The program known as “Women, Infants and Children” (WIC) is officially the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.  Their web site can be found here.  The site describes the program this way:

“The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides Federal grants to States for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age five who are found to be at nutritional risk.”

The program serves approximately nine million people.  As the sequester kicked in a few months ago, this is one of the programs whose funding will be impacted.  It’s solvent through the end of the fiscal year (30 September 2013) but its future after that is not so certain.  There are few examples more clear of how we expect the people who can least afford it to pay for our government’s irresponsibility.

The Center on Budget a Policy Priorities has released this report on the impact the cuts will have on this program.  The cuts to the program’s budget come at a time when increases are needed to maintain it for the 8.9 million people who depend on it.  While it appears, the United States’ economy is recovering, for too many people recovery is a long way off.  WIC is an incredibly successful and effective program.  To do anything but increase its funding will make it turn people who need the services away.

All of this because Congress can’t do its job.  The sequester was supposed to be so bad that no one would let it actually be enacted but it was.  Congress even passed “no budget, no pay” requiring both sides of Capitol Hill pass budget resolutions by 15 April or forfeit their salaries.  Sounds good, right?  Not so fast.  Both chambers passed budgets — a big deal in some ways, the Senate has not passed one since 2009 but at the end of the day, it means almost nothing.  While both chamber met the bar set to keep members getting their salaries, the next step — appoint conferees to work out the differences between the two budget– has not happened.

It’s time for Congress to stop wasting time passing bills to repeal Obamacare and do something to help people who need it.

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Graphical representation of the number of people killed by guns since the Sandy Hook shooting.

At least 4,156 people have been killed in the United States since the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in December.  Slate and @gunviolence are tracking the numbers of deaths by guns since December 14, 2012 and have created an interactive site where you can filter their gun data by age, gender, city and date.  The image to the right is a screen shot from that page.  The real one is clickable.  Check it out here.

While the country changed that day for a number of people, much of Congress remains mired in the past.  With Republican senators like Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) clinging to the excuse that she just doesn’t want a registry of gun owners and a House of Representatives unwilling to do anything that might make President Obama look good, it’s hard to see real reforms becoming a reality.

I hope I am wrong about that.

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Gawker wants you to pay for a video of Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto, smoking crack cocaine. Writes John Cook:

As you may have heard, Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto, smokes crack cocaine. We’ve seen a video of him smoking crack cocaine, and the people who have the video would like to sell it. Through the miracle of crowdfunding, you can help. Please consider donating to the Rob Ford Crackstarter.

How Much Do We Need? $200,000. That’s what the owners of the video want. That sounds like a lot of money. The good people at Indiegogo believe that, with the appropriate amount of virality, that goal is achievable.

The crowdfunding site Indigogo has the power to help many a worthwhile project, and it’s highly debatable whether this is one of them. Gawker, which is worth in excess of $300 million, is basically asking the public to pay for something it will profit from. They’re obviously calculating that the virality of the video won’t make them $200,000 in ad revenue, so they’re asking their readers to foot the bill. I’m all up for reader funded journalism, but it has to be actual journalism not just slapping a video up of something controversial. If Gawker wanted $200,000 to do a series of in depth pieces on crack use in Toronto, then sure. But this is just a cheap move to get people to pay for stuff they should be buying themselves.

How about this? Let the project stand, but Gawker must use all ad proceeds from the video to doing some serious journalism on the subject (that it can also profit from).

I think Gawker is an excellent site, and while I’m giving it a hard time for this particular story, it does do some very good original reporting (Hamilton Nolan in particular has done some great work on poverty and wealth inequality).

So take up the challenge and put that money to good use. I’ll donate myself, and gladly watch the video of Rob Ford getting high as a kite.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger: Muscle size directly related to his political leanings

An interesting study from Denmark has shown that upper body strength in men is a pretty good indicator of their political leanings. Stronger men are apparently more likely to be right wing, while weaker men tend to lean left. From the Daily Mail:

Men who are strong are more likely to take a right-wing stance, while weaker men support the welfare state, researchers claim.

Their study discovered a link between a man’s upper-body strength and their political views.

Scientists from Aarhus University in Denmark collected data on bicep size, socio-economic status and support for economic redistribution from hundreds in America, Argentina and Denmark.

The figures revealed that men with higher upper-body strength were less likely to support left-wing policies on the redistribution of wealth. 

Men with less upper body strength are more likely to support the welfare state – like Labour leader Ed Miliband

But men with low upper-body strength were more likely to put their own self-interest aside and support a welfare state.

The researchers found no link between upper-body strength and redistribution opinions among women.

Professor Michael Petersen said: ‘In all three countries, physically strong males consistently pursued the self-interested position on redistribution.

‘However physically weak males were more reluctant to assert their self-interest – just as if disputes over national policies were a matter of direct physical confrontation between individuals.’

It’s a good reminder that political beliefs are as much a product of human evolution as anything else, and not some abstract concept based on anything that transcends nature. It makes sense that those most able to provide for themselves in early human societies would believe that individuality trumps all, and those least able would believe in a more mutualistic approach. Both are selfish in the long run they are about long term survival – it just boils down to whether you think you can make it better alone or in a group.

Given strength doesn’t effect women’s political leanings, perhaps it’s a good idea to let them make the decisions. After all, an ability to do pull ups isn’t exactly the best predictor of good decision making.

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One of the best ways to understand the effects of global warming is to see it visually. Thankfully Google Earth can do this for us. Via UpWorthy:

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From Breitbart.com today:

Comedian Jay Pharoah won’t go down as one of Saturday Night Live’s best presidential mimics. How could he?

The talented comic never lays a satirical glove on the president thanks to a writing team which refuses to take tough but fair shots at the president or his policies.

Emphasis mine.

This is one of the right’s top websites. They are also idiots. Do the math.

From Breitbart.com before today:

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Forbes reports on the app every activist everyone is talking about – ‘Buycott’ – a simple, free smartphone application that allows people to scan barcodes of items they buy and see which company profits from your dollar:

The app itself is the work of one Los Angeles-based 26-year-old freelance programmer, Ivan Pardo, who has devoted the last 16 months to Buycott. “It’s been completely bootstrapped up to this point,” he said. Martinez and another friend have pitched in to promote the app.

Pardo’s handiwork is available for download on iPhone or Android, making its debut in iTunes and GoogleGOOG +1.09% Play in early May. You can scan the barcode on any product and the free app will trace its ownership all the way to its top corporate parent company, including conglomerates like Koch Industries.

Once you’ve scanned an item, Buycott will show you its corporate family tree on your phone screen. Scan a box of Splenda sweetener, for instance, and you’ll see its parent, McNeil Nutritionals, is a subsidiary of Johnson & JohnsonJNJ +1.3%.

Even more impressively, you can join user-created campaigns to boycott business practices that violate your principles rather than single companies. One of these campaigns, Demand GMO Labeling, will scan your box of cereal and tell you if it was made by one of the 36 corporations that donated more than $150,000 to oppose the mandatory labeling of genetically modified food.

It’s not like the Obama administration is doing much to tackle wealth inequality and corporate abuse of power, so anything that allows individuals to take matters into their own hands is a big step forward. Consumer knowledge is incredibly important if anything is to change at the top, and given companies spend billions of dollars a year in advertising to cover up the truth about their business practices, easily accessible knowledge could be key to leveling the playing field.

Get it now.

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Don’t f**k with Star Wars fans. (Peter Albrektsen / Shutterstock.com)

When you think of famous gang rivalries, you think Bloods vs Crips, Outlaws vs Hells Angels and Mods vs Rockers. But Star Wars fans vs Doctor Who fans? Not so much. However, tension between the two SciFi factions have been brewing in quaint town of Norwich, England, leading to a confrontation at the Sci-Fi and Film Convention at the University of East Anglia. From the BBC:

Police were called to a science fiction convention after an argument between two rival groups of fans.

Trouble flared at the fourth Norwich Sci-Fi and Film Convention at the University of East Anglia, organised by Norwich Star Wars Club.

Police were called after members of the rival Norwich Sci-Fi club arrived to get autographs from two Doctor Who actors at the event on Sunday.

Norfolk Police confirmed officers attended and spoke to both parties.

A spokesman said they had been called to reports of a man being assaulted at the convention.

“After a lengthy investigation, talking to witnesses and reviewing good CCTV footage, it was confirmed that there was no assault,” the spokesman said.

“The two rival groups were spoken to and advised to keep out of each other’s way.”

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I was on ‘The Big Picture’ with Thom Hartmann last night, getting into it with Tea Party activist Kris Ullman and Libertarian Patrick Hedger of ‘Freedomworks’. We discussed the Benghazi conspiracy theories, Nancy Pelosi, the Republican’s disastrous immigrant outreach strategy, and the causes of the global economic crisis.

It’s incredibly frustrating arguing with people living in a completely different reality, and while I usually try to be respectful, this time I got pretty angry.

Ullman and Hedger wanted to make up their own facts, and Thom and I called them out on it over and over again.

Let’s just say it got a little heated in there…

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The First Amendment is one of the greatest things about the U.S. Constitution. But in these days of press fainting with a bout of the vapors, it is also worth noting that the First Amendment applies to all of us, not just the folks with the PRESS label sticking out of their fedoras.

If you are involved in the commission of a crime, you don’t get to magically yell “press” and have the issue pass by. While there’s no role for the government in suppressing speech, the government has a vested interest in fighting crime.

The press does not have special powers not afforded to the rest of us. If you have material relevant to a crime and think that magical source protection applies, there’s no constitutional right to a confidential source.

Even worse, we live in an era where the artificial distinction between professionalized journalism and journalism created by amateurs has been obliterated. You aren’t magically “press” because you print something on paper and have a (dwindling) amount of people who pay you for it.

That’s why you can’t have this protected class of First Amendment practitioners. The Constitution protects us all but it doesn’t elevate the professional press above the rest of us.

I supported investigations into the leaking of classified national security material under the Bush administration, and while I do think there’s a legitimate issue about over classification of information, I believe that the law is the law and you work knowing the consequences of flaunting that. Even when I agree that the information morally should be exposed, those who leak this sort of classified information must deal with the legal consequences of their actions, professional press or not.

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