No food for you
The current state of play in Trump’s campaign to starve us into submission:
The Supreme Court has allowed President Donald Trump to withhold about $4 billion in funding for food aid for 42 million low-income Americans this month, as the effects of the longest government shutdown in history continue to ripple across the country.
Oh good. How nice of the court to let Trump starve people.
The court’s ruling, known as an administrative stay, came after the Trump Administration appealed a federal judge’s order to fully fund the program by Friday.
The administration had previously agreed to a judge’s order to partially fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps, by about $5 billion from a contingency fund, but it has objected to paying another $4 billion to fully fund the program.
…
The ruling will keep millions of Americans who are reliant on food aid on a knife’s edge. The benefits lapsed at the beginning of this month for the first time in the program’s 60-year history…
Well they should have thought of that before they decided to be poor.
The SNAP program has become a political bargaining chip in the ongoing government shutdown, which has dragged on as Republicans refuse to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies for low- and middle-income Americans, which are set to expire at the end of the year.
Look, you have to keep people poor one way or another. It’s what God intended.
Well, lets be fair. Massive tax breaks and giveaways for corporations and billionaires don’t pay for themselves!
I read an analysis that Jackson, who was assigned to review the stay, made a strategic decision that hands it back to the 1st District Court of Appeals in Boston, knowing that if she did not grant a stay the Ridiculous 6 would, well, here’s the analysis:
It’s here on Medium:
https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/190-snap-wtf?r=1hfti&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Well, Jesus did say the poor would be with us always. He saw no problem with spending tons of money for oil to bathe his feet, while the poor continued to go hungry. It’s just Christians needing to follow the bible.
It also puts the lie to the constant refrain I read from Christian scholars (?) about the original intent of Christianity to make everyone equal. From the beginning, the church seized and the people starved. Now Trump has become ‘the church’, in his own mind and that of many of his supporters…the second coming, the chosen, God…so now he seizes and the people starve.
How exactly is this ‘forming a more perfect union’? (You don’t need to answer; it’s rhetorical, but if you have an answer, I would definitely listen.)
Thanks for the explanation, Mike. I figured there had to be more to the story.
Thank you, Mike for drawing attention to the reason why Jackson made the ruling she did (it was also covered on MeidasTouch). But just to plunge everybody into despair & anger again, here is a link to Adam Klasfield’s All Rise News, where we learn that the regime has anyway cut off giving food assistance to Ukrainian refugees, and, indeed, to everyone admitted to the country after being given Temporary Protected Status:
https://www.allrisenews.com/p/ukrainian-war-refugees-snap-trump
Thanks Mike, and also Tim for the links. I find it interesting that the Trump administration could fully fund SNAP (without court approval) and chooses not to, and that mainstream reporting hasn’t highlighted this point.