Let Them Eat…Nothing

Or, if the poor can afford it, eat some imported beef from Argentina.

This Saturday, November 1, because of the latest government shutdown, some 42 million Americans will lose their SNAP benefits. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly the Food Stamp Program, is the largest anti-hunger assistance our government provides.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, SNAP “provides important nutritional support for working families with low-paying jobs, low-income older adults (60 years and older) and people with disabilities living on fixed incomes, and other individuals and households with low incomes. Nearly 62 percent of SNAP participants are in families with children, and nearly 37 percent are in households with older adults or people with disabilities.” And veterans.

The average payout is around $280 per month. Try living on that.

Despite the shutdown, the USDA has the ability to distribute $5 billion in contingency funds to ensure that the most vulnerable of Americans can feed themselves and their families. The money has been approved by Congress, is sitting in the USDA’s account and, in every other federal shutdown, the contingency fund was used to cover shortfalls until the government reopened.

This will not happen under the heartless Trump administration. The Republicans want all the blame to rest on the shoulders of Congressional Democrats. In other words, the USDA, directed I suspect by its Dear Leader Donald Trump, are playing political games with the health of the poor. Their view is that empathy is for suckers, charity is for, well, nobody.

In yet another blatant disregard for the Hatch Act, ensuring that the federal workforce is free from political influence, the USDA has placed the following partisan political hackery on its website: “Senate Democrats have now voted 12 times to not fund the food stamp program, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Bottom line, the well has run dry. At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats. They can continue to hold out for healthcare for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive critical nutrition assistance.”

Note the phrase “healthcare for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures.” Both points are false. Illegal aliens have never received healthcare from the federal government. And “gender mutilation?” Another lie

For anyone not watching Fox News, LindellTV or marinating on the Dark Web, the real reason for the shutdown is that Democrats want the next funding bill to, according the BBC, “to include an extension of expiring tax credits [for the Affordable Care Act] that make health insurance cheaper for millions of Americans and a reversal of Trump’s cuts to Medicaid [in the Big Ugly Bill], a government healthcare program used by millions of elderly, disabled and low-income people. Democrats also oppose spending cuts to government health agencies.”

However, money somehow exists for other Republican priorities. For example, blowing up alleged drug traffickers (or fishermen) in international waters, and moving 10 percent of all our naval assets into the Caribbean in preparation to attack Venezuela or Colombia, by air strikes and possibly with boots on the ground for an attempt at regime change. Remind me when that has ever turned out well in the Southern Hemisphere or anywhere else in the world where we have interfered. (Cue the moments of silence at the football games for the fallen soldiers who died fighting for our, um, freedom?)

We also have monies in the Treasury for a $40 billion bailout for the reckless, chainsaw wielding mini-Trump in Argentina, oddball President Javier Gerardo Milei. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the assistance from US taxpayers will serve as a “bridge” for Milei’s economic policies. We will also increase our purchases of Argentina beef at the expanse of hurting our cattle farmers. And how does this help the average American?

It doesn’t.

Who really benefits from the $40 billion gift? According the New York Times, those wonderful hedge fund managers, friends of Bessent, will rake in some much-needed dough. “Funds at investment firms including BlackRock, Fidelity and Pimco are heavily invested in Argentina, as are investors such as Stanley Druckenmiller and Robert Citrone, both of whom worked with Mr. Bessent when he was an investor for George Soros…The prospect that the Trump administration would rescue Argentina’s economy and aid wealthy investors at a time when federal workers aren’t getting paid amid a shutdown and struggling American farmers are awaiting an economic relief package has drawn criticism from Democrats, farm industry groups and others.” The others do not include Republican members of Congress

Somehow money has also appeared from private donors (pay to play) to the tune of $300 million to demolish the East Wing of the people’s house, now Trump’s permanent home, a 90,000 square-foot ballroom and soon to be a reincarnation of the ghastly decorated Mar-A-Lago resort. Break out the gold lame and giant portraits of Herr Trump.

This just in! From the Washington Post: “White House fires arts commission expected to review Trump construction projects.”

But, wait, there’s more. Our bruised and suffering president himself wants taxpayers, via the Department of (In)Justice, to pony up $230 million to compensate him for all the indictments and investigations into his shady dealings, specifically the document case at Mar-A-Lago.

The law (Do we still have laws?) requires that any DOJ settlement of more than $4 million has to be signed off by, wait for it, the deputy attorney general or associate attorney general. Who might these objective arbiters of judgments be? None other than Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward. Blanche was involved in the Mar-A-Lago case; Woodward defended Trump’s valet and human Diet Coke dispenser and golf ball polisher Walt Nauta in the same case.

Gosh, I haven’t even mentioned the two recently purchased private Gulfstream jets by the US Coast Guard for the use of Department of Homeland Security’s Secretary and failed canine whisperer Kristi Noem. Total? $172 million taxpayer dollars.

Or, that during the shutdown Congress continues to be paid, including the idle House of Representatives that has not been in session for weeks. As reported by Politico, Speaker of the House and the president’s ventriloquist hand puppet, Mike Johnson said that “a SNAP contingency fund, which currently contains $5 billion, is ‘not legally available to cover the benefits right now’ because they represent ‘a finite source of funds.’”

Another falsehood from the “Christian” Speaker.

••••••

In reading Nobel Laureate László Krasznahorkai’s book about contemporary China, “Destruction and Sorrow beneath the Heavens,” I came across this quote from Yang Qinghua, who shares with Krasznahorkai, among many subjects, his philosophy on how to “aspire to happiness” amid “the presence of perpetual evil.”

Yang says, “For me, this is an easy question. You love others, you must love other people. You must represent love and friendship. You must express compassion with those who suffer. That is enough. You must do what you can. You must help everyone you can with the best part of your being. Show compassion for them, and that is enough. There is a horrific amount of suffering in the world, you must try to help those who suffer…”

With the Trump Administration unwilling to help those in dire need of food, it will be up to all of us through our food banks, community centers, and churches to combat this “perpetual evil” that radiates from the Oval Office in an attempt to silence our better angels. We must not let this happen.

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