Color me curious.  How many places and what products can you use Food Stamp EBT cards for?  Seriously, honest question.   I had no idea that you could purchase jewelry, tattoos, buy gas, get nails manicured and hair done etc.
I thought the Food Stamp program was to give poor people  food.   Stupid me.
Daily Caller – Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick has vetoed the state legislature’s attempt to ban the use of EBT cards — or food stamps — to purchase items such as tattoos, porn and jewelry.
Patrick vetoed the reforms Sunday while signing the state’s $32.5 billion budget.
According to the Boston Herald, which first reported the veto, the governor berated the legislature’s stab at banning the purchase of specific items like manicures, tattoos, guns, porn, body piercings, jewelry, and bail by saying the move was “political grandstanding” at a time when such reforms are already on track elsewhere. (more…)

Well, at least this week….

(Herald Sun) — A Melbourne family who claim they were slugged an extra $55 “carbon tax charge” when burying a relative were told “even the dead don’t escape the carbon tax”.

Erica Maliki and her family were burying her father-in-law at Springvale Cemetery when she was told the price per burial plot had increased because of the carbon tax.
Her father-in-law died on June 30, the day before the carbon tax was introduced, and was buried early last week. (more…)

If you have not read the books (trilogy), you should.   If you haven’t watched the movie, well, that’s good too.   Both Treeper Sibilj and Treeper DiwataMan remind me of these two characters; they are quite good dot connectors and in a most unusual way they are keenly on the same trail from two different angles… quite similar.   Life imitates art.
DiwataMan has a construct of what he calls a conspiracy theory – Sibilj has a prediction for where this is headed.   The theory is really close to dead center mass – The prediction is, well, unless things change quickly, at this point, a virtual certainty.

[comment] Why are people claiming that other people are claiming O’Mara is going to throw or lose the case purposefully?  Has Sundance or anyone claimed that?  My position is that, albeit conspiratorial, this case will go to trial no matter what and the powers that be are going to make sure that happens. The main reason is that no one then but a jury will be responsible for impending riots, everyone has covered their butts.
Has O’Mara had anything regarding this case that would allow him to file to get the case thrown out? Will he have a SYG hearing? I bet he will but I bet it will also fail, it has to fail or else that judge who would throw the case out then would be the one to have to answer to all of his little buddies as to why he just allowed the State of Florida to be put into a position of potentially losing billions of dollars, lol, nobody want to be that guy, this thing is going to a jury and the decision to make sure that happens probably occurred when Bondi and Scott got together.  (continue reading)

DiwataMan is mostly right, and essentially on the right track here.   Indeed if I have given anyone the opinion that a loss in this case is Zimmerman in jail, then allow me to clear up the miscommunication on my part.   A loss is this case going to TRIAL. (more…)

I pledge Allegiance to the flag of the islamic states of America….. 

Ah, the wonderful world of progressive ideological policy – Consider Afghanistan.  Only under the progressive President Obama could one find such new definitions of United States foreign policy.
Today President Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton highlighted the anti-American hatred shared by this administration.  In Afghanistan Secretary Clinton made the proclamation that Afghanistan is now considered a “major non-Nato ally” of the US.
Really?    Wow.   It was only a few short weeks ago when Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai called our American troops in his country “demons”, and proclaimed  U.S. troops will “never be forgiven.” (more…)

Yeah, he said that, Mitt Romney’s fault.   Previously it was George Bush’s fault.   Progs never take responsibility for “their” actions.
(Politico)  AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is out with a scathing statement attacking Mitt Romney and “his Republican allies in Congress” on the June jobs report.

“The cruel reality is Mitt Romney and his Republican allies in Congress are willing to sabotage the recovery in the hope of scoring political points against the President,” said Trumka, whose union endorsed President Obama earlier this year.
Trumka acknowledged the slow jobs growth reflected in Friday’s report, which showed unemployment unchanged at 8.2 percent. (more…)

Judge Lester is specifically and intentionally using his power to manipulate the Orlando court system, in a flawed ideological effort to avoid being on the wrong side of those political forces who can bring him down.  It appears George Zimmerman is being set up to fail with the current Bond Ruling.

The Judicial Order establishing bond has been structured and worded with the specific intent of “using” the legal system to produce a  “desired outcome” (key words “using” and “desired”).
IMHO  –  Representation from “outside” Seminole County is needed asap, and serious consideration should be given to keeping GZ in jail for the moment.   Safer ten-fold. (more…)

WASHINGTON – With the Supreme Court giving President Obama’s new health care law a green light, federal and state officials are turning to implementation of the law — a lengthy and massive undertaking still in its early stages, but already costing money and expanding the government.

The Health and Human Services Department “was given a billion dollars implementation money,” Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana said. “That money is gone already on additional bureaucrats and IT programs, computerization for the implementation.” (more…)

A Court source tells Salon the chief justice wrote the majority opinion and much of the dissent in the Obamacare case….
(Salon) This past weekend CBS News’ Jan Crawford reported that Chief Justice John Roberts switched his vote in regard to upholding the bulk of the Affordable Care Act. Crawford reports that Roberts voted with the rest of the court’s conservatives to strike down the individual mandate, but in the course of drafting his opinion changed his mind, and ended up siding with the court’s four liberals to uphold almost all of the law.

Roberts arrives in Malta

In response, according to Crawford’s story, the four conservatives then independently crafted a highly unusual joint dissent. If so, this would represent a powerful symbolic gesture: Joint Supreme Court opinions are rare. Normally a justice authors an individual opinion, which other justices may choose to join. Jointly authored opinions are reserved for momentous statements of principle, such as in Cooper v. Aaron, when all nine justices jointly authored an opinion declaring that the court’s anti-segregation decisions were binding on state governments that disagreed with the court’s constitutional interpretations. (more…)

The same Pakistani government that holds the Bin Laden informant in jail.  The same Pakistani government who support radical al-Qaeda operatives within their border.
PAKISTAN – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apologized Tuesday for a November attack by U.S. forces that left 24 Pakistani troops dead.

“I once again reiterated our deepest regrets for the tragic incident in Salala last November,” Clinton said in a statement about her call with Pakistani foreign minister Rabbani Khar. (more…)