Our Daily Bread

The Republican responses to the State of the Union in the past six years have been, to say the least, botched attempts to spotlight a "rising star" in the Rethuglican / New Confederate / Stupid Party.  This year, freshman Senator and hog castrator to the world Joni "Bread Bag Shoes" Ernst was the hapless victim. She appears to have made the mistake of depicting her youth as something out of the Grapes of Wrath:  hard working, but poor farm family trying to get by with bread bags serving as boots to cover her shoes in the Iowa winters.  When you tell a hard luck tale like that, you know there's going to be some fact checking. It turns out that BBS' family, the Culvers, did quite well in crop support payments from the bad ol' Federal Gubmint: over $460,000 in farm subsidies over the years.

So while the Culver family was "living within its means" with the help of Federal crop subsidies, taxpayers were shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars to her family.  That's a lot of bread.

(hat tip to blog friend P.E.C. for the story)