States moving to restore work requirements for food stamp recipients

States moving to require able adults to work for welfare

 

States are moving to once again require able-bodied adults to put in work hours in exchange for food stamps, after the requirements largely were suspended by the Obama administration.
The slow-moving reversal follows the administration pulling back on Clinton-era changes that required recipients to work for government welfare benefits. Signing the reform bill in 1996 alongside then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, then-President Bill Clinton said the goal was to make welfare “a second chance, not a way of life.”
But during the last recession, President Obama allowed states to suspend a requirement that able-bodied adults without children work at least 20 hours per week or participate in a training program to receive benefits for more than three months.
He allowed recipients to stay on food stamps indefinitely, arguing the three-month maximum was unfair with unemployment at 10 percent.
"Food stamp recipients didn't cause the financial crisis, Wall Street did," said Obama at this past January’s State of the Union address.
Unemployment today is half of what it was in 2009, yet last year more than 40 states did not require welfare recipients to work.
Kansas was one of the first states to reverse that in 2013.
"I believe most Americans and most Kansans think it's common sense," said Andrew Wiens of the Kansas Department for Children & Families. "These are able-bodied adults without dependents. They don't have children in the home. They're not elderly, they're not disabled. These folks should be working."
Since Kansas reinstated work rules, food stamp rolls 
dropped by 20,000 and the incomes of those who left increased by 127 percent, Wiens said.
The state also imposed limits on how recipients could use their benefits after finding some enrollees used their welfare cash and food stamps cards on cruise ships.
"Those benefits should be used for necessities," Wiens said. "You can't use them at casinos, strip clubs, massage or tattoo parlors."
Maine followed the Kansas lead in 2014. In the first three months, the number of able-bodied adults without children on food stamps fell by almost 80 percent. It also cracked down on recipients using their welfare benefits out of state after finding hundreds of Maine residents used their EBT cash cards at or near Disney World.
"Maine found millions of dollars being spent in Florida," said Josh Archambault of the Foundation for Government Accountability. "That raised all sorts of red flags."
Another red flag -- a Maine state employee recognized the name of a large state lottery winner. It turned out the state did not require an asset test, allowing food stamp recipients to have vacation homes, multiple cars and lottery winnings and still qualify. After a 2015 state study found 4,000 welfare recipients won more than $22 million in the state lottery funds, Maine imposed a limit on assets.
"An individual could win a half million dollars," said Archambault. "In the month they receive the lump sum they may not qualify because it counts as income. The very next month and every month going forward, they can legally sign up for food stamps."
Since 2010, nearly 4,000 welfare recipients in Maine won $1,000 or more. Eleven of them won 10 or more times, and eight individuals won prizes in excess of $500,000.

Trump stands by campaign manager charged with battery over alleged reporter grab

Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to stand by his campaign manager who was charged with misdemeanor battery over allegations he grabbed the arm of then-Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields, as the aide maintained his innocence.
The Republican front-runner told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in an exclusive interview he saw “virtually nothing” in the surveillance tapes of the incident.
“I’m very glad that we were able to produce the tape because I don’t see anything.  I see virtually nothing,” he told Hannity. “And we’re going to destroy a man’s life over this?”
Lewandowski initially denied the incident had taken place, telling Fields over Twitter he had never even met her. Trump also backed Lewandowski, telling reporters a few days later that "everybody said nothing happened. Perhaps she made the story up, I think that’s what happened.”
However, the Jupiter Police Department obtained video from the ballroom that it says parallels Fields' version of events, and subsequently charged Lewandowski. Trump said a surveillance system he had set up in the ballroom captured the incident.

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“If I had not have produced the tape, it would have been much worse,” Trump told Hannity. “Because look at the statement she made, I had to write it down, ‘forcefully thrown reporters to the ground, campaign managers aren’t supposed to forcefully throw campaign managers to the ground’.  What ground?  I mean, if you look at her face, her expression doesn’t even change.”
Earlier on Tuesday, while on his campaign plane, Trump said that Fields was seen running up and grabbing him after a news conference which he claimed she was "never supposed to do," and that Lewandowski was trying to block Fields from "grabbing and asking questions."
“She grabbed me and she had something in her hand, I don’t know what it was,” Trump told Hannity. “It looked like it could have been a pen. But you know, from the standpoint of where we are, who knows what it is.  So she grabs me and then he maybe brushed her aside, and we’re going to destroy his life for that?  I don’t think so.”
He called the situation "very unfair" to Lewandowski, one of his closest advisers. He says he hopes the matter doesn't change Lewandowski's role on his campaign.
“I think this was very unjust, nobody called me, nobody interviewed me,” Trump said “I wasn’t interviewed by the police.”
The police report says Lewandowski "grabbed Fields left arm with his right hand, causing her to turn and step back."
The Trump campaign issued a statement Tuesday calling Lewandowski “absolutely innocent.”
“Mr. Lewandowski was issued a notice to appear and was given a court date. He was not arrested. Mr. Lewandowski is absolutely innocent of this charge,” spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement. “He will enter a plea of not guilty and looks forward to his day in court. He is completely confident that he will be exonerated.”
Lewandowski is due to appear in court on May 4th to face one count of simple battery.
Ted Cruz's campaign said the incident is indicative of the culture of the Trump campaign.
"Unfortunately, this abusive behavior seems to be part of the culture of the Trump campaign. Personal attacks, verbal attacks, and now physical attacks have no place in politics or anywhere else in our society," campaign spokeswoman Alice Stewart said in a statement.
Cruz said during a town hall Tuesday night that if Lewandowski was his campaign manage, he would ask him to resign.
"It shouldn't be complicated," he said. "The members of the campaign staff shouldn't be physically assaulting the press."
Meanwhile, John Kasich's campaign strategist John Weaver called Lewandowski a "bully" and said he would have already been fired if he worked for the Ohio governor.

 

Trump rescinds pledge to back Republican nominee; Cruz, Kasich refuse to commit support

Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would no longer honor his pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee for president, while fellow candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich refused to say whether they would back the party's pick.
All three GOP contenders appeared at a CNN town hall in Milwaukee one week before Wisconsin's April 5 primary.

When he was asked if he would keep the pledge he signed last September, Trump responded "No, I won’t." The real estate mogul explained that he was taking back the pledge because, "I have been treated very unfairly", and listed the Republican National Committee, the Republican Party and party establishment among those he believes have wronged him.
Cruz, who is running second to Trump in the delegate race, shrugged off the question of whether he would support Trump in November, saying "Donald is not going to be the GOP nominee. We're going to beat him." The Texas senator added that nominating Trump "would be an absolute train wreck" and "would hand the general election to Hillary Clinton."
Trump, who followed Cruz on the town hall stage, said he didn't need a promise of support from Cruz.
"He doesn’t have to support me," he said.

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Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has vowed to keep his campaign going until this summer's convention in Cleveland despite being a distant third in the delegate count, also didn't say whether he'd stand by the pledege.
"If the nominee is somebody I think is really hurting the country, and diving the country, I can't stand behind them," Kasich said.
Trump has 736 delegates and is the only candidate with a realistic path to clinching the nomination by the end of the primaries on June 7. However, a Cruz win in Wisconsin would narrow Trump's already tight path to the nomination and raise the prospect of a contested convention in Cleveland.
Trump told supporters at a rally that "if we win Wisconsin, it's pretty much over," noting his significant delegate lead over both Cruz and Kasich. Trump held the rally in Janesville, Wis., hometown of House Speaker Paul Ryan — who last week called for more civility in politics even as the Republican presidential race grew more personal and nasty.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a former GOP presidential contender, endorsed Cruz Tuesday, saying he believes the Texas senator is best positioned to win the GOP nomination and defeat Clinton.

Families of US military, government workers ordered home from southern Turkey

U.S. officials ordered families of U.S. service members and government workers to return home from southern Turkey on Tuesday due to what they called "continued security concerns in the region."
On Monday, Sky News reported Islamic State terrorists were planning an "imminent" attack on Jewish schools in Turkey, citing intelligence sources.
The Pentagon and State Department said dependents of American staffers at the U.S. consulate in Adana, the nearby Incirlik air base and two other locations must leave. The so-called "ordered departure" notice means the government will cover relocation costs. Officials said relatives of essential Chief of Mission personnel could stay.
U.S. jets operating out of Incirlik have been conducting strike missions against ISIS since late last year.
In addition, the State Department on Thursday warned all Americans to avoid traveling to the region, especially to areas near the Syrian border. "Stay away from large crowds, including at popular tourist destinations," the department added in a statement.
The move affects 670 family members or other "dependents," Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said. The move would take place "relatively quickly," he added.
"The decision to move our families and civilians was made in consultation with the Government of Turkey, our State Department, and our Secretary of Defense," Gen. Philip M. Breedlove of U.S. European Command said. "We understand this is disruptive to our military families, but we must keep them safe and ensure the combat effectiveness of our forces to support our strong Ally Turkey in the fight against terrorism."
Defense officials said they did not plan to keep families of U.S. personnel out of Turkey permanently. They also cited the need to preserve the military's "combat effectiveness" there.
The State Department and Pentagon had begun a voluntary drawdown of staff last September after Turkey announced it would take a greater role in the fight against ISIS. At the time, military officials said they had recommended the voluntary departure from Incirlik because of specific calls by militants for lone wolf attacks against the air base.
The new announcement comes one day after Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Washington. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to travel to Washington for a global nuclear security summit scheduled to get underway on Thursday.

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ICE operation nets more than 1,100 arrests in five weeks

Federal agents announced Monday they swept up nearly 1,000 suspected drug traffickers, human smugglers, sex traffickers and murderers during a widespread five-week operation aimed at landing a punishing blow against transnational criminal gangs.

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Law enforcement officials inspect an arrested individual’s tattoos for signs of gang affiliation. (ICE)

The operation, dubbed Project Shadowfire, drew on cooperation between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as well as other state, local and federal law enforcement officers.
The resulting 1,133 arrests included: 1,001 criminal arrests; 915 gang members and associates; 239 foreign nationals from 13 countries in Central America, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean; 132 immigration violations.
“This operation is the latest example of ICE’s ongoing efforts, begun more than a decade ago under Operation Community Shield, to target violent gang members and their associates, to eradicate the violence they inflict upon our communities and to stop the cash flow to transnational organized crime groups operating overseas,” ICE Director Sarah R. Saldana said in a statement.
Agents also seized 150 firearms, more than 20 kilos of narcotics and more than $70,000, according to an ICE news release.

States' rights advocates eye convention to bypass Congress, amend Constitution

ATLANTA –  What if a supermajority of states could override a federal law or Supreme Court ruling?
That’s just one idea being proposed by advocates of a “convention of states” to amend the U.S. Constitution.
"The American people are mad and they’re looking for a way to say, ‘No more,’” said Brooke Rollins, president and CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank. “Our founders, in their brilliance, gave us a tool to do that. And it’s Article V.”
Article V of the Constitution allows a minimum of two-thirds of the states to call for a convention to propose amendments, in turn going around Congress.
The push to do so has proceeded in fits and starts over the last several years, driven by a desire for states to debate a range of constitutional changes dealing with everything from campaign finance reform to balanced budgets. So far, six states have signed on — Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Florida, Indiana and Tennessee. Indiana was the latest to sign on, approving a resolution endorsing the effort earlier this month.
But organizers would need another 28 to bring their plan to fruition, and call the convention. If they reach that level of support, states would be entering uncharted territory.
“It has never happened before in the history of the United States,” said Robert Schapiro, dean of Emory University School of Law.
In an election cycle that has defied conventional wisdom, though, supporters of a convention of states believe right now may be the very best time to try something different.
“The mood of the public is tired of business as usual,” said Buzz Brockway, a Republican state representative who sponsored Georgia’s convention of states resolution.
Brockway told Fox News he believes such a convention could achieve consensus on such issues as campaign finance reform, term limits and balanced budgets. Even if states fall short of the two-thirds supermajority needed to call for a convention to propose amendments (and the three-quarters required to ratify them), Brockway said the effort itself could encourage change.
“In the ‘80s, President Reagan actually came out and said he was in favor of a balanced budget convention,” Brockway said. “That spurred Washington to act. And they didn’t actually pass a balanced budget amendment, but they came extremely close. So, I think at the worst case, this will spur Congress to action. The best case, we’ll have actual amendments that are proposed that states can consider.”
Schapiro has doubts about how far the effort will go.
“There have been efforts before to have states call for a constitutional convention. And with regard to certain issues, states have come fairly close,” he said. “But, given the divided times which we face, and given the broad brush of these amendments, I think it’s unlikely to garner the kind of support that would be necessary actually to reach that two-thirds benchmark.”

Days after visit, Fidel Castro slams Obama, recounts history of aggression

Just days after Barack Obama concluded his historic three-day visit to Cuba, former leader Fidel Castro published an op-ed piece attacking the U.S. president.
In a 1,500-word bristling column published in the Communist government’s official newspaper on Monday, Castro, 89, recounts the history of U.S. aggression against Cuba. Referring to Obama, he wrote: "My modest suggestion is that he reflects and doesn't try to develop theories about Cuban politics."
Obama did not meet with Fidel Castro but met several times with his brother Raul Castro, the current president.
Obama's visit was intended to build irreversible momentum behind his opening with Cuba and to convince the Cuban people and the Cuban government that a half-century of U.S. attempts to overthrow the Communist government had ended.
But in his column, titled "My Brother Obama," the older Castro all but mocks the U.S. president's efforts. He goes over crucial sections of Obama's speech line by line, engaging in an ex-post-facto dialogue with the American president with pointed critiques of perceived slights and insults, including Obama's failure to give credit to indigenous Cubans and Castro's prohibition of racial segregation after coming to power in 1959.
“Obama delivered a speech in which he used the most honeyed words to say: ‘It's high time to forget the past, let’s leave the past behind, look to the future, let's look at it together, a future of hope. And it will not be easy, there will be challenges, and to those we will give time; but my stay here gives me further hope of what we can do together as friends, as family, as neighbors, together,’” Castro wrote in Granma, the government’s newspaper.
“We were supposed to risk a heart attack upon hearing these words of the President of the United States. After a merciless blockade that has lasted almost 60 years? And those who have died in the mercenary attacks on Cuban ships and ports, an airliner full of passengers detonated in midair, mercenary invasions, multiple acts of violence and force?’ Castro wrote.
He added: “Nobody should be under the illusion that the people from this noble and selfless country will renounce to the glory and the rights, and to the spiritual wealth it has earned with the development of education, science and culture.”
He ends with a dig at the Obama administration's drive to increase business ties with Cuba. The Obama administration says re-establishing economic ties with the U.S. will be a boon for Cuba, whose centrally planned economy has struggled to escape from over-dependence on imports and a chronic shortage of hard currency.
“I warn you that we are capable of producing the food and material wealth we need with the effort and intelligence of our people. We do not need the empire to give us nothing. Our efforts will be legal and peaceful, because it is our commitment to peace and brotherhood of all human beings living on this planet.”

EgyptAir plane hijacked, flown to Cyprus after passenger claims to have bomb belt

BREAKING: A passenger claiming to be wearing a suicide bomb belt seized control of an EgyptAir flight from Alexandria to Cairo and ordered it flown to Cyprus Tuesday morning.
The Airbus A320 landed at the airport in Larnaka, on the southern coast of the Mediterranean island, at approximately 8:45 a.m. local time (1:45 a.m. ET).
Hours after the plane landed, all but four of the plane's passengers, as well as the cabin crew, had been allowed to leave the aircraft, according to EgyptAir. The airline described the four passengers still on the plane as foreigners, but did not give their nationality.
Egyptian state television identified the hijacker as Ibrahim Samaha, a professor of veterinary medicine at Alexandria University. It was not immediately clear what his motive may have been.
Egyptian government spokesman Hossam al-Queish told the private CBC TV network that Samaha initially wanted the plane flown to Istanbul, Turkey, but was told by the captain that he did not have enough fuel for the journey.

There were conflicting reports on the number of passengers and crew on the plane. An initial statement from Egypt's aviation authority said there were 81 passengers on board and five crew members on board. A revised statement reported by state media in Cyprus said that there were 55 passengers and seven crew members on board.
A Cypriot official told the Associated Press that 56 passengers had left the aircraft after the hijacker released them.
The director of the Alexandria airport, Hossni Hassan, told the Associated Press there were 26 foreigners on board, including eight Americans, four Britons, four Dutch, two Belgians, a French national, an Italian, two Greeks and one Syrian. He said three other foreigners could not be identified.

Sky News reported that the short-haul Flight 181 took off from Alexandria at 8 a.m. Cyprus time. The hijacker contacted the control tower in Lanarka 30 minutes later and was given permission to land.
Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for flight-tracking website FlightRadar24, told the Associated Press that the flight showed no signs of distress on its route to Cyprus.
"It looks like a completely controlled flight aside from the fact it was hijacked," Petchenik said.
Reuters, citing an Israeli military source, reported that Israel scrambled warplanes in its airspace as a precaution in response to the hijacking.
The hijacking will most likely bring to the fore again the question of security at Egyptian airports, five months after a Russian aircraft crashed over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula minutes after it took off from Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. All 224 people on board were killed in the crash. Russia later said an explosive device brought down the aircraft and the extremist Islamic State group (ISIS) said it downed the plane.

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