunged us into a credit and housing crisis.

At his Palatine meeting this past spring, Kirk stated his position against regulation of the mortgage industry. His reason was that he was worried that if mortgage companies were regulated, required to do the right thing by their customers and investors, mortgages would not be available in the poorer neighborhoods of our district. So basically, what he was saying was that he favors continuing the sale of mortgage products that would be eliminated by regulations aimed at protecting customers and investors from hidden and overreaching costs, absurd terms, and downright fraud.

I bring this up again now for two reasons. First, because a mortgage company memo titled "Zippy Cheats & Tricks" just surfaced. It describes how loan officers were instructed to trick a computerized in-house approval mechanism designed to weed out bad loans. They didn't want to weed out borrowers who could not afford the loans because they made money on these borrowers and they knew there was no downside because the loans were sold in the secondary market where others would be left holding the bag.

I also think this is worth discussing again because last week I heard a real estate broker interviewed on NPR.He was talking about how he's surviving the current market and said that he survives because of the new market of Canadians and Eurpeans buying up US housing stock. He said they are the only ones with any money. Even I was stunned at this one. I didn't know it had gotten that bad.

Because of their wealth and lack of accountability, corporations have no allegiance to our country or to our people, their customers and know they can get away with whatever. By failing to regulate corporations, we allow them to run amok on the people. The American colonists saw that back in revolutionary times and the populists and progressives saw it in the sweat shops and the jungle of unhealthy food markets. We're seeing it again now, but John McCain and Mark Kirk don't care, probably because they benefit from it through PAC donations and a corporate media that never asks them the hard questions, scolds their opponents and reads their press releases verbatim.

More Wall Street Profits, More Drilling, More Refineries, Less Innovation

While Mark Kirk expends time, press and energy using gas prices to campaign against Dan Seals, our gas stations are hovering around $4.15 9/10 and climbing. When he's not badmouthing Seals, he and his buddy John McCain are supporting the Bush line on how to solve the problem. They don't want you to know that speculators in oil futures are creating a problem similar to the mortgage crisis created by mortgage pool securitization speculation. The Bush, McCain and Kirk solution is to give more money to oil companies and allow continued Wall Street speculation. That will not solve your problem while filling up that greedy SUV gas tank.

Kirk claims the prices have nothing to do with the Iraq war or speculation in the energy markets. He says the problem is a gas shortage due to increased demand from developing countries like China. Again, he talks to us like we are twits and do not understand the free market. The folks at that bastion of liberal thought (snark snark), Business Week disagree and make it pretty clear, there is no energy free market.

Kirk says that global demand has caused the increased gas prices. However, the Business Week article points out: "Ronald Bailey of Reason Online has pointed out that worldwide production of oil has risen 2.5% in the first quarter, while worldwide demand has grown by only 2%."

Kirk and his fellow republicans say it's those awful Democrats concerned for the environment that have stopped construction of refineries that are to blame. Kirk says the solution is in building more refineries. Sorry Mark, not so says Ed Wallace writing for Business Week:

Production is expected to increase by 3.3% in the second quarter, and by as much as 4.1% by the third quarter. The net result is that the U.S. daily buffer for oil production against demand, which was a paltry 1.5 million barrels as recently as 2005, is now up to 3 million barrels in excess capacity today.

[and the kicker]

[refineries] have been cutting back on the production of gasoline because their margins have declined.

[here's more]Bill Klesse, head of San Antonio (Tex.) Valero Energy (VLO). He spoke in San Diego a week after those comments from Goldman Sachs, the President, and Secretary Bodman. Believe it or not, Klesse said poor margins may cause Valero to sell one-third of its refinery operations; he stated that poor margins in recent months had caused planned refinery expansions—which would have produced 500,000 more barrels per day—to be canceled.

Here's a version of Wallace's article with more commentary. This is an interesting quote from the comments:

Those investigations looked into the unregulated trading in energy futures, and both concluded that energy prices' climb to stratospheric heights has been driven by the billions of dollars' worth of oil and natural gas futures contracts being placed on the ICE - which is not regulated by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

Don't like Business Week? Want another source. Take a look at Bloomberg. The Senate also looked into this in 2006. See here too. Even the folks in Texas who buy into the refinery and China demand argument are talking about the role of Wall Street in driving up prices. Some are saying that as much as 60% of oil prices are based on speculation. Many blame what they call the Enron loophole which exempts energy speculators who make trades electronically from US regulation. The farm bill that just passed the House without Mark Kirk's vote would close that. So, when Kirk voted against food stamp increases, he also voted to keep oil prices high. McCain is also against regulating energy speculators.

So, it appears that the problem is not a shortage of oil refineries, but more Enron style energy speculation. Wallace compares it to the investor bailouts of the mortgage fiasco because current policy is protecting those who invested heavily in oil futures when demand is declining. Maybe that's why the Saudis told Bush to jump in the sand when he asked for more oil despite Bush's 2000 election promise to "jawbone" them into lowering oil prices. They admitted to as much at a conference back in 2006. Take a look at this article from Huffington Post. This is the crux of the problem as described in same:

Last week, at a conference on energy, the economy, etc., a discussion ensued about the reasons for the very high price of oil and the ever-present perception of shortages. I heard the director of the services group for the Saudi government-owned Aramco Oil Co. say that Aramco had ample spare capacity, but no takers. He volunteered that the big oil producer was ready to load additional cargos at any time.

Donning my old trading hat, I asked a simple question: "Why don't you lower the price?" I reminded him that when you have too much product, traditional business theory suggests that if you cut the price a bit, you might be able to move it. The Saudi representative answered: "Why should we sell for less than the prices quoted on the futures exchange?" He went on to say that the refiners are making too much money as it is.

Kirk's big idea on gas prices is to needlessly pour more dollars into oil companies and increase pollution. What that prevents is the same money from being poured into innovation. Take Brazil. My Dad told me about this one. They make gas out of sugar cane byproducts. That didn't affect sugar prices like Kirk's other plan "E85" affected grain prices here because in Brazil, they use a sugar cane byproduct, not the product itself.

Maybe the saddest part of the Bush/Kirk energy plan (apart from the lying (again) to get our tax dollars for their buddies) is not that we are once again required to bail out investors, but it's just another instance of preventing the USA from being a world innovator, a status of which we were once so proud and one that made us prosperous.

So, in the end voters will have to decide whether they are more upset about the few bucks Seals spent to illustrate the problem of gas prices, no more than food or political swag given away at a Kirk campaign event, or the fact that Kirk votes to continue the oil speculation that keeps prices artificially high the same way the mortgage securitization falsely inflated home prices and votes your tax dollars away to the oil companies. The only matter I can see getting in the way of Kirk's defeat on this issue alone is the press treatment. The Chicago Tribune shills for the Kirk campaign and fails to ask the hard questions or do the easy research (if I can find information on oil speculation in my spare time, why can't the full time well paid reporters of the Chicago Tribune). Now, if you want to talk about ethics and campaign law violations, perhaps there's your topic.

A Blast From Mark Kirk's Energy Past

UPDATE:

Here is a bit of history on what made our gas prices what they are today. It explains why Mark Kirk will never agree to anything on oil that would ever help the American consumer. His party has too much at stake in support for OPEC and multinational oil companies. Democrats want to bring some of that money back into the US Treasury. Not a bad idea considering the money wasted on Mark Kirk's Iraq War.

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I've been pretty busy and a holiday is coming up, so I'll do what the networks do and show a rerun. Mark Kirk claims he's the man on gas prices. I thought not back on May 5, 2006 not long after Kirk had pretty much the same gas price event at a Marathon station in Mt. Prospect in April 2006 he's now complaining about (see here too), and I still think Kirk has hurt consumers on all issues, including energy. At Kirk's 2006 gas station event, he touted more freebies for oil companies and "E85" fuel, which contains 85 percent ethanol and most recently resulted in the high flour and cereal prices we are suffering now. Here's the blast from Ellen's Illinois blog past (try not to cry when you see the gas prices we were complaining about two years ago):

When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go - downtown
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know - downtown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown - no finer place, for sure
Downtown - everything's waiting for you

Petula had a point back in the '60s. It sure is a lot more fun working downtown than in the suburbs. Problem is getting there. You can drive. It's about 25 miles from SE Lake County at 2.98/gallon in a Grand Am at 24 mpg city, 32 highway according to the EPA, so it will cost you approximately $3.33 one way, and for the week, it will cost about $33.38 and of course that doesn't include city parking at about $26 a pop, with a total for the week of $163.80. A 10 ride pass on Metra is about $33.15 from Highland Park. The Union Pacific and Milwaukee North lines are ok, the UP Northwest Line is even better, but that new North Central line that was promised to folks moving into new subdivisions sprawling further and further from the city has a difficult schedule according to Buffalo Grove and Vernon Hills residents. There are no express trains and it takes forever.

If you choose Metra, you are bound by their schedule and their slowdowns and outages. The trains are late and break down a lot more than they used to, even if it's just raining out. It doesn't even take a snow storm anymore to delay the trains. I remember when you could set your watch by the Metra Trains, not so any more. What ever happened to all the talk about extending the "El". That would be great, but republicans have other ideas.

Problem is that the Bush/Cheney "secret meeting" energy policy does little for public transportation. It's the old auto industry/oil industry system pushing folks to drive and allocating relatively little to public transportation as public policy.

Mark Kirk has been all over the district lately trying to show how much he cares about gasoline prices, but the problem is that he has been supporting the Bush/Cheney/auto industry/oil industry energy policy all along, so the photo ops at gas stations that sell E85 fuel are not all that impressive.

Here is a list of cars compatible with E85 fuel and its pretty expensive and not readily available everywhere. Also, ABC News reported that "ethanol has less "oomph" than gasoline, so you'll get fewer miles per gallon than you would with a full tank of gasoline."

Maybe E85 is at least a small solution to the problem, but the point is that we would not be in this predicament if folks just listened to Jimmy Carter who was telling the truth back in 1979 instead of going for Ronald Happy Day Reagan who was just lying about the energy policy we needed in the US in order to win the presidency and enrich corporations. Things would not have gotten worse had congress, including Mark Kirk, not swallowed the 2005 Bush energy policy that gave us costly unending war, serious environmental problems, high energy prices and subsidies for the oil and gas industries.

The Union of Concerned Scientists had this to say about the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that Kirk supported:

...Congress chose to largely follow the path of a 19th century fossil-fueled past instead of crafting an energy bill for the 21st century that would lead us to a clean energy future. UCS opposed the bill because it fails to reduce our dependence on oil, fails to address global warming, fails to reduce home heating and gasoline prices, fails to significantly increase the deployment of renewable energy and actually increases the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Years ago, a friend of mine from Woodstock who was saddened by the push to move businesses outside of the famed Woodstock Town Square to the outskirts, requiring a lot more driving around, said that the country was suffering from transportational arrogance. He was correct at the time and that transportational arrogance only grew and grew until it ultimately exploded under Bush/Cheney and congressmen like Mark Kirk.

Kirk can stand outside of gas stations all day long and it will never make up for his votes for oil based energy and oil based war. Maybe he'll be able to sell folks on his energy concern if he starts offering full service for no extra charge, wiping folks windows, filling their tires etc.

Will Mark Kirk Disavow John Hagee?

UPDATE: Finally and at long last, the Hagee anti-semitic side show was too much (or getting too much press) and the McCain side show decided to drop him after initially seeking out his support. That's not before he was defended and the Democrats were blamed. Here's what Lieberman said just last week:

Well, look, I think that the DNC is obviously doing this because they said Pastor Hagee is some kind of response to Rev. Wright for Sen. Obama, but I don't think hat's fair. The basic way that everyone has already said which was that John McCain never went to Pastor Hagee's church. He accepted his endorsement.

He represents a lot of people in this country, particularly Christians who care about the state of Israel. He founded a group called Christians United for Israel. The statements that were brought out that he had made about the Catholic Church were a total surprise to me. I know that Sen. McCain they were obviously reprehensible.

And I give Pastor Hagee a lot of credit for just plain apologizing. And I must say there is a difference because Rev. Wright never did apologize. He just restated the objectionable and reprehensible things he had said.

Last year, he also compared Hagee to Moses. Lieberman is probably one of the chief surrogates for McCain, so there is every reason to believe it was his job to soften Hagee's image in the Jewish community. Didn't work because it is what it is.

I'll note for the record that Mark Kirk stayed silent on Hagee the entire time and in my book silence is assent.

************************************

Mark Kirk is a supporter of John McCain who sought and gladly accepted the endorsement of controversial preacher John Hagee. The mainstream media finally pointed out Hagee's comments against Catholics and Hagee under that pressure made an unenthusiastic apology, but what about Hagee's comments about Israel and Jews? The latest being circulated is all about how Hitler was fulfilling God's will (transcribed from the audio by Huffington Post):

And they the hunters should hunt them,' that will be the Jews. 'From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.' If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the holocaust, you can't see that....

Theodore Hertzel is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew who at the turn of the 19th century said, 'this land is our land, God wants us to live there.' So he went to the Jews of Europe and said 'I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel.' So few went that Hertzel went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the holocaust.

Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says -- Jeremiah writing -- 'They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,' meaning there's no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don't let your heart be offended. I didn't write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.

Have a listen:


Mark Kirk bases his campaign on his friendship to the Jewish community in our district and many in that community trust him. A member of that community, I never felt the love believing he's insincere. His connection to the anti-semitic hate group Chicagoland Friends of the American Renaissance and his acceptance of McCain's relationship with Hagee, together with his general endorsement of a have and have not society that usually hurts the Jewish people, are disturbing to me. Kirk needs to disavow John Hagee and tell his buddy, John McCain to disavow John Hagee.

If you are prepared to defend Kirk claiming that there is no evidence that Kirk himself has a relationship to Hagee, ask yourself this: is John Hagee the sort of person to whom you want your leaders to be beholden? Yes, beholden and McCain accepted Hagee's endorsement to get the contributions and votes of Hagee's followers. (Don't go there, Barack Obama disavowed his preacher loud and long.)

So far, from his silence, it seems Mark Kirk thinks it's just fine that his choice for President of the United States will be beholden to John Hagee.

Busy Busy Busy

I've been busy. So, take a look at Archpundit who, I've just noticed, has taken up the topic of the IL-10th race which many pundits are calling up for grabs at this point.

I'll add one thing. Bush vetoed the Farm Bill, the one with the school lunches, conservation programs and the increase in food stamps. Kirk voted against the bill and is unlikely to help override the veto. So, the question of the day is when will Mark Kirk take the Food Stamp Challenge and see what it's like to eat on $21/week?

OK, I'll add two things. Here's another article about Kirk's attack on the internet by Gary Arlen, editor of Technology Today. It refers to Kirk's "legislative grandstanding" and his "particularly myopic" goals. The writer should add Kirk's continued votes against equal pay, extensions of unemployment and his general support for an economy that forces parents to get multiple jobs and be away from home and not monitoring their children's web use.

I ventured into Second Life for a trial run. I found the place fairly boring and I floated around alone most of the time pretty much in empty space. You can put your avatar in fly or walk mode. I learned how to sit my avatar down and stand it up again too and saw no technology available for moving an avatar into internet sex. There were a few areas of interesting music, jazz and alternative. While pornographic material is probably available for those seeking it out, what I stumbled upon, without looking for anything in particular, were commerical areas where people are trying to sell goods and get tips for services like providing music. The place is more like ebay with cute avatars than anything else and I think that's what Second Life is going for, the buck.

Again, if parents were not working 2 or 3 jobs to keep theor families housed, fed and insured, they'd be watching that their kids don't end up talking to strangers on the Internet. Since Kirk, like his buddy Bush, thinks we should all be serfs to large corporations, it seems he wants government to raise your children. I thought republicans hated the idea of It Takes a Village, the whole controversy republicans started when Hillary Clinton wrote that book about raising children in a community. They said "it takes a parent", but then worked to take parents out of the home almost 24/7. So, I guess, to Mark, it doesn't take a village or a parent, it takes a right wing wacko government to raise your child.

Resurrecting the brand without caring for the country

republican Tom Davis (R-VA-11th) wrote a memo Re: Where We Stand Today, the "we" being the republican party (does anyone else who really matters live in this country?), and "stand" meaning what are the chances of victory or as he puts it, "restoring the GOP brand." Well, we always knew that their idea of government was branding and image control, sort of making the Happy Meal look like a nutritious dinner for your child or even simply happy for that matter. (What exactly is happy about a held over cold slap of ground meat, a dollop of ketchup and a shrivled pickle slice? It's the worthless prize, isn't it.) Davis suggests the GOP brand as it now stands is an albatross to its candidates and that they best GOP leadership might be able to do is step back and allow candidates to brand themselves. The 13% of the time he's not voting with them, that's what Mark Kirk attempts to do.

"[D]aunting and troubling" to Davis are the Netroots and the the Red to Blue program of which Dan Seals is a recipient. He sees them as being fueled by discontent over Bush and Cheney and disappointment in the republican grassroots. (I never felt there really was a republican grassroots as it all seems so top down.) He also talks about some of the choices made by republicans including immigration, spending priorities and scandals that "leave [r]epublicans little to be enthused over."

Davis goes on to chart out what he calls key House races and the Illinois Tenth race appears in his chart to illustrate Democrats substantial cash on hand and how a well stocked DCCC has put some races in play.

I think it's sort of funny when he talks about "cultural elites" trending Democratic and it sounds to me like he means people who don't buy into racist pandering. Ah that Southern Strategy of Nixon and Reagan still has teeth.

He goes on to talk about gas prices, housing and the general economy. He claims to be explaining why republican have missed the boat and then goes on to miss it himself as his answer to gas prices is the short term thinking pro oil company answer, more drilling and drilling in ANWR. He has no plan to fund alternative energy research and development. He then admonishes his party for walking out on the housing crisis debate, but is still mired in free trade agreements that harm American workers and send displaced Mexican farmers flooding into the US. Health care to him is tort reform, caps on malpractice lawsuits.

Davis gets that his party is in trouble, but is way off on why. Yes, there are still some Americans who buy into racist and fearmongering arguments and inexplicably identify with people far richer than they will ever be, but more and more Americans have realized that the issues pushed by republicans are not the issues that affect their lives, and that republican solutions do not help them directly and that nothing ever trickles down. Americans want leaders who actually govern the country for the good of its people. Consequences of their bad governing ideas are being felt and no amount of branding, advertising or PR will successfully shove bad ideas down our throats indefinitely. Until Davis and his fellow republicans get that, their fundraising will continue to dwindle and they will continue to lose elections.

McWorse on Health Care

Many are calling John McCain McSame meaning that his presidency would be 4 more years of Bush. It may actually be worse, particularly when it comes to health care. Not only is McCain against any new health care plan for this country, he doesn't even want those of us who are fortunate enough to have employer based health care to keep it.

His big idea is to eliminate the tax exemption on employer-provided insurance in exchange for a $2,500 annual tax credit to individuals, and $5,000 to families, for investment in a health care account purchase their own coverage. States would be encouraged to create high-risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions. Corporations and the financial media are gushing over the plan because it takes the entire health care burden off of employers. They don't care any more than McCain or Mark Kirk that the tax credits will be inadequate to pay for the increased burden on employees. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average premium cost for the most popular employer-based family plan was $11,765 last year. Also, we must not forget that a tax credit is only as good as a person's tax burden. It's not going to do anything for the low paid and unemployed.

As for the state high-risk pools Robert Reich points out that many states already have such pools, but the premiums and co-payments are so high that few can afford them.

This is not a health care plan, it's giving up on health care in this country completely. Then, it gets worse because McCain also wants to abolish existing state regulations that require companies to insure people with pre-existing conditions, provide benefits that don’t exclude certain specified medical conditions, and prevent them from charging huge premiums for insufficient benefits. Check out this list of state mandated coverages that will be lost. In Illinois, this list includes cancer medications, breast reconstruction, diabetes self-management and supplies, emergency services, mamograms, mastectomy and maternity hospital stays, ovarian cancer screening and more.

McCain calls this cost reduction and choice, but in reality it's a device to eliminate the growing partnership between employers and employees calling on our government to create a real American health care system with employees getting the raw end of that deal as employers happily eliminate health plans as employees are left with nothing. It's also a device to create a new government subsidized pool of investment funds for Wall Street as people will have to invest these tax credits and hope they grow into enough cash (and praying they don't lose it) to pay for the individual health care plans. Also, notice how CEO compensation in the health care industry is not addressed as a cost issue.

I call McCain's health care plan Food Stamps in the Caviar Store which reminds me, when will Mark Kirk, who again recently voted against increased funding for food stamps, take the food stamp challenge and eat on $21 per week.