Stephan: Here is a story providing a negative proof of the Theorem of Wellbeing. Democrats are often confused and inept, but Republicans simply can't govern, if by govern one means creating a society that fosters wellbeing.
Credit: Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post
An often overlooked provision in the 1996 welfare reform act barred felons with drug convictions from obtaining welfare — including participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) — unless states actively waived those restrictions.
Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, who was responsible for adding this provision to the bill, argued at the time that he was merely “asking a higher standard of behavior of people on welfare.”
But Cynthia Godsoe, writing in the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal two years after the law’s passage, objected: “This comment reflects the opinion that people are completely morally responsible for using and selling drugs, rather than influenced by addiction, poverty, and other health-related and social factors.” She then added, “It also reflects a misguided belief that denial of benefits will reduce drug abuse and drug-related crime.”
Twenty-two years later, a Ph.D student in the economics department at the University of Maryland has been able to test the actual effects of the ban. Cody Tuttle, whose paper was released earlier this spring, found that at […]
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Dan Nosowitz, - modern farmer
Stephan: In a society that took a long view and was planning for its future, what is described in this report would not be happening. The fact that it is tells us something important about the failure of America to make wellbeing a priority.
This image, courtesy of American Farmland Trust, shows the conversion of agricultural land to urban and low-density residential development between 1992 and 2012.
Credit: AFT
American Farmland Trust, which since 1980 has been attempting to save agricultural land in the U.S., has compiled a huge assessment of the movement of farmland between 1992 and 2012 (the latter date being the last that the data required was available).
The organization’s findings, which they are calling “the most comprehensive ever undertaken of America’s agricultural lands,” aren’t hugely shocking, at least at the surface: American farmland is being vacuumed up by development. What’s new, though, is the discovery that the development isn’t coming only from urban areas expanding outwards—rural areas are also losing farmland rapidly. “The fact is that we have this sort of insidious development that no one’s been paying attention to, and we really need to start paying attention,” says Julia Freedgood, the assistant VP of programs at the AFT.
Why is this happening? There’s no simple answer. One major […]
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Stephan: One of the hallmarks of this administration is the extraordinary abandon with which Trump and his cabinet officers live in luxury on the taxpayers' -- that's you and me -- dime.
Do you remember all the speeches during the campaign when Trump pillared Obama because he played golf, swearing that if elected he would stay and work in the White House. Of course it was a lie. Here's the evidence. It also shows the complete hypocrisy of the Republican congress.
Trump golfing at one of his courses
The Justice Department has released a reporting showing the cost of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into foreign entanglements of the Trump campaign. Through just over a year, the total comes in at $16.7 million.
Naturally, this resulted in a morning tweet from Donald Trump. Trump had previously pegged the cost of the investigation at $20 million, an exaggeration modest enough that he likely had someone at the DOJ check the books for him. And while Trump may be wishing he had that cash so he could grab some Florida real estate for a Russian oligarch, the cost of the ongoing investigation does seem … perfectly reasonable.
Compared to the estimated $67 million the government has providing Trump with trips to Mar-a-lago to play golf, Mueller’s investigation. Or the $3.5 million that the EPA spent on a single year of Scott Pruitt’s personal SWAT team.
It would probably be possible to pay for the Mueller investigation either out of first class flights by Pruitt, or Ben Carson’s decorating budget. […]
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S.P. Sullivan, - New Jersey Time-News
Stephan: The opioid crisis that plagues America is an entirely legal dope operation created out of greed. I described this process in detail in
America's Deadly Opioid Epidemic From Which Everyone But the User Profits
It is a horrifying story.
What doesn't get enough consideration in all this is the corruption of a several generations of people, from doctors to distributors to drug reps to drug store owners. Here is an example of what I mean. This doesn't happen without deep cultural wounds occurring
Michelle Breitenbach, 38, of Middletown.
A former sales representative for a major drug manufacturer has admitted to charges she helped fuel the opioid addiction crisis by bribing doctors to prescribe a potent painkiller, authorities said.
Michelle Breitenbach, who worked for the pharmaceutical company Insys Therapeutics, Inc., pleaded guilty Wednesday to a second-degree charge of conspiracy to commit commercial bribery, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice, which brought the
Breitenbach’s guilty plea comes after state authorities filed a civil lawsuit against her former employer, accusing Insys of “evil” practices that pushed doctors to prescribe its painkiller Subsys for conditions it was never intended to treat. The civil case is ongoing.
Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said Wednesday that a “primary cause of the devastating opioid epidemic gripping the country has been overprescribing of prescription opioids, driven by the greed of manufacturers.”
State authorities say the company gave kickbacks to doctors in the form of phony “speaker’s fees” that really served as payments for “off-label” prescriptions that gave patients the painkillers for purposes not approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration.
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