Ohioans’ Food Stamp Aid To Be Reduced

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photo credit: USDAgovOhio families receiving food stamps could get an unwelcome surprise come January: $50 less every month in assistance.

For the 869,000 households enrolled in the program for the poorest Ohioans, that could amount to about $520 million annually out of the grocery budgets.

Because of the way the federal government calculates utility expenses for people receiving the benefit, a mild winter nationwide last year, and a lower price for natural gas, many families could experience a significant cut in aid, those familiar with the program say.

Recipients should get a letter from the state Department of Job and Family Services this month explaining the change, said Ben Johnson, a spokesman for the agency.

Meanwhile, food banks and others that distribute food assistance are bracing for increased demand.

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House to Defy Ozone Treaty, Allow Sale of Asthma Inhalers

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photo credit: net_efektThe [U.S.]House is looking to pass legislation this week that would legalize the sale of 1 million asthma inhalers, which were banned from drugstore shelves this year in order to comply with an international air quality treaty.

Republicans are expected to call up H.R. 6190, the Asthma Inhalers Relief Act, on Tuesday. The bill would allow the sale of about 1 million remaining Primatene Mist inhalers, despite a ban on the sale of this product since the end of 2011.

Primatene Mist had been used by asthma sufferers for decades, but it was banned under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, and also the Clean Air Act. Supporters of the ban have said Primatene Mist contains chlorofluorocarbons that deplete the ozone layer, as well as a drug, epinephrine, that is now seen by some doctors as less effective against asthma.

But supporters of the product say people still rely on Primatene Mist for asthma attacks, and that the ban takes away the only effective over-the-counter product for people with asthma.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the bill by voice vote in August and said passage would allow the remaining 1 million inhalers to be sold.

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Mark Levin to Karl Rove: “Get the Hell Off the Stage”

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On his Monday radio program, talk show host Mark Levin, author of “Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America,” rejected the notion that the Republican Party should become more moderate to win over voters and blasted several commentators who suggested otherwise.

Levin added that the so-called Republican “consultant class” — including MSNBC analyst and former John McCain adviser Steve Schmidt — should be required to disclose how much they’re being paid before they’re allowed to try to steer the party.

“This consultant class, ladies and gentlemen, is very, very dangerous,” Levin said. “And all this money you contribute to the campaigns — they’re pocketing a fortune. And the Republican Party, they’re not only pulling the Republican Party in the wrong direction, they’re losing campaigns.”…

“And I hear Rove today going on, ‘We got to do this better,’ ‘I got to do this,’ ‘Got to this,’” Levin continued. “Get the hell off the stage already, will you pal? You’re a hanger-on. I don’t say this with any personal contempt. It’s just, enough is enough. We need fresh faces in politicians. We talk about them all the time — Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and Mike Lee and Marco Rubio, and so forth. Well, we need fresh faces who are advising these people too. And I’ll be honest, some fresh faces on Fox wouldn’t hurt. It’s time for Rove to go. I can’t take it anymore.”

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Obama Holds Record for Four Largest Deficits in U.S. History

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In this corner, the challenger, representing the responsible adult who tries to balance his checkbook every month and to save money for his/her children so their future will be safe: The American Taxpayer!

And in this corner, the undefeated champion, representing the height of fiscal irresponsibility, the man who has presided over an unbelievable, unprecedented four straight years of the highest four national deficits in U.S. history; the man who will assure your children that their future has been stolen by their parents, the President of your United States: Barack Obama!

Okay, you two, come out fighting. And no low blows.

Yup, Barack Obama has now given us four years of deficits that were $1.4 trillion, 1.3 trillion, 1.3 trillion, and 1.1 trillion. There have never been deficits remotely approaching these; the last year of George W. Bush’s tenure, the deficit was less than half of a trillion dollars.

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It Grows: Protesters from Forty-seven States Now Petitioning White House to ‘Secede’

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Conservatives have voted more than 375,000 times since Election Day to pick up their marbles and go home. That’s how many virtual signatures appeared Monday night, as clocks in Washington, D.C. chimed midnight, on petitions asking President Barack Obama’s administration to allow 47 of the 50 U.S. states to secede from the country.

A petition from an Arlington, Texas man, launched Nov. 9 via the Obama White House website’s “We the People” tool, had more than 58,000 signatures. That’s more than twice the 25,000 it had Monday morning, a number required to trigger an automatic White House review, according to the administration’s own published rules.

A similar petition from a Louisiana native crossed the 25,000 threshold as Monday drew to a close on the East Coast.

Launched Nov. 7, the day after Obama won re-election, the Pelican State’s spark set off an Internet-driven cascade of disaffected tea partiers and other conservatives looking — as one petition organizer told The Daily Caller via a “direct message” on Twitter — “just to do something, anything, to show we’re not going away quietly.”

It’s not clear whether, or to what extent, individuals are signing more than one petition. The White House’s online rules do not prohibit Americans from signing a petition that would not affect states where they live.

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Petraeus Mistress Claimed Benghazi Annex Held Jihadist Prisoners

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The Central Intelligence Agency denied charges Sunday that its annex in Benghazi, Libya secretly held a few jihadi prisoners until it was destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack. Paula Broadwell, the girlfriend then-CIA chief Gen. David Petraeus, made that claim during an Oct. 26 speech in Denver, Colo.

“I don’t know if a lot of you have heard this, but the CIA annex had actually had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner. And they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back,” Broadwell declared during the speech, at the University of Denver.

“That’s still being vetted,” she added.

The CIA’s denial came just hours after Arutz Sheva, an Israeli news outlet, first published a partial transcript of Broadwell’s speech. By midnight Sunday, intelligence reporters with both The Daily Beast and The Washington Post were reporting and tweeting, respectively, that the CIA said her claim was false.

An agency spokesperson told The Daily Beast that “[t]he CIA has not had detention authority since January 2009, when Executive Order 13491 was issued. Any suggestion that the Agency is still in the detention business is uninformed and baseless.”

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Harry Reid Short on Votes for ‘Nuclear Option’ to Change Filibuster Rule

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photo credit: fightingforourhealthDemocrats don’t have the 51 votes they need in the Senate to change filibuster rules that could make it harder for the GOP minority to wield power in the upper chamber.

Lawmakers leading the charge acknowledge they remain short, but express optimism they’ll hit their goal.

“I haven’t counted 51 just yet, but we’re working,” said Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), a leading proponent of the so-called constitutional or “nuclear” option, in which Senate rules could be changed by a majority vote.

“We’re building the momentum right now,” Udall said. “It’s hard to say at this point, but I think it’s looking very good. The last two years have really helped coalesce people’s minds around the idea that we need to change the way we do business.”

The problem for Udall and other supporters of filibuster reform is that many veteran Democratic senators remember when the filibuster was a useful tool in their years in the minority.

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Probe Widens: Petraeus Scandal Leads to Investigation of Commander in Afghanistan

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KABUL—U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Tuesday asked the Senate to put on hold the confirmation of the top commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John Allen, as the new NATO supreme allied commander for Europe following the discovery of allegedly inappropriate communications between the general and a Tampa social planner.

The planner, Jill Kelley, is at the center of a scandal involving Gen. Allen’s predecessor as the top coalition commander in Kabul, Gen. David Petreaus, who resigned as CIA director last week after acknowledging an extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation began probing the matter earlier this year, after Ms. Kelley complained about harassing emails that, according to officials, were eventually traced to Ms. Broadwell. Both women are married, as are Gens. Petreaus and Allen. As part of this inquiry, the FBI also uncovered some 30,000 pages of emails between Ms. Kelley and Gen. Allen, a senior defense official told reporters traveling with Mr. Panetta.

Mr. Panetta said in a statement that the Pentagon received the information concerning Gen. Allen from the FBI on Sunday, and has opened its own investigation. Adultery is a crime under the military code of justice. Gen. Allen’s spokesman declined to comment on the matter and referred all queries to the Pentagon.

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FBI Reportedly Searches Home of Petraeus Mistress

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FBI agents raided the Dilworth, North Carolina home of Paula Broadwell, the woman accused of having an affair with former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus Monday night. Petraeus resigned last Friday, citing his infidelity.

Local stations WSOC, WCNC, and WBTV reported the FBI confirmed its agents were inside Broadwell’s home, but nearly a dozen agents on scene “would not confirm what they were looking for” as they were “carrying boxes and taking photographs inside the home.” Several reporters relayed what they saw at the home through Twitter as it happened.

Broadwell was Petraeus’s biographer and may have started her affair with him while embedded with the general in Afghanistan. Broadwell allegedly sent threatening emails from a dummy account to a Florida woman, Jill Kelley, which Kelley reported to the FBI. An FBI investigation discovered Broadwell was having an affair with Petraeus after the menacing emails were traced to accounts associated with her. Broadwell had supposedly suspected Kelley was romantically involved with Petraeus and was apparently jealous of her.

Broadwell may have had access to classified information. She revealed last month during a speech at the University of Denver that terrorists may have attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi to take back prisoners detained at a secret CIA prison. The CIA has denied Broadwell’s allegations.

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Karl Rove “Temper Tantrum” Mocked by Bart Simpson on Fox (+video)

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Karl Rove’s temper tantrum on Election Night was immediately mocked by one of the Fox News anchors on set that night, and predictably a number of Democratic pundits took pleasure by reveling in the political operative’s pain.

Now Bart Simpson can be added to the list of Rove’s critics, as the cartoon character made a slight during The Simpson’s opening credits. The perpetually-teenage character is seen writing ‘I will not concede the election till Karl Rove gives me permission.’

The sentence follows the ongoing gag where Bart is shown writing a different sentence on the chalkboard each time, as the act of repeatedly writing a line on the board is considered a penalty in typical after school detention.

On Election Night, Rove made himself the subject of mockery after arguing live on Fox News that the network was wrong and that Romney had won Ohio even though they were ready to call it for Obama.

Adding to the insult, The Simpsons airs on Fox which is the same network that pays Rove as a contributor to their news division. Read more from this story HERE.