The sticking point? Disagreement over cuts to the program that accounts for nearly 80% of the farm bill’s costs—the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP—formerly known as food stamps.

Well, here we are again.

Congress has finally gotten around to reauthorizing the Farm Bill, and both chambers have put SNAP on the chopping block. The Senate Agriculture Committee is proposing a $4.1 billion cut. But the House version—as an enticement to deficit hawks to get on board—went five times farther with a $20.5 billion reduction in the program that feeds America’s hungry families.

So my letter this week is to the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.

Dear Chairman Frank Lucas,

It’s me, Melissa.

I understand your job as committee chair is a lot like herding cats. So job well done on bringing your Republican colleagues to heel by offering them that huge slice of SNAP reduction catnip.

You can all rest well in the knowledge that—if your bill passes—the deficit will no longer be burdened by that $20 billion worth of excessive spending and government inefficiency.

Only, here’s the thing: SNAP has a 96% efficiency rate. By and large, it does exactly what it was intended to do—put food on the table for those who need it most.

I know you’re used to thinking about these things in terms of line items on a budget. But let’s be very clear about the people sitting around that table: More than 23 million households, more than 47 million individuals, and almost half of those individuals are children. And your bill would mean nearly two million fewer seats at that table.

Fewer families like Gale and Alfonso. This Philadelphia couple relies on SNAP to feed their five children, including their youngest—twin daughters. Put yourself in their shoes, Congressman Lucas.

Imagine if you had to explain to your three children and grandchild that they had to go to bed hungry because the deficit in the national budget is more important than the deficit of food on the table.

And it’s not like SNAP is even a worthy sacrifice for the altar of deficit reduction. Your cuts to SNAP will do very little to solve the nation’s long term fiscal challenges since spending on the program is expected to decrease, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s projections.

The dramatic increase in SNAP recipients between 2007 and 2011 is an indication that the program was responding to Americans who were struggling to feed their families during the recession and slow recovery.

Put simply, more people are using SNAP because there are more people facing poverty and unemployment.

Here’s a crazy thought—how about you and your colleagues in Congress do something about that. Because SNAP really doesn’t need you to interfere.

As the economy recovers, and  the number of Americans in need of help declines, so too will the growth in spending on SNAP. In the meantime, SNAP has been one of few reliable lifelines in our weak social safety net. It lifted 4.7 million families out of poverty in 2011, including 2.1 million children.

So here is my proposal, Congressman Lucas. No member of the U.S. Congress should be allowed to introduce a bill reducing SNAP benefits until you have personally taken the Food Stamp challenge. That means eating on a budget of about one dollar per person, per meal.  If you and all your colleagues can do that for a full month and still think we should cut SNAP, then feel free to introduce a reduction. Until then, just have a seat.

Sincerely,

Melissa

Harris-Perry will also discuss the progress made this week by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Barbara Boxer to reform the process of reporting sexual assault crimes and bringing perpetrators to justice. Gillibrand and Boxer proposed new legislation on Thursday that calls for taking sexual assault cases out of the military chain of command entirely. Their announcement comes on the heels of yet another military arrest made this week of an Army sergeant charged with abusive sexual contact and allegedly forcing a subordinate female soldier into prostitution. Harris-Perry will be joined by someone who helped draft the new legislation: Anu Bhagwati, a retired Marine captain and co-founder and executive director of the Service Women’s Action Network.

With the news that the Associated Press’ phone records are subject to scrutiny by the Department of Justice, we’ll examine the delicate balance between protecting national security and upholding our right to privacy. Just what can the government know about you? “MHP” will explore a new report that indicates the administration may back the FBI’s initiative to expand wiretapping privileges to the Internet.

Lastly, the Mother’s Day Parade shooting in New Orleans that left at least 19 people wounded was just eight blocks from Harris-Perry’s home. She will share the incredible story of one victim, 10-year-old Ka’Nard Allen, who now counts Sunday’s injuries as his second gunshot wound in his young life. Also, we will compare the vastly different gun control law different states are taking. MSNBC reporter Trymaine Lee will join us to discuss his new report on Harris-Perry’s home state of Louisiana, focusing on their extreme political resistance to sensible reform. Read it now on MHPshow.com.

Be sure to read what we’ve linked above, and watch Melissa Harris-Perry Saturday at 10 AM EST on MSNBC! Also, don’t forget to join us on Facebook, and on Twitter using the hashtag #nerdland!

Actually, the lawmaker’s path back to the Tea Party spotlight began at the Conservative Political Action Conference back in March. During her speech, Bachmann drew material from a thinly-sourced book about President Obama’s lifestyle in the White House. “A new book is out talking about the perks and the excess of the $1.4-billion-a-year presidency that we’re paying for,” she said. “And this is a lifestyle that is one of excess. Now we find out that there are five chefs on Air Force One.”

These statements later proved to be factually-challenged. When CNN’s Dana Bash attempted to follow up with the Congresswoman, Bachmann practically ran away, all the while pointing out that the real point of her speech was the attack in Benghazi.

Days later, Bachmann took to the House floor to reprise her warning us about the perils of Obamacare. “Let’s repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens,” she said.

Now to this week. On Thursday, Bachmann joined fellow Tea Partiers like Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert to address developments on the Internal Revenue Service’s improper targeting of conservative-leaning groups prior to the last election cycle. Bachmann was arguably the voice of reason in the group of speakers, stressing that it would be wrong to “jump to conclusions” and start considering impeaching President Obama so early in the investigation.

There are still 17 months before voters in Minnesota decide whether Bachmann will get another term in Congress. It’s looking like she will once again face off against Democrat Jim Graves, a hotel executive who narrowly lost to Bachmann in the most recent election.

As television viewers in Minnesota found out yesterday, Bachmann is getting an early start on the 2014 campaign. Her first ad buy took effect today, in the same week that House Republicans made their 37^th attempt at repealing Obamacare. The repeal passed by a 229-195 vote.

“Great news!” Bachmann begins in the ad. “The U.S. House just passed my bill to repeal Obamacare.”

Of course, there’s no chance the bill could become law in the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House’s promise to veto such a measure.

Still, at yesterday’s briefing, Speaker of the House John Boehner confirmed that the door to attempt #38 was in the cards.

Take a look at the Hardball Sideshow for more!

The Associated Press reported Thursday night that Lt. Col. Darin Haas, the manager of the prevention program at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, turned himself into police on charges of stalking his ex-wife and violating a restraining order she had against him. According to a military source, Haas and his ex-wife had orders of protection against each other, and a police sergeant in Clarksville, Tennessee, reports that Haas contacted her repeatedly on Wednesday night, constituting a violation. Haas, who police say is engaged in a child custody battle with his ex-wife, reportedly spent 12 hours in jail and was released.

An Army statement indicated that Haas has been removed from his position in the sexual assault prevention office, and that he was due to retire soon.

News of Haas’ arrest comes as the military sexual assault issue is becoming a top priority for President Obama, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Congress. The president on Thursday met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the heels of a startling Pentagon report released on May 7 detailing the uptick of 2012 military sexual assaults to 26,000, an increase of more than 34% from the previous year. Army general Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the matter “a crisis” because the military is losing the confidence of women who serve that an effective remedy will be found and enforced. The president said about those present at the meeting:

“They care about this, and they’re angry about it, and I heard directly from all of them that they’re ashamed by some of what’s happened. They understand this is a priority and we will not stop until we see this scourge from what is the greatest military in the world eliminated.”

A day prior to the release of the Pentagon report, the head of the Air Force’s efforts to combat such assaults was arrested for sexual battery. An unnamed Army sergeant assigned to an assault prevention office at Fort Hood, Texas, was accused on Tuesday of multiple sexual offenses, including “abusive sexual contact” and forcing at least one female officer into prostitution. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York led the announcement Thursday morning of a new bill aimed at taking major criminal cases involving rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment out of the military chain of command. “We believe enough is enough,” said the senator, adding later that “when any single victim of sexual assault is forced to salute her attacker, clearly our system is broken.”

See more coverage of this issue on Saturday’s edition of “Melissa Harris-Perry,” when Service Women’s Action Network executive director and co-founder Anu Bhagwati will be our guest.

Could marijuana be the secret weapon in solving America’s obesity problem? A surprising new study published in the American Journal of Medicine suggested the health benefits of smoking pot may extend beyond pain relief.

Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the University of Nebraska and the Harvard School of Public Health conducted a study with 4,657 adults from 2005 to 2010–out of which 547 identified themselves as current marijuana users and 1,975 admitted to smoking at least once in the past (but more than a 30-day window). Participants got tested on their waist size and glucose, insulin and insulin resistance levels.

“We looked at their ability to handle carbohydrates, the ability of the body to handle sugar, and how well the body metabolizes it,” Dr. Murray Mittleman, one of the authors of that study, told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell.

The results? The study indicated that current pot smokers have much smaller waist circumferences — by about an inch, on average — compared to those who have never lit up, even after taking things like sex and age into consideration. Insulin levels for marijuana smokers compared to non-marijuana smokers were slashed by 16% and insulin resistance went down by 17%. And their “good”cholesterol was higher by three points.

“Several prior studies, actually, have indicated that marijuana users tend to be leaner, despite the fact that they do tend to consume more calories,” said Mittleman. “One of the caveats, I would say, about our findings is that it was based on self-report.  And really at this stage, we need much more solid research, including experimental studies, to really provide doctors with the evidence base to make recommendations.”

Support for legalizing marijuana has grown in the past few years, according to a new Pew Poll. The majority of Americans, or 52%, now favor legalizing the use of marijuana. When you break it down by party lines, Democrats’ support increased by 11 points, from 48 to 59%, and Republicans’ support jumped by 13 points, from 24 to 37%.

Right now, 18 states along with the District of Columbia allow the use of medical marijuana. But Illinois may be the next one to join that group.

On Friday, the state’s Senate approved legislation that permits doctors to prescribe medical marijuana, sending the bill over Gov. Pat Quinn to sign into law.

In the House, Republicans took up their 37th vote to repeal Obamacare on Thursday, and 20 states currently oppose the Medicaid expansion that could offer care to some of the neediest Americans who currently have no insurance and little means to afford health care, even when they’re sick.

But thanks to charity efforts, there are still some options, and this week Rev. Al Sharpton announced Urgent Care–an important initiative MSNBC is taking as it renews its commitment to provide health care to those who lack insurance by joining forces with the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics (NAFC).

How can I help?

Beginning this summer, PoliticsNation will formally take up the cause that was launched by the network in 2009, which has provided health care to over 15,000 Americans who don’t have regular access to doctors. MSNBC and NAFC workers return to New Orleans on July 3rd, setting up a clinic at the convention center. The free clinic will be open to the public, providing each patient a diagnosis, prescriptions, and information on where they can continue to get health services and aftercare.

To make that happen, we need donations and volunteers.

Click here to make a donation.

Click here to sign up to volunteer.

Why should I help?

This upcoming clinic will be the eighth that MSNBC has sponsored, returning again to New Orleans, where the partnership first started in 2009. The New Orleans community continues to need care, as NAFC’s Executive Director Nicole Lamoureux explained on Thursday’s show. Despite the eight years that have passed since Hurricane Katrina, not all of the hospitals in the city have been rebuilt. “There are people who really want to go to a doctor, but there isn’t one to go to,” she said. “At the New Orleans clinic, we’re going to find people who haven’t seen a doctor since last time we were there.”

“Eighty percent of the patients who come to free clinics across the country, and our one-day clinics, have jobs,” she said on Thursday’s PoliticsNation. “They’re not just lazy people doing nothing. They’re working everyday. They’ve making that choice between putting food on the table or getting health care and no one should make that choice.”

“Health care should be a right, not a privilege.”

Those past clinics have provided invaluable care, with patients treated for everything from basic dental care to hypertension, even heart disease and cancer. Numerous patients have required immediate emergency care and have been transported directly to the ER where they were treated for severe medical conditions. The clinic staff has helped to save lives too — at least seven patients who came to past clinics sought psychological help because they were contemplating suicide.

“It’s our job to take care of our neighbors, that’s who we’re here for,” Lamoureux said.

Over the past 2 years, MSNBC viewers have donated almost 4-million dollars and over 15,000 volunteers, doctors, and nurses have come together to run them. We cannot continue to offer this support without the help of our viewers. Please consider clicking the button below to give what you can to help those in need.

As Lamoureux explained, ”When you hear people say to me, ‘I can’t afford it, I can’t afford four-dollar meds because I don’t know where my next meal’s coming from, because I’m too busy paying my bills,’ we’re here to help. That’s what we’re gonna do. That’s what you’re helping us do. That’s what MSNBC’s helping us do.”

New challengers are pressing the fight against Obamacare with lawsuits in Oklahoma and Washington, D.C. While their claims turn on an obscure technicality, the suits have the potential to cause major problems for the Affordable Care Act. If the lawsuits were to succeed, lower-income Americans in more than two dozen states could be ineligible for tax credits that are a key part of the act. And employers in those states could be exempt from the “employer mandate”—a requirement that larger employers offer insurance plans or pay a hefty penalty. Without those pieces in place, the act wouldn’t work as intended in large swaths of the country.

The stakes are high even though the lawsuits are getting far less attention than they did in the first go-around. That, no doubt, is partly because the arguments this time are a far cry from the lofty claims about “individual freedom” that dotted last year’s Supreme Court case. Instead, they turn on obscure details of how the Affordable Care Act was written—details, as one commentator put it, that “could make even a seasoned tax lawyer’s head hurt.”

The issue boils down to what Obamacare supporters say was nothing more than a drafting mistake by Congress. The Affordable Care Act calls for each state to set up an insurance “exchange”—the law’s term for a regulated marketplace where consumers can shop for insurance. But, recognizing that some states might delay or refuse to set up exchanges, the act also says the federal government must take on that task in any state that drags its feet.

That’s where the technicality crops up. A centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act is its tax credits: The act was designed to offer the credits to lower-income Americans who enroll in health care through exchanges as a way to make the coverage more affordable. But when Congress drafted that part of the law, it wrote that applicants are eligible for credits if they enroll “through an Exchange established by the State.” It said nothing about exchanges established by the federal government in states that haven’t taken action.

Obamacare critics, seizing on that omission, began arguing two years ago that there is a gaping hole in the act. More than half the states have made no move to set up exchanges. That means, according to the law’s opponents, that residents in those states can’t get the tax credits designed to make coverage more affordable; after all, those credits are only available to those who enroll through an exchange “established by the State.” What’s more, the opponents say, it means employers in those states are not subject to the “employer mandate,” which requires larger employers to offer affordable insurance to their workers or pay a tax penalty of at least $2,000 per employee. That’s so, they say, because of the way Congress wrote the employer mandate: It doesn’t kick in unless at least one of the employer’s workers is eligible for an Obamacare tax credit.

Recognizing the potential problem, the Internal Revenue Service issued a rule last year clarifying that individuals are eligible for credits if they’re enrolled in any exchange, state or federal. That’s what triggered the new round of litigation. The state of Oklahoma, a group of small businesses and other plaintiffs have sued, arguing that the IRS’s rule is illegal because it extends tax credits and the employer mandate further than Congress authorized. Congress limited the credits and the mandate to states that set up their own exchanges, the plaintiffs say. They say the limitation was not a drafting error at all, but a choice by Congress that the IRS must honor.

Affordable Care Act supporters, for their part, say the statutory wording is nothing more than a glitch . They say other parts of the act, and the history surrounding the Act’s drafting, make clear that Congress meant for the tax credits—and thus the employer mandate—to apply to all states, not just those that set up their own exchanges. After all, they say, why would Congress extend the credits to residents in some states but not others? That would undercut the purpose of the law: to encourage as many people as possible to enroll in health coverage.

These lawsuits are not the only game in town; many other groups are continuing to fight the Affordable Care Act on other grounds. And the lawsuits are still in their early stages. But they bear watching. If courts were to accept the plaintiffs’ arguments and strike down the IRS rule, it would mean trouble for the Affordable Care Act—and potentially another trip to the Supreme Court a year or two down the road.

But flanked by her fellow Tea Party leaders — Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – Bachmann stood proud as the face of the Tea Party response to the IRS scandal in which two employees apparently targeted conservative groups.

She wasted no time in turning an opportunity into an attack on one of her favorite targets: Obamacare. If the IRS was untrustworthy inhis handling of Tea Party organizations,  then it would be just as untrustworthy with handling aspects of health care, she suggested.

The Tea Party had all but vanished from the national stage until this past week when the IRS scandal brought it back into view. For Bachmann and her colleagues, the question is whether they can harness the renewed attention to their advantage and the president’s disadvantage.

Their best bet, they seemed to think Thursday, was to focus attention on health care, a signature irritant for Tea Party followers.

“I’m quite worried that your medical records will be evaluated by the IRS,” Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday. The Kentucky Republican argued that the scandal has proven the IRS has the ability and “the penchant” to use its power to search out “political opponents.”

The IRS is responsible for administering some of the financial aspects of the Affordable Care Act’s, including the individual mandate and tax subsidies Americans will use to help them buy health insurance, along with new revenue streams the law creates.

The Acting head of the IRS was forced out Wednesday after two employees were disciplined for singling out Tea Party groups for added scrutiny. Paul wanted more. “Someone needs to be in prison,” he said as he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Bachmann outside the Capitol Building Thursday.

She went further, telling reporters that her constituents want to see President Obama “impeached.”

Bachmann suggested the president might have been connected to the brewing IRS scandal, demanding that any investigation go “all the way to the White House.”

“We need to know what the White House knew and when they knew it,” she said.

To be sure, a trifecta of controversies in Washington regarding national security issues, freedoms of the press and foreign policy have engulfed the administration in criticism.  The tea party mantra of overly big and intrusive government could be reinforced by all three scandals.

Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert said the Justice Department seizure of reporters’ phone records in a national security leaks probe was evidence of “government run amuck.” He described the president as a “tyrannical despot.”

For tea party leaders, this language is nothing new, but it’s been relegated to the side recently, and it’s not clear how receptive Americans will be to that message going forward.

Earlier this year, AP polling showed the movement had its lowest support ever – down to only 22% – but that ticked up ever so slightly in April.

The Sergeant First Class was assigned as a coordinator for the sexual assault prevention program in Fort Hood, Texas, and is under investigation for possibly forcing one his subordinates into prostitution and sexually assaulting two other subordinates.

In a statement released Tuesday night, Senate Armed Services Committee member Claire McCaskill asked, ”If these allegations are proven, then now is the time for our military leaders to reevaluate who is being put into these positions. Are folks filling these jobs who aren’t succeeding elsewhere? Or are these jobs being given to our best leaders? These allegations only add to the mounting evidence of the need to change our military justice system to better hold perpetrators accountable and protect survivors of sexual assault.”

McCaskill and New Hampshire’s Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen wrote a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, urging him to make all sexual assault prevention jobs “nominative positions,” requiring candidates to complete a rigorous application, screening, and interview process.

“We urge you to consider making Sexual Assault Prevention and Response jobs nominative positions and to ensure that the personnel filling these positions are receiving all necessary and appropriate training and certification,” the senators wrote.

The Missouri senior senator joined MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss her proposed legislation that would require the Department of Defense to set new criteria for sexual assault prevention leadership positions.

McCaskill explained that part of the problem lies with the military’s flawed protocol to “train their way out” of sexual assault crises and that procedural and cultural changes need to occur. “It’s very hard to micromanage hiring in the military and we shouldn’t be doing that, frankly,” McCaskill said. “But we’re trying to go in a direction to give them clear guidance in the law that the qualifications for this job and the background checks for this job and the certification and the training for this job needs to be put in the law so that everyone understands that this is not a throwaway job.”

Secretary Hagel said in a statement Tuesday night that he plans to direct “all the services to re-train, re-credential, and re-screen all sexual assault prevention and response personnel and military recruiters.” McCaskill said on The Last Word that that was not enough, and the military needs to undergo a cultural makeover.

“The people who commit these crimes, they are not crimes of sex, they are crimes of dominance, violence, control and frankly, you’re going to get some people who are attracted to the military because it is a place where strength is valued. It is a place where violence is accepted under certain circumstances when you’re going after the enemy, so I think it’s going to be very difficult to screen out these people. More importantly, rather than to screen out these people, we need to go after them with effective prosecution and put them in the penitentiary. And part of that is getting victims to come forward.”