Food Stamps suspended

[GlassSteagallfan]

At the moment, grocery stores are not accepting food stamps (at least here in MA).

The local grocerer claims the 'lines are down'. We are all aware that the obama regime has been ordered to 'make life as miserable as possible' to the american citizens during the 'the gov't shutdown show'.

Lets hope this suspension is temporary, as per Alex Jones: 'in three days, people will steal for food; in two weeks they will kill for food'.

[SilentFeathers]

If they don't correct this "glitch" soon I feel we may see some people snap. (no pun intended)

Personally I don't think it's a glitch but it's being done intentionally for sinister reasons.

FOOD STAMP DEBIT CARDS NOT WORKING IN MANY STATES (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FOOD_STAMPS_OUTAGE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-10-12-16-21-17)

[778 neighbour of some guy]

47.8 million Americans on food stamps, that could become one hell of a riot, I wonder how they imagine to quench that if and when it happens. :(

[onawah]

According to this article, only certain segments of the population, not all SNAP recipients, are being affected (but that may vary from state to state...):
http://www.blogforarizona.com/blog/2013/10/oh-snap-farm-bill-expires-wic-and-welfare-programs-threatened-by-government-shutdown.html

An immediate impact of the shutdown is on those individuals receiving WIC support. WIC support for moms, babies threatened during shutdown:
Nearly 9 million mothers and children receive benefits under the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). The federal program gives grants to states for supplemental food, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant women, new mothers, and to infants and children up to age five who are nutritionally at risk. The program serves 53 percent of all infants born in the U.S.

Since the government partially shut down at Midnight on Oct. 1, however, its funding has dried out. The Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees the program, noted in a memo last week without congressional approval of new spending, there won't be any funding available for WIC's clinical services, food benefits or administrative costs.

"States may have some funds available from infant formula rebates or other sources, including spend forward authority, to continue operations for a week or so, but States would likely be unable to sustain operations for a longer period," the memo said. "Contingency funds will be available to help States - but even this funding would not fully mitigate a shortfall for the entire month of October."

Other federal food assistance programs won't be impacted by the shutdown.

[T]he Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) -- commonly known as the food stamp program -- is still operating with funding that was appropriated through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (often referred to as the stimulus). SNAP also has about $2 billion in contingency funding that Congress approved this year but that doesn't expire until the end of the 2014 fiscal year.

The Child Nutrition (CN) Programs -- including School Lunch, School Breakfast, Child and Adult Care Feeding, Summer Food Service and Special Milk -- are also still operating. The USDA explains that meal providers are reimbursed 30 days after the end of the service month, and there is some limited carryover funding available at this point. Once Congress gets its act together, and reauthorizes government spending, the USDA expects to get funding to cover the cost of October expenses.

[Ron Mauer Sr]

When I go to the official Associated Press website http://www.ap.org/ and search for "food stamp", I find no results.

Could this be more of the dark side effort to create fear porn in support of their agenda?

[onawah]

Try using the term "SNAP benefits" instead, rmauerser.

[Vitalux]

Up here in Canada all is good.
It is a beautiful time of the year to really appreciate the fall colors.
The air smells so wonderful and this afternoon I heard that beautiful sound of a loon out on a fresh water lake.

Each moment is precious and wonderful.

We have great welfare here, free medicare, and no one has to work that does not want too.


https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSz1_kfsYMVoSBmtmaERTwUz7qAsvk4AwHyrnbNRHgAZKJe7luQ

[Snowflower]

WIC was stopped on Oct 1. That is Women and Infant Care. They give extra food to women and babies under five. 60% of the infant formula sold in the US is purchased through WIC. This means that 60% of women who do not nurse their babies and instead feed them formula, have had their food supply for their babies cut off 100%.

[Mulder]

They've stopped being accepted in many states. (http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/national_world&id=9284719) Its only temporary. I hope people have stocked up on food.

[SilentFeathers]

This is just a sign to how easy people can go hungry in the USA...and how fast (in a micro second) that a system can fail.

A couple or three days of this and I'm sure there would be a complete panic, thus riots too I imagine.

[ghostrider]

I am close to ground zero on this one , at my job their are 343 families ALL ON FOOD STAMPS , they also get welfare checks , I will know soon about this , they will blow up the phone when they cant' buy their snacky cakes and watch the price is right ... I wonder about those that get pensions ??? ya know, the ones who really need it and worked for a living at one time ... I have no problem helping them , but the lazy young don't' wanna work generation, that's another story ...

[Lefty Dave]

Problem...Reaction....Solution !!! Plain as day. Argue over nothing/shut down...starve some masses/cause hunger madness then....close in on them and round them up. End game.

[cursichella1]

WIC was stopped on Oct 1. That is Women and Infant Care. They give extra food to women and babies under five. 60% of the infant formula sold in the US is purchased through WIC. This means that 60% of women who do not nurse their babies and instead feed them formula, have had their food supply for their babies cut off 100%.

GMO infant formulas, I might add! And the corporations that sell that cr@p won't like this drop in sales one bit...

[frozen alchemy]

Except for a local CBS news site on the east coast, it took EIGHT HOURS for this to be noticed and reported on by the MSM. A newsfeed is now reporting that the 'glitch' caused by either a power outage at a Xerox facility or a 'glitch' caused by an upgrade by the same company that handles EBT cards is now fixed.

Interestingly, Chase bank handles EBT cards, and they reported a massive loss last week for the last quarter on their books, caused by 'legal fees' AKA, they had to pay fines for being world class crooks.

Somehow I doubt either a power outage or a glitch could take down almost the entire country's EBT system on a Saturday and Holiday weekend.

Too Many Coincidences and if they wanted to avoid panic in the streets and instantaneous rioting, they couldn't have picked a worse time.

It's not like everybody's teeth aren't on edge already.

[Rosieposie]

This is hard news for people, I hope people start turning back to roots aka the land etc hopefully this acts more as a wake up call than as a starvation sentence and is temporary.

Also there really needs to be a midwife/breastfeeding etc revival over there, actually just feminine energy and its manifestations in general lol love, nurturing.. as important as logic, strength.. the thought of sticking that formula stuff in my child makes me ill when you realize what is in it.

Nobody deserves starvation yet cause and effect are the often harsh realities of our world, although they can also be beautiful things when you become self realized and notice how much effect you can have on the world by your own initiatives. We can make choices here, we don't have to be the victims, we have to start using the power of cause/effect to effect change of our liking, nobody has to suffer in the world, it does not need to be like this we just have to realize who really has the power. Spread the seeds and plant the trees, let people know there is a choice other than suffering, many have forgotten.

[Rocky_Shorz]

I was in a store today when they announced the Debt card system was down...

there were 18-20 families in line with full grocery carts, that left with nothing, this will get bad quick if states don't pick up the slack immediately...

[Flash]

Up here in Canada all is good.
It is a beautiful time of the year to really appreciate the fall colors.
The air smells so wonderful and this afternoon I heard that beautiful sound of a loon out on a fresh water lake.

Each moment is precious and wonderful.

We have great welfare here, free medicare, and no one has to work that does not want too.


https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSz1_kfsYMVoSBmtmaERTwUz7qAsvk4AwHyrnbNRHgAZKJe7luQ

you must not have children. But yes, welfare covering rent and food, healthcare, but no one has to work??? It does cover the bare minimum and less, not enough when you have children. But not on the street, just lots of macaroni.

[Calz]

If we are to trust CNN it is allegedly fixed now ...

_____________



(CNN) -- A computer failure temporarily halted the processing of food stamp purchases in parts of the country Saturday.

A system shutdown began at 11 a.m. ET Saturday and affected 17 states, said a spokeswoman for Xerox -- which is a contractor for the program. By Saturday night, the issue had been resolved.

http://us.cnn.com/2013/10/12/us/food-stamp-system-failure/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

[risveglio]

We have great welfare here, free medicare, and no one has to work that does not want too.

Slavery Rocks!

[toad]

People need to enlighten themselves on how to take care of themselves, being dependent on anything is surely ill advised. I take pride in my ability to forage, I think others need to take care to indulge in the same sentiment before its too late. I often think if **** does hit the fan, I'm going to hit the library before anywhere, grab as much text as I can before anything else.

[ThePythonicCow]

Here's an update on this story, from Xerox: Access restored for food stamp users (AP) (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/food-stamp-debit-cards-not-working-many-states):

==============================



People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves temporarily unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday, after a routine test of backup systems by vendor Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure. Xerox announced late in the evening that access has been restored for users in the 17 states affected by the outage, hours after the first problems were reported.

"Restarting the EBT system required time to ensure service was back at full functionality," spokeswoman Jennifer Wasmer said in an email. An emergency voucher process was available in some of the areas while the problems were occurring, she said.

U.S. Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Courtney Rowe underscored that the outage was not related to the government shutdown.
==============================

ZeroHedge has a similar story: America Fumes After Xerox "Routine Backup Test" Leave 17 States Without Foodstamps (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-13/america-fumes-after-xerox-routine-backup-test-leave-17-states-without-foodstamps-sat):

==============================



Yesterday millions of "shoppers" living on the government dole left their shopping carts in droves in checkout counters, exited countless foodstamp-accepting stores, and made Wal-Marts and other general merchandise stores into veritable ghost towns, after a power outage at Xerox Corp, made EBT usage in 17 states for most of Saturday impossible, and left tens of millions of poverty-level Americans unable to engage in one of their favorite pastimes: shop with other people's money. In short: the Welfare States of America were probably closer to a state of outright revolution than at any time before in history. And had the EBT stoppage continues into today and tomorrow, things would have certainly spilled out from the shopping aisle to main streets where the people's anger may have culminated in an violent expression of disgust at a state which gives with one hand and a xerox company that takes with the other.
==============================

[778 neighbour of some guy]

People need to enlighten themselves on how to take care of themselves, being dependent on anything is surely ill advised. I take pride in my ability to forage, I think others need to take care to indulge in the same sentiment before its too late. I often think if **** does hit the fan, I'm going to hit the library before anywhere, grab as much text as I can before anything else.

Toad, there is a thread in the off grid section with a lot of books on survival and gardening and many more subjects, its got over a 1000 documents, most in pdf, I stored them on a cheap e reader that can be recharged by solar, perhaps a good suggestion, you'll be not the only one running for the library I think, imo one is much better of by having his knowledge in advance, I think this in potential provides a much smoother ride in the long run.

[778 neighbour of some guy]

This is friggin awesome;)

A whirlwind of energy and ideas, Stephen Ritz is a teacher in New York's tough South Bronx, where he and his kids grow lush gardens for food, greenery -- and jobs. Just try to keep up with this New York treasure as he spins through the many, many ways there are to grow hope in a neighborhood many have written off, or in your own.
(Filmed at TEDxManhattan)

RF6qTlgtHU0

Ron Finley, Los Angeles

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[778 neighbour of some guy]

EBT card food stamp recipients ransack Wal-Mart stores

Stealing carts full of food during federal computer glitch

Mike Adams
Natural News
October 14, 2013

When the federal EBT food stamp system suffered a critical failure on Saturday, local retailers were disconnected from the federal food stamp database that keeps track of how much credit is left on each individual EBT card. Seizing the opportunity provided by the glitch, EBT card holders in Louisiana ransacked their local Wal-Mart stores, stuffing their shopping carts full of groceries and “paying” for them with near-empty EBT cards that essentially had unlimited account balances because all accounting was offline.

When the EBT database came back online and card purchase limits were suddenly restored, EBT card holders abandoned their full carts and just walked away, probably miffed that they missed out on participating in the felony theft of groceries.

This happened at Wal-Mart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, LA. As local news station KSLA reports:

Shelves in Walmart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, LA were reportedly cleared Saturday night, when the stores allowed purchases on EBT cards even though they were not showing limits.

The chaos that followed ultimately required intervention from local police, and left behind numerous carts filled to overflowing, apparently abandoned when the glitch-spurred shopping frenzy ended.

The story goes on to report that one woman who racked up $700 worth of groceries had only 49 cents on her card. That’s $699.51 in theft.

But that’s the mindset of many (but not all) EBT card holders, you see: it’s all about how much they can get away with stealing without getting caught. As it is virtually impossible to retrieve all these stolen items from EBT cardholders, these losses are going to have to be absorbed by either Wal-Mart or the federal government. In either case, other people must burden the cost of the theft.

For the record, not everyone on EBT cards is a social parasite. Some are truly hard-working moms and dads and others who really need a short-term safety net, and I’m for supporting those who need a helping hand to get back on their feet. If someone is working, trying to make ends meet and needs some short-term assistance, we must have the compassion to help them. But far too many people today are simply unwilling to work, and their entire economic plan is to suck off the system and collect as much as they can off everyone else while refusing to contribute to society themselves. That’s the mindset of a great many EBT card holders who engage in widespread abuse and fraud. Some even sell their EBT cards to crooked shop owners who pay them cash. That cash is often used to buy crack or other street drugs.

This is now what characterizes the EBT program in America: massive fraud and abuse.

An important lesson in the twisted morality of those who engage in “proxy theft” of food and money

In analyzing this behavior, what I’m about to share with you here is hugely important for anyone who wants to survive the coming social chaos and urban death traps that will unfold when a real crisis hits. Please help me get this story posted at SurvivalBlog.com, DailyPaul.com and other liberty / preparedness sites where it may be of use.

Here’s the life-or-death lesson in all this:

Most people who live off the government have no concept of private property. They literally do not believe that stealing large quantities of food from someone else is morally wrong. In fact, they believe that YOUR stored food actually belongs to THEM because they are “entitled” to live off you like parasites. This is the only life they know, and this is how they are born, raised and trained by the Democrats to remain wholly subservient to the government for their entire lives.

As proof of this, read some of the comments posted on this article. You will find, in astonishment, that nearly all the comments are from people who say there is nothing wrong from stealing food from Wal-Mart because it’s a “rich” corporation. Instead of condemning the people stealing shopping carts full of food from Wal-Mart, they are condemning me for daring to write about this issue. Apparently, I am bad for opposing the theft of food. In fact, according to some comments, I am engaged in a “hate crime” for even pointing out that stealing food is wrong.

These comments demonstrate exactly my point. We now live in a society that’s so pathetic and so twisted in its moral code that the ransacking of a retailer by EBT card holders is considered morally justifiable. Anyone who opposes it is accused of spewing “hate crimes.” Don’t put much weight into those attacking this story, by the way. Many of them are the very same people who will not survive the coming federal financial default. In their denial of reality, they can only resort to lashing out against those who are trying to save them by alerting them to the truth.

How will the federal government reach a state of default? The reversal of morals and ethics is precisely what drives the acceleration of the welfare state into ever larger handouts for the demanding masses until the whole system reaches a point of unsustainable default. Once individual morality is gone, the morality of the nation quickly falls. And today, we are witnessing a wholesale reversal of morals in the minds of individual EBT recipients.

As this small EBT card glitch clearly demonstrates, if given half a chance, many EBT card holders will immediately engage in the mass looting of food and supplies as long as they can get away with it. This was not one or two isolated people; this involved masses of people who spontaneously transformed into a rampaging mob of looting maniacs that ransacked a private business and caused huge losses in stolen goods and displaced inventory.

To clarify, I am not saying that all EBT card holders are one trigger away from slipping into a raging mob of looters. But many of them are. Food stamps are just a “safe” way for them to mug you, indirectly, through the “proxy theft” of government. Every paycheck you earn is already being looted against your will, and a significant portion of that money is going to pay for the “benefits” of many people who flat-out refuse to work or to take any responsibility for their own lives.

Why does any of this matter? Because this is exactly the same way these people will behave when the federal government goes into default and nearly 50 million EBT cards stop working nationwide.

Fifty million. Consider that for a moment. Most of those 50 million people live in high-density cities. Many are proud owners of Obama phones, Obama food stamps, Obama unemployment checks and Obama subsidized housing. They have absolutely no clue that the government upon which they wholly depend to put food on the table is teetering on the verge of permanent collapse. (Seriously, they cannot conceive of the idea of government “running out of money” because they do not understand where money comes from.) Because of this distorted belief, they do not prepare for any future events other than more Obama handouts. Their entire “preparedness” plan is to vote for Democrats, because that’s who they know will give them the most handouts. And they will always win the popular vote, too, because any politician promising to restore responsible fiscal spending to the government by cutting programs will be viciously accused of being “mean” or involved in “hating poor people.” So the government handouts will only ratchet higher and higher, ensnaring more and more people, until the entire system is unsustainable and collapses under its own weight.

When that system of dependence fails, those who depend on it will panic in mere hours. As proof of this, consider the fact that this mass looting of Wal-Mart stores happened in less than three hours after the Saturday EBT card glitch struck. Police had to be called in to prevent the situation from getting completely out of control, and it was offline for only part of one day.

Now imagine what will happen when EBT cards go offline for 24, 48 or even 72 hours. And imagine it happening in every U.S. city simultaneously.

When that scenario goes down, you are going to have a 50-million-person EBT panic happening nationwide. The panicked masses will quickly become mobs, and the mobs will, within 72 hours or so, become murderous gangs willing to do absolutely anything to get food. After all, YOUR food already belongs to THEM, so they are simply claiming their “share” of your “collective” stash. In their minds, their total lack of preparedness in no way means they have any less of a claim on your food. After all, they already have a claim on your income (via taxes redirected as entitlement programs), so why not your food, too?

You probably already realize this, but any household or family in the path of these mobs will be utterly ransacked just like Wal-Mart was on Saturday.

Violence is inevitable

It goes without saying that violence will quickly erupt. Once EBT card holders realize the local police are wildly out-numbered (which they are in every large U.S. city), the guns will come out and hungry mobs will become armed gangs of violent looters going house to house, apartment to apartment, ransacking everything in sight, stealing jewelry, cash, food, guns and anything else they believe to be portable and valuable. (How do I know this? Because I used to volunteer with the police department of a large U.S. city, and I’ve seen firsthand what happens to society when a local police presence is unavailable…)

Those few families who can protect themselves through the combustion-assisted rapid acceleration of small, high density projectiles directed at intended targets will be in a unique position to survive the onslaught of desperate murderous looters. The outcome of this crisis, in other words, will ultimately be determined by the laws of physics. Those who possess modern-day hardware that best harnesses the laws of physics to stop aggressors will obviously be far more likely to survive than those who do not. And no, I’m not referring to slingshots.

Calling 911 will, of course, be utterly useless, as will being unarmed. To make matters worse, the federal government — if it still stands at all — will likely declare Martial Law and order the National Guard to go door to door, disarming responsible preppers and leaving them utterly defenseless against the violent mobs that return each night to continue looting those left defenseless by the government. This is exactly what happened in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.

How to survive the permanent crash of the EBT system

There is really only way one to ensure you don’t get caught up in all this: Don’t be there. Don’t be in the path of the mobs nor the path of the National Guard.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to relocate your butt to the countryside prior to the federal failure of the EBT card system. There, your odds of survival are vastly increased, and you are unlikely to encounter any door-to-door gun confiscation patrols as those soldiers will be completely tied up trying to prevent the cities from crashing into total chaos.

In the countryside, you have a real shot at reestablishing trade and barter within your local community. Only through trade and barter can you survive long-term, because specialization of skills leads to efficiencies of production. Barter and trade allow those efficiencies to be mutually and voluntarily multiplied across all those who participate in open commerce. Practically stated, if you grow tomatoes and you’re really good at growing tomatoes but you suck at welding, you’ll do much better overall by focusing on growing tomatoes and trading them for welding services with the welder (who probably sucks at growing tomatoes). Expert specialization + free trade = abundance. This is a foundation principle of civilization.

But you’ll need to specialize in something that has value in desperate times. During a collapse, nobody cares about your 3D animation skills and your long resume working for Disney. Or maybe you were one of those programmers who screwed up Healthcare.gov. None of those skills matter anymore. To survive, you’ll need real-world skills like clothing repair, tools repair, medical skills, farming, seed saving, tactical defense, food ingredient processing and more.

No matter what your skills or specialty, you’ll also need to be able to defend your production from those former EBT card holders who still can’t understand why they have to produce anything on their own. Many of these people will, of course, die in the weeks or months following the failure of the EBT system, but those who don’t will always be hard-wired to steal from you because that’s the only paradigm of existence they truly grasp. They probably won’t last long in an honest economy, of course. In the real world, they will either need to change or die.

Ultimately, this is what America needs to get back to: an economy where people are rewarded for contributing to society, not feeding off others like social parasites. Imagine a world where people actually earn what they receive and pay their debts on time. It’s an alien concept to today’s government, and that’s exactly why it is now on the verge of financial collapse.

Sooner or later, people who actually produce something and contribute to society can no longer be guilt-tripped into carrying the burden of all those who refuse to produce but who vote politicians into office who confiscate wealth for them. This “proxy theft” system of government entitlements we are witnessing today will soon crash, and when it does, natural selection will quickly sort out those best adapted to survive.

EBT cards will go down in history as a grotesque symbol of a failed welfare society built on a financial house of cards.

[Kiforall]

THIS WHOLE THING WAS A 100% TEST RUN! Congress has 2 weeks to get this mess fixed , or Chaos will unfold come the first week of November!
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