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It seems reasonable that a program designed to assist those with low incomes should go only to low-income households. But the Biden-Harris administration is using a dubious mechanism to get around that expectation in a program designed to help low-income families pay for broadband internet service. Congress created the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to provide broadband internet assistance to low-income households. The program was supposed to last six months, but Congress made it permanent in 2021, renaming it the Affordable Connectivity Program and allocating nearly five times the original funding. Although funding for the Federal Communications Commission program ran out in the first half of this year, Congress is working to renew it. To qualify, households must show that they are low income. One way to demonstrate this: A household receives benefits from another means-tested welfare program such as the Lifeline Program or the Affordable Connectivity Program, which provide assistance with phone service and internet service, respectively. Another way to show eligibility: A member of the household receives a Pell Grant or is in a school lunch or breakfast program. Eligibility through school meal programs is how the Federal Communications Commission is doing an end run around income limits for the broadband program. This is because of something called the Community Eligibility Provision that was included in legislation, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, signed into law by President Barack Obama.   The Community Eligibility Provision allows any school to provide meals to all students if just 25% of the students come from low-income households. The provision also allows an entire school district to qualify for free school meals if 25% of students in the district are from low-income homes. (Originally, 40% of students in a school or district had to be from low-income households to qualify for the Community Eligibility Provision, but the Biden-Harris administration’s Department of Agriculture last year dropped the threshold to 25%.)   USDA also allows districts to group schools together as they see fit to meet the 25% threshold, even though the underlying law doesn’t permit districts to gerrymander in this way. In grouping schools, for example, a district could bring together four schools, two with 50% of children from low-income households and two others with no children from low-income households. All children in the four schools would qualify for free meals under the Community Eligibility Provision, because this grouping would meet the 25% threshold even though two schools don’t have a single student from a poor household. The Community Eligibility Provision is bad policy because it provides free school meals to students who don’t need financial assistance. And in some cases, this could happen when all or most students involved are from high-income homes. And now, the Federal Communications Commission is using the same provision to extend government assistance for broadband service to any household with a child who attends a school that meets the provision. It doesn’t matter whether the household is a low-income one or not. Like free school meals under the Community Eligibility Provision, you could have a school where all the students are from high-income homes yet all their families qualify for broadband assistance. And this despite benefits for both the meals and broadband programs being intended for low-income households. On top of this, it’s not clear the FCC has authority to qualify households for the Affordable Connectivity Program through a child’s being enrolled in an eligible school. The law creating the broadband program states that a household qualifies for the benefit if “at least one member of the household has applied for and been approved to receive benefits under the free and reduced-price lunch program … or the school breakfast program.” But the Community Eligibility Provision doesn’t require families to apply for school meals or go through an approval process for a child to qualify. In fact, one rationale for CEP, as it’s called, is that the provision eliminates the application process. The Federal Communications Commission provided flyers that schools may use to promote the Affordable Connectivity Program to families, specifically advertising that having a child in a school with “community eligibility” is sufficient for a household to qualify for the government’s broadband assistance. Survey data from the FCC indicates that many people enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program likely don’t need it: Fully 30% of participants said they had both home internet and mobile internet in the year before they enrolled. And 30% of participating households also said they were never without internet because they couldn’t afford it in any of the preceding 12 months before they got on the program. The FCC report doesn’t say whether families enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program through “community eligibility” were more likely to fall into these two groups. What is clear, though, is that the Community Eligibility Provision allows people to get on the broadband program regardless of their income level.   Program rolls for the Affordable Connectivity Program have grown substantially over the past two years, jumping from 9 million households in January 2022 to over 23 million households as of February 2024. If this broadband welfare program continues, Congress should clearly state that households can’t qualify for it through the Community Eligibility Provision. Even without congressional action, the FCC could clarify that having a child in a “community eligibility” school doesn’t qualify a household for the broadband benefit. The government’s welfare system needs substantial reform. It should be obvious that programs explicitly designed to provide benefits to low-income Americans should provide those benefits only to low-income households. Government agencies shouldn’t run programs according to their own whims. Using taxpayer dollars to subsidize households that aren’t in need is a waste of resources and undermines the purpose of means-tested programs. The post Biden-Harris Admin Uses Loopholes to Expand Welfare Benefits, Again appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Uruguayan football player Juan Izquierdo passed away at a hospital in Brazil five days after collapsing during a match. He was 27. According to reports, Izquierdo suffered an irregular heartbeat during a Copa Libertadores game last week. Hospital Albert Einstein in Sao Paulo said he died at 9:38 p.m. local time following “cardiorespiratory arrest associated with his cardiac arrhythmia.” Juan Izquierdo: Uruguayan footballer dies aged 27 after collapsing on pitch https://t.co/EN7gZQVEdn — (Honest/Ethical/Safe Dr) David Cartland (@CartlandDavid) August 28, 2024 From the Associated Press: Izquierdo was taken to the hospital after he collapsed late in a Copa Libertadores soccer match between Nacional and Sao Paulo at the Brazilian city’s Morumbi Stadium last Thursday. The Uruguayan club posted a statement on social media saying Izquierdo’s death is felt “in deep pain and impact in our hearts” and “all Nacional is in grief for his irreplaceable loss.” South American soccer’s governing body also posted a tribute. CONMEBOL president Alejandro Domínguez said he’s “deeply sorry about the early departure of Juan Izquierdo. “South American soccer is in mourning,” he said. Other federations, including Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina, also expressed their condolences. In a statement Monday, doctors at the hospital said Izquierdo was put into neurological critical care because of increased intracranial pressure. He had been on a ventilator since Sunday. Con el más profundo dolor e impacto en nuestros corazones, el Club Nacional de Football comunica el fallecimiento de nuestro querido jugador Juan Izquierdo. Expresamos nuestras más sinceras condolencias a su familia, amigos, colegas y allegados. Todo Nacional está de luto por… pic.twitter.com/mYU28mqw6m — Nacional (@Nacional) August 28, 2024 WATCH: Fallece Juan Izquierdo, futbolista uruguayo del @Nacional que sufrió un paro cardíaco el pasado jueves durante un partido de la @Libertadores. #QEPD pic.twitter.com/IqHCGdxTy8 — Tribuna Noticias (@NoticiasTribuna) August 28, 2024 The Telegraph reports: Izquierdo fell to the ground unconscious in the 84th minute without coming into contact with another player. He was taken off the pitch in an ambulance before being treated at the intensive care unit of Albert Einstein Hospital. The hospital said in a statement Izquierdo had died as a result of brain death following a cardiopulmonary arrest associated with cardiac arrhythmia. “It is with the deepest sorrow and shock in our hearts that the Club Nacional announces the death of our beloved player Juan Izquierdo,” Uruguay’s Nacional wrote on X.

Jack Smith is like a Dachshund digging for a bone. He will never give up trying to put Donald Trump behind bars. When the Supreme Court struck down some aspects of Smith’s case, that included the former president’s acts in office (because acts of the president done as part of his authority and responsibility in office are indeed immune from a later administration’s lawfare), Smith simply did a word dance. No longer is Trump “45th President of the United States,” but now he’s simply “a candidate for president of the United States in 2020” in the charging documents. Smith and his staff nonchalantly removed any reference to Trump as president, and recast any interactions with Vice President Mike Pence as a running mate. He presented this dog’s breakfast to a new grand jury, which endorsed the same four charges the Supreme Court previously found defective. We’re expected to believe this; to forget Trump was actually president when the events leading up to January 6th happened. It’s never been anything but personal for Jack Smith. He wants his conviction–to be the first federal prosecutor ever to successfully convict a former president. Of course, this is nothing new, only a matter of scale. After sitting Vice President Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, he was tried for Treason. President Thomas Jefferson himself led the prosecution. His distant cousin, Chief Justice John Marshall, would be the judge (but Marshall was no political toady of Jefferson). Jefferson twisted the law to breaking, but when the trial hit a jury, the jury acquitted Burr. Jefferson even went so far as to recommend Congress to impeach Marshall for applying the law correctly. This is the same strategy that the Biden-Harris administration has pursued dealing with Trump. They have threatened to “pack the court” and force retirement on Justices, along with special oversight for those who they deem too politically aligned with Trump or other Republicans. Smith has also called for a federal appeals court to overturn Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of his documents case in Miami. Cannon ruled that Smith’s appointment as a special prosecutor was itself unconstitutional, but that has never stopped the Biden-Harris machine and its bone-digging Dachshund. What’s next? Even Republicans who have been very critical, even hostile, to the former president, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, have buried the hatchet and come to support the nominee. Kemp is hosting a fundraiser for Trump this week, and promised to lend his political ground operation to the Trump campaign. NEW: Gov. Brian Kemp to headline fundraiser for Trump on Thursday in Atlanta, sources tell me @SooRinKimm @LaleeIbssa Comes weeks after Trump attacked Kemp as a “bad” and “disloyal guy”— Will Steakin (@wsteaks) August 27, 2024 Democrats are more organized, and more determined to beat Trump this election than in the past. In 2020, it was about COVID-19. Now, it’s personal. Divisions in the Republican Party and among some who are positively gleeful about an abortion-loving, Israel-wavering, tax-and-spent liberal pair like Harris and Walz, we find many evangelicals and other self-styled conservatives. But I’ve also found some very ardent Trump supporters among college-educated, worldly, even cosmopolitan, business people who see how a Harris administration would be a disaster in every way. Things aren’t always as they look. Winning at the ballot box is the American way (even if cheating at the ballot box goes on, but not in the giant numbers claimed). Winning by lawfare is also an American tradition, but not a good one. Next, we will see anyone who supports Trump subject to the same legal targeting they have done with Trump. If Harris wins, watch her go after Elon Musk’s empire with a hammer and tongs. Not just Musk, but anyone who dares to express their support for the former president will fall under the same kind of lawfare practiced by Jack Smith. Summing up how Democrats see “democracy,” here’s what they think about Mexico’s president’s plan to elect judges instead of appointing them. Really bad take on "democracy":“I believe popular direct election of judges is a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy,” U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar.— Steve Berman (@stevengberman) August 28, 2024 Who is committing Treason here? Follow Steve on Twitter @stevengberman. The First TV contributor network is a place for vibrant thought and ideas. Opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of The First or The First TV. We want to foster dialogue, create conversation, and debate ideas. See something you like or don’t like? Reach out to the author or to us at ideas@thefirsttv.com. 

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