Search Results for: BID

Barriers to benefits: When ex-prisoners go hungry from being denied access to social safety programs

By Margaret Lombe, Associate Professor of Social Work, Boston College; and Von Nebbitt, Associate Professor of Social Work, Washington University in St Louis Around 600,000 people are released annually from the sprawling prison network across the United States. Many face considerable barriers as a result of their convictions when it comes to essentials in life, like getting a job or a home. It can even be harder to feed themselves. Formerly incarcerated people are twice as likely to suffer food insecurity as the general population, with 1 in 5 ex-prisoners finding it difficult to obtain regular, nutritious meals. A...

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Abandoning the rule of law: How authoritarianism creates a fictitious world through consistent lying

There is a moment in Representative Adam Schiff’s 2021 book “Midnight in Washington” that jumps out. The book centers around the first impeachment of former president Trump for withholding congressionally approved funds for Ukraine to fight off Russian incursions. In managing the impeachment trial before the Senate, Schiff (D-CA) and his team had prepared thoroughly and carefully to demonstrate that Trump had, in fact, withheld the money in order to force Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to help Trump rig the 2020 election. Trump’s team wanted Zelensky to announce that he was launching an investigation into Hunter Biden, whose...

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Law and Order: Why the midterm message from the GOP is at odds with its support of criminal behavior

A campaign ad from Mehmet Oz, candidate for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, is vintage Republican strategy: casting a Democratic opponent as soft on crime. The party is zeroing in on fears over public safety ahead of November’s midterm elections in an effort to change the conversation from abortion, climate or democracy. But Republicans’ own claim to be the party of law and order is this time undermined, critics say, by the behavior of its party leaders. Former president Donald Trump, who is under myriad criminal, civil and congressional investigations, is not alone. Many senior Republicans have rallied to...

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A Criminal Takeover: How the Supreme Court allowed dark money to overwhelm our political system

Republicans in the Senate killed legislation on September 22 that had passed through the House, which would require “dark money” to be publicly disclosed. Not a single Republican voted for it, although every Democrat in attendance did. Ralph Reed’s Faith & Freedom Coalition, we learned Wednesday, is going to spend $42 million on the midterm elections, focusing on flipping evangelical Hispanics toward the GOP. Leonard Leo, head of The Federalist Society so famous for providing Trump and McConnell with rightwing judges to pack federal courts and the Supreme Court, recently received a $1.6 billion contribution, tax-free. So much money is sloshing around in our political system...

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Coup in Wilmington: How a 1898 strategy to overthrow a legitimately elected government continues today

In an interview this morning with CNN’s Dana Bash, Arizona Republican nominee for governor Kari Lake refused to say that she would accept the results of the upcoming election – unless she wins. Former president Trump said the same in 2020, and now more than half of the Republican nominees in the midterm elections have refused to say that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election because, they allege, there was voter fraud. This position is an astonishing rejection of the whole premise on which this nation was founded: that voters have the right to choose their leaders. That...

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Crime, inflation, and taxes: The false talking points used by Republicans to sway midterm voters

Republicans are telling three lies they hope will swing the midterms. They involve crime, inflation, and taxes. Here is what Republicans are claiming, followed by the facts. 1. They claim that crime is rising because Democrats have been “soft” on crime. This is pure rubbish. Rising crime rates are due to the proliferation of guns, which Republicans refuse to control. Here are the facts: While violent crime rose 28% from 2019 to 2020, gun homicides rose 35%. States that have weakened gun laws have seen gun crime surge. Clearly, a major driver of the national increase in violence is...

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