Federal Judge BLOCKS Florida’s New Welfare Drug Testing Law

From the Washington Post

A federal judge temporarily blocked Florida’s new law that requires welfare applicants to pass a drug test before receiving the benefits on Monday, saying it may violate the Constitution’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Judge Mary Scriven’s ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 35-year-old Navy veteran and single father who sought the benefits while finishing his college degree, but refused to take the test.

The judge said there was a good chance plaintiff Luis Lebron would succeed in his challenge to the law based on the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches.

The drug test can reveal a host of private medical facts about the individual, Scriven wrote, adding that she found it “troubling” that the drug tests are not kept confidential like medical records. The results can also be shared with law enforcement officers and a drug abuse hotline.

“This potential interception of positive drug tests by law enforcement implicates a ‘far more substantial’ invasion of privacy than in ordinary civil drug testing cases,” Scriven said.

The law’s proponents include Gov. Rick Scott, who said during his campaign the measure would save $77 million. It’s unclear how he arrived at those figures.

The rest of the article is available here. 

President Obama: "Occupy Wall Street 'Not That Different' From Tea Party Protests"

From Yahoo! News:

President Obama, who has become a target of the Occupy Wall Street protests sweeping the country, today embraced the economic frustration being given voice on the streets and said that his vision for America’s economic system is best suited to resolve protesters’ concerns.

“I understand the frustrations being expressed in those protests,” Obama told ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper in an exclusive interview from Jamestown, N.C.

“In some ways, they’re not that different from some of the protests that we saw coming from the Tea Party.  Both on the left and the right, I think people feel separated from their government. They feel that their institutions aren’t looking out for them,” he said.

Obama said the most important thing he can do as president is express solidarity with the protesters and redouble his commitment to achieving what he described as a more egalitarian society.

“The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side, and that we want to set up a system in which hard work, responsibility, doing what you’re supposed to do, is rewarded,” Obama said. “And that people who are irresponsible, who are reckless, who don’t feel a sense of obligation to their communities and their companies and their workers that those folks aren’t rewarded.”

The rest of the article is available here.

Does the GOP lack competence among its competition?

There's a lot to like about Herman Cain. He's funny and personable. He's a great American success story. His 9-9-9 tax plan may be half-baked, but the concept behind the plan (replace the corporate income tax with in effect a consumption tax) has a lot to recommend it.  

Finally, in a political cycle that has seen too many coded racial attacks on President Obama and his family, it's a source of great pride to me to see an African-American topping my party's polls.

If Herman Cain had served as governor of Georgia, or even mayor of Atlanta, he'd be a valid and credible candidate for president of the United States.

But here's the trouble: he has not held those offices or any other executive office at any level of government. He did serve on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in the 1990s, including two years as chairman -- a distinguished position and an important responsibility, but not one that involves the management of a public agency.

So what?

So everything! The president's most fundamental job is to run the government. That job is very, very hard. The consequences of a mistake are very, very serious.

For that reason, Americans have historically demanded a record of successful accomplishment in public office from their presidential candidates. The current president is an exception to the rule, and -- well -- enough said.

Barack Obama became president despite a negligible record in large part as a reaction against the perceived failures of the George W. Bush presidency. Many voters in 2008 made a calculation like: "Obama may never have governed anything. But George W. Bush was a two-term governor of the country's second biggest state, and he got us into Iraq and a terrible recession. So maybe experience doesn't count. Maybe what we need is a different style: somebody more cautious than Bush, somebody who doesn't always go with his gut."

Herman Cain You might expect Republicans to react similarly against the Obama presidency, demanding from their nominee skills that Obama lacked: administrative experience, negotiating skill, deep policy knowledge.

But no.  From Donald Trump to Michele Bachmann to Herman Cain, the Republican activist base has again and again fixed its hopes on people who have never held an executive public office and who defiantly reject the very idea of expertise.

The rest of the article is available here.

Raising Cain: Popularity Soars for GOP Presidential Hopeful Herman Cain

From Bloomberg News

Herman Cain, a one-time pizza magnate and sunny-skies orator, is entering a new phase of scrutiny after a wave of Republican Party dissatisfaction with its presidential choices has thrust him into the upper tier of candidates.

Cain, 65, whose come-from-way-behind campaign has been conducted largely via television, presents himself as destined for victory: His new memoir is called “This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House.”  Now, in the run-up to tomorrow’s Republican debate in New Hampshire, Cain is being pressed on his so-called 9-9-9 tax plan -- a flat 9 percent rate on corporate and personal income and a national sales tax -- his criticism of the Occupy Wall Street protesters and his lack of experience in public office.

“Get ready for an aberration of historic proportion,” Cain said in an interview yesterday during “State of the Union” on CNN. “People who are criticizing me because I have not held public office, they are out of touch with the voters out there.”

The rise of Cain, political analysts say, is a reflection of prolonged hunger among a segment of Republican voters for someone to inspire -- someone who isn’t former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who has been criticized for inconstancy. In the past week, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin declined to enter the race. Texas Governor Rick Perry has stumbled, creating an opportunity for Cain.

The rest of the article is available here.

Economy leads young Americans to put adulthood on hold

The slackers of the 1990s are remembered as listless MTV watchers and basement dwellers who opted out of America's striving, mercenary ethos. Many young adults today look similar at first glance. They're in their 20s or early 30s, they don't have jobs or spouses, and many live with mom and dad. But that's not by choice.

This generation of reluctant slackers is eager to get started building careers, owning homes, getting married and having kids. They have put their lives on hold, though, thanks to the bleak economic climate.

This year, 5.9 million Americans between the ages of 25 and 35 lived with their parents, according to Census Bureau data. That's an increase of 25 percent from before the recession. And between 2007 and 2009, the share of Americans living in a multi-generational household shot up by 4.9 million, or 10.5 percent, a Pew study found.

The rest of the article is available here.