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 the August 20 edition. Inclusion of a blog post does not necessarily indicate my agreement with—or endorsement of—its contents.
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At Delaware Liberal, El Sonambulo writes—Delaware United Rocks!
Remember how the supporters of Howard Dean applied their grassroots skills to great effect after Dean’s candidacy faded? In Delaware, many of these supporters became part of the Delaware grassroots and remain progressive stalwarts to this day.
Bernie Sanders supporters have taken the same approach in Delaware, and are working very hard on at least three campaigns near and dear to Delaware Liberal: Bryan Townsend for Congress, Eugene Young for Mayor, and Matt Meyer for NCC Executive.
Those supporters have joined together to create Delaware United, and they are awesome! Here’s how they describe themselves:
We are a proactive group of Delaware voters from various backgrounds, all united to change the course of Delaware local politics.
They’re also real cool. They’re hard-working volunteers, but they’re also lots of fun. Reminds me of what I love the most about grassroots politics.
At Intelligent Discontent of Montana, Brian Johnson writes—A Pipeline Carrying 500 Years of Pain:
The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their growing list of allies have traction in the media and the courts against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Sacred Stone Camp and Red Warrior Camp chronicle pictures, testimony and video on Facebook. Months of organizing and creative actions (like a youth run to D.C. people chaining themselves to dozers, and other planned arrests) are culminating in thousands gathered, Energy Transfer’s brazen disrespect for due process, and nonviolent water protectors using bodily interposition to disrupt the destruction while exercising incredible restraint.
Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier makes strong counter claims that the protestors ARE using violence. His statements are distortions at best, outright lies meant to mislead the public at worst. [...]
Why, Sheriff Kirchmeier, were no arrests made? Whence your eagerness to defend a corporate private security force? Besides your singular photo showing reasonable bodily interposition tactics, where is your proof? What is your position on the behavior of those dogs? And where was the Sheriff’s office while this event was taking place? Did you communicate in advance with the company or private security forces? The original statement from your office said nothing of the injuries sustained by protestors.
At Progressive Pulse of North Carolina, Rob Schofield writes—Thankfully, the Right surrenders on another “culture war” issue:
In case you missed it, there was some encouraging news from the good people at NC Child yesterday. Once again, after stubbornly holding out for decades, the Right is on the verge finally giving way on an important issue of the culture wars — corporal punishment.:
Corporal Punishment Disappearing from the NC Public Education Landscape
Today NC Child released data showing that just three local school districts in North Carolina used the practice of hitting students as a form of discipline, and that incidents of such corporal punishment have fallen 50 percent since last year.
The data come from a recent survey of public schools done by NC Child, according to Senior Fellow Tom Vitaglione. “The survey has gotten easier each year, as fewer schools use this ineffective and outmoded practice,” Vitaglione said.
The survey shows 71 occurrences in the three districts (35 in Robeson County, 22 in Graham County and 14 in Macon County) during the 2015-16 school year. Overall, this is a 50 percent reduction from the prior year.
Of course, it should be noted that numerous so-called “Christian” schools — many of which receive public money in the form, of school vouchers — are likely still beating children, but at least, the practice has almost been eradicated from the state’s public schools
At KnoxViews of Tennessee, R. Neal writes—Asteroid 17473 Freddiemercury:
Asteroid 17473, which orbits the Sun between Jupiter and Mars, has been designated "Asteroid 17473 Freddiemercury."
Discovered in 1991, the year of Freddie Mercury's death, the asteroid was named in his honor on the occasion of what would have been his 70th birthday.
Queen co-founder, guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May had a hand in its naming. And, yes, Brian May is actually an astrophysicist, having earned his PhD in astrophysics in 2007 from the London Imperial College. He also collaborated with NASA on the New Horizons Pluto mission.
Chris Lintott, professor of astrophysics at Oxford: "Pleasingly, it’s on a slightly eccentric orbit about the sun, just as the man himself was."
At Capital & Main of California, Alissa Quart writes—Moonlighting Teachers Learn Hard Lessons from Uber:
Matt Barry teaches history and economics to eleventh and twelfth graders at Live Oak High School, a public school in a suburb of San Jose, California. At 32, he’s in his ninth year on the job, teaching 35 students in each class. But Barry also has a second life that’s becoming increasingly common for American schoolteachers: He spends his after-school hours and weekends as an Uber driver in order to earn extra money.
Barry and his wife, Nicole, are both teachers, and each earns $69,000 per year, which should place them solidly within the middle class. If Silicon Valley hadn’t sprawled around them, that’s where they would be. But the explosion in wealth that has accompanied the tech boom has sent housing costs well beyond the reach of longtime working- and middle-class residents. In the town where Barry teaches, the median home price is $800,000, ensuring that the people who spend their days educating Live Oak students will never live near them.
In Barry’s own neighborhood of Gilroy, a 20-minute drive from his school, the median home price is $650,000. When Barry’s child is born—Nicole is pregnant—the family will pay an additional $6,000 dollars in health insurance annually; if she takes time off, that will more than double, to $14,400.
Barry shocks his Uber passengers when he tells them about his day job as he shuttles them around ritzy Morgan Hill, where his high school is located. Between rides, he grades papers. Among teachers, he’s not even the worst off—he and Nicole each earn an income, and they own their home. Even so, they are on the financial edge. “Teachers are killing themselves,” he says. “I shouldn’t be having to drive Uber 8 o’clock on a weekday. I just shut down from the mental toll: grading papers in between rides, thinking of what I could be doing instead of driving—like creating a curriculum.” [...]
Uber has hailed this arrangement as an “opportunity” for teachers, a chance to boost their earnings while “dedicating their lives to shaping students’ futures.” It’s supposedly a prime example of the “sharing economy” at work. Yet stripped of their gloss of generosity, Uber’s teacher/driver campaigns also share in a more twisted Silicon Valley fantasy: low taxes, good schools—and your kid’s teacher might drive you home after your expense-account meal with a venture capitalist!
At Plunderbund of Ohio, Abe writes—Bachmann Says Hillary Will Create Apocalypse:
Michele Bachmann, the dumb forever-whining ex-congresswoman from Minnesota now serving as Donald Trump’s advisor on things religious, has issued a warning to those of us who are not paying attention: She asserted on the Christian Broadcasting Network that if Hillary is elected it will be America’s “last election”. She said she really believes it “beyond a shadow of a doubt” because with Hillary in the Oval Office presiding over an off-white skin (brown and black) nation, we face an apocalypse.
Michele’s Doom’s Day histrionics are not new. You may recall that she once complained about the burden of government taxes on the wealthy, lamenting that the country may run out of millionaires. On the other hand she says Trump will stand up for “godly and moral principles.”
At Voice of OC of California, Thy Vo writes—Cutting Edge, But Too Close for Residents’ Comfort:
A proposal to build a facility that turns food waste into electricity in Anaheim is drawing heavy opposition from nearby residents, who fear the energy plant, which will be within 1,500 feet of homes and an elementary school, could expose their families to environmental and safety hazards.
Worries include the possibility of a fire or explosion from a methane gas leak, potential groundwater pollution from the plant's runoff, and the chance that emissions from the facility would harm children. Opponents point to specific examples of leaks and explosions in plants elsewhere.
Meanwhile, advocates for the plant, called the Anaheim Sustainability Center, say such concerns are overblown and that leaks and explosions are extremely rare. They say the process used in these types of facilities, called anaerobic digestion, is not new and is already used in several countries. [...]
Craig Florer, a resident of Yorba Linda and retired engineer who says he has worked on anaerobic digestion projects, supports the use of anaerobic digestion but opposes the project.
“It’s in a local zone of the Santa Ana River … and it’s in an active seismic zone …1,200 feet from homes, and 1,800 feet from schools where children are still growing and developing,” Florer told the Planning Commission during the Aug. 22 meeting.
“It’s a great idea—I support the idea, but they couldn’t have picked a worse place,” said Florer.
At Louisiana Voice, tomaswell writes—When reading missives underwritten by Koch Industries, it’s important to read what isn’t said and look for hidden agenda:
...when I received the essay from the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) entitled Five Ways the Government Keeps Native Americans in Poverty, I had to check it out.
It’s no secret that the federal government had consistently dealt the American Indians, aka Native Americans, a sorry hand. They were displaced from their bountiful hunting lands and transplanted to unforgiving, barren reservations where they were provided substandard educational facilities by uncaring, paternalistic bureaucrats in Washington—all in the name of Manifest Destiny. [...]
There was one big red flag when I started reading the post, however.
The article was written by one Shawn Regan of the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC).
Both FEE and PERC are funded in part by Charles and David, the billionaire Koch brothers of Koch Industries.
My first question before reading the first word was why are the Kochs suddenly so concerned with the welfare of Native Americans?
A 1989 U.S. Senate committee report, after all, found that the Kochs had cheated the Navajo tribe out of millions of dollars by deliberately short-measuring oil taken from Indian reservations.
At Appalachian Voices, Thom Kay writes—Revitalizing Appalachia from the ground up:
Back in February, a bill was introduced in Congress that would expedite funding to clean up old coal mining sites and redevelop them with a specific goal of fostering economic growth in surrounding communities. It was a turning point in the unfolding narrative about the future of Appalachia, and we have been working ever since to pass the RECLAIM Act.
The bill is in committee and the language is expected to change a bit in the coming weeks. As Congress considers those changes, lawmakers should look to communities impacted by the coal industry, in Appalachia and across the country, whose perspective is vital to the RECLAIM Act’s success.
As it currently stands, the bill would distribute $1 billion over five years to states and tribes to clean up abandoned mine lands while promoting economic development. The funding comes from an existing pot of money, the Abandoned Mine Land Fund, comprised of coal company fees paid over the past 40 years.
Most coal mine sites that closed prior to the passage of the Surface Mine Control and Reclamation Act in 1977 were never properly cleaned up, and present environmental and public health risks. The RECLAIM Act aims to create innovative economic opportunities by addressing historic environmental problems in communities with significant economic distress. The bill could put laid-off miners and other local residents to work reclaiming abandoned mines in ways that develop long-term economic opportunities in agriculture, recreational tourism, renewable energy and more.
It’s a “win-win-win” approach if ever there was one.
At Left in Alabama, T Michal writes—Michael Sentance Is Exactly What the BCA Ordered:
What do appointed school boards, charter schools, high stakes testing and the (maybe) soon to be appointed Alabama State Superintendent, Michael Sentance, have in common?
They are all bad for our high poverty kids….and they are all exactly what the BCA (Business Council of Alabama), Sen. Marsh and Rep. Collins would like to have in Alabama. [...]
At any given time if I have a question about, oh I don’t know, let’s say Massachusetts education reform for example, all I have to do is log on to the BAT (BadAss Teacher) FB page and post my question. I then get answers from folks that have first-hand experience about what’s REALLY happening in their state.
So with all of the talk in Alabama about the Massachusetts Miracle that Michael Sentance helped kick off in 1993, I figured, who better to ask than actual TEACHERS from the state of Massachusetts?
Here is what I’ve learned:
Read this report, written by the Citizens for Public Schools, about the 20th anniversary of the ’93 reform. You will see it predominately affected three areas: standardized testing, charter schools, and funding. It failed in two out of the three areas. www.citizensforpublicschools.org/...
In part the report states: “Massachusetts ranks 31st of 49 states for the gap between Black and White student graduation rates (with 1st meaning that the gap is the smallest) and 39th of 47 states for the size of the gap between Hispanic and White student graduation rates. For students with disabilities, Massachusetts’ four-year graduation rate is only 64.9 percent, which ranks the state at 28th out of the 45 states with available data in 2009.2 A significant reason for this low figure is the impact of the MCAS graduation requirement on this subgroup.”
At Juanita Jean’s of Texas, Juanita Jean Herownself writes—Son of a Motherless Goat!
I am ready to put something on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that even Ajax won’t take off.
The courts have said that a voter in Texas should not have to have two IDs, a set of fingerprints, and their mother to swear to their birth in order to vote. And they also said that Texas has to inform and educate voters of the “relaxed ID laws.”
Holy crap. Look at this.
The federal government is accusing Texas of circulating “inaccurate or misleading information” to poll workers and would-be voters about relaxed identification requirements for the November elections.
Oh wait, Texas would try to mislead voters? Would a one legged duck swim in a circle? Would a 50 pound sack of flour make a big biscuit?
Oh hell, yeah.
At Dakota Free Press, Cory Allen Heidelberger writes—Red Cloud Supporting Dakota Access Protest Camp, Says Nelson Backs Big Oil:
Henry Red Cloud, Democratic candidate for Public Utilities Commission, has been gathering supplies to support the “Water Protectors” protest camp at the Cannonball–Missouri confluence in North Dakotan. Red Cloud is also working the Dakota Access protests to drum up support for his campaign. Monday he issued this statement on Facebook to distinguish himself from his opponent, Commissioner Chris Nelson:
Let’s stand up and do something really important about the pipeline approval process!
My Republican opponent for the open seat on the Public Utilities Commission is Chris Nelson. He led the effort to approve the Dakota Access Pipeline. Illinois gets the oil, South Dakota gets the liability, the headaches and the spills.
Who does Chris Nelson work for – Big Oil or South Dakota?
Overall Chris puts a lot of effort into protecting the interests of oil companies rather than protecting South Dakota farmers, ranchers, tribes and all us regular citizens. For instance, he rejected South Dakotan farmers’ request that the Dakota Access Pipeline be routed around rather through their properties. And he called pipeline opponents’ request for an Environmental Impact Statement on the pipeline “out of line”… before rejecting it