There Are Two Parties: Republicans and Cowards

The SNAP saga is over for now. Form of. The Trump administration used the federal government shutdown to cancel funding for the Supplemental Vitamin Help Program. The transfer would have left 42 million folks hungry for the vacations. The administration was sued, and misplaced within the decrease courts (because it virtually at all times does), however the Supreme Court docket swooped in and defended Trump’s merciless insurance policies (because it virtually at all times does). The excessive court docket dominated that Trump may ignore decrease court docket orders and reduce off meals help, permitting folks to endure and starve, pending a full Supreme Court docket listening to at some later date.

However then, the shutdown ended (extra on that later). On Thursday, Solicitor Common John Sauer officially withdrew the administration’s enchantment. Sauer says the brand new price range deal “totally funds SNAP by way of the top of the fiscal yr.” The brand new deal renders the earlier lawsuits “moot,” that means the court docket doesn’t need to determine on whether or not Trump can let tens of millions starve.

Disaster averted? Not fairly. Whereas the price range deal removes the instant specter of Trump reducing off SNAP for 42 million folks, lawsuits about different modifications Trump needs to make to this system proceed. Earlier than the shutdown, Trump was poised to increase the work necessities for SNAP, a transfer that may churn tens of millions of individuals out of this system and condemn them to empty tables this winter. Lawsuits making an attempt to cease these modifications are nonetheless pending.

I’ll by no means perceive why we’re not all capable of agree that we must always present meals help to  hungry folks. We’re the wealthiest nation on earth. No person ought to be hungry (additionally, no one ought to be homeless, and no one ought to be unable to obtain medical care). I’ll by no means perceive why tens of millions and tens of millions of well-fed, taxpaying People assume that hunger is a suitable consequence for the failures of capitalism.

We don’t stay within the state of nature. We aren’t chimpanzees. Because of advances in agricultural science—issues that will be considered as literal miracles for 99 % of human historical past—we’ve got sufficient meals for everyone. Anticipating the federal government to offer meals help to those that want it’s not a political place; it’s an ethical one.

And but, we’ve got to battle over the extension of SNAP advantages each single yr a Republican is in cost, and most years Democrats are. Starvation ought to be a solved concern in america. Nevertheless it by no means can be. As a result of unhealthy folks exist and maintain energy.

The Unhealthy and the Ugly

• Google has chosen to help Trump conduct unlawful mass deportations. It’s internet hosting software program that enables ICE to make use of facial recognition expertise to establish immigrant targets, but it surely’s eradicating software program that helps immigrants and activists monitor the place ICE is on the prowl.  
• The Supreme Court docket will seemingly rule that jail officers can forcibly shave the heads of individuals in jail, in violation of their spiritual beliefs, without having to pay damages. That may shock individuals who assume the Republican court docket is all about spiritual freedom, however the plaintiff on this case is Rastafarian—and individuals who have been paying consideration know that the court docket’s respect for faith solely applies to the Jesus crowd.
• The top of the Boston College Younger Republicans has been bragging on social media about how he known as ICE to induce it to apprehend 9 immigrants working at a automobile wash. All the folks had work permits however have been detained and disappeared earlier than they may go to their lockers to point out their documentation. The BU scholar is from the UK, by the best way.
• Talking of the UK, the Impartial Employees Union of Nice Britain has filed a complaint towards Rockstar Video games, makers of the immensely fashionable Grand Theft Auto sequence, over alleged union busting. Rockstar fired 30 staff for allegedly sharing “confidential” details about the upcoming online game in a Discord channel. However the channel was being utilized by staff and union reps combating for higher circumstances on the firm.
• To spherical out our British information section: Trump is threatening to sue the BBC over its modifying of his January 6 coup d’état speech. The BBC apologized and people accountable stepped down, but it surely hasn’t put more cash in Trump’s pockets, so he’s indignant. If I have been a conspiracy theorist, I’d say there’s a secret plot, hatched by Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, to ensure Nice Britain is simply as shitty as america, so that individuals like me, who solely converse one language, have one place fewer to go.

Impressed Takes

• Look, I’m not going to put in writing an entire factor in regards to the Epstein information simply because the “age of consent” is a complicated authorized idea for Megyn Kelly. However as The Nation’s Chris Lehmann explains, this should be really, really bad for Trump and the cabal of pedo-curious individuals who encompass him.
• This piece in The Nation, from former John Fetterman advisor Leah Abrams, actually captures the utter betrayal that’s the Fetterman expertise.
• Adam Serwer explains the intersection of Dungeons & Dragons, racism, and Elon Musk. It’s a implausible piece, and it scratches at one thing that has been one of many best disappointments of my grownup life: the best way “nerd tradition” has been fully co-opted by racists and misogynists. See, once I was a child, being into issues like D&D and Star Wars and video video games felt virtually subversive. It was, for me, a rejection of poisonous masculinity and a possibility to search out group with guys who weren’t on the soccer staff (despite the fact that I used to be completely on the soccer staff) and rejected the prevailing “would possibly makes proper” tendencies of adolescent boys. However now, as many of those once-nerds have risen to turn into captains of business and the purveyors of tradition, I see that the “nerds” have been no higher or completely different from the “jocks.” They weren’t impressed by a higher or deeper respect for ladies or susceptible folks. They wished to do all of the horrible issues the opposite guys wished to do; they only weren’t athletic sufficient to make the soccer staff. There have been indicators: The emotional climax of the film Revenge of the Nerds is a literal rape scene. I didn’t perceive how horrible it was on the time (in equity, I used to be in all probability 8 once I noticed the film). I didn’t imagine “males are shit” once I was 15, and even 25. However I do now.

Worst Argument of the Week

The brain-droppings of Senate Democrats. Particularly the brain-droppings of the eight Democrats who helped the Republicans finish the shutdown, however actually virtually all of them, together with management. It’s troublesome to establish a bunch of individuals as singularly spineless as Senate Democrats, except you increase your definition of “folks” to incorporate Trump cupboard appointments.

To place every little thing within the broadest doable context: Senate Democrats refused to offer Republicans the votes they wanted to fund Donald Trump’s dread priorities except the Republicans agreed to incorporate fundamental protections for federal staff and healthcare subsidies. Republicans refused to compromise and shut down the federal government. After 43 days, with Republicans nonetheless refusing to compromise, Democrats gave up the struggle, and Republicans bought every little thing they wished. The top.

The arguments for this feckless show vary from “Trump was too sturdy” to “However the Republicans promised to speak with us sooner or later.” I’ve fought tougher and longer to defend my lunch cash than these Democrats fought to defend the nation.

Nonetheless, I way back got here to count on Democratic cowardice. What’s actually stunning right here is the political malpractice of all of it. Democratic candidates simply ran the desk in an off-year election. The social gathering achieved main victories up and down ballots everywhere in the nation. That’s all of the political press ought to be speaking about (that and, you understand, the president’s shut relationship with a pedophile). We ought to be getting story after story about how Democrats are “on the march” and that the resistance to Trump is stronger than ever.

As an alternative, we’re being handled to a different week of tales about how the Democrats are weak and pathetic. As a result of they are weak and pathetic. Not all of them, in fact, however greater than sufficient to pull your complete venture right down to their boot-licking degree.

When future alien archeologists uncover the autumn of America within the early twenty first century, they won’t make a distinction between Democrats and Republicans. They’ll simply see the distinction between the cowards and the brave.

What I Wrote

I wrote about how the Democrats’s love of the Senate filibuster was the hidden reason they caved and gave Republicans every little thing they wished. After I wrote it, Senator Tim Kaine opened his complicit mouth and pretty much confirmed every little thing I stated. 

In Information Unrelated to the Present Chaos

Kim Kardashian failed the California bar examination. There’s no disgrace in that. The California bar examination is tough: Only 54.8 percent of people that took the July 2025 examination handed. Passing the bar just isn’t a sign of intelligence or of lawyering expertise. As an alternative, like all standardized assessments, the take a look at is basically about how good you might be at taking standardized assessments.

I wouldn’t ordinarily be aware one individual’s struggles with a notoriously onerous take a look at however for the best way Kardashian has approached this explicit problem. Kardashian, who doesn’t have a bachelor’s diploma, additionally didn’t attend legislation faculty. She’s eligible to sit down for the bar by way of California’s “Regulation Workplace Research Program.” It permits folks to apprentice themselves to a lawyer for quite a lot of hours, after which attempt to take and move the take a look at if they’ll hack it. It’s a really previous method of turning into a lawyer, despite the fact that the one individual I do know of who has ever achieved it that method was Abraham Lincoln. Once more, I impute no disgrace to individuals who can’t afford to go to legislation faculty so that they as a substitute attempt to work themselves into the occupation.

However right here’s the factor: Kim Kardashian can afford to go to legislation faculty! Cash just isn’t her downside. She retains working round social media jabbering about how “dedicated” she is to following her dream, however by some means that dedication doesn’t prolong to… going to class?

Talking of cash, it’s wildly unclear why Kardashian must turn into a lawyer within the first place. She will afford attorneys. She will afford armies of attorneys. There isn’t any authorized concern she cares about that she can’t rent actually good attorneys to pursue. It’s all properly and good for a wealthy individual to need to educate themselves, however, once more, Kardashian just isn’t prepared to teach herself at any of the actually a whole lot of faculties designed particularly to teach her. The entire thing is that this bizarre vainness venture the place she appears to need the standing of “being a lawyer” with out, you understand, the training often related to that title. It’d be like if I wished to turn into an astronaut however didn’t need to study all that pesky math and physics stuff. “I performed 1,000 hours of Kerbal Space Program, now let me fly the rocket ship.”

As my pal Joe Patrice explains, all of that is sort of irritating, as a result of Kardashian really does good issues within the authorized area along with her cash and celeb. She has been a stout advocate for prison justice reform and has actually freed folks from jail. I’d take her as a senator any day over, say, Tim Kaine, and I’m not joking about that. She doesn’t must move a silly take a look at to assist.

There are hundreds and hundreds of attorneys who did go to legislation faculty, did move the bar, and do need the identical issues Kardashian needs. However they’ll’t make a great dwelling—one which pays for his or her huge legislation faculty money owed—whereas working in prison justice reform. I know a few of these folks. They find yourself as insurance coverage attorneys or financial institution attorneys or tort attorneys, as a result of that’s the place the cash is. Kardashian may rent a few of these folks—at wages that permit them to pay again their money owed—and be a extra righteous power for good than she ever might be with a foolish “Esquire” after her title.
I don’t perceive celeb tradition, and I may by no means put myself within the psychological headspace of an individual who is known for being well-known. However in case you are a rich individual studying this, and you might be pondering of turning into a lawyer to affix the entrance traces within the struggle for no matter you care about, my recommendation is “don’t.” Rent the attorneys. Pay them properly. Then inform them what you need them to do. That’s the highest, finest use of your money and time. Depart learning “legislation” to these of us whom… no one needs to see in a intercourse tape.

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