FOOD STAMP ENROLLMENT AT SUSTAINED HIGH

26 Aug

food stamps

President Barack Obama and vulnerable Democrats facing tough midterm elections in 71 days are scrambling to prop up the moribund U.S. economy in the minds of disgruntled voters. However, one of the quickest shorthand economic measurements–food stamp enrollments–paints a startling portrait of the “new normal” in the Obama economy. 

According to the Department of Agriculture’s most recently released data, the number of individuals enrolled in the food stamp program (known officially as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) has remained above 45 million every single month for three years straight. 

In May 2011, 45,410,683 individuals received food stamps. As of May 2014 (the most recent date for which data are available), 46,225,054 people were on food stamps. At no point between the two dates did the number of food stamp enrollments ever fall below the 45 million mark. 

Food stamp enrollments have soared due to President Barack Obama’s categorical eligibility provisions, aggressive enrollment marketing, a bleak economy, and intense lobbying by large corporations who bag millions of taxpayer dollars as food stamp enrollments climb. Indeed, a report by the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) found that JP Morgan bagged well over half a billion dollars ($560,492,596) since 2004 processing the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards of 18 of the 24 states it holds contracts with.  

Still, despite historic levels of Americans now dependent on welfare, and with the middle class poorer now than it was in 1984, Obama continues to claim that his economic policies have made things better. 

“Since I have come into office, there’s almost no economic metric by which you couldn’t say that the U.S. economy is better,” Obama said in an interview this month with the Economist

According to Gallup, just 39% of Americans believe the U.S. economy is “getting better” versus 56% who say it is “getting worse.”

NEW MOST WANTED, FUTURE DEAD TERRORIST

25 Aug

TERRORISTS

 

http://www.news.com.au/world/london-hiphop-artist-abdelmajed-abdel-bary-key-suspect-in-hunt-for-killer-of-american-journalist-james-foley/story-fndir2ev-1227034541900

Yesterday, British security services MI5 and MI6 reportedly identified a British hip-hop artist as the key suspect in the hunt for the killer who beheaded Foley.

The Sunday Times newspaper said Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, from Maida Vale in West London, had become a crucial part of the investigation.

The paper attributed the information to “senior government sources.”

Bary, 23, is the son of an Egyptian-born militant who is awaiting trial on terror charges in New York tied to the deadly 1998 bombings of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Former hostages held by ISIS have said he is one of several jihadists they nicknamed “the Beatles” due to their British accents, with two of his cronies referred to as “George” and “Ringo.”

Bary — who recently tweeted a photo of himself holding up a severed head — was among three Brits identified as possibly being the masked killer known as “John”.

In June, The Sunday Times revealed a threat made by Bary on Twitter. “The lions are coming for you soon you filthy kuffs (infidels),” he wrote. “Beheadings in your own backyard soon.”

Bary, who went to Syria last year to fight in its bloody civil war, has a build, skin tone and ­accent all similar to those of “John,” according to The Telegraph.

Before becoming a jihadist, he was an aspiring rapper known as “L Jinny,” whose music was played on BBC Radio 1.

 

Maureen Dowd: The Golf Address

23 Aug

AUG. 23, 2014

FORE! Score? And seven trillion rounds ago, our forecaddies brought forth on this continent a new playground, conceived by Robert Trent Jones, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal when it comes to spending as much time on the links as possible — even when it seems totally inappropriate, like moments after making a solemn statement condemning the grisly murder of a 40-year-old American journalist beheaded by ISIL.

I know reporters didn’t get a chance to ask questions, but I had to bounce. I had a 1 p.m. tee time at Vineyard Golf Club with Alonzo Mourning and a part-owner of the Boston Celtics. Hillary and I agreed when we partied with Vernon Jordan up here, hanging out with celebrities and rich folks is fun.

Now we are engaged in a great civil divide in Ferguson, which does not even have a golf course, and that’s why I had a “logistical” issue with going there. We are testing whether that community, or any community so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure when the nation’s leader wants nothing more than to sink a birdie putt.

We are met on a great field of that battle, not Augusta, not Pebble Beach, not Bethpage Black, not Burning Tree, but Farm Neck Golf Club in Martha’s Vineyard, which we can’t get enough of — me, Alonzo, Ray Allen and Marvin Nicholson, my trip director and favorite golfing partner who has played 134 rounds and counting with me.

We have to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for my presidency, if I keep swinging from behind.

obama golfing

Yet it is altogether fitting and proper that I should get to play as much golf as I want, despite all the lame jokes about how golf is turning into “a real handicap” for my presidency and how I have to “stay the course” with ISIL. I’ve heard all the carping that I should be in the Situation Room droning and plinking the bad folks. I know some people think I should go to Ferguson. Don’t they understand that I’ve delegated the Martin Luther King Jr. thing to Eric Holder? Plus, Valerie Jarrett and Al Sharpton have it under control.

I know it doesn’t look good to have pictures of me grinning in a golf cart juxtaposed with ones of James Foley’s parents crying, and a distraught David Cameron rushing back from his vacation after only one day, and the Pentagon news conference with Chuck Hagel and General Dempsey on the failed mission to rescue the hostages in Syria.

We’re stuck in the rough, going to war all over again in Iraq and maybe striking Syria, too. Every time Chuck says ISIL is “beyond anything we’ve ever seen,” I sprout seven more gray hairs. But my cool golf caps cover them. If only I could just play through the rest of my presidency.

ISIL brutally killing hostages because we won’t pay ransoms, rumbles of coups with our puppets in Iraq and Afghanistan, the racial caldron in Ferguson, the Ebola outbreak, the Putin freakout — there’s enough awful stuff going on to give anyone the yips.

So how can you blame me for wanting to unwind on the course or for five hours at dinner with my former assistant chef? He’s a great organic cook, and he’s got a gluten-free backyard putting green.

The brave foursomes, living and dead, who struggled here in the sand, in the trees, in the water, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or subtract a few strokes to improve our score. Bill Clinton was Mr. Mulligan, and he is twice at popular as I am.

Why don’t you play 18 with Mitch McConnell? And John Boehner is a lot better than me, so I don’t want to play with him.

It is for us, the duffers, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who played here have thus far so nobly advanced to get young folks to stop spurning a game they find slow and boring.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us of getting rid of our slice on the public’s dime — that from this honored green we take increased devotion to that cause for which Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy gave their last full measure of devotion — and divots.

We here highly resolve that these golfing greats shall not have competed in vain, especially poor Tiger, and that this nation, under par, shall have a new birth of freedom to play the game that I have become unnaturally obsessed with, and that golf of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

So help me Golf.

gettysburg golfer

Conservative introspection: Mark Caserta – Columnist

22 Aug

obama golfing
 I understand it must be terribly difficult to be the leader of the free world from the 17th hole. In retrospect…perhaps we’re better off.

But seriously, I believe this president just finally decided he didn’t really want this job after all – it’s way too much work. So he’s giving the world a big “hand in the face” and doing whatever he wants.

After his 3 minute heartfelt rebuke of the ISIS scum who beheaded Jim Foley, he was on the golf course 8 minutes later. At the very least, that’s incredibly poor judgment. But the total disregard for America and the office of president is appalling!!!

And honestly, since Obama can do no wrong in the eyes of liberal minions who worship at the altar of Barack, he doesn’t give them a second thought.

And our foreign policy is in the tank. No world leader respects him and no foe fears him.
foley
And I couldn’t care less about his skin color. I love my African-American brothers and sisters with all of my heart. I would stand by them in any move of racism. We’re God’s people – period. The Holy Spirit is color-blind and that’s how I’m led. My close friends know this all too well. The president has certainly done nothing to help in this regard. If anything, he has enriched and given re-birth to racism in the nation through his divisive tactics.

Divide and conquer is an old methodology.

I just believe Barack Obama is a product of his rearing and doesn’t think very much of America.

I would love nothing more than for him to do a turn around and show some backbone and lead for once.

But I don’t think he will. The American people will have to take the lead moving forward.
pool
God light our path and direct our steps. We can’t do this without you.

Mark Caserta: ISIS to Christians: Convert to Islam

21 Aug

isis

Aug. 21, 2014 @ 12:00 AM
 

“Let the terrorist group, ISIS, see the manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ,” decreed Pastor Chuck Lawrence this past Sunday during the morning worship service at Christ Temple Church in Huntington.

Pastor Lawrence referenced the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s recent rampage of violence and religious cleansing across northern Iraq following the return of a Christ Temple missionary from the troubled region. On Wednesday of last week, the humanitarian crisis was upgraded by the United Nations to a “Level 3 Emergency,” the organization’s highest ranking of severity.

ISIS jihadists have now declared the captured territories a new Islamic State, restoring “caliphate” in the Middle East. Multiple reports confirm that religious minorities, including Christians, are enduring horrific atrocities for refusing to denounce their religion and convert to Islam.

Understand the scope of all Islamist movements from their earliest inception was to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate, which is believed to be the panacea to every Muslim ill around the world.

But Islamic jihadists are ruthless in their approach to eradicating Christianity.

While addressing the plight of Christians in Mosul, national spokesperson for Iraqi Christians, Mark Arabo, said the “evil” being carried out by ISIS militants in Iraq now shockingly includes beheadings of children.

“They are systematically beheading children, and mothers and fathers,” Arabo told CNN’s Jonathan Mann. “There’s actually a park in Mosul that they’ve actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick.” Mann described the acts as the “most heartbreaking” things imaginable.

isis 2

Reportedly, Christians were given three options: convert to Islam, pay a fine or die by the sword. Those fleeing to neighboring areas of Iraq harbor little hope of returning.

“They’ve marked the red stamp of death on Christian homes and basically saying we know who you are and if you come back, you will be killed,” said Arabo.

In his weekly address, President Obama told Americans the U.S. will not be dragged “into fighting another Iraq war” despite his authorization of military air strikes in the region.

But I submit that if the president hadn’t completely ignored the escalating unrest in the region and misled the American people for almost two years, ISIS may never have been allowed to balloon into such a regional power.

Experts agree that while these ISIS jihadists are now a distinctly different organization, they were parented by al Qaeda. Yet, Barack Obama described al Qaeda as having been “decimated,” “on the path to defeat” or some variation at least 32 times since the attack in Benghazi, according to White House transcripts.

Excuse me, Mr. President, but how did this group become so powerful in just a few months? Your recent disclaimer to being responsible for the decision to withdraw troops from Iraq is very telling. Apparently, once again, you see failure on the horizon and want to re-write history and blame your predecessor.

So I’m certain you shoulder no blame for the thousands of Christians being persecuted for a faith many are simply willing to die to protect.

May Pastor Lawrence’s heavenly request be honored and Iraqi Christians be protected by God’s mighty hand.

THE CROSS

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

Mark Caserta: Israel, as apple of God’s eye, important to US

14 Aug

israeli flag

Aug. 14, 2014 @ 12:00 AM
 

God chose the nation of Israel to be the people through whom our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, would be born.

“For thus saith the Lord of hosts: After the glory hath He sent me unto the nations which despoiled you, for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye.”

These words, penned by the Prophet Zechariah, lend solemn perspective to the ongoing attacks on the Israeli people.

In Deuteronomy, God said, “Behold, all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; those who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish. You shall seek those who contend with you, but you shall not find them, those who war against you shall be as nothing at all.”

Just over 8,000 square miles in size, Israel is surrounded by enemy nations such as Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iran. Tragically, the Israeli people live with a fear few Americans will ever understand. Radical Islamic organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Fatah are an ever-present force.

Unfortunately, the years of turmoil in the Middle East have many Americans disillusioned in recognizing the importance of Israel to the United States, not only as our ally but as the only beacon of democracy in the region.

Israel’s greatest ally has always been the United States. Yet, the relationship between the White House and Jerusalem has become dangerously ambiguous. Mixed messages sent by the Obama administration are providing the world reason to doubt U.S. commitment to our Israeli partners.

Time and again, Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have shown a propensity to pressure Israel and to somehow morally equate a Jewish state that seeks peace and respects human life with radical murderers who would rather eradicate Israel than create a future for the Palestinian people.

netanyahu

Let’s be clear. This has always been a battle between those who celebrate life and those who champion death. Hamas’ ruthless “human shields” policy where rockets are fired from civilian sites including mosques, schools and hospitals, is well documented. This strategy, by the rules of war, make these institutions legitimate targets.

Israel has every right to protect her sovereignty. While anti-Semitism is connoted as the longest, deepest hatred in human history, it is rooted in the hatred of God and His Word. But of Israel, the Bible says “God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved.”

But Jehovah Nissi is an omnipotent God who needs no help protecting His covenanted nation. And His favor over the Israeli people is not contingent upon other nations’ choice to support them.

Israel is, indeed, the apple of God’s eye. But God’s Word clearly says those who bless Israel shall be blessed, and those who don’t will be cursed.

It’s in America’s interest to protect our relationship with God’s chosen people.

Obama golfs as the world burns.

13 Aug

Fabius to Obama:

‘When people are dying, you must come back from vacation’: French foreign minister seems to slam Obama for golfing while Iraq burns.

french prime minister

  • Obama is on Martha’s Vineyard while Iraq undergoes regime change and terrorists slaughter ethnic and religious minorities

  • Calling heads of state to lobby participation in humanitarian assistance program – in between golf and fundraising

  • Washington Post columnist wrote that the president ‘risks fueling the impression that he is detached as the world burns’

By David Martosko, U.s. Political Editor, Mailonline

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has a message about Iraq for Barack Obama: Get back to the White House and do something.

‘I know it is the holiday period in our Western countries,’ Fabius told a radio interviewer Tuesday in France,’ but when people are dying, you must come back from vacation.’

Full-time workers in France are guaranteed a whopping five weeks of paid vacation every year, making his plea all the more urgent.

Obama is on a family and golfing holiday in a ritzy neighborhood of Martha’s Vineyard but says he will come back to Washington briefly on Tuesday before returning to fun, sun, and more golf.

 
French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius (C) visited Iraqi refugees in Nineveh province on Sunday, saying upon his return to France that vacations for certain world leaders should cease while people are dying there

 

As town after Iraqi town is conquered by ISIS, an Islamist terror group that claims it has established an ‘Islamic state,’ Obama’s approach has consisted so far of airlifting humanitarian supplies to victimized groups, protecting the aid drops with airstrikes, and begging for help from allies.

Britain, France, Italy and other European nations have backed the humanitarian assistance with material and personnel, reported The Wall Street Journal, which first broke news of the French diplomat’s criticism.

Meanwhile Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have been encouraging a nascent Iraqi government from a safe distance, while assuring Americans that the U.S. won’t enter another prolonged war with boots on the ground.

Eyebrows went up Wednesday in Washington, though, when the White House announced that Obama was leaning toward deploying ground troops to Mount Sinjar, a northern Iraqi hideout to which tens of thousands of Yadizis, a persecuted religious minority group, have led from ISIS.

 

Deputy press spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters that the president would green-light such an operation, led by U.S. Marines, if commanders in the field recommended it.

Less than four hours later, reporters observed troops landing on the mountaintop.

Obama, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Wednesday, is ‘open to recommendations in which the United States is helping to facilitate the removal of these people from the mountain on a humanitarian mission.’

That rescue mission, he told reporters, ‘is separate than saying U.S. forces are going to be redeployed in Iraq in a combat role to take the fight to [ISIS].’

Despite a busy series of negotiations and decision-trees, and the looking possible collapse of Iraq, Obama remains on vacation.

 
Fabius (L), like Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, are urging Iraqi leaders to form an inclusive government that could reduce sectarian tensions -- but he's doing it alongside Iraqi Deputy PM Hussain al-Shahristani, not from a beach villaFabius (L), like Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, are urging Iraqi leaders to form an inclusive government that could reduce sectarian tensions — but he’s doing it alongside Iraqi Deputy PM Hussain al-Shahristani, not from a beach villa
 
Missing in Washington: Hero worship, Massachusetts vacation style -- A crowd gathered to vie for a glimpse of Obama as he arrived for dinner at a Martha's Vineyard restaurant on Tuesday

Missing in Washington: Hero worship, Massachusetts vacation style — A crowd gathered to vie for a glimpse of Obama as he arrived for dinner at a Martha’s Vineyard restaurant on Tuesday

He has logged barely one-third as many vacation days as President George W. Bush did, but the timing of is being called into question.

‘Even presidents need down time, and Obama can handle his commander-in-chief duties wherever he is,’ Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote on Monday.

‘But his decision to proceed with his getaway just 36 hours after announcing the military action in Iraq risks fueling the impression that he is detached as the world burns.’

Since the communications and war apparatus of the commander-in-chief travels wherever the president goes, Obama can conduct matters of state from a Masachusetts vacation island almost as easier as he can from the Oval Office.

So reasons for his planned return to Washington on Tuesday, while it may please the French, remain a mystery.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2724271/When-people-dying-come-vacation-French-foreign-minister-slams-Obama-golfing-Iraq-burns.html#ixzz3AJstPQQI
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Kendall Rice: Don’t doubt sinister motivation behind progressivism

13 Aug

superclass

This theme is well-documented but people just don’t read anymore. Here is a book about it this…

Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making

http://goo.gl/Zqsg2s

The author can be found on YouTube making speeches/lectures about his book. It’s a disturbing theme which was born a century ago.

We can thank the Progressives for building big government that is now run by big business interests posing as “national security interests”. The radical Left’s beloved regulation means big business gets to write the rules for small business to prevent them from offering any meaningful competition in the marketplace. This hurts consumers too.

The most egregious examples of this I have seen are the stories about small family farmers, including the Amish, who run co-ops to share food, raw milk and cheese with others when suddenly their farms are raided in SWAT style to prevent this movement from growing and offering competition for the industrial dairy farms. Their food inventories are destroyed and they face fines and penalties, etc. SWAT raids over raw milk! How dare anyone date to compete with established industry powers!

The great myth Americans have bought is that the people are easy prey for entrepreneurs to exploit so Uncle Sam must intervene and ‘level the playing field’. So power was given to the feds by Progressive founders and launched into orbit by the radical FDR New Dealers in response to the Great Depression brought about by the beloved Progressive creation the Federal Reserve…

Ever since Ross Perot ran for Prez both parties have placed huge obstacles in the way of anyone wanting to start another party, whether it’s Independent, Libertarian, Green, or the Constitutional party. This makes for a system easier to manipulate and screen candidates. Nobody runs for Prez anymore that isn’t first approved by the CFR, which is a group created once again by the Progressives after WW1.

Today most policies are all about keeping the status quo to secure special interests already deeply entrenched into the system. Therefore, groups like the AARP can endorse OmamaCare along with the AMA, Big Pharma, and the health insurers who all hate competition. The ACA is giving us much less competition. Just go to any of their exchanges and see how many insurers are not there. Typically the HD editor penned a piece moaning over this situation but his faith in the ACA remained.

If anyone doubts the sinister motives of the founding of the Progressive Era then just read their philosophy of the public school system:

“In our dreams, we have limitless resources and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions fade from their minds, and unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning, or men of science. We have not to rise up from among them authors, editors, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have an ample supply…The task we set before ourselves is very simple as well as a very beautiful one, to train these people as we find them to a perfectly ideal life just where they are. So we will organize our children and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way, in the homes, in the shops and on the farm.” – General Education Board, Occasional Papers, No. 1 (General Education Board, New York, 1913) p. 6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Education_Board

progressive theme

Such philosophy is what logically results from evolutionary zealots. The assault on Christian culture was about to hit high gear! The mantra also spread to liberal college professors who sought to make their students as unlike their parents as possible. How much more evidence do we need to prove how radical these people are? Their heirs today reside in the federal Department of Education.

During the 1980’s the emerging home school movement became a target as state boards sued families and tried to outlaw all homeschooling. Thou shall not escape our liberal, progressive public school indoctrination! In the mid-West a pastor defended his private school next to his church against the public school board and ended up in jail for contempt of court. His name escapes me at the moment but it did become national news.

By the grace of God an orthodox theologian, Rousas Rushdoony, used his expertise to offer testimony in defense of dozens of families under assault for daring to exercise religious freedom. It was in Texas where one family was awarded a huge judgment against the county school system and afterwards no other county school system dared to sue again. Now that was deliverance not unlike Moses commanding Pharaoh: Let my people go!

Only true limited government as outlined by the Framers will restore prosperity for everyone again. Most of all End the Fed and return to an honest money system as written in the Constitution.

What Happened to “We the People”? It seems “We” may not matter.

13 Aug

gty_GOP_path_130808_wg

We must regain control of our country.

A startling new political science study concludes that corporate interests and mega wealthy individuals control U.S. policy to such a degree that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
The startling study, titled “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” is slated to appear in an upcoming issue of Perspectives on Politics and was authored by Princeton University Professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Professor Benjamin Page. An early draft can be found here.
Noted American University Historian Allan J. Lichtman, who highlighted the piece in a Tuesday article published in The Hill, calls Gilens and Page’s research “shattering” and says their scholarship “should be a loud wake-up call to the vast majority of Americans who are bypassed by their government.”
The statistical research looked at public attitudes on nearly 1,800 policy issues and determined that government almost always ignores the opinions of average citizens and adopts the policy preferences of monied business interests when shaping the contours of U.S. laws.
The study’s findings align with recent trends, where corporate elites have aggressively pursued pro-amnesty policies despite the fact that, according to the most recent Reuters poll, 70% of Americans believe illegal immigrants “threaten traditional U.S. beliefs and customs,” and 63% believe “immigrants place a burden on the economy.”
The solution, say the scholars, is a reinvigorated and engaged electorate.
“If policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened,” conclude Gilens and Page.
declaration signing

OBAMA PROMISED NO VACATIONS???? REALLY?

12 Aug

WATCH:

http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/11/flashback-obama-promises-no-vacations-for-himself-as-president-video/

Weasel Zippers has revived an old video of Barack Obama promising not to take vacations if he were elected president.

The video features then-Sen. Obama discussing his book “The Audacity Of Hope” with New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in 2008.

The future president was talking about how those running for president need to be prepared to “give their life to it.”

“The bargain that any president strikes with is, you give me this office and in turn my, fears, doubts, insecurities, foibles, need for sleep, family life, vacations, leisure is gone,” Obama said. “I am giving myself to you.”

Obama went on to say that “the American people should have no patience for what’s going on in your head because you’ve got a job to do” and that people should only run for president if they’re willing to make that sacrifice.

When asked by the host if he could imagine himself making that kind of commitment, he said, “Sure.”

Weasel Zippers used the quote to criticize Obama, saying he “then proceeded to hit the golf course 186 times (and counting).”

The president has also been criticized for taking a vacation to Martha’s Vineyard while international crises are occurring.