News Watchdogs Slam ‘Secretive’ Food Stamp Program

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Photo Credit: Getty

Seven journalist and government watchdog organizations have called on the Agriculture Department to release information on how much money retailers that accept food stamps make from the program and what products food stamp dollars are purchasing.

In a letter [pdf] to Agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack the organizations — which have a combined membership of more than 16,000, many of them journalists who cover health care, nutrition and the federal government — requested the USDA make public records pertaining to the use of SNAP dollars.

“The USDA has refused to reveal how much money individual retailers make from SNAP, arguing in FOIA denials and subsequent court documents that the law governing the program prohibits it. But we (and others) see nothing in the law barring such disclosures,” the letter reads. “And we believe this information is essential to an informed discussion of the Farm Bill reauthorization and the future of the SNAP program.”

“As the number of Americans receiving SNAP continues to increase, along with the federal taxpayer support of it, a greater level of transparency is more essential than ever,” it continued.

The organization heads who signed the letter were from the National Freedom of Information Coalition, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Association of Health Care Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Association of Food Journalists, the National Association of Science Writers, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

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Obama Snubs Conservative Lady Thatcher's Funeral, But Sent Delegation to Socialist Chavez's Funeral

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One might argue that this is something to do with an incumbent versus a former leader. Others have argued that it is just another in a long-line of snubs from Obama to Britain.

Whichever you believe (you could believe either, I suppose), there are questions to be answered as to why US President Barack Obama chose to send a current administration delegation to the funeral of the now dead socialist revolutionary Hugo Chavez, and only a couple of former Republican Secretaries of State (James Baker and George Shultz) to the funeral of one of recent history’s most fierce and Americophilic freedom fighters, Lady Thatcher.

In fact, talk in London tell us that the British are not happy. “Friends and allies of Baroness Thatcher expressed ‘surprise and disappointment’ last night as it emerged President Obama is not planning to send any serving member of his administration to her funeral,” reports the Daily Mail. The Sun called it a “snub,” and said that “Downing Street is most angered by rejections from Obama, First Lady Michelle and Vice-President Joe Biden.And none of the four surviving ex-US leaders – Jimmy Carter, George Bush Sr, Bill Clinton and George Bush Jr. – is coming either.”

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Former Reagan Budget Director Wants to Eliminate Second Amendment From Bill of Rights (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

David Stockman, a former Republican House member from Michigan before he served as President Ronald Reagan’s director of Office of Management and Budget during the first term, attacked the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms “from the right.”

Appearing on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Stockman even agreed with the liberal host that at least this part of the Bill of Rights was BS.

“I’m so sorry, but this is the problem with the gun debate, is that it’s a constant center-right debate,” Maher said. “There’s no left in this debate. Everyone on the left is so afraid to say what should be said, which is the Second Amendment is bull—-. Why doesn’t anyone go at the core of it?”

Watch video here:

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Homosexual Activist-Journalist Admits True Purpose of Battle is to Destroy Marriage

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Photo Credit: Illinoisfamily.org

Even knowing that there are radicals in all movements, doesn’t lessen the startling admission recently by lesbian journalist Masha Gessen. On a radio show she actually admits that homosexual activists are lying about their radical political agenda. She says that they don’t want to access the institution of marriage; they want to radically redefine and eventually eliminate it.

Here is what she recently said on a radio interview:

“It’s a no-brainer that (homosexual activists) should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. …(F)ighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there — because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.

The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist. And I don’t like taking part in creating fictions about my life. That’s sort of not what I had in mind when I came out thirty years ago.

I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally… I met my new partner, and she had just had a baby, and that baby’s biological father is my brother, and my daughter’s biological father is a man who lives in Russia, and my adopted son also considers him his father. So the five parents break down into two groups of three… And really, I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.”

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'House of Horrors' Gosnell Injured Several Women in 1970s Abortion Experiment

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

More revelations are coming to light about the gruesome abortion business Kermit Gosnell ran where he killed a woman in an abortion and killed babies in grisly abortion-infanticides and kept their bodies as trophies.

But new information is also coming to light about the abortion practice Gosnell ran for decades — including in the 1970s when he injured several women in a odd experiment on women using a new abortion method. Whether Gosnell obtained the consent of women to engage in this experiment is unknown but multiple women were injured as a result.

Ironically the experiment and the injures to women via abortions occurred on Mother’s Day. One of the strongest practical arguments in favor of the Roe regime is that abortion has been around since time immemorial and outlawing it only drove it underground, leading women to endanger themselves by seeking out the services of back-alley quacks. The Philadelphia grand jurors recounted a powerful example from their own city’s history.

It was called the Mother’s Day Massacre. A young Philadelphia doctor “offered to perform abortions on 15 poor women who were bused to his clinic from Chicago on Mother’s Day 1972, in their second trimester of pregnancy.” The women didn’t know that the doctor “planned to use an experimental device called a ‘super coil’ developed by a California man named Harvey Karman.”

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China Stabs U.S. in Back After Kerry's Visit; Accuses U.S. of Being Threat to Asia

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Photo Credit: Reuters

China’s defense ministry made a thinly veiled attack on the United States on Tuesday for increasing tensions in the Asia-Pacific by ramping up its military presence and alliances in the region, days after the top U.S. diplomat visited Beijing.

China is uneasy with what the United States has called the “rebalancing” of forces as Washington winds down the war in Afghanistan and renews its attention further east. China says the policy has emboldened Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam in longstanding territorial disputes with Beijing.

China faces “multiple and complicated security threats” despite its growing influence, the Ministry of Defense said in its annual white paper, adding that the U.S. strategy meant “profound changes” for Asia.

“There are some countries which are strengthening their Asia Pacific military alliances, expanding their military presence in the region and frequently make the situation there tenser,” the ministry said in the 40-page document, in a clear reference to the United States.

Such moves “do not accord with the developments of the times and are not conducive towards maintaining regional peace and stability”, ministry spokesman Yang Yujun told reporters.

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Obama Administration has SLASHED Budget for Domestic Bombing Prevention by 45 Percent, Says Former DHS Assistant Secretary

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Photo Credit: Official White House Photo by Pe

Barack Obama’s administration has cut the budget nearly in half for preventing domestic bombings, MailOnline can reveal. Under President George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security had $20 million allocated for preventing the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by terrorists working inside the United States. The current White House has cut that funding down to $11 million.

That assessment comes from Robert Liscouski, a former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15 that killed three Americans and injured at least 173 others. He told MailOnline that the Obama-era DHS is, on the whole, about as well-positioned as it was during the Bush administration to handle the aftermath of the April 15 bombings in Boston, ‘but the Obama administration has continued to cut the budget for offices such as the Office for Bombing Prevention from $20 million started under Bush, to $11 million today.’

‘Comparatively,’ he added, ‘the Defense Department’s Joint IED Defeat Organization had a budget of $1 billion per year focused on preventing IEDs in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters.’

‘Clearly more money needs to be focused on countering domestic IEDs,’ Liscouski concluded. He is now a partner at Edge 360, a security and intelligence consultancy.

The Office for Bombing Prevention (OBP) was created in 2003 when the Department of Homeland Security was founded. Its original name was the WMD/Bombing Prevention Unit, and it was part of the department’s Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate.

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Republican Money Backs Immigration Push

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Photo Credit: AP

As Congress readies for a drawn-out immigration debate, an expanding network of Republican fundraisers is pressing for a path to legal status for millions of immigrants living in the United States illegally.

Business leaders and donors who raised tens of millions in the last election are meeting with top GOP fundraisers and Republican lawmakers who may be reluctant to support what critics call “amnesty” for immigrants who broke the law.

At the same time, a coalition of fundraisers who support overhauling immigration is funneling donations to a new crop of outside groups designed to protect like-minded congressional Republicans who fear a backlash by GOP’s core supporters.

In most cases, the donors have ties to Wall Street and businesses that want more high- and low-skilled immigrants in the nation’s legal labor pool. Backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, these business-minded Republican fundraisers say they’re getting a relatively receptive audience in the face of an undeniable new political reality. Record Hispanic turnout helped President Barack Obama defeat Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney last fall. And projected population growth ensures that immigrants’ political clout will grow stronger.

The network of Republican donors is at odds with many on the GOP’s right flank — tea party activists among them — who argue for increased border security first and foremost. That was largely the position of Romney, who encouraged immigrants without legal status to “self-deport.”

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Ricin Letter to Senator Roger Wicker Intercepted at Screening Facility

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Photo Credit: Kevin Steinhardt

Police intercepted a letter laced with the poison ricin that was sent to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), senators told reporters Tuesday.

The Senate sergeant-at-arms broke the news to members in a classified briefing, saying that the substance was intercepted at an off-site facility where Congress gets its mail, according to several lawmakers. It was tested repeatedly.

“It was caught in the screening facility. That’s why we have an off-site screening facility for mail,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). “The system worked the way it was supposed to.”

She added that authorities may suspect an individual who often wrote to senators. Other senators did not describe a suspect.

“There is an ongoing investigation,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters as he left the briefing with FBI Director Robert Mueller and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano that the letter was addressed to Wicker. Mueller and Napolitano also presented detailed information on the Boston bombings.

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Global Warming? Honey Bees Dying Due to Record Cold

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Photo Credit: Reuters

The cold winter hasn’t just upset retailers trying to sell spring clothes.

The freezing temperatures have also led to shrinking honeybee populations in the U.S., according to George Hansen, president of the American Beekeeping Federation. This may seem like small potatoes – if not for the fact that honeybees pollinate $15 billion of U.S. crops, according to the USDA.

“We’re probably looking at 40% losses of colonies over this winter,” says George Hansen, the president of the American Beekeeping Federation.

Who’s Getting Stung?

Beekeepers and honey producers say they’ll be the first to get stung by poor honeybee health. Declining colony numbers are thought to be caused by a number of factors, including pesticides and the mysterious “Colony Collapse Disorder,” which Hansen says causes bees to suddenly disappear from the hive.

“I’ve seen a 65% loss over the winter … generally the loss would only range from 5% to 15%,” says Cathy Wolko of the Connecticut-based Humble Honey Bee Honey Company.

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