1 in 5 U.S. households on food stamps, incl. illegals

Food World News reports, April 25, 2013, that the Obama regime’s Department of Agriculture (USDA) Jan. 2013 statistics show that one out of every five households in America — a record 23.087 million U.S. households or 47.69 million individuals — are now on Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps.

That 23.087 million is an increase of 889,154 families from just a year ago in January 2012. In fact, the number of households on food stamps has doubled in size in the last four years under the POS.

But wait! The only thing growing faster than the number of households on food stamps is the cost of food stamp fraud, which has more than doubled in just three years.

Although seven major journalism groups and open-government organizations have banded together in calling on the USDA to release data on where and how the food stamps money is being spent, USDA officials have declined to provide data on which retailers are benefiting and what types of products, such as junk food and sugary soda, the money is spent on.

The POS is intent on getting even more people on food stamps.

From Judicial Watch comes the delightful [sarcasm alert] news that the USDA is working with the Mexican government to promote participation by illegal aliens in the U.S. food stamp program. Judicial Watch obtained that information only by pulling teeth via filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The USDA has provided the Mexican Embassy a Spanish-language flyer advising Mexican nationals in the U.S. that they do not need to declare their immigration status in order to receive financial assistance. In bold and underlined Spanish, the statement reads, “You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.”

The documents obtained by Judicial Watch show that USDA officials are working closely with their counterparts at the Mexican Embassy to widely broaden the SNAP program in the Mexican immigrant community, with no effort to restrict aid to, identify, or apprehend illegal immigrants who may be on the food stamp rolls. In an email to Borjon Lopez-Coterilla and Jose Vincente of the Mexican Embassy, dated January 26, 2012, Yibo Wood of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) sympathized with the plight of illegal aliens applying for food stamps, saying, “FNS understands that mixed status households may be particularly vulnerable.  Many of these households contain a non-citizen parent and a citizen child.”

Yibo Wood

That email from Wood was in response to a request from the Mexican Embassy that the USDA FNS step in to prevent the state of Kansas from changing its food stamp policy to restrict the amount of financial assistance provided to illegal aliens.  In a January 22, 2012, article, the Kansas City Star had revealed that the state would no longer include illegal aliens in its calculations of the amount of assistance to be provided low-income Hispanic families in order to prevent discrimination against legal recipients.

In 2006, Judicial Watch revealed that the USDA was spending taxpayer money to run Spanish-language television ads encouraging illegal immigrants to apply for food stamps, with the assurance that receiving food stamps “won’t affect your immigration status.” The TV commercials even provided a phone number to apply.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton observes that the USDA actively working with the Mexican government to promote food stamps for illegal aliens “further confirm the fact that the Obama administration cannot be trusted to protect our borders or enforce our immigration laws. And the coordination with a foreign government to attack the policies of an American state is contemptible.”

H/t FOTM’s Glenn47 for the “Obama loves the poor” image.

~Eowyn

U.S. food banks depleted by rising demand and severe drought

More “Hope & Change” and the Cloward-Piven Strategy!

Winter doesn’t officially begin until December 21, but already U.S. food banks that feed 50 million Americans, are sounding the alarm that their pantry is bare.

Lisa Baertlein reports for Reuters, Nov. 21, 2012, that weakened by the worst U.S. drought in more than half a century and swamped by demand for food assistance, America’s food banks are raising the alarm as the holiday season gets into full swing.

This summer’s crop-damaging weather in the U.S. farm belt has driven up costs for everything from grain to beef. That means higher prices at the grocery store, but it also means the U.S. government has less need to buy key staples like meat, peanut butter, rice and canned fruits and vegetables to support agricultural prices and remove surpluses.

Government commodity purchases through The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) fell by more than half to $352.5 million for the fiscal year ended September 30, from $723.7 million three years earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Most of the products from those government purchases are sent to U.S. food banks, which then distribute them to food pantries, soup kitchens and emergency shelters that are a lifeline for low-income families, senior citizens and people with disabilities.

“People have been coping with economic distress for a really, really, really long time … After several years of tapping all the resources we have, we’re starting to see that we’re coming up short,” said Carrie Calvert, director of tax and commodity policy at Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger relief organization.

Executives at major food banks across the United States worry they will not be able to keep pace with demand, which they don’t expect to ease until more Americans find better paying jobs. In a sign of how stressed the budgets of many Americans are, a record 47.1 million people used food stamps in August 2012, up from 45.8 million the year earlier.

With such pressures at work, on-hand supplies at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank have fallen from a peak of about 3.3 weeks in 2010 to less than two weeks – the lowest in recent history, according to its president and CEO, Michael Flood.

Tightening food supplies last summer forced the food bank to start a waiting list because it does not have enough inventory to expand beyond the 640 agencies it already supplies with food. There are now 565 nonprofits on the waiting list, Flood said.

Government commodities once made up 28% of the food flowing through the Feeding America network, which includes about 90% of U.S. food banks and provides food for about 37 million people during the year. This year those commodities account for 17%, Feeding America said.

The Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina has seen its monthly supplies of TEFAP products plummet by roughly two-thirds to about 170,000 pounds from 500,000 pounds. At the same time, state budget cuts have slashed its annual funding by about half to $500,000, Executive Director Clyde Fitzgerald said.

Barbara Prather, executive director of the Northeast Iowa Food Bank, also is buying more food after government commodity donations fell by 50% to 700,000 pounds in the fiscal year ended June 30.

The picture is similar elsewhere.

At the Greater Chicago Food Depository, food purchases have more than doubled in recent years to account for 27% of overall supply, a spokesman said.

That strain shows up in the size and quality of food packages that nonprofits give to people who need to supplement food stamp benefits or whose meager incomes are a bit too high to qualify for food stamps or other government assistance.

Last week, women with young children, single men dressed in combat fatigues and senior citizens – some in wheel chairs – gathered at Monrovia, California’s Foothill Unity Center to pick up rations, including staples like eggs, salad, milk and bread.

“We used to give more in those shopping carts,” said Betty McWilliams, the executive director of the Los Angeles-area center. For example, carts now have six or seven cans of food rather than nine, she said. Thus far the center, which is supplied by the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, has not had to turn anyone away.

Rochelle Fisher, 52, was grateful for what was available and credited the center’s free food and healthcare services for getting her back on her feet. “If they wouldn’t have been there for me, I would have been starving to death,” said Fisher, who just got a job at a homeless shelter where she used to stay.

Donors such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Kroger Co say they have increased both cash and food donations.

Meanwhile, food prices are forecast to move even higher, making it harder for people with limited means to stretch their money.

I have an idea!

Warren Buffet, Hollywood multimillionaires and the residents of 8 of America’s 10 wealthiest counties who had voted to reelect Obama should band together to donate their excess wealth to America’s food banks!

~Eowyn

Federal agencies scramble to allay fears about ammo purchases

No thanks to the MSM, but publicized by conservatives blogs like FOTM, more and more Americans now know that civilian bureaucracies of the federal government, especially the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), are amassing an arsenal of shotguns and hollow-point bullets that are designed to expand as they enter the body, causing maximum damage by tearing apart internal organs.

First, it was the Department of Education buying shotguns in March 2010. Then in March 2012 came news that the DHS ordered 450 million rounds of .40 caliber ammunition. The next month, April 2012, it was the USDA buying 300,000 rounds of ammo. In July 2012 came news that the DHS added high-powered battle rifles to its arsenal. On August 8, 2012, the DHS ordered over half a ton of high explosives. On August 10, 2012, the DHS put in an order for even more ammunition – hundreds of millions of rounds. On August 15, 2012, the Social Security Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also put in their orders for tens of thousands of hollow-point bullets.

These federal agencies must have heard from alarmed citizens because they are now vociferously tamping down speculation over the ammo purchases.

FoxNews.com reports, August 17, 2012, that Infowars.com speculated that the ammo purchases were being made in preparation for “civil unrest,” imagining a scenario of economic collapse where seniors could cause “disorder” if denied their Social Security benefits. So the federal agencies are now trying to allay public fears and apprehension over the ammo purchases by assuring the American people that the ammunition is “standard issue” and simply used for mandatory federal training sessions.

A message on the official blog for Social Security’s inspector general office explained that their agents need firearms and ammo in the course of training, investigations and responding to threats against offices and employees: “Our special agents need to be armed and trained appropriately. As we said in a recent post, our office has criminal investigators, or special agents, who are responsible for investigating violations of the laws that govern SSA’s programs.”

The agency said it has 295 special agents across 66 offices in the country. “These investigators have full law enforcement authority, including executing search warrants and making arrests,” the statement said.

As for concern about the type of bullets — hollow points, which expand upon impact — the statement said the type is “standard issue” and is used during “mandatory quarterly firearms qualifications and other training sessions.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, found itself scrambling to respond to a similar report this week about an order for 46,000 rounds of ammo. Though the agency initially indicated it was for the National Weather Service — leading to questions about why the National Weather Service could possibly need so many bullets — a spokesman clarified the bullets are actually meant for the NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement. A “clerical error” resulted in the order saying the ammo was for the weather service.

Spokesman Scott Smullen said the error’s been fixed in the bidding system. He, too, said the ammo is “standard issue” and will be used by 63 enforcement personnel at NOAA during qualifications and training sessions.

“NOAA officers and agents enforce the nation’s ocean and fishing laws to ensure a level playing field for fishermen and to protect marine species like whales, dolphins and turtles,” he said.

According to NOAA, the specialized agents are supposed to have 200 rounds in their “duty bag,” and qualification and training requires another 500-600 rounds per agent.

+++

I say the more transparency about what government does, the better. I also heard from the grapevine that some of DHS’s gun and ammo purchases is due to DHS having a seemingly unlimited budget. So the DHS turns around and simply gives some of its arms purchases to local police across America.

What concerns me about this are:

• Why is the DHS so flushed with cash when the federal government is $16 trillion in debt?
• Will the DHS’s “largesse” to local police at the expense of taxpayers lead to local law enforcement feeling beholden and increasingly dependent on the federal government?
• These ammo purchases by federal agencies will drive up the price of guns and bullets for citizen consumers.

~Eowyn

20% of U.S. households are on food stamps

Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a report (in PDF format here) that shows just how well our economy is recovering [snark]:

• As of January 2012, the most recent month available, 46.5 million Americans or 20% (22.2 million) of U.S. households are in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or food stamps program.

• The average household in SNAP receives $277/month; the average participant receives $132/month.

• Less than half of the SNAP benefit paid monthly actually goes to  buying food. 

• SNAP is not supposed to be the only source of food purchasing for a household in the program. SNAP money represents about 30% of their income. The typical SNAP recipient also receives other “government transfer payments”: Social Security (21%), Social Security Insurance/Disability (21%), and child support payments (10%).

• Households with children account for 71% of all demand for SNAP. The typical SNAP participant is a child under the age of 18; children account for 47% of the program. Surprisingly, the elderly are only 8% of the program.

• Food stamps appear to be a long-term dependency. Those who were enrolled in the SNAP program in the early-to-mid 2000s remain enrolled for 7 years on average. Over half of those who left the program returned within 2 years.

Writing for ZeroHedge.com on April 20, 2012, Nic Colas of ConvergEx puts the numbers into perspective for us:

• If the 46.5 million Americans on food stamps were a state, it would be the largest state in the Union.

• If the adults enrolled in the SNAP program (about half the 46.5 million total) all voted for one Presidential candidate in the Fall, they would represent over 2x the margin of victory in the 2008 election.

Colas also gives us the historical background.

The SNAP or Food Stamps program got its start in the Great Depression — an effort to give some of the surplus produced by America’s agricultural system to the urban poor. The poor could buy “stamps” that entitled them to buy both regular foodstuffs as well as discounted surplus produce. The program went dormant during World War II but President Kennedy resurrected it in 1960, altering it from a pay-for-stamps system to a straight entitlement. With some tweaks and alterations, this is the program we have today – a nationwide system of evaluating those who are deemed to be at risk of food insecurity (typically those making less than 130% of the poverty line) and giving them money to purchase food.

Mindful that long economic recessions have a way of forming permanent habits among Americans, Colas warns that the Food Stamps program has all the signs of becoming a permanent entitlement:

The trouble, as I see it, is that the SNAP program has become wildly successful.  That is not a slam against the people that use it – I personally agree that no one, especially a child, should go to bed hungry in America.  But it’s not hard to see where this program is creeping its way from counter-cyclical stimulus and support to a lasting entitlement program that will be very hard to change.

[...] a large percentage of the population – 20% of households is a big number – is locked into this program.  There are endless studies in the world of behavioral finance that show that people are very quick to budget increases in disposable income as permanent. And don’t forget that by the USDA’s own numbers, most of the benefit is effectively NOT being spent on food.  In the narrowest sense, the money spent on the SNAP program is tiny relative to the Federal budget – $6 billion a month, or a drop in the $270 billion/month government spend.

But this is where I wonder about the long shadow of the last recession.  Have we reached a point where Americans want a clear and potentially permanent social safety net?  And how far should it go? Again, the current SNAP program is a cheap way to provide this, so from a budgetary or societal standpoint it is hard to argue that it breaks the bank.  But what if it is an emblem of something greater?  In many ways I think this is a big chunk of what the November election will be about, and at least the Food Stamp program seems to show that Americans have made up their minds.

Add to Colas’ observations the fact that 47% of SNAP recipients are children — and there is even more reason for us to wonder if new generations of Americans are growing up with a permanent sense of entitlement and dependency on Big Government to provide for them.

~Eowyn

Food Nazi goes after school lunch and frosty flakes

Give them an inch and they’ll take a yard.

The Big Brother-Nanny State is now encroaching on yet another of our freedoms. Led by lard-butt Moochelle, government is now the Food Nazi, telling the American people what we can or cannot eat.

Audrey Hudson writes for Human Events, June 21, 2011, that the Nanny State is going after your frosty flakes:

Tony the Tiger, some NASCAR drivers and cookie-selling Girl Scouts will be out of a job unless grocery manufacturers agree to reinvent a vast array of their products to satisfy the Obama administration’s food police.

Either retool the recipes to contain certain levels of sugar, sodium and fats, or no more advertising and marketing to tots and teenagers, say several federal regulatory agencies.

The same goes for restaurants.

[...] Food industries are in an uproar over the proposal written by the Federal Trade Commission, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“The most disturbing aspect of this interagency working group is, after it imposes multibillions of dollars in restrictions on the food industry, there is no evidence of any impact on the scourge of childhood obesity,” said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers.

The “Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children, Preliminary Proposed Nutrition Principles to Guide Industry Self-Regulation Efforts” says it is voluntary, but industry officials say the intent is clear: Do it, or else.

[...] “The Interagency working group recommends that the food industry, through voluntary self-regulatory efforts, make significant improvements in the nutritional quality of foods marketed to children and adolescents ages 2 to 17 years,” the proposal says. “By the year 2016, all food products within the categories most heavily marketed directly to children should meet two basic nutrition principles.  Such foods should be formulated to … make a meaningful contribution to a healthful diet and minimize the content of nutrients that could have a negative impact on health and weight.”

[...] Beth Johnson, a dietician for Food Directions in Maryland, said many of the foods targeted in this proposal are the same foods approved by the federal government for the WIC nutrition program for women, infants and children. “This doesn’t make any sense whatsoever,” Johnson said.  “It’s not going to do anything to help with obesity. These are decisions I want to make for my kids. These should not be government decisions.”

The Food Nazi marches on.

On Jan. 30, a preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford, N.C., was forced to eat three chicken nuggets for lunch because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious. The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines. After consuming the approved nuggets, she was sent home with her mom-packed lunch and a bill from the school for $1.25.

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs — including in-home day-care centers — to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.

But if the chicken nuggets at West Hoke Elementary School are anything like McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets, they are far inferior to the mom-packed home lunch. From Wikipedia:

The 2004 documentary Super Size Me states “McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets were originally made from old chickens no longer able to lay eggs. These chickens are stripped down to the bone, and then ‘ground up’ into a chicken mash, then combined with a variety of stabilizers and preservatives, pressed into familiar shapes, breaded and deep fried, freeze dried, and then shipped to a McDonald’s near you”. Super Size Me also alleged inclusion of chemicals such as tertiary butylhydroquinone (a phenolic antioxidant used as a chemical preservative), polydimethylsiloxane (an anti-foaming agent), and other ingredients not used by a typical home cook. This was recently restated by CNN. June 201d author of What to Eat, says the tertiary butylhydroquinone and dimethylpolysiloxane in McNuggets probably pose no health risks. As a general rule, though, she advocates not eating any food with an ingredient you can’t pronounce.

Jackie Samuels

The principal of West Hoke Elementary School is Mr. Jackie Samuels. Here’s his contact info:

• Mail: 6050 Turnpike Road, Raeford, NC 28376
• Phone: 910-875-2584
• Fax: 910-875-7312
• E-mail: Click here

 

~Eowyn

Agenda 21? Feds OK Killing Wild Horses

Clearing the way to re-start horse slaughter in the U.S.

 Posted by Lynda V. Mapes

 Advocates of horse slaughter as a way to manage horse populations, particularly on reservation lands and fragile grasslands, were cheering passage Monday night of a conference report on an appropriations bill for the U.S. Department of Agriculture that for the first time since 2005 does not contain a rider that prevents the USDA from providing inspections of horse meat for human consumption at processing facilities.    Full Story

~LTG

No Lemon Tree For You!

Welcome to the Fascist States of Amerika!

A woman in Wisconsin, Bridget Donovan, has grown a lemon tree for three years. Now, the USDA is threatening her with a fine of up to $60,000 unless she surrenders her lemon tree.

The outlaw lemon tree

Ethan A. Huff reports for NaturalNews, Oct 3, 2011:

Health Freedom Alliance (HFA) reports that officials from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) are now spying on people whom they suspect are in possession of ordinary lemon trees, and threatening them with excessive fines and even federal raids if they refuse to surrender the plants on demand.

Several years ago, Bridget Donovan, who has now been dubbed “The Lemon Tree Lady,” purchased a Meyer lemon tree from meyerlemontree.com. A resident of Wisconsin, Donovan purchased the tree legally and in full accordance with all federal and state laws regulating citrus transport, and had lovingly cultivated and cared for her indoor citrus plant for nearly three years.

Then, out of nowhere, Donovan received an unexpected letter from the USDA informing her that government officials were going to come and seize her tree and destroy it — and that she was not going to be compensated for her loss. The letter also threatened that if Donovan was found to be in possession of “regulated citrus” again, she could be fined up to $60,000.

Donovan was shocked, to say the least, as her tree was not a “regulated citrus.” The store from which she purchased it is fully legitimate, and she had done absolutely nothing wrong. But it turns out Donovan and many others who had also purchased similar citrus plants had faced, or were currently facing, the very same threats made against them by the USDA.

Most of those targeted simply surrendered their trees without trying to fight back, Donovan discovered. And while she, herself put up a hefty fight in trying to get honest answers in order to keep her tree, Donovan was eventually forced to surrender it as well. And worst of all, many of those who were told that a replacement tree would be in “compliance” later had those trees confiscated, too.

Why has the USDA been targeting lemon tree owners? The answer is unclear, other than that they are a supposed threat to the citrus industry. And a USDA official admitted to Donovan that the agency has been spying on those suspected of owning lemon trees, and targeting all found to be in possession with threats of fines and raids if they failed to give them up — and the agency has been doing this without a valid warrant.

“I felt utterly violated, angry, and upset,” Donovan is quoted as saying by HFA. “I pay my taxes, I obey the law, and this is how I was treated? I did nothing wrong. I would expect these action (sic) toward someone running a drug house, not someone who owned a lemon tree.”

Read Donovan’s entire story here.

~Eowyn

School Choice Update: Besieged Wake County Wins Key Victory

Progressive busybodies in North Carolina lost ground this week in a win for both school reformers and privacy advocates.

As part of the Fellowship’s continuing coverage of the political war zone, we are happy to report some bit of good news (if you are unaware of the story, read this).

These liberal do-gooders have pulled out all the stops to punish the school board. They opened federal investigations into gender discrimination. Then they got accrediting authorities to look at stripping away the district’s educational accreditation, meaning graduates would not have a real high school diploma.

When that didn’t work, they finally got the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate the school board for accusations of hurting poor minorities.

The goal of all this is to stall reform until the next election  and then find some way – any way – to go back to diversity busing.

Most recently they concocted a plan to use “socioeconomic factors” in place of skin color. Translation: we’ll make the poor kids and the rich kids switch places.

However, this can’t be done unless they  have data on who is rich and who is poor. They can look at general trends from census records, but that doesn’t help them pinpoint specific neighborhoods.

So progressives decided to seize data from school lunch programs to identify kids who applied for free lunches. The theory goes something like this: you’re a poor family in the slums of Raleigh. You apply for little Bobby to get free lunch at school. The school board identifies exactly who Bobby is, where he lives, and how much money you have – so they can decide on your behalf if Bobby should attend some school farther away.

Yes, it sounds absurd and intrusive when you put it like that. It might make parents think twice if they think Bobby will be singled out. It might make them fearful that free lunches become a scarlet letter, whereby Bobby is carted off to a preppy school and everyone can figure out exactly why he is there.

In short, it might make Bobby afraid to sign up for free lunch.

photo courtesy Screen Gems

Do progressives care about that? Heck no.

Fortunately, the Department of Agriculture feels bad for Bobby. That’s the arm of the government that handles free lunch programs. And it told progressives it refuses to release personal information about kids who signed up.

Reformers are rejoicing over the news.

However, parents really need to understand how big of a bullet they dodged here. This is what happens when you rely on the government to give you free stuff. It’s not about charity. It’s about finding a way to barge into your business so they can control you. If progressives are willing to snoop at your child’s name on a free lunch program so they can play God with school assignments, trust me, please, they will snoop on other things to control you somewhere else.

The USDA protected you for now. But you might not be so lucky next time. Remember that the next time you’re offered a bribe from some government bureaucrat.

-Candance