Category Archives: Morality

Sign-Up For Food Stamps, Y’all

Democracy, Journalism, Morality, Taxation, The State, Welfare

Fox News Reporting does superb shoe-leather reporting on “the government’s startling attempts to get even more people to sign up for the ‘Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.'” However, that the state uses the private property of one segment of the population to buy the favors of another is not startling; it’s standard operating procedure (SOP).

The special uncovers startling statistics, including:

Food stamps cost taxpayers 78.4 billion in fiscal year 2012. In 2008, the figure was $37.6 billion.
(Source: USDA: SNAP Program Data)

Simply administering the food stamp program alone costs close to $4 billion annually.
(Source: SNAP, 2012 Annual Summary)

Almost 48 million people are now on food stamps — one out of every seven people living in America.
(Source: 2013 SNAP Program data)

That ranges from six percent in Wyoming to 22 percent Mississippi.
(Source: USDA, SNAP Participation statistics)

Still, not everyone who can sign up, does. A 2012 report said that 75 percent of eligible people in the United States received SNAP benefits in fiscal year 2010.
(Source: USDA State Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Participation Rates)

In North Carolina, seventeen percent of the population receive food stamps — more than double the number a decade ago.
(Source: USDA SNAP State Program Data and Census for NC population, 2012 and 2004)

According to a Fox News poll, the majority believe that Americans are too dependent on government

Had Fox News done its bit for literacy and for the written word, rather than provide big video clips—I’d have been able to excerpt Charles Murray speak to the saddest aspect of food-stamp recruitment: the undermining of the American pride and spirit.

MORE.

More snippets from “The Great Food Stamp Binge”:

With one in seven Americans now receiving food stamps, a Fox News investigative team traveled the country to expose the government’s startling attempts to get even more people to sign up for the “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program”.
This documentary profiles a blissfully jobless California surfer who expects taxpayers to underwrite his life of beaches and booze, visits a Florida pastor angry over Spanish ads designed to convince reluctant immigrants to get on food stamps, and reveals how North Carolina social workers won a government award for breaking down the “Mountain Pride” that makes some Tar Heels unwilling to accept government handouts.
Reports by John Roberts and Peter Boyer also explore whether the food stamp program can ultimately make the poor dependent on government, and ask how many taxpayer dollars meant for the truly needy end up in the pockets of those able to fend for themselves.

Conflict of Interest And Media Corruption

Democrats, Elections, Ethics, Journalism, Media, Morality, Republicans

Conflict of interest equals corruption. It is the modus operandi of major media in America. It is why affiliates of large news organizations see nothing outrageous about producing documentaries and miniseries about Hillary Clinton in the ramp up to the 2016 elections.

What can Republican candidates expect from the media mafiosi in the 2016 Republican primary debates? If past is prologue, Republican candidates will be “deposed” by the Democratic operatives of CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, etc. That’s how Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus put it. So one wonders what took GOP invertebrates so long to stand up to the farce of Democratic special interests (most media) moderating or sponsoring the Republican election debates.

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus said NBC and CNN must halt their Hillary Clinton programming or the RNC won’t partner with them for the 2016 Republican primary debates.

(LINK)

NBC Entertainment has announced plans to produce a mini-series about Hillary Clinton starring Diane Lane, while CNN has announced plans to produce a feature-length documentary about Clinton that will air in theaters and on the network. Both networks have stressed that their news divisions will have no part in the projects.

(LINK)

Even though this is neither here nor there for liberty, many of us still wanted to see Mitt Romeny get off his knees and quit apologizing to his media inquisitors, who kept berating him for the Good Life he had led.

The Germ (Chris Christie) Worries About The Strain (Libertarianism)

libertarianism, Morality, Pop-Culture, Republicans, Terrorism

If you’re as old as I, you’ll remember Michael Crichton’s “Andromeda Strain,” a popular thriller novel which was adapted to the screen. Forever in my mind will Gov. Chris Christie be associated with The Strain.

Christie The Germ is denouncing a “strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties,” and “is a very dangerous thought.” Thomas Mullen explains the inexplicable:

TAMPA, July 27, 2013. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., introduced an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill that would have defunded the NSA’s blanket collection of metadata and limited the government’s collection of records to those “relevant to a national security investigation.”
It terrified New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who lashed out at those who supported the bill and libertarianism in general.
“As a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush on Sept. 10, 2001, I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now and making big headlines, I think, is a very dangerous thought,” Christie said.
Yes, it is dangerous, but to what? It is dangerous to the bloated national security state, which tramples the liberty and dignity of every American under the pretense of protecting them from what Charles Kenny recently called the “vastly exaggerated” threat of terrorism.

Yes, Gov. Christie is in the news again, and not for cavorting with Barack Obama, but for speaking out against politicians who appear to be libertarian.

“Chris Christie’s problem is not his weight, but his character. New Jersey’s popular Republican governor is the consummate backstabbing, slimy, opportunistic politician, who, for good measure, also preaches and practices the dirigiste economics of an Obama (and a ‘W’)”.

Christie’s outburst is par for the course; it’s part and parcel of the frequent displays of professional discourtesy among the crass opportunists in our politics.

Look at it as a turf war, defined as “a dispute between criminals or gangs over the right to operate within a particular area.”

UPDATED: Zoned Out On The Weiner Worm

Barack Obama, Journalism, Media, Morality, Politics, Republicans

Of course Republicans would fall for the distraction that is Anthony Weiner, coverage of whom is all over Drudge Report and other Republican websites. This is the very thing left-liberals are doing, except that they have reason to track the Weiner Worm (a poster boy for Anti-Semitism, if ever there was one).

The antics of this engorged organism allow our “representatives” in Congress and their loyal representatives in the media to forget about the NSA spying on all of us, that the IRS rapine could be traced to the White House, if the will existed, to say nothing of the nap the Beloved took during an attack on a US embassy, in a country Obama and his liberal posse invaded, to the detriment of its people and our own.

The media love knocking down one straw man (Weiner) for the sake of another (Obama).

UPDATE: “Jay Carney: Obama trying to focus on economy, not ‘phony scandals’; Update: Obama also refers to ‘phony scandals.’”

The laser, I presume, was BHO’s elementary—eighth-grade elementary—address, given today.