Oh, What A World!

Hello My Dear Friends. When did insanity become the norm? Did you hear about the Walmart stores in Louisiana that were overrun and cleaned out by welfare recipients who realized that a computer glitch had left their EBT cards with no limit? Yup. EBT or Electronic Benefit Transfer cards work like debit cards. They're what we replaced food stamps with, so as not to embarrass welfare recipients. Accepting public assistance is apparently embarrassing to those in need but taking advantage of the system is all well and good. So, after a glitch in the EBT system on Saturday left said cards with no limit, hundreds of people flocked to the local Walmart, some filling 8 to 10 grocery carts apiece. Most stores, when they realized the error, stopped accepting EBT cards until the problem was fixed. Not Walmart. Nope. They let people cash out hundreds and hundreds of taxpayer dollar funded transactions. Their food shelves were striped bare. When they announced that the problem had been corrected and the free for all was over, those still in the store simply walked away, leaving their overflowing carts in the aisles for Walmart to deal with. Who will end up footing the bill for this fiasco? That remains to be seen but I'm hoping it's Walmart. It's funny how the Government shutdown will affect Social Security and Veterans benefits but not the federally funded food stamps program. Anyway, a Nebraska high school principal last week cancelled the daily Pledge of Allegiance, citing the Government shutdown. Charming. School officials say they are investigating the "incident". Obamacare enrollment is in it's second week. To date, according to the UK's Daily Mail, 51,000 people have completed the application process. The Congressional Budget Office says 7 million people must buy into the system for it to remain financially stable. At the current pace the actual number of enrollees would be about 1.3 million. A little shy of the goal... One of the reasons for the low response rate could be because the website is a train wreck. That website, by the way, was created by CGI Federal, the US subsidiary of a Canadian company, who was awarded a $400 million dollar no-bid contract. Money well spent if you ask me. Now, I haven't been on the Healthcare.gov website but The Weekly Standard is reporting that a hidden message in the site's disclaimer states "You have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system."  I don't know about you, but I would think twice before I put my personal information on that site! Finally, have you been wondering where Vice President Joe Biden has been during all of this Shutdown/Debt Ceiling wrangling? Me too. Turns out he's been on vacation! Good for him. Why hang around when everything's closed!
Po