Americans Are Starving – The Tuesday AM Quickie 5/12/26
Having major fomo over the Bay Area celebrations for Allen Ginsberg’s centennial. Poet No Land will pay homage tonight at Bird & Beckett and there are lots of other events. Jealous. -Whitney
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ON THE SHOW TODAY
5/12: Sam and Emma are expected in today and their guests are Jessica Valenti, author and publisher of the Abortion, Every Day newsletter, on to discuss the recent Supreme Court rulings on abortion pill Mifepristone; and Lisa Xu, staff writer at Labor Notes, on to talk about the recent concessions made by the meatpacking Giant JBS following the historic strike.
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Today you’ll read about the Supreme Court’s ongoing interference in state elections, Trump’s retinue of billionaires joining him in China, and the EU’s new sanctions on genocidal Israeli settlers.
THE BIG NEWS
Americans Are Starving
Arizona’s aggressive implementation of new food stamp work requirements is showing just how much punishment Trump and his rich allies want to heap on regular people in the United States. A report by NBC News chronicles how officials in Arizona are kicking families off their food stamps with no notice, providing no support for those trying to get back on, and forcing children to go hungry. One single mom who got kicked off without warning explained how her family is dealing with it: “We’re eating less, we’re eating more frozen stuff.” Another parent in a similar situation said, “My boys are telling me nonstop, ‘I’m hungry, I’m hungry.’ I’m trying to keep up with that, trying to make sure that they’re fed. It’s just really, really difficult.” Others explained the impact of the demand that older people and people with disabilities meet the new work requirement though they are physically unable to do so.
The suffering comes thanks to Trump’s signature legislation last summer, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Under that monstrosity, lawmakers cut $187 billion from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, SNAP, commonly referred to as food stamps, in service of expanding the immigration terror campaign with a network of concentration camps and giving tax breaks to billionaires.
Since then, the government has kicked 3.5 million people off their food stamps. More people have lost the benefit in Arizona than anywhere else, “which offers a window into what may be in store for other states.” Arizona officials have set new crushing documentation requirements for those applying for food stamps and a new review system that Republicans say will prevent waste and fraud. Per NBC News:
In practice, though, these changes are going beyond their stated aims and have made it harder for many more people in Arizona to receive food assistance, even if they should be eligible, according to policy analysts, service providers and more than two dozen people who said they believed they were wrongly cut off from the program.
The number of people receiving food stamps in the state has fallen by around 50% as of March compared to a year earlier, including about 200,000 children who have lost their benefits, according to state data. Those numbers are showing up in the lines at Arizona food banks, some of which are seeing record demand.
Lawmakers are taking away food assistance as grocery and gas prices skyrocket and as jobs are harder to come by, as I reported a month ago. Joseph Llobrera, a senior director of research at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told NBC that what’s happening in Arizona is a warning.
“We’re going to see more and more people lose access to this program at a time when need hasn’t gone down, and is probably going to go up, given, among other factors, rising energy costs and how that ripples through the economy,” Llobrera said. “We’re going to see the human cost continue to mount.”