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.
Note: With the posting of today’s edition, “This week at progressive state blogs” will be on vacation until Saturday, September 10.
|
At Show Me Progress of Missouri, WillyKay writes—Too late we learn the truth about the good guys and the bad guys with guns:
You know how the NRA types are always telling us that the antidote to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy? This claim owes much of its currency to the work of a “scholar,” John Lott, author of the widely cited The War on Guns, who has made shilling for the NRA his life work. Sadly for the NRA, though, Lott is a demonstrable fraud. Devin Hughes and Evan DeFelippis, two reporters at Think Progress have examined his background and his published research and confirm that, as summarized below in Raw Story, it’s all bunkum:
They presented the five worst [problems with Lott’s work], which included falsely claiming that a Lott essay was published in a “peer-reviewed journal,” lying about the number of mass shootings in the U.S. versus Europe, making deliberate misreadings of the center’s own analyses, lying about the number of deaths in “gun-free zones,” and, again, creating an echo chamber by posing as fans and supporters online.
Just to show how easy it is to fool an audience that wants to be fooled – say, for example, Fox News and its devoted viewers – Think Progress also presents evidence that Lott’s dishonesty is not new news.
But Lott’s recent successes belie a far more shadowy past. A little over a decade ago, he was disgraced and his career was in tatters. Not only was Lott’s assertion that more guns leads to more safety formally repudiated by a National Research Council panel, but he had also been caught pushing studies with severe statistical errors on numerous occasions. An investigation uncovered that he had almost certainly fabricated an entire survey on defensive gun use. And a blogger revealed that Mary Rosh, an online commentator claiming to be a former student of Lott’s who would frequently post about how amazing he was, was in fact John Lott himself. He was all but excommunicated from academia.
Will this debunking of the “good guys with a gun” line make any difference? Maybe, but not likely. First of all, a corollary of the rule that folks are easy to fool when they want to be, is the fact that few of those folks will believe information contrary to their druthers when they get it. Secondly, this information isn’t likely to make it to the outlets frequented by 2nd amendment types. And thirdly, even if this weren’t the case, it may already be too late.
At Blue Oregon, Chuck Sheketoff writes—The choice is clear with Measure 97: "Yes" to strengthen schools, "no" to endure budget cuts:
This November, Oregonians will face a clear choice: Vote "YES" for Measure 97 or endure more than a billion dollars in cuts to schools and other key public services.
An analysis published today by state budget officials shows that Oregon faces a budget shortfall of $1.35 billion in the upcoming budget period. That is a substantial gap, amounting to about 6 percent of the state budget.
It is difficult to see how the 2017 Oregon legislature could muster the political will to close enough tax loopholes or raise taxes to fill the billion dollar-plus gap.
Oregonians will avoid the pain of budget cuts if voters approve Measure 97 on the November ballot. Measure 97 would establish a 2.5 percent tax on the Oregon sales of C-corporations that exceed $25 million. According to Oregon's Legislative Revenue Office, the measure would raise more than $6 billion each budget period, mainly from large, multi-state corporations headquartered outside Oregon.
The decision whether to endure more than a billion dollars in budget cuts or, instead, strengthen schools and other key public services is in the hands of Oregon voters.
At Delaware Liberal, cassandra_m writes—DL’s Endorsement for Wilmington Mayor:
In most Blue States, the usual source of Democratic progressive governing is from its major cities. The Editors of Delaware Liberal have often lamented the fact that Delaware’s biggest city has been lacking in a more progressive political vision at pretty much every level. There’s one candidate in Wilmington’s Mayoral race who is finally advocating a comprehensive progressive vision for governing Wilmington — a vision that is inclusive of the entire city, that is committed to bringing city government practices into the 21st century and will start the work to tackle some of the social justice issues that damage and hold back some of our communities. Delaware Liberal is proud to endorse Eugene Young for Mayor of Wilmington.
Eugene is a native Wilmingtonian, who went away to college and returned to his community to focus on helping to find solutions to improve this community. Even though he could likely go to work anywhere, Eugene choose the path of public service and social entrepreneurship — creating Delaware Elite and joining the Center for Justice as Advocacy Director to focus on developing and implementing solutions that started to mentor some of our most at-risk teens into college and in correcting some of justice obstacles that unfairly hold back some of our citizens.
He worked for Representative Helene Keeley and Representative Stephanie Bolden, addressing constituent issues from helping to deal with vacant property issues, to working with neighborhood groups to get resources to support development projects, to working with the City to define and address their yearly legislative and budget needs from the State.
While working for Cory Booker, he had a front row seat to Booker’s legendary campaign to overcome Newark’s entrenched and corrupt machine politics to become the Mayor of a city that finally took back its future and is still at work to stabilize its neighborhoods and grow its economy. When Mayor Booker became Senator Booker, Young was charged with working with Senator Booker’s state-wide constituents to help them to get the Federal resources, the legislative support and private sector help to address their priorities.
At Blue Jersey, Bill Orr writes—Thanks to the Donald, Democrats challenging Republican incumbent congressmen have new opportunities:
The November election for congresspersons could yield better than expected results. Normally incumbents hold their seats, and there are few or no surprises. However, there is already high hope for a win in Congressional District (CD) 5, and the possibility of wins elsewhere. Currently there are six Republicans and six Democrats in our delegation.
Trump’s descent in the polls, his campaign disarray, and his obnoxious comments could signal new opportunities. Some disaffected Republicans could sit out the election reducing the Republican pool. Some could decide to vote for Clinton instead and even cast votes for a Democratic congressperson. Also candidates in NJ cannot win just with the support of their party. There are far more Independents than there are Republicans or Democrats. Because of Trump more Independents disaffected by him or who lean Democratic might come out to vote and increase the pool for the Democratic challengers. The more Dem challengers can show how the Republican incumbents support some of Trump’s outrageous positions the better.
In the stronger Republican CD’s Republican incumbents have less to fear. However, of these six districts there are two where there are more registered D’s than R’s. In one district the difference is about 3% and in all the others the R’s are ahead by about only 10%. This is considerably different from some of the districts with incumbent Democrats where the D’s are overwhelmingly ahead of the R’s.
In the six Congressional races in 2014 where the Democrats lost, they were defeated by an average of 38,000 votes. Three of the Democrats lost by less than the average. These closer races might be considered as targets for turning them from red to blue, with the aid of Trump screwing up, volunteers, donors and a strong get our the vote effort.
At Democurmudgeon of Wisconsin, John Peterson writes—AG Schimel argues Walker illegal campaign coordination legal now, retroactively, to US Supreme Court:
Nothing says political elite than seeing Scott Walker order his Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel to declare his past illegal activity legal. And that's after his march-in-lockstep legislature passed a law allowing campaign coordination with issue advocacy groups, which at the time was illegal.
According to the WSJ story, elites can get off breaking our laws by just changing it later; “Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature have since changed the law making the alleged activity legal.”
Attorney General Brad Schimel asked the U.S. Supreme Court Monday to reject a review of a halted criminal investigation into Gov. Scott Walker’s recall campaign, Schimel’s filing argues the court should reject the appeal because Walker and the Republican-controlled Legislature have since changed the law making the alleged activity legal and prohibiting the use of secret “John Doe” proceedings in investigating campaign finance violations.
Yes, Schimel offered that argument up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Wow. Skip the legalities, right? And how does prohibiting John Doe investigations of campaign violations help his argument? But the following reason was a head spinner:
“The people of Wisconsin thus made as clear as they possibly could that they wish to put this unfortunate chapter behind them,” Schimel wrote.
The “people?” Oh, he means those highly partisan representatives controlling all branches of government. Got it:
Walker’s 2012 recall campaign violated election laws regulating coordination between campaigns and so-called issue advocacy groups that have backed Republicans and conservative Supreme Court justices.
At The Wheeling Alternative of West Virginia, the editor writes—A surprise - the Intelligencer prints an AP article on the global warming debate:
On Monday, The Intelligencer[/Wheeling News-Register] acknowledged that there is a debate going on over climate change by printing an edited version of a longer Associated Press analysis. For most of the article, the AP interviewed the general public and gave both sides without taking a position. but it did include a section on the consensus scientific opinion on climate change and why some people reject it. While I have some problems with the Intelligencer version of the original article—it included only three paragraphs of the scientific portion of the original making most of the printed article about what the non-scientists interviewed believed about climate change—I was still surprised to see it. For a "newspaper" that often ignores climate change altogether, distorts the record, or characterizes the EPA's actions as part of the president's "vendetta" against West Virginia, it was a step in the right direction.
At Dick and Sharon’s L.A. Progressive, Randy Shaw writes—Will $400 Million in California’s Housing Funds Disappear?
As California’s housing crisis worsens, the state’s allocation of $400 million for affordable housing is on life support. That’s because the $400 million was conditioned upon passage of Governor Brown’s housing “as of right” plan, and a labor, environmental and tenant coalition is battling the proposal without a backup plan to secure the desperately needed new funds.
The loss of that $400 million would represent a monumental strategic failure by progressive opponents of Brown’s plan. It would also reflect a growing and unfortunate trend whereby housing advocates put more effort into stopping housing than toward building it.
Brown’s housing “as of right” plan was designed to address his concern that housing costs were artificially inflated by opponents challenging projects on environmental grounds that already meet existing zoning and land use requirements. Brown has opposed new state affordable housing funding until he secured his desired reforms of the housing approval process.
Brown expressed these views as mayor of Oakland, where he used his concern over the housing approval process to justify vetoing an inclusionary housing law. His views have not changed since he again became Governor in 2011. Advocates for state housing funds knew going into 2016 that Brown’s concerns—valid or not–had to be addressed.
That gave advocates for new housing dollars two choices: either make a deal with Brown to enact “as of right” legislation, which is the course chosen by the leading state groups representing nonprofit housing, or ignore the deal making and fight the “as of right” legislation down the line. That’s the approach chosen by the coalition now fighting the proposal.
At Democratic Diva of Arizona, Donna writes—Oh, Hell No, John McCain:
So Kelli Ward, who is challenging [John] McCain for the GOP primary, was campaigning in Winslow and she and some supporters did a jovial little homage to the Eagle’s song featuring the famous corner in the tiny town. Silly, but not quite Rodney Glassman “Sweet Home Arizona” level cringe-inducing.
As you can see, John McCain’s PAC described it thusly:
#StreetCornerKelli sings her heart out
Winslow, AZ has a new street act that will pump you up past the 2:30 slump! Introducing #StreetCornerKelli!
I’m so sure the political operatives who came up with the “Street Corner” label – and made it into a hashtag – for a woman had no idea of its connotations! And the second statement? Oh, sure, that must be about singing. I see you, McCain, and whichever dudebro on your staff thought this was clever.
I understand there may be those who feel that women are misinterpreting and overreacting to this. That we’re being overly, wait for it, PC about it. Well, let me offer my rebuttal as a 10 year military veteran, followed by another decade in a high tech male-dominated field, experience that has bestowed upon me a PhD from the University of Dealing With Harassing Dirtbags and Their Many Enablers: bullpucky.
I can’t speak for Ward but I can tell you that Ann Kirkpatrick has to respond to this because McCain’s campaign is giving her a little taste what she’s in for when he is her (very likely) general election opponent. Basically women have two choices in this situation:
1. Say nothing and the abuse escalates. Be seen as weak and unwilling to defend yourself, thus deserving of abuse.
2. Defend yourself and be seen as an oversensitive hysterical bitch who can’t take a joke.
At The Prairie Blog of North Dakota, Jim Fuglie writes—Learning From History: No Bloodshed This Time:
Here’s how Darrell Dorgan described the events on North Dakota Highway 1806 south of Mandan this afternoon:
“140 years ago, the Sioux took down Custer and the 7th Cavalry. Today, the Sioux took down the North Dakota Highway Patrol. But this time, the Highway Patrol was smart enough to get the hell out of there before anybody got killed.”
I was having a nice quiet Friday, canning tomato juice, when Darrell called and said he was going to take some bottled water down to the protest camp on the Standing Rock Reservation, and would I like to come along? What the heck, a nice drive along the Missouri River on a summer afternoon sounded good to me.
We delivered the water to LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, a tribal elder and historian, on whose land the camp was set up, after running the gauntlet of more than 40 law enforcement vehicles parked on both sides of Highway 1806 at the site of a tribal protest against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Tribal members are concerned about the giant oil transmission pipeline crossing the Missouri River just upstream of the reservation. Preliminary construction work is underway—roads being built from Highway 1806 to the shore of Lake Oahe along the route the pipeline will be buried. [...]
We found some people we knew, got brought up to speed on what was happening, and all of a sudden the lady standing beside us said “They just uncovered human remains. C’mon, we’re going to jail.”
By this time there were indeed several hundred people gathered at an approach where the construction vehicles were entering the construction area. Word spread throughout the crowd and also the law enforcement contingent like wildfire.
At Beach Peanuts of Florida, Martha Jackovics writes—Disqualified: Marco Rubio Claims No Knowledge Of Trump's Russian Ties:
This comment comes from "Little Marco" today, on the now widely reported ties between Donald Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Russia:
Either the bubble in which Marco Rubio resides is extremely thick, Rubio is himself extremely thick, or he's shameless, doesn't care, and will say anything and do anything to win. I personally think all of the above apply.
But no matter how you look at it, this statement alone should disqualify Rubio from public office, especially when you consider the committees he currently sits on, including the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, just to name two.
Rubio's also a member of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet, but I suppose he's also "not aware" that Trump invited Russia to hack into Hillary Clinton's emails, and that there's growing evidence that Russia has indeed hacked into and exposed the personal information of many Democrats in Congress.
At Burnt Orange Report of Texas, Katie Singh writes—Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are Losing Popularity in Texas:
Even the Texas GOP isn’t safe from the toxicity of Donald Trump.
At least, that’s what Public Policy Polling’s latest Texas poll, released this week, seems to suggest. Trump is polling at only 44% in Texas, while Hillary Clinton is at 38%. Gary Johnson came in third at 6%, while Jill Stein polled at 2%. Trump’s lead remained at 6%, or 50-44, when matched against Hillary in a head-to-head contest.
As a reminder, Mitt Romney won Texas by 16 percentage points back in 2012. Trump’s current lead is only in the single digits.
Where it really gets interesting is the breakdown of which Texans are supporting Trump. As you might expect, Trump’s lead seems to be coming exclusively from his support among older, whiter voters. Some highlights:
- Trump holds a 63-33 lead among voters over age 65. Hillary Clinton leads Trump 49-45 among voters younger than 65. And she leads 60-35 among voters under 45.
- Trump’s lead among white voters is a staggering 69-25. But Hillary leads 73-21 among non-white voters.
- Hillary’s lead among Hispanic voters is 68-27.
Another conclusion we can draw from the PPP poll results is that Texan Trump supporters appear to be totally out of touch with reality.
At Blog for Arizona, Michael Bryan writes—Lying Jan “Heads in the Desert” Brewer Calls Hillary Clinton a “Lying Killer”:
Former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, she of the lie that immigrants had been beheading people in the deserts of Arizona, called Hillary Clinton a “lying killer” on the Mac and Gaydos show on KTAR.
She was assuring the the hosts that Clinton could not win Arizona when she said, “they’re tired of the lying killer, uh, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clintons of the world.” She later tried to walk the comment back when asked about it by Buzzfeed:
“I was trying to say Hillary Clinton, It was a stumble of the tongue. Good grief.”
Yeah, I can sympathize. Every time I try to say Donald Trump, it comes out as “the cinnamon Hitler, uh, Donald Trump.” And every time I try to say Jan Brewer, it comes out as “the embarrassing clown, uh, Jan Brewer.”