Tag Archives: Pork

Federal government spends $2.7 million to study lesbians who drink too much

From CNS News.

Excerpt:

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.”

[…]The grant states that there are “chronic stressors unique to sexual minorities, creating cumulative stress that may be compounded in lesbians of color.”

The study is being led by Tonda Hughes, professor at the Department of Health Systems Science at the University of Illinois, an “internationally recognized expert in the area of alcohol use among lesbians,” according tothe University.

[…]The University of Illinois is not alone in receiving federal funds to study “sexual minorities” and their propensity to drink. The University of Washington has been awarded $1,154,445 since 2010 for its project “High Risk Drinking in Emerging Adult at-Risk Women,” which seeks to find out why young lesbians and bisexuals face an “elevated” chance for hazardous drinking.

Old Dominion University in 2012 received $446,056 for its study titled “Minority Stress, Alcohol Use, and Intimate Partner Violence Among Lesbians.”

Last time, we saw that the federal government was spending $1.5 million on studying why so many lesbians are overweight. Never believe the government knows more about how to spend the money they take from you than you do. It’s your money. They are wasting it. Instead of cutting wasteful spending like this, they release illegal immigrants with criminal convictions. You should never vote for bigger government. If you want to help people, use your own money.

Federal government spends $1.5 million to study overweight lesbians

Dad sent me this astonishing example of government waste, posted at Fox News.

Excerpt:

The National Institutes of Health awarded a Boston hospital more than $1.5 million to figure out why nearly three-quarters of lesbians are overweight — calling the disparities a significant public health issue.

“It is now well-established that women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic, with nearly three-quarters of adult lesbians overweight or obese, compared to half of heterosexual women,” according to a description of the grant.

The taxpayer money was awarded to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston 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 grant states. “Racial and socioeconomic disparities in obesity are receiving increasing attention; however, one area of disparities that is only beginning to be recognized is the striking interplay of gender and sexual orientation.”

[…]Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said it is disturbing that tax dollars are being used to fund the study.

“When you look at a nation that’s $17 trillion in debt – there’s a reason. It’s because we do frivolous studies that serve no benefit other than to give a special interest group something to talk about,” he told Fox News. “Why are we issuing grants to study things that have no affect on the well-being of the nation as a whole?”

Oh I have no doubt this is worth studying… but maybe they could use their own money instead of my money, since I need my money for other things – and I actually had to do the work to earn it. Why do people on the left think that they have the right to spend money that I earned? Were they there in my calculus class? Were they there in the labs with me doing assignments? I don’t mind if they want to spend their own money on lesbian obesity, but why are they so convinced that they have a right to spend my money on that?

Obama administration tells 60,000 Border and Customs agents to take furloughs

If you needed any proof that Obama does not have the temperament to be President, here it is in this Newsmax article.

Excerpt:

Sixty-thousand federal employees responsible for securing the nation’s borders and facilitating trade will be furloughed for as many as 14 days starting next month because of $85 billion in cross-government spending cuts.

The federal government notified the workers on Thursday, CNN reports.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said the furloughs and other austerity measures would cause delays at ports of entry, including international arrivals at airports, and would reduce the number of border patrol officers on duty at any one time, CNN reports.

[…]Customs collects more money for the federal government than any agency other than the Internal Revenue Service, the National Treasury Employees Union said in a statement.

“There is no escaping the reality that sequestration is having serious effects on the traveling public and on vital commerce,” the union’s president, Colleen M. Kelley, said in the statement.

Late last month, Napolitano and other Obama administration officials came under fire — particularly from officials in Arizona — for the release of hundreds of illegal immigrants held in local jails to save money as the sequester neared.

Napolitano has since promised to release more illegals, primarily on supervised release, saying the sequester had left her no choice.

“We’re going to continue to do that for the foreseeable future,” Napolitano said at a March 4 breakfast meeting hosted by Politico. “We are going to manage our way through this by identifying the lowest-risk detainees, and putting them into some kind of alternative to release.”

The border is a national security issue, because anyone coming through with a weapon of mass destruction could cost the lives of many Americans. The Border and Customs programs are not what is driving our debt. The biggest driver of our debt is entitlement spending, especially spending on Medicare. But that’s not what Obama is choosing to focus on. He wants to hurt the American people rather than doing the hard work of cutting back big government. There are lots of places where we could cut billions without impacting effectiveness. Why not look at cutting fat (Solyndra) rather than muscle (border security)?