The Wall Street Journal reports that new data (.pdf) from the Department of Agriculture shows that in the U.S. “some 70 percent of households that relied on food stamps last year had no earned income”:

While the recession technically ended in 2009, a sluggish economic recovery left millions out of work or underemployed and leaning on the government for assistance last year.

The Agriculture Department’s annual snapshot on the characteristics of food stamp households, released Friday, shows that seven in 10 households receiving food stamps had no earned income last year, though many got other forms of government benefits.

Nearly 21% of households on food stamps also received Supplemental Security Income, assistance for the aged and blind. Some 21.4% received Social Security benefits. Just 8% of households also received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the cash welfare program.

But some 20% of households had no cash income of any kind last year, up from 15% in 2007, the year the recession began, and up from 7% in 1990.

That’s partly because most household heads who were receiving food stamps were also out of work. Just 21.8% of them had jobs in 2010, while 19.8% were jobless and looking for work.

According to an interactive map on the Journal’s website, Florida had among the highest percentage of people on food stamps without an earned income. The states with a higher percentage included Kentucky, Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Massachusetts reported the highest percentage: 80 percent.

The Journal also reported that “food stamps may be emerging as a lifeline for families after their unemployment insurance expired [and] just 6.7% of households who received food stamps were getting jobless benefits.” It as also reported that “nearly half of all food-stamp recipients, 47%, were children under the age of 18. Another 8% of recipients were age 60 or older.”

Poverty and unemployment has been a persistent problem in Florida. The last Florida jobs report shows that unemployment remained unchanged from one month to the next. In August, Florida also had the second highest number of mass layoffs in the nation. Many of Florida’s largest cities are struggling to rebound from the recession.

Gov. Rick Scott maintains the state is on the “right path.”

The video does seem to show Valle getting up close and personal with the open window of Paul’s car with her sign, but that’s about all I can make out of it. I don’t think this changes the overall circumstances of the incident, nor does it seem to shed new light on stomper Tim Profitt’s strange new demand that Valle apologize to him.

“Jack, have you no decency? Have you no shame?” Paul asked Conway during the fourth of five scheduled debates between Kentucky’s U.S. Senate candidates.

Paul said Conway’s actions were “a disgrace” that should disqualify Conway from the heated contest Kentuckians will decide Nov. 2.

The debate was full of barbed exchanges such as these, but Conway held his ground and continued to ask Paul why he would voluntarily join a group like the one he participated in at Baylor. Paul refused to answer and declined to shake Conway’s hand at the end of the debate.

On a related note, there’s a new PAC with a tongue-in-cheek name, Americans for America — tagline: “If you’re not with us… You must Hate America” — that’s attempting to run its own radio commercials against Paul that tie the candidate’s laissez-faire attitude towards mine safety to the recent near-disaster in Chile. It’s a bit of a stretch, but it leaps on Paul’s previous comment that “accidents happen” in a bid to galvanize the state’s sizable coal worker population to take a long look at Paul’s stance on workplace safety regulations.

Reid and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the Democratic Whip, spent the majority of their time ripping the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and reminding Republicans that, once upon a time, they too supported increased transparency and disclosure of campaign spending as an alternative to strict limits on total dollar amounts. Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) continued to claim that Democrats are raising the issue at at time when they should be focused on jobs and the economy — and that the bill is an attempt to rig the electoral system to their advantage.

Reid began things by surveying the current election spending landscape. “Nameless, faceless individuals are spending huge amounts of money – corporate money and other money — for which there is certainly no transparency whatsoever,” he said. “I repeat, no transparency. That’s what the debate’s about today. It is important the American people know how outrageous the Supreme Court’s decision was.”

Durbin, for his part, turned a portion of his speech into a trivia game of sorts, asking listeners to guess the senator who made the following comment. ”What we ought to have is disclosure. I think groups should have the right to run those ads but they ought to be disclosed and they ought to be accurate, end of quote. Who said that?” Durban asked the Senate. “The Senator from Kentucky who has just come to the floor — the minority leader — in the context of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill in 2002.”

The Democratic Whip also went on to quote Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) – “I don’t like it when a large source of money is out there funding ads and is unaccountable. To the extent we can I tend to favor disclosure” — and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) – “I think the system needs more transparency, so people can more easily reach their own conclusions” — in an apparent attempt to publicly shame Republicans for their change of hearts.

Neither Democrat made mention of the Republican Senators from Maine — Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins — and their previous championing of campaign finance measures, however. As Senators who might conceivably still vote for the measure, Snowe and Collins were clearly deemed off-limits for such rhetorical attacks.

McConnell, meanwhile, spent little time criticizing the specifics of the bill, instead trying to tie the Democrats’ decision to revive the DISCLOSE Act to other efforts in the Senate this week surrounding Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the DREAM Act, grouping them all together as an attempt to play politics before the election. “This is a bill that’s back on the floor no other reason than our friends on the other side have decided that this week is ‘politics only week’ in the Senate,” he claimed. “That’s all this is: pure politics.”

The Minority Leader also coined a new name for the bill — “an incumbency protection act for Democrats in Congress” — and argued that, “now, after spending the last year and a half enacting policies Americans don’t like, they want to prevent their opponents from criticizing what they’ve done…. They’re trying to rig the system to their advantage.”

Both parties, in a sense, are engaged in a game of chicken on the DISCLOSE Act. Democrats think the disclosure of political spending is a political winner and a no-brainer for most Americans, so on the campaign trail they’ll be happy to highlight Republican obstructionism if McConnell and his compatriots once again block a vote tomorrow. Republicans, for their part, are gambling that they can convince the public that the bill favors unions and other special interests partial to Democrats, weaving the measure into a tapestry of right-wing election paranoia that stretches back to ACORN and now The New Black Panther Party, chalking it up as once last ditch attempt by Democrats to steal the elections.

The story is significant because it shows that there is real resistance to coal in a region in which the economy is very much dependent on the fossil fuel.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, John Harrod, a member of the musical group Kentucky Wild Horse said:

I could not in good conscience allow myself to be used as an advertisement for an industry that has bought and corrupted our legislature and consistently blocked all efforts by our state to move ahead on sustainable energy.

The Associated Press reported yesterday that Paul held a rally in a Kentucky coalfield on Saturday. Paul took the opportunity to position himself as an ally of coal workers (a key constituency in Kentucky, where Paul is running for Senate), arguing he would “defend your way of life.”

According to AP, Paul said:

Even without changing the rules, the EPA is stifling the permit process, and people [are] out of work here because of the president and his policies.

With all due respect, Mr. President, you’re wrong, and you need to stay out of Kentucky affairs. And you need to keep the EPA out of our affairs because we need jobs, and we’re not going to get jobs with a busybody EPA that’s in our way.

Paul’s opponent, Democrat Jack Conway, said he too would work to protect jobs in the coal industry.

The ad, which is airing today before President Obama returns home to Chicago and does some serious fundraising for Giannoulias tomorrow, attempts to link the Democrat to the state’s 10.5 percent unemployment and asks, “Does anyone think that Alexi Giannoulias can create jobs?”

The Chamber is likely targeting Giannoulias not just because of Obama’s support, but also because of the upswing he’s been experiencing at the polls following revelations that his Republican opponent Mark Kirk was embellishing numerous aspects of his military and his teaching record. Giannoulias’ favorable poll numbers, combined with new positive polling for Democrats in a few other Senate races, has prompted Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Executive Director J.B. Poersch to boast that the Democrats’ hold on the Senate is looking increasingly secure:

In Nevada, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Illinois, Democratic prospects have improved over the last five weeks as Republican candidates have been exposed for their extremism, evasiveness and exaggerations. Despite the headwinds of history, Democratic Senate candidates in these states – two of which would be pick-up opportunities – are becoming increasingly competitive.

Several major coal companies hope to use newly loosened campaign-finance laws to pool their money and defeat Democratic congressional candidates they consider “anti-coal,” including U.S. Senate nominee Jack Conway and U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler in Kentucky.

The companies hope to create a politically active nonprofit under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, so they won’t have to publicly disclose their activities — such as advertising — until they file a tax return next year, long after the Nov. 2 election. [...]

“With the recent Supreme Court ruling, we are in a position to be able to take corporate positions that were not previously available in allowing our voices to be heard,” wrote Roger Nicholson, senior vice president and general counsel at International Coal Group of Scott Depot, W.Va., in an undated letter he sent to other coal companies.

Nicholson declined to comment on his letter Tuesday, after the Herald-Leader obtained it.

“A number of coal industry representatives recently have been considering developing a 527 entity with the purpose of attempting to defeat anti-coal incumbents in select races, as well as elect pro-coal candidates running for certain open seats,” Nicholson wrote. “We’re requesting your consideration as to whether your company would be willing to meet to discuss a significant commitment to such an effort.”

Apart from Kentucky Democratic senate candidate Jack Conway and Rep. Ben Chandler (D-Ky.), the letter also mentioned targeting Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, in his race against Republican Elliott “Spike” Maynard. And when West Virginia and Republican politics are mentioned in the same breath, you can be sure that Massey Energy’s Don Blankenship is eager to get involved:

In his letter, Nicholson said his company and three others — Massey Energy, Alliance Resource Partners and Natural Resource Partners — “have already had some theoretical discussions about such an effort and would like to proceed in developing an action plan.”

Both candidates have 43 percent support in the poll, with 14 percent undecided. PPP’s last poll of the race, at the beginning of May, showed Paul leading by 1 percentage point.

PPP attributes the tie to some voters’ dislike of Paul. PPP found that 42 percent of voters have an unfavorable opinion of Paul, while 40 percent had no opinion at all about Conway. Paul generated a great deal of national attention following his win in the May 18 Republican primary over establishment favorite Trey Grayson, but got burned by the spotlight after he made controversial comments on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. More recently, he suggested the unemployed stop asking for government handouts. Paul’s national media exposure had a negative effect on his standing with voters, 38 percent of whom told PPP they were less likely to vote for him as a result.

It is unclear at this point whether the PPP poll is an outlier or not — though the poll’s results do not line up with other recent surveys of the race. A Rasmussen Reports poll conducted June 28 showed Paul leading by seven percentage points — a one-point drop from Rasmussen’s poll in early June. A Survey USA poll from late May showed Paul leading by six points, 51-45.

Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) (EPA/ZUMAPRESS.com)

From Pennsylvania to Arizona, incumbent Republican senators are increasingly under siege from their right flanks, where Tea Party activists have mobilized to challenge every establishment candidate within charging distance. Tea Partiers rightfully took credit for Rand Paul’s recent upending of the Republican establishment in Kentucky. And they’re not done yet. Next on the list: longtime Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

[GOP1] The first electoral jolt signifying that times have changed came at the state Republican convention in Salt Lake City on May 8, where three-term senator Bob Bennett was forcefully knocked off the November ballot in two rounds of voting. So too were a number of other Republican incumbents deemed too moderate in style or substance by the convention’s 3,500 delegates.

Press accounts of Bennett’s defeat have generally focused on the state’s peculiar nominating system, in which an otherwise popular candidacy can be derailed at precinct-level caucuses that elect delegates to the closed party convention, from which only the top two candidates survive to face the voting public.

The state’s caucus-and-convention system, however, tells only half the story. Bennett and his fellow GOP casualties did not fall victim to Utah’s election system alone. Nor were they felled simply by some vague anti-incumbent mood. Rather, they were victims of a well-organized and increasingly dominant Tea Party coalition that over the last year has established a tightening grip on Utah’s Republican Party—and that has big plans for the rest of the country as well.

At the vanguard of this Beehive State conservative revolt is a states’ rights organization called the Patrick Henry Caucus (PHC). Along with better-known groups such as the 9.12 Project and Eagle Forum, the PHC mobilized enough activists at the precinct level to deny Bennett and a handful of others another election. Now they are preparing to do the same with Hatch.

“The Patrick Henry Caucus is leading the groups now dominating the conventions and determining who will run for the state legislature and national offices,” says Troy Williams, director of political programming at KRCL, a radio station in Salt Lake City. “They have effective control of the direction of the state party, and have a Mormon missionary zeal when it comes to spreading the gospel of states’ rights around the country.”

The Caucus was founded in May 2009 by five Republican state legislators united by their opposition to what they consider unconstitutional federal power as embodied in everything from the Department of Education to affirmative action laws. Since announcing itself to the world with a promotional video that looks like it was shot by an ex-intern of Jerry Bruckheimer, the group has emerged as a powerful force in Utah politics. Between 60 and 70 Utah government officials and representatives have signed up with the Caucus. The governor and attorney general, meanwhile, have attended meetings and spoken at Caucus-sponsored events. At the recent party convention, between one-third to one-half of delegates were PHC members.

“A large number of the delegates at convention belonged [to the Caucus],” says Stephen E. Sandstrom, a Utah state representative and founding member of the PHC. “Many others were sympathetic and have since joined. Our information booth was one of the most popular at the convention.”

Gayle Ruzicka, President of Eagle Forum Utah, predicts that “well over half” of the state legislature will be made up of PHC members by 2012.

With just $60,000 in the bank and occasional profile-boosting appearances on “Glenn Beck,” the group has established a national network of likeminded state legislators and activists. In September, the PHC will host a national states’ rights convention in Salt Lake City. “We’re inviting a broad spectrum of people and aiming for 20,000 participants,” says Carl Wimmer, a Utah state representative and PHC founder.

Many of the attendees will come from other Western states, eager to learn from Utah conservatives on the issue of attempting to wrest federal lands from Washington’s control.

“We get a lot of calls from groups in western states seeking advice about taking back our federal land through eminent domain,” says Wimmer. “In Utah, we have a long history of challenging the federal government, which owns 70 percent of state territory.”

In their first year, PHC-affiliated state legislators have emerged as the leading lights of the burgeoning states’ rights scene. Ken Ivory, a Utah PHC candidate who knocked out a long-time Republican state representative at the recent GOP convention, was a keynote speaker at first annual Tenth Amendment Summit in Atlanta. Through such events, the PHC has established working contacts with state legislators in 30 states, from North Dakota to New York.

“The goal has always been to organize states’ sovereignty activists nationwide. If we only fought health care and gun laws here in Utah, people would just dismiss us as ‘Oh, that’s just rightwing Utah,’” says Sandstrom, the Utah state representative and PHC founding member. “But if we get it done nationally, coordinating with like-minded people across the spectrum, we can truly have a huge impact.”

Some observers say the group is digging its own grave, and will not have a lasting impact, in Utah or anywhere else.

“The [Patrick Henry] Caucus is promoting leadership that is about banging its chest and pounding the desk,” says David Litvack, a five-term Democratic state representative from Salt Lake City. “There’s a huge disconnect. The further they push politics to the right, the more people are going to be looking to the Democrats as the mainstream party and the moderate option. They’re already creating divisiveness among Utah conservatives.”

For the founders of the Caucus—known among their local supporters as the “fab five”—the future is a busy one, full of promise.

“The number one goal for our second year is to become more organized nationwide,” says Wimmer. “You’ll probably see us going around the nation shoring up some of the Patrick Henry Caucus groups in other states. With so much success in such a short amount of time, we have to be careful about a letdown, especially after such a big victory as defeating Bob Bennett.”

Alexander Zaitchik is a freelance journalist in Brooklyn and the author of the new book “Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance.”