You won't believe how your tax dollars are being used...

Student loans are funding Jihadis who want to join ISIS...

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Two of the Twin Cities men accused of trying to join ISIS are now charged with student loan fraud.
Investigators say both Hamza Ahmed, 19, and Hanad Musse, 19, used more than $1,000 from federal student loan accounts for plane tickets to Turkey and Greece. Prosecutors say they were really going to Syria to join ISIS.
On Tuesday, prosecutors combined two separate cases, meaning that seven young Minnesota friends will eventually be tried together for allegedly trying to join the terror group.
Prosecutors combined the case of Ahmed, who was arrested and charged in February, with that of six young men who were arrested in April.
Prosecutors say Ahmed’s arrest should have served as a warning to the others.

Congratulations: You are spending $150,000 to test “mindful eating intervention” on third graders

Zen snacking? 

Via WFB

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is spending nearly $150,000 to test a “mindful eating intervention” on third graders in California.
A grant awarded earlier this month outlined the project that will use the methods of a Zen teacher to try to fight childhood obesity and turn kids into “change agents” to teach others how to eat healthily.
The project, entitled, “Foodie U: The Impact of a Pilot Mindful Eating Intervention on Food Behaviors Among Children and Families,” will focus on low-income Hispanic children.
“The elementary school age is a crucial period for developing life-long dietary habits while parents still significantly influence their food intake,” the grant said. “A school-based mindful eating intervention with parent involvement may positively influence children’s food behaviors.”
Mindfulness is a New Age meditation technique that traces its origins from Buddhism. People engaging in mindfulness are encouraged to focus on the present moment “non-judgmentally.” A 60 Minutes segment on mindfulness showed Anderson Cooper using the practice by eating in silence very slowly, focusing on every bite.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent $100.2 million on studies testing mindfulness meditation.
Keep on reading…

Tax dollars at work: 300,000 studying how “humans interact with bicycles”

Apparently, our government thinks riding a bike is poorly understood. My 6 year old granddaughter disagrees.

Via The Washington Free beacon:

The National Science Foundation (NSF) spent $300,000 studying how “humans interact with bicycles,” the latest example of what a House committee chairman calls waste in the agency.
The premise for the project, which was conducted between October 2009 and June 2013, was that bicycle dynamics are “poorly understood,” and researchers set out to come up with new designs to encourage more Americans to bike to lower their carbon footprint.
“Although human operator control models exist for numerous aircraft and other vehicles, the bicycle with a rider is a human-vehicle system whose dynamic behavior is poorly understood,” researchers at the University of California, Davis said in a paper publishing their interim results.
The paper said the authors had “deeper questions” about how people control bikes,

Persistance: The federal government hasn't give up on trying to find out why lesbians are more obese...

It is easy to be persistent with someone else's money. In this case, it's your tax dollars.

The federal government is still seeking answers as to why the majority of lesbians are obese and U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill, which now totals $2.87 million.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) study is now in its fourth year, receiving an additional $670,567 for fiscal year 2014. The project seeks to determine why “nearly three-quarters of adult lesbians overweight or obese,” and why gay males are not.
In just two years the project’s budget has nearly doubled, growing from $1.5 million to nearly $3 million today, despite fears that sequestration could jeopardize the project and other NIH funding.
The study, which is being led by S. Bryn Austin, an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, operates on the premise that there is a “striking interplay of gender and sexual orientation in obesity disparities.”

Latest waste of your tax dollars: $876,752 to study snail sex...

It's not like there is a sequester or anything. Oh, wait a minute...

(CNSNews.com) – The National Science Foundation awarded a grant for $876,752 to the University of Iowa to study whether there is any benefit to sex among New Zealand mud snails and whether that explains why any organism has sex.

The study, first funded in 2011 and continuing until 2015, will study the New Zealand snails to see if it is better that they reproduce sexually or asexually – the snail can do both – hoping to gain insight on why so many organisms practice sexual reproduction.
“Sexual reproduction is more costly than asexual reproduction, yet nearly all organisms reproduce sexually at least some of the time. Why is sexual reproduction so common despite its costs,” the study’s abstract asks.

Keep on reading….

Outrage: Tribe with billion dollar casino gets $4.5 million for taxpayers...

Democrats still looking for something to cut...

Via ABC News:

The money provided annually to the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation through the Interior Department and the Department of Health and Human Services has risen over the last five years to more than $4.5 million, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act. One former tribal employee says department leaders were encouraged to offset dwindling resources by seeking more federal grants.

The Pequots, who once distributed stipends exceeding $100,000 annually to adult members, are not alone among gaming tribes seeking more federal aid. Several, including the owner of Foxwoods' rival Connecticut casino, the Mohegan Sun, say they have been pursuing more grants — a trend that critics find galling because the law that gave rise to Indian casinos was intended to help tribes become financially self-sufficient.

Your tax dollars at work: Obama gifting $200 million to Jordan...

The White house is still closed to children's tours...

AMMAN, Jordan — President Barack Obama said he and King Abdullah II haven’t reached an answer about what to do on Syria, but he promised $200 million in new humanitarian aid Friday to help the government here manage the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Bashar al-Assad’s regime who’ve entered the country.

Reiterating that he sees the question of Assad’s toppling as a when, not if, he also warned about the possibility of anti-American, terrorist forces taking power in the aftermath.
“I am very concerned about Syria becoming an enclave for extremism. Because extremists thrive in chaos, they thrive in failed states, they thrive in power vacuums,” Obama said during his joint press conference with the Jordanian leader. “They don’t have much to offer when it comes to actually building things.”

The violence in Syria has been “heartbreaking,” Obama said , adding that the continued loss of civilian life, “should compel all of us to say, ‘what more can we do?’”
Noting that he was waiting to see the results of a United Nations investigation into whether Assad’s military had used chemical weapons, Obama reiterated that if so, this would constitute the crossing of a red line which would require a change in American involvement.

Your Tax Dollars At Work: Studying Duck Penis Length...

You can make stuff this stupid up...

(CNSnews.com) – The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $384,949 grant to Yale University for a study on “Sexual Conflict, Social Behavior and the Evolution of Waterfowl Genitalia”, according to the recovery.gov website.

The grant description says,“The project examines how reproductive morphology covaries with season, age, and social environment in a diverse sample of duck species that differ in ecology, territoriality and breeding system.”

The grant was made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus package.

The project has been receiving money from the NSF since 2009 and is slated for funding through July of this year.

Your Tax Dollars at Work: 2.7 million to study why lesbians are likely to be drunks...

 Last week we learned tax payers spent $1.5 million to find out why lesbians are more obese than gay men...

(CNSNews.com) – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $2.7 million to study why lesbians are at a higher “risk for hazardous drinking.”

The University of Illinois has received grants since 2009 for its project, “Cumulative Stress and Hazardous Drinking in a Community of Adult Lesbians,” which aims to develop “culturally sensitive” strategies to prevent lesbians from being drunks.

“Studies using both probability and nonprobability samples provide ample evidence of lesbians’ vulnerability to hazardous drinking,” the grant’s description reads. “However, very little is known about the factors that increase lesbians’ risk for hazardous drinking.”
“We propose to build on and extend our study of sexual identity and drinking… to model effects of cumulative stress on hazardous drinking among lesbians.”

Keep on reading…

Your Tax Dollars At Work: $1.5 million to find out why lesbians are more obese than gay men...

The sequestration  should have been 10%. Perhaps, that number would force our government to cut the waste.

(CNSNews.com) – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $1.5 million to study biological and social factors for why “three-quarters” of lesbians are obese and why gay males are not, calling it an issue of “high public-health significance.”

Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass., has received two grants administered by NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to study the relationship between sexual orientation and obesity.
“Obesity is one of the most critical public health issues affecting the U.S. today,” the description of the grant reads. “Racial and socioeconomic disparities in the determinants, distribution, and consequences of obesity are receiving increasing attention.”

“[H]owever, one area that is only beginning to be recognized is the striking interplay of gender and sexual orientation in obesity disparities,” it states.

Congratulations: Your tax dollars are being used to teach homeless to break and enter empty properties

You just can't make stuff this stupid up.

Via NY Post:

It’s breaking and entering for dummies.

Picture the Homeless, a Bronx nonprofit that has received at least $240,000 in taxpayer money in the last five years, is giving a crash course on squatting — and city-owned buildings are a prime target.

Two weeks ago, board member Andres Perez held a teach-in on how to wrest “control” of vacant apartments. He called it “homesteading.”

“The best time to enter a building is in the late hours,” he advised a group of about 20, who gathered in front of the half-empty East New York housing complex Arlington Village.

“You make sure you have your proper tools. You remove the chains and padlock, and then you go in.”

He then led them through the next steps — including filling out a change-of-address form at the post office and setting up utilities. After that, “nine out of 10 times the courts will allow you to be able to have control of the property,” he said.

Keep on reading…

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Studying the Penis Size of Gay men

We don't need to raise more revenue for this kind of silly government spending. We need to cut the wasteful spending.

(FOX News)- The federal government helped fund a study that examined what effect a gay man's penis size has on his sex life and general well-being. 

The study was among several backed by the National Institutes of Health that have come under scrutiny from a group claiming the agency is wasting valuable tax dollars at a time when the country is trying to control its debt. This particular research resulted in a 2009 report titled, "The Association Between Penis Size and Sexual Health Among Men Who Have Sex with Men." 

The study reported, among its findings, that gay men with "below average penises" were more likely to assume a "bottom" sexual position, while those with "above average penises" were more likely to assume a "top" sexual position. Those with average penises identified themselves as "versatile" in the bedroom. 

Though it's difficult to trace exactly how much federal funding went to the project, the study was one of many linked to an $899,769 grant in 2006.

I wonder if this spending was part of the stimulus./snark

Obama Fiddles While Taxpayers Burn

Team Obama promised another $150 million of your tax dollars to the Palestinian Authority today. In June of this year, Obama gave the Palestinians $900 million.

(Reuters) - The United States will give an additional $150 million to the Palestinian Authority as Washington seeks to boost the fledgling government amid an impasse in peace talks with Israel, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, on the home front, President Obama's debt commission is proposing to raise your retirement age and cut your social security to save money. They are also proposing to eliminate the tax deductions for employer provided health insurance coverage, charitable contributions, mortgage interest deductions and employer contributions to employee 401(k)/pension plans. I would call this the 'work till death' plan.

Your Tax Dollars Are Hard at Work Funding Global Warming Propaganda

If you needed another reason to vote liberals out of office, here it is. $700,000 of your hard earned tax dollars are going towards funding a play to convince you the global warming scam is for real.

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $700,000 grant to the Civilians, a New York theater company, to finance the production of a show about climate change. “The Great Immensity,” with a book by Steven Cosson (“This Beautiful City”) and music and lyrics by Michael Friedman (“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”), tells the story of Polly, a photojournalist who disappears while working in the rain forests of Panama. The grant is a rare gift to an arts organization from the foundation, a federal agency that pays for science, engineering and mathematics research and education.

Meanwhile, Europe prepares for the coldest winter in 1000 years.

Obama Decides To Give $400 Million of Your Tax Dollars to Gaza

Israel has a plan to starve Hamas with a blockade. President Obama has a plan to help thwart the Israeli plan by giving $400 million of your tax dollars to Gaza. Millions of Americans are suffering from unemployment and the national debt is has skyrocketed to record levels and President Obama wants to give $400 million of your hard earned tax dollars to people dedicated to the destruction of one of our closest allies. This is insane.

The NY Daily News reported:

WASHINGTON - President Obama pledged $400 million on Wednesday to help Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas provide fresh water and shelter to people in the increasingly "unsustainable" Gaza Strip....

So far, the Israeli strategy to starve the Hamas leadership into capitulation with the blockade has failed to work, but it has succeeded in hurting Israel's image around the world. Hamas controls the government in Gaza.