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Uh, hello, even Fox News can tell this is a bad idea:
Nearly two dozen states are considering plans this session that would make drug testing mandatory for welfare recipients, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. And Wyoming lawmakers advanced such a proposal this week.
Driving the measures is a perception that people on public assistance are misusing the funds and that cutting off their benefits would save money for tight state budgets — even as statistics have largely proved both notions untrue.
…The issue has come up in the Republican presidential campaign, with front-runner Mitt Romney saying it’s an “excellent idea.”
Of course the millionaire thinks it’s okay to invade the privacy of people in desperate situations and treat them like criminals for being poor.
There’s a word for that: classism.
Statistics indicate that people who receive public assistance are no more likely to use drugs than the general population. Budget analysis shows that testing is so expensive, and so few people actually fail the test and get kicked off assistance, that it costs much more than it saves. Additionally, there is a trend of these laws getting ruled unconstitutional in court.
So why would Republicans still support bills that discriminate pointlessly, add cost to state budgets, and will probably get declared unconstitutional?
Because they are counting on the existence of stereotypes about the poor, and that this discrimination will win them short-term political points.
Huzzah!
Some state politicians have tried to add in drug testing for state legislators, who receive even more money from the government than recipients of public assistance. None of these measure have been adopted or seen the same kind of vigorous support as drug testing for the poor. Huh.
Alexis Alison Lancaster, 39, was approached at an RTA Red Line station and verbally harassed with antigay slurs as she excited the train on November 19. [T]he suspects… beat and kicked the victim, allegedly stealing her cell phone and leaving her bruised and unconscious.
Then Lancaster did some of her own police work, but alas:
Lancaster says she was able to track down her cell phone with the use of its GPS, but that police were not interested in following up.
And as a result of this hate crime:
Following television news coverage of the attack, Lancaster was evicted from the apartment she lived in for 13 years. The apartment is owned by the Catholic church.
Smooth move, Clevand Catholic leaders.
H/t ES
The American Life League (the same people who brought you the fetus jack-o-lantern) has produced a STUNNING video revealing troubling “facts” about Planned Parenthood. Like:
When most people think of Planned Parenthood, they think of the babies it kills through abortion.
See for yourself:
I can’t pick a favorite quote, but here are some of the golden nuggets of factual information and solid wisdom offered up by the man in lavender:
1. “Age appropriate” is a standard concocted by Planned Parenthood itself so that it can sell pornography to kids as science.
2. Just as the goal of a drug dealer is to make drug addicts, Planned Parenthood’s goal is to make sex addicts.
3. Planned Parenthood’s gateway drug is masturbation.
4. Planned Parenthood tells vulnerable teens stimulating and intimate things about sex.
5. What Planned Parenthood education booth would be complete without a fisting kit for homosexual college and teenage students?
And I simply had to catch this precious flowchart for us all to admire:
It makes you think, doesn’t it?
How do you respond to this? A white man dresses “black” and wears blackface to ask BYU students what they know about Black History Month and black people in general. Surprise, it turns out they don’t know much about black history, but they are very conversant in black stereotypes.
Phyllis Chesler wrote this meandering pile of rape apologist poo on Fox News recently: JFK and 19-year-old White House intern Mimi Alford — a truly shameful revelation
Read it yourself to understand what I mean.
Or enjoy these select quotes:
[19yo Mimi Alford] was “wife” material–but President Kennedy treated her in a shameful and inappropriate fashion.
Chesler describes Alford as a “virgin” and having attended the same prestigious school as Jacqueline Kennedy. Apparently this is what makes “wife” material. But losing her virginity to someone besides her husband has ruined her suitability for marriage, apparently. Also, “wife material“?? Why not describe her career or political aspirations as ruined, instead of her suitability for marriage? Oh, because she was a woman.
Girls and women make just such devil’s bargains [submitting to the sexual demands of men who have power over them] every day.
Is “devil’s bargain” what we’re calling rape these days?
They do not care about the humiliated or left-in-the-dark wife nor do they care about how little they really matter to the Great Man.
Where are these unsupported assumptions coming from? Chesler’s fantasy world?
In fact, it’s important to remember that neither Ms. Alford nor Ms. Lewinsky ever alleged sexual harassment or rape.
Why, exactly? Because only low-class whores “cry rape”?
But both young women were manipulated into feeling very, very “special,” even important. Neither dared say “no” to their commander-in-chief.
And this is supposed to be Ms. Chelser’s argument for why what happened *wasn’t* rape?
We know that many rock stars and athletes have come to expect free sex from their fans or are more than willing and able to pay “Ladies of the Night.” These days, both the fans and the “Ladies” have increasingly turned out to be prostitutes…
Is Chesler unaware that “Lady of the Night” is a euphemism for prostitute?
…who blackmail their Johns and who also write their memoirs.
WOW. THE WHORES! Tricking unsuspecting, innocent celebrities and politicians into sex with their feminine temptress wiles. Women should not be trusted. Why can’t powerful men use women as pliant sexual objects in peace?? It’s just not fair.
Chesler goes on to name a list of Democrats (and one Republican) known for sexual or rape scandals. I wonder what her political leanings may be.
The punchline comes at the end of the article, where we discover that Chesler is an Emerita Professor of Psychology (at the City University of New York).
On her own website, she describes herself as “a best selling and influential author, a legendary feminist leader, and a psychotherapist and expert courtroom witness.”
God help us.
A high school girls basketball coach [and math teacher] is facing a felony charge for giving a “morning-after pill” to a student who was worried that she was pregnant, according to an arrest affidavit released today.
The girl was 16, and the law is that not until you are 17 are you able to get emergency contraception over the counter. The criminal teacher’s bail was set at $15,000.
A trans woman says that when she was arrested for a minor subway violation, NYPD officers belittled her, called her names, asked about her genitals — and kept her chained to a fence for 28 hours. Now she’s suing. And it turns out she’s far from alone.
…She also says officers not only refused to call her “she,” they instead referred to her as “He-She”, “Faggot,” and “Lady GaGa,” and asked her “So you like to suck dick? Or what?” Meanwhile, people arrested for the same minor crime (misdemeanor “theft of services”) she was were calmly processed and allowed to leave.
At least the woman who experienced this treatment, Temmie Breslauer, is standing up, speaking out, and of course suing.
The Anti-Violence Project gets a shout out in the article.
H/t ES
The topic of misunderstood religions is very à propos. The “western world” continues to grapple with its fear of Islam, and American conservatives are trying to decide if the Mormon religion of top Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney counts as “Christian” in their estimation.
Due to circumstances out of my control, I interacted with Mormons and Muslims early in life, inspite of growing up in a tight-knit Catholic community. Familiarity averted fear, and access to information created at least a base level of understanding.
Later in life I moved to central Brooklyn, where I encountered adherents of religions I had never previously come in contact with: Hasidism and Rastafari.
Now these are some misunderstood religions. Non-Jewish New Yorkers have a lot of information-free ideas about Hasids: that they are all wealthy (and probably bankers or jewelers), that they are all perverts, that they are all Zionists, that they have no sense of humor or fun.
White college students have some very specific misconceptions about Rastafari that are well known. Generally speaking, I don’t encounter people who can express much knowledge of this movement/religion besides a vague association with Jamaica, weed, Reggae music, and dreadlocks.
There is soooo much more to these two religions that coexist nearly side-by-side in the truly unique cultural mix of Brooklyn. Where else in the world?
Photo by Lonnie Francisco
I had the good fortune to stumble across this extremely helpful website written by a Hasidic Jew. I highly recommend it as an introduction to Hasidism.
I haven’t yet found as good of a “101″ source for Rastafari, but I did come across the Rasta Times out of Trinidad and Rastafarian.net. I’d say for basic information for complete outsiders, just refer to the Wikipedia page, which goes quite in depth.
Annnnd here is what can happen when members of these two religions meet.
Rohan Marley and Shneur “DeScribe” Hasofer
And here’s one more article about the unique cultural combinations that can happen around here.
John Blake has something insightful to say about racially-coded language in presidential campaigns at CNN.
He discusses Reagan’s “welfare queen” myth and how subsequent presidents and president-wannabes have used language that is “colorblind” on the surface – insofar as it doesn’t explicitly refer to people by the name of their race – but yet uses commonly understood code-words for race. So politicians can still appeal to that (rather large) racist vote while still reserving plausible deniability for the not-so-racist vote.
By the 80s, it was pretty hard to be an electable candidate for major office and still be openly racist. So racists or racist-panderers had to find some sort of middle ground. And that ground was first broken by the “welfare queen” image, what Blake describes as the “lazy African-American woman who refuses to get a job and keeps having kids”.
Several Republican presidential wannabes have gone right back to tread this well-worn ground, still depending on the false but commonly-held notion that the majority of public assistance recipients are black. Both Santorum and Romney have criticized people who depend on “entitlements” or “somebody else’s money”. Of course, clearly Gingrich has taken it to the max with his “food stamp president” comment and his talk of abolishing child labor laws and putting “poor” children to work in the schools that they should rather be attending.
Other people have already analyzed this well. Check out:
Jason Eastman at Sociological Images
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite at the Washington Post
I appreciate this op-ed by Kyle Knight at the Huffington Post.
Trans people are often denied basic rights by governments around the world, including “western” or “first world” governments. Governments force trans people to carry inaccurate ID and prevent them from making sure the gender/sex marker reflects their true identity. At any point in one’s life where one must show identification, problems quickly arise.
Why government is in the business of enforcing gender categories, I don’t know, but apparently the state has a compelling interest, like fighting terrorism, or some such nonsense.
H/t KB
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