This week in progressive state blogs is designed specifically to focus attention on the writing and analysis of people focused on their home turf. Let me know via comments or Kosmail if you have a favorite state- or city-based blog you think I should be watching.
Inclusion of a diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement or endorsement of its contents.
At Eclectablog of Michigan, Amy Lynn Smith writes—Michigan bill would allow discrimination against patients on religious or moral grounds:
If it becomes law, any healthcare provider or payer could turn away any patient based on personal or organizational beliefs.
With so much work to be done to make Michigan a better place to work and live, you’d think legislators would have more important things to do than enact laws that are nothing more than a license to discriminate using religion as an excuse.
Rep. Cindy Gamrat, along with Rep. Todd Courser and other religious extremists in the Michigan House, have introduced House Bill 4309 and referred it to the House Committee on Health Policy.
H.B. 4309 was first brought to my attention by the MI Lead women’s coalition, which aptly described it as follows:
The bill would create the “Religious Liberty and Conscience Protection Act” that allows medical facilities [and] healthcare payers/purchasers to refrain from offering healthcare services and procedures based on moral or religious beliefs.…
Below the orange gerrymander are additional links and excerpts from progressive state blogs.
At Left in Alabama, countrycat writes—Charter Schools Are A Band-Aid, Not Real Education Reform:
Let’s say that Santa brought you a new chainsaw and in your haste to put it to work you gashed your leg severely. With blood gushing everywhere, do you holler for someone to bring you some band-aids?
It’s doubtful. And more likely that after you scream for help, you immediately start trying to get some kind of tourniquet on the leg to stop the blood flow.
Too bad we don’t do the same thing when tackling education issues in Alabama. Instead of doing the meaningful work of trying to understand why schools are most likely to fall short of expectations and addressing such systemic issues, we look for band- aids like vouchers and charter schools and then brag about our “education reform” measures.
We don’t acknowledge that more than 90 percent of all the students in our so-called “failing” schools are on free-reduced lunches; we keep quiet about the fact that we have more than three times as many high poverty schools as those considered low poverty and we ignore research showing that children in such situations enter school far behind their counterparts living in leafy suburbs.
Instead we pass legislation like the Alabama Accountability Act and then brag that educators were excluded from developing it. We have rallies at the State Capitol, bus in hundreds of school kids for a backdrop and listen to folks from Washington tell us how to fix our schools. We have press conferences to announce an “Alabama First” agenda that promises to bring back the electric chair, bring in charter schools and stop gay marriages in the next legislative session.
At
Democratic Diva of Arizona,
Donna writes—
Az Anti-Choice Legislators Actually Think You Can Reverse an Abortion:
SB1318 was already bad enough. The anti-choice bill would bar any insurance exchange operating in the state (including the ACA) from covering abortion even if the woman purchased a separate rider, on the theory that money out of a woman’s own damn pocket that she earned herself is somehow “taxpayer dollars”. It also mandates that abortion doctors report to the state health director that they have admitting privileges at a local hospital, a requirement that opponents say could expose personal information about doctors to dangerous anti-choice zealots. But they weren’t done. Now there’s this amendment.
I’ll let the excellent Robin Marty give you the gist of it:
The Arizona legislature took an unprecedented step Tuesday during a late night hearing, amending a bill that would block abortion coverage in insurance plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act and inserting a new rule requiring that abortion providers inform patients that the procedure could in fact be reversed—despite no substantiated medical evidence to support that charge… |
Earlier this afternoon, I found myself trying to explain the “abortion reversal” concept to my incredulous boyfriend and found it difficult to do so because, like so many anti-choice myths and obsessions, it’s fantasy-based, but here goes: Medication abortion is a two-pill process in which a patient takes mifepristone first, followed by misoprostol several hours later. Some anti-choicers are now claiming to have successfully reversed medication abortions by persuading women who have taken the first pill—after which they immediately stumbled into a Crisis Pregnancy center, I guess—to not take the second one. The mifepristone is supposedly counteracted by having a doctor administer a large dose of progesterone to the woman and then, voilà, the pregnancy is saved! If that sounds at all plausible to you remember that we are talking about anti-choicers here.
At
Cottonmouth of Mississippi, writes—
Haley Barbour Pushing Out Candidates?
Sources are reporting that former Governor and career lobbyist Haley Barbour is trying to push Mitch Tyner out of the Republican primary for the Public Service Commission's Central District seat. Mitch Tyner, you may recall, was the lead attorney for state Sen. Chris McDaniel's 2014 lawsuit against U.S. Senator Thad Cochran.
Why does it matter that Haley Barbour is meddling in this Republican primary race? It's quite simple. Haley wants to control the Public Service Commission for his own personal and financial interests. The Kemper County power plant, owned by Mississippi Power—a subsidiary of Southern Company—is grossly over budget to the tune of nearly $4 billion! What is more troubling is that there is no clear answer about how this will be paid. Will Southern Company write off the debt? Will the cost be pushed onto customers like you and me? If Haley has his way, I think we all know who will be left to pick up the tab.
Haley envisions a Public Service Commission that will continue doing his bidding while he accepts hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying fees from companies regulated by the Commission.
At
Liberal OC of California,
Dan Chmielewski writes—
Two Wrongs make a Right? The Logic of Sean Mill:
As children, we’re taught “two wrongs don’t make a right.” Santa Ana Planning Commissioner Sean Mill apparently never received this lesson in kindergarten. Instead, he insisted, last night at a Santa Ana Planning Commission meeting, that his prejudicial remarks against a Vietnamese blogger that he was either “raped by pirates” or had “Agent Orange exposure” were somehow defensible because the blogger deserved it! In this alternative reality, which we will refer to as the Millian World, it’s OK for a person to lob racist remarks as long as the target of the remark is determined to be a racist as well.
At Monday’s Santa Ana Planning Commission meeting, where Mill had hoped to become the next chair of the commission, Mill asserted that he was “incited” to make racist remarks (in addition to homophobic ones made in 2010 and 1989), and it begs the real question here – why is this hateful stew of prejudice and homophobia lying right beneath his surface. Using the Millian perspective of reasoning allows Mill to (1) denigrate an entire race (the Vietnamese); (2) a person’s sexual identity (the LGBT community); and (3) and bully the citizens of Santa Ana who have audacity to challenge him when he is incited (Mike Tardiff and others).
In the Millian perspective, two wrongs really do make a right.
At
Blue Mass Group of Massachusetts,
somervilletom writes—
Treason, stupidity, or both?
I am finding it increasingly difficult to understand how any person with an IQ that exceeds room temperature can actually vote for ANY national GOP figure. Wisconsin is bad enough, but Florida is utterly mind-boggling.
The letter to Iran signed by Senate Republicans, including Florida Senator Marco Rubio, is a flagrant attempt to derail the negotiations between President Obama and Iran. At the same time, we read of Florida Governor Rick Scott forbidding mention of climate change [...]
There is no way to sugar-coat this. The first is simple and intentional treason. The other is mind-numbingly stupid. Presumably the voters in Florida like both. Mr. Rubio joins Mr. Walker in being mentioned (along with Rand Paul) as presidential candidates. Are you KIDDING? These bozos have more in common with Lyndon LaRouch or L. Ron Hubbard than any past or present president.
I don’t know anybody who lives in Florida. I don’t know who in Florida votes for these maroons, but there are apparently a LOT of them. If the taxes in Massachusetts help keep those Florida Republicans in Florida, that alone is reason enough to raise our taxes even higher. If we have voters in Massachusetts who choose to to live in Florida rather than spend a few thousand dollars a year more in MA taxes, I say “don’t let the door hit you on your way out”.
Today’s GOP has moved beyond “partisan” and “hyper-partisan” into treasonous, criminally negligent, abusive of civil rights, and most of all terminally STUPID.
At
Show Me Progress of Missouri,
WillyK writes—
Is Roy Blunt a "traitor," "reckless and feckless," or simply an embarrassment?
Talking Point Memo's Brian Beutler takes issue with the New York Daily News on the topic of the open letter signed by 47 GOP Senators, spearheaded by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, and intended to undermine the United State's nuclear arms negotiations with Iran. And in the process, he undermines the past, mostly successful efforts of Missouri's Republican Senator Roy Blunt, who, along with the other members of the Senate GOP leadership, signed the letter, to present himself as thoughtful and moderate—at least in the context of the increasing radicalism of the rest of his party. Blunt has tried to do the political equivalent of talking out of both sides of his mouth for a long time—cozying up to the crazies when it's useful and placating the moderates when he can do it without making a stir. Perhaps, though, his unwise decision to sign this dangerous letter might open some eyes about just how far he's willing to venture into crazyland.
As Beutler noted earlier in The New Republic, the intent of the letter amounts to nothing less than sabotage:
Republicans have made no secret of their desire to sabotage multilateral negotiations over the Iranian government's nuclear capabilities. That was the near-explicit purpose of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress last week. It's what Senator Tom Cotton was getting at several weeks ago, when he said, "the end of these negotiations isn't an unintended consequence of congressional action. It is very much an intended consequence." And it's supposedly the purpose of an open letter Cotton wrote—and that 47 Republicans signed—advising the Iranian government that the U.S. political system probably won't sustain any deal they reach with the Obama administration. [...] |
I have to admit that when I read about the letter, after I picked my jaw up off the floor, the word "treason" presented itself to me as well—and I'm thrilled that somebody else recognizes that Senator Blunt and his cohorts are an embarrassment. However, there's some merit to Beutler's argument that the act falls short of actual treason. He observes that the letter "would have been a terrible, tedious op-ed. Its subversiveness might have caused a stir. But I can't imagine anyone would have called it treasonous." [...]
But to recognize that signing this letter is not an act of treason is not to say that the signatories should not be held responsible for the harm they are doing. First, they are willfully undermining the government of the United States, and they're arguably doing it in the service of partisan politics. Second, they have also indicated that they support increasing the instability and violence in the Mid-East—worse, that they want the U.S. and our American soldiers stuck up to our necks in that violence once again.
At
Plunderbund of Ohio,
Greg writes—
ECOT Charter School: Ohio’s Dropout Factory:
The Kasich Administration and GOP-controlled Ohio General Assembly has been all about “education reform” over the last 5 years, with an alleged focus on improving student achievement—especially decreasing the dropout rate. Recent legislation has focused on getting Ohio’s students to graduate from high school with not only a high school diploma, but for those not interested in college, some sort of industry credential. [...]
Let’s get some perspective.
Over the last four years, the number of reported dropouts statewide has declined, especially over the past three. Here are the figures for all schools in statewide (as reported by ODE):
2010-11: 24,564 dropouts
2011-12: 24,736 dropouts
2012-13: 22,461 dropouts
2013-14: 15,857 dropouts
[...] In the past four years, while the overall number of dropouts has been on the decline, the number of students who have dropped out of ECOT has been increasing dramatically:
2010-11: 3,143 dropouts
2011-12: 3,261 dropouts
2012-13: 4,001 dropouts
2013-14: 4,367 dropouts
While the number of reported dropouts statewide has declined by 35%, the number of students dropping out of ECOT has increased 39%.
At
BlueNC,
scharrisson writes—
Senior citizens suffering under GOP tax shift:
Picking the shallow pockets of the elderly:
Murry Bubar was shocked this year when he did the taxes for his ex-wife, as he always does, and found that she owed $104 under the new system.
His ex-wife, Barbara Bubar, is 79, blind and lives in the Alzheimer’s unit of an assisted-living facility. Bubar’s income from Social Security amounted to $9,300 last year. “This is the first time in years she has had to pay any state taxes,” Bubar said. “Her medical bills are more than her income.”
|
By all rights, this shameless exploitation of older North Carolinians should prove to be the undoing of the GOP, since this demographic votes in numbers and usually a high percentage choose Republican candidates. But old habits are hard to break, especially for the Fox News viewers who have a fresh anti-Obama scandal shoved down their throats daily. Speaking of somebody who needs something shoved down his throat:
At
43rd State Blues of Idaho,
JennyE writes—
Power of Profanity:
I have implemented a swear jar in my house. As a mother of two teenage boys, and one preteen boy, I needed some help to reduce the foul language. In fairness, my kids have heard me utter many of the words they say, and my husband can be a swearing machine. Swearing, it turns out, can be a very powerful force, for both positive and negative reasons. This is a lesson learned recently by Alex Labeau, President of Idaho’s most powerful lobby group, IACI. An email containing, not only intent to undermine legislative activities for power and control reasons, also contained extremely offensive profanity directed at a legislator and teachers in Idaho.
I read a research paper titled, Do You Talk to Your Teacher with that Mouth? F*ck, a Documentary and Profanity as a Teaching Tool in the Communication Classroom, authored by Miriam Sobre-Denton & Jana Simonis. While the research paper outlines the instructor’s use of profanity to teach a unit on communication taboos, and its effect on the classroom setting, I became interested in the piece because of the recent news on Alex Labeau.
The email Labeau sent was in response to an article a colleague sent him regarding Legislator Jeff Siddoway, who indicated he would not move on a specific legislative piece until teachers' base pay was increased to $40,000. LaBeau’s response to the email was peppered with vulgar profanity, referencing male body parts, and teachers. Profanity can be cathartic, help strengthen social connections, reflect masculinity, and be used as a relatively safe form of rebellion (Sobre-Denton & Simonis, 2012, pp. 5). LaBeau seemed to be using his profanity for these purposes. Certainly, he thought the people he sent this email to would be receptive and view him as strong and rebellious.
Unfortunately for LaBeau, somebody in that email thread did not feel a stronger social connection, and the email was leaked. Now, LaBeau is learning a lesson about word choice, and why it matters. Many people report feeling disrespected by swearing, especially by someone in a position of power or authority. Some people report losing respect for people who swear, and associate swearing with being lower class (Sobre-Denton & Simonis, 2012, pp.11). Indeed, LaBeau, while initially his board voted not take action against him, has now been placed on leave due to mounting pressure from IACI member businesses. In fact, according the the Idaho Statesman, IACI is examining the issue more closely as member businesses begin to question the leadership and the intentions of the lobby group (Dentzer, 2015).
At
MN Progressive Project,
Invenium Viam writes—
US Attorney General: Arrest the Gang of 47 Now!:
Obama-haters see nothing wrong with the recent “open letter” by forty-seven GOP senators to the Iranian government, declaring, among other things, that “… we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei. The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.”
But that’s because their collective racism and tribal disequilibrium makes them blind to the truth.
Coming hard on the heels of Netanyahu’s unprecedented speech to Congress at Speaker Boehner’s invitation, it seems that the political right has decided to try to seize the conduct of foreign policy from the administration and run it as they see fit.
At
Blue Jersey,
Rosi Efthim writes—
This is what it looks like when people try to make a citizen's arrest of Gov. Chris Christie:
I can't say these are exactly my kind of tactics. But this group of people isn't wrong in their accusations of this governor. Undermining local democracies in the state-controlled school districts of Camden, Newark, Jersey City, Paterson while expanding the for-profit charter industry. Overlooking predatory lending. Raiding public workers' retirement funds. Sweetheart deals with polluters. Poorly managing Superstorm Sandy recovery. And more.
Have you ever been to Gov. Christie's office? Gold lettering on the door, state police presence, long hall; it's both intimidating and necessary for the office-holder's protection. Many people wouldn't have the balls to walk in the door. I see some faces in this group I recognize—good people Ive talked to, walked with, written about. I give them credit for showing up, and bringing a camera. The self-styled celebrity governor, who even two years ago looked inviolable—as if the criticism of mere citizens couldn't touch him—has been unmasked as a failed governor whose world-class propaganda operation is failing. You [are] going to see more of this.