Trump Gets CLAP From Maduro Regime

CLAP packages. Via Venezuelanalysis.

My UK tweep Paul Canning, an expert observer of, among other things, Venezuela, noticed something familiar in the Trump budget proposal to turn half of the SNAP program into church basement–style distribution of beans and rice, to stop the poor from indulging in their well-known habit of blowing all their food stamps on crab legs and pomegranate juice:

Shocking anti-hunger advocates, the Trump admin is proposing to replace half of food stamp money with a box of government-selected food they’d deliver monthly. They’d call it a “Harvest Box” even though it wouldn’t include anything fresh. https://t.co/jjc9Edgp0S

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) February 13, 2018

Poo Apron. https://t.co/GYCCW9smAF

— Roy Edroso (@edroso) February 13, 2018

After decades, even centuries of claiming there was no need for government welfare programs because churches could take care of it, now they're saying government needs to run its own church food pantries. https://t.co/hbpSBTQbFV

— Yas Over Elbow (@Yastreblyansky) February 13, 2018

This is what the Maduro regime does, it supplies (or rather often doesn't) a food box called CLAP (Comité Local de Abastecimiento y Producción). It's a scam that profits regime insiders https://t.co/G53t7cjwcR Maybe American opponents of this proposal could use that? https://t.co/QnWjmffVe0

— Paul Canning (@pauloCanning) February 13, 2018

I like my headline, but Republicans might prefer "Trump Picks Up On Bolivarian Socialism".

Annals of Derp: Tell me what is Kansas thinking?

Via YouTube.

Rachel Sheffield and Elmore Wallace over at the Heritage Foundation's Daily Dogwhistle write about a major success for Kansas governor Sam Brownback. If you're not reading the rightwing press you may be under the impression that Brownback hasn't been successful in anything—

Brownback pledged to bring 100,000* new jobs to the state in his second term; as of January, he has brought 700. What’s more, personal income growth slowed dramatically since the tax cuts went into effect. Between 2010 and 2012, Kansas saw income growth of 6.1 percent, good for 12th in the nation; from 2013 to 2015, that rate was 3.6 percent, good for 41st.

Meanwhile, revenue shortfalls have devastated the state’s public sector along with its most vulnerable citizens. Since Brownback’s inauguration, 1,414 Kansans with disabilities have been thrown off  Medicaid. In 2015, six school districts in the state were forced to end their years early for lack of funding. Cuts to health and human services are expected to cause 65 preventable deaths this year in Sedgwick County alone. In February, tax receipts came in $53 million below estimates; Brownback immediately cut $17 million from the state’s university system. This data is not lost on the people of Kansas — as of November, Brownback’s approval rating was 26 percent, the lowest of any governor in the United States.

But no, apparently there's this one thing where he's accomplished something according to plan, kicking people off SNAP (or "food stamp") benefits if they don't get a job.

What pulled me in was Sheffield's and Wallace's obnoxious quotation from Lincoln: