An emergency pause
The Trump administration on Friday asked a federal appeals court for an emergency pause on a federal judge’s order to fully fund SNAP benefits this month.
U.S. District Judge John McConnell ordered the administration on Thursday afternoon to deliver payments in full to states by Friday, chastising it for delays that he said have likely caused SNAP recipients to go hungry.
No no no please don’t make us pay for poor people to eat food!
“People have gone without for too long. Not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable,” McConnell said, adding: “This should never happen in America.”
This is the first time SNAP benefits have lapsed because of a government shutdown in the program’s 61-year history. Some families whose EBT cards were due to be reloaded already this week have reported skipping meals or subsisting on the meager foods remaining in their pantries, such as cereal or ramen.
Or brioche.
My heart aches for Americans struggling because of the SNAP/food stamp crisis.
We don’t have “food stamps” in Canada. But I’ve relied on food banks off and on for the last three years. (Since I got cancelled, I can’t find steady work outside the arts and gay communities, which were my home, and which I can’t work at anymore, because it takes just one little fuckface employee to dash my chances for employment at any given place, and there’s always one little fuckface.)
In that time, I’ve thought long and hard about food banks and food security. There’s nothing scarier than the food line. When you can’t afford to feed yourself, the loss of a will to live comes in, quickly. It’s physical, but it’s also psychological.
I use food banks, and at the same time, sometimes I wonder about them…
The cold-hearted, contrarian view says that it’s possible to survive on rice and beans, for cheap, so a lack of food is just economic mismanagement. It’s partly true: in the strictest sense, it’s possible for an adult human to subsist on about $23 a month, or even less, if he or she really scrimps.
But that’s the narrow view, the libertarian-mindset, anti-human, overly cynical kinda view. Like we’re all just cells in a spreadsheet. Little boxes. In reality, for us living, breathing humans just trying to make it through our struggle-fraught days, the food we eat is entwined with ideas about our dignity, and with ritual: meal times are moments of satisfaction, of happiness, of self-created contentment. And without them, many of us find we can’t function in the modern world, and we fall off.
(That’s a polite little euphemism. What actually happens is WE FUCKING DIE BY SUICIDE.)
So yes, people in developing worlds manage to live off of rice and beans and less than a dollar a day, and that works (barely) in their context. But in the real world, imposing that on modern Western people living in big cities frankly induces them to suicide.
Food banks, food safety, food variety, food novelty…
These are lifeline issues for our fellow human beings. I know this, because I am currently dependent on food subsidy, and the basket of food I get to take home every week is the brightest light in my otherwise dark, miserable life right now.
And the irony is, I’m fully employed. It’s a shit service-industry job — at one of the posh-est and hippest bars in town, no less! I cater to rich people all day. I can razzle-dazzle shake up a $20 pretentious cocktail for American tourists, with friendly banter to boot. Then I come home and eat ramen and peanut butter to survive.
The Canadian economy is so fucked right now that it’s considered perfectly normal for intelligent, employed Canadians to rely on charity for food.
Fuck this planet, I say! The revolution canbt happen soon enough.
No worries, Arty — we’re all very high-minded here at B&W!
But seriously — would you accept some help from the B&W communniny?
Through much of the 90s, I subsisted on food stamps. I was receiving disability, which was basically just barely enough to cover my housing and utilities; the food stamps were essential, especially since the welfare changes in the late 90s meant I couldn’t use that sort of benefits anymore, because I thought it would be stupid of me to drop out of college to take a minimum wage job with no future, but they were now requiring that. So I survived, but it wasn’t easy.
I was the recipient of one or two food baskets; they were a great relief to me, but they only came during holidays. A turkey, instant mashed potatoes (yuk), and then whatever canned vegetables were available in their food bank at that time. Green beans. Yuk x infinity. But my son would eat them, and I was able to keep him fed.
If this had happened while I was on food stamps, I would have been desperate, but not as bad as some, because my parents would probably have been willing to feed us in a pinch. It wouldn’t be a great situation, but I was acutely aware that other options were worse.
So many people don’t have that. They may not have parents. Their parents may not have enough money to do that. Their parents may simply not want to help. Pride prevented me from asking my parents; fortunately, I never had to.
What the hell is the ’emergency’?
Guest @5, Food assistance has been significantly decreased because of the government shutdown and a federal judge ordered (the emergency) it remain fully funded, but now that order has been overturned by the Supreme Court. The very same Supreme Court with a conservative supermajority that doesn’t care about who it affects. All the judges are wealthy with lifetime appointments, and they are all party loyalists, so why should they care. Also the same Supreme Court that overturned Roe V. Wade that allowed many individual state legislatures to ban abortion.
Twiliter,
The SC didn’t overturn the ruling, they just issued a stay while the Appeals Court decides.
And the surprise is it was Ketanji Brown Jackson who issued the stay.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/11/07/snap-food-court-order-trump-administration/
@6 sorry, I think you misunderstood. ‘The Trump administration on Friday asked a federal appeals court for an emergency pause on a federal judge’s order to fully fund SNAP benefits this month.’ The Trump administration seems to be claiming that some ’emergency’ requires them ‘pause’ funding SNAP benefits. What is this ’emergency’? (I mean, I’m guessing they haven’t said, but I’m curious what their rationale is for there being an ’emergency’ that is so important that they can’t distribute the funds.)
Guest @7 Yes I think they just call it an “emergency order” meaning the judge’s ruling itself.
WaM @6 Thanks! (IANAL).
@8 I mean pertaining to. The only emergency will be people going hungry. I think maybe Judge Jackson is using that as leverage, but it is odd.
@twiliter,
Nor am I.
@8 sorry to sound pedantic, but that doesn’t seem right – the phrase here is ’emergency pause on a federal judge’s order’ – so it’s not the order that’s the emergency; the reason for the administration to delay following the order is the emergency. So in theory there must be some incredibly urgent and rational reason for the administration to request that the federal judge’s order be paused.
guest, the emergency is the government shutdown and the budget deadlock.
Guest @8 Yes you’re right, that’s how it’s worded,not pedantic.
We’d have to find that out from Judge Jackson, but I suspect it’s political manoeuvring.
@Peter
That’s a very kind and generous offer. I wasn’t fishing for charity. But I cannot lie: I would accept it if offered! Because of my Substack and the podcast — work that was funded by voluntary donations — I do have a payment portal, which is available for those charitably inclined:
https://buy.stripe.com/14A28qdtbbdH3sR8R6aAw0f
It feels really awkward posting that. It’s way outside my comfort zone, this kind of thing. But then again, hard times, so…
I guess that’s just the way the world works these days?
@iknklast
I’m incredibly fortunate to reside in a district with a fantastic food bank.
It operates out of a church — some moderate, woke branch of Christianity; very friendly, naive but lovely people. Very Rainbow, if you catch my drift. I actually think this particular church has morphed into a full-on food bank now. I doubt they actually do much in the way of whatever else it is churches do. (Um, sermons I guess? Communal gatherings around Big Daddy while he reads some bits from the magic book, and then adds some commentary?)
They took all the pews out, and now the main space is just a “supermarket” of food. The raised part at the head, the apse I think it’s called (or so crosswords tell me)? It houses a massive bank of fridges for the perishables. I thought at first that they just converted the church into a food bank on Wednesdays (that’s the day of the food bank window, when you come to get your food: 3pm to 6pm is your weekly line-up-to-get-food time) and then it went back to normal Church business for Sunday. But I can see now that they’re not swapping the pews in and out each week. And they’re definitely not swapping out those massive fridges. This place is a full-time supermarket for poor people now. No more pews; no more big daddy lectures. Just food for the needy. Frankly: that’s what Jesus would have wanted! So, well done.
And they do a fantastic job. I get a massive, massive heap of fresh vegetables, and some fruits, too. All the ones that were just a little off for the supermarket. too-small onions; too-big zucchinis; too-misshapen apples; too-weird potatoes; whatever in-season thing there’s just too much of. (It’s fall so naturally it was gourds this week. I got a big, beautiful butternut squash. Gonna make something magic out of that, and it will be the highlight of my week!)
My weekly “food basket” is without a doubt my happiest thing. I’m very fortunate in that regard.
fun fact: the hardest thing for them is the eggs! All the too-small eggs from the hatcheries get donated to the food bank. But they come in big crates. To mete them out to individuals is a unique logistical challenge: it requires egg cartons, which cost money! You can’t just put a half a dozen eggs in a baggie and toss them to people! They have very special packaging requirements! So the biggest thing is to bring your used egg cartons to the food bank so the food bank workers can take their massive palettes of slightly-too-small eggs and distribute them to inidivuals. Egg cartons are better than money at the food bank!
I’m feeling neither poor enough to need food from the food bank nor prosperous enough to donate money. But if a nearby food bank can use some egg cartons I was about to throw out, I will take them there.