Federal Judge Says No To Trump Administration’s Cruelty, This Time, At Least

The judicial and legislative branches have had a tough time reining in Trump, and certainly that’s partially because he has been so effective in stacking the courts and terrorizing the Republican-led Senate. Yet every once in a while, someone stands up and blocks something he desperately wanted to do.

In this case, that something is denying supplemental nutrition from 700,000 people who are out of work due to the pandemic. What good is impoverishment if you can’t inflict hunger on top of it?

From this:

A federal judge on Sunday formally struck down a Trump administration attempt to end food stamp benefits for nearly 700,000 unemployed people, blocking as “arbitrary and capricious” the first of three such planned measures to restrict the federal food safety net.

In a scathing 67-page opinion, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell of D.C. condemned the Agriculture Department for failing to justify or even address the impact of the sweeping change on states, saying its shortcomings had been placed in stark relief amid the coronavirus pandemic, during which unemployment has quadrupled and rosters of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program have grown by more than 17 percent, with more than 6 million new enrollees.

Causing people misery is passion for Trump, but apparently he can’t make all the working poor suffer all the time.