The Louisiana Heist - Food-stamp fraudsters should be punished to the full extent of the law.

On Saturday, Louisiana’s “EBT” system malfunctioned, causing spending limits on users’ food-stamp cards temporarily to be lifted. In two counties at least, recipients noticed the error, spread the word, and set about trying to check out as much as they could fit into shopping carts. At Walmarts in the towns of Springhill and Mansfield, employees called corporate headquarters to ask what they should do. They were instructed to “keep the registers ringing.” This they did — and with a vengeance.

By the time that proper limits on the cards had been restored a couple of hours later, the shelves had been all but stripped bare. “Just about everything is gone, I’ve never seen it in that condition,” Anthony Fuller, a customer in Mansfield, told the press. Will Lyn, the chief of police in nearby Springhill, agreed, telling the Daily Mail that “it was definitely worse than Black Friday. It was worse than anything we had ever seen in this town. There was no food left on any of the shelves, and no meat left. The grocery part of Walmart was totally decimated.” One man even managed to spend $700.

“I saw people drag out eight to ten grocery carts,” Lynd reported. Those who did not manage to take advantage in time simply abandoned their hauls in the middle of the aisles.

“Contrary to rumors,” CBS proclaimed, “nobody was unruly or arrested and [the police] were mainly there to help prevent shoplifting and theft.” Given the circumstances, “preventing theft” is a rather peculiar way of describing the behavior of officers who stood and watched the incident. Whether or not local authorities had legal cause to arrest the shoppers on the spot, there really should be no doubt that widespread theft took place — or, perhaps, that widespread fraud took place. Neither that the beneficiaries evidently believe that they could get away with it, nor that the victim was the unsympathetically anonymous mass of Louisianan and federal taxpayers alters the plain fact. This was a crime.

Via: NRO

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Sen. Ayotte: Solve Problems Like President Reagan

Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire evoked President Ronald Reagan in arguing against the House Republican strategy to defund Obamacare by forcing a government shutdown.

"Look where we are," Ayotte said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "The government's shut down, Obamacare exchanges are still open."

"I think it's time for conservative problem-solvers to get things done," said. "That's what Ronald Reagan did."

However, Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, said the government will not go into default on Oct. 17, and the White House is trying to scare markets with its rhetoric about raising the debt ceiling by that date.

"There are no payments due on Oct. 17 to pay our creditors," Huelskamp said on the CBS show.

Pressed by host Bob Schieffer that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has said the opposite, Huelskamp noted that Lew "said a lot of things a week ago," and that the "White House is trying to scare the markets. "

Via: Newsmax

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New York school reportedly bans balls, tag during recess

Tossing a ball or playing a game of tag has long been a rite of passage at schoolyards across the country, but one New York school has reportedly banned those activities and more.

Officials at Weber Middle School in Port Washington, Long Island, have instituted a ban on footballs, baseballs, games of rough tag or even cartwheels unless supervised by an adult or a coach, CBS New York reports.

Port Washington Schools Superintendent Kathleen Maloney said the change was warranted due to a rash of playground injuries.

“Some of these injuries can unintentionally become very serious, so we want to make sure our children have fun, but are also protected,” Maloney told the station.

Students, perhaps unsurprisingly, were not thrilled by the news.

“That’s all we want to do,” one student said. “We’re in school all day sitting behind the desk learning.”

Another student characterized the ban as “ridiculous” while another said recess should be treated as free time.

Parents, meanwhile, said they believed the change in policy is more about avoiding lawsuits.

“Children’s safety is paramount, but at the same time, you have to let them live life,” said parent Ellen Cohen.

Via: Fox News

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Sen. Cornyn: Obama Is Not 'King'

Sen. John Cornyn criticized President Barack Obama on Sunday for failing to do his job and negotiate with Congress to reopen the government in a sharp reminder that a monarch does not rule the U.S.

"The president has got to lead, and he's got to do his job," Cornyn told CBS's "Face the Nation."

"We rejected the concept of a king when our country was founded, and created three co-equal branches of government," Cornyn said.

"Now he says he won't negotiate on the debt, but what he needs to do is roll up his sleeves and get to the table," Cornyn said.

CBS host Bob Schieffer also interviewed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, and said the two sides did not appear to be negotiating, but talking past each other.

House Speaker John Boehner insists there are not enough votes to reopen the government without concessions from Senate Democrats and the White House on changes to Obamacare, while Lew insists the votes are there.

"Why doesn't he put it on the floor and give it a chance?" Lew said.

Via: Newsmax

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[VIDEO] McConnell and Rand Paul on Hot Mic: Hey, Democrats Are Hurting Themselves By Refusing to Negotiate

Let's begin with some fresh and relevant polling data. CBS News' brand new national survey has four major take-aways: (1) Obamacare remains unpopular.(2) Government shutdown is even more unpopular, with 72 percent of the country opposed. (3) Americans narrowly blame Republicans more than President Obama (44R/35O/17both), though the split is far less lopsided than it was in 1995 (2-to-1 blaming the GOP). (4) The public overwhelmingly supports a compromise solution to resolve the impasse:

 Most Americans want compromise. Majorities think the President and the Democrats in Congress (76 percent) and the Republicans in Congress (78 percent) should compromise in order to come to an agreement on the budget. But there are some party stalwarts who don't think compromise is the way to go. Thirty-eight percent of Republicans say members of their party in Congress should stick to their positions even if it means not coming to an agreement, while 36 percent of Democrats say that about their party.

So, on average, a massive 77 percent of Americans want to see both sides to come to the table and negotiate a settlement. Which brings us to the 'hot mic' moment between the two Senators from Kentucky. Watch as Rand Paul explains that his go-to talking point on television has been to repeatedly state the fact that Democrats and the president have stubbornly refused to negotiate at all. "I think it's awful for them to say that," Paul says. McConnell agrees, adding that based on his meeting at the White House last night, Democrats have been as obstinate behind closed doors as they've been in front of the cameras.

Via: Townhall

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CBS Affiliate Airs Car Chase That Ends in Deadly Horrific Crash

When news is slow, TV outlets love an intense car chase. As we’ve documented here many times, that ratings prize also comes with high risk:Sometimes the chases end in horrific fashion, occasionally with lives lost on-air.

While following a high-speed chase this week, CBS Miami broadcast a horrific crash that claimed the life of an innocent driver caught up in the ordeal.

While the footage of those final, horrific moments of the chase resulted in a life lost, the CBS affiliate repeatedly aired the footage throughout their noon broadcast (with the requisite warning to viewers). While it’s a fact that the broadsided driver was killed, the footage is not gory or zoomed-in enough to show any gruesome details, thus perhaps coloring CBS Miami’s decision to run with the footage over and over again.

Take a below at how WFOR covered it below (WARNING: As mentioned, the video may be disturbing to some. Discretion is advised.):

Via: Mediaite.com

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[VIDEO] CBS Hypes Lefty Feminists Denouncing Pay Gap and 'Pale Males' Who Run Media

CBS and ABC on Wednesday trotted out the same tired warning of a "pay gap" between men and women, deeming it "ridiculous" that anyone could possibly disagree with the talking points put forth by feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda. CBS This Morning featured the two liberal women, as well as another feminist for a one-sided harangue about females in the workplace. Norah O'Donnell hyped, "Last year women earned 76.5 cents to every dollar a man makes. Why does that still exist?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

None of the hosts questioned the legitimacy of the pay gap. Instead, they allowed Steinem to play the victim card, complaining that the reason is "because we are the cheap labor source on which the country is running." Fellow guest Robin Morgan (an arch-leftist author) railed against the "pale males" who run the media.

CBS has been touting this story for years. On April 24, 2007, the network featured Catherine Hill of the American Association of University Women. She lectured, "It suggests that discrimination may still be a very important problem for women in the workplace."

No one on CBS mentioned that Morgan is an extreme liberal who has trashed religion and wrote a sympathetic take on on the "core connection between patriarchal societies and the inevitability of terrorism," The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism.

Via: Newsbusters

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Gasp! When TV News Investigates the Scourge of Unregulated Dinner Parties

A recent CBS New York investigative report, flagged by Reason for its silliness, is replete with the most lamentable tropes of local news.

Wednesday evening’s exclusive undercover reportexposes the latest scourge plaguing these good streets of New York. You might want to sit down for this, but there are adults consenting to pay for a meal prepared knowingly without the oversight of government health inspectors. Quelle horreur!

If you’re familiar with how local media operates, you’re likely aware how reporters employ shocked tones to grab eyeballs. “Tonight, kids are twerking now. And here’s how it might affect your family,” is an Onion-like tease you’d typically expect to hear on the 10 o’clock news.

You can hear that same faux-alarmism in this CBS reporter’s description of eight people sharing a mealin a stranger’s home, completely unregulated and sometimes hosted by people who are not chefs.

Here’s the story: a bunch of foodies and tourists want an out-of-the-box dining experience. Some experienced chefs offer that via “exclusive” dinner parties that feature “progressive” cooking techniques like the use of vacuum cookers. Seems harmless, right? Consenting adults can do what they want with their bodies, etc., right?

Wrong. Because — cue local news trope — some say these parties can be dangerous.

And who represents the “some” demographic? A restaurant consultant who represents retired health inspectors. Naturally, he says, there ought to be a law governing these dinner parties.

So because the attendees happen to pay their hosts, these dinner parties are illegal, underground, and warranting a primetime exposé — with undercover cameras! — that effectively alerts the government to this “growing trend.”

Next week: A groundbreaking CBS report on the scourge of consenting adults engaging in consensual sex… for money. Oh, wait.

Via: Mediaite.com

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[Update: September 11] Censored! IRS Scandal Being Buried by Big Three Networks

The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks have colluded with the Obama administration to censor the latest IRS scandal news. The latest: On September 11 the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, in an article headlined “Lois Lerner’s Own Words,” reported the following: “In a February 2011 email, Ms. Lerner advised her staff—including then Exempt Organizations Technical Manager Michael Seto and then Rulings and Agreements director Holly Paz—that a Tea Party matter is ‘very dangerous,’ and is something ‘Counsel and [Lerner adviser] Judy Kindell need to be in on.’ Ms. Lerner adds, ‘Cincy should probably NOT have these cases.’

That’s a different tune than the IRS sang in May when former IRS Commissioner Steven Miller said the agency’s overzealous enforcement was the work of two ‘rogue’ employees in Cincinnati. When the story broke, Ms. Lerner suggested that her office had been unaware of the pattern of targeting until she read about it in the newspaper. ‘So it was pretty much we started seeing information in the press that raised questions for us, and we went back and took a look,’ she said in May.”

The WSJ Review & Outlook piece went on to note: “Earlier this summer, IRS lawyer Carter Hull, who oversaw the review of many Tea Party cases and questionnaires, testified that his oversight began in April 2010. Tea party cases under review are ‘being supervised by Chip Hull at each step,’ Ms. Paz wrote to Ms. Lerner in a February 2011 email. ‘He reviews info from TPs, correspondence to TPs etc. No decisions are going out of Cincy until we go all the way through the process with the c3 and c4 cases here.’ TP stands for Tea Party, and she means 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups.” So far ABC, CBS and NBC have yet to report this story.
 

Last Time Any Aspect of the IRS Scandals Was Mentioned on Big Three Morning and Evening Shows:

ABC - June 26 (78 days)

CBS - July 24 (49 days)

NBC - June 27 (77 days)

Via: Newsbusters

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[Update: September 10] Censored! IRS Scandal Being Buried by Big Three Networks

The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks have colluded with the Obama administration to censor the latest IRS scandal news. The latest: On the September 4 edition of Erin Burnett OutFront, CNN’s Drew Griffin reported the following: “CNN has learned the IRS had been preparing for that bomb to drop for more than a year. E-mails obtained by CNN show IRS lawyers, the commissioner and Lois Lerner herself were meeting to discuss how to respond when Congress found out with increasing sense of panic way back on March 2nd of 2012. Lerner writes, ‘we are going to get creamed.’”

Griffin also interviewed a former colleague of Lerner’s who said she had a built-in bias:

GRIFFIN: One year later, the IRS inspector general report found ineffective management led to the IRS using inappropriate criteria to target conservatives, but was it political or just a series of blunders? Those who know and work with Lerner are divided. Craig Engle says he began to see a bias from Lois Lerner when they worked together at the Federal Election Commission.

CRAIG ENGLE, ATTORNEY: What I saw was a bias against money in politics of the IRS.

GRIFFIN: Engle, a Republican Washington attorney says although he thinks Lerner is an honest woman, her bias had a partisan result.

ENGLE: Lois' opinion and that of her staff was that if you had a lot of money and you were spending it in politics, you needed to be looked into.

Number of days with NO network story: 6

Last Time Any Aspect of the IRS Scandals Was Mentioned on Big Three Morning and Evening Shows:

ABC - June 26 (76 days)

CBS - July 24 (47 days)

NBC - June 27 (75 days)

The following is a list of key developments in the IRS scandal and how many days it has been since they were discussed, if at all, by the Big Three on their morning and evening news shows.

Via: Newsbusters

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CBS and Time Warner win; viewers lose in cable dispute

So here's the final score: Time Warner Cable got some but not all of what it wanted. CBS got pretty much everything that it wanted.

And after a month of being denied access to CBS, Showtime and other popular channels, Time Warner subscribers got the certainty of even costlier monthly bills and the assurance that money-grubbing squabbles among multibillion-dollar media giants will continue.

Excuse me if I'm not exactly thrilled about this week's conclusion to the latest in a series of go-ahead-make-my-day confrontations between greedy corporations.

Moreover, why aren't our elected officials hopping mad about these ongoing industry food fights and racing to pass legislation aimed at finally giving consumers a break from the endless cycle of rising pay-TV bills?

"We need regulators who are willing to stop powerful special interests, whether broadcasters or cable firms, that use consumers as pawns in their spats," said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

"In the long run, we need better rules, including a la carte pricing, to help change the video marketplace," he said.

I've been pushing for years for a la carte pricing — paying only for the channels you want. More on that in a moment.

First, let's sample the bury-the-hatchet statements released by Time Warner Cable and CBS after they made the peace.

Glenn Britt, Time Warner's chief exec, said the company's hard-nosed bargaining stance was guided by wanting "to hold down costs and retain our ability to deliver a great video experience for our customers."

"While we certainly didn't get everything we wanted, ultimately we ended up in a much better place than when we started," he said.

Via: LA Times

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Study: American Households Hit 43-Year Low In Net Worth

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – The median net worth of American households has dropped to a 43-year low as the lower and middle classes appear poorer and less stable than they have been since 1969.

According to a recent study by New York University economics professor Edward N. Wolff, median net worth is at the decades-low figure of $57,000 (in 2010 dollars). And as the numbers in his study reflect, the situation only appears worse when all the statistics are taken as a whole.

According to Wolff, between 1983 and 2010, the percentage of households with less than $10,000 in assets (using constant 1995 dollars) rose from 29.7 percent to 37.1 percent. The “less than $10,000″ figure includes the numerous households that have no assets at all, or “negative assets,” which is otherwise known as “debt.”

Over that same period of time, the wealthiest 1 percent of American households increased their average wealth by 71 percent.

As noted by Daily Finance, from 1983 to 2010 the share of total wealth held by the richest 10 percent of American households increased from 68.2 percent to 76.7 percent. Meanwhile, all the rest of Americans lost financial ground.

An August Pew Research Center study found that many in the middle-class are divided on how they believe his gap widened.

SUNDAY SHOWS: Republicans Tee Off on Libya

On Sunday's political talk shows, several Republicans criticized the Obama administration's response to the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. Here's Senator John McCain of Arizona on CBS's Face the Nation:

You know, this administration is very good at touting and giving all the details like when they got Bin Laden. But now, we know that there were tapes, recordings inside the consulate during this fight, and they've gotten—they came—the F.B.I. finally got in and took those, and now they're classified as "top secret." Why would they be top secret? So the president went on various shows, despite what he said he said in the Rose Garden, about terrorist acts, he went on several programs, including "The View" including "Letterman" including before the U.N., where he continued to refer, days later, many days later, to this as a spontaneous demonstration because of a hateful video. We know that is patently false. What did the president know? When did he know it? And what did he do about it?

McCain said for "literally days and days" the White House "told the American people something that had no basis in fact whatsoever."

Newt Gingrich, on ABC's This Week:

But the bigger issue is, whether it’s unemployment or it is what happened in Benghazi, where we’ve had this strange situation over the weekend that the Secretary of Defense apparently refused to obey the President’s order, if the president is telling the truth and he actually instructed his assistants to get aid to Benghazi, we're now being told that the Secretary of Defense canceled that. And I think these kinds of things all drag down the Obama campaign.

Ohio senator Rob Portman talked on Fox News Sunday about a "shocking breakdown" with regard to the Obama administration's response:

This is not about politics.  This is about a huge national security issue that affects all of us and there was a shocking breakdown, operationally, not to have the security there in the first place.   And then not to respond to these guys, in their pleas for help for 7 hours, during a firefight.  It’s unbelievable and now, we are hearing that the president of the United States, based on his own words, issued a directive immediately after he found out about the firefight, saying that he wanted to be sure those people on the ground were safe and they were getting what they needed.  It didn't happen.  This means either that the president's order was not followed, which would be a breakdown in terms of the White House procedure, or, it means the order wasn’t issued.  We need to find out about this, it is not about politics, it is a very serious situation.  After the fact, of course, there’s also been a lot of confusion about what happened and why it happened.

Via: Weekly Standard

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Fox News Has Highest Telecast Ever with Final Presidential Debate

NBC was the most-watched network for the final presidential debate last night with 12.391 million viewers tuning in. ABC was next with 11.730 million, according to Nielsen Fast National numbers. But the 11.474 million that watched on Fox News were enough to give the network its most-watched telecast ever. Fox News’s previous record was set in 2008 when VP nominees Gov. Sara Palin and Sen. Joe Biden debated. On that night 11.098 million watched. Fox News also topped CBS and beat the combined viewership of MSNBC and CNN.

On the three cable and three broadcast networks the debate was watched by 53.9 million people. The total will likely be down from the two previous debates when all networks are added up. The candidates faced stiff competition from Monday Night Football on ESPN (10.66 million viewers) and Game 7 of the NLCS on FOX (8.1 million viewers).

• Broadcast Fast Nationals 9-10:34pm:

NBC: 12,391,341 in total viewers / 5,839,648 in 25-54
ABC: 11,730,247 in total viewers / 4,361,952 in 25-54
CBS: 8,437,098 in total viewers / 3,564,135 in 25-54

• Broadcast post-Debate analysis 10:34-11pm

NBC: 9.327 million total viewers / 3.6 rating in 25-54
ABC: 8.052 million total viewers /2.6 rating in 25-54
CBS: 6.167 million total viewers / 2.3 rating in 25-54

• Cable coverage 9:00-10:30pm:

FNC: 11,474,835 in total viewers  /3,433,142 in 25-54
CNN: 5,808,405 in total viewers  /2,475,772 in 25-54
MSNBC: 4,063,673 in total viewers / 1,701,793 in 25-54

• Cable primetime 8:00-11:00pm

FNC: 9,068,124 in total viewers / 2,586,259 in 25-54
CNN: 4,374,775 in total viewers / 1,833,421 in 25-54
MSNBC: 3,295,125 in total viewers / 1,345,369 in 25-54

• First 2012 Debate: 67.2 million
• 2012 VP Debate: 51.4 million
• Second 2012 Debate: 65.6 million
• Third 2012 Debate: 59.2 million

Via: TVNewser

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CA: FLIERS OFFERING VOTERS FREE MARIJUANA LEADS TO HIGH TURNOUT

Fliers offering voters $40 worth of marijuana led to increased turnout in an October 13 Neighborhood Council election in Eagle Rock, California. 

Voters in Eagle Rock reported they saw fliers with names of candidates running on the "Progess and Collaboration" slate that offered them free marijuana if they voted in the Neighborhood Council elections. 

According to CBS Los Angeles, "nearly 10 times as many voters – 792 residents – turned out to the polls during the recent Neighborhood Council elections than last year" and residents were able to collect enough signatures to put the issue of whether pot dispensaries should be banned in the city on the ballot. 

“You can’t pay your way like that, that’s not cool,” resident Danielle Sargent told CBS Los Angeles.

Yet, the fliers did not lead to victory for the Progress and Collaboration slate -- only two of the eight "Progress" candidates won.  Residents accused a local marijuana dispensary of distributing the fliers. 

Via: Breitbart

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