Two federal judges ruled nearly simultaneously on Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration must to continue to fund SNAP, the nation’s biggest food aid program, using contingency funds during the government shutdown.
The rulings came a day before the U.S. Department of Agriculture planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the shutdown.
This was not a surprise. I would have been shocked if the rulings had gone the other way. I haven’t seen any reaction from the Regime yet.
For the record, the states that sued the Regime to force it to make SNAP payments are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
See also Paul Krugman, Too Cruel Too Soon: How Republicans messed up on Project 2025. The plan was to postpone the pain until after the Midterms.
Why are these terrible things happening? At a basic level they’re happening because Republicans want them to happen. Drastic cuts in food stamps and health care programs were central planks in Project 2025, which is indeed the Trump administration’s policy platform, and were written into legislation in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that passed last summer.
But the consequences of these cruel intentions weren’t supposed to be this obvious, this early. The harshest provisions of the OBBBA were backloaded, set to kick in after the midterm elections. For example, draconian work requirements for Medicaid — which would effectively throw millions off the program, largely by imposing paperwork burdens low-wage workers can’t overcome — weren’t scheduled to take effect until the end of 2026.
Why the backloading? Presumably Republicans believed that by the time Americans woke up to what was happening, the G.O.P. would have effectively consolidated one-party rule, making future elections irrelevant.
Instead, however, the mask is being ripped off right now, well ahead of schedule.
Do read the whole thing.
There’s too much happening. Or not happening. This morning there were headlines saying that the FBI had thwarted a terrorist plot maybe connected to ISIS set to strike in Detroit. Arrests were made. .Everybody should be grateful to Kash Patel for saving Detroit. But wait …
The alleged plot involved a group of young people, some of whom are minors, who had been engaging online with Islamic extremist content. But the sources said the investigation was in its early stages, with no criminal charges prepared and no clear understanding of what exactly the suspects planned to do and where.
So it was just a bunch of kids on the Internet? Does that mean there were no arrests?
Justice officials registered concern that Patel appeared to have acted hastily on the probe without Main Justice’s approval, with the apparent goal of seeking some credit for the FBI, but in a way that could interfere with the investigation, according to the sources.
This is news? A day without Kash Patel screwing up would be news.
Also this morning, there were headlines declaring the U.S. is “poised to strike military targets in Venezuela in escalation against Maduro regime.” And then there were headlines saying “Venezuela pleads with Moscow, Beijing for help.” This the day after Trump was demanding we start doing nuclear weapons tests again. And I’m thinking, oh good. World War III. But now Trump is saying he’s not considering strikes inside Venezuela. Until he changes his mind, of course.
See also Greg Sargent, Trump Boat Bombings Worsen as New Horror Shakes Experts: “Alarm Bells.”
Trump may have noticed that the polls mostly blame him for the shutdown. Now he is telling the Senate to kill the filibuster rule to end the shutdown. See Aaron Blake, who now works for CNN, Trump just kneecapped the GOP’s shutdown strategy.
Trump late Thursday night urged Republicans to end the shutdown by invoking the so-called “nuclear option” — that is, getting rid of the filibuster and 60-vote threshold in the Senate. This would allow Republicans to pass things on party-line votes in the GOP-controlled Senate. …
…That Trump would call for this is not terribly surprising; he has spent years occasionally urging Republican leaders to scrap the filibuster. Nor is it particularly likely to provide an actual offramp in the shutdown; those same GOP leaders have steadfastly declined Trump’s entreaties before and rejected this idea repeatedly in recent weeks. It’s not even clear whether enough senators would vote for such a change if GOP leaders went along with it.
So practically speaking, it’s a pointless interjection from the president.
But it does matter in one way: It’s Trump yet again inserting himself into these kinds of talks in ways that are thoroughly unhelpful to his party. And this has become a trend.
The reason it’s unhelpful in this case is that it legitimizes Democrats’ talking point that Republicans could end this shutdown any time they want to. And that could make it harder for Republicans to shake the blame they’ve been saddled with.
Republicans in Congress have responded with a loud and firm no way in hell. I don’t see them changing their minds, no matter what Trump wants.
What will end the shutdown? I do not know. I do wonder if we’re approaching a point at which it’s too late to stop the health care cuts from going into effect, and maybe then the Democrats will announce there is nothing more they can do. But polls are saying more voters blame Republicans than Democrats. So who will blink first? Again, I have no idea. I believe it will continue for a while.
There is some new reporting about Jeffrey Epstein, but I haven’t had time to digest it. But here are a couple of links — Bloomberg, Jeffrey Epstein Was Investigated For Money Laundering, Emails Reveal and Travis Davis at Raw Story, Ex-Trump official in hot water as new Epstein probe exposes trove of incriminating emails.
Happy Hallowe’en.
President Trump indicated Friday he would fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) if given “the appropriate legal direction” after a federal judge ordered officials to spend an emergency fund for the program.
SNAP benefits are set to lapse Saturday amid the ongoing government shutdown, and Trump administration officials have been adamant that they would not tap the emergency fund for the program.
“Our Government lawyers do not think we have the legal authority to pay SNAP with certain monies we have available, and now two Courts have issued conflicting opinions on what we can and cannot do,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“I do NOT want Americans to go hungry just because the Radical Democrats refuse to do the right thing and REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT,” he continued. “Therefore, I have instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible.”
(The Hill)
COURTS: You must stop blocking the emergency funds and pay the SNAP benefits, asap.
TRUMP: I will ask my lawyers to get direction from the courts whether I'm allowed legally to release the emergency fund.
COURTS: LEGALLY you must stop blocking the BLEEPING EMERGENCY FUNDSs and PAY THE BLEEPING SNAP BENEFITS, YOU MORON, asap.
Government by gaslight.
Food as a weapon, now who gave fearless leader that idea? Was it his buddy the war criminal also staying in office to avoid jail time? Neither one has any respect for the truth at all. They can fix the problem by fixing the blame elsewhere they think.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, The flat earth people and the anti-vax crowd have no one else to turn to in this country, and the fundamentalist draft dodgers have no one else in their country either. Political tails can and do wave political dogs if the citizens fail to see the big picture. Radical minorities will get their ways with corrupt leaders. All it takes is a solid minority bloc and some fog to obscure the view of the big picture. Fearless leader and his buddy have the fog machine trick down pat.
So too other tricks, like turning dirty money into cleaner money at a price. Pair that with the right social connections, an airplane, a tropical island and other services and you can make a lot of fog.
Perhaps not enough to let the M. T. Green types from having a ray or two of sunshine break through that fog and flush them out of the fool's camp for a bit of an overview.
It is what Ragan should have said but did not. Hi, I'm from the government and this won't hurt you a bit. Now that is more the lie you need to avoid in today's world.