It’s never, ever going to end.
This is why I don’t read Salon, except for Glenn Greenwald.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
We still have time to mess this up!
The revolution will be supervised.
Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.
Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”
Optimism opens the door to great things.
That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.
When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?
🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵
They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.
When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson
SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.
Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.
Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.
The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.
Democracy cannot function without a free press.
Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.
Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.
The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.
The words do not have to be perfect.
The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.
They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.
He really is that stupid.
You are here: Home / Twee young bucks buying Japanese eggplant and organic asparagus with foodstamps
jurassicpork
I wonder if this was started by Lindsey Graham and Lamar Alexander, since they’ve been so fond of late of using Japanese words to oppose health care reform.
Why are we letting these GOP psychopaths hijack the HCR debate? And why does everyone keep insisting this is a political issue when it’s obviously a human rights issue?
Ash Can
Hey, those pearls aren’t going to clutch themselves.
Svensker
My brother’s kids were on food stamps when they were finishing college and then when they had their first kids and didn’t have good jobs yet. They also got state-funded health care because they fell below the income limit. My brother and his kids are, of course, opposed to sockalism, HCR, welfare, etc., and are all big fans of Rush, Hannity, et al.
No cognitive on that dissonance.
Brian J
Well, since I wasn’t the first person to go off topic and bring up health care, let me ask something: where would my boss get the idea that the health care bill adds another layer of decision making to the doctor-patient relationship, namely that of the government? Unless I missed something, that’s utterly false, but even a nonsensical claim has to have a source. We know Betsy McCaughey is the source of the death panel lie, but where would something like the one my boss said come from?
jeffreyw
I wish I lived in the inner city where all those exotic veggies are sold. Out here in the boondocks I’m lucky when the iceberg lettuce isn’t wilted.
4tehlulz
Weeaboo welfare queens are the cancer killing America.
bemused
Conservatives are always vigilant in their hunt for anyone who may be getting something they are not.
bemused
@bemused:
Or even if they do because they are more deserving than all those other losers.
El Cid
Obviously if you’re on food stamps, you can only eat bags of generic flour with water to wash it down.
Also, if you’re a farmer who grows asparagus or eggplant or arugula, you’re a Real America-hating fag.
scav
@jeffreyw: Ahh, real ‘merca, where salad is referred to as “lettuce in a bowl” as best I remember. You still in the horseshoe zone or is that only higher up in IL?
Mako
I’m more upset at having to click thru 3 pages to get to the original link only to find Salon “down for maintenance”.
But then I’m a reasonable person.
Say, is that a black Raggedy Ann doll?
YellowJournalism
@Svensker: My best friend in college was on food stamps right before she graduated, too. They also had a child and were put on the WIC program, which provided milk, orange juice, and cereal to supplement the mother’s nutrition while she breastfed. It also provided formula when she weaned her daughter. Fortunately, my friend has a better attitude about government assistance because of the positive experience she had during those tough years. She can’t stand people who abuse these programs, but she knows for a fact that the programs are there for people who are in situations similar to what she went through. The baby was not planned and she and her new husband had already been struggling to finish their education. I still can’t believe that there are those that would call her and her child a burden on society, but had she chosen not to have her baby, she would have been some heinous monster or something, according to those same people.
Cerberus
DougJ-
That’s unfair and you know it.
They also have cartoons worth reading (like Keith Knight).
jeffreyw
@scav:
No clue what that is, so I’m guessing no.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Jesus, Salon’s really gone down the crapper. I’d gotten to the point where I was only reading the comics, Patrick Smith, and Andrew Leonard, but no matter how quickly I’d click through there was some random headline that would catch my eye and spike my blood pressure, usually some new age spiritual tripe bashing atheism and rational thought.
I miss reading Smith and Leonard, but not enough to go wading through the sewer to get there.
scav
@jeffreyw: burger patty smothered under a mt of fries with cheese product topping. Known homeland: Augusta, IL, Hancock Co. They get all fancy smashy up in Macomb and add actual tomato quarters. Heresy.
KCinDC
Has Slate lost its mind? Popping up talking video ads that move around at the bottom of the screen? I don’t think I’ll be visiting there anymore.
Taterstick
Let’s see. I go to Balloon Juice only to find a link to Atrios which takes me to a link at Slate which then takes me to a link at Salon. Holy shit – clicks for the entire internet in one post! There be method in that madness.
FlipYrWhig
Re: Salon, once one of my favorite sites, I just left a snarky comment on a Tom Tomorrow cartoon that was positively Greenwaldian in its bad-faith arguing about the public option. That pissed me right off. Is there a Salon cafeteria where bad ideas and smugness spread?
Neutron Flux
@jeffreyw: Well, then you must be lifting those food pics from the intertubes then, cause it looks to me like your supply chain is fine.
KCinDC
@FlipYrWhig, you can see some of Tom Tomorrow’s reaction to the reaction here. At least he’s not a bill killer.
Joel
My favorite part is that it’s Slate calling Salon out on this nonsense. When Slate is pulling your card, you’re knee deep in the bullshit.
jeffreyw
@Neutron Flux: I did just order a pound bag of dried mushrooms from Amazon :)
PanAmerican
The poor need to shut up and eat their trans-fat and HFCS laden, life shortening shit. If everyone can get quality food stuffs, what’s the point of my conspicuous consumption?
Brian J
@YellowJournalism:
Leaving aside any sort of increases that may have occurred due to the recession, the sort of money that is going to programs like food stamps and other safety net supports isn’t that much, around $40 billion or so. I can understand why it’s frustrating when these programs are used by people who don’t really need them, but I never understand why this makes some people so reluctant to support them. Even if you claim that there’s widespread abuse, which nobody reasonable seems to be suggesting, eliminating the program entirely wouldn’t make much of a difference in the federal budget. And that’s hurting people who actually need the programs.
By the way, what would widespread abuse even look like?
Ed Drone
@bemused:
Hence their preoccupation with sex, and in particular, gay sex.
Ed
rapido
I was actually going to forward this in to you guys. I thought the exact same thing. I will say though that it was a fight not to be pissed off at hipstercare even as I struggled to have my intellect override my emotions. Ultimately my intellect won out but for a moment there it was tough.
Michael
War on Terror military contracting.
PanAmerican
Brow beating the poor into buying whatever shit food products ConAgra pumps out?
bemused
@Ed Drone:
Ha, too true!
ThresherK
I’m never first, but it’s odd to think I can’t find “Camille” or “Paglia” on this thread yet.
ruemara
When I was on food stamps, the cheapest best produce was at a farmer’s market in downtown oakland where they accepted food stamps. We lived off grilled vietnamese eggplant for breakfast and 69¢ per lb chicken wings, salad and my early experiments at bread making. Fuck those Salon idiots. I still had to pass on meals so my partner, who had the only work, could have lunches. We ate as healthy as possible, because we had no money for food related illnesses. I hope the writer gets to experience having to depend on $120 a month for all their food. Jerks.
bago
Oh Noes! The poors are cooking for themselves healthy meals! OUTRAGE! Countertop inspection shall begin immediately!
Michael D.
@PanAmerican:
Bitch, don’t be hatin’ on Peter Pan & Manwich!
ericblair
Well, if you’re on food stamps, ya can’t have Big Macs ‘cuz that just means you’re a lazy fatass, and you can’t have nice fresh stuff ‘cuz Who The Hell Do You Think You Are. So, we need a crash program on developing USDA-certified Poor People Thin Gruel. It will be certified tasteless and colored battleship gray to ensure maximum hopelessness and depression for its hapless consumers. Remember, we ain’t paying for no poor people’s food unless we can get some shadenfreude and feelings of superiority out of it in the bargain.
El Cid
What? Are the poor not happy with plentiful supplies of pink slime?
FlipYrWhig
@KCinDC: I don’t mind a cartoon that rips Obama for not being a stronger negotiator.
But the lead-in to that point is the usual blog nonsense where he somehow finds it hard to comprehend that someone could _like_ the public option and _want_ the public option and yet conclude grudgingly that it couldn’t get steered through a Senate that has a strong center-right Democratic presence.
The part about how Obama said he “didn’t campaign on the public option” is classic leftier-than-thou blog carping where you deliberately misconstrue an obvious statement (the public option was only part of a larger plan, not the whole plan) so as to affect outrage you can share with your brothers-in-affected-outrage, which makes you feel like a Real! Live! Movement! Tom Tomorrow is much better than that. This was sad to see. TBogg had some similar moments at various points in this debate.
schrodinger's cat
Actually produce at many ethnic markets is much cheaper than the regular grocery store. I don’t see what the problem is, the people described in Salon are making their dollar go farther and eating healthy on a limited budget.
Michael D.
I just read the whole article, and my only issue with it was that the author could have mentioned that a lot of the stuff they’re eating costs less than processed foods. An eggplant, for example, is cheap at a market. Rabbit ain’t expensive (if I remember correctly), even if it is rather tasteless. A pound of tofu costs half what a pound of decent beef does, etc. You infer from the article that the smells in the house are caused by expensive spices bought on food stamps – but these kids probably had these in their cupboards anyway – were bought with food stamps. And besides, who cares?
But in reading the story, I didn’t get the impression that the author was trying to villify these people. It read to me more like someone saying, “Hey, you can eat well on food stamps.” The author just did a shitty job writing the story.
I don’t think it’s wrong to criticize what people buy on the government dime – food stamps or otherwise. I just don’t see anything here that’s worth criticizing.
These people (seem like they) are able to spend about $200 a month and have healthy food. I think it’s a story worth sharing.