this is the stuff fox actually aired. imagine what's on the cutting room floor from that interview
— Bondi Buddy (@canderaid) September 19, 2025
===
Trump administration cuts SNAP to pay for upper-class tax cut, proposes remedy of stopping studies of food insecurity
www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/09/trum…— Scott Lemieux (@lemieuxlgm.bsky.social) September 20, 2025 at 4:02 PM
This is not a coalition that feels secure in its ascendancy. Per Lawyers, Guns & Money:
One of the core policies of the second Trump administration is to cut SNAP in order to provide more upper-class tax cuts. But don’t worry, they have a solution — don’t measure the resulting increases in hunger:
The Trump administration is canceling an annual government effort to gather data on how many Americans struggle to get enough food.
The data, which is collected each December and analyzed by the U.S. Agriculture Department, measures food insecurity across states and demographic groups.
The data has been collected every year since the mid-1990s, and is widely used by federal, state and local policymakers to make funding decisions for food-assistance programs, and to evaluate how well those programs work…
In related news:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday postponed the release of a key annual report central to future inflation data.
Why it matters: The BLS — charged with collecting critical data on employment, prices and more — did not explain the reasoning for the delay or when it might ultimately be released.
Well, checkmate — people definitely won’t notice that they’re paying more for things now.
War for Ukraine Day 1,304: The Russian Butcher’s Bill From Last Night’s Attack on Ukraine
prostratedragon
Mostly pantry items are creeping uo around here, but I was startled today to see a 50 cent increase — about 30 percent — on small cans of stewed or whole tomatoes, all brands; the 28 oz cans seem about the same as usual.
J. Arthur Crank
Christ, what an asshole! My opinion of him has dropped by 1000%.
Aussie sheila
Travelling in Turkiye now. Inflation here is insane. Talking to the taxi drivers ( ty, T Friedman for that tip), it’s running at around 18%, and wages and col has barely budged since ‘the plague’.
Average wage appears to be 450EU per month outside the main cities, which is very low considering col.
The people are great. Friendly, hospitable and completely lacking in obsequiousness. The food is excellent too. This is and will be a long trip. I’m glad I’m fit for my age. I had forgotten how tiring travel can be!
Soprano2
I find myself more and more wanting to shove things like this in the faces of people I know who voted for him and ask “Is this really what you wanted?”
Chetan Murthy
@Soprano2: I want to do the same, but I try to remind myself that nobody is the villain in their own story. They have some argument for why what they did was righteous, and I’m not going to change their mind about that.
Martin
Delaying or canceling a BLS report will have a worse effort on the markets than whatever that report might have said. Markets can adapt to bad news. Even bad news has winners. It can’t adapt to not knowing.
NaijaGal
So the pharmaceutical companies will be paying us to buy their drugs. This is what I heard the president promise (1000% cut!) and we should hold MAGA to that promise!
I’m binge-watching Disney Plus and Hulu shows before my cancelled subscription ends on October 1. Heard someone cancelled a $150,000 Disney wedding! Can’t believe the folks who aired Andor learned absolutely nothing from it.
Would boycott Sinclair, which I think is one of the main instigators, but we only have streaming services in my household. Also cancelled HBO Max, since the Ellison clan will soon own that. Having right-leaning oligarchs buy up every single media outlet in the US is an unmitigated disaster. Democracy is not compatible with this kind of media consolidation.
Soprano2
@Chetan Murthy: I know, but i want to do it anyway. I don’t think this is actually what most of them voted for. They thought they were getting lower prices and deportations of criminals, not FFOTUS being fixated on revenge (yeah, they didn’t listen to him) and a ballroom.
NaijaGal
I’m sure someone has already posted that Dutch comedian’s takedown of Disney for indefinitely suspending Jimmy Kimmel, but I like it so much, I’m linking to it again. So many gems in one short piece.
SpaceUnit
Sorry but none of this will be getting through to the MAGA crowd. They’re just gonna keep bouncing up and down in their high chairs and throwing their bowl of Spaghetti-O’s at the wall.
There will be no epiphany, even when a bag of Cheetos costs seventy five dollars and their children are all dead from the measles. We’re at Darwin’s abyss.
NaijaGal
@SpaceUnit: Thank God they’re only one-third of the population. Too high, no question, but independents are at 75% disapproval, which is pretty bad.
different-church-lady
@SpaceUnit: As long as the black family in the next cardboard box over has no Cheetos, etc, etc…
SpaceUnit
@NaijaGal:
Disapproval just means they won’t bother to vote.
SpaceUnit
@different-church-lady:
Or a cardboard box . . . better still!
satby
Via Allison Gill: Jack Smith “The Dept. of Justice Was My Home, Now That Home Is On Fire“
JoyceH
Man, I hope this is an extinction burst because the insanity is off the scale. Trump is getting blatantly more deranged every day, and malevolently deranged at that, and at the same time his courtiers are in some sort of competition for who can display the most over the top example of groveling devotion. Now there are three federal buildings displaying those Saddam Hussein style giant banners featuring Trump’s ugly scowl – can they genuinely not see that most people find those banners utterly creepy? Ridiculous and yet frightening.
Citizen Alan
Like I’ve said, the thing I hate most about MAGAts is how much they’ve made me hate them. I was at the cardiologists office yesterday, and in the waiting room was this sour-faced old geezer wearing a shirt that said “TRUMP 2028. Rewrite the Rules.” And I reflexively caught myself thinking “I really hope he’s here for something serious.”
Baud
Trump posted on Truth Social yesterday about getting Bagram back.
The Taliban can do the funniest thing ever in their sorry history and respond by demanding that Trump release the Epstein files.
Geminid
@Aussie sheila: Thank you for the report. I hope you have safe and happy travels in Turkiye, and can keep us posted. A friend is heading for Turkiye in a couple weeks and I’m sending her all the info I can.
Inflation has actually declined in Turkiye, from a peak of 85% in late 2022. After Prdsixent Erdogan was reelected in May of 2023, he appointed Mehmet Simcek Finance Minister. Simcek raised the central bank’s lending rate to a peak of 45% and inflation started a downward trend. Last month he told reporters that Turkiye was on a path to reduce inflation to single digits by 2027.
Raoul Paste
@SpaceUnit: When things get bad enough, people change
Geminid
@Baud: Maybe the Taliban can ask Trump to lend them RFK Jr. to modernize their health care system. He’d fit right in.
Baud
@Geminid:
I bet the Taliban would appreciate his love of falconry.
lowtechcyclist
@SpaceUnit:
‘Just’? The disapproving independents who stay home were the ones that voted for Trump last time.
Sure, ideally they’d switch and vote Dem, but if a few million former Trump voters stay home in 2026, we win.
Princess
@J. Arthur Crank: My opinion has gone from 10 to 20 because the world is the bigger place. The question is, from 10 to 20 what?
mappy!
We’ll know he’s serious when he gives them two weeks to do it.
lowtechcyclist
@Martin:
I expect you’re right about this. We’ll see what the markets do on Monday.
But my first thought is, bureaucracies don’t create extra work for themselves to do just for the hell of it. The BLS report, and the USDA’s food insecurity report, are created in response to legislative mandates. At Census, I worked for many years on the National Health Interview Survey, which came into being on account of the National Health Survey Act of 1956, and this mandate was modified by subsequent legislation. There must be an analogous legislative origin of the Food Insecurity report.
(I think the Census Bureau collects the data for this, too – I’m too lazy to look it up, but I recall that one of the monthly supplements to the Current Population Survey was a Food Insecurity supplement. The Census collects the data for a number of surveys whose results are published by other government agencies: they farm the work out to Census because we’re already designed to do that sort of data collection.)
Gvg
@Soprano2: the criminals were already being deported or jailed if we thought they would just be released I’d deported. They didn’t really think, the had emotional reactions to seeing too many “foreigners” around them and on TV being treated as equals. They “felt” that all of those other people must be criminals and illegal immigration, when in fact many of them were American born citizens of color who were finally able to be around, and have jobs and homes with us whites instead of being a hidden second economy and the rest were legal immigrants stuck in time wasting bureaucratic limbo because our system was deliberately slow walking their citizenship process. Disguised prohibition.
The baby boom is over and they(myself soon) are retiring. We have known this was coming for decades. We are going to have a worker shortage and should be increasing immigration not decreasing from a business point of view. Some labor shortages aren’t a bad thing for finally getting some wage increases instead of owner profits, but this wave of anti foreigner sentiment is actually coming at a weak time for them. I just wish more voices were pointing this out.
lowtechcyclist
@lowtechcyclist:
Too late for ETA, and probably of interest to no one but me, but I took the minute or so to look it up, and sure enough, the Census Bureau does the data collection for the Food Insecurity report:
Princess
The thing is, however this all turns out, we’re going to have to live with each other still when it’s over. And them with us. Either we all kill each other or get killed by them, that’s how it’s going to be, because neither side is changing its mind.
New Deal democrat
@Soprano2:
Agreed. They (at least the non-MAGA cultists) wanted 2019 back, and the flow of immigrants staunched (he still polls almost 50% approval on the latter). And besides, the guardrails held the first time around, so why not give him another chance?
Regrettably, I am of the opinion that the US’s neo-fascist slide will not be reversed domestically. It will be stopped by a bloody nose (or worse) being administered by one or more foreign countries.
Also, the delay in that BLS report appears to be mainly a staffing issue (as in, they’ve lost 20% of their staff) rather than something more ominous. We’ll see.
Princess
@New Deal democrat: Who do you think is going to administer this bloody nose? I can’t see it happening. I think Trump is smart enough not to start some foreign war and no one is going to attack the US, at least not conventionally. Putin will stick to Europe; China to Asia. Who is left?
SFAW
@Martin:
In a rational time, sure. But how many times since January have we seen things like this happen, and have the markets dip for (at most) a week, and then bounce back?
And with so many corporations kowtowing to him, whence cometh the pushback?
New Deal democrat
@Princess: The bloody nose doesn’t have to be military (although in about 10 years China will be able to do it quite nicely, thank you). It could be a coordinated trade and tourism boycott, similar to the boycott of South Africa in the 1980’s.
Also: I just read from the WSJ that the hunger survey is indeed being stopped, not just delayed; and for political reasons on orders from T—-p.
SFAW
@Princess:
They don’t deserve to have it that good.
Seriously: we have one side (RWMFs) actively trying to harm the other (us/rational people), and the other side (us) trying to make things better for everybody.
I have often said: if we were to wall off TX or OK, and “deport” all the MAGAts there, the result would be a return to domestic peace and prosperity for years to come, because we’d stop having to worry about them trying to fuck up everything and everyone.
Geminid
@Baud: Regarding Bagram air base, from Clash Report:
I guess I’ll put them down as, “Undecided.”
Clash Report also posted a 59-second clip of Trump’s rambling remarks at last night’s American Cornerstone Institute Founders Dinner. They had an excerpt:
It *was* a bad one. Perhaps a renewed U.S. presence at Bagram will help keep the Armenians and Cambodians apart.
SFAW
@Geminid:
Holy shit. I can’t even begin to guess which countries he really meant (or “thought” he meant).
Baud
@Geminid:
@SFAW:
He obviously meant Albania.
The NYT is going to have a field day with this one. (Right?)
Geminid
@SFAW: Trump meant Azerbaijan and. He hosted Azerbaijan President Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyin in the Oval Officea couple weks ago. They signed a memorandum outlining the peace treaty they’ve been working on without U.S. assistance. I think U.S. Ambassador to Turkiye Tom Barrack put them up to it as a way to flatter the Mango Metternich.
Soprano2
@Geminid: The fact that he seemingly has no awareness he’s making these mistakes definitely argues for cognitive decline.
Did you see the rant directed at Bondi about charging Schiff, et.al, with crimes because he knows they’re guilty? I’m sure the press will continue with their “there’s no crisis, that’s just FFOTUS being FFOTUS” attitude.
RevRick
@Soprano2: Instead of walloping his voters might I suggest you point out to them how much Trump has broken his promises. Especially, the economic ones of prosperity.
Professor Bigfoot
@Princess: They haven’t wanted to “live with us” since 1619.
At least, not in peace; and not as free and equal citizens.
RevRick
@SpaceUnit: Independents are really just a mixture of disaffected Democrats and Republicans. The Republican half will probably stay home. The Democratic half, however, will come out in force. And the early polling data of the generic race shows that to be the case.
Geminid
@Soprano2: I read about the Bondi rant. I have not followed this in detail, but someone said there was a superceding post that walked it back partially. They speculated that Chief of Staff Susan Wiles intervened.
But yeah, the cofnitive decline is more and more apparent. I thought it was beginning to show last year in some of Trump’s campaign speeches.
Albatrossity
And then, if he releases the files, renege on that agreement and keep Bagram in true Trumpian style.
Geminid
@RevRick: There actually are swing voters among Independents. Political scientists estimated those at up to 20%. In Virginia where I live, that would be 5-6% of voters. I thought they made a difference in 2021, when Youngkin carried the state by 2 percent one year after Biden carried it by 10.
I think a substantial number of Independents who voted for Biden in 2020 swung to Trump in 2024. Biden-Trump Independents. I expect a lot of them will swing back to the Democratic side in the midterms.
Snarki, child of Loki
Yes, confine the MAGAts to Outer Dumbfuckistan (TX) and Inner Dumbfuckistan (OK), with their ungovernable tribal regions, and the rest of the USA will be better off.
There will need to be the occasional drone-strike on
gun-showsterrorist arms depots, but that’s a price we’re willing to pay.They Call Me Noni
@NaijaGal: Hilarious! Thank you.
They Call Me Noni
@Geminid: I thought it was plain as the nose on his face the day he “weaved” to Ave Maria for 45 minutes.
Betty
@Geminid: This is genuinely scary because his mental condition is deteriorating, and no one with the power to do something about it will even admit there is a problem.
prostratedragon
@They Call Me Noni: That settled it for me.
piratedan
I just wonder if DJT knew that Bagram AFB was originally built by the Soviets and it was just a slip when he said it should be returned to who built it, I.e. not the US but return it to Vlad.
artem1s
so independent misogynist racists. white man, vote yes. anyone else, hell no. IOW Republicans only less likely to sit on their hands when the GOP gives them a candidate who ticks at least one of their boxes.
Geminid
@Betty: It’s true no one close to Trump has publically admitted he has mental problems. This may be a matter discussed privately though. Chief of Staff Susan Wiles was Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff after he left the White House in January of 1989, do she has some experience in this area.
Wiles of course lacks the power to do anything on her own. And right now, Trump is not so far gone as to be incapacitated. So yeah, this is a dangerous time, especially with people like Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard and Steven Miller in positions of authority.
A griend thinks that in the end, Trump will be enticed out of office with a “golden offramp;” that is, a comprehensive pardon which leaves him free to enjoy his newly-acquired wealth in safety. But matters have not yet come to that point. It might take a serious setback in his physical health for Trump to bail, and he still might be too stubborn to.
Geminid
@artem1s: Not Republicans; Independents. Republicans voted for Trump both times.
artem1s
@Geminid: independents are republicans. they only voted for Biden because he ticked the male, white box for them
Geminid
@artem1s: No, Independents are not Republicans. They probably break down into 5 or more subgroups, but if they were Republicans they’d say they were.
Some Independents vote for Republicans consistently, and of them swing from party to party. This question has been studied plenty by social scientists. Everyone is entitled to their own political taxonomy, but I’ll take their findings over your opinions.
Glidwrith
@JoyceH: It would be a pity if some random passerby had a paintball gun…..
Glidwrith
@Princess: When Shitgibbon was first elected, I wondered if we would be forced to start killing them to keep from being massacred. I was so relieved we got him out of office, we had our answer, we could stop them without bloodshed.
Now? Despite excited polling on how unpopular Shitgibbon is, that 40% that represents his base doesn’t change. They approve of all of it.
I don’t know what will happen, but it looks like their only bottom is Epstein.
Nettoyeur
@Baud: Trump forced the US out of Afghanistan by reducing troops to 3K in 2020, barely enough to cover evacuation. To take Bagram back will require a re-invasion.
Soprano2
@Betty: I agree, I wouldn’t put my husband in charge of anything. Of course, dementia varies in how it presents. The way he repeats the same grievances over and over is another “tell”. This is what happens when no one really cares about you because you never cared about them – there’s no one to step in. The fact that he keeps saying he takes those cognitive tests is another “tell”, I think.
WTFGhost
God, what kind of suckup to the Trumpists wrote that shit?
One of the core policies of the second Trump administration has been to cut SNAP. Another core policy has been to cut Medicaid. Republicans consider these “victories” because Democrats keep saying that people need food and medical care, and Republicans say “we don’t want to spend money to help them, so we’ll cut taxes so you’ll never be able to afford to help the poor and disadvantaged!”
They were going to extend the tax cuts regardless. Pretending they were cutting spending to “help pay for” the tax cuts is stupid. They didn’t care about paying for the tax cuts – why would they? The Senate even declared the tax cuts that were due to expire to be the baseline for reconciliation, as if they were already extended.
“A core policy of the Trump administration has been cutting SNAP and Medicaid.” There. Fixed. The next sentence still follows, and the reader is more fully informed in fewer words.
Captain C
@Baud: 3 days of wall to wall coverage to the exclusion of everything else, no doubt.
BigJimSlade
This is just the same the same shit he wanted to do with Covid – stop counting cases and deaths and ignore the whole thing. He doesn’t want to gather information on climate change, either. Anything he doesn’t like, he just tries to demand that knowing about it and talking about it is not allowed. It’s an attempt at enforced ignorance.
Paul in KY
@Citizen Alan: Me too!
Paul in KY
@Soprano2: He is someone who you could legitimately say ‘he neither knows nor cares what the fuck is the name of any given country beyond Russia, China, N. Korea, England’.
Paul in KY
@piratedan: Maybe not :-)