Hundreds of school districts in the country have made layoffs and reduced hours for cafeteria workers due to First Lady Michelle Obama’s lunch rules, a new survey has found.
Participation in the school lunch program is down, food waste is up, and 80 percent of districts have taken steps to offset financial losses as a result of the healthy rules, according to a survey released Tuesday of more than 1,000 school districts by the Student Nutritional Association (SNA) . . .
More than half (57.7 percent) of school districts said participation in the school lunch program “somewhat” or “significantly” declined since the standards went into effect in 2012, and the vast majority of schools are having trouble financially.
“Despite efforts to promote healthier choices, there is clear consensus with regard to the impact of federal nutrition standards for meals and snacks: nearly seven of every 10 respondents say that the standards have been harmful to their program’s financial health since inception of the standards in 2012,” the SNA said. “Fewer than 3 percent report a benefit to their program’s financial heath from the standards, with the balance reporting either no impact or are unsure.”
As a result of the rules, districts have had to make layoffs and reduce hours for foodservice employees. (Read more from “Michelle Obama’s Lunch Rules Have Cost Cafeteria Worker Jobs” HERE)
The intrigue and speculation has just been pumped up regarding the Democrats’ 2016 picture and how it may be totally reshaped in the coming weeks. Vice President Joe Biden reportedly took time out of his vacation at his Delaware home to travel to Washington for a secret, unannounced meeting with Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. The two are said to have met over lunch on Saturday at the Naval Observatory, the vice president’s official residence, where they discussed a wide range of issues impacting the 2016 race.
And with Hillary Clinton appearing to sink deeper into the Emailgate scandal with each passing day, the Biden-Warren rendezvous in D.C. is fueling all sorts of chatter about the real purpose of the get-together. Newsmax notes that “political pundits are abuzz with the possibility of a Joe Biden-Elizabeth Warren 2016 ticket.”
While the 72-year-old Biden has been considering whether to toss his hat into the ring for a third presidential run, he hasn’t yet made up his mind — or at least he hasn’t let it be known whether he’ll jump into the race. The Newsmax report on the secret meeting between the VP and the senator says that Biden “has told friends that if he does run for president, he will serve only one term, making an early announcement of his vice-presidential running-mate a strong possibility.”
The Wall Street Journal over the weekend reported that Biden is “leaning toward” a 2016 bid for the White House. The article referred to the Biden-Warren meeting as a significant indicator of the vice president’s frame of mind. “A surprise weekend trip to Washington to meet with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), a darling of the party’s liberal wing, represented a pivot from potential to likely candidate, one Biden supporter said.”
As Western Journalism reported late last week, a new Quinnipiac University poll of three swing states showed that Biden fared as well as or better than Clinton in head-to-head matchups with top GOP presidential candidates, even though the vice president isn’t officially in the running. The survey also showed that voters in each of the key states of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania found Biden to be more trustworthy than Clinton. (Read more from “This Secret Meeting Just Held in D.C. Could Prove to Be a HUGE Turning Point for 2016” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-25 02:37:292015-08-25 02:37:29This Secret Meeting Just Held in D.C. Could Prove to Be a HUGE Turning Point for 2016
By Alex Isenstadt. Amid mounting concerns about Donald Trump’s candidacy from the GOP establishment, Republican leaders in at least two states have found a way to make life a lot harder for him.
The Virginia and North Carolina parties are in discussions about implementing a new requirement for candidates to qualify for their primary ballots: that they pledge to support the Republican presidential nominee — and not run as a third-party candidate — in the general election.
The procedural moves are clearly aimed at Trump, who pointedly refused to rule out a third-party run during the first GOP debate.
They come amid Republican fears that the real estate mogul is gaining strength in the primary contest, and that his jeremiads against undocumented immigrants will alienate Hispanic voters. Despite coming under a hail of criticism in recent weeks, Trump has held steady atop state and national polls.
John Whitbeck, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, said the proposal was among many that the organization was considering as it sketches out its ballot access requirements for the 2016 GOP primary. The ultimate decision, he said, would be made by the 84 members who make up the state party’s central committee, which is slated to meet on Sept. 19. The requirements must be submitted to the Republican National Committee by Oct. 1. (Read more from “State GOP Leaders Plot to Tie Donald Trump’s Hands” HERE)
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Poll: Majority of Republican Voters Think Trump Will Receive Presidential Nomination
By Amanda Andrade-Rhoades. There was once a point where the idea of Donald Trump being a serious presidential candidate was considered laughable, but that time has apparently passed.
According to Rasmussen Reports, a public polling company, 57 percent of people who will probably vote Republican in 2016 now think Trump is likely to be the Republican presidential nominee next year — another 25 percent of respondents said it’s very likely. Just two months ago, when Trump announced his candidacy, 27 percent of people said they thought a nomination would be likely and 9 percent said it would be very likely.
Despite the growing possibility of Trump receiving the Republican nomination, the prospect does not come without significant contention from within the GOP. Trump was famously, or infamously, uninvited from a major Republican event put on by RedState after he made comments about the blood flow of debate moderator Megyn Kelly, who openly questioned his behavior and attitude towards women.
His comments on immigration have also divided Republicans. Though many candidates have toughened their stance on the issue or outright advocated for changing the 14th Amendment, which deals with birthright citizenship, some believe Trump’s hard-line approach may alienate voters — possibly costing Republicans the election. (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-25 02:37:032015-08-25 02:37:03State GOP Leaders Plot to Tie Donald Trump’s Hands
Iran’s supreme leader is still declaring that the United States is the “enemy:” “We will not allow the Americans to have economic or political influence in our country,” CNS News quotes the ayatollah as saying in a recent speech. “Nor will we allow them to have a political presence and cultural influence in our country.”
Controversial secret “side deals” to the Iran nuclear pact negotiated by the Obama administration are being revealed and are causing great concern among some lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The New York Times reports the disputed contents of those side deals are fueling opposition to the accord that Obama argues must be approved because it will stop Iran from developing the bomb:
To the most strident opponents of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, the suspicious behavior at a military base about 12 miles southeast of Tehran has become a rallying call to defeat the accord, especially as it now appears that Iranian officials may be allowed to take their own environmental samples at the site and turn them over to inspectors.
And another article in The New York Times — a news analysis published on Monday — points out that Obama’s argument in favor of the nuclear accord has a glaring problem that’s only growing more pronounced:
His problem is that most of the significant constraints on Tehran’s program lapse after 15 years — and, after that, Iran is free to produce uranium on an industrial scale.
. . .
The Hill just published the results of a new poll from Quinnipiac University showing that voters in three key swing states oppose the Iran nuclear accord “by margins of more than 2-to-1.” (Read more from “Americans Just Pushed Back in a HUGE Way Against Obama’s Big Plan to Change the World” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-25 02:34:322015-08-25 02:34:32Americans Just Pushed Back in a HUGE Way Against Obama’s Big Plan to Change the World
By Steve Goldstein. You may have seen headlines to describe the market carnage like a trillion dollar’s worth of wealth wiped away in a single day. But it’s worth noting just how much is held by Americans in the stock market in the first place . . .
As of March 31, households and nonprofits held $24.1 trillion in stocks. That’s both directly, and through mutual funds, pension funds and the like. That also includes the holdings of U.S.-based hedge funds, though you’d have to think that most hedge funds are held by households.
Using the Dow Jones Total Stock Market index DWCF, -3.94% through midmorning trade, that number had dropped to $22.32 trillion.
In other words, a cool $1.8 trillion has been lost between now and the first quarter — and overwhelmingly, those losses occurred in the last few days. This will probably be the worst quarter for stock-market destruction since the third quarter of 2011, when $2.8 trillion was wiped away. (Read more from “Households Just Saw $1.8 Trillion in Wealth Vanish as Stocks Fall” HERE)
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Biggest One-Day Drops for the Dow Jones Industrial Average
By AP. U.S. stocks closed sharply lower on Monday, part of a global wave of selling triggered by worries of economic slowdown in China.
The Dow Jones industrial average plunged more than 1,000 points shortly after the open of trading, before regaining ground throughout the day. Despite rallying after the initial sell-off, the Dow ended the day 588.40 points, or 3.6 percent, lower.
The point decline was the eighth-largest ever, but on a percentage basis, it’s not close to the top 10 declines for the index, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-25 02:33:052015-08-25 02:33:05Households Just Saw $1.8 Trillion in Wealth Vanish as Stocks Fall
A top police official has issued a stark warning about President Barack Obama’s recent presidential pardons: America will pay “with blood and tears.”
Obama pardoned 46 prisoners last month, forgiving a slew of drug and weapons charges. Jon Adler, National President of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, recently published a scathing editorial in Police Magazine lambasting the decision.
Adler argues that drug trafficking by its very nature is a violent enterprise, from overdoses to crimes committed to pay for drug addictions to territorial battles between dealers.
“So how would the president resolve an over-crowding problem at a zoo?” Adler writes. “With limited space, rising labor, and lodging costs, which animals would the president let go? Using the president’s methodology, the lions would likely be set free. Why? They eat the most food and therefore cost the most to maintain. During the 10 years of their captivity, they haven’t eaten anyone or attacked their handlers. They have no known affiliation to any violent lion groups. They are totally safe to release into the public.” (Read more from “Top Cop: America Will Pay for Obama’s Pardons With ‘Blood and Tears'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-25 02:30:492015-08-25 02:30:49Top Cop: America Will Pay for Obama’s Pardons With ‘Blood and Tears’
How does anyone who claims to have a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” two weeks after 9/11 praise an Islamic Civilization that has historically– and continues– to institutionalize violence against women, children, Christians, Jews, and slavery of Blacks, non-Muslims, and children over the last 1400 years?
Fox News recently highlighted Carly Fiorina’s comments, “It was my personal relationship with Jesus Christ that saved me” and “no one needs to question or tell me about my faith.”
Contrary to Scripture, Christians are in fact instructed to use Biblical discernment to correct error and advocate righteousness first and foremost among self-identifying Christians. Carly provides an excellent non-answer and continues to not take responsibility for her remarks in which two weeks after 9/11 she praised the very Islamic Civilization that caused 8 Crusades and instituted the sex slave trade and abuse of women and girls, which continues today. Not to mention the greatest terrorist attacks to ever occur on American soil.
I’ve challenged Carly Fiorina, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and many others who claim to be Christians while also advocating falsehoods about Islam.
Christians should be well aware that throughout the Bible, God commands his people to name, fight, and warn of evil. If they don’t– the blood of the innocent and martyrs is on their hands. (Ezekiel 33: 7-9). He says:
“So hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, ‘You wicked person, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade them from their ways, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person to turn from their ways and they do not do so, they will die for their sin, though you yourself will be saved.”
Consequences, both punishment and redemption, exist for those who heed or reject His warning:
“If someone who is righteous disobeys, that person’s former righteousness will count for nothing. And if someone who is wicked repents, that person’s former wickedness will not bring condemnation. The righteous person who sins will not be allowed to live even though they were formerly righteous.’
“If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done. And if I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and right— if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, return what they have stolen, follow the decrees that give life, and do no evil—that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the sins that person has committed will be remembered against them. They have done what is just and right; they will surely live.”
Christians are commanded to provide for and protect widows and orphans (the majority of whom exist in 57 Islamic-majority countries.) James, Jesus’s half-brother, remarked, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27).
Further still, Timothy warned, “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” (1 Tim. 5:8).
The primary contribution of all Islamic civilizations, past and present, is death and destruction.
Since the mid-late 600s, Islamic military invasions spanned from North Africa, to Spain, France, the Mediterranean, Balkan, Asian and East Asian and former Russian and Mongol territories. No Muslims existed in Jerusalem until their final and successful invasion in 1244. The Dome of the Rock was specifically built on top of Israel’s holiest site, the Temple Mount.
Yet, the God of the Bible pleads for his people to choose life. He said,
“This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may liveand that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life.” (Deut. 30:19, 20).
It is to life that Christian Governors Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal, and Senator Ted Cruz consistently point.
Cruz recently pointed to the Ninth Commandment, “’Thou shalt not bear false witness,’ when clarifying that, “When we call evil by its name, it has a clarifying power that has never been more needed than it is this instant, right now.”
Last fall, standing outside of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Huckabee remarked,“The very people who created the death industry and ‘scientifically’ and medically experimented on prisoners … went home every day, ate dinner with their families, played with their children, went to concerts, and lived normal lives, knowing all the while those under their authority were living in horror.”
As political leaders, they are required to name and fight evil. Elected officials have taken oaths to defend American citizens and the U.S. Constitution from threats both foreign and domestic. Article VI of the Constitution requires federal officials to swear, “to support this Constitution.” The U.S. statute 5 U.S.C. 3331 specifies officials to “solemnly swear [or affirm]” that they “will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and “will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”
These leaders have not hesitated to name evil. But more importantly, they continue to promote that which is good, which best contributes to human flourishing.
Leadership and Christianity both require what Andrew Breitbart admonished, “No matter what the threat, no matter what the peril, stand up, speak the truth. Speak truth to power and call evil by its name.”
Praising a civilization that caused death and destruction both during the 800 years Carly cites, and today, bears false witness. Worse still, condoning institutionalized violence against women and children opposes everything Biblical and the nature of Christianity itself. (Re-posted with permission, “Cruz, Jindal, Huckabee Have No Problem Naming Evil, Why Does Carly?” originally appeared HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-25 02:29:172015-08-25 02:29:17Cruz, Jindal, Huckabee Have No Problem Naming Evil, Why Does Carly?
I talked the talk. Every life is a gift, and worthy of defense. We are not promised a particular quality of life, or a number of days that we will get to live. We are only promised that our lives are God-given and their length, their demise, is not for us to determine. These are truths that I have espoused since the days I felt myself called to be an active part of the pro-life movement.
Then one day I was asked to walk the walk. In a cold, sterile ultrasound room a doctor – Not even my doctor, but some stand-in – shattered the world that I knew when she told me my child, gender then unknown, had a condition that she described as “incompatible with life.” My mother cried, my ex-husband held my hand in stoic silence, and my mind raced to try to keep up with what the doctor was saying. My child, the 21 week old fetus whom I would come to know as my son, had anencephaly. If he were born alive, he would die shortly thereafter . . .
Gabriel Michael Gerard Cude was born on June 10, 2011. His name, Gabriel, was chosen for its symbolism. Of course, Gabriel is the archangel known as the messenger angel who delivered the news of the impending birth of the Savior of Man. Since his diagnosis, Gabriel represented a message that I could only speak, but that he was living: Every life matters. Gabriel means “God is my strength,” and I know that when I was weak, it was God who carried me . . .
For ten days Gabriel clung to this world. On that tenth day, through tears my ex-husband and I told our son we loved him, that he had given us more than we could have asked for, and that we knew it was time for him to go. In our arms, Gabriel took his last breath. We washed and dressed and held his lifeless body until the funeral home’s representative appeared to take our son away. His tiny body was respectfully placed in a car and we watched as it backed out of our driveway and disappeared at the end of the street . . .
I have since remarried, and so has Gabriel’s father. We each have little girls now with our respective spouses. Life is good – beyond good. Life is better than I ever thought it could be when I was in my moments of despair. That nurse was right. We were three of the luckiest people she’d ever have the chance to meet, though happiness hasn’t looked like I expected. Happiness looks like my husband, and my beautiful little girl Eden, and the knowledge that Gabriel’s father may have found the same thing with someone else, on the other side of the country. We are only promised life, not days, not outcomes, not ease, and not happiness. We chose to make the most out of what was promised. We chose life. (Read more from “Baby Gabriel Only Lived 10 Days After Birth, but His Life Proves Every Child Is Precious” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/babygabriel.png349580kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-08-25 02:25:412025-10-04 22:23:57Baby Gabriel Only Lived 10 Days After Birth, but His Life Proves Every Child Is Precious
By Clifford Krauss and Rick Gladstone. Oil, the lifeblood of many countries that produce and sell it, appears to be rapidly turning into an ever-cheaper economic curse.
A year ago, the international price per barrel of oil was about $103. By Monday, the price was about $42, roughly 6 percent lower than on Friday.
In oil-endowed Iraq, where an Islamic State insurgency and fractious sectarian politics are growing threats, a new source of instability erupted this month with violent protests over the government’s failure to provide reliable electricity and explain what has been done with all the promised petroleum money. In Russia, a leading oil producer, consumers are now paying far more for imports, largely because of their currency’s plummeting value. In Nigeria and Venezuela, which rely almost completely on oil exports, fears of unrest and economic instability are building. In Ecuador, where oil revenue has fallen by nearly half since last year, tens of thousands of demonstrators pour into the streets every week, angered by the government’s economic policies.
Even in wealthy Saudi Arabia, where the ruling family spends oil money lavishly to preserve its legitimacy, the government has been burning through roughly $10 billion a month in foreign exchange holdings to help pay expenses, and it is borrowing in the financial markets for the first time since 2007. Other Arab countries in the Persian Gulf that are dependent on oil exports, including Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, are facing fiscal deficits for the first time in two decades.
While the price has been declining for months, forecasts have always been hedged with the assumption that oil would eventually stabilize or at least not stay low for long. But new anxieties about frailties in China, the world’s most voracious consumer of energy, have raised fears that oil, now 30 percent lower than it was just a few months ago, could remain depressed far longer than even the most pessimistic projections, and do even deeper damage to oil exporters. (Read more from “From Venezuela to Iraq to Russia, Oil Price Drops Raise Fears of Unrest” HERE)
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Chinese Stocks Tumble for a Second Day After Global Fall
By BBC News. Chinese stocks have plunged for a second day after worries over China’s slowing growth triggered a global sell-off.
The Shanghai Composite, China’s main stock exchange, fell 7.6% on Tuesday – after losing 8.5% on what state media have called China’s “Black Monday”.
It was the worst fall since 2007 and caused sharp drops in markets in the US and Europe
Tokyo’s Nikkei index had a volatile day, closing 4% lower . . .
After decades of rapid growth, China is slowing down, and investors globally are worried that firms and countries which rely on high demand from China – the world’s second largest economy and the second largest importer of both goods and commercial services – will be affected. (Read more from this story HERE)
Want to get a handgun, some synthetic marijuana and porn into a prison?
Two men in Maryland allegedly tried to do just that — by remote controlled aircraft — though their plot never got off the ground, authorities said Monday.
The pair was found Saturday on a side road that runs alongside the Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland with the aircraft — which officials called a drone — in their vehicle, the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services announced in a press release . . .
Not after what else they found in the vehicle, which they suspect the two men planned to fly over onto the WCI’s grounds. One tweet from the state agency apparently shows the bounty: packets of K2 (or synthetic marijuana), tobacco, suboxone, pornographic DVDs and a handgun laid out on a table next to the four-propellered miniature aircraft . . .
The vehicle’s owner had been under surveillance for some time. An intelligence officer at the western Maryland prison and a state corrections department detective suspected the owner and his associate along with at least one inmate planned to use an unmanned drone to drop off contraband at the prison. (Read more from “Authorities Foil Drone-Delivery of Porn, Drugs and Gun to Maryland Prison” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-08-25 02:13:152015-08-25 02:13:15Authorities Foil Drone-Delivery of Porn, Drugs and Gun to Maryland Prison
Hundreds of school districts in the country have made layoffs and reduced hours for cafeteria workers due to First Lady Michelle Obama’s lunch rules, a new survey has found.
