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As a boy growing up in Butte, Bart Riley loved spending time at the family business, Riley Meats, on West Park Street. Young Bart and his siblings would help out cleaning the shop after his father was done cutting meat for the day.

A Los Angeles food services director who was invited to the White House by former First Lady Michelle Obama to share his tips for getting kids to eat healthy has been indicted for stealing $65,000 in public funds.David Binkle, a chef who served as the director of food services for Los Angeles Unified School District until he was fired in 2015, was charged last week with multiple counts of embezzlement, misappropriation of public funds, conflict of interest, forgery, and perjury, the L.A. Times reported.In 2014, Binkle traveled to the White House for a nutrition roundtable with Mrs. Obama.

Do you choose “organic” produce because it’s healthier and locally grown? Think again. A new report on how the U.S. Department of Agriculture actually markets the organic label without any standard of certification, doesn’t do any field-testing and, through its bureaucracy grew exponentially during the Obama administration, is driving up imports from China, Turkey and other countries with disastrous safety records.

Couple sues dog food manufacturer after pet death June 22, 2017 - by Erica Shaffer SEATTLE – A couple in Washington State recently filed a lawsuit against Wheeling, Illinois-based Evanger’s Dog & Cat Food Company Inc., owned by Holly and Joel Sher, after one of their dogs was poisoned by pet food tainted with pentobarbital, a euthanasia drug. Nicole and Guy Mael of Washougal, Washington, filed the lawsuit against Evanger’s and Nutripack LLC, a pet food company owned by members of the same family, in US District Court for the Western District of Washington. The couple is seeking a jury...

President Trump is making school lunches great again, or at least a lot better than they were during the Obama administration. Food service directors are applauding recent changes to federal school food regulations imposed on schools as part of Michelle Obama’s campaign against childhood obesity. […] Regulations imposed through the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act put strict limitations on calories, fat, sugar, salt, and other elements of foods served in public schools that participate in the national school lunch or breakfast programs. …

In keeping with President Donald Trump’s executive order establishing the Interagency Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue launched the effort on Thursday along with representatives from 22 federal agencies that are taking on the wide-ranging initiative. The task force will work to find ways to increase jobs, housing and educational opportunities for America’s rural communities, and to remove obstacles, such as burdensome regulations, and to improve infrastructure and access to technology. advertisement The task force held its inaugural meeting in Washington, D.C., and attendees included Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, Secretary of...

The Trump administration is discontinuing a signature girls education initiative championed by former first lady Michelle Obama, according to officials. The "Let Girls Learn" program, which she and President Barack Obama started in 2015 to facilitate educational opportunities for adolescent girls in developing countries, will cease operation immediately, according to an internal document obtained by CNN. News of the program's end came the same day President Donald Trump's agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, was visiting an elementary school in suburban Virginia to announce changes to another initiative spotlighted by the former first lady, healthy school lunches. Perdue was set to unveil...

Good news! Michelle Obama’s inedible school lunches are about to be a thing of the past. Michelle Obama admittedly loves enchiladas and french fries (and her figure showed it), but she loved to lecture everyone else’s children about eating vegetables. This is what you get with an elite, overreaching government, folks; they tell your children what to eat. Via The Daily Caller: Perdue and Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts will release a new interim rule “designed to provide flexibility for school meals” at an elementary school in Leesburg, Va. Monday, a USDA press release stated. The exact nature of the...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing to ease school lunch regulations created under former President Barack Obama. On Friday, the department announced its secretary, former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, will introduce an interim rule to provide "regulatory flexibility" for the National School Lunch Program at a Virginia elementary school on Monday, alongside Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. It's unclear how the regulations will be changed, or what effect it could have on school lunchrooms. The National School Lunch Program provides nutritionally balanced reduced-cost or free lunches to children. Former First Lady...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it possesses a “limited amount” of 9mm bullets for agents in the field as well as for training purposes, and it is rationing its ammunition based on internal requests until it can award a new contract. [ ] The apparent role poor planning, or another agenda, played in the issue came to light when ICE said it would have run out of 9mm ammo by June 2017 in the absence of a modified contract with its supplier, Vista Outdoor Inc. So, the agency last month approved a $363,307 ceiling increase to contract No. HSCEMS-11-D-00002....

Let’s face it — every Irish person in New York knows someone who’s undocumented. Usually they know more than one. They also know that if weren’t for them and other immigrants half the bars, restaurants, shops and even colleges in the city would be deserted. New York has always had a special welcome for immigrants — even the undocumented ones — because it’s been the historical landing point for intending Americans since the earliest days of our national story. Welcoming immigrants is really the city’s oldest tradition. It actually makes sound financial sense. The undocumented often do the work that...

After More Than a Decade of Providing the Public With Access to Animal Welfare Records, the USDA Suddenly Pressed ‘Delete’ On Its Online Database, Which Includes Info on Whether Animals Are Being Treated Humanely At Facilities Across the Country Following USDA’s Decision, Schumer Says USDA Must Re-establish Transparency & Help Deter Future Animal Welfare Violations Schumer: Animal Advocates Should Not Have To Play Tug Of War On Transparency With New Administration’s USDA U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to reverse its decision to remove inspection reports on animal facilities and related animal cruelty information from...

Any precedence of a new administration blacking out info from an agency as what happened today with the EPA and USDA? I have been challenged to cite previous example(s) and need Freeper assistance. Please. MFO

The Trump administration is clamping down on public communications by agencies as it seeks to assert control over the federal bureaucracy. New restrictions on social media use and interaction with press and lawmakers at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the departments of Commerce, Health and Human Services, Agriculture and the Interior have sparked concerns of a President Trump-backed effort to silence dissenting views. The Trump administration’s newly imposed communications rules vary at different agencies. At the EPA, staffers were ordered to stop issuing press releases, blog updates and social media posts, according to a memo to employees. The Agriculture...

The Trump administration is placing an immediate gag order on offices within the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to an internal email an anonymous source within the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) sent to BuzzFeed News, scientists within the office are now under an indefinite gag order. The ARS hasn’t tweeted since prior to Donald Trump’s inauguration. “Starting immediately and until further notice, ARS will not release any public-facing documents,” wrote ARS chief of staff Sharon Drumm. “This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content.”

Michael Bloomberg and Michelle Obama have been lecturing us (or at least those among us who use food stamps, aka SNAP) to no avail when it comes to sugary soft drinks. Anahad O’Conner of the New York Times reports: What do households on food stamps buy at the grocery store? The answer was largely a mystery until now. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the $74 billion food stamp program called SNAP, has published a detailed report that provides a glimpse into the shopping cart of the typical household that receives food stamps. The findings show that the No....

Dead retailers redeemed more than $2 billion worth of food stamps, according to a new audit. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s inspector general reviewed billions of transactions through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. It found that thousands of stores authorized to accept food stamps were using the Social Security numbers of deceased persons. An audit released Thursday found instances of potential fraud where the Food and Nutrition Service issued food stamps through stores that claimed to be owned by children or the dead. “We found that 3,394 authorized SNAP retailers (retailers) used Social Security...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5, 2017 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced the seven retail firms selected to take part in a pilot designed to enable Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants to purchase their groceries online. The two-year pilot is slated to begin this summer. "Online purchasing is a potential lifeline for SNAP participants living in urban neighborhoods and rural communities where access to healthy food choices can be limited," USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said. "We're looking forward to being able to bring the benefits of the online market to low-income Americans participating in SNAP."

In another example of “fake news,” several left-wing journalists have spread unconfirmed speculation from a government agency to attack Breitbart — and, unsurprisingly, they were 100% wrong.

The federal government is worried that America is too stressed out to deal with Thanksgiving dinner safely so at least two departments have entered to help everybody live through the uniquely American holiday while also curbing global warming. "This week millions of Americans will gather family and friends around the dinner table to give thanks. But for those preparing the meal, it can be a stressful time. Not to mention, for many it is the largest meal they have cooked all year, leaving plenty of room for mistakes that could cause foodborne illness," warned the Agriculture Department. As a result,...