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The number of beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps, has exceeded 45 million for 50 straight months, according to data released by the Department of Agriculture (USDA). In June 2015, the latest month for which data is available, there were 45,510,153 beneficiaries of the food stamp program, an increase of 14,869 between May and June. Beneficiaries of this program now exceed the population of Canada, which totals 34,834,841, according to a widely used source for such figures. The number of food stamp recipients first exceeded 45 million in May 2011. Since then, the...

Eyewitness account claims man was "trying to buy groceries with his EBT card and ended up in a stretcher"Editor's Note: The photographs posted on this page are graphic in nature. Whole Foods has fired a security guard at one of its Oakland locations after photographs of a bloody altercation between a customer and the guard surfaced on Facebook. Zoe Marks, a fellow at Edinburgh University, was visiting Oakland, when she posted an eyewitness account Thursday of what she described as a “horrific” incident at the Whole Foods Market near Lake Merritt. Marks said the customer "was trying to buy...

‘Peter and Ellie Yang,” the subjects of Benjamin Carlson’s fascinating new Rolling Stone essay, “Welcome to Maternity Hotel California,” paid $35,000 to have their second child in the United States. In 2012 Chinese state media reported 10,000 “tourist births” by Chinese couples in the United States; other estimates skew as high as 60,000. Following Donald Trump’s call for an end to birthright citizenship, and renewed attention on “anchor babies,” Carlson’s exposé on “birth tourism” seems to confirm that the current interpretation of the 14th Amendment works as a magnet for at least some parents across the globe. But just...

Maine Drug Enforcement Agency agents revealed yesterday that EBT cards (debit cards that are loaded with funds for welfare programs, like SNAP and TANF) are being used as currency to buy drugs. In the past 11 months, MDEA agents have found 40 EBT cards in 25 drug enforcement operations.

Senator Jerry Moran discusses dangers of national debt, and entitlements and warns what's happening in Greece may foretell America's fate. When the Gov't teat runs dry, have a SHTF plan.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama is set to announce on Wednesday a pilot project to expand broadband access for people who live in public housing, in his administration's latest push to bridge the "digital divide" between the rich and poor. Working with mayors, internet service providers and other companies and nonprofits, the Department of Housing and Urban Development will make it cheaper and easier for more than 275,000 low-income households with almost 200,000 children to get home internet, the White House said in a statement on Wednesday. Obama is set to speak about the program in Durant, Oklahoma...

Illinois and Michigan have traded places on two key metrics for measuring prosperity and opportunity, and both changes are embarrassing for the Land of Lincoln. The first major change came in October 2014, when Michigan surpassed Illinois for total factory jobs. Michigan now has 25,000 more factory jobs than Illinois even though the Wolverine State’s economy is only three-quarters the size of Illinois’. Now, new data from the Department of Human Services shows the embarrassing role reversal has come full turn. In March of this year, Illinois bumped off Michigan to become the Midwest’s No. 1 user of the Supplemental...

"On the 5th of the month he is supposed to have his EBT deposit," said Moline. But earlier this week those calls turned into trying to figure out why the money he depends on for food wasn't there. When he couldn't get answers from the processing center or the Department of Health Services, he contacted Hawaii News Now. "The reason I called was not just for me or my friend. It was how many people like us are going through this same situation that don't speak up. That give up," said Moline.

CNSNews.com) - A record 93,626,000 Americans 16 or older did not participate in the nation’s labor force in June, as the labor force participation rate dropped to 62.6 percent, a 38-year low, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In June, according to BLS, the nation’s civilian noninstitutional population, consisting of all people 16 or older who were not in the military or an institution, hit 250,663,000. Of those, 157,037,000 participated in the labor force by either holding a job or actively seeking one. The 157,037,000 who participated in the labor force equaled only 62.6 percent of the 250,663,000 civilian...

A record 21.7 million American kids get free or reduced-price lunch during at school. But when summer vacation starts, the vast majority of them go without this essential, federally funded benefit. Fewer than 4 million kids -- or just 18% of those in the school lunch program -- are fed through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's summer food program. While that's a record number for the 40-year-old initiative, many advocates and government officials say more needs to be done. "In the summer, when those school meals disappear, children find themselves hungry and with few options," said Duke Storen, a senior...

You won't find this on any local news, but what is happening is a crime on a massive scale. Here's the story. My friend works at a section 8 apartment complex, which means that the taxpayers pay most of the rent there. Last week he sent me this picture of a late model Jaguar parked at his complex. His caption of the picture was "Section 8, rent always late". I asked him how much was their rent. "It just went up, to $80." A MONTH?!! "A month." This means that taxpayers are providing the Jag owner over $1,000 a month...

A couple of steaks shoplifted at a Gardendale Walmart three months ago led to the biggest food stamp fraud investigation in Jefferson County's history, and launched 11 simultaneous raids this morning at convenience stores countywide. Led by the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office, teams of law enforcement officers met at 5 a.m. for a briefing and then fanned out across the county beginning at 6:50 a.m. The officers and agents were armed with 242 arrest warrants and plans to arrest 17 suspects. All 17 suspects were in custody by mid-morning, and investigators already today have filed for forfeiture and condemnation...

Wednesday, June 03, 2015 The Incredible Entitlement of the Welfare Lobby Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Progressive America has a fever and the only solution is more welfare. Celebrities are trying to buy only $29 worth of fair trade arugula at Whole Foods and then taking snapshots of it in a mistaken effort to show how little food stamps buy. Obama is urging more social welfare spending as the answer to the race riots he stirred up across the country by embracing the Ferguson “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” hoax. Outraged rich liberals are furiously lecturing the...

Wisconsin’s State Assembly approved legislation last week that puts in place new rules about what recipients of food stamps may purchase with the benefits. Assembly Bill 177 would limit the types of food that could be purchased with Wisconsin’s food stamp program, FoodShare.In addition to banning the purchase of foods such as lobster with the publicly-funded program, the legislation would also require that just over two-thirds of the benefits be used to purchase healthy foods:“Under this bill, DHS [Department of Health Services] must require that not less than 67 percent of the SNAP benefits used by a recipient in a...

Americans Not In The Labor Force Rise To Record 93,194,000 In what was an "unambiguously" unpleasant April jobs payrolls report, with a March revision dragging that month's job gain to the lowest level since June of 2012, the fact that the number of Americans not in the labor force rose once again, this time to 93,194K from 93,175K, with the result being a participation rate of 69.45 or just above the lowest percentage since 1977, will merely catalyze even more upside to the so called "market" which continues to reflect nothing but central bank liquidity, and thus - the accelerating...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin lawmakers advanced a set of bills Wednesday that would require food stamp users to buy healthy food and mandate drug screening for state job training program applicants and some unemployment benefit claimants. An Assembly committee on public benefit reform approved the bills almost on party lines Wednesday, with Republicans voting in favor and Democrats against. Rep. Adam Neylon, a Pewaukee Republican, also voted against the measures. The approval clears the way for the full Assembly to vote on the measures next week. But prospects for the bill that would restrict food options for food stamp...

These incredible photos show the damage caused by a bird strike to a passenger plane. The Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to Nevehir in Turkey was on approach to land when it was involved in a severe hit with a unlucky bird. There were 125 passengers on board the Boeing 737-800, and there were not believed to be any injuries suffered on the landing on Tuesday.

Under Governor Scott Walker's leadership, Wisconsin will join eleven other states as the newest state to require welfare recipients to pass a drug test before they can receive state welfare funds. While some liberals and liberal-minded religious groups have called out Walker for "targeting" the poor and those with addictions, Walker's response has been spot on: if they're receiving funds from the state, the state should be able to make rules for these people to live by before they can receive a dime. But Walker's drug test isn't simply a play to restrict the number of people who will be...

The big Agribusiness corporations are some of the most corrupt corporations in America. The New York Times had an article in 2013, on the Agribusiness corruption in the $1 trillion farm bill. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/business/richer-farmers-bigger-subsidies.html?_r=0 The Food Stamp programs and free school lunch programs, are a means by which Agro-business corporations can increase their revenues, by selling food to the Federal and State governments at above market prices. The food stamp program was never intended to help the poor. Even the USDA website admits that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was intended to help Agribusiness corporations sell surplus food that they were...

<p>AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — More than 9,000 Maine residents have been removed from the state's food stamp program since Republican Gov. Paul LePage's administration began enforcing work and volunteer requirements late last year, officials said.</p> <p>The number of people that have been dropped from the program has exceeded even the administration's expectations.</p>