By Paul Buchheit/Common Dreams

Many wealthy Americans complain about the amount of government subsidies going to the poor. Their complaints demonstrate ignorance, greed or a total lack of fair-mindedness, or a combination of all those symptoms of entitlement at the top.
The Rich Get As Much Of The Safety Net As The Poor
Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman have calculated that, on average in 2014, the middle class received more of the safety net than the lower class.
Specifically, the 40% of American adults with incomes just below the top 10% received more in safety net government transfers (Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps/SNAP, Veterans’ benefits, etc., but excluding Social Security) than the bottom 50% of Americans.
Even more stunningly according to the same authors, when Medicare and Social Security are both included, the richest 10% on average received approximately as much in government transfers as the poorest 50%.

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Posted on May 2, 2017

By The MacArthur Justice Center

The Chicago Police Department’s sharing of its so-called “Gang Database” with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) triggered a nightmarish chain of events that left Wilmer Catalan-Ramirez imprisoned, in severe physical pain and mental anguish, and fighting deportation, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed on Monday.
Catalan-Ramirez is a devoted father and a mechanic who has never belonged to a Chicago street gang. Despite this fact, CPD mistakenly labeled him as a gang member and conveyed this false information to ICE. ICE relied on this erroneous information during one of its March 2017 “Gang Ops” during which ICE targeted community members who have alleged gang ties.

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Posted on May 1, 2017