Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
Boy the midterm elections held yesterday was a kick in the gut for Democrats. The party failed to get their voters to the polls. Running away from your accomplishments will do that. So why did they run away? It was combination of corporate money, a biased media, and organizational incompetence. I’m sure glad I am not a Democrat but it pisses me off they blew this election.
As one comedian put it:
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted aired his first campaign ad this week. The ad hypes a program that treats members of the military better than average Ohio citizens by bending over backwards so they can vote. The program is one reason Husted keeps loosing in Federal court as he keeps trying to obstruct voting for non-military Ohioans and especially African-Americans.
U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven ruled on Tuesday that Florida’s law that required welfare recipients to have drug tests before getting benefits violated the 4th amendment against unreasonable search and seizure. The state failed to show that poor people are more likely to use drugs or that testing poor people should be squeezed into the limits allowed by the US Supreme Court.
The judge’s ruling pretty much followed my line of argument on this topic in a previous post:
Friends of mine who are somewhat liberal ask me, Why can’t we drug test welfare recipients? I got tested for my job. It’s true, many people are tested for drug use before being employed. Even the government tests their employees. That still doesn’t make testing welfare recipients constitutional. If the Fourth Amendment means anything it means the government has to have probable cause to test you for drugs. Having a bias toward poor people, thinking they must all be dirty and on drugs isn’t probable cause and it also doesn’t match with the actual evidence of drug use by people on public assistance.
Republicans in Congress HATE the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). They have tried to repeal it 40 times while not even considering a needed jobs bill. They would rather put the 1% ahead of those who need help with the cost of basic health care. Now some of the rogue GOP members want to hold all us hostage by causing a government shut down this fall. They demand that Obamacare be defunded or else. They are under the delusion that jazzing up their small block of bigoted selfish voters will bring them overall victory in 2014 and 2016. Going for a shutdown will in fact bring a strong victory for Democrats.