Tag: welfare

San Francisco Mayor London Breed Calls for Mandatory Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients

San Francisco Mayor London Breed proposed a plan which would require welfare recipients to undergo  drug testing and engage in treatment programs.

The announcement comes as the city deals with an average of three overdose deaths a day, Breitbart News reported. 

The new initiative would require those receiving County Adult Assistance Programs (CAAP) to be tested for drug use and participate in treatment programs, Fox News Digital reported.  

“San Francisco is a city of compassion, but also a city that demands accountability,” Breed said in a statement. “We fund a wide range of services, and we want to help people get the care they need but under current state law, local governments lack tools to compel people into treatment. This initiative aims to create more accountability and help get people to accept the treatment and services they need.”  

To combat the open air drug dealings in the Tenderloin district, California Gov. Gavin Newsom began pulling officers from the California highway patrol to make arrests, Breitbart News reported.

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Iowa Bill Would Ban SNAP Recipients From Buying Meat

A bill introduced earlier this month in the Iowa Legislature — the country’s top red meat-producing state — would ban people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) from buying meat and a lot of other typical grocery foods as well.

The bill, House File 3, has 39 co-sponsors in the Iowa House and is led by House Speaker Pat Grassley, a Republican. Pat Grassley is the grandson of Iowa U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the longest-serving member of the Senate Agriculture Committee — the committee that writes the farm bill, including SNAP rules, in Congress.

Under the bill, SNAP recipients would be restricted to buying foods that are approved under a separate USDA food-aid program, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. WIC requires aid recipients to buy from a specific list of approved items that includes staples such as infant formula, cereal, milk, bread, juices, canned foods and baby foods.

WIC doesn’t allow people to buy products such as packaged meat, or frozen or processed foods.

“I don’t think the 39 co-sponsors of this bill know just how restrictive this is, and that it would ban meat,” said Luke Elzinga, chairman of the Iowa Hunger Coalition, and the policy and advocacy manager for a network of food pantries run by the Des Moines Area Religious Council. “Under this bill, no ground beef, no chicken, no pork in the state of Iowa. I just can’t believe that they knew that was what it was when the bill was introduced.”

According to USDA’s Livestock Slaughter report released Thursday, Iowa remained the No. 1 state for commercial red-meat production for December, largely because of its dominant position in pork processing. The Iowa Legislature bill would basically prohibit SNAP benefits in the state from being used to buy any pork products.

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After U.S. Soldiers Were Told to Go On Food Stamps, Congress Finds Another $12 Billion for Ukraine

Congressional lawmakers agreed to a deal that would provide another $12 billion in aid to Ukraine, which would bring the total military and economic resources provided to over $66 billion.

The news follows the Senate passing a $40 billion aid package in May, along with a $14 billion package in March.

President Biden earlier this month asked Congress for an additional $11.7 billion in aid for Ukraine, with Congress, in turn, seems to be jumping at his behest.

As a reminder, also earlier this month the Army told active-duty American soldiers to go on food stamps if they were unable to afford food thanks to inflation. 

Food stamps for American soldiers, endless billions for Ukraine. This is your country now.

Reuters reports that the funding agreement for Ukraine would address a variety of financial needs for Ukraine, including the hope that it would “reduce future energy costs.”

Meanwhile, the White House which had been touting lower gas prices despite them being well over the national average when Biden took office, has suddenly gone quiet. Why? Because they’re going back up again.

Biden and Congress won’t do anything to address American energy woes, but as long as Ukraine keeps showing a little leg, the political strip club patrons on the left and right will continue to shell out dollar bills.

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Former Gov. Phil Bryant helped Brett Favre secure welfare funding for USM volleyball stadium, texts reveal

Text messages entered Monday into the state’s ongoing civil lawsuit over the welfare scandal reveal that former Gov. Phil Bryant pushed to make NFL legend Brett Favre’s volleyball idea a reality.

The texts show that the then-governor even guided Favre on how to write a funding proposal so that it could be accepted by the Mississippi Department of Human Services – even after Bryant ousted the former welfare agency director John Davis for suspected fraud.

“Just left Brett Favre,” Bryant texted nonprofit founder Nancy New in July of 2019, within weeks of Davis’ departure. “Can we help him with his project. We should meet soon to see how I can make sure we keep your projects on course.”

When Favre asked Bryant how the new agency director might affect their plans to fund the volleyball stadium, Bryant assured him, “I will handle that… long story but had to make a change. But I will call Nancy and see what it will take,” according to the filing and a text Favre forwarded to New.

The newly released texts, filed Monday by an attorney representing Nancy New’s nonprofit, show that Bryant, Favre, New, Davis and others worked together to channel at least $5 million of the state’s welfare funds to build a new volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi, where Favre’s daughter played the sport. Favre received most of the credit for raising funds to construct the facility.

Bryant has for years denied any close involvement in the steering of welfare funds to the volleyball stadium, though plans for the project even included naming the building after him, one text shows.

New, a friend of Bryant’s wife Deborah, ran a nonprofit that was in charge of spending tens of millions of flexible federal welfare dollars outside of public view. What followed was the biggest public fraud case in state history, according to the state auditor’s office. Nonprofit leaders had misspent at least $77 million in funds that were supposed to help the needy, forensic auditors found.

New pleaded guilty to 13 felony counts related to the scheme, and Davis awaits trial. But neither Bryant nor Favre have been charged with any crime.

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Pentagon to Troops: If We’re Not Paying You Enough to Feed Yourselves, Apply for Welfare

The U.S. army is recommending soldiers apply for SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps, to help cover their rising costs from inflation.

The U.S. Army cites the higher prices on a range of goods because of inflation in its recently released official guidance.

“With inflation affecting everything from gas prices to groceries to rent, some Soldiers and their families are finding it harder to get by on the budgets they’ve set and used before,” the guidance written by Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael A. Grinston reads.

“Soldiers of all ranks can seek guidance, assistance, and advice through the Army’s Financial Readiness Program.”

The guidance points soldiers to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and links them to the federal welfare program’s website.

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States Are Hoarding $5.2 Billion in Welfare Funds Even as the Need for Aid Grows

When Congress passed welfare reform in 1996, states were given more autonomy over how they could use federal funding for aid to the poor. They could demand welfare recipients find work before receiving cash assistance. They could also use their federal “block grants” to fund employment and parenting courses or to subsidize childcare.

Twenty-five years later, however, states are using this freedom to do nothing at all with large sums of the money.

According to recently released federal data, states are sitting on $5.2 billion in unspent funds from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF. Nearly $700 million was added to the total during the 2019 and 2020 fiscal years, with Hawaii, Tennessee and Maine hoarding the most cash per person living at or below the federal poverty line.

States have held on to more of this welfare money amid rising poverty. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 16.1% of children under age 18 lived in poverty in 2020, up from 14.4% the year before. The poverty rate also ticked up for people aged 18 to 64, from 9.4% to 10.4%. As unused TANF dollars have accumulated, applications to the cash assistance program have waned, though it’s not for a lack of need, say experts and people who have applied to the program.

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Influential neo-Nazi eats at soup kitchens, lives in government housing

A fan of Charles Manson and follower of Hitler, James Mason published essays in the 1980s that now act as the inspiration for a militant neo-Nazi group linked to multiple murders in the U.S.

“Revolutionary discipline must mean that WE will be the single survivor in a war against the System,” Mason wrote in 1985. “A TOTAL WAR against the System.”

But nowadays, Mason isn’t waging war with the system. He is, in fact, dependent on it.

The 67-year-old white supremacist lives in a government subsidized apartment in Denver and eats at soup kitchens.

In a brief interview last week, a few days after he was spotted picking up a meal at a city-run center for “homeless and hungry seniors,” Mason said he sees no contradiction between his writings and his lifestyle.

“Guerilla warfare, man. Guerilla warfare,” Mason told NBC’s Denver affiliate KUSA. “You’ve gotta take what you have to get what you need.”

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