Trump administration prepares to fire worker for TV interview about SNAP; The Washington Post, November 13, 2025

Mariana Alfaro

 and 

Hannah Natanson

, The Washington Post ; Trump administration prepares to fire worker for TV interview about SNAP

"Debra D’Agostino, a federal employment lawyer, argued that Mei probably has a strong case against her dismissal. Mei’s speech was almost certainly protected under both the First Amendment and the Whistleblower Protection Act, D’Agostino said.

There have been at least two Supreme Court cases — Pickering v. Board of Education in 1968 and Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean in 2015 — in which the justices decided in favor of staffers accused by their employers of speaking out of turn, D’Agostino noted. In the first, the court ruled for a teacher who had written to a newspaper criticizing the superintendent, saying the educator had a right to speak on matters of public concern so long as she was not knowingly lying.

In the second, the court ruled for a Transportation Security Administration staffer who the government accused of revealing “sensitive security information” to a reporter. In that case, the court decided the staffer’s activity was covered by the Whistleblower Protection Act, which says federal workers can report lawbreaking or anything that poses a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety."

The AI spending frenzy is so huge that it makes no sense; The Washington Post, November 7, 2025

 Shira Ovide, The Washington Post; The AI spending frenzy is so huge that it makes no sense

" In just the past year, the four richest companies developing AI — Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta — have spent roughly $360 billion combined for big-ticket projects, which included building AI data centers and stuffing them with computer chips and equipment, according to my analysis of financial disclosures.

(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

That same amount of money could pay for about four years’ worth of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the federal government program that distributes more than $90 billion in yearly food assistance to 42 million Americans. SNAP benefits are in limbo for now during the government shutdown...

Eight of the world’s top 10 most valuable companies are AI-centric or AI-ish American corporate giants — Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Broadcom, Meta and Tesla. That’s according to tallies from S&P Global Market Intelligence based on the total price of the companies’ stock held by investors."

Trump is threatening the basic needs of poor Americans. How low he has sunk; The Guardian, November 7, 2025

Robert Reich , The Guardian; Trump is threatening the basic needs of poor Americans. How low he has sunk

[Kip Currier: This is a very persuasive opinion piece by Robert Reich on moral authority and moral sustainability. I encourage everyone to reflect on these observations (excerpted below) about the contrast between FDR's actions in the 1930's and Trump's actions now and share them with others. Each of us has a choice we can make as to which approach we support and advance: adding more and more wealth to the ultra-rich or showing compassion and generosity to persons in need.

For those who follow a religious tradition, too, ask yourself which approach your higher power would support? Giving more money to a billionaire -- even potential trillionaire Elon Musk -- or providing compassionate assistance to a school with hungry children, a military family experiencing food scarcity, or a disabled individual with ongoing healthcare needs who is unable to work?

Realistically, we can't imbue a moral conscience or basic sense of decency upon those who even now emulate the Gilded Age Robber Barons, as Trump's Halloween Great Gatsby party unequivocally demonstrated while SNAP food benefits were being eliminated. However, we can make a choice each day about what each of us can do to help someone in need and support political candidates and organizations who are helping those less fortunate than we are.]

Eighty-eight years ago, in his second inaugural address, Franklin D Roosevelt told America that “the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

It was not a test of the nation’s military might or of the size of the national economy. It was a test of our moral authority. We had a duty to comfort the afflicted, even if that required afflicting the comfortable.

The Trump regime has adopted the reverse metric. The test of its progress is whether it adds to the abundance of those who have much and provides less for those who have too little.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/07/trump-snap-medicaid-moral-authority

[Excerpt]

"How low Trump has sunk.

Eighty-eight years ago, in his second inaugural address, Franklin D Roosevelt told America that “the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

It was not a test of the nation’s military might or of the size of the national economy. It was a test of our moral authority. We had a duty to comfort the afflicted, even if that required afflicting the comfortable.

The Trump regime has adopted the reverse metric. The test of its progress is whether it adds to the abundance of those who have much and provides less for those who have too little. It is passing this test with flying colors.

What is the Democrats’ demand amid the shutdown? That lower-income Americans continue to receive subsidized healthcare. Otherwise, healthcare premiums for millions of lower-income Americans will soar next year in large part because the Trump Republican One Big Beautiful Bill Act (really, Big Ugly Bill) slashed Obamacare subsidies.

Republicans had rammed the Big Ugly Bill through Congress without giving Senate Democrats an opportunity to filibuster it because Republicans used a process called “reconciliation”, requiring only a majority vote of the Senate.

The Big Ugly Bill also requires Medicaid applicants and enrollees – also low-income – to document at least 80 hours of work per month

Many people dependent on Medicaid won’t be able to do this, either because they’re not physically able to work or won’t be able to do the required paperwork to qualify for an exemption from the work requirement.

The Congressional Budget Office, as assessed by KFF, estimates the work requirement will be the largest source of Medicaid savings, reducing federal spending on the low-income Americans by $326bn over 10 years and causing millions to become uninsured.

All told, the Big Ugly Bill cuts roughly $1tn over the next decade from programs for which the main beneficiaries are the poor and working class, and gives about $1tn in tax benefits to the richest members of our society.

It is the most dramatic reversal of FDR’s moral test in American history.

By the time of FDR’s second inaugural address in 1937, most of the country was still ill-housed, ill-fed, and ill-clothed. Yet we were all in it together. The fortunes of the robber barons of the Gilded Age had mostly been leveled by the Great Crash of 1929...

Trump is throwing a huge party for America’s wealthy – giving them tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks to ensure that their wealth (and support for him) continues to grow.

Meanwhile, he is throwing to poor and working-class Americans the red meat of hatefulness – hate of immigrants, people of color, the “deep state”, “socialists”, “communists”, transgender people and Democrats.

This is the formula strongmen have used for a century – more wealth for the wealthy, more bigotry for the working-class and poor – until the entire facade crumbles under the weight of its own hypocrisy.

On Tuesday, millions of American voters refused to go along with this unfairness. They repudiated, loudly and clearly, the formula Trump and his regime have used.

It is the responsibility of all of us to return the nation to a path that is morally sustainable."

Supreme Court temporarily blocks full SNAP benefits even as they'd started to go out; Indiana Public Media, NPR, November 7, 2025

Jennifer Ludden , Indiana Public Media, NPR; Supreme Court temporarily blocks full SNAP benefits even as they'd started to go out

"The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily granted the Trump administration's request to block full SNAP food benefits during the government shutdown, even as residents in some states had already begun receiving them.

The Trump administration is appealing a court order to fully restart the country's largest anti-hunger program. The high court decision late Friday gives a lower court time to consider a more lasting pause.

The move may add to confusion, though, since the government said it was sending states money on Friday to fully fund SNAP at the same time it appealed the order to pay for them.

Shortly after U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. issued that decision Thursday afternoon, states started to announce they'd be issuing full SNAP benefits. Some people woke up Friday with the money already on the debit-like EBT cards they use to buy groceries. The number of states kept growing, and included California, Oregon, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Connecticut among others.

The Supreme Court's decision means states must, for now, revert back to the partial payments the Trump administration had earlier instructed them to distribute. While the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit rejected the administration's request for an administrative stay, the appeals court said it would consider the request for the stay and intends to issue a decision as quickly as possible.

Funding for the nation's largest anti-hunger program ran out a week ago, as the federal shutdown entered its second month. States, cities and food banks have been ramping up donations desperately trying to fill the gap. Nearly 42 million people rely on SNAP, most of them extremely low-income families with children, along with seniors, or people with disabilities.

In his order, Judge McConnell admonished the government for deciding earlier in the week to make only partial SNAP payments. He said officials failed to consider the "needless suffering" that would cause millions of people who rely on that aid. He also suggested they had delayed the partial payments for "political reasons.""

Undocumented Immigrants Are Not Feasting on Food Stamps; NewsGuard's Reality Check, October 31, 2025

Ines Chomnalez, NewsGuard's Reality Check ; Undocumented Immigrants Are Not Feasting on Food Stamps

"False Claim of the Week: 59 Percent of U.S. Residents Without Legal Status Collect Federal SNAP Food Benefits

NewsGuard’s “False Claim of the Week” highlights a false claim from NewsGuard’s False Claim Fingerprints proprietary database of provably false claims and their debunks. The claim that 59 percent of U.S. residents without legal status collect federal SNAP food benefits is NewsGuard’s “False Claim of the Week” due to its widespread appearance across social media platforms and websites, its high engagement levels, and the high-profile nature of the sources promoting it. Those three factors, as well as both its significant subject matter and potential for harm, makes it our False Claim of the Week.

Debunk: Millions of Immigrants Without Legal Status Are Not Receiving SNAP Benefits, Contrary to Conservative Claims

What happened: Citing a report on the Newsmax network, conservative social media accounts are claiming that 59 percent of U.S. immigrants without legal status collect Supplement Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, formerly known as food stamps. Some users advancing this claim said it shows that the federal nutrition program should be gutted.

Context: On Oct. 1, the federal government entered a shutdown, pausing funding to the federal Agriculture Department (USDA), which is responsible for issuing SNAP benefits. SNAP provides low-income Americans with electronic cards they can use to purchase food.

• Because of the government shutdown, the USDA said in an Oct. 27 statement that no new benefits would be issued to the 42 million Americans who receive SNAP assistance, starting on Nov. 1. On Oct. 31, a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that the administration must continue to make the payments for now.

A closer look: On the Oct. 27 episode of the Newsmax primetime show “Finnerty,” host Rob Finnerty said, “Fifty-nine percent of all illegal aliens are collecting food stamps, meaning that most of the people getting food stamps from the U.S. government and the U.S. taxpayer are not even Americans.” Other conservatives soon began spreading the claim.

• Conservative X user @overton_news posted the Newsmax clip on Oct. 27, quoting Finnerty’s statement that “59% of ALL illegal aliens are collecting food stamps” in the caption. The post received 1 million views and 45,000 likes in less than one day.

• The same day, conservative news site TheGatewayPundit.com published an article headlined, “DEMOCRAT BACKFIRE: The Government Shutdown Has Awakened the Public About How Many People Are on Food Stamps.” The article included the above quote from Finnerty advancing the false claim, and added, “It really is shocking and now that Democrats have prolonged the shutdown, more people are going to be talking about this.”

Actually: Residents without legal status are not eligible to collect SNAP benefits, according to the USDA’s website.

• The site states, “SNAP eligibility has never been extended to undocumented non-citizens.”

Although Finnerty did not provide any evidence for his claim, it appears to be based on a misinterpretation of a statistic, previously cited accurately by conservative social media users, from the right-leaning Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a think tank that supports tight immigration limits.

• CIS stated in a 2023 report: “Our best estimate is that 59 percent of households headed by illegal immigrants, also called the undocumented use at least one major [welfare] program.”

• As the quote indicates, CIS was describing households receiving assistance from any “major” welfare program — not just SNAP. CIS defined “major” programs as assistance in the form of cash, Medicaid, housing, and food (including the nutrition program for women, infants, and children known as WIC, as well as school meals).

Broken down by specific welfare program, the CIS report estimated that 0.9 percent of U.S. households led by non-legal residents receive SNAP benefits. The report did not clarify whether that percentage was composed of non-legal residents obtaining SNAP benefits illegally, or of legal residents lawfully collecting the benefits but who live in a household headed by a non-legal resident.

Newsmax did not respond to an email from NewsGuard requesting comment on the matter."