Walmart, Kroger and Big Food Love SNAP Dollars—But Won’t Lift a Finger to Save Them

While SNAP keeps grocery giants and food manufacturers afloat, they’re nowhere to be found when it’s under threat.

No peep out of Walmart or Kroger. Nada from ConAgra, Tyson Foods or Kraft Heinz. Zilch from General Mills, PepsiCo and Nestle. 

Maybe their tax breaks are worth it. Maybe they want to stay on Trump’s good side as Robert Kennedy Jr. attacks their products. Whatever the reason, their silence speaks volumes. 

What, you expected corporate solidarity with consumers and workers? You have not been paying attention. 

A Bill That Rips Away Food, Healthcare and Dignity From Millions—So Billionaires Can Get Richer

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and others can repeat the lie that no one will lose coverage, but it does not make it so. Seventeen million people will lose healthcare (including 11 million Medicaid beneficiaries). Millions will lose food assistance. The debt will grow by over $3 trillion.

It is hard to find anyone outside the MAGA cult who thinks this will benefit America. Republicans respond by lying about the bill even when confronted with the misery their handiwork will cause.

Republicans refuse to admit that they are hurting ordinary, hard-working Americans trying to provide for themselves and their families. To do otherwise would be a confession of their inhumanity. Instead, using well-worn authoritarian techniques (e.g., demonization, dehumanization and marginalization), MAGA politicians convince themselves that those who rely on vital benefits are unfit and undeserving. Republicans dub them “rats” or “vermin” or “murderers.”

If the bill passes the House, the pain in all 50 states will no longer be abstract. MAGA Republicans’ betrayal will hurt and, yes, kill tens of thousands of Americans. And everyone will know which party is responsible. Republicans have no plausible excuse for putting the interests of billionaires over those of ordinary people.

‘We Have to Break the Spell We Have Been Under About What This Country Is’: Why Aimee Allison Still Believes in a Multiracial Feminist Democracy

Aimee Allison founded She the People to empower more of us to envision an America redefined and inspired by women of color. As its president, she launches and spearheads efforts to demonstrate the political power of women as color and advance racial, economic, and gender justice.

As part of the first episode of the new Ms. Studios podcast Looking Back, Moving Forward, Allison talked to Ms. about her vision for a feminist future, rewriting the American story, and what it will take for us to build a better democracy. 

“We stand for something extremely powerful, and we have a legacy of women who came before us that are going to actually show us the way forward.”

When the Federal Government Fails, Local Organizers Step In—With Laws, Not Just Protests

We are living through the hollowing out of federal protection. And while the usual narrative goes something like, “Vote, wait, trust the system,” in many places, the people closest to the chaos have stepped up to envision and advance new laws.

In California this year, four bills moving through the legislature were not the result of think tank white papers or party strategists. They came from organizers, queer folks, women of color, survivors—people who have lived the very broken systems they are now trying to change.

A process that centers lived experience as a form of policy expertise is a cutting-edge theory of governance. And it’s replicable: Invest in community-led policy training. Bring people into the lawmaking process not as tokens but as co-authors. Demystify legislative drafting. Reimagine who gets to define what safety, dignity and justice look like.

Governors in 12 Republican-Led States Reject Federal Funding for Summer Lunches

Twelve states, all led by Republican governors, opted out of the federal SUN Bucks program this summer, which launched in 2024 and provides $120 in grocery benefits for eligible school-aged children during the months when school is out: Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

“I think something people don’t always recognize is that summer is the hungriest time of year for families,” said Rachel Sabella, director of the nonprofit No Kid Hungry New York. SUN Bucks in particular gives families more flexibility during the summer to access food, she added.

How Reshma Saujani Makes the Invisible Work of Motherhood Impossible to Ignore

Most women are taught to make motherhood look effortless. Reshma Saujani wants you to see that we were never supposed to do it alone.

In a country that still treats caregiving as a personal responsibility rather than a public good, Saujani is changing the script. Not by asking for sympathy, but by exposing the architecture of the lie—and building something better in its place.

“I come from a long line of rule-breakers,” she told me. “My parents fled a dictator. They landed in Chicago with nothing. I grew up surrounded by refugees who were just trying to make it work. That kind of survival teaches you two things: one, that struggle is constant—and two, that silence is dangerous.”

She was a rule-breaker long before she was a movement-builder—always challenging authority, always in detention. “I’ve never been good at following the script,” she said. And that’s exactly what makes her effective.

Ms. Global: Climate Change Linked to Increases in Cancer for Women, U.K. Parliament Votes to Decriminalize Later Abortions, and More

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The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to health care. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.

This week: News from Nigeria, South Australia, Canada, and more.

War on Women Report: MAGA Republicans Hope to Turn Miscarriage Into a Crime and Gut Planned Parenthood

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MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—On June 14, between 4 and 13 million people attended No Kings rallies nationwide to protest President Trump’s immigration and economic policies.
—Four states—California, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey—have petitioned the FDA to undo restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone.
—Some good news out of Montana: This month, the state supreme court struck down three abortion restrictions that Republican lawmakers passed in 2021.

… and more.

The Supreme Court’s Ruling on National Injunctions Will Hurt Us All—Immigrants First

In a 6-3 decision last Friday, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration a partial, but crucial, victory in its efforts to stop federal courts from blocking Trump’s agenda.

The vehicle for this power grab, CASA v. Trump, is a case about the legality of denying citizenship to children born to parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully or temporarily. In the majority’s ruling that nationwide injunctions were probably outside the federal judiciary’s authority, and therefore, judges should limit their orders to the parties and plaintiffs before them, it has tipped the balance of power to the president. And that is going to make many people’s lives—immigrants and nonimmigrants alike—much more difficult.