The Dictatorship

Grocery stores are anxious for customers to get SNAP benefits restored

Published

7 months ago

November 13, 2025

Grocery stores are anxious for customers to get SNAP benefits restored

A little more than a year ago, Ryan Sprankle welcomed President Donald Trump to one of the three grocery stores his family owns near Pittsburgh. Trump was on the campaign trail; they talked about high grocery prices, and the Republican nominee picked up a bag of popcorn.

But these days, Sprankle would have a different message if Trump or any lawmakers visited his store. He wants them to know that delayed SNAP benefits during the government shutdown hurt his customers and his small, independent chain.

“You can’t take away from the most needy people in the country. It’s inhumane,” Sprankle said. “It’s a lack of empathy and it’s on all their hands.”

The Trump administration froze funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program at the end of October, impacting food access for some 42 million Americans. On Monday, the U.S. Senate passed legislation that would reopen the federal government and replenish SNAP funds. The U.S. House is scheduled to vote on that bill Wednesday evening. But it’s unclear when SNAP payments might resume if the government reopens.

In 2024, SNAP recipients redeemed a little more than $96 billion in benefits, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program. The majority – 74% — was spent at superstores and supermarkets, a category that includes big chains like Walmart and Kroger but also some independent stores like Sprankle’s.

Around 14% was spent at smaller grocery and convenience stores, businesses often tucked into neighborhoods and more easily accessible to SNAP beneficiaries.

A stalled economic engine

Etharin Cousin, a former director of the United Nations World Food Program and founder of the nonprofit Food Systems for the Future, said the cutoff of SNAP benefits had immediate impacts on grocers and convenience stores of all sizes, most of which operate on slim profit margins of 1% to 2%.

“SNAP isn’t just a social safety net for families. It’s also a local economic engine,” Cousin said. “SNAP benefits flow directly into neighborhoods, stores, regional distributors and community jobs.”

Walmart declined to comment on the impact of the SNAP funding lapse but noted that it has been lowering prices and donating to local food banks. Kroger also declined to comment.

Shoppers not receiving their food benefits affects all retailers but becomes “a big problem more quickly” at small chains, Sprankle said. His Kittanning, Pennsylvania, store gets 25% of its revenue from SNAP, but customers who don’t get government assistance also are worried about the shutdown, according to Sprankle. They’re spending less, trading down to cheaper goods or heading to food bankshe said.

Sprankle said lower sales cut into the overtime he can offer to the chain’s 140 employees. Many are worried about losing their jobs, he said.

“They have families to feed, they have kids to buy gifts for,” he said. “If I have to sell my truck, we’re going to give Christmas bonuses.”

Liz Abunaw, the owner and operator of Forty Acres Fresh Market in Chicago, recently saw a customer putting back a full cart of groceries because she couldn’t afford them without SNAP.

Abunaw opened the supermarket in September after years spent selling produce at pop-up markets and in delivery boxes. Only about 12% of Abunaw’s revenue comes from SNAP benefits right now, she said. But without it — or if SNAP recipients spend less money in her store — it will slow Forty Acres’ growth and make it harder to pay the workers, suppliers and farmers who depend on her, she said.

“SNAP is currency. I get money I then use in this economy. It’s not a food box,” Abunaw said. “The economic impact of SNAP is larger than the dollars spent.”

From neighborhood shops to food pantries

The suspended food aid also had an immediate impact on Kanbe’s Markets, a nonprofit that stocks produce in coolers at 110 convenience stores around Kansas City, Missouri. Kanbe’s distributes a mixture of donated food and food purchased from wholesalers to keep prices low, founder and CEO Maxfield Kaniger said.

Kanbe’s also distributes free food to 50 food pantries and soup kitchens around the city.

Kaniger said some of the convenience stores he works with saw their sales drop 10% in the days after Nov. 1, when SNAP benefits weren’t paid. At the same time, the food pantries he supplies asked for double or triple their usual orders.

Because it’s giving away more food than usual, Kanbe’s has to spend more buying produce for the coolers it stocks. It’s frustrating for Kaniger, who must make decisions quickly before food spoils.

“It should be enough that people are going without food. Period, end of sentence. People going without food is wrong,” he said.

Babir Sultan sells berries, lemons, potatoes, bananas and other produce from Kanbe’s at his four FavTrip convenience stores in the Kansas City area. His stores are in food deserts, far from other groceries or big retailers, he said, so it’s important to him to stock fresh produce for those neighborhoods.

Sultan said foot traffic at his stores fell 8% to 10% in early November after SNAP funding ceased. He decided to offer $10 of free produce to SNAP beneficiaries but said he’s also happy to help out other customers who might be struggling right now.

“If you’re in need, just ask, we’ll take care of you,” Sultan said. “Everybody is affected whenever the customer is feeling the pinch.”

___

Durbin reported from Detroit. Associated Press data journalist Kasturi Pananjady in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

The Dictatorship

California voters to decide billionaire tax measure in November

Published

3 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

California voters to decide billionaire tax measure in November

Jun. 25, 2026, 10:25 PM EDT

California voters will consider a controversial proposal in November to temporarily raise taxes on billionaires after the labor union backing the measure announced Thursday it would forge ahead despite pressure from critics to withdraw it.

The proposal, backed by the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time 5% tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $1 billion and who were living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026. The goal is to generate $100 billion in revenue, mainly to fund the state’s Medicaid system after federal cuts.

“I am all in on this,” union President Dave Regan said on a Zoom call, adding that opponents of the proposal are “totally out of touch.”

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and many traditional allies of the union oppose the measure. They argue it is a temporary fix for an ongoing problem and that it would push the ultrawealthy to leave the state, taking the money they would contribute in income taxes with them. Newsom, who is considering a presidential run as he prepares to leave office in January, has generally opposed tax increases during his time as governor.

A coalition of healthcare, education and housing groups — including the California Medical Association and California School Boards Association — banded together last week to fight the tax.

“The dangerous wealth tax directly threatens vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects by making California’s revenue even more volatile,” the coalition said in a statement.

Brian Brokaw, a Newsom political adviser who is leading a political committee opposing the tax, said it would “make California’s biggest challenges worse.”

“Driving away the state’s sustainable tax base for a one-time grab is bad policy and an even worse deal for 40 million Californians who will be left holding the bag,” he said in a statement.

Under the proposal, the state would spend the money generated from the tax over multiple years. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that the proposal would generate tens of billions of dollars in the first few years, but that income tax revenues would subsequently decline by hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Many of the Silicon Valley tech moguls who oppose the measure have already moved their assets to other states or threatened to do so to avoid the possible tax. They have also spent millions to try to defeat it.

Since the proposal was announced in October, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has donated $82 million to a political committee called Building a Better California that backs a variety of initiatives designed to blunt the billionaire tax proposal. It has raised more than $118 million, counting Brin’s contributions, from fewer than a dozen donors.

California relies on its top 1% of earnersfor nearly half of its personal income tax revenue.

The union offered to scale back its proposal last week, asking Newsom to back a 2% tax on billionaires instead. But the governor’s office said the lower rate didn’t change his stance.

The proposed tax may have piqued the interest of many Democrats because it comes at a time when they are particularly concerned about affordability, income inequality and federal cutbacks to government programs, said Martin Gilens, a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“There’s kind of a perfect storm that sort of bolsters preexisting inclinations to be sympathetic to the idea of raising taxes on the well-to-do,” he said.

But there’s a catch. Support for ballot initiatives often declines as the election nears, and if the measure passes, it’s likely to face legal challenges, Gilens said.

The Dictatorship

Flattery, secrecy and chaos: Bill Pulte’s first week as intel chief

Published

3 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Flattery, secrecy and chaos: Bill Pulte’s first week as intel chief

Jun. 25, 2026, 7:15 PM EDT

Since taking office one week ago, Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, has busied himself on social media posting flattering photos of President Donald Trump, trivia about a former counterintelligence agent and praising his current staff.

What the Trump loyalist with no intelligence experience has not done is address the public about his plans, or calm the unease and confusion inside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is being described by top officials as “chaotic” amid firings of senior personnel with threats of more to come.

One image posted to the official X account of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, apparently artificial intelligence-generated, features Trump raising a clenched fist in the air with two B-2 stealth bombers in the sky behind him. Another is an image of the president, his fist clenched, glowering as he stands behind the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk.

In another post, Pulte, who was expected to gut the workforce of the National Counterterrorism Center, instead declared the staff there “true professionals and American patriots” after he said he spent time with them, adding “it is a privilege to work beside them.”

And in an apparent attempt at levity, Pulte reposted a message reminding Americans that Tuesday was “National Typewriter Day” and informing them of the role that a former Army counterintelligence agent played.

“Fun CI fact,” the post reads. “Former Army CI Special Agent Leroy Anderson composed ‘The Typewriter’ on October 9, 1950.”

But Pulte’s arrival has sparked anxiety and fear among the office’s workforce, three former U.S. intelligence officials told MS NOW, granted anonymity to address a sensitive topic.

They said that a half dozen political appointees were removed from their posts and several dozen staffers were sent back to their home intelligence agencies. Beyond that, little else is known about Pulte’s plans.

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MS NOW that his requests for more information from the office, known by the acronym ODNI, have been rebuffed.

“I’ve been calling over there all day and can’t get my calls returned,” said Himes.

He later said, “I spoke directly to their office of congressional affairs. They said they had nothing for me.”

“It seems like it’s totally chaotic at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on a podcast Wednesday. “There was word that there was going to be firings and then he said he changed his mind. We don’t know.”

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA official and now an MS NOW contributor, said that staff in the intelligence community do not know what to think.

“Everyone is in the same boat and unsure of what is going on,” he said. “That said, there is no love lost for the DNI, as many believe that there is redundancy that does need to be cut.”

The other former U.S. intelligence officials said they agree that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in need of reform. The agency was created after a lack of information sharing among U.S. intelligence agencies played a role in the failure to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ODNI’s mission is to ensure that the country’s now 18 different intelligence agencies share information with one another.

But the former intelligence officials said Pulte is patently unqualified to design or carry out those reforms.

“As with many things Trump alights upon, there is a sliver of truth here but he goes about addressing it in the worst possible way,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW, granted anonymity over concerns of retaliation. “But mass firings without any kind of sense of what you are trying to accomplish is addressing it in the most ham-handed way.”

That former official, as well as Warner and Himes, have said they fear that Pulte’s mission is to use his position as the nation’s top intelligence official to help Trump interfere in the midterm elections in November.

Pulte, who simultaneously serves as the Trump administration’s top federal housing official as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, used government mortgage information to file several criminal referrals against Democrats whom Trump considered enemies, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York State Attorney General Letitia James. None of Pulte’s referrals have resulted in criminal convictions.

One fear expressed by Warner and some former intelligence officials is that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates.

One way he could do that, they say, is by falsely claiming foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats. And Pulte and FBI agents could seize voting machines, ballots and election records in November — as Gabbard did in Fulton County, Georgia, last year at Trump’s behest — as part of voter fraud investigations that please the president.

“I have to tell you, I was extraordinarily concerned about the former director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, interfering in our election,” Warner told NPR earlier this month. “The concerns I had with Tulsi Gabbard now, upon reflection, look small versus the concerns I have with Bill Pulte.”

David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.

The Dictatorship

Barack Obama says Trump gives him a ‘room in his head’

Published

3 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Barack Obama says Trump gives him a ‘room in his head’

Jun. 25, 2026, 5:37 PM EDT

Former President Barack Obama slammed President Donald Trump for obsessing over him while serving in the nation’s highest office.

“I obviously, you know, have a room in his head. A suite in his head,” Obama said an an episode of the podcast “All The Smoke,” posted Wednesday.

“Look, first of all, when I was president, the last thing I had time to do was worry about what somebody said, or what my predecessor did,” Obama told the two hosts, former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. “They’re gone. I’ve got work to do.”

Trump has a long history of publicly insulting the former president, often invoking Obama’s middle name, Hussein.

Trump has also heavily promoted the false and racist “birther” conspiracy theory, which claimed that Obama was ineligible to serve as president because he was born in Kenya rather than the United States.

Earlier this year, Trump drew criticism after sharing a racist artificial intelligence-generated video on his Truth Social account depicting the former president and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. The video was later deleted, and Trump did not apologize.

Before launching the war against Iran with Israel on Feb. 28, Trump repeatedly criticized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 diplomatic agreement primarily negotiated by Obama that also limited Iran’s nuclear capabilities in exchange for sweeping economic sanctions relief.

More recently, Trump trashed the newly debuted Obama Presidential Center in Chicago as a “very unattractive building” and “total disaster,” adding that when his presidential library opens, it will be “on time, on budget, best location in Miami.”

Without mentioning Trump by name, Obama criticized leaders who fixate on their predecessors, characterizing their priorities as misplaced.

“If you’re doing the job right, everyday, you’ve got five, ten things that are real hard. And you have to be constantly focused,” Obama said.

“The idea that I’d be worrying about somebody who came before and me trying to measure, ‘What’s he done today?’ Constantly worrying about that is a strange thing to me. It shows me somebody who’s not focused on the American people and the job they’re supposed to do.”

Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.