OH SNAP…

A federal judge appears poised to force Donald Trump’s officials to hand out food assistance to millions of Americans — just hours before the buzzer.

• In two days, 42 million Americans will be at risk of hunger when SNAP benefits, formerly called food stamps, expire due to the government shutdown. You may be thinking: Doesn’t the Trump administration have a gameplan to deal with this foreseeable crisis? Astute question, dear reader. The short answer is, yes. And the plan, according to the top Senate Republican, is to use the crisis as a pain point to score political points off Democrats.

• Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) flatly rejected a Democratic plan to pass SNAP funding, despite the shutdown. Thune said he wouldn’t agree to that without ending the shutdown completely. “We’re not going to let them pick winners and losers,” Thune said. Okay then!

• The longer explanation doesn’t make MAGA’s intentions look any better. A few weeks ago, Trump’s USDA posted a 55-page contingency plan to fund SNAP if funding lapsed. Having a plan is required by the White House — and Trump even disbursed SNAP benefits early during his first term shutdown to prevent delays. (SNAP has never been cut off since the program launched in 1939.)

• Here’s where things get weird… and dark: The USDA quietly deleted the plan from its website. The department claims it doesn’t have legal authority to tap a $6 billion contingency fund to cover next months’ benefits, and even told states they won’t be reimbursed if they cover the costs on their own. This from the administration that easily found $300 million for an imperial ballroom, and $40 billion to bail out Argentina!

• “We just don’t believe them,” Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford told What A Day. He joined a lawsuit with 24 other state attorneys general, suing the Trump administration to release the funds. “There has been money allocated by Congress and a contingency account for circumstances just like this.”

• Today, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani indicated that she’ll force the Trump administration to disburse SNAP payments. “Congress has put money in an emergency fund for an emergency and it’s hard for me to understand how this isn’t an emergency,” she said.

• Million Americans’ livelihoods are now being used as a political football. Trump has done “exactly what he did in the first term, and that is bend over backwards to make sure that we mitigate the harm,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters this morning. In a private call yesterday, Johnson urged Republican lawmakers to remain united.

What happens if SNAP runs out? “Folks are scared, man,” AG Ford said. “I’d be preparing to go to a food bank.”

• Food banks and pantries are stockpiling food ahead of the cutoff date Saturday. But this nationwide scramble is compounded by several issues: They’re already struggling due to a lack of federal funds, high food prices, and furloughed federal workers who suddenly need help.

• “One in four children in our state already don’t know where the food is coming from,” Ford explained. “If you don’t have money, especially in a time where affordability is out of reach for so many folks, you’re not going to have food unless you go to a food bank that is capable of providing additional support.”

• Shutdowns are a different beast for food banks. During natural disasters, a busy food bank can rely on other branches to help out. “With this government shutdown, we are all experiencing the same need,” Central Texas Food Bank CEO Sari Vatske told NPR. “We are asking the community to step up now more than ever.”

• Even Republicans are raising the alarm and calling for desperate measures. “This is a disaster that may come, but this is a disaster … that we can avoid,” Gov. Henry McMaster (R-SC) said at a news conference this week, urging local residents to fill the gap and donate to food pantries before Saturday.

Legal experts widely believe the Trump administration could fund SNAP. “It’s not that the administration can’t pay up — it’s that it has chosen not to,” The Atlantic writes.

WHITE THIS WAY, FOLKS

Donald Trump has a new general rule for refugees: White people go to the front of the line.

The Trump administration is limiting the number of refugees permitted into the United States to 7,500 — and they’re mostly white South Africans. Trump has repeatedly pushed a false claim that white people in that country are facing “genocide.”

It’s a shocking decrease from the 125,000 refugee cap allowed under the Biden administration.

While Trump’s team didn’t give a clear reason for the change, Vice President JD Vance hinted at their intentions last night: “We have to get the overall numbers way, way down,” he said at a Turning Point USA event, speaking of legal immigration.

When too many people enter the country, “you’ve got to allow your own society to cohere a little bit, to build a sense of common identity, for all the newcomers — the ones who are going to stay — to assimilate into American culture,” Vance said.

Ah yes, let’s protect Vance’s American culture: Obsessing over Mountain Dew, throwing your own people under the bus for political gain, and working for a guy you once compared to Adolf Hitler.

WHAT ELSE?

Donald Trump said he wants the U.S. to start testing nukes again, for the first time since 1992. The announcement appears to be a response to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s boasts about new-fangled nuclear weapons, which he’s been yammering on about for years now, even though most military analysts dismiss the Russian leader’s nuclear saber-rattling as just big talk.

China will resume its normal level of U.S. soybean purchases over the next three years, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. The agreement, following Trump’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, will bring much-needed relief to American farmers. But remember: This crisis was entirely caused by Trump’s own bizarre actions, and farmers are still pissed that the U.S. is buying 80,000 metric tons of beef from Argentina.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem refused to pause ICE’s military-style assault tactics in Chicago for Halloween, and dismissed a request to do so by Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) as “shameful.” Sorry, some of us don’t want kids getting teargassed while trick-or-treating!

Several of Trump’s top cronies have moved into military housing near Washington, D.C., where they are shielded from threats of political violence… and from protestors. The list includes Noem, White House aide Stephen Miller, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. So, I guess the American people are officially paying Stephen Miller’s rent? I hate that.

The Pentagon ordered the National Guard to prepare “quick reaction forces” to quell protests across the country. These aren’t normal troops who sit on their phones and patrol the Lincoln Memorial; the forces will be composed of personnel who normally deal with much more important things, like responding to nuclear accidents and terrorist attacks, according to the order.

FBI Director Kash Patel appears to have used his government plane to travel to his 26-year-old girlfriend’s concert at Penn State (she’s a country singer, naturally), before flying to Nashville, her hometown, on the same night, according to FBI whistleblower Kyle Seraphin. I don’t know what I’m more disgusted by: The apparent misuse of government funds during a shutdown, or the fact that Patel is nearly double his girlfriend’s age.

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE EMAIL…

You may have heard about a bizarre story out of the Times of London this week, in which a reporter quoted former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio trashing Zohran Mamdani’s policies. The paper retracted that story, saying that the reporter had been tricked by a de Blasio imposter. But it turns out… the reporter had accidentally emailed another guy named Bill DeBlasio. “I never once said I was the mayor. He never addressed me as the mayor,” DeBlasio, a wine importer living on Long Island, told Semafor via his Ring doorbell. “So I just gave him my opinion.”

Miles Taylor, the former Trump DHS official better known as “Anonymous,” launched a website to help organize protests and other resistance against the Trump administration. Defiance.org vows to help people push back “peacefully, lawfully, and defiantly.” It even has a “swag” shop… I’m very curious to see what merch they drop.

Chunkosaurus Rex, resident of Dinosaur Valley State Park, won the inaugural Fat Squirrel Week. The squirrels are judged on their charm and weight, and oooo boy was the competition tough this year. Other participants included Chunk Norris, Twiggy Swift, Nutella, and Stanley “The Texas Tank.” These goofy challenges are what’s keeping me going these days.

A trio of monkeys is still on the loose in rural Mississippi after escaping a truck carrying the primates overturned yesterday. It’s unclear where the monkeys were headed, but they’re members of a breed that’s commonly used for medical experiments. I’m rooting for you!!!

An 80-year-old Michigan woman became the oldest woman to hike the Appalachian trail — a record she wasn’t even aware of until she finished. “We put all kinds of limitations on ourselves,” Betty Kellenberger said. “Sometimes the biggest one is we don’t get up and try it.”

A mountaineer named Jim Morrison became the first person to ski 9,000 feet down the North Face of Mount Everest this month. “It was a spectacular four hours of skiing down a horrific snow pack,” said Morrison, who is totally living up to his rock ‘n’ roll namesake.