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MANSFIELD, LA (KSLA) - When a wild shopping spree fueled by what appeared to be "limitless" Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards ensued at two Louisiana Walmarts, not everyone who receive food stamp benefits joined in. Additional Links Food stamp shopping spree: Who pays? EBT cards: The great debate Walmart shelves in Springhill, Mansfield, cleared in EBT glitch DCFS: All SNAP EBT service restored In cell phone video that is circulating the Internet, several hundred people can be seen filling their shopping carts at Springhill and Mansfield Walmarts, when the stores apparently continued accepting EBT cards even though they weren't showing...

You don't go on television during a shutdown and tell the world that your party is shutting down the government. You don't go out and take vicious shots at other Republicans for advocating the strategy your party is engaged in, especially when you don't have the cahones to go after Democrats the same way. If conservative Republicans like Justin Amash and Tim Huelskamp were punished for not being deferential enough to leadership, how is it that establishment Republicans can actively work to undermine the Republican Party during a shutdown fight and get a complete pass? If these mediocrities are so...

The political standoff in Washington has spawned frustration and growing worries in China, which remains the largest holder of U.S. government debt, as the clock ticks down to a possible U.S. debt default this week. The crisis shows that China and the rest of the world should start to “de-Americanize,” according to a strongly worded commentary from the Xinhua News Agency, China’s leading government-controlled news outlet. “The world is still crawling its way out of an economic disaster thanks to the voracious Wall Street elites,” the commentary said. “Such alarming days when the destinies of others are in the hands...

In a few minutes, House Republicans will meet in the Capitol’s basement. The chief topic of conversation: the emerging Senate deal. But before the meeting even begins, House conservatives are bashing it behind the scenes, and they’re pushing the leadership to reject the compromise. A flurry of phone calls and meetings last night and early this morning led the consensus among the approximatley 50 Republicans who form the House GOP’s right flank. They’re furious with Senate Republicans for working with Democrats to craft what one leading Tea Party congressman calls a “mushy piece of s—t.” Another House conservative warns, “If...

Meet the newest mascot at Fukushima Industries. This cute, winged egg is the perfect face for a company that manufactures the kind of industrial refrigerators, blast chillers, freezers and refrigerated showcases that you might find in a restaurant or a supermarket. The name they chose for this little egghead, though, probably needed a bit more work… The image below reads: “Hi! Nice to meet you! I’m–” Now wait just one second, can we really post this on such a family-friendly website?? That’s right, the new face of Fukushima Industries is named “Fukuppy,” which sounds just like the nickname you’d give...

TOKYO: A typhoon, described as the "strongest in 10 years," was closing in on Japan Tuesday, on a path that will take it towards the precarious Fukushima nuclear power plant. Typhoon Wipha, packing winds of nearly 200 kilometres (125 miles) per hour near its centre and bringing heavy rains, was in the Pacific south of Japan on Tuesday evening and moving north at 35 kilometres per hour, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. It was forecast to reach an area off the Tokyo metropolitan area by early Wednesday and later in the day would be off the coast of Fukushima where...

Last week, CNN's Wolf Blitzer made waves when he opined that the ongoing problems with ObamaCare might be reason to delay the program. "They had three years to get this ready," he said. "If they weren't fully ready, they should accept the advice Republicans are giving them, delay it for a year, get it ready and make sure it works." Blitzer later said he was only referring to the ObamaCare exchange website. But as the rollout continues, there's increasing evidence that an across-the-board delay would make sense — even to supporters of the law.

The basic framework of the deal Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid have hammered out is coming to light. The provision the GOP is crowing over — that the Obama Administration will check the income levels of those who receive a subsidy — is already the law. Meanwhile, the GOP will let the rest of the year proceed above sequester level spending, give the unions another carve out of Obamacare, and extend the debt limit to February. I’m sure at the last minute they’ll also delay the medical device tax so it looks like Harry Reid caved on something. Really, it’ll...

Police in Moscow have named Azerbaijani man Orkhan Zeynalov as the suspected murderer of a young Russian whose death sparked major riots targeting migrants. Yegor Shcherbakov, 25, was stabbed to death in front of his girlfriend as the couple were returning home in the Biryulyovo district on Thursday. Ill-feeling has risen towards Moscow's Muslim migrants, thousands of whom gathered for street prayers on Tuesday. The tension came just as Russia was being commended for tackling racism. "Substantial efforts have been made to react firmly to the escalation of racist violence in Russia, and there has been a decline in the...

....... But while both Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, praised the progress that was made in the Senate, it was already clear that the most conservative members of the House were not going to go along quietly with a plan that does not accomplish their goal from the outset of this two-week-old crisis: dismantling the president’s health care law. “We’ve got a name for it in the House: it’s called the Senate surrender caucus,” said Representative Tim Huelskamp, Republican of Kansas. “Anybody who would vote for that in...

RICHMOND -- A San Francisco-based group of financiers called Mortgage Resolution Partners has been calling on Sacramento and other California cities for more than a year, pitching a plan to use government powers of eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages and refinance them for the benefit of homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth. Most communities took a pass, saying the novel plan was too risky. Not Richmond, a largely working-class city in the Bay Area. There, a determined and articulate Green Party mayor has helped steer the plan through the City Council in recent months. Today, the...

Not set-up for copy-and-paste, must read at source.

EVRAZ North America announces that due to subdued market demand and the high volume of imports, it will suspend operations at its steel mill in Claymont, Delaware. Over the next two months, about 375 employees will complete processing and shipping of existing products and prepare the mill for idling. EVRAZ will consider restarting the operations as soon as the market conditions improve. All of the mill's employees, with the exception of a small crew who will remain to maintain the site, have been issued Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN). EVRAZ Claymont makes steel plate and custom plate products for...

The barriers to urban farming don't end at zoning ordinances and neighborhood politics. Not everyone has rooftop access, and arable lots can be far and few between. City soil often contains chemicals and contaminants, like lead. Sometimes the air is just as dirty as the dirt. And like traditional farming, there are seasons to deal with. You simply can't grow tomatoes in an outdoor garden in the middle of winter. Those aren't reasons to stop outdoor urban farming, but they do make it difficult to scale the model up. But what if you didn't need dirt? Or much water? Or...

Greenpeace, the world’s biggest and most battle-hardened environmental campaigning organisation, is in a state of shock. Last week, Russian investigators said that they had found ‘narcotic substances’ on board Arctic Sunrise, the Greenpeace vessel they seized after its crew had used it in an attempt to storm an oil rig of the state-controlled firm Gazprom. They added that the drugs included poppy straw, an ingredient for opiates. You would think that Greenpeace might be proud to have been identified as scrupulously organic in its drug use; but its spokesman denounced the Russians’ claim as a ‘smear, pure and simple’. Of...

The sharp deterioration of the public finances in many countries has revived interest in a "capital levy" -- a one off tax on private wealth -- as an exceptional measure to restore debt sustainability. The appeal is that such a tax, if it is implemented before avoidance is possible and there is a belief that it will never be repeated, does not distort behavior (and may be seen by some as fair). There have been illustrious supporters, including Pigou, Ricardo, Schumpeter, and, until he changed his mind - Keynes. The conditions for success are strong, but also need to be...

As U.S. politicians of both political parties are still shuffling back and forth between the White House and the Capitol Hill without striking a viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world. Emerging from the bloodshed of the Second World War as the world's most powerful nation, the United States has since then been trying to build a global empire by imposing a postwar world order, fueling recovery in Europe, and encouraging regime-change in nations that it deems hardly...

CEBU CITY, Philippines — A tectonic 7.2 magnitude quake was recorded near Bohol Tuesday morning with aftershocks expected, authorities said. Initial reports said that four people had died. The quake was recorded from two to five kilometers southeast of Carmen town at 8:12 a.m., the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology and the United States Geological Service reported. Phivolcs said the earthquake had a depth of 33 kilometers. The tremor lasted for a minute and triggered a blackout. Several aftershocks were felt. According to initial reports, some houses and buildings were damaged.

As plans for a mega-port on Kenya's northern-most coast begin to take shape, new concerns are emerging that the project could damage already-strained relations between Sudan and South Sudan. Kenya's $25.5bn Lamu Port and New Transport Corridor Development to Southern Sudan and Ethiopia (LAPSSET) includes the construction of a 32-berth port, three international airports, and a 1,500km railway line. A new oil refinery, in nearby Bargoni, and an oil pipeline are also planned. The pipeline would run to Kenya's Eastern Province before splitting, with one branch running to South Sudan's capital, Juba, and another through Moyale in the north to...

As the Republi-pansies once again cave in to the moocher class, allow me to vent. A CENTURY of communist/liberal/progressive rule has proven to be an absolute FAILURE. Everything cited as a "gain" for the "middle class" and "social justice" came from nothing more but stripping the assets of the makers to give to the takers. In the 19th century, when this was still a FREE country, the top people were allowed to be as rich as their talents would allow. John D. Rockefeller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller) achieved a peak wealth of $663.4 billion in 2007 dollars. That was more than 1.5% of...

In 2004, the Army decided to scrap the two traditional camouflage uniforms that had long been used by the military—one meant for woodland environments, another for the desert—and claimed to have come up with a universal pattern that could be worn anywhere and blend in with any environment. The $5 billion dollar experiment with the universal pattern is over as the Army is phasing out the uniform after less than a decade of use. But many soldiers and observers are wondering why it took this long and cost this much to replace an item that performed poorly from the start...

It’s easy these days to spot people smoking electronic cigarettes – the battery-powered, pen-sized inhalers marketed as cleaner alternatives to their traditional tobacco-packed counterparts. What may be harder to detect, experts say, is what exactly is inside some of those discreet devices. More and more, people are smoking marijuana out of e-cigarettes and vapor pens -- right out in the open with little or no fear of getting caught, users and experts say. "I was on the train from New York to Baltimore and I enjoyed the pen the whole way there and back with no one noticing," said one...

SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) - KSLA News 12 obtained video of overflowing shopping carts, excited shoppers, and empty shelves throughout Walmart in Springhill, Louisiana. The frenzy was reportedly created this weekend by a food stamp glitch in the system. That glitch allowed EBT card users to seemingly shop without a limit. But there was a limit the whole time. According to the state, the retailer is on the hook for the overages. The Department of Children and Family Services oversees those benefits, called SNAP, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. DCFS tells KSLA News 12 that no EBT card is ever limitless,...

Cats and dogs. Oil and water. Name any cliche about polar opposites and they have probably been used to compare the oil industry and electric vehicles. So, it seems almost impossible that an oil company would make the claim that electric vehicles will be the predominant transportation fuel, but Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A ) is making that very claim. Is Shell contemplating going into a new business? Are they playing some kind of Jedi mind trick on us? Let's take a look at some of the things that Shell is saying and see if it is making a compelling...

… then Barack Obama’s hometown newspaper has news for you. The initial shock of the premium increases and the incompetent use of $94 million [see update] to create the world’s biggest 404 exchange are just the starting shocks of ObamaCare. Wait until people have to actually start using their new insurance, and perhaps the biggest surprise of all will be waiting: Adam Weldzius, a nurse practitioner, considers himself better informed than most when it comes to the inner workings of health insurance. But even he wasn’t prepared for the pocketbook hit he’ll face next year under President Barack Obama’s health...

President Barack Obama used his Saturday radio address to press for an end to “this Republican shutdown” and for an increase in the debt limit. “It wouldn’t be wise,” he said, “to just kick the debt-ceiling can down the road for a couple months, and flirt with a first-ever intentional default right in the middle of the holiday shopping season. Because damage to America’s sterling credit rating wouldn’t just cause global markets to go haywire; it would become more expensive for everyone in America to borrow money. Students paying for college. Newlyweds buying a home. It would amount to a...

According to the authors of one Reformed Catechism Christian piety includes “the lawful procuring and furthering the wealth and outwards estate of ourselves and others” (WSC, Q?A 74). But what we take in, a subject we considered in an earlier post, is only half of the personal finance equation. We also need to spend wisely. Here are four principles for faithful spending: 1. Christians Are Stewards Christians must manage money for the sake of God’s kingdom, making their resources work for his glory (Luke 16:1-13). This is true because, “The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains” (Ps. 24:1)....

<p>Insurance regulators and an industry trade group warn that this month's rollout of the health insurance marketplaces created by federal law opened the door for bad actors at the same time that it gives brokers and agents a business opportunity.</p>

Amidst all the cries of Barack Obama being the most prolific big government spender the nation has ever suffered, Marketwatch is reporting that our president has actually been tighter with a buck than any United States president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

[Breaking news update 1:15 p.m.]President Barack Obama said Monday there had been some progress in Senate negotiations on a possible compromise to reopen the federal government and avoid a U.S. default as soon as Thursday. And he added that the partial shutdown of the government for the past two weeks was "completely unnecessary," and he blamed the use of "brinksmanship as a strategy time and time again to try to extract extreme or partisan concessions."

Fifteen years after tobacco companies agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines in what is still the largest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history, it's unclear how state governments are using much of that money. So far tobacco companies have paid more than $100 billion to state governments as part of the 25-year, $246 billion settlement. Among many state governments receiving money, Orange County, Calif., is an outlier. Voters mandated that 80 percent of money from tobacco companies be spent on smoking-related programs, like a cessation class taught in the basement of Anaheim Regional Medical Center. "So go ahead...

<p>Wal-Mart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, La., saw a stampede and a shelf-clearing rush Saturday after a computer glitch for food stamp recipients led to benefit cards allowing unlimited purchases.</p> <p>Police were called as entire shelves were being cleared out, until the glitch was fixed and low-income residents using the cards were no longer allowed to make purchases.</p>

The terms: Government re-opens and is funded until mid-December, debt ceiling is raised for another six to nine months, and Democrats maybe agree to repeal ObamaCare’s medical-device tax and reinstate anti-fraud measures for O-Care applicants — depending upon what Republicans give them in return.Peace in our time? The proposal would set up a framework for larger budget negotiations with the House over the automatic sequestration spending cuts and and other major deficit issues, the sources said…McConnell is still reviewing the offer and is privately huddling with groups of GOP senators Monday who could be key to providing enough votes in...

The nomination of Janet Yellen to become head of the Federal Reserve System has set off a flurry of media stories. Since she will be the first woman to occupy that position, we can only hope that this will not mean that any criticism of what she does will be attributed to sex bias or to a "war on women." The Federal Reserve has become such a major player in the American economy that it needs far more scrutiny and criticism than it has received, regardless of who heads it. Ms. Yellen, a former professor of economics at Berkeley, has...

Nearly 400 workers at the Evraz Steel mill in Claymont will be out of work come December. Evraz announced this morning it is suspending operations at its Delaware facility due to “subdued market demand and the high volume of imports.” The company says its 375 workers in Claymont will finish processing and shipping existing products over the next two months, then prepare the mill for idling. A small crew will remain to maintain the site. “We appreciate our employees’ efforts to operate Evraz Claymont as efficiently as possible,” said the company’s Executive Vice President for Flat Products and Recycling John...

Several years ago, I worked with some fellow propellerheads to launch a nanotechnology initiative in my state. That is, engineering devices at the atomic and molecular level. There were several local companies already working peripheral technologies like MEMS (Micro-electro-mechanical systems) and plenty of interest in taking machines to their ultimate, small incarnations. A natural component to our new society of industry, economic development groups and chambers of commerce was partnership with higher education. So we teamed up with local universities to encourage their offering related majors, with requirements in physics and chemistry. Industry envisioned expanding revenue, communities saw economic expansion,...

We have a minor earthquake in France. A party committed to withdrawal from the euro, the restoration of French franc, and the complete destruction of monetary union has just defeated the establishment in the Brignoles run-off election. It is threatening Frexit as well, which rather alters the political chemistry of Britain's EU referendum. Marine Le Pen's Front National won 54pc of the vote. It was a bad defeat for the Gaulliste UMP, a party at risk of disintegration unless it can find a leader in short order. President Hollande's Socialists were knocked out in the first round, due to mass...

The fact that the ObamaCare website is a complete clusterbungle that is totally inoperative is 100% INTENTIONAL. It was designed to cause denial of service attacks on ITSELF, people. Come on. Wake up. This isn’t difficult. This reminds me exactly of the Ukraine under Stalin in the early 1930s. The Ukraine is the breadbasket of eastern Europe. Tremendous farming and wheat production was centered in the Ukraine. Under Lenin, and then Stalin, all farms and food production were seized and controlled by the state. The Soviets hated the Ukrainians and wanted them all dead. All of them. So here’s what...

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2013 to Eugene F. Fama University of Chicago, IL, USA Lars Peter Hansen University of Chicago, IL, USA and Robert J. Shiller Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA "for their empirical analysis of asset prices”.

The Donald weighs in

WASHINGTON — Several Republican senators said Sunday a Democratic request to increase government spending is hurting chances of a deal to end the 13-day-old shutdown. Leaders of the Democratic-led Senate were dismissive of a proposal Saturday, in part, because it kept in place for too long the automatic spending cuts that went into effect earlier this year. Another round of those decade-long cuts -- dubbed the sequester and approved by Congress and the White House in 2011 -- is expected in January. The Republican complaints came as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., spoke...

According to Paul Magnette, the social pillar of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) must be strengthened with a proposal for a European minimum wage, “even though we are not going to set the same minimum wage level across Europe”. Paul Magnette is a Belgian politician (Socialist) who began his career as a professor of political science at the Free University of Brussels (ULB). He was Federal Minister for Climate, Energy and Environment (2007-2011) and Minister of Public Enterprises (2011-2013). He is now mayor of Charleroi. …

David Stockman is at it again. The Reagan-era budget director caused an uproar in 1981 by publicly decrying the moves of his boss to spur the economy with tax cuts. Now a private investor and author, he’s pushing for a huge new tax on big earners. Stockman would subject the nation’s top 10% of households to a levy equal to 30% of their wealth, payable over a decade. Without it, he maintains, the U.S. will wind up in a horrific, Greece-style debt wreck. Stockman, 66 years old, recently talked up his plan at an ­unlikely forum: New York City Junto,...

Renewable energy is blamed for jeopardizing Europe’s energy security this winter, a new study has found. EurActiv France reports. The French multinational company Cap Gemini warned in their European Observatory of Energy Markets that energy security in Europe was under threat and that the region could soon be exposed to massive power outages during the winter, due to a lack of production capacity. They blame wind turbines. …

We may have been too optimistic last month in noting the end of a year-long period of microrecession in the U.S. economy. Here, we've been tracking the number of public U.S. companies that have been announcing decreases in their dividends each month. August 2013 had seen the number of U.S. companies acting to cut their dividends drop below the key level of 10 per month, which we've previously observed marks the boundary between a growing U.S. economy and a U.S. economy that is experiencing recessionary conditions. The data for September 2013 is now out, and the early suggestion is that...

Economists expected a 6% rise in Chinese exports. Instead, exports fell 0.3%. Please consider China's September export growth in surprise slide. China's export growth fizzled in September to post a surprise fall as sales to Southeast Asia tumbled, data showed, a disappointing break to a recent run of indicators that had signaled its economy gaining strength. China's exports dropped 0.3 percent in September from a year earlier, the Customs Administration said on Saturday, sharply confounding market expectations for a rise of 6 percent, and marking the worst performance in three months. Imports fared better, rising 7.4 percent in September from...

Eight out of 10 British manufacturers would choose to stay in the European Union if a referendum on membership of the 28-nation bloc were held today, says a survey released today (14 October). The poll, for the EEF, the manufacturing sector’s biggest trade body, found that 85% of those asked would choose to stay in the EU, if given a say in a referendum. … EEF Chief Executive Terry Scuoler said the results suggested manufacturers wanted to stay in a reformed EU and feared the economic fallout of leaving. “Britain must not gamble on its future in Europe. The stakes...

Bryan Llenas reports from New York City

The chief of the International Monetary Fund [IMF] says the U.S. government’s stalemate over spending and its debt limit is “very, very concerning” and could roll back economic progress around the world. Christine Lagarde, who took over the financial watchdog-and-rescue organization in 2011, said global finance ministers assembled for meetings in Washington last week feeling like Japan had finally turned the corner and that economies in the U.S. and Europe were on the upswing. “And then they found out that the debt ceiling was the issue,” she said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They found out that the government...

....The most important thing the Republicans have to do is make any default Obama’s responsibility. The way to do that is for them to pass today—a “clean” debt ceiling increase to cover a period of two or three months and keep the government shut down. Forget passing anything else, including any conditions attached to the debt ceiling increase. Obama and Reid will use whatever appendages a bill has attached to it as an excuse to turn it down.If the Republicans do that,there’s still a chance to turn the tables on Obama......The key is to keep the government shut down while...