It is an article of faith by the Theocratic Right that poor people generally abuse social programs. They are drug abusers, who just want to lay around and who squander the government's largesse on booze, and $600 purses. The fascinating thing is that every time they get a chance to prove this the opposite is proved. The urine test that showed significantly lower drug usage — 2.6% — than the national average 4.7%.! Oops. Now a particularly grotesque version by the tea bagger governor, Maine's Paul LePage who in trying to prove welfare fraud is rampant has produced a study showing it is a tenth of one percent. The truth is, as study after study and nation after nation show a decent safety net is an essential component of a healthy democracy.
Governor’s Attempt To Find Massive Welfare Fraud Turns Up Next To Nothing
BRYCE COVERT – Think Progress
Beneath the political polemics a tectonic movement in the electorate is occurring, as this survey shows. Moderate Republicans are abandoning the party and calling themselves Independents. The Theocratic Right is capturing the Republican Party. Click through to see the very helpful charts.
Record-High 42% of Americans Identify as Independents
JEFFREY M. JONES – The Gallup Organization
This story is absolutely appalling. It is bad on so many levels. Many of these arrests are for marijuana possession. There is an arrest for this every 48 seconds in America, grossly disproportionately Black young men. One of the consequences of ending Marijuana Prohibition is that this will end. It will be bitterly opposed, however. Private prisons corporations, prison guard associations and unions, court systems whose budget is tied to criminal trials, prison clothing providers, small towns near prisons where the prison is the big employer, and anybody else who lives on the incarceration and warehousing of human beings en mass will resist the end of racist prohibition.
Study: Nearly 50 Percent Of Black Men Report Being Arrested By Age 23
ZOE SCHLANGER – Talking Points Memo
It is amazing to me that everyone did not see this banking issue coming. It was perfectly obvious. Banks are not going to deal with Marijuana dispensaries until it is Federally legal, or they are required to do so. The issue should have been anticipated and dealt with. Hopefully Washington State will see this, and make adjustments.
‘Absurd on Every Single Level”: How the Feds May be Crippling the Legal Pot Industry
DAVID DAYEN – Salon
