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 Scrutiny Hooligans of North Carolina, Tom Sullivan writes—We want the world and we want it now!:
The 1960s are back. Campaign for America’s Future’s Bill Scher looks at the no-win scenario Bernie Sanders faces, not just from Black Lives Matter activists, but from the whole progressive spectrum:
In effect, Bernie isn’t running for President of the United States of America. He’s running to be President of Progressive America. And when you are running to be an ideological standard-bearer, your ideological fellow travellers all demand you adhere to their own standard. That involves not just checking every box on the liberal to-do list, but giving maximum rhetorical emphasis to everyone’s top priority. Which is impossible. It’s a game that can’t be won.
Sanders has already proposed immigration reform more liberal than the 2013 bipartisan Senate bill in a speech to the National Council of La Raza and incorporated a searing critique of entrenched racism into his regular stump. His reward was a public scolding by Seattle activists who prevented him from speaking at a Social Security rally, one of whom demanded the crowd “join us now in holding Bernie Sanders accountable for his actions.”
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Perhaps what they (and other activists) really want to hold Sanders accountable for is whatever hope and change Obama failed to deliver. This time, no prisoners.
More excerpts from state progressive blogs can be seen below the orange gerrymander.
At Left in Alabama, countrycat writes—Alabama State Government: A "Hostage Situation" Where We're The Hostages
If you had any doubt at all that Alabama's government is broken, this session's regular session and its first special session cleared up the confusion. The regular session adjourned without a state General Fund budget in place because the GOP supermajority couldn't agree with our Republican governor on funding mechanisms for state services.
This year, there were no windfalls like federal stimulus money, and voters weren't likely to look kindly on another effort to borrow to balance the budget - especially since this was supposed to be the year the state started paying back the money it borrowed in 2012.
The first special session was a bust as well, and the finger pointing began before it was even over.
The Alabama Senate passed essentially the same budget that Governor Bentley said was unacceptable this Spring. It didn't ripen any over the summer.
The Alabama Senate has narrowly approved a budget that slashes millions of dollars from Medicaid, mental health, law enforcement and other state agencies.
Senators voted 19-15 for the cut-filled budget Monday after lawmakers could not agree during a special session on how to fill a budget hole.
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The Alabama House promptly - and with a surprisingly display of unanimity - kicked it to the curb.
At
Burnt Orange Report of Texas,
Joe Deshotel writes—
Removal Of Confederate Statue At UT Is Victory For Students & #BlackLivesMatter:
University of Texas President Greg Fenves announced to students by email that he decided it was time to relocate the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis to the Briscoe Center museum.
Today is a victory for UT students and the #BlackLivesMatter movement. The students spoke out, they voted, and to a significant degree President Fenves didn’t just hear, he listened.
Fenves had assembled a task force led by Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement Gregory Vincent that issued several recommendations based on public feedback but the decision to remove the statue was his alone. [...]
The people who say we should not erase our history are correct. They can now go view the statues along with the rest of the collection of Confederate memorabilia at the Briscoe Center. But if we really care about preserving history, we have to be concerned about the measures our State Board of Education is taking to erase it from our textbooks. Removing mentions of KKK and Jim Crow from our textbooks is quite literally erasing history.
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ColoradoPols,
Colorado Pols writes—
Americans For Prosperity Eats Its Own, John Suthers Edition:
We noted it in today’s Get More Smarter, but worth its own mention as the Colorado Springs Gazette’s Billie Stanton reports:
Americans for Prosperity says no sales tax increase is needed to fix Colorado Springs roads, but Mayor John Suthers says that contention is based on “an incredibly uninformed analysis.”
AFP, a Republican political advocacy group, issued a news release Thursday saying a certified public accountant had reviewed the city’s budget and found Colorado Springs has “more than enough money” to fix its infrastructure without pursuing a sales tax increase…
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So, here’s the thing about driving around in Colorado Springs: the roads are in very bad shape. We know you all regularly drive over rough patches in your commutes wherever you live, but in Colorado Springs, those rough patches are more like the whole road. As with just about every other public service in Colorado’s world-famous conservative mecca, the maintenance of the city’s ribbed backsides has always been carried out on a shoestring budget.
But forget all that, folks, this is the land of the Ronald Reagan Highway! And if a shining city on a hill like Colorado Springs were to vote to raise taxes on itself to pay for something done by the government, why, those pesky liberal blogs would never let them hear the end of it.
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Eclectablog of Michigan,
Eclectablog writes—
Donald Trump to Detroit autoworkers: you make too much money:
Donald Trump has something to say to Detroit autoworkers: you make too much money. Talking about U.S. vehicle manufacturers moving production to Mexico in an interview with The Detroit News, Trump said this:
He said U.S. automakers could shift production away from Michigan to communities where autoworkers would make less. “You can go to different parts of the United States and then ultimately you’d do full-circle—you’ll come back to Michigan because those guys are going to want their jobs back even if it is less,” Trump said. “We can do the rotation in the United States — it doesn’t have to be in Mexico.”
He said that after Michigan “loses a couple of plants—all of sudden you’ll make good deals in your own area.”
See?…
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Blue Oregon,
Katie Chisholm writes—
Bernie Sanders draws 28,000 in Portland:
Last night, 28,000 people flocked to the rally for Senator Bernie Sanders at the Rose Garden Moda Center. 19,000 made it inside, while another 9000 waited outside. That's a record for the Sanders campaign.
The event came a day after a Medicare event in Seattle featuring Sanders was disrupted by Black Lives Matter activists. Some hours before the Portland rally, the Sanders campaign released his racial justice policy agenda.
In Portland, Sanders talked about his racial justice agenda -- as well as his economic program, health care, campaign finance reform, trade, and foreign policy. [...]
Were you there? What did you think? I'm particularly curious about anyone that arrived intrigued-but-undecided -- did his speech convince you to support him?
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Ohio Daily,
Anastasia Pantsios writes—
Don't Be Fooled by Kasich, America:
Much has been said about last Thursday’s initial Republican presidential debate here in Cleveland, most of it about Donald Trump.
As I predicted—and contrary to what all the Wise Pundits were saying—Trump came out of it as the hero of the Republican base. While the Wise Pundits moaned and groaned and pontificated about Trump’s crass attitude toward women, that hardly mattered to the base. He had them from the opening moments when he refused to be nailed down by the moderators into saying he wouldn’t run an independent campaign if he wasn’t the nominee. The Wise Pundits had been predicting he would expose himself for what he was and quickly fade. He exposed himself for what he is and they loved it. They love brazenness, they loathe women—why WOULDN’T Trump be topping all the post-debate polls?
After the debate, when it was clear that frontrunners like Jeb! Bush and Scottie Walker came across weak and timid, the Wise Pundits were also rushing to praise our governor, Taxin’ John Kasich, saying that he had showed voters that there was another sane, “moderate” candidate they could turn to.
But did it seem to anyone else like Taxin’ John Kasich was trying to skip over the primaries and go straight to the general election in the debate? It felt like he was playing not to the base that will actually vote, but to the pundits and media desperate for a candidate who doesn’t sound batshit crazy and out of touch.
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The Seminole Democrat,
Vin Fl writes—
Trump: Megyn "Bimbo" and Has "Blood Coming Out of Somewhere Else":
First off, I wholeheartedly agree with "the Donald" that the clown show known as "Fox News" has an agenda for picking the winner of the GOP primary. It was obvious when they divided up the participants for a "prime-time" and "loser" debate, instead of holding two prime-time debates. It was more obvious the way the moderators threw pre-arranged softball questions for people they liked, like Jeb Bush (to highlight his "accomplishments"), as opposed to the way they went after someone they really didn't like--Donald Trump.
(With all the issues we are facing, does anyone think that the first question asked about being a spoiler was anything but a way to embarrass Trump?)
One of their attack lines against Trump was that he was misogynistic. Oh, he is. In a BIG way. But c'mon, so are the rest of them. He's standing right next to Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee, for crying out loud. But Fox News knew how to push Trump's buttons. [...]
These are hateful, spiteful, bigoted, and small-minded people. They are the GOP. And Donald Trump is the face.
Don't cry, Fox News. After all, you are largely responsible for creating the ignorant, hateful masses that are his followers. They are called your viewers.
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Uppity Wisconsin,
Steve Hanson writes—
Shapeshifter Walker:
The Republican Presidential Debate season has started. The question in my mind is which of the two Scott Walkers will show up for the debates.
The mythology of many societies includes the concept of a shapeshifter – a person or animal who can change form at will. Walker has proved himself to be adept at shifting shape, most spectacularly right after taking the oath of office. Candidate Walker is often a completely different animal from office-holder Walker.
While running for Milwaukee County Executive Walker made small promises for reform, including cleaning up the fiscal mess left by his predecessor Tom Ament. Walker called for reducing the debt burden caused by the county pension plan. He seemed reasonable and soft-spoken.
County Exec Walker turned out to be a considerably more radical beast (link is external). Small concerns for the County budget quickly blossomed into a series of emergencies requiring drastic cuts to the budgets of funding for alcoholism and drug programs, mental health, parks and courts budgets, the arts, and maintenance of existing infrastructure. The county executive seemed completely willing to take advantage of a crisis, even if that crisis needed to be exaggerated.
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Calitics,
Robert Cruickshank writes—
Progressives Didn't Cause the San Francisco Housing Crisis:
Unless you've been living under a rock lately, you know that San Francisco is facing an affordable housing crisis. This crisis is not new. It's been around for at least 40 years, and the city has faced a housing shortage for at least 70 years.
The question that many are asking is not only "how do we fix this?" but, in order to jockey for position in how to answer it, they're also asking "whose fault is this crisis?" Too often, the SF housing crisis is used to attack progressives from the right, in the service of free market solutions - even though, as the historical evidence makes clear, this crisis was not their fault.
Progressives have spent the last two decades fighting to make SF more progressive. Had they been listened to, perhaps SF might still be affordable today.
The most recent iteration of the "who made SF unaffordable?" discussion was kicked off today by the widely respected Gabriel Metcalf of SPUR. Writing at CityLab Metcalf argued that the roots of SF's housing crisis lay in progressive anti-growth policies:
San Francisco progressives chose to stick with their familiar stance of opposing new development, positioning themselves as defenders of the city's physical character. Instead of forming a pro-growth coalition with business and labor, most of the San Francisco Left made an enduring alliance with home-owning NIMBYs. It became one of the peculiar features of San Francisco that exclusionary housing politics got labeled "progressive." (Organized labor remained a major political force throughout this time period, and has allied with both pro-growth and anti-growth forces, depending on the issue.) Over the years, these anti-development sentiments were translated into restrictive zoning, the most cumbersome planning and building approval process in the country, and all kinds of laws and rules that make it uniquely difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to add housing in San Francisco. |
This is the common argument about SF—it's expensive because progressives got mad at developers and stopped new growth from happening in order to preserve the city in amber, with no thought given to new residents.
But is that actually what happened?
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Montana Cowgirl,
Cowgirl writes—
Big Weekend For Democrats:
The Big Weekend is soon upon us, the state Democratic Convention in Bozeman. It will be an exciting time. Democrats will continue to celebrate their success in state government, not only the electoral successes (four of the five state offices) but the policy successes that have brought record economic growth and job creation to the state, with historic investments in education, low tuition at the universities, a booming tourism industry, and many other good things with many more to come.
Hopefully there will also be some lampooning of the lunatic asylum known as the Montana Republican Party, as well there should be (what else is a Democratic gathering good for if you can’t have some fun talking about the bat crap crazies?). Speeches will be given by the Democratic stars Jon Tester, Steve Bullock and Angela McClean, and Linda McCulloch, Monica Lindeen and Denise Juneau, and of course the Party director Nancy Keenan as well as democratic leaders such as Chuck Hunter and John Sesso, as well as candidates for chair Jim Larson (incumbent) and Louise Bruce.
Bozeman is an interesting location for this event, as the home turf of the tech entrepreneur Greg Gianforte, who might (or might not) run for Governor with his billion dollars, and try to become the Outsourcer in Chief. Democrats may also discuss the outrage that Gianforte and his wife perpetuated locally, namely, actually leading the charge against a proposed Bozeman ordinance that would prohibit businesses from discriminating against LGBT people. He has even said publicly that the city would be better off without LGBT people altogether.
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Democratic Diva of Arizona,
Donna writes—
There Is No “Republican Establishment” and The Gop Presidential Slate Proves It:
Norquist, the bathtub drowner, pretended it was all about spending and ignored all the conspiracy nuttery (Birtherism, Benghazi, etc.) and cultural backlash (racist, misogynistic, homophobic) that went along with it but he is right that conservatives are being defined as “establishment” or “fringe” in a slipshod manner that has more to do with whatever story the person doing the defining is pushing than the actual characteristics of the conservative. It’s completely arbitrary at this point.
The GOP Presidential candidate most consistently deemed “establishment” is Jeb Bush. This is usually attributed to his support for Common Core (it’s important to note that he was for it before President Obama was for it) and a stance on immigration slightly to the left of Pat Buchanan (which both he and Marco Rubio have been walking back).
And how is Jeb(!) on a host of other issues? Well, he’s a long-time forced birth fanatic and let’s not forget his famous intervention in the Terri Schaivo matter. Bush’s plan to tackle climate change is, wait for it, fracking, and he plans to appeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with essentially nothing. Yep, as Norquist says, the Tea Party takeover is complete.
After Jeb(!), the other middling (by how they’re polling after Donald Trump) ones are considered “establishment” – or perhaps “moderate” or “libertarian” or whatever descriptor is meant to distinguish them from Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum – on whatever haphazard basis the pundits see fit to place them. Rand Paul is for civil liberties! Chris Christie has worked with Democrats! Carly Fiorina gave a crisp performance at the earlier debate! Ben Carson is a doctor! What about that fresh, young Marco Rubio??