Just a meal please…

The Republican majority on the House Agriculture Committee yesterday voted to cut $300 billion from government spending to feed poor people after realizing that cuts to global food aid somehow missed the United States. More than 42 million people rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for help buying food — which is currently accepted in the remaining scientific community as an important element of not dying.

Low-income families who enjoy food on occasion will get another chance at food when the cuts go to the Budget Committee, which will then dash the hopes of low-income families and send the bill to the floor for a full vote. Politico calls the bill the “largest overhaul” of SNAP in decades, but overhauls are generally good things, which more than 42 million people would say this is not…

Republicans are spinning this as not-cuts, but as cost-sharing — how socialist! — because they’re saying states will make up the difference, which is a lie. States are required by law to balance their budgets, so they can’t just gin up the money for the GOP’s “cost-sharing.” And many won’t raise taxes or cut other spending to pay for the food Republicans are taking away.

Meanwhile in the la-la lands that are the Middle Eastern kingdoms, Saudi officials arranged for a “fully operational mobile McDonald’s unit” to accompany Dear Leader during his stay (this is real: there’s even video…) In a world where leaders seem eager to bend the knee to Trump’s every impulse, even the truly ridiculous seems plausible. The mere fact of all of this is unmooring. When strung together, the words fully operational mobile McDonald’s unit overwhelm synapses; there could be no funnier or dumber phrase to chisel out of the English language — or to personify the current regime…

h/T to Politico, the F Team and The Atlantic.