Oh, Snap!

I'm neither a bleeding heart nor socialist bozo. I flunked moral literacy in both classroom and practicum, and I am lexicon-challenged. 

But I know that having one's back against a wall by being denied access to food constitutes an emergency, and after a certain point, desperation may drive criminal enterprise just to keep body and soul together.

But according to the Trump administration, exerting political leverage and vexed by pleas to release Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds during the government shutdown, feeling famished, though not quite starving, may qualify as a plight, but not as an emergency. 

That middle state of hunger is due solely to court decisions mandating at least partial SNAP payments. The feds argued that opening the spigot of subsistence would require diversion of assets from a special account held in abeyance for a true case of need, such as a November tsunami in Kansas.

No doubt there are able-bodied people who prefer not to work and instead choose the more lucrative exploits of parasitism. Like lampreys slurping the taxpayers' blood, they do so in order to underwrite their Dodge Chargers. 

But having done little to chasten them thus far, this is not the time to start, especially since policymakers persist in perhaps willfully confusing them with the preponderance of SNAP recipients who have, without pause, pursued with good faith and seized every legitimate opportunity to "better themselves" within the system.

Would national character be weakened by institutional empathy or fortified by resuscitated debtors' prisons?

Americans owe approximately $220 billion in medical debt. Around 100 million are in the hole because of consortiums of health-service racketeers. 

Will there be a parade to celebrate the collectors' confiscations? A ballroom named after nouveau indigent martyrs?

According to the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, "millions of Americans are avoiding medical care, putting off needed surgeries, and skipping essential treatments.” We are an outlier among wealthy nations because despite a lifetime of frugality, a single stroke of bad luck can render it meaningless. 

No matter how fastidiously we plan, or ardently we pray, the specter of an illness or freak accident tyrannizes our psyches and nullifies peace of mind.

Around 15 states, mostly run by Democrats, have passed laws to protect consumers from the ruination of their credit reports due to financial catastrophe from a flash flood of insurmountable medical bills. Without such mercy, many people would be disqualified for home or car loans and be booted from participation in the "pursuit of happiness" fantasy that is the bedrock of our constitutional folklore.

The plutocrats instruct us to live within our means, and if our budgets can't afford a glioblastoma just to resolve not to get one. Is a little self-control too much of a government to ask of its minions?

Russell (the Nought) Vought, the White House budget director, insists that only the government, not the states, has the authority to exclude medical bill liabilities from credit reports, as per the Fair Credit Reporting Act. President Trump has called him "the grim reaper," a term of endearment that befits a henchman who vows to collapse the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which is charged with "enforcing federal laws, supervising financial institutions, and making financial markets more transparent and fairer.” 

The CFPB was created as a watchdog agency in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. It was attacked by bankers which convinced a federal judge to choke the life out of it. That's how Equifax, Experian and TransUnion got their jollies and perverse validation.

The Consumer Data Industry Association, the credit agencies' gladiator, shares the government's pro-industry espousal that medical debts be included on credit reports. With predictable, deliberate thoughtlessness, there is no moratorium or other accommodation during the government shutdown, when people are forced to work for no pay.

For each day they delinquently keep the government shut, legislators should be docked a month's pension. And after a week, they should irreversibly forfeit their FLP (Filthy Lucre Privilege) of insider trading, a godsend of crooked dice that's forbidden us peons of the Republic.

Imminently, health care premiums under the Affordable Care Act will skyrocket, unless the government compromises on its obstinate refusal to restore subsidies. We may witness the maudlin spectacle of a mass pivoting from supermarkets to pawn shops. 

That will put a dent in subscribership to the "American exceptionalism" myth. It won't ignite revolutionary resistance, but it may stoke the fires of cynicism and give aid and comfort to prospective anarchists who slog away at their daily grind.

"City on a Hill" is how John Winthrop, a 17th century governor of Massachusetts, envisaged America's destiny as a beacon among nations. Theoretical dreams spawn pristine images. 

For its conception to cross the placenta into reality, free speech and other canons of law, but be non-partisan and equal without contradictory standards.

A few years ago, Apple refused the government's "backdoor" directive to unlock the encrypted iPhone of a triple murder suspect whose crimes at the Pensacola Naval Air Station were feared to be part of an active terrorist conspiracy. 

On the pretext and cover of protecting civil liberty and corporate integrity, Apple stood their ground and nurtured their goal of locking in customer loyalty. “We have always maintained there is no such thing as a backdoor just for the good guys," the company preached. "Backdoors can also be exploited by those who threaten our national security and the data security of our customers.”

Be wary of who umpires the contest between individual entitlement to privacy, and the government's duty to surveillance.

While investigating a 2015 attack that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, the FBI found a government-issued phone belonging to a deceased shooter, who had programmed it with a security feature that deleted all its data after the FBI's 10th unsuccessful password attempt. The Agency convinced a U.S. magistrate judge to issue a court order pursuant to the All-Writs Act of 1789. 

Apple's CEO complied, warning us all that "You are leaving digital footprints everywhere.” 

In a poll of around 1,000 Americans, there was an almost even split between supporters of Apple's and the government's positions. A former director of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency suggested "this may be a case where we've got to give up some things in law enforcement and even counterterrorism."

Is there an insinuation of partisanship in an unrelated, current case, referred to as the Arctic Frost probe, of the government's questionable interest in accessing phone records? 

The chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, James Boasberg, granted the request of former U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith to subpoena those of 10 US senators and one member of the House of Representatives, all Republicans, and to prohibit the companies from informing the lawmakers of the action. 

Republicans deem it a "fishing expedition" and "witch hunt" by hooligan Democrat activists. Verizon complied, but AT&T did not. 

Are these cases of toxic politics or the rule of law?