Riot Warnings Over Food-Stamp Cuts

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Photo Credit: WNDThe 5 percent rollback in food-stamp funding that hit at the start of November has unleashed a wave of familiar scaremongering.

The reduction returns food-stamp benefits to the level they would have been without the infusion of stimulus cash since 2009. That money is now spent, and the average individual monthly benefit is dropping from about $133 to $125.40. Roughly $7.60.

Democrats and the anti-hunger lobby treat the reduction as a cruel and draconian cut.

Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., contends it “will literally take food right out of the mouths of poor children as well as their families, the elderly, the unemployed and the underemployed.”

The rollback “will be close to catastrophic for many people,” a spokesman for Feeding America, a leading hunger relief organization, told CBS News.

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Obama Reportedly Tells Aides: I’m ‘Really Good at Killing People’

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Photo Credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyA new book covering the 2012 presidential campaign uncovers a series of scathing remarks from political figures, but one alleged comment has stirred controversy around President Barack Obama and his administration’s use of targeted drone strikes.

Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s book “Double Down: Game Change 2012” notes President Obama commenting on drone strikes, reportedly telling his aides that he’s “really good at killing people.”

The quote from the book was first reported in Peter Hamby’s review in the Washington Post.

The White House had not officially commented on the alleged remarks, but senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer dismissed a series of reports from the book, including one that showed Obama campaign officials deciding whether to replace Vice President Joe Biden with Hillary Clinton.

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Romney: Christie ‘Could Easily Become Our Nominee and Save Our Party’

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Photo Credit: AP/Charles DharapakFormer Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who lost the 2012 election to President Barack Obama, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he believed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie could “easily” become the GOP presidential nominee in 2016 and “save our party.”

Christie most recently made national news when he decided to drop a legal challenge to rulings in New Jersey state courts that declared same-sex marriage legal there. And not long before that, he changed his position on the question of whether illegal aliens should get in-state tuition rates at New Jersey state colleges. Now he backs legislation that would give that privilege to illegal aliens.

These two moves won Christie a recent article from the Los Angeles Times that described him as having “staked his place near the political middle ground.”

Romney’s statement that Christie could “save our party” came even as Time Magazine’s website published an excerpt from the upcoming book “Double Down: Game Change 2012” by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, that was featured above the masthead on the Drudge Report, and that describes a Republican vice presidential vetting process that resulted in Romney himself deciding not choosing Christie as his vice presidential running mate.

“Meet the Press” host David Gregory on Sunday asked Romney about the revelations in this book.

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Politicians on Both Sides of the Pew Hope Supreme Court Case Has a Prayer

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Photo Credit: Fox News When the Supreme Court this week takes up the issue of prayer before government meetings, both Republicans and Democrats will be looking to a higher power.

According to the Miami Herald, the Obama administration has joined conservative state and federal lawmakers in urging the Supreme Court to allow politicians to say prayers during government meetings.

Among those keeping close tabs on the issue is Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who wants to hear prayers in the Senate before he and his colleagues get down to work.

Rubio is joined by legislators in Texas, too, who also want to say prayers before meetings. And in Arizona, both the House and Senate begin the day with a legislative prayer.

“It’s part of our history and decorum.” – Donna Kafer, Arizona’s legislative chaplain

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Navy SEALS Ordered to Remove ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ From Uniforms

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Photo Credit: APThe Navy Jack is the ‘don’t tread on me’ flag, one that has earned a revered place in America’s naval history and a beloved place in sailor’s hearts, through its use for over two centuries. This symbol of America’s naval ferocity has spanned our country’s entire existence, flying from the masts of the Continental Navy during the war of independence, to today’s War on Terror. In fact, an amendment to the Navy code called SECNAV Instruction 10520.6 clearly states that as of 31 May 2002 all ships are to fly the flag throughout the duration of the War on Terror.

So why would ranking SEAL commanders ban the historical symbol? Is the proverbial top bass banning the flag? Is President Obama?

Clearly the administration and sycophant “top brass” officers have degraded America’s military prestige; from hand-tying rules of engagement, to uniform regulations that make our military allegedly more compatible with foreign forces, to the banning of an awe-inspiring flag that traces its roots to the first U.S. Navy. We have a civilian-led military, but why should our ranking commanders be complicit in the administration’s war on it? Why don’t they stand up to Obama and his leftist cronies?

During my two deployments to Iraq, “Don’t Tread on Me” was a phrase seen on nearly every uniform and platoon space — including mine. From patches to flags to large paintings on concrete barriers, our commanders themselves wore the insignia on their sleeves — until now.

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Iraq Comes Back to Haunt Obama

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Photo Credit: Greg NashAn explosion of violence in Iraq risks turning the troubled country into a political liability for President Obama.

During last year’s reelection campaign, the president managed to both earn credit for withdrawing all U.S. troops and avoid blame for the deteriorating security situation.

But a surge in terror attacks this year that has left more than 7,000 people dead has drawn bipartisan concerns about Obama’s Middle East policies — concerns that broke out into the open during Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s visit to the White House this week.

“By nearly every indicator, security conditions in Iraq have dramatically worsened over the past two years,” a bipartisan group of Senate leaders on national security issues wrote to Obama on Tuesday. “What’s worse, the deteriorating conflict in Syria has enabled al Qaeda in Iraq to transform into the larger and more lethal Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which now has a major base for operations spanning both Iraq and Syria.”

The Senate letter was signed by the chairmen and top members on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations panels: Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

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Common Core Causes Georgia Teacher to Walk Away from Her Job

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Photo Credit: Common Core/Examiner A Georgia teacher, Meg Norris, who is a doctoral candidate in education and a certified teacher in Georgia walked away from her dream job in one of Georgia’s schools because of the controversial Common Core curriculum and wrote an apologetic and explanation letter to her former students on Saturday.

Common Core, a federal education mandate program under the Obama administration, describes itself as internationally bench-marked, aligned with college and work expectations, and states that it is evidence-based.

Teachers like Norris and other opponents say that it is not true, it’s only a government takeover of education and according to Norris, a money making proposition for businessmen.

Norris said in her letter to her students, “Common Core is the first time in the history of this country that a privately written and copyrighted plan has become public policy. There is no research to back it and it has never been tested. Politicians are pushing it because these corporations are giving them money to push it.”

“I saw you struggling with Common Core skills. Even with the new curriculum from the district, no matter how I broke it down for you I could see you didn’t understand. I saw the frustration on your faces… and when time ran out and we had to take the county’s test (on the county’s schedule), I saw the tears roll from your eyes. You failed. I saw you missing school more days than normal. You came early every day for homework help, but it didn’t make any difference. You still could not understand,” Norris said.

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Report: Ted Cruz could ride Tea Party support to White House

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photo credit: gage skidmoreThe friendly fire directed at Sen. Ted Cruz from establishment Republicans is giving the Texan first-in-line status among Tea Party supporters and building a base for him to run for president, according to a new analysis from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

“To the establishment, Cruz is the embodiment of all the forces conspiring to threaten the GOP’s long-term viability. And, on a personal level, they also just can’t stand Cruz: He drives them crazy,” wrote Kyle Kondik in Center Director Larry Sabato’s popular Crystal Ball.

But, added Kondik, the “venom” directed at Cruz, whose effort to defund Obamacare led to a 16-day government shutdown, makes him an oversized hero to Tea Party supporters.

“Not pleasing the establishment is music to the ears of Tea Party activists, and if anything the shutdown has endeared Cruz even more to them. Assuming Cruz mounts a presidential bid in 2016 — he’s headed to South Carolina next week after his Iowa appearance last Friday (hint, hint) — the Tea Party could be a potent base,” he said.

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Health Care Shoppers Aren’t as Dumb as Obama Thinks

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Photo Credit: ReutersPresident Obama calls them “substandard” insurance plans. But to many of the people who bought individual insurance policies that are now being canceled under the Affordable Care Act, their choice of insurance was a prudent decision that met their needs at a price that will be hard to beat under the ACA.

Jim Stadler is one of the “5 percenters”—the 5% of Americans with health insurance policies they purchased on their own—who got notified recently that their carrier was canceling coverage because it didn’t meet the tougher new minimum requirements of the ACA. Stadler, a freelance writer who lives outside of Charlotte, N.C., was laid off from a full-time job at an ad agency in 2009, at which point he became a freelancer and bought individual health coverage for him and his two kids.

Under Stadler’s expiring policy, his premiums are $411 a month, for coverage that always seemed adequate to him. “It’s not a substandard policy,” he says. “I thought it was a great deal.” The premium for the new policy offered by his insurer will be $843 a month, with coverage that’s more or less the same as far as he’s concerned. But new policies are required to include free preventive services such as mammograms and colonoscopies, and they can’t be canceled or priced higher for sicker people, which is why the cost of some policies is going up.

Since Stadler’s family’s income is too high to qualify for federal subsidies, he’s considering putting his kids on the policy his wife, a teacher, gets through her job. But that would be expensive, too. “The thing that gets me,” says Stadler, who voted for Obama in the 2012 presidential election, “is I thought Barack Obama was the only guy I could trust in Washington. He ended up lying to me because he said, if I like my insurance, I could keep it.”

The 5-percenter problem could end up being a much more serious albatross for Obamacare and its mostly Democratic supporters than the notorious web site snafus and other temporary snags, which can mostly be fixed. Obama did, in fact, say repeatedly, “If you like your health insurance, you can keep it.” But policies held by as many as 10 million Americans don’t meet the minimum requirements of the law and are now being canceled. Obama this week added a “vast majority” clause to his earlier claim: “For the vast majority of people who have health insurance that works, you can keep it,” he said in a recent speech on health-care reform.

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House Ways and Means Committee Threatens Subpoena to Access Obamacare Enrollment Figures

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Photo Credit: AFPThe House Ways and Means Committee Friday threatened to subpoena the Obama administration to access enrollment figures for health care exchanges.

“The failed launch of the exchanges, combined with the millions of cancellation notices, is putting Americans’ healthcare coverage at risk,” Michigan Republican Rep. Dave Camp wrote in a letter to Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner, Fox News reports.

He asked Tavenner that enrollment figures be released immediately, saying the nation is facing a crisis.

Media reports show the administration has access to daily enrollment figures, but Tavenner would not provide the committee with signup numbers during a meeting with the committee this past week.

“By all media accounts, enrollment in the exchanges is thus far significantly behind the administration’s projections, Camp said. But the Obama administration said its first numbers will be released in mid-November after the Department of Health and Human Services collects information.

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