Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker kiwi_a: "What's a taste/scent that instantly gives you a feeling of warm/fuzzy nostalgia?"
Mulberries.
Phew
[Content Note: Disaster imagery.]
Republican National Committee Reince Priebus says that Republicans are going to see massive gains in the 2014 election:
"I think we're in for a tsunami election," Preibus said. "Especially at the Senate level."Well, I was actually kind of worried about the 2014 midterms, but Reince Priebus is wrong about every single thing ever, wrong like he's an apprentice at the Bill Kristol Institute for Chronic Wrongery, so now I'm feeling much more hopeful!
"I think among youth and women you're going to see the greatest growth in 2014," Priebus said. "I think it's going to be an issue that's going to cause an increase especially among women under 35." Priebus said he expected big gains among young people as well.Ha ha perfect.
"I mean Obamacare was made to screw young people over," Priebus said.
Today in Fat Hatred
[Content Note: Fat hatred; disablism.]
Via Ragen Chastain, who credits Never Diet Again UK's Angela Meadows, comes this image of a sign posted at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre during the 12th International Congress of Obesity:
"Dear Guests: In conjunction with the 12th International Congress of Obesity the escalators will not be operational from 09:30 to 16:00 hrs."
Get it? Because fatties should be taking the stairs.
Ragen writes:
I've already ranted about self-important blowhards who feel the need to suggest that fat people shouldn't have access to mobility aids. The ICO has taken things a step further and it's posturing of the worst kind. What the International Congress on Obesity has done is to convince the Kuala Lampur Convention Center to make life more difficult for people with disabilities, limited mobility, balance challenges, injuries, etc. so that the ICO can posture and preen.As I've said many times before, I am not entitled to your health, and you're not entitled to mine, and so even if someone's never using an escalator again would significantly increase someone's health, that's a choice one should be allowed to make for oneself. The end.
...When organizations pull stunts like this, the only thing at which they can possibly succeed is creating an environment that prevents people from, and shames people for, navigating the world in the way that's best for them and their situation.
Naturally, fat people with disabilities and/or temporary mobility issues can fuck right off. Because, so goes the narrative, all fat people's disabilities are caused by fat (never mind that it's often the other way around) and tough luck if you sprained your ankle or broke your toe or twisted your knee, fatty! It probably never would have happened if you weren't so fat!
Since, as we all know, those things never happen to thin people.
Except for how they do. And how neat for thin people with disabilities and/or temporary mobility issues to be redirected away from the escalators, too, in some sanctimonious display of telling fatties to take the stairs.
How terrific for us all.
And, sure, there were probably elevators somewhere else that could be used instead of stairs, but, apart from the fact that there are people who don't like using elevators (many women, for example, avoid elevators at conferences when they can for reasons), access to an elevator doesn't mitigate denial of access to an escalator under the auspices of fat-shaming.
[H/T to Shaker Aaron.]
An Annotated Index of Ross Geller (113-118)
[Content Note: Misogyny, Patriarchal Relationships, Disability]
So the thing I love best about analyzing older pieces of Very Popular Media is that the sense of distance given by a series that has finished out and closed up often makes it a lot easier to analyze and discuss without distractions over where the series is or might go from here.
For example: When I criticize Ross for falling into, say, rape culture or stalker culture or bullying culture tropes, we don't have to worry about whether the writers are "getting better" or if they're "going somewhere" with all this in a clever double-secret-deconstruction-of-the-genre sense because we all already know where all this is going and that it just gets worse and worse. Which means we can talk about the problems inherent in the work without the distractions provided by a still-ongoing series.
I bring this up to note that for this particular DVD in the series, Ross is actually much better than the previous two DVDs (as well as many of the upcoming ones), mostly because his presence in the episodes has been dialed back quite a bit, rather than because the writers figured out he was being a creepy asshole all the time (as evidenced by the fact that he will go back to being a creepy asshole soon enough). I have an unconfirmed suspicion that this might be because we've hit the point where the writers decided to make the show about all the Friends and not just Ross and Rachel. But for whatever the reason, we've been granted a small reprieve!
An Annotated Index of Ross Geller: Disc3
Episode 113: The One With the Boobies
Synopsis: Chandler accidentally sees Rachel's breasts; Joey learns that his father is having an affair.
Analysis: Ross has almost no lines in this episode (I count 13 lines for him total, which is probably a record for the series), which means that he has very little time to be creepy at us. And actually, he manages to wildly surprise my very low expectations by not being creepy and controlling and upset and obsessive about Chandler seeing Rachel's breasts. Which, considering that Ross thinks he has dibs on Rachel, was actually pretty unexpectedly refreshing.
All Ross really does in response to this event is to joke that Rachel should get to see Chandler's "pee-pee" now so that things will be even. Given that this would make Chandler and Rachel more intimately aware of each others' bodies than Ross is with her, it kinda makes me wonder who was writing Ross for this episode and why they were immediately sent off to colonize Mars or whatever. Episode 113 wins a gold star from me for being the least creepy Ross episode so far.
--
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Update
[Content Note: Airline disaster; possible injury, death, and/or terrorism.]
The mystery of what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is still unanswered. Today, there is new information from the Thai government [video may start playing automatically at link] which suggests the missing airplane "took a sharp westward turn after communication was lost." It's the second piece of radar evidence, following "information from the Malaysian Air Force that its military radar tracked the plane as it passed over the small island of Pulau Perak," that hints the plane turned toward the Strait of Malacca.
The Thai military was receiving normal flight path and communication data from the Boeing 777-200 on its planned March 8 route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing until 1:22 a.m., when it disappeared from its radar.Investigators still have no idea where the plane is now, however, and the new information means the search area has increased to an area roughly equivalent to that of the continental US.
Six minutes later, the Thai military detected an unknown signal, a Royal Thai Air Force spokesman told CNN. This unknown aircraft, possibly Flight 370, was heading the opposite direction.
Malaysia says the evidence gathered so far suggests the plane was deliberately flown off course, turning west and traveling back over the Malay Peninsula and out into the Indian Ocean.
Yesterday, the New York Times ran a piece exploring the possible reasons for the absence of mobile device communications from passengers on the missing plane.
The apparent absence of any word from the aircraft in an era of nearly ubiquitous mobile communications has prompted considerable debate among pilots, telecommunications specialists and others.And of course there's always the possibility that if was indeed the pilot who hijacked the plane, passengers may not even have realized the flight was off course.
...Some theorize the silence signifies that the plane was flying too high for personal electronic devices to be used. Others wonder whether people aboard the flight even tried to make calls or send messages.
...Investigators do not know if anyone aboard the plane even tried to make a call. Passengers would have quickly become unconscious if the plane depressurized as it soared to an unusually high altitude right after the turnaround, pilots said. Whoever diverted the plane could have disabled the release of oxygen masks.
Finally: Chris Goodfellow, a Canadian Class-1 instrumented-rated pilot for multi-engine planes, puts forth "A Startlingly Simple Theory About the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet." I have no idea whether his theory is right, but he is absolutely right about this: "There is no point speculating further until more evidence surfaces, but in the meantime it serves no purpose to malign pilots who well may have been in a struggle to save this aircraft from a fire or other serious mechanical issue."
I am practicing patience.
It's such a confounding and terrifying situation. I feel so desperately sad and anxious for the families, friends, and colleagues who await answers on passengers who seem to have vanished into thin air.
Daily Dose of Cute
Do you have a mobile device or remote control that needs sitting on? Matilda will sit on it for you, for the low, low price of head-scratches and tuna water.
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As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
"In the last few years, there has been an unfortunate trend towards blaming 'rape culture' for the extensive problem of sexual violence on campuses. While it is helpful to point out the systemic barriers to addressing the problem, it is important to not lose sight of a simple fact: Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime."—RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network, which bills itself as "The nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization," in recommendations to the White House task force charged with creating a plan to reduce rape on college campuses.
This is unbelievable.
Advocates who are invested in dismantling the rape culture (no scare quotes) don't blame the rape culture and fail to acknowledge the personal accountability of perpetrators of sexual violence.
Rape culture is the description of the context in which sex predators operate; in which their crimes are abetted and normalized; in which they are routinely absolved of harm and their actions are rationalized and they escape justice and consequences.
Rape culture defines the narratives that are used to facilitate rape by blaming victims, and by inuring us all to the violence and ubiquity of rape, and by undermining legal pursuit and conviction of predators, leaving them free to continue to prey.
Rape culture is the reason that the cost of disbelieving victims is more victims.
Yes, it is crucially important to say, again and again, that rapists are exclusively responsible for the rapes they commit, but it is absurd to think that it's "an unfortunate trend" to identify how a culture of minimizing rape abets those rapists.
The people who make the choice to commit a violent crime don't make that choice in a fucking vacuum.
It is eminently possible—and, indeed, I would argue necessary—to acknowledge both the existence and function of the rape culture, and our own roles in perpetuating it, while simultaneously holding predators individually responsible for their individual crimes.
Not to get all meta and shit, but the failure of supposed anti-rape advocates to walk and chew gum at the same time? Is rape culture.
This is not the only problem with the RAINN's recommendations to the White House task force. Please read Wagatwe Wanjuki's excellent piece "RAINN's recommendations ignore needs of campus survivors of all identities."
And it is not the only group whose influence over the task force is profoundly discouraging. Please see my piece on No More, as but another example.
[H/T to Shakesville contributor and mod Misty Clifton for the White House link.]
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed Crimea part of Russia and signed a treaty to annex the peninsula. "The Obama administration is expected to react quickly with a new round of sanctions targeting three groups: Russian government officials, the Russian arms industry and Russians who work on behalf of government officials, the latter called 'Russian government cronies' by a senior American official." In response, Putin says he'll "release a list of U.S. officials who will be sanctioned, which likely means a freeze on their assets in Russia and a prohibition on travel there." His retaliation list reportedly includes Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, "who recently co-authored a resolution criticizing Russia's invasion of Crimea," to which Durbin responded: "My Lithuanian-born mother would be proud her son made Vladimir Putin's American enemies list."
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is using this international crisis to scold President Obama in the Wall Street Journal, because of course he is. Granted, it's hardly unusual for politicians to criticize each other in the papers, but Mitt Romney doesn't need to be stomping on sour grapes to make red whine about anyone else's supposed failure of leadership when he led two presidential campaigns in a row straight into a dumpster.
[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism] "As Susan Cahill Faces a Vandalized Clinic, a Reminder of Her Contribution to Abortion Access: "Susan Cahill, along with her colleague and friend Rachel Atkins, was a pioneer in bringing APCs [advanced practice clinicians] into abortion care, and thus in expanding access to the procedure in underserved areas. Currently, according to NAF, APCs are providing medication abortion in 15 states and aspiration abortion in six. Indeed, one of the few current bright spots in the beleaguered abortion providing world, at this time of unending states restrictions—the recent passage in California of legislation allowing APCs to provide aspiration abortion (they already were permitted to perform medication abortion)—can be seen as a legacy of the revolution that Cahill, Atkins, and their allies started some 20 years ago."
[CN: Misogynoir; prosecutorial malfeasance] Color of Change is calling for the firing of Florida State Prosecutor Angela Corey, following her office's announcement that they will seek a 60-year sentence instead of the original 20 years for Marissa Alexander, in addition to her failure to secure murder convictions for George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin, and Michael Dunn, who killed Jordan Davis. Sign the petition here.
[CN: Survivor exploitation] Diane Whitmire, Shafiqah A. Hudson, and Amanda Levitt have started a petition demanding "a retraction, written apology, and creation of social media ethics by the journalists who exploited Steenfox."
[CN: Bullying; gender essentialism; victim-blaming] A nine-year-old boy in North Carolina was violently bullied for his My Little Pony lunch bag, so his school responded by telling him to leave the bag at home, as it had "created a disruption in the classroom." Not the bullies, who harassed and assaulted their male classmate for liking something "girly," but the bag. Rage. Seethe. Boil.
Andrei Linde, who is "one of the main authors of inflation theory—the idea that the universe expanded incredibly rapidly just after it was born in the big bang," got a neat surprise yesterday when Stanford physics professor Chao-Lin Kuo showed up at his door to personally deliver the news that the theorized gravitational waves have been detected.
Amazon's planned game console is likely to be a dongle rather than a box. (Resist the jokes. RESIST THE JOKES.) That is, it's likely to be a plug-in piece like the Chromecast rather than a brick like the AppleTV. Streaming games, then. Which is less future now than present. Too bad we don't have the internet infrastructure to support this future-present.
In other gaming news, Wal-Mart "plans to let video game owners trade in used video games online and in Wal-Mart stores for store credit but not cash. The credit can be used in both Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores. Previously they offered trade-ins on a more limited basis online. It will also offer refurbished used games in its stores for the first time." Well, why would they let GameStop stay in business? Fuck every other company ever etc.
Republicans Think People Aren't Entitled to Food
[Content Note: Food insecurity.]
Back in January, I posted an item about the reduction in federal funding for food stamps putting an incredible strain on food banks in the US. Since then, two million unemployed people have lost their unemployment benefits, increasing the number of people experiencing food insecurity and straining food banks even further.
The "recovery" from the Great Recession hasn't trickled-down to the hoi polloi yet, because it's never going to. Still, the 1% is doing pretty great after this massive redistribution of wealth upwards, and conservatives tell us that we don't need government funded and managed social programs because charity will fill the gaps, so everything should be terrific, right?
Of course not. Because that is a conservative fantasy used to justify gutting the social safety net. All that has happened in that more poor people are putting a greater demand on limited resources, while the wealthy shout at them about fucking bootstraps.
Because Republicans think people aren't entitled to food.
In New York City, one of the wealthiest cities in the world, 1.4 million people "now rely on a patchwork network of 1,000 food pantries and soup kitchens across the city to eat. That represents an increase of 200,000 people in five years—straining the charities that are trying to help."
"It's an astounding surge in need, and it's because it is so hard for people to find jobs, or find a decent-paying job. They are turning to us for emergency help," said Msgr. Kevin Sullivan, 63, executive director of 90 free food outlets run by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York.What happened in November to cause such a steep spike in need? Food stamp benefits were cut by $5 billion. It was the biggest cut to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in its 50-year history, even as more people in the US than ever before have become reliant on them.
"So many people, too many people, don't have enough money to pay for rent and also eat."
...From soup kitchens in the Bronx, to mobile food markets on Staten Island and in Brooklyn, to pantries in Queens, the story is the same: lines stretching longer and longer, people arriving earlier and earlier, even in the depths of winter.
"Our Lady of Grace, in the northeast Bronx, saw the number of new households double in November—a 100% increase," said Paul Costiglio, spokesman for Catholic Charities. "Across the board, our programs are reporting a continued increase in the number of working people, unemployed and families."
Food pantry and soup kitchen operators said the impact was swift and dramatic: Although the economy had rebounded since the financial crisis, those at the bottom of the ladder had not fully shared in the recovery.The situation in which we live is this: We have a major political party who tells fairy tales about charitable giving being more effective than government; we have a broken government that indulges these fairy tales; we have an increasingly wealthy ruling elite who is actually the least likely demographic to engage in proportionally generous giving, because they are largely deeply invested in narratives of personal success without help and are largely experiencing class insecurity about losing their wealth despite the fact their wealth continues to increase; we have charities that are struggling to keep up with the demand that the annihilation of New Deal has created; we have millions of people in the wealthiest nation in the history of the planet who are struggling to get access to food; and instead of dealing with all of this honestly, we tell national lies about bootstraps and (allegedly) livable wages and earning what you deserve and the "American Dream."
...Nearly every emergency food program in the city has struggled in the wake of the November cut in food stamps.
"Eighty-five percent reported a drastic increase (in clients) in November 2013 compared to November 2012—and remember we'd already set records that month because of Hurricane Sandy," said Margarette Purvis, president of the Food Bank for New York City.
Nearly 50% of pantries and soup kitchens ran out of food in November, and an additional 25% had to move to smaller rations, said Purvis.
And, so that people can feel better about not giving a shit about food insecurity and the people who experience it, we make up stories about the type of people who need food assistance.
"Contrary to popular belief, the homeless are the smallest population we serve. The No. 1 group is women over the age of 50—it's Grandma who has to go to the soup kitchen to eat," said Purvis.And contrary to even more popular belief, it's not a bunch of moochers and takers, looking for an easy scam.
Veterans, children and working families aren't far behind.
"Would you wait two hours in the freezing cold or stand in a long line just for a little bit of food if you didn't absolutely have to?" one pantry volunteer scoffed, when asked about vetting.So much for that whole "lazy" line of bullshit, too.
The truth is this: Republicans think people aren't entitled to food. And they tell themselves, and their rich donors, and their cruel base, and anyone else who will listen, an intricate web of lies about the people who need food, in order to salve whatever shreds of consciences they may yet have, and in order to obfuscate from this truth, which I will repeat again and again until it is no longer true: Republicans think people aren't entitled to food.
Question of the Day
What is your favorite movie genre? If you have a couple of hours to watch any film you want, what's the genre you tend to watch the most? Sci-fi? Rom-com? Action? Adventure? Documentary? Etc.
"I don't have a favorite genre" and "I don't watch movies" are perfectly acceptable answers, of course.
All Right Then
Reboot! Reboot it all! Reboot everything! Rebooooooooooooot:
Matthew Perry is rebooting The Odd Couple for CBS, and now his Oscar has a Felix: Thomas Lennon has been cast as the neat one in the pair, according to Variety. Lennon was on the recently canceled Sean Saves the World, but to true believers, he'll always be Lieutenant Dangle from Reno 911. A straight-forward remake of The Odd Couple seems, oh, odd, given how many shows are already basically The Odd Couple, but sure, let's give it a go. Familiar name, familiar setup, familiar stars — now all it has to do is be funny.It takes a special sort of not giving a fuck to reboot The Odd Couple in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and fourteen and cast two cishet white guys.
I mean, today's technology means I can practically have the old movie (with cishet white guys Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau) or the old teevee episodes (with cishet white guys Tony Randall and Jack Klugman) beamed directly into my head. Why do I need this remake?
Answer: I don't.
An Observation
I find it really amusing every time someone publicly expresses amazement at their discovery that a hardcore (or militant or radical or strident or passionate or whatever euphemism, or slur) woman is nice in person.
Imagining that "unyielding" and "nice" are mutually exclusive categories is part of the reason that women are unyielding in the first place.
The Walking Thread
[Content Note: Descriptions of violence. Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.]
Welp.
Y'all, I hope you are sitting down for this incredibly shocking news, but SOMETHING HAPPENED THIS EPISODE. I will give you a moment to quickly make your way to the nearest fainting couch.
Granted, everything that happened was terrible, but it was definitely terrible in a different way than watching Grimes slowly sweat through his clothes for three hours is terrible, so that's something!
Continuing with the theme of spending dedicated episodes with splintered survivor groups of the Grimes Gang Diaspora, we're catching up with Carol, Tyreese, Lizzy, Mika, and Baby Zombie Whistle Grimes this week, and all of us are definitely wondering what will happen when Carol tells him she killed Karen and Rick from Accounting, because there's no way she's NOT gonna tell him, since this show is still being written by dipshits who imagine they're writing a totally trenchant masterpiece on human behavior, despite seemingly having never observed any.
Team Carol-Tyreese walks along the railroad tracks (more railroad tracks!) (so many railroad tracks!) (Atlas Shrugged: The Shruggening on Blu-Ray really missed a great advertising opportunity this season) and
They all find a magical cabin in a meadow, where a bunch of animated birds help them make dresses for the big ball. Ha ha just kidding. There's a zombie in the cabin, and Mika has to kill it, and Lizzie gets upset, because, as we all suspected, she was the ones feeding rats to the zombies at Grimes Jail, out of some mistaken belief that the zombies only want to play with humans and not murder the fuck out of them. Whooooops!
The major theme of this episode is how you gotta be tough and kill zombies to save your ass. Mika is tough, but not tough enough, says Carol. Lizzie is anti-tough, and wants to literally scamper with zombies in the meadow. There is a lot of awkward, poorly written, stiltedly delivered dialogue on this theme, and set pieces involving a deer that Mika doesn't want to kill (even though she realizes she has to kill zombies) and a mouse that Lizzie feeds to zombie trapped on the railroad tracks, literally marking the place where Team Carol-Tyreese diverged from their path to Terminus. SYMBOLISM!
It's clear that Lizzie's got broken clockwork toys playing minor key carnival music in her brainpan, but everyone decides they're gonna stay at the cabin and live happily ever after. Terrific.
The next day (or possibly a month later), Carol and Tyreese go to collect some water from the well, and, upon their return, discover a blood-covered Lizzie holding a knife, having just killed her little sister Mika. "Don't worry, she'll come back!" Lizzie assures them. "I didn't hurt her brain." OH GOOD! THAT'S OKAY THEN!
Lizzie explains she had to kill Mika to show Carol and Tyreese that the walkers are nice, or something. This, despite having just survived being chased by charred zombies and barely managing to escape. It's obvious that reality is not penetrating Lizzie's melon, which makes her a danger to other humans. So Tyreese takes Baby Zombie Whistle Grimes into the house while Carol tells Lizzie to look at the flowers and then shoots her in the head.
Of Mice and BRAAAAAAAIIIIIIIINS!!! has always been my favorite Steinbeck novel.
That night, Carol and Tyreese sit at a table not doing a jigsaw puzzle together, and they are so sad. Carol pushes a revolver across the table toward Tyreese and tells him that she killed Karen and Rick from Accounting, and he should do whatever he needs to do. He grips the gun, then lets it go, then tells her he forgives her, even though he'll never forget.
The next morning, they leave the cabin with baby in tow, and make for Terminus.
Daily Dose of Cute
Just a totally normal way of eating your breakfast.
Sometimes if one of Dudley's feet is bothering him, which is not unusual since he tears around the yard at 45mph and ends up cutting his feet and twisting his ankles and things, he wants me to hold his bowl while he eats his breakfast. And sometimes he doesn't bother to get all the way off the couch first. Because Dudley.
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As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by sesame seeds.
Recommended Reading:
Sikivu: [Content Note: Racism] Brother's Keepers & #WhiteMenMarching
Suzanne: [CN: Hostility to agency; rape culture] Peruvian "Let Her Decide" Abortion Campaign Takes Next Step
Prison Culture: [CN: Prison system; abuse] Louder Than a Bomb 2014: Chicago Youth Have Their Say
Angry Asian Man: [CN: Racism; xenophobia] More Than Half of Sikh School Children Are Bullied
Digby: [CN: Climate change] Heads in the Sand
Daniel: [CN: Homophobia] Arkansas High School Refuses to Run Openly Gay Student's Yearbook Profile
Fannie: [CN: Embedded commentary on racism and homophobia] Whites Riot on Chicago's North Side
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Republicans Think People Aren't Entitled to Food
[Content Note: Class warfare; disablism; racism.]
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is the US federal assistance program that provides financial support to poor families with children. There are all kinds of problems with this program, in terms of how it's implemented, and now Mississippi has created an additional barrier to access by passing legislation, soon to head to the Republican governor's desk, that "will require applicants...to answer a questionnaire evaluating their likelihood of substance abuse. If they are deemed to be at risk, they will have to take a drug test, and a positive test result will require them to undergo treatment for substance abuse. A second positive test will keep them out of the program for 90 days, while a third will kick them out for up to a year."
These sorts of programs have been tested in other states, where Republican legislatures and governors crowed about the potential savings to taxpayers, which is of course more important to them than the children of addicts having food in their bellies. And even if cost were a legitimate priority over decency, they don't deliver, anyway:
Utah spent about the same amount on a very similar testing regime and only found 12 people who tested positive for drug use. Just 2 percent of Florida’s welfare recipients failed drug tests in 2011, compared to 8 percent of the population generally who uses illegal drugs, and while Gov. Rick Scott (R) promised it would bring savings, those will be negligible after costs.During the last election, Republican nominee Mitt Romney said he thought mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients was "an excellent idea."
Minnesota has just started drug testing welfare recipients, despite the fact that just 0.4 percent of participants in the main cash assistance program have felony drug convictions, compared to 1.2 percent of the state’s general population. Local officials are warning the new requirement will be a waste of money.
Virginia lawmakers balked altogether at a proposal when they realized it would cost $1.5 million while saving just $229,000. North Carolina’s state legislature overrode the Republican governor’s veto to pass a drug testing requirement, but the governor has still said he’ll fight it.
Besides big administrative costs, these laws can also bring hefty court fees. A federal judge invalidated Florida’s law earlier this year after many other decisions similarly finding it to be unconstitutional, and others have also been struck down by the courts.
It is not an excellent idea.
It does not save money, and it is not effective. As I said when Florida was first considering this nonsense: "Shaming is not an incentive. It's a disincentive, and it's a totally ineffective one, at that."
This shit is disablist; it is an invasion of privacy; it is classist; and it is implicitly racist—especially in a state in which 48% of black children and 36% of Latin@ children live in poverty (versus 16% of white children).
It is absolutely indefensible. It doesn't even make any sense, except within the context of modern Republican policy, which consistently seeks to punish the people who need a social safety net the most.
