Dear Progressive Reader,

The current government shutdown, at thirty-eight days so far, is now the longest in history since the present system was established in the early 1980s, surpassing the thirty-four-day record shutdown that occurred during the first Trump Administration. Approximately 1.4 million federal workers are currently furloughed or working without pay. In spite of this, Republicans and Democrats in Washington remain at loggerheads. As U.S. Representative Mark Pocan (Democrat of Wisconsin) pointed out on Thursday. “We [the U.S. Congress] are now on our seventh week of essentially paid vacation because [Speaker] Mike Johnson hasn’t had the House in session. So . . . we have to get back to work. We have a farm bill that’s two years overdue. We have the Older Americans Act, I think that’s a year overdue. We have a bunch of bills to do, and holding your breath isn’t the answer.”

In addition to unpaid federal workers, everyday people across the country, in bot red and blue states, are suffering from cuts to essential programs and services. As I wrote last week, funds for the SNAP program ceased on October 1. Nearly 42 million people are impacted by this cessation of funds, in spite of a court decision requiring full payment (a ruling which the U.S. Supreme Court stayed in a decision late Friday night). In addition to the impact of this first-ever freeze on funds for the decades-old food assistance program, many of these same families have also seen local Head Start classrooms across the country shuttered. The program, begun in 1965, has served more than 30 million children over its history (currently about 800,000 per year). In addition to a “head start” on education, many students in the program also receive food and other services during their day.

Another impact of the shutdown is a reduction in airplane flights. Beginning yesterday, the FAA cut air traffic by 10 percent at forty of the nation’s largest airports—causing a ripple effect throughout the entire system. As Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic noted on Washington Week, “We’re right now in the season of people in large numbers flying home to eat vast quantities of food and . . . SNAP is directly affecting peoples’ ability to eat and [flying] home [is impaired by the shutdown]. It doesn’t make the people in charge look very good.”

On our website this week, Eleanor Bader reports on the far-reaching impact of SNAP cuts, “SNAP is not really about numbers: It is about people who do not have enough money to buy nutritious food for themselves and their loved ones. This is why food justice activists consider the government shutdown and the cuts to SNAP benefits so devastating.” And Sinceree Dixon pens an op-ed based on her own experience as a SNAP recipient, explaining, “Food assistance is not a handout; it is a lifeline that millions of hardworking Americans depend upon. That lifeline is now being threatened.” Plus, Mike Ervin writes about how the shutdown is harming children with disabilities; and Sena Ho, an intern at The Progressive, describes how DEI rollbacks are eroding support for First-Generation, Low-Income (FGLI) students.

Also this week, we introduce a new regular column by racial justice advocate Terrance Sullivan called “The Equity Docket.” This month he writes on the Supreme Court’s weakening of the Voting Rights Act. “Throughout U.S. history, purveyors of white supremacy have often limited Black people’s ability to participate in politics, even while speaking the language of inclusion,” he begins. Elsewhere, Lital Khaikin documents the horrific details of the crisis in Dafur, following this past week’s takeover of el-Fasher by militants; Saurav Sarkar interviews one of the participants in the recent Global Sumud Flotilla; Randi Richardson examines how New York City’s schools might change under the newly elected mayor Zohran Mamdani; and former police chief David Couper opines on the important role that could be played by local police in observing, documenting, and ensuring that lawful procedures are followed during federal immigration raids.

Finally, this past week marked the death, at age eighty-four, of former Vice President Dick Cheney. While much of the mainstream media has been lauding Cheney for the one time, in the final year of his life, that he happened to choose to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, they seem to overlook the entirety of his previous career. As one colleague wrote on social media, “Now is a good time to remember that Dick Cheney's post-9/11 wars killed (conservatively) 4.5 million people and displaced over 38 million more, according to a study by Brown University.” As former editor Matt Rothschild noted in The Progressive in August 2007, “You don’t have to dust for long before finding Dick Cheney’s grimy fingerprints all over the [George W.] Bush crime scene. . . . It was Cheney, in the days after 9/11, who insisted that the United States would have to work the ‘dark side’ in the war on terror . . . . And it was Cheney who, just days before Bush launched the war [on Iraq in March 2003], went on Meet the Press and uttered the most flagrant lie, saying that Saddam Hussein had actually reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

The new 2026 Hidden History of the United States calendar is now available. You can get your calendar on our website 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 11 is Veteran’s Day (originally Armistice Day, marking the end of World War I in 1918). In an op-ed this week, Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon raise the alarm about cuts to the Veterans Administration, noting: “A healthy nation depends on a healthy VA; this Veterans Day, let's recommit to keeping it that way.”

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

P.S. – If you like this newsletter, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you know someone who would like to subscribe to this free weekly email, please share this link: http://tiny.cc/ProgressiveNewsletter.

P.P.S. – The NEW October/November issue is now available! If you don’t already subscribe to The Progressive in print or digital form, please consider doing so today. Also, if you have a friend or relative who you feel should hear from the many voices for progressive change within our pages, please consider giving a gift subscription.

P.P.P.S. – Thank you so much to everyone who has already donated to support The Progressive! We need you now more than ever. If you have not done so already, please take a moment to support hard-hitting, independent reporting on issues that matter to you. Your donation today will keep us on solid ground and will help us continue to grow in the coming years. You can use the wallet envelope in the current issue of the magazine, or click on the “Donate” button below to join your fellow progressives in sustaining The Progressive as a voice for peace, social justice, and the common good.