Proposed law would bar lottery jackpot winners from food stamps, SNAP

Lottery winners who continue to cash in on food stamps are being targeted by the U.S. Senate in a crackdown being applauded by Bay State welfare fraud fighters who say the reform is long overdue.

In Massachusetts, lottery winners are not reported to welfare officials.

“It’s a fantastic move,” said Beth Bresnahan, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts State Lottery. “We need to make sure benefits are going to people in need.”

The Lottery scrubs all winners who rake in $20,000 or more a year by sending their names to the state attorney general’s office, the state Department of Revenue and the Office of the State Auditor — but not the state Department of Transitional Assistance.

That could all change if the U.S. House of Representatives adopts the U.S. Senate version of the almost $100 billion farm bill.

“If you win the lottery, you shouldn’t get food stamps,” said state Rep. David Linsky, chairman of the House Post Audit and Oversight Committee. “Any steps the federal government takes to root out fraud in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is welcome.”

Linsky’s committee is probing abuse in the state welfare system, with hearings set for Monday with state Auditor Suzanne Bump and Tuesday with DTA Commissioner Stacey Monahan.

The hearings follow last month’s shocking audit by Bump’s office showing millions in welfare benefits going to more than 1,100 dead people. Linsky’s committee is also investigating the $100,000 in welfare benefits given to the family of marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

The farm bill, passed 66-27 by the U.S. Senate last week, also calls for blocking college students from collecting SNAP benefits if their families are not considered low income; targeting retailers who traffic in EBT cards and forbidding liquor stores and tobacco shops from accepting food stamps.  >>MORE<<

Oh great. Bring up food stamps and you’ll see people frothing at the mouth, insisting that welfare fraud is rampant and they’re all cheaters (“except for my cousin/sister-in-law/mother that one time they lost their job and really needed it…”). And now here’s probably the most heinous example of welfare fraud we’ve seen in a long time: A millionaire on food stamps. But I still say this story is the exception that proves the rule. Food stamps fraud is rare.

Fraudulent Food Stamp Nation

The accounts come from the left-leaning Salon, which published the friends’ food journey under the provocative headline: Hipsters on food stamps.

That was in March 2010, when 44.5 million people were part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Now, more than 47.7 million are receiving food stamps.

Recently, Ohio was targeted for participation in a new federal program to curb abuse in the food stamp program. Last year, according to The Courier (Findlay, Ohio), the state auditor “became aware of scams involving electronic benefit cards and people selling them, then seeking another one by claiming it was lost.” In 2011, 17,000 food stamp recipients in Ohio received 10 or more reissued cards. The fear, of course, is that those cards were not lost, but rather sold.

A November 2012 article from The Evening Times (Little Falls, New York) reveals just how quickly the cost of food stamp fraud accumulates. The local Welfare Fraud Task Force Team arrested nine individuals for amassing $107,512.04 in “unentitled benefits.” Two of the individuals, a husband and wife, “failed to report income on their applications” and “received $13,465 in food stamp benefits” during “the time period of March 2009 to April 2012.”

It is not just individuals gaming the system though. Three days after Barack Obama was reelected as president, The Enterprise (Brockton, Massachusetts) reported five local stores were accused of making illegal food stamp transactions.  >>MORE<<

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Muslims are taking over France and becoming an occupying force, despite ban on street prayer; will France throw Le Pen to the rabid dogs?

In France, far right seizes on Muslim street prayers

January 17, 2011

A call to prayer goes up from a loudspeaker perched on the hood of a car, and all at once hundreds of Muslim worshippers touch their foreheads to the ground, forming a sea of backs down the road. The scene is taking place not in downtown Cairo, but on a busy market street in northern Paris, a short walk from the Sacre Coeur basilica. To locals, it’s old news: some have been praying on the street, rain or shine, for decades.

But for Marine Le Pen — tipped to take over from her father this weekend as leader of the far-right National Front party — it is proof that Muslims are taking over France and becoming an occupying force, according to remarks she made last month.

Her comments caused a furore as she seized on the street prayers to drive home the idea that Islam is threatening the values of a secular country where anxiety over the role of Muslims in society has deepened in the past few years.

More than two thirds of French and German people now consider the integration of Muslims into their societies a failure, pollster IFOP said in a survey published on Jan. 5. In France, where Islam is the second-largest religion after Catholicism, 42 percent saw it as a threat to national identity.  >>MORE<

Paris Seeks Out New Prayer Spaces for Muslims

2011/07/09

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – A huge hangar, owned by the Ministry of Defence located near Porte des Poissonniers, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, could well become a new place of Muslim worship in Paris. 

 In an attempt to allieviate the problem of prayer in the streets, the City of Paris is seeking ways of finding more prayer space without violating a 1905 law against the government supporting religions. 

 Insufficient number of places in the mosques of Paris has led the police headquarters in Paris to search for suitable premises. They identified the site in the 18th arrondissement as able to satisfy the needs of Muslims who pray every Friday at the Myrha Street mosque and the Polonceau Street mosque, both which have an overflow problem. 

 Daniel Vaillant, the Socialist mayor of the 18th district, assured that the move is being made to “solve the problem of street prayers.”  >>MORE<<

France Bans Muslim Street Prayers

September 20, 2011

The French government has enacted a new law prohibiting Muslims from praying in the streets, but on the first day of the ban hundreds of Muslims defied the law by taking over streets and sidewalks in Paris and other French cities to pray.

The ban, which took effect on September 16, is the government’s response to growing public anger in France over the phenomenon of Muslim street prayers.

Every Friday, thousands of Muslims from Paris to Marseille and elsewhere close off streets and sidewalks (by doing so, they close down local businesses and trap non-Muslim residents in their homes and offices) to accommodate overflowing crowds for midday prayers. Some mosques have also begun broadcasting sermons and chants of “Allahu Akbar” via loudspeakers in the streets.

The weekly spectacles, which have been documented by dozens of videos posted on Youtube.com (here, here, here,here, here, here, here and here), have provoked a mixture of anger, frustration and disbelief. But despite public complaints, local authorities have until now declined to intervene, largely because they have been afraid of sparking riots.

The issue of illegal street prayers was catapulted to the top of the French national political agenda in December 2010, when Marine Le Pen, the charismatic new leader of the far-right National Front party, denounced them as an “occupation without tanks or soldiers.”

During a gathering in the east central French city of Lyon on December 10, Le Pen compared Muslims praying in the streets to Nazi occupation. She said: “For those who want to talk a lot about World War II, if it is about occupation, then we could also talk about it [Muslim prayers in the streets], because that is occupation of territory. It is an occupation of sections of the territory, of districts in which religious laws apply. It is an occupation. There are of course no tanks, there are no soldiers but it is nevertheless an occupation and it weighs heavily on local residents.”  >>MORE<<

Muslims caught praying on the streets of Paris face arrest in tough new law

29 September 2011

Muslims caught praying on the streets of Paris face police action after a new law was introduced.

The radical move, which has infuriated many, followed complaints about hundreds of men lying prostate on roads and alleyways of the French capital.

A lack of mosques is being blamed but the government said the practice had to stop.

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant said praying in the streets ‘hurt the sensitivities of many of our fellow citizens’.

Mr Guent, a right-winger who wants to uphold the secular nature of the French Republic, said the legislation would be extended to other major cities where ‘the problem persists’.

These include places like Lyon and Marseilles, where thousands of France’s five million-strong Muslim community live.  >>MORE<<

Marine Le Pen calls for ban on Muslim and Jewish headwear

23 SEPTEMBER 2012

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen called Friday for a ban on wearing Muslim veils and Jewish skullcaps in public, adding to religious tensions sparked by cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

In an interview with the Le Monde newspaper, Le Pen called for religious headwear to be banned “in stores, on public transport and on the streets”.

Asked if the ban should apply to the Jewish skullcap, known as the kippah or yarmulke, as well as Muslim headwear, she said: “It is obvious that if the veil is banned, the kippah is banned in public as well.”

Le Pen, who shocked the French elite by winning almost 18 percent in the first round of this year’s presidential vote, also repeated calls for bans on public prayers, kosher and halal foods in schools and foreign government financing of mosques in France.

President Francois Hollande denounced her comments, saying: “Everything that tears people apart, opposes them and divides them is inappropriate and we must apply the rules, the only rules that we know, the rules of the Republic and secularism.”  >>MORE<<

The EU may lift controversial Marie Le Pen’s parliamentary immunity for comparing illegal Muslim street prayers to ‘occupation.’

Mon, June 3, 2013

The comments sparked outrage in the French press at the time. In response, Le Pen said that she was not specifically referring to the Nazi occupation.The decision to lift Le Pen’s parliamentary immunity followed a request by French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, who has been trying to charge Le Pen with inciting religious hatred since the speech. As a member of the European Parliament, Le Pen had been protected from prosecution for the comments she made.Marine Le Pen became the leader of the National Front party in January 2011 after succeeding her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the party and was convicted a number of times for racism and anti-Semitism. Ironically, some of the founding members of the party had been Nazi collaborators.  >>MORE<<

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Self Hating White South African’s memories of Nelson Mandela

(CNN) — I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1964, the year Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Civil Rights Act was passed in the United States, and Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison.

Mine was a relatively idyllic childhood in the affluent and segregated northern suburbs of Johannesburg. Like many White South Africans, I lived in an ignorant cocoon of privilege, with no idea that having two live-in maids, a full-time gardener and a driver was unusual. It was perfectly normal for my African nannies, Rosina and Phina, to live with us rather than with their own children, and there was no need to learn their language or even their last names.

It was only as a teenager that I began to realize something was horribly wrong. Phina and I were walking along the road of our pristine “Whites only” neighborhood when we saw a police van stop. Two armed White police officers got out and began interrogating the Black passers by. They roughly shoved several of them into their van, screaming obscenities all the time.

I was terrified and asked Phina what was going on. She explained that the police were on a “pass” raid, and any Black person in a White suburb without an identity book stamped with official permission to live and work in Johannesburg was a criminal and liable to arrest.

From that day on I was no longer innocent to the evils of apartheid.

A teacher in my segregated public elementary believed in schooling her privileged White students in the injustices happening all around them. Suddenly Phina and Rosina became real people to me, and I learned for the first time about Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress.

Songs like “Free Nelson Mandela” became part of our consciousness, but Mandela himself was still a mythical figure: the blanket of South African government censorship, which made it a crime to publish the words of prohibited leaders and organizations, or to write about the South African Security Forces or prison conditions, kept us in relative ignorance.

The Soweto riots happened on June 16, 1976. Police shot into huge crowds of schoolchildren of all ages protesting a directive they could not be taught in their own language. Hundreds of people were killed; the cruelty and brutality of the government’s reaction was met with rioting that spread to other townships. It was the beginning of the end of colonial, racist South Africa. The shooting death of 13-year-old Hector Peterson galvanized the world. Yet we knew little about it, even though Soweto was less than 20 miles away.

In high school, history teacher Mr. Lowry, who had been arrested several times for anti-apartheid activism, insisted we wear Black armbands every June 16th. We complied. But it was only in February 1994, in my late 20s and standing for hours in a long line of Black and White South Africans to vote in the country’s first democratic election, that I came close to truly understanding the unforgivable nature of apartheid.

We whites had lived in a place that denied people their basic human rights. Why had it taken so long to change this inhumane system? How had we allowed it? I stood in that line experiencing a mixture of jubilation and guilt. Had I really lived for 29 years in a country that had denied the majority of its people the right to vote?  >>MORE<<

Izak Nieuwoudt • a year ago

the maker of this “documentary” is a ignorant, foreign- observer, documenting lies and opinions instead of truth and testimony. I live in South-Africa, and I’m shocked every day, by reports of large scale corruption in the government, and most of all the inhumane killing, in fact, geonoside of the white minority, which are being labled, by outsiders such as this, as bad people, and so doing, not only justify, but support the wipeout of an entire race. who by the way lovingly built the country they are being exterminated in from nothing.
Reminds you of nazi Germany, only this time, the killing is being supported, not condemned by the world!

The ‘minority’ described in this fairy tale, is no more in control of the country’s economic resources, than the maker of this film is in control of my pet fish!  >>source<<  read the comments at source

Short URL: http://www.newsnet14.com/?p=125867

Outgoing Governor of the Bank of Israel Prof. Stanley Fischer; doesn’t rule himself out as next US Fed chief

“But it’s an illusion to think that nations do everything only because of economic considerations. Every people has its dreams and its goals, and that’s true for us and for the Palestinians. The Palestinians want to be a people, they don’t just want to be in a better economic situation. We need to take that into account.” more
–Outgoing Governor of the Bank of Israel, Stanley Fischer, shares his views on a two-state solution.

Outgoing Governor of the Bank of Israel Prof. Stanley Fischer has refused to rule himself out of the running for the top job at the Federal Reserve, reports the “Financial Times” today. “Fischer, one of the most well-regarded figures in global central banking circles, evaded calls to deny he wished to succeed Ben Bernanke as Fed chair when his term ends in January next year.”

“Financial Times” adds, “Fischer, who steps down later this month, had previously said he was quitting the Bank of Israel two years before the end of his five-year term for mainly personal reasons. But when quizzed about the Fed job during a visit to London on Wednesday, he made no mention of personal matters, saying only that it was unwise to ‘accept a job offer that no one has made to you’. When pressed to deny his interest, he declined to do so, reiterating that he ‘did not want to get into whether or not he would accept an offer’ if nominated by President Barack Obama.

-An illustrated history of the Jewish Lobby- Who Rules the World- 

Prof. Stanley Fischer is a world-renowned economist and, since 2005, has served as Governor of the Bank of Israel. His previous roles include Chief Economist at the World Bank. Widely celebrated for his handling of Israel’s economy following the global financial crisis, in 2010 he was declared Central Bank Governor of the Year by Euromoney magazine, and the Bank of Israel was ranked first among central banks for its efficient functioning. In February 2013, Prof. Fischer announced that he would be stepping down early from the role of governor.

Prof. Fischer has held visiting positions at the Hebrew University and for two decades has been a member of its Board of Governors. In 2006 he received an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University. In his acceptance speech he said, “By European and American standards, this is a young university. Its founding ceremony took place in 1925, at this spot, in the presence of Lord Balfour, Viscount Allenby, High Commissioner Herbert Samuel, Haim Nachman Bialik, Nahum Sokolov, Harav Kook, Harav Meir, and 10,000 others. That extraordinary turnout testifies to the importance the inhabitants of the Yishuv and of the Zionist movement attached to the founding of what they called the University of the Jewish people. The University already possesses a proud history, an essential part of the history of modern Israel, of the history of the Jewish people and their successful but ongoing struggle to establish a modern state in the ancient land of our forefathers.”  >>more<<

“Fischer has been considered an outsider to replace Mr Bernanke, his former pupil when he was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, since he announced in January that he would step down as head of the Bank of Israel. It is believed that Mr Bernanke is unlikely to seek a further four years as Fed chair after his second term ends.”

Other candidates to succeed Bernanke include Federal Reserve Board vice chairwoman Janet Yellen and former Department of the Treasury secretaries Larry Summers and Tim Geithner. >>MORE<<

Short URL: http://www.newsnet14.com/?p=125848

Yeah Russia! New law on banning gay ‘propaganda’.

Individuals who violate the law can be fined up to £100, while the penalty for organisations can be up to £20,000. Foreigners found to be promoting gay equality in violation of the law will be arrested and immediately deported.

Gay activists were attacked and then arrested outside Russia’s parliament as lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a bill that will ban “gay propaganda” aimed at under-18s. The Duma passed the bill, which outlaws the “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations”, by 436 votes to zero, with one abstention.

The bill will now become law if it is approved by Russia’s upper house of parliament and then signed by President Vladimir Putin, who has already expressed his support for it. The bill is the most criticised element of a series of measures that activists say makes a difficult situation for gay people in Russia even worse. Individuals who violate the law can be fined up to £100, while the penalty for organisations can be up to £20,000. Foreigners found to be promoting gay equality in violation of the law will be arrested and immediately deported.

More than 20 of the protesters who gathered outside parliament were attacked by extremist Orthodox Christians and pelted with eggs, stinging nettles and urine as they attempted to stage a “kissing protest”.

The law is modelled on regional legislation that outlaws “homosexual propaganda” in a number of Russian regions. Faced with criticism that the terminology of the law was so vague that it could be interpreted in many different ways, the organisers clarified the language before sending it back to parliament for its second and third readings.

The document now states that “propaganda” of gay relationships includes, “spreading information aimed at forming non- traditional sexual behaviour among children, suggesting this behaviour is attractive and making a false statement about the socially equal nature of traditional and non-traditional relationships”.  >>MORE<<

(Reuters) - Germany has condemned a new Russian law banning homosexual “propaganda”, with Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle – himself gay – saying on Wednesday that attempts to stigmatize same-sex relationships had no place in a democracy.

The strong words from Berlin reflect growing unease with Moscow’s record on human rights and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s willingness to openly criticize it, despite Russia’s vital importance as an energy exporter.

Critics say the new bill, which bans the spreading of “propaganda for non-traditional sexual relations” to minors and sets fines, will in effect ban gay rights rallies and could be used to prosecute anyone actively supporting them.

“Foreign Minister Westerwelle is very worried about this law,” his ministry said in a statement.

“The deliberate stigmatization of same sex relations and the threat of prosecution has no place in a society which claims to be modern and democratic.”

Foreigners found to have broken the new law can be deported from Russia, in addition to being fined up to 100,000 roubles or held for up to 15 days.

Merkel’s spokesman said the law contradicted the spirit of Russia’s obligations under human rights conventions. >>MORE<<

Nigerian Same Sex Marriage Ban Violates LGBTI Rights. . . So I guess a round of “kumbaya” is clearly out of the question.

‘Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people around the world face discrimination, persecution and violence simply for expressing who they are and choose to love. ‘

“Intersex” is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male. For example, a person might be born appearing to be female on the outside, but having mostly male-typical anatomy on the inside. Or a person may be born with genitals that seem to be in-between the usual male and female types—for example, a girl may be born with a noticeably large clitoris, or lacking a vaginal opening, or a boy may be born with a notably small penis, or with a scrotum that is divided so that it has formed more like labia. Or a person may be born with mosaic genetics, so that some of her cells have XX chromosomes and some of them have XY.

A bill passed by the Nigerian House of Representatives on May 30, to ban same-sex marriage and prohibit organizations from advocating for same-sex rights, violates the rights of LGBTI people and should be vetoed by President Goodluck Jonathan. Freedom House urges the international community to condemn the bill and pressure the Nigerian government to abandon the measure and repeal the country’s existing sodomy law and other restrictive measures that undermine the human dignity of LGBTI persons.

The anti-same sex marriage bill includes punishments of up to 14 years imprisonment for violators and up to 10 years imprisonment for anyone who witnesses or supports a same-sex wedding. The draconian bill’s reach extends beyond same-sex marriage by outlawing all organizations supporting the rights of LGBTI persons and imposing jail sentences of up to 10 years for “direct or indirect” public displays of affection for same-sex couples.

The bill had already been passed by the Senate in November 2011. A June 3 statement by Nigerian human rights activists condemned the proposed law, stating that it “…will deprive Nigerians of their fundamental human rights as guaranteed in Chapter IV of the 1999 Constitution.” Moreover, it directly contravenes international human rights standards and norms,   <<<more

 I didn’t post this video in support of gay rights, it just shows a little clearer view of how they feel about gay rights in Nigeria.

What does “kumbaya” mean?

September 11, 1998

Dear Cecil:

This has probably been answered somewhere before, but I was getting my teeth drilled that day. Just what does kumbaya mean?

— F. Pierson, via the Internet

Cecil replies:

Oh Lord, kumbaya. Also spelled kum ba yah, cumbayah, kumbayah, and probably a few other ways. If you look in a good songbook you’ll find the word helpfully translated as “come by here,” with the note that the song is “from Angola, Africa.” The “come by here” part I’ll buy. But Angola? Someone’s doubtin’, Lord, for the obvious reason that kumbaya is way too close to English to have a strictly African origin. More likely, I told my assistant Jane, it comes from some African-English pidgin or creole — that is, a combination of languages. (A pidgin is a linguistic makeshift that enables two cultures to communicate for purposes of trade, etc.; a creole is a pidgin that has become a culture’s primary language.) Sure enough, when we look into the matter, we find this conjecture is on the money. Someone’s grinnin’, Lord, kumbaya.

Kumbaya apparently originated with the Gullah, an African-American people living on the Sea Islands and adjacent coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia. (The best known Sea Island is Hilton Head, the resort area.) Having lived in isolation for hundreds of years, the Gullah speak a dialect that most native speakers of English find unintelligible on first hearing but that turns out to be heavily accented English with other stuff mixed in. The dialect appears in Joel Chandler Harris’s “Uncle Remus” stories, to give you an idea what it sounds like. In the 1940s the pioneering linguist Lorenzo Turner showed that the Gullah language was actually a creole consisting of English plus a lot of words and constructions from the languages of west Africa, the Gullahs’ homeland. Although long scorned as an ignorant caricature of English, Gullah is actually a language of considerable charm, with expressions like (forgive my poor attempt at expressing these phonetically) deh clin, dawn (literally “day clean”); troot mout, truthful person (“truth mouth”), and tebble tappuh,preacher (“table tapper”).

And of course there’s kumbayah. According to ethnomusicologist Thomas Miller, the song we know began as a Gullah spiritual. Some recordings of it were made in the 1920s, but no doubt it goes back earlier. Published versions began appearing in the 1930s. It’s believed an American missionary couple taught the song to the locals in Angola, where its origins were forgotten. The song was then rediscovered in Angola and brought back here in time for the folksinging revival of the 50s and 60s.

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Jeb Bush: Immigrants are ‘more fertile’

Jeb Bush, a former governor of Florida, had a lot to say at Friday’s Faith and Freedom Coalition conference. But the thing that has everyone talking: his description of immigrants as “more fertile” than native-born Americans.

Bush, a recurring potential candidate for president, is fluent in Spanish, married a Mexican-born woman and has a strong contingent of Hispanic support in Florida. When he said at the annual meeting in Washington, D.C., that immigrants are “more fertile,” and so can replenish the country’s population with young people, he likely misspoke, although it’s true that immigrant women have a higher fertility rate than women born in the U.S.

The line overrode his other remarks—even one suggesting that the United States model itself after Canada on immigration.

Noting that immigrants create more businesses than do individuals born in the United States, he said, “Canada is the place that we might want to look to”—referring to a country often attacked by conservatives as an example of a socialist state. “They have more economic immigrants, and they have seen sustained economic growth because of it.” >>MORE<<