Saturday, February 16, 2019

Quick Chicken & Rice Dinner in the Kitchen


Lawanda e-mailed to note that she stands with Campbell Soup "and so did my mother.  They have many great recipes and, often times, you can find the recipe on the back of the soup can label."  She is right.  Her favorite recipe is called Quick Chicken & Rice Dinner:






1 1/4
pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1
tablespoon vegetable oil
1
can Campbell's® Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup or Campbell's® Condensed 98% Fat Free Cream of Chicken Soup
1 1/2
cups water
1/4
teaspoon paprika
1/4
teaspoon ground black pepper
2
cups uncooked instant white rice
2
cups fresh or frozen broccoli florets


How to Make It

Step 1
Season the chicken as desired.  Heat the oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the chicken and cook for 10 minutes or until well browned on both sides.  Remove the chicken from the skillet.
Step 2
Stir the soup, water, paprika and black pepper in the skillet and heat to a boil.  Stir in the rice and broccoli.  Reduce the heat to low.  Return the chicken to the skillet.  Sprinkle the chicken with additional paprika.  Cover and cook for 5 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.  Season to taste.

Recipe Tips

  • Recipe Note: For a creamier dish, decrease the rice to 1 1/2 cups.



Campbell's soup is a quick and easy ingredient.  I always keep cans of cream of mushroom, cream of chicken, cream of broccoli, etc.  They can dress up a dish very quickly.  However, do not dump them on a dish and cook without diluting them.    We had a neighbor who was a nice man but he'd bring over cooking and it would be chicken that he'd put a can of cream of mushroom on.  No milk with it, no water with it.  That's not really how you cook it.  But maybe he liked it that way.  My friend Linda did not know, until last year, that you were supposed to dilute these for soup.  She asked me what I was doing and I said, "Adding a can of water."  Why?  She'd grown up eating them that way without ever diluting them.  She'd just, for example, open a can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle and dump it in a pan without water.  And that's how they cooked it in her family when she was a child as well.

In other news, Nick Beams (WSWS) reports:





The latest research on wealth inequality by University of California economics professor Gabriel Zucman underscores one of the key social and economic trends since the global financial crisis of 2008. Those at the very top of society, who benefited directly from the orgy of speculation that led to the crash, have seen their wealth accumulate at an even faster rate, while the mass of the population has suffered a major decline.
This trend is most apparent in the United States but is revealed in the data for other countries included in research published by Zucman last month. According to his analysis, the top 1 percent in the US now owns about 40 percent of total household wealth, increasing its share by at least 10 percentage points since 1989. Over the same period “the share of wealth owned by the bottom 90 percent has collapsed in similar proportions.”
The acceleration is even more marked in the highest income levels. The share of wealth owned by the top 0.00025 percent (roughly the 400 richest Americans, according to Forbes Magazine data), rose from 1 percent in the early 1980s to over 3 percent in recent years. A similar tripling of wealth is seen in the top 0.01 percent.
The trend is reflected globally. The proportion of wealth held by the top 1 percent in China, Europe and the US combined has increased from 28 percent in 1980 to around 33 percent today.
As documented in previous studies by Zucman, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, wealth concentration in the US has followed a U-shape during the past century. The share of the top 0.1 percent peaked at close to 25 percent in 1929, fell sharply with the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s and continued to decline into the late 1940s, then stabilised in the 1950s and 1960s. It reached its lowest point in the 1970s, before rising to close to 20 percent in recent years to “levels last seen in the Roaring Twenties.”
This pattern follows the broad curve of economic developments and the class struggle. The 1930s fall in wealth concentration was the outcome of both the financial crisis and the impact of the New Deal measures introduced by President Franklin Roosevelt in order, as he acknowledged, to avert social revolution in the US.





This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Friday:


Friday, February 15, 2019.  How can you stop the next war if you fail to call out the ongoing wars?




16 years ago today, two million people on the streets of , in the  biggest process ever in UK history, said not in our name to the war. Jeremy Corbyn gave this speech to the huge rally in Hyde Park.

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Feb 15 2003 – Over 25 million people in 100+ countries protest Bush and Blair's plan to wage war in Iraq. Pics: London demo of 1-2 million & McMurdo in Antarctica.
 





That was then.  Today?





We need to stop Elliott Abrams from turning into a nightmarish bloodbath like he's already done to too many countries in his criminal career. Join the global wave of protests Feb 23 to stop another Iraq-style war in Venezuela!




Oh, Jill.

That really says it all, doesn't it?

Oh, Jill.

She twice ran for president on the Green Party ticket.  She gave speech after speech.  She participated in mock debates.  And where was Iraq in any of her remarks?  She was challenged, in 2012, from one of her biggest supporters to make Iraq an issue in October of 2012, one month ahead of the election, because Tim Arango of THE NEW YORK TIMES has reported on US troops going back into Iraq -- this while Barack Obama was running for re-election on the lie that all US troops out of Iraq.  Jill chose to stay silent.

Now she wants to rally everyone around no-war-on-Venezuela?  Why should anyone care?

If protests break out in the US what would it even matter?

It would make a damn difference.

Because Jill, Medea Benjamin, Norman Solomon, Amy Goodman -- go down the list.  All these fools have made clear to the US government that if you threaten war, we will oppose you . . . briefly.

What these idiots -- and so many others -- have made clear to the US government is that the US government's desire for war is stronger than the people's desire for peace.

Shame on Jill Stein.  The Iraq War hits the 16 year mark and if she even bothers to note that ongoing war, it's just to make it a reference point.  It's not to call for an end to it.


When an Elliott Abrams tells a president that war will be easy, he can point to what's happened with Iraq and say, "Don't worry, they protest now, but in a few months, these gadflies will have flitted elsewhere."

And, sadly, he won't be wrong.

Where is the accountability?

There is none.

And that's why the Iraq War continues.



Iraq Daily Roundup: Militia Convoy Attacked; 17 Killed in Iraq







The violence didn't stop.  The war never ended.  The US government continues to control Iraq.  The Iraqi people are overruled and pushed aside repeatedly.  It's an occupation.  But don't worry, we have brave voices speaking out in the US . . . somewhere, right?

There is no follow through.  Our so-called leaders are too busy thumbing rides on the Highway of Causes, rushing from one to another, to have any follow through.

US troops are still deploying to Iraq.  Rachael Thomas (WAFB) reports:

The Louisiana National Guard’s 1st Assault Helicopter Battalion, 244th Aviation Regiment is set to deploy to Iraq and Kuwait.

A deployment ceremony will be held in Hammond on Saturday, Feb. 16 at the Army Aviation Support Facility #1 at 10 a.m.
Governor John Bel Edwards is expected to attend to honor the more than 50 soldier from the Hammond area.




Activists: US military vehicles are shown in the vicinity of the city, "Samarra" north of Baghdad, under the protection of a private security company.
.





The deployments continue, the bombs continue to be dropped.  People continue to die.  EURONEWS notes:

At least 100,000 babies are dying every year as a result of wars according to a new report by British charity Save The Children.
The report estimated around 420 million children - nearly one in five of the global population - were living in conflict-affected areas in 2017.

This figure is up from 390 million the year before.
The research, carried out by the Peace Research Institute Oslo for Save the Children, found the number of children living in conflict zones is now double the number at the end of the Cold War.
The ten countries hit the hardest are Afghanistan, Yemen, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Syria, Iraq, Mali, Nigeria and Somalia.


The US-installed government in Baghdad continues to fail the Iraqi people.





Activists posted a video showing the reality of health and service deterioration in the hospital of "Zubair" in # Basra under the high budgets allocated to the Ministry of Health.
.





If you live in Basra, you face no jobs, water that can put you in the hospital if you drink it and a government that feels no need to address your demands.




This girl from the Basra protests last year: "Our rights [or the truth] will not be lost, so long as we continue to demand them."




Which is why protests started in July and continue.



Now: protest in Basra city, at Shat al-Arab district, the details come later.





Let's wind down with this from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's office:





February 14, 2019

At Hearing Focused On Horrible Living Conditions In Military Housing Across The Country, Gillibrand Questions Executives Of Companies Responsible For Toxic Mold, Lead Paint, And Pest Infestations In Homes Of Military Families

Joint Armed Services Subcommittee Hearing Puts Spotlight on Active Duty Service Members and their Families Who Have Suffered Extensive Health Issues Due to Failures and Incompetency by Private Companies Participating in the Military Housing Privatization Initiative

SASC Committee Hearing Military Housing 
***Watch SASC Joint Subcommittee Hearing Video HERE*** 
Washington, DC – At a Senate Armed Services Joint Subcommittee on Personnel and Readiness and Management Support hearing, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Personnel, questioned leaders of private housing companies on their failure to provide safe living conditions and meet maintenance needs in the homes of military families across the country. According to a recent survey, more than half of military families living in private housing had a “negative or very negative experience.” Military families reported serious issues such as toxic mold, lead paint, and pest infestation in their homes, which have resulted in health problems for military children.

“Let me begin by reiterating how frustrated I am by the experiences of the families we have heard from today who live in houses under the management of your companies,” Gillibrand said to the housing executives testifying at the SASC hearing. “In choosing to participate in the Military Housing Privatization Initiative, your companies didn’t just land another real estate deal – you assumed responsibility for the safety, health, and wellbeing of military families who make incredible sacrifices each and every day in support of our national defense…In so many of the stories we’ve heard today from military families, the maintenance procedures you’ve put in place have failed to ensure quality in housing units.”

Below are the questions that Senator Gillibrand asked private housing executives during the hearing:
  1. What percentage of military families do you believe deserve to live in “excellent” on-base housing?
  1. How many military children deserve to be exposed to mold, lead, or other health hazards as a consequence of living in privatized housing units?
  1. Do you think it’s easier or harder for a service member to focus on their military duties while also worrying about the health and safety of their families?
  2. Do you expect your staff working on installations as technicians to be capable of both remediating work orders and showing genuine concern for the families impacted?
  3. How many contactors or service technicians have each of your companies fired for unsatisfactory performance in completing work orders in military housing? 



The following sites updated: