Iâm sicka hearing about hunger in this country when in general, people re so effing fat. And okay, maybe they arenât eating an ideal diet, but it used to be a prime measure of a governmentâs success if it could supply adequate calories to its population. 
I donât doubt that there are American children who are âfood insecureâ but I think itâs mosâly cuz their (probably fat) parent or parents canât get it together to feed them regular meals.
Whenever youâre giving out free stuff, people who could well afford to pay will always line up ( if they werenât the kind of people who take advantage of such an opportunity, they wouldnât be âpeople who could well afford to payâ ). Itâs like with medical care: people know that a hospital emergency room cannot turn anybody away, so they see no reason to pay for health insurance, even though they could afford it.
The Secretary of Agriculture tackles the intractable problem of SNAP fraud. Apparently, this was beyond the capabilities of all previous administrations; the problem was just too hard.
DONâT PRESS THE SWITCH
On my first day @USDA, we told every state to send us their SNAP data so we could make sure illegal immigrants arenât getting benefits meant for American families. 29 states stepped up. 21 blue states refused â and two SUED US FOR ASKING! And guess what? In just the states that cooperated, weâve already uncovered massive fraud.
The Democrat Party has turned its back on working Americans and built its entire strategy around protecting illegal aliens. They know if the handouts stop, those illegals will go back home, and Democrats will lose 20+ seats after the next census.
The Secretary spells out the details:
If I may offer a small correction: some people who could well afford to pay will always line up. Iâd like to think itâs only a tiny minority. I find most people are pretty okay and behave themselves. Letâs not let all the bad behavior we see cause us to be enveloped by cynicism.
One guy who came by to get food at our local food bank came on his bicycle. I wheeled a cart loaded with supplies to him, thinking it was doubtful he could pack it all in but he managed quite well. That person seemed genuine but who knows?
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Related followup: Sharyl Attkisson recently published a report of the uses and abuses of food assistance programs. Key points:
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12.5% of the U.S. population gets food stamps, costing taxpayers nearly $100 billion.
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About 3 million children of illegal immigrants get food stamps.
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72% of public school children get free or reduced-priced school meals.
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One in three kids getting free or reduced-price school meals is an illegal immigrant.
WellâŚif we keep leaving food out for âem, theyâre gonna keep coming around. Doesnât everybody know that?
While the numbers given by Ms.Attkisson are remarkable, the article contains no citations, no references to the source of the data. Today even AI-written responses often contain the supporting links and citations. The burden is on the author to provide these. Unless provided, the credibility of the claims can not be taken seriously, can it?
You are right about the lack of citations. Sharyl Attkisson is an old-school journalist. Back in the day, newspaper articles contained zero citations. Same goes for TV journalism, obviously. At most, they might get a sound bite from some government official.
Iâm not defending the practice of citation-free articles. However, I consider her a trustworthy reporter who checks her facts, so itâs likely they are correct. Nevertheless, the piece would be stronger with sources cited.
Everyone except those who spend other peoples money and get paid for it.
I asked Gemini to check her stats:
Here is a breakdown of the accuracy and context for each point:
1. â12.5% of the U.S. population gets food stamps, costing taxpayers nearly $100 billion.â
- Accuracy: Highly Supported by Official Data.
- Verification:
- Participation (12.5%): Official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data for Fiscal Year 2024 shows that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) served an average of approximately 42 million people per month, which is about 1 in 8 Americans, or 12% of the population. The 12.5% figure is consistent with this range.
- Cost ($100 billion): USDA data confirms that the annual federal cost for the SNAP program was nearly $100 billion in Fiscal Year 2024 ($99.8 billion).
2. âAbout 3 million children of illegal immigrants get food stamps.â
- Accuracy: The mechanism is correct, but the specific 3 million number is not publicly verified.
- Verification:
- Eligibility Mechanism: Undocumented immigrants are generally ineligible for SNAP benefits. However, U.S. citizen children born to undocumented parents are eligible for the benefits. The funds are legally received by the eligible child (or on their behalf) and are not received by the undocumented adult.
- The 3 Million Figure: There is no single, easily verifiable public report that confirms 3 million U.S.-born children in undocumented households receive SNAP. While estimates exist, the calculation depends on complex data that tracks citizenship status and program participation across different groups, making the exact figure difficult to independently verify without the authorâs specific source or methodology.
3. â72% of public school children get free or reduced-priced school meals.â
- Accuracy: Highly Supported by Official Data (as a measure of meals served).
- Verification:
- Official data from the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) for 2024 shows that 72.5% of all public school lunches served were free or at a reduced price (21.4 million students).
- Note: The percentage of eligible students is often cited as lower (around 53% in recent years), but the authorâs figure of 72% is very close to the official rate of subsidized meals actually served.
4. âOne in three kids getting free or reduced-price school meals is an illegal immigrant.â
- Accuracy: No public data supports this specific ratio.
- Verification:
- Eligibility: Unlike SNAP, the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) does not exclude children based on immigration status. Both undocumented children and U.S. citizen children of undocumented parents are eligible for free or reduced-price meals if the familyâs income meets the federal poverty guidelines.
- The One-in-Three Ratio: Public data does not support the specific claim that 33% (one in three) of participants are children of âillegal immigrants.â U.S. Census data indicates that roughly one in six (17%) school-aged children live in a household with at least one noncitizen adult (which includes legal residents and citizens). The proportion of that group receiving subsidized meals is lower and includes legally present children and citizens.
In summary, the claims regarding the overall size and cost of the SNAP program (Claim 1) and the high rate of subsidized school lunches (Claim 3) are accurate based on official federal data. The specific claims involving the number of children of illegal immigrants receiving these benefits (Claims 2 and 4) address a real policy mechanism (benefits for eligible children in mixed-status families), but the exact statistics of 3 million and one-in-three could not be independently verified using public government data.
The numbers are so absurdly high that even if Attkisson overestimated some values (e.g., 33% versus 17%), theyâre still absurdly high. In any case, she can probably defend her numbers.
While almost all journalists are dishonest, Attkisson and a handful of others are exceptions. Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald come to mind. They undoubtedly make mistakes sometimes but my sense is that they are careful and honest, unlike the rest.
They are both Russian assets
How about Attkisson? Is she also a Russian asset? Thereâs nothing like getting your information from a Finnish âgeopolitical influencerâ who hates Russia and loooooves Ukraine.
Maybe both you and he are Ukrainian assets.
Addendum: The Vatnik Soup site consists of character assassination using guilt by association and innuendo. This is truly a shameful attempt to smear a couple of honest journalists: an extremely rare quality today. And, yes, it is true that Mr Greenwald is a homosexual; the Finnish geopolitical influencer seems oddly obsessed with that fact. It is not necessary to endorse someoneâs personal behavior in order to find their professional work to be meritorious.
This is potentially relevant to this thread. It could explain those luxury cars I saw at the food pantry: defining poverty up.
âAbout 41% of American workers earning between $300,001 and $500,000âand 40% of those making over $500,000âsay theyâre living paycheck to paycheck, according to a new report from Goldman Sachs.â
â⌠one in 11 millionaires enjoying seven-figure fortunes are choosing to rent over buying homes âŚâ
That does not sound like an illogical choice. Renting gives the millionaire more flexibility in living arrangements in a world in which any city might be the next one to elect a Hard Left Marxist and slide into the toilet. And choosing to invest oneâs money in something other than Real Estate is a valid option â one recommended by some.
If only our Political Class would choose to let the country live paycheck-to-paycheck (i.e. at the limit, but still within our income)!
âYou will own nothing and be happy.â So say the pirates at the WEF. This is exactly what the political class would like you to do.
Living paycheck-to-paycheck is simply a generalization of this. Itâs great for the Regime because that way, if you miss one single paycheck, you are at their mercy.
But thereâs nothing like hearing it from Klaus himself.
The farmer around here that I get along with the best used to have a vegetable stand with a scale by the highway with posted prices. A few years ago he had to stop doing that because the money as well as the vegetables started evaporating. I think he managed to keep the scale.
And when I talk to my local âCommunity Prideâ organization about what it takes to cultivate social capital and the causes of the loss thereof, the pubescent girls of all sexes and ages get offended.
As someone near the bottom of another kind of âfood-chainâ, there is something else that is starting to emerge:
The actual rate of price inflation for food is many times the SS col adjustments.
So this ground truth report from the field is that there is no lack of calories but that the parasite loading is increasing fast at many levels of abstraction.
To put it another way, there is no lack of calories but there is an erosion of social trust. The growing parasite load is certainly one of the reasons for the loss of trust. Massive Third World migration contributes to both, though many of the parasites are homegrown.
Fink interviewed Musk at the WEF and compared their ROIs. Both of them would have been vastly wealthier under a wealth tax replacing the 16th Amendment at the 30 year treasury rate. That politics stupefied Warren is a given, but whatâs THEIR excuse?
