"Feds urge eating expired food..."

"...even if 18 months past throwaway date"

It sounds yucky, but officials think they've got the trick to get moms to feed expired but safe food to kids and adults alike — they've even got an app. It's called FoodKeeper and it is supposed to have a more accurate calculation of food expiration dates, even for baby food and eggs.

USDA provided a video in which one official explains, "Many products may have a sell-by date of say April 1 but they could be good in your pantry for another 12 or 18 months. And by throwing those out, what you're doing, is you're contributing to food waste in the United States." As an example, the video showed boxes of dried pasta.

 

I heard about this on Rush Limbaugh radio show.

"USDA herding internet's celebrity llamas out of the spotlight, owners say"

"The llamas that became a social media sensation while running around a Phoenix-area retirement enclave last month are saying goodbye to the spotlight with one last event on Saturday."

The llama drama that spawned jokes and Twitter hashtags also got the attention of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Freund said.

“If this opens up a can of worms where everybody across the country gets shut down doing this, that’s really unfair,” Freund said. “That’s really a horrible thing to do to people who benefit from them.”

A USDA official contacted the llamas’ owners shortly after the 26 February incident, saying they needed a license to showcase their llamas or even allow people to take photos of them, the couple said.

“They just totally destroyed everything I had planned for my retirement,” Freund said. “We’ve taken them to schools before. Now they’re telling me I can’t do anything, even like a photo shoot.”

USDA buying submachine guns high capacity magazines

abovetopsecret.com

Why is U.S. Department of Agriculture buying .40 calibre submachine guns and 30-round capacity magazines?

Executive Order written by President Obama on March 16, 2012.

"NATIONAL DEFENSE RESOURCES PREPAREDNESS". This gives the president authority to seize control over all resources in the nation (labor, food, industry, etc.) as long as it is done "to promote the national defense". 

(1) the Secretary of Agriculture with respect to food resources, food resource facilities, livestock resources, veterinary resources, plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment and commercial fertilizer; (2) the Secretary of Energy with respect to all forms of energy; (3) the Secretary of Health and Human Services with respect to health resources; (4) the Secretary of Transportation with respect to all forms of civil transportation; (5) the Secretary of Defense with respect to water resources; and (6) the Secretary of Commerce with respect to all other materials, services, and facilities, including construction materials. 

A commenter at abovetopsecret asks, how is this different from the executive order that Clinton signed, and earlier orders by Bush? PDF  The earlier orders speak to readiness and cooperation between government departments.

The answer to that is previous orders do not authorize seizing property. The new order includes the phrase "under emergency and non-emergency conditions." HotAir.

Hot Air, Legal Insurrection, AoSHQ, Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway, all agree this is boilerplate and nothing untoward.

Then why make changes?

That was then and this is now. Previous orders were before Homeland Security. But It is a matter of trust. There is none. And of scale. Departments are outsized. The scale is inverted between officials and the governed. We are governed without consent. We've seen what a vindictive executive does, how he behaves when pushed. How departments are kept open and used against citizens while bitterly complaining about being shut down even as it was himself who did the shutting in order to avoid talking. So important to "have a conversation" except when it's not. Park Service specifically in the last instance. But we also see border control being made useless while departments with scant need for firearms are powering up unreasonably. We've seen political leadership and media cynically use  emotionally charged gun-related madness-related catastrophes to immediately bust moves across the whole nation in multiple states to pinch second amendment rights to private ownership of firearms of law abiding citizens that do nothing to prevent such catastrophies. PDF Preventing Gun Violence Through Effective Messaging. While simultaneously building up stocks of firearms and big ones at that, including shocking amount of ammunition throughout various departments that few will agree require guns to carry out their original tasks, their original purpose for being. The departments continue to grow unreasonably large while private citizens' constitutionally protected rights continue to shrink, all incrementally.

All this concomitant with alarming fiduciary irresponsibility of Pentagon destroying 1 billion dollars of ammunition. USA Today. The waste quite incredible and unconscionable.

When seven of the ten wealthiest districts are in the Washington beltway and the heaviest most numerous firearms are held by government department then in power and wealth, if not beauty and talent, our country can be be described accurately as inverted.

Outside the Beltway 

Alternet. 

From Project Gunrunner, Project Gunwalker, Operation Fast & Furious, Operation Castaway, Operation Wide Receiver, Operation White Gun, Operation Grenadewalker, Direct Commercial Sales Program, to as yet proven failed weapons transfer at Benghazi, it is shown quite clearly that when it comes to guns and ammunition, firearms and weapons our political leadership, our government as a whole is proven hopelessly irresponsible and outright dangerous to the world and to our own freedom. We deserve much better than this.

Rinos and rats.