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Dear Progressive Reader,
Funds for the federal food assistance program known as SNAP have stopped for the first time ([link removed]) in U.S. history, affecting ([link removed]) up to 42 million Americans. The program, which was first piloted ([link removed](07)01619-7/fulltext) in 1939 by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace during the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. (Wallace would later run as an independent candidate for President himself on the Progressive Party ([link removed]) ticket in 1948 against Harry Truman.) In addition to providing food assistance for millions of
Americans, the program, from its inception, was also a way to distribute excess farm commodities, thus providing guaranteed markets for farmers during hard economic times. The program, which concluded in 1943, was reinitiated ([link removed]) by President John Kennedy in 1961 and codified into law in 1964 by President Lyndon Johnson as part of his “war on poverty.” On signing the Food Stamp Act into law, Johnson said ([link removed]) , “I believe the Food Stamp Act weds the best of the humanitarian instincts of the American people with the best of the free enterprise system. Instead of establishing a duplicate public system to distribute food surplus to the needy, this act permits us to use our highly efficient commercial food distribution system.”
On Friday, two federal judges, in separate cases, ruled ([link removed]) that it was illegal for the government to cease funding the program simply because of the current shutdown. President Donald Trump, in response, said he was asking “our lawyers” to figure out how to fund the program, but, he added in his social media post ([link removed]) , “even if we get immediate guidance, it will unfortunately be delayed while States get the money out.” Shifting the blame, as he usually does, in this case to states and to Democrats in the Senate who will not vote to reopen the government without guarantees on healthcare costs.
The food stamp program is administered through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which currently has a banner ([link removed]) on its web page also casting the blame on Democrats in the U.S. Congress, claiming: “Senate Democrats have now voted 13 times to not fund the food stamp program, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program . . . . 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.” It could be argued that government employees posting such a partisan statement on a federal website, are in clear violation of the 1939 Hatch Act ([link removed]) which is intended “to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion.” While the Trump Administration did move this past April to relax the enforcement
([link removed]) of this decades-old legislation, the Act “continues to prohibit employees from using their official authority or agency resources to affect the outcome of the presidential election.” One of our reporters tried to contact the USDA by phone on Friday, only to discover “their number is now disconnected, [or] no longer in service.” He then told me: “It worked just yesterday [on Thursday].”
This week on our website, Bill Lueders reviews ([link removed]) the new book on the U.S. Supreme Court by Lisa Graves, Without Precedent; Jason Kerzinski provides ([link removed]) a powerful photo essay on the aftermath of a recent chemical explosion in Roseland, Louisiana; and New York writer Jennifer Suan examines ([link removed]) the ways Mexican-Americans are celebrating this weekend’s Day of the Dead during a time of ICE raids and anti-immigrant prejudice—“Resistance is even just the act of doing something that is culturally Mexican and Mexican-American in general,” one artist tells her. Plus, Giacomo Sini and Dario Antonelli chronicle
([link removed]) the recent movement in Italy to stop supplies heading to Israel’s war in Gaza; Sarah Lahm reports on ([link removed]) the efforts to end a contract between the Minneapolis Police Department and an Israeli surveillance and security company; and health educator Elizabeth Reed pens an op-ed ([link removed]) on the social and political barriers to better gun safety legislation.
The new 2026 Hidden History of the United States calendar is now available. You can get your calendar on our website ([link removed]) or with the order form in the front of the latest issue of The Progressive! A quick look at this week in history reminds us that November 1 is the anniversary of the first test, in 1952, of a thermonuclear bomb (known as the H-bomb) by the United States. On Thursday, Trump announced to the world via his social media platform, that the United States planned to resume nuclear testing, something it has not done since ([link removed]) 1992. “I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately,” he wrote ([link removed]) . I remember growing up in Michigan during the years of
above-ground nuclear tests, we were told to avoid drinking milk because of the toxic residue ([link removed]) of Strontium-90 ([link removed]) that it contained. The only current U.S. underground test site is located ([link removed]) close to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. Residents and other Nevada politicians ([link removed]) are concerned that the seismic impact of a resumption of underground tests would significantly ([link removed]) affect ([link removed]) that city which has expanded its footprint
([link removed]) a great deal since the last test was conducted more than thirty years ago.
Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
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