That point of view has been discussed many times on the SDMB. It is, at best, misinformed and hateful.
As has been noted, just how did Vance know what they did with their groceries after they left the store?
Of course they did. Food stamps cover food and only food. They do not cover alcohol or cigarettes. I very rarely buy alcohol. When I had easy access to a liquor store, I did try to keep a bottle of Mannishewitz wine in the fridge for various ceremonies, If a person wants to buy and consume beer or other alcohol now and then, and is paying for it with their own cash, why should anybody care? If these people were homeless alcoholics, Vance fails to mention it. If they were just average folks who drank beer now and then, so what? I disapprove of anybody smoking cigarettes. However, once you start it is enormously difficult to stop. OTTOMH Malcolm X was addicted to heroin and cigarettes. He beat heroin but could never stop smoking.
Though often referred to as “Obamaphones” the program that now gives free cell phones to qualifiying Americans was actually started by Reagan. For years, I had a reasonably good cell phone at absolutely no cost to me. Then, they upgraded me to a better phone for free. Then, my sister gave me her old iPhone. I did some research. I could use the iPhone if I did some stuff on the SafeLink website and bought a card (sim? sd? I don’t remember) for less than two dollatrs at Target.
How does he know this? I was on SNAP and social security disability for about twenty fiver years. I was thoroughly miserable the entire time and constantly struggling to get well so I could get a job.
Yeah ‘everybody on welfare is conning the government and wasting our tax dollars and could work if they wanted to’
Imagine how pissed they’d be if you could actually buy booze and smokes with food stamps. I don’t think you can even buy hot/heated food, like a rotisserie chicken in a supermarket, with SNAP.
No limits on what farmers can spend government subsidies on, Vance must really be pissed about that.
Oh wait, they’re a white republican voting bloc you say?
You are correct. The day program I attended for many years was less than a block from a Wawa, a convenience store. As a significant chunk of their business was people buying things with EBT, there were several large signs stating that hot food was not covered and that hoagies were not covered if you had them toasted.
I found that I had a great deal of anxiety about paying my rent. It worked very well if I rewarded myself for paying my rent on time. So once a month after I paid my rent, I would go to Wawa and order a large chocolate cookie cheesecake smoothie with whipped cream. This had to be made to order by a worker. I forget just how much it cost. But, it was not cheap. It was completely covered by EBT.
A soft pretzel from a heated case was roughly a dollar. It was not covered by EBT.
Musk’s usefulness to this administration will be short. Someday, someone will remember about expropriation and discover that Musk’s wealth is much more useful without Musk attached. Once the IRS is gutted, the crime of treason wil return.
Trump’s usefulness to this administration will be short. Cruel time will render him even more unfit, and at some point he’s not going to be cogent and / or alive.
All Vance has to do is wait.
Re: the Hillbilly Elegy welfare story above: of course it’s not true. What matters is that Vance believed it or pretended to believe it, and makes use of it. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Right capitalizes on a LOT of untrue beliefs and narratives.
When I read Hillbilly Elegy, I found many of the anecdotes hard to believe. I’m not doubting the sentiment, but I suspect there’s a great deal of embellishment.
In particular, his grandmother supposedly asking him if he wanted to suck dick, and if the answer is no, he wasn’t gay. It just seemed really contrived to me. Not to mention ignorant.
Well, we already know he that he has trashed ‘X’ and that he won’t be going back to Tesla. Is it because Teslas suck or is it because he thinks ‘DOGE boys have more fun’?
Only the Ketmine in his bloodstream knows for sure.
I think it’s worth bearing in mind too, that it is not just the content of what JD Vance was saying, but lecturing countries on internal politics is completely inappropriate here, if anywhere.
Imagine if the US were hosting a summit, and the British PM did a speech about what the US should do about the mass shooting issue, or how they should roll out universal healthcare. Or switch to metric
Even americans that agreed with him would be politely inviting him to STFU.
Unfortunately, and probably Vance knows this, it’s different with the far right in the social media era. Far right parties are happy to hear someone repeating the “anti-woke” bigotry, so won’t criticize him (though even most of those have been hesitant to outright applaud it).
I agree with all those and I wouldn’t be saying STFU. I’d love for other countries to start telling the US to get our collective shit together. At least the first two!
I’m an engineer. In college (late 80s into early 90s) we had to do problems in both sets of units. I can tell you one was way easier to work with. Can you guess?
Sorry you have to have metric too, it’s a package deal
Seriously I might have overstated that slightly. I guess the key thing is the hypocrisy as MAGA have previous railed against foreign leaders making any allusion to internal US politics.
