“I have never seen an American president so desperate to force children and seniors to go hungry”

 

A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to release full funding for 42 million Americans’ Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits by Friday, but the US Department of Justice swiftly filed an appeal.

“I have never seen an American president so desperate to force children and seniors to go hungry,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “Donald Trump is appealing a federal court’s order requiring him to pay the full SNAP benefits for this month. This is as ugly and cruel as it gets.”

Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal similarly slammed the administration, saying: “Families have already suffered enough, going nearly a week without SNAP. They don’t deserve all of this whiplash from Republicans over the food they need to survive.”

“Republicans have caused the longest-ever government shutdown by refusing to permanently extend cost-saving healthcare tax credits that millions of Americans rely on to afford health coverage,” Tal said. “Now, they are fighting tooth and nail to avoid fully funding SNAP and feeding hungry families and children. Who does that? We need Republicans in Congress to restore full SNAP benefits now, save Americans’ healthcare, and end the government shutdown.”

Judge John McConnell, appointed to the District of Rhode Island by former President Barack Obama, previously gave the US Department of Agriculture a choice between making a partial payment by emptying a contingency fund or fully covering food stamps with that funding plus money from other sources. The USDA opted for the former and warned that it could take weeks to get reduced SNAP benefits to recipients, millions of whom would lose the monthly food aid altogether.

Then, on Tuesday, Trump suggested that the administration would not disperse SNAP benefits until congressional Democrats voted to end what has become the longest government shutdown in US history. Although White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later claimed that “the administration is fully complying with the court order” and “the president is referring to future SNAP payments.”

That same day, lawyers for the municipalities, nonprofits, and labor groups behind the lawsuit that led to McConnell’s initial ruling—one of two SNAP cases currently in the federal court system—filed an emergency request seeking further relief.

On Thursday, McConnell concluded that the USDA’s plan ran afoul of his previous directive and issued the new oral ruling. He reportedly said: “Last weekend, SNAP benefits lapsed for the first time in our nation’s history. This is a problem that could have and should have been avoided.”

“The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund SNAP,” the judge declared. “They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial SNAP payments and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer.”

Despite the White House’s attempted clarification, McConnell also said that Trump’s post “stated his intent to defy the court order.”

Before the appeal, the new order was widely celebrated, including by Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman, whose group is representing the plaintiffs with the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island. She said in a statement that “today is a major victory for 42 million people in America.”

“The court could not be clearer—the Trump-Vance administration must stop playing politics with people’s lives by delaying SNAP payments they are obligated to issue,” Perryman continued. “This immoral and unlawful decision by the administration has shamefully delayed SNAP payments, taking food off the table of hungry families.”

“We shouldn’t have to force the president to care for his citizens, but we will do whatever is necessary to protect people and communities,” she added. “We are honored to represent our brave clients and to have secured this major victory for those who deserve better than what this administration has done to them.”

US House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (D-Minn.) also welcomed the order, while ripping Trump and his secretary of agriculture, Brooke Rollins. The congresswoman stressed: “As we’ve said from the beginning, the Trump administration has the money and the power to fully fund SNAP in November. They chose to ignore the harm caused by their actions and cut benefits instead.”

“President Trump and USDA need to do the right thing and comply with the court ruling rather than further delay food assistance from reaching 42 million Americans in need,” she argued. “It is truly shocking and demoralizing just how far President Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins have gone to take food out of the mouths of American children, seniors, working parents, veterans, and people with disabilities.”

-Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams

"Corruption Front and Center"

 

If you were watching any of the voter-on-the-street interviews Tuesday, you might have been surprised to hear how many Americans are deeply disturbed, furious even, about Donald Trump’s bulldozing of the White House to make way for a garish $330M donor-paid ballroom. It may not be the most egregious offense of the Trump regime (which has kidnapped people off the streets, sent them to foreign hell holes, and cut off SNAP benefits, among other outrages). 

It is not even the worst case of corruption, given the estimated $5B or so in wealth Trump and his family have hauled in from (among other sources) foreign buyers of crypto. But the ballroom is the most visible, easily explained, and visually disgusting evidence of Trump’s destruction of our democracy and the public’s ownership of our institutions.

For anyone who doubted that corruption—of the presidency, of the Justice Department, of the Supreme Court, of pay-to-play government—is not an animating issue for voters, Tuesday should be a wake-up call. Democrats would do well to lean into the ballroom debacle and expand the attack on corruption from there.

Providing the perfect starting point, Public Citizen this week released a report that neatly captures the stomach-turning effort to transform the White House into a monument to private greed and public corruption. The report found:

• Two-thirds of corporate donors—16 out of a total of 24—have entered into government contracts. Lockheed is the largest of these government contractors, having received $191 billion in contracts over the last five years. Altogether, the corporate donors benefited from nearly $43 billion in contracts last year and $279 billion over the last five years.
• Most of the corporate donors—14 out of 24—are facing federal enforcement actions and/or have had federal enforcement actions suspended by the Trump administration. These include major antitrust actions involving Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and T-Mobile; labor rights cases involving Amazon, Apple, Caterpillar, Google, Lockheed and Meta; and SEC matters involving Coinbase and Ripple.
• The companies and wealthy individual donors have invested gargantuan sums in combined lobbying and political contributions, totaling more than $960 million during the last election cycle and $1.6 billion over the last five years.

The bottom line is that companies with a “stunningly wide array of interests before the federal government” from industry specific items to all-encompassing interests (e.g. tax policy) have feathered the president’s nest by indulging his pathetic Louis XIV aspirations to construct a garish ballroom that substitutes a Trump monstrosity for a piece of American architectural history.

That may not be the worst of it. For one thing, we do not know exactly how much each is giving. Far worse, some of the donors remain anonymous. Are they pardoned felons? Lawmakers? Foreign governments? We do not know.

Reflective of the utter docility and sloth of House and Senate Republicans, we have heard no outrage, and certainly no calls for a single hearing. They are content to play courtiers (or is it jesters?) in the knock-off Versailles ballroom—at the very time they refused to keep full SNAP benefits flowing to Americans. (Let them eat cake…off gold plates in the grotesque Trump conference room!)

Democrats need not remain silent. In the wake of an election in which Republicans’ corruption and scorn for the average American people launched a blue tsunami, they can help set the stage for the midterms.

Democrats could devise a series of proposals, bring votes to the floor, and lay down markers both to embarrass Republicans and to make clear to the donors that when Democrats come to power the influence-peddlers’ participation in the selling of American government with come with serious, expensive consequences.

For starters, Democrats at every turn should demand hearings or use existing oversight hearings to ask critical questions to uncover the identities of all donors, the amounts given, the means by which regulatory controls were sidestepped, the historical and environmental damage, the means by which funds were solicited (and what promises/conditions were placed on them), the costs of demolition and maintenance, and any other pertinent facts (e.g., how is the bidding on the project to be conducted?). Any evidence of illegality can be fully investigated and prosecuted in the next Democratic administration.

Beyond that, Democrats’ proposed legislation could range from a simple halt of the project to a ban on donors’ contracts with the government to conversion of the facility into a museum on modern totalitarianism. Once Trump leaves office, they can demand repayment for the cost of reconstructing the existing structure (followed by a suit to recover monies).

Certainly, any 2028 Democratic candidate worth his or her salt would need to advance a mammoth anti-corruption plan to tackle not only this outrage (“Tear it down, rebuild democracy!” would make a lively campaign chant) but to severely regulate crypto, recover unconstitutionally acquired foreign emoluments, restore prosecution of foreign bribery statutes and other white collar crimes, and undergo an exhaustive investigation and prosecution of any bribery that took place in the Trump regime.

As with other autocratic atrocities, the corruption issue is too important to leave solely to the politicians. Shareholders of these companies could demand a full accounting and pursue shareholder suits if appropriate. Consumers can organize public campaigns to expose and embarrass these companies or conduct targeted boycotts (e.g., cancel Amazon Prime, do not patronize Hard Rock Casinos and restaurants). And further No Kings events should keep corruption front and center.

In sum, Democrats would do well to craft their plans to shovel out the Augean Trump Stables to eliminate opportunities for self-dealing, the extensive conflicts of interest, the noxious role of dark money, the pay-to-play practices, and the politicization of the Justice Department (as well as the Pentagon and other government departments) that has engulfed the federal government. The hideous Trump ballroom can be the trigger for a full-scale effort to remove the stench of corruption that has flourished under Trump. MAGA Republicans may regret letting Trump mar the People’s House.

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Guy Fawkes Day

 

When was Guy Fawkes born?

Guy Fawkes was born in York in 1570. He was the son of Edward, a church lawyer and prominent Protestant in the city, and Edith, whose family included secret Catholics. He had two brothers, John and Christopher.

At that time, it was dangerous to be Catholic: many plots and rebellions against Elizabeth I were led by Catholics, which led to severe reprisals. Priests who were caught leading secret services were tortured and executed.

Why did Guy Fawkes convert to Catholicism?

To all outward appearances, Guy Fawkes' family were a law-abiding Protestant family, until his father Edward died when he was 8 years old. His mother remarried, this time to a Catholic, Dionysius Bainbridge.

The young Guy was drawn strongly to his stepfather’s religion, and although he knew of the dangers, he converted to Catholicism.

At the age of 21, the passionate young man set off to Europe to fight for Catholic Spain against Protestant Dutch reformers in the Eight Years War.

Why did Guy Fawkes try to blow up Parliament?

With the new reign, Catholics across the country had hoped for the end of the religious persecution they suffered for so long. After all, the King's mother - Mary, Queen of Scots - had been a devout Catholic. However, they were soon disappointed; the Protestant James I wasn't a tolerant King.

The conspirators, with Guy Fawkes now among them, decided on a drastic measure. Catesby’s plan was to blow up Parliament during its State Opening on 5 November, when James I, the Queen and his heir would also be present, and would be killed. The conspirators then hoped to crown the King's young daughter, Princess Elizabeth.

-Historic Royal Places

The SNAP Scam: How Billionaires and Politicians Built a Welfare System for the Rich

 

Behind the rhetoric about ‘lazy freeloaders’ lies a stunning truth: America’s largest corporations depend on food stamps to prop up their low-wage empires...

Democrats won big in last night’s election, and it’s a great sign for the future of American democracy. Voters rejected racism, fear, and cruelty. They said in a loud and singular voice — overwhelmingly voting for moderate Democrats, progressive Democrats, and even a ballot initiative without a single person on the ballot — that they want their democracy back.

Nonetheless, Mike Johnson is still keeping the House on vacation and John Thune is still refusing to break a Senate filibuster and reopen the government. And, crucially, Trump is still refusing to fully fund SNAP/food stamps, even though he can easily put his hands on the money.

Yesterday’s New York Times’ podcast The Daily interviewed a group of West Virginians who’d lined up at a food bank because Trump had cut off their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds. Many of them told their interviewer that they worked full-time jobs but still didn’t make enough money to feed their families. Roughly a third of the people on SNAP, in fact, work a regular job, and 70 percent of them work full-time.

While Trump and the ghouls in his administration tried to cut off SNAP benefits (and are now threatening to cut off unemployment benefits if Democrats don’t relent and let them gut Obamacare), what this entire drama is really revealing is how what started out as programs to help the unemployed or disabled people have now become billion dollar subsidies for morbidly rich employers and their massive corporations.

When FDR created the food stamp program in 1938, it had three main purposes. The first was to generate Keynesian “from the bottom up” financial activity by giving government money to retailers, who would then circulate it in, and thus stimulate, local economies. The second was to provide a market for struggling farmers, millions of whom were then facing bankruptcy. And the third was to ameliorate hunger among America’s poor.

Today, the SNAP program still accomplishes the goals of helping out farmers, supporting local food stores, and reducing hunger among America’s poor, but about a third of the program has also become a way of insuring that America’s morbidly rich billionaires get even richer on the taxpayer’s dime.

And it’s not just SNAP: you could make the same argument for much of Medicaid and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program (TANF times-out at 5 years). As long as employers know that their employees can get SNAP, Medicaid, and TANF benefits even when they’re working full time, they’ll keep wages low and thus profits high. It’s really that simple.

With FDR‘s new deal, Democrats explicitly proclaimed that if you worked a full-time job, you should be able to buy a house and raise a family. Republicans, on the other hand, have argued since the 1930s that employers should have sole control over what paychecks they cut, even resisting the minimum wage. And now they’ve found a slick new way to exploit Democratic programs like SNAP and Medicaid to help employers further lower their payroll expenses.

Back in 1817, economist David Ricardo coined what he called the “Iron Law of Wages.” His point was that there’s a “marketplace” for labor and the price for labor — the wages paid — in that marketplace is determined by two main variables: actual take-home pay and the local cost of living.

Employers, in other words, carefully calibrate what they’ll pay people to meet (but not exceed) what their workers need to minimally meet the local cost of living. It’s why, for example, wages are higher in expensive cities and lower in cheaper rural areas.

Ricardo’s Iron Law is also why when taxes go down on working class people the effect is paradoxical: tax cuts will always, within a few years, cause corresponding wage cuts, while tax increases on working class people drive wages up. “Taxes on wages will raise wages,” Ricardo wrote. “If the taxes, instead of being increased, were diminished, wages would fall.”

The reason is easy to understand tax cuts mean more take-home pay, and when employers see that their workers are taking home more money than they need to live, they’ll lower wages to get back to where take-home pay was before the tax cut. On the other hand, if income taxes are increased employers will be forced to pay more so people’s take-home pay can once again cover the local cost of living.

We’ve even seen this work in real time. During the 1930s-1960s era, income taxes went up considerably on working class people to pay for WWII and digging America out of the Republican Great Depression; wages similarly went up. The years following Reagan’s, Bush Jr’s, and Trump’s tax cuts, however, each saw wages fall. (The same thing happened when income taxes fell after WWI and wages similarly dropped a year later.)

Which brings us to how SNAP, Medicare, and TANF have become Billionaire Protection Programs, helping them keep wages low and profits high. Ricardo’s Iron Law works the same way with government benefits, although they largely didn’t exist in his time.

Employers know what people need to take home to meet the local cost of living, but when government subsidizes people’s food (SNAP), healthcare (Medicaid), and/or rent and utilities (TANF) employers also know that’s money they don’t have to pay out as wages.

Billionaires like the Walton Family, in other words, know that they can cut their employees’ wages by the same amount as the government subsidies that are available to those workers. Every penny of government benefits, under this GOP strategy, becomes a penny less that Walmart, for example, has to pay its people who qualify for benefits.

The one-third of SNAP recipients who are working, for example, are receiving around $3 billion a month in food support from the government; that’s $3 billion that employers can keep for themselves instead of having to pay out as wages.

Republicans love to pretend that these programs are purely designed for the truly needy (and that’s generally been the goal of Democrats who’ve created them), but they give away the game when they repeatedly — and almost always successfully — force work requirements into them.

Why, after all, would anybody put together a program to feed hungry people and then demand that, to get the full benefit, they had to have a job? Shouldn’t every job pay enough — as Democrats have argued since the Minimum Wage was established in the 1930s — to prevent hunger? Shouldn’t people who work full-time make enough to cover healthcare, rent, and utilities?

The answer to this 50-year-long GOP scam isn’t to kill off these three programs, but, instead, to do the exact opposite of what Republicans are constantly demanding: eliminate eligibility for people working full-time jobs. That way, employers will be forced to pay a living wage to their workers, rather than padding their bottom lines with workers’ food, medical, and rent subsidies financed by our tax dollars. It’ll also increase pressure within state and local governments to raise minimum wages, another demonstrably positive outcome that Republicans and fat-cat billionaires hate.

Obviously, a change that radical would have to be phased in gradually and carefully, combined with increases in the Minimum Wage, so people's lives are not disrupted. But doing so would blow up the low-wage business model giant employers have been using for decades, converting government subsidies year-after-year into new yachts for their billionaire owners.

So, whenever you hear Republicans go on and on about the importance of “weeding out the welfare queens with work requirements,” know that what you’re really hearing is a variation on, “We want taxpayers to subsidize low-wage workers so the billionaires who fund our campaigns can buy another mansion or newspaper or TV network.”

Sometimes the biggest Republican scams are run right out in the open, right under our noses. It just takes a moment of reflection — and a simple insight from a 19th century economist — to see through them.

Hopefully the GOP’s attempt to increase Americans pain via SNAP denials will backfire and spark a much-needed conversation about how all this works. Last night’s elections are a good sign that we’re moving in that direction. That can lead to remaking our work and welfare systems, so they’ll once again benefit average people, instead of also subsidizing Trump’s plutocrat friends.

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“Trump’s message to 42 million Americans: Eat dirt”

 

In apparent open defiance of two federal court rulings, President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration will not fund a key federal nutritional aid program until after the Republican government shutdown ends, leaving millions of families even more vulnerable to hunger at a time of crisis-level food insecurity.

In a post on his TruthSocial network, Trump took aim at both the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the administration of former President Joe Biden.

“SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office (Due to the fact that they were haphazardly ‘handed’ to anyone for the asking, as opposed to just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!” the president wrote. “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Responding to the president’s post, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on social media, “After a judge ordered Donald Trump to make SNAP payments, the wannabe king declared he will defy a court order and won’t help people afford groceries.”

“Trump’s message to 42 million Americans: Eat dirt,” she added.

Seemingly contradicting Trump’s claim, the White House said later Tuesday that the administration is complying with one of the court orders.

Data from the nonpartisan US Government Accountability Office have shown that approximately 70% or more of working-age, non-disabled adults receiving Medicaid and SNAP benefits work full-time—defined as 35 hours or more per week.

On Friday, federal judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ruled against the US Department of Agriculture’s refusal to pay at least part of the $8 billion in SNAP benefits—also known as food stamps—to rightful beneficiaries in November via a contingency fund established by Congress. The administration responded to the rulings by saying it would only fund around 50% of the total monthly benefits, while warning of likely payment delays.

Plaintiffs in the Rhode Island case—represented by Democracy Forward and the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island—subsequently filed an emergency request seeking a court order compelling Trump and his administration to comply with Friday’s order.

“The Trump-Vance administration continues to play politics with people’s lives through failing to ensure SNAP payments are expeditiously available,” Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement Tuesday. “This is immoral and unlawful.”

“The political posturing should stop now,” Perryman added. “The administration needs to fully fund SNAP benefits so people can eat, today. We should not need to go to court to force the administration to provide food all people are entitled to in this country, but here we are—back in court to demand that the administration acts consistent with the judge’s order.”

Alejandra Gomez, executive director of Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), said ahead of a planned Tuesday press conference: “It took two court orders and mounting public pressure for the Trump administration to fund SNAP assistance partially, which is not good enough. Arizona families in need deserve better.”

“December SNAP benefits are not guaranteed, and every day that Congress fails to act, children will go hungry, food banks run dry, and working families will pay the price,” she added. “It is time to end the shutdown, fund healthcare and SNAP.”

Now in its 35th day, the ongoing federal government shutdown is tied for the longest in US history. Vulnerable people—already reeling from record cuts to social programs to pay for tax breaks for billionaires and corporations under the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by Trump in July—are feeling even more pain, at a time when more than 47 million Americans, including 1 in 5 children, are living in food insecure households.

“I did not receive any benefits at all... And they said there is no promise of even getting any type of benefits for November,” Danielle Rodriguez, a single mother in Pennsylvania who lost $400 in monthly SNAP aid, told MSNBC‘s Ana Cabrera Monday.

“'Mommy, do you want my piggybank money to help with groceries?'”

“Unfortunately, I’ve had to reach out to my utility companies and stuff like that to go on payments to use some of my bill money to buy groceries for me and my kids,” she continued.

“It’s very stressful being a single mom of two kids. I have a 9-year-old, and she is offering her piggybank money,” Rodriguez added. “And she’s like, ‘Mommy, do you want my piggybank money to help with groceries?’ And it’s sad to hear my child say that to me because I’m mom—I’m supposed to do everything. I’m supposed to be their protector.”

Mitch Jones, managing director of policy and litigation at Food & Water Watch, said in a statement: “At a time when rampant corporate consolidation has driven grocery prices sky-high, Trump continues to choose cruelty over the rule of law. He must abide by recent court orders and immediately release SNAP aid to the millions of low-income American families suddenly hanging on the precipice of an unconscionable hunger crisis.”

“If Trump had any shred of humanity in him, he would do whatever was necessary to prevent hunger and suffering in the country he claims to love,” Jones added.

-Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams

Donald Trump’s Deep Nuclear Confusion

 

President Donald Trump is confused. Just moments before he was to meet with China’s President Xi Jinping, he posted a baffling message on his Truth Social site, claiming the U.S. would “immediately” resume the testing of nuclear weapons. No one knew what he meant or why he was saying it.

“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump said, “That process will begin immediately.” When questioned later by reporters aboard Air Force One, he added: “We don’t do testing. We’ve halted it years, many years ago. But with others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also.”

That was hardly clarifying. Did he actually mean that the U.S. would resume exploding nuclear weapons at the old Nevada test site, something we have not done in more than 30 years? Or was he just reacting to Russian tests this week of a long-range cruise missile and an underwater drone?

To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends on what your definition of “nuclear” is. Did he actually mean that the U.S. would resume exploding nuclear weapons at the old Nevada test site?

The U.S. has conducted 1,054 explosive tests of nuclear weapons beginning with the world’s very first test of an atomic bomb in 1945. This is more nuclear explosions than all other nations combined. As a result, the nation has a vast scientific understanding of the dynamics of nuclear fission (the splitting of atoms), nuclear fusion (the fusing of atoms) and the complex hydrodynamics of the hot plasma created in the first microseconds of a nuclear detonation.

Our knowledge is so deep that in 1992, we stopped testing. All other countries followed suit. In 1996, the nations of the world, led by the U.S., negotiated the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, or CTBT, banning nuclear explosive tests worldwide. One hundred eighty-seven nations have signed the accord. No nation has tested nuclear weapons in this century, save for North Korea, which conducted six tests between 2006 and 2017. Those tests are one of the reasons North Korea is considered a rogue state, outside of international norms.

Using the data from previous tests and ever-advancing supercomputers, we can now simulate nuclear explosions without an actual physical explosion. We conduct “sub-critical” experiments involving nuclear materials that stop just short of a full chain reaction. The directors of our national weapons laboratories annually certify that the more than 5,000 nuclear weapons in our stockpile are safe, reliable and effective.

Although fiercely contested at the time — and still not ratified by the U.S. Senate — the test ban treaty ended the further radiation poisoning of people near or downwind from test sites in Nevada and the South Pacific. It’s no wonder that members of Nevada’s congressional delegation reacted sharply to Trump’s threat.

“Absolutely not,” said Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., who vowed to introduce a bill to forbid the resumption of nuclear testing. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., was equally firm, “This directly contradicts the commitments I secured from Trump nominees — and the opinion of Administration officials who certify our nuclear stockpile — who’ve told me explosive nuclear testing would not happen and is unnecessary. I’ll fight to stop this.”

Banning nuclear tests in 1996 was not just the right moral and humane choice, but it also locked in an American advantage in nuclear knowledge. Resuming nuclear testing would allow other nations to catch up. If Trump began testing, other nations would quickly follow.

Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov dryly responded to Trump, “Until now, we were not aware that anyone was testing anything.” He added, “But I want to recall President [Vladimir] Putin’s statement, which has been repeated many times: that, of course, if someone abandons the moratorium, Russia will act accordingly.”

If Trump began testing, other nations would quickly follow.

China — which has conducted only 45 test explosions, and none since 1996 — would leap at the chance to develop new nuclear weapons and experiment with new designs. India and Pakistan would certainly follow. Even Israel, which has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, though it is widely believed to have a small arsenal, might join the nuclear testing parade.

Trump is poised to make nuclear testing great again — all across the world. Does Trump understand this? When he says “immediately,” does he understand that the Nevada test site has been closed for more than 30 years? That it would take almost three years to refurbish the facility — now known as the Nevada National Security Site — and get it in shape to explode weapons again?

Does he even know that the cruise missile and underwater drone that Russia tested did not carry nuclear warheads? That they were tests of experimental delivery vehicles with small nuclear reactors providing propulsion, but that they did not carry nuclear warheads?

He may not. Trump’s knowledge of nuclear issues is alarmingly thin. His purges of top scientists, generals and experienced national security experts have left him dangerously ill-advised. It is not as if Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth can help.

Maybe this was just a boss move, Trump’s attempt to assert male dominance as he met a powerful rival. Let us hope it was just a rhetorical flex. But it may not be. Nuclear hawks in the Pentagon and conservative bastions such as the Heritage Foundation have long pushed for restarting nuclear tests — including as part of its Project 2025 policy blueprint. They may have gotten to Trump.

As MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell might say, the most profoundly ignorant president in American history may have just kicked off a new, treacherous nuclear arms race — and not even realize what he has done.   

-Joe Cirincione / Truthdig

The Top 10 U.S. Billionaires

The collective wealth of the top 10 US billionaires has soared by $698bn in the past year, according to a new report from Oxfam America published today on the growing wealth divide. The report warns that Trump administration policies risk driving US inequality to new heights but points out that both Republican and Democratic administrations have exacerbated the US’s growing wealth gap.

Using Federal Reserve data from 1989 to 2022, researchers also calculated that the top 1% of households gained 101 times more wealth than the median household during that time span and 987 times the wealth of a household at the bottom 20th percentile of income. This translated to a gain of $8.35m per household for the top 1% of households, compared with $83,000 for the average household during that 33-year period.

How have Trump’s policies impacted the figures? Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill”, passed by Congress in May, has been one of the “single largest transfers of wealth upwards in decades,” according to the report, by cutting tax for the wealthy and corporations.

-The Guardian

There were 36.8 million people living in poverty in 2023 (U.S. Census Bureau).

The 2025 Federal Poverty Level (FPL) for a single-person household is $15,650, and for a two-person household, it is $21,150. These guidelines are used to determine eligibility for various programs, with the level increasing for each additional person in a household. The guidelines are published by the Department of Health and Human Services and went into effect on January 15, 2025. 

Family Size	2025 Poverty Guideline
1-person	$15,650
2-person	$21,150
3-person	$26,650
4-person	$32,150
5-person	$37,650