This week at 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. Here is last Saturday's edition. Inclusion of a blog post does not necessarily indicate my agreement with—or endorsement of—its contents. |
tomaswell at Louisiana Voice writes—Ponzi schemer, Trump super PAC mgr. Steven Hoffenberg tied to Clinton friend and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein:
A couple of weeks ago, LouisianaVoice revealed that convicted Ponzi scheme operator Steven Hoffenberg had established a super PAC for the benefit of Donald Trump and had pledged $50 million of his own money to the effort to raise $1 billion on behalf of the presumed Republican nominee.
Many north Louisiana residents were victimized by his scam before John Hays and his Morning Paper in Ruston outed Hoffenberg for what he was—a snake oil salesman. Now he’s out of jail and his story just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser as we plunge deeper into that rabbit hole.
Hoffenberg, who bilked investors out of about $475 million, the largest Ponzi scheme on record at the time B.B.M. (before Bernie Madoff), appears to have made a strong rebound and the cast of players also has expanded to include his former high-rolling business partner, child trafficking, a “Christian” credit card scheme, movie stars, a prince, and Bill Clinton.
Louisiana Voice has since learned that though he was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment and ordered to make restitution, he has repaid only about $200 million to investors whose savings he wiped out. He even claimed in 1996 that he was too destitute to post $100,000 bail.
So how is it that after serving 18 years of that sentence, he (a) now has $50 million to toss at Trump and (b) why haven’t authorities ordered that money to go into a pool to repay investors?
Desmoinesdem at Bleeding Heartland of Iowa writes—Three paths to expanding felon voting rights in Iowa:
A decision in Kelli Jo Griffin’s favor could have made tens of thousands of Iowans newly eligible to vote in this year’s presidential election. Instead, Iowa will likely retain its place as one of the most restrictive states on felon voting for years.
In theory, those who have completed sentences can apply to have Governor Terry Branstad restore their voting rights. Griffin plans to do so, and I expect Branstad to make a big show of approving her application. In practice, though, that option will be available only to a small minority of those affected by the governor’s January 2011 executive order. During the first five years the new policy was in effect, less than two-tenths of 1 percent of disenfranchised felons managed to regain the right to vote, an average of fewer than 20 people per year.
I am awaiting information from the governor’s office on restoration numbers since the latest "streamlining" of the official form in April, but I don’t expect the number of applicants ever to become more than a trickle. The financial and other barriers will remain too great.
Even if Branstad started receiving substantially more applications and approved them at a rate of 20 per week—unlikely since this work already occupies "meaningful amounts of time every day" for the governor’s staff—only about 1,000 people annually would be able to regain their voting rights. That’s less than 2 percent of the estimated 57,000 Iowans who have been disenfranchised since January 2011. Thousands more join their ranks every year. So much for an "efficient and convenient" restoration process.
Cory A. Heidelberger at Dakota Free Press writes—Republicans Oppose Open Non-Partisan Primary; Kochs Oppose Anti-Corruption Act:
Conservative opposition to two ballot measures is gearing up. The South Dakota Republican Party passed a resolution at its convention opposing Amendment V, the open non-partisan primary proposal. (The South Dakota Democratic Party has taken no formal position on Amendment V.) The SDGOP now issues formal statements from Senator John Thune and Governor Dennis Daugaard urging No on V:
Thune: Amendment V is an attempt by South Dakota Democrats to hide candidate party affiliation on the ballot from voters. Rather than run on their party’s principles and policies it seems they are desperately looking for a way to run from them. I’m opposing Amendment V because I believe voters deserve more transparency on their ballot, not less.
Daugaard: I believe political parties – all parties – serve an important role in our democracy. They crystalize issues. They bring like-minded people together. They help the electorate make sense of the electoral system.
Of course, if Thune really believed in transparency and if Daugaard really believed in supporting all parties, they would support allowing candidates to designate more than just state-sanctioned party labels to appear next to their names on the ballot. They would support my right to identify myself to voters on the ballot as “teacher, writer, corruption fighter, and Sanders/Kucinich/Wellstone/McGovern Democrat” rather than just the far less illuminating “Democrat.” Thune and Daugaard would let more Earthy candidates call themselves “Green” to promote formation of a new party.
Chuck Sheketoff at Blue Oregon writes—Fantasy numbers or inconvenient truth?
Several weeks ago the Oregon legislature’s economists in the Legislative Revenue Office (LRO) came out with an estimate of how the proposal to raise taxes on large, mainly out-of-state corporations would impact the Oregon economy. While Oregon media ran with LRO’s estimated impact on jobs, they failed to recognize that the jobs estimate was fantastic, in the truest sense of the word — the jobs estimate is essentially a fantasy prediction.
The LRO report said that while jobs will continue to grow under the tax measure, there will be fewer jobs created over the next five years than without the tax measure. How many fewer? The LRO report estimated less than 1 percent – or 20,000 – fewer. The media repeated this jobs number as fact and opponents took it as gospel.
But that jobs figure is not fact. It’s fantasy.
These jobs are numbers are spit out by LRO’s “black box” — a statistical computer modeling program otherwise known as the Oregon Tax Incidence Model, or OTIM. The head of LRO, Paul Warner, has been known to admit that when attempting to model the economic impacts of a tax measure in this way, “you have to accept that you’re always wrong.”
One way of knowing that you’re dealing with fantasy numbers is that LRO’s 20,000 job loss estimate is likely well within the margin of error in predicting five years out from one policy change.
Alissa Quart at Capital & Main of California writes—Is the Middle Class Being “Disrupted” Into Extinction?
Precariousness is not just a working-class thing. In recent interviews, dozens of academics and schoolteachers, administrators, librarians, journalists and even coders have told me they too are falling prey to an unstable new America. I’ve started to think of this just-scraping-by group as the Middle Precariat.
The word Precariat was popularized five or so year ago to describe a rapidly expanding working class with unstable, low-paid jobs. What I call the Middle Precariat, in contrast, are supposed to be properly, comfortably middle class, but it’s not quite working out this way.
There are people like the Floridian couple who both have law degrees – and should be in the prime of their working lives – but can’t afford a car or an apartment and have moved back in with the woman’s elderly mother. There are schoolteachers around the country that work second jobs after their teaching duties are done: one woman in North Dakota I spoke to was heading off to clean houses after the final bell in order to pay her rent.
Many of the Middle Precariat work jobs that used to be solidly middle class. Yet some earn roughly what they did a decade ago. At the same time, middle-class life is now 30 percent more expensive than it was 20 years ago. The Middle Precariat’s jobs are also increasingly contingent – meaning they are composed of short-term contract or shift work, as well as unpaid overtime. Buffeted by Silicon Valley-like calls to maximize disruption, the Middle Precariat may have positions “reimagined.” That cruel euphemism means they are to be replaced by younger, cheaper workers, or even machines.
Sally Jo Sorensen at Bluestem Prairie of Minnesota writes—Probably didn't read Art of the Deal: Miller a-okay with buying $15 million prison for $99 million:
In today's West Central Tribune article by Tom Cherveny, 'Appleton option' to reopen western Minn. private prison stays the course:
Miller said the opposition continued to ignore the fact that the corporation had offered the state an option to purchase or lease to own, and that the state would have operated the prison with union employees.
Corrections Corporation of America had offered to lease the facility for $6 million to $8 million a year, and to sell it for $99 million. The lease payments could be used toward the purchase price, according to Miller.
Appleton attorney Brian Wojtalewicz questioned the $99 million purchase price when Corrections Corporation of America is paying property taxes based on a $15 million value. Miller said that's the offer the corporation put on the table. Negotiations between the state and the company are not in the Legislature's hands.
It's at this point we're scratching our head at Miller's understanding of bargaining. While the negotiations might not be directly in the legislature's hands, if the lawmakers pass ever actually pass a bill requiring the facility to be leased and/or purchased, that policy decision pretty much takes all leverage off the table on the part of the administration.
Miller's amendment to "the state to contract to operate and purchase or lease to own" the facility, added to the public safety, civil law, and health and human services omnibus bill in April, would do just that.
And it sure would be like Tim Miller to blame the Governor if the state buys the $15 million facility (which was expanded by CCA when modules were shipped in) for 6.6 times its appraised value.
Ed Heinzelman at Blogging Blue of Wisconsin writes—If This Doesn’t Put Noah In the Classification as Fable:
A gentleman by the name of Ken Ham is having an ark built in Williamstown KY using the proportions and descriptions set down in the Bible. He hopes to bring the Bible story alive but if his efforts using moderns cranes and power tools and $100 million don’t suggest that Noah and his family couldn’t possibly have done this…I don’t know what will [...]
According to Ham, his ark is 510 feet long, 85 feet wide and 51 feet high. “It gets bigger and bigger. When you get inside, it gets bigger again,” he said.
And the $$ isn’t just out of Mr. Ham’s pocket … some tax dollars are involved as well:
Ham’s Noah’s Ark project took advantage of $18 million in tax benefits and tourism incentives. The state of Kentucky attempted to block the project from receiving public funding, but Ham took his case to court and won. “Christians pay taxes in this world. We live in this world. We’re not second-class citizens. The federal judge rule in our favor,” he said. [...]
But as we’ve seen, faith in the Bible doesn’t come cheap…$100 million to build this thing…wonder what that translates into Old Testament dollars? But Mr. Ham hopes to make it back on the wallets of true believers:
Admission to Ark Encounter will be $40 for adults and $28 for children, and Ham said he expects that fascination with Noah and his ark will result in 1 million to 2 million visitors in the first year.
Regina Willis at Better Georgia writes—Brian Kemp is in trouble with Georgia nurses:
Yikes! Sec. of State Brian Kemp is in trouble … again.
This time, it’s nurses he’s messing with, after abruptly and single-handedly changing the leadership of the state board that oversees licensure for nurses, as well as fraud and ethics complaints. The board is still recovering from a significant backlog of cases that often take more than a year to resolve.
Kemp is already in hot water for a serious data breach of voter information that occurred late last year. Over six million voter records — including social security numbers and other personally identifying information — were leaked, and Kemp did not publicly address the situation until a lawsuit brought the data breach to light over a month after it occurred. [...]
So that Brian Kemp has now decided to replace state nursing board executive director Jim Cleghorn with the less experienced head of the state cosmetology board. The decision has baffled nurses, who were pleased that the state nursing board has finally begun to show progress towards getting the backlog of cases under control.
Linda Lyon at Blog for Arizona writes—America Worst:
On this Fourth of July, I find myself thinking about the future of our country and this year’s Presidential election. I won’t be worried if Hillary Clinton is elected; I believe she is uniquely qualified to lead our nation and will hit the ground running. As for the GOP presumptive nominee, Trump’s “America First” plan is better described as “America Worst.” He brags he will “make America great again, but his xenophobic, racist, isolationistic plan to do that will accomplish nothing of the sort and instead, exposes the worst about America.
The dog-whistle phrases he repeats incessantly harken a return to a sort of white supremacy; a return to the “Father Knows Best” “good old days” as viewed by his supporters. What Trump and his supporters either don’t get, or don’t care to get, is that today’s global economy will never allow America to be both isolationistic and “great.”
One person who does “get it” is Secretary of Education John King. In a recent speech to the National PTA Convention in Orlando, Florida, he explained that in today’s working world, your boss may not look like you, your office-mate may not worship like you, your project teammates may not speak the same language as you, and your customer may not live on the same continent as you. “Today” he said, “cross-cultural literacy is another way of saying competitive advantage.” In other words, “diversity is no longer a luxury”, it is what will enable us to compete.
At the National School Boards Association Advocacy Institute last month, I was privileged to hear Secretary King in person. An orphan at age 12 and a product of New York City public schools, Secretary King knows first-hand what a difference opportunity can make. [...]
Bob Plain at R.I. Future org writes—Anti-cluster bomb Textron protests spread to Massachusetts:
The protests againstTextron cluster bombs are spreading from Rhode Island to Massachusetts. On Wednesday, Massachusetts Peace Action held a protest at Textron Systems, a subsidiary of Providence-based Textron in Wilmington, Mass., that was attended by more than 40 people.
“This was inspired by the Providence protests,” said Cole Harrison, executive director of Mass Peace Action, as activists lined the street outside the division of Textron that makes the controversial cluster bombs the Providence-based conglomerate sells to Saudi Arabia and other nations through the US military.
Textron’s cluster bombs became a cause celebre earlier this year after Human Rights Watch produced evidence that Saudi Arabia used cluster bombs in civilian areas of Yemen. Mass Peace Action planned its action to coincide with recent attempts by Democrats in Congress to ban cluster bombs sales to Saudi Arabia.
“We realized it was an activist issue in Congress,” Harrison said. “We hope to help turn the tide on this. We don’t think it’s an issue that people understand very well.”
John Michael Spinelli at Plunderbund of Ohio writes—Kasich Kool-Aid Still Served:
Ohio Gov. John Kasich is not a fan of Donald John Trump. The same can be said by the Donald about Ohio’s 64-year old lame duck leader who’s stuck in his own lane on the party’s off-ramp.
With the GOP convention in Cleveland now less than two weeks away, the mystery is what Gov. Kasich, who lost all states but his own, will do when the Trump show comes to Ohio? A must-win state on anyone’s list, Republicans will melt faster than an ice cube in Death Valley in summer if Hillary Clinton defeats Donald Trump in Ohio and other key battleground states. She currently leads him from small to large margins in all important states. In some national polls, like the Reuters-Ipsos poll, she leads him by double-digits [13%].
But Camp Kasich, despite being tossed to the curb after its leader voluntarily bowed out of the race for president on May 4, saying he is still figuring out the Lord’s mission for him, is still serving up the Kasich flavored Kool-Aid that he can beat Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton will soon achieve her goal in Philadelphia a week after Republicans give the Donald the keys to the family car in Cleveland.
Camp Kasich provided links to several recent articles highlighting Gov. John Kasich’s efforts to help Republicans maintain their majority in the U.S. Senate. Among the articles were several touting Mr. Kasich’s ongoing popularity in national polls.
Genevieve Cato at Burnt Orange Report of Texas writes—New Texas Rule Will Require Aborted Fetuses to be Cremated or Buried:
Less than one week after the Supreme Court ruled against two of Texas’ most restrictive policies regarding abortion access, the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) proposeda new rule on the State Register. DSHS did not announce the proposed rule change, and gave little notice.
Just what does this rule change do? It requires that aborted fetuses be cremated or buried. While this is certainly something new in Texas, it is not a new addition to the anti-abortion playbook. As a matter of fact, it comes right out of the model legislation written by Americans United for Life. By using the rule changing process through a state agency as opposed to attempting to pass a law through the legislature – which agencies are able to do to a certain extent – they can avoid legislative session altogether.
Not only does this reduce the procedural tools that are available for slowing and stopping laws, it also means that the rule change can go into effect before session even starts. This one is slated to be enforced in September. [...]
While the required analysis of the rule change by the Director of the department’s Health Care Quality Section found that “the public benefit anticipated as a result of adopting and enforcing these rules will be enhanced protection of the health and safety of the public,” a spokesperson for Governor Greg Abbott didn’t even bother with the pretense of public health. “Governor Abbott believes human and fetal remains should not be treated like medical waste,” she said in a statement, “and the proposed rule changes affirms the value and dignity of all life.”