You're right - and you can't buy them with a Food Stamp EBT card.
I have no clue why this is a "news" story. The system goes down and it has nothing to do with the so-called "shutdown" of the government.
I was in Food Lion about a month or so ago and the EBT system went down and no one got bent out of shape, until it was determined that the EBT system going down took down all electronic transactions - then there was a bit of angst, from folks using debit/credit cards (like me.)
Low information voters are flooding social media with the idea that the Food stamps are no more because of
1)The Republicans
2)The TEA party