Day: August 18, 2024

Food Stamp Costs Are on the Way Down but Still Far Higher than Pre-Pandemic Days

The Center Square
Grocery Shopping

The cost of food assistance in the U.S. has dropped from its peak during the pandemic, but is still 23% higher than it was during pre-pandemic times, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, what used to be called food stamps, peaked in costs December 2022 at $11.07 billion that month. That monthly cost dropped to $7.51 billion as of April 2024. There were about 41.6 million people collecting SNAP benefits as of April 2024.

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Grandmas in Chains: Harris Legacy of Pursuing Pro-Life Activists Set Stage for Wider Legal Fight

Just the News
Heather Idoni

Defending the abortion industry helped define Vice President Kamala Harris as California attorney general, especially a controversial 2016 raid on pro-life activist David Daleiden to seize and suppress undercover videos of Planned Parenthood officials who thought they were talking to “laboratory wholesalers” in Daleiden’s sting.

Some of those videos, released years later at a congressional proceeding, show Planned Parenthood tried to preserve fetal tissue to sell for research and avoid prosecution by detaching extremities.

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Illegal Border Crossings Surpass 12.5 Million Since Biden-Harris Took Office

The Center Square
Illegal Immigrants

U.S. Customs and Border Protection released monthly border apprehension data on Friday, saying, “statistics show lowest southwest border encounters in nearly four years.” CBP also claimed illegal border crossings were down by 34% from June to July and the drop is due to a presidential proclamation issued in June.

Troy Miller, a senior official performing the duties of the CBP Commissioner, said  recent Biden-Harris policies led “to the lowest number of encounters along the southwest border in more than three years.”

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Free Speech May Be in the Crosshairs Under a Harris-Walz Administration

Daily Caller News Foundation
Tim Walz and Kamala Harris

A Kamala Harris presidency could be a disaster for free speech rights, civil liberties advocates told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

As vice president, a senator and California’s attorney general, Harris backed policies that imposed restrictions on speech, including by defending a law eventually struck down by the Supreme Court, which forced pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise abortions. On the campaign trail, Harris has indicated support for holding social media platforms “accountable” for “hate speech” and misinformation online.

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New Poll Shows Trump, Harris Tied in Wisconsin

The Center Square
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are tied in a new poll of Wisconsin voters.

In a head-to-head matchup between the Republican and Democratic nominees for president, the American Greatness/TIPP poll of likely and registered voters shows both Trump and Harris at 47% support.

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Tim Walz Gave Almost $100K in COVID-19 Funds to ‘Abortion Doula’ Trainers

South Carolina Sun Staff
Tim Walz

Presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz directed almost $100,000 in COVID-19 relief funds to an organization specializing in “abortion doula” services, state contracts show.

Walz, the governor of Minnesota, spent almost $2 billion in federal coronavirus relief funds without the approval of the state Legislature, using his emergency powers, according to the Minnesota-based outlet Alpha News.

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Commentary: Every Leading Large Language Model Leans Left Politically

RealClearWire
LLMS

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly integrating into everyday life – as chatbots, digital assistants, and internet search guides, for example. These artificial intelligence (AI) systems – which consume large amounts of text data to learn associations – can create all sorts of written material when prompted and can ably converse with users. LLMs’ growing power and omnipresence mean that they exert increasing influence on society and culture.

So it’s of great import that these artificial intelligence systems remain neutral when it comes to complicated political issues. Unfortunately, according to a new analysis recently published to PLoS ONE, this doesn’t seem to be the case.

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