This week at progressive state blogs is designed specifically to focus attention on the writing and analysis of people focused on their home turf. Here is the September 22 edition. Inclusion of a blog post does not necessarily indicate my agreement with—or endorsement of—its contents.
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Dave Bradley at Blog for Iowa writes—Older Voters Leaving The Republican Party:
Several articles around the internet in the past weeks indicate that older Americans are finally starting to understand that the Republican Party is in no way acting in their behalf. How so many older folks ever got fooled into thinking Republicans were ever going to work in their behalf is beyond me. Despite having attained many years of experience they were prone to believing the con job lies Republicans that are the main feature of Republican rhetoric and campaigns.
CNN postulates that older voters believed the lie that Republicans gurgled that the Obama administration was taking money from Medicare. The truth is that money from Medicare was transferred to the ACA so that costly health problems could be addressed earlier and thus not become a huge liability to Medicare as people waited to get care when Medicare kicked in.
From CNN:
Historically, Democrats were seen as the party of seniors. President Franklin Roosevelt made Social Security one of the landmark accomplishments of the New Deal. Decades later another Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, would push health care coverage as an entitlement for the elderly and make Medicare one of the cornerstones of his Great Society program. In subsequent elections as social issues came to the fore, seniors have tended to split their votes more evenly or side with Republicans. But in 2010 with the rise of the Tea Party and the generational and societal change ushered in by the presidential election of Democrat Barack Obama, elderly voters turned decidedly towards the GOP. Republicans helped drive that process by asserting that president Obama’s 2010 signature health care reform legislation would defund Medicare. And that would be a GOP rallying cry throughout the Obama presidency.
As Republicans cemented their hold on all three branches of government plus many state houses, their long held desire to crush any and every vestige of the safety net built in the most part by Democratic administrations is no longer kept hidden from view. The most visible and popular among these safety net programs are Social Security and Medicare, the two programs that are at the very heart of older Americans ability to live and remain relatively healthy.
Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass of Kentucky writes—Report: Home Schooling Is a Scam. Also, Water is Wet:
For pity's fucking sake. People in Kentucky have been screaming this fact for literally decades. Everybody knows home schooling is a fraud. Always has been, always will be.
[...]
Attendance verification was just one of the multiple issues with home schooling accountability that made an OEA report.
In Kentucky, parents are required to tell local districts annually if their children are being home schooled and they must maintain attendance and grade reports, but the OEA report said there is little guidance in how they should be monitored.
Home school parents have to teach the same subjects as public schools and to hold classes for the same duration of time as the public school term, but the teaching is not monitored, the report said.
And those charged with enforcing attendance are confused about the criteria they should use to monitor whether parents are providing adequate information to districts because there is no legal guidance or minimum standards, Nelson said. They often don’t know what to do if they are concerned about the quality of a home school, she added.
State officials have done nothing to establish and enforce regulations to ensure home schooling actually educates children for one simple reason: freakazoid political power. The vast majority of homeschoolers in Kentucky are xianist fanatics who don't want public school to interfere with the pure religious bullshit they indoctrinate in their children. So they forced the legislature to keep home schooling entirely unregulated.
That's not in this report, of course.
Juanita Jean Herownself at Juanita Jean’s of Texas writes—Oh, Charles, No:
Republican men acting like … well, Republican men.
The University of Texas is investigating an allegation that Texas state Sen. Charles Schwertner sent sexually explicit text messages to a graduate student, including a picture of his genitals.
He’s a Republican, of course. And he says he’s a “family man.”
The female student met Schwertner at a political event on campus and told him she was interesting in working in politics. They exchanged information in a professional manner and he started texting her. According to the student, out of the clear blue, he …
During an otherwise professional exchange on networking and career advice, Schwertner abruptly wrote, “I just really want to f—- you,” and sent her an image that appeared to be a picture of his genitals that was taken in the shower.
She was not impressed and took it directly to university officials to investigate.
Schwertner represents Georgetown, a fancy upscale very red area north of Austin. By pure lucky coincidence, Glen Maxey and I will be speaking there together on October 13th and I bet Charles’ name comes up. Probably more than once.
He does have a very qualified Democratic opponent, Meg Walsh. As far as I know, Meg has never taken a picture of her winkie and sent it to a grad student, and those are exactly the kind of people we need in the state legislature.
Schweriner denies he did this thing, but you know, there’s pictures sent from his phone. If they hold a hearing to determine if that’s his winkie, I am definitely going because laughter is good for the soul.
Early on in the the nomination of D.C. Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court, political researchers exploring Kavanaugh’s likely ideological ranking on the political spectrum placed him right next to Justice Clarence Thomas, suggesting affinity between the two when it comes to how they would act on the court.
The current sexual assault accusations against Kavanaugh invites a second comparison about what they might have in common even off the court–namely, their denigration of women–and the Republicans’ consistent willingness to overlook it. There are obvious parallels between the way current GOP leaders and the President are treating the current accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, and Anita Hill, who emerged in 1991 with sexual harassment claims during the Thomas confirmation process.
Decades after Anita Hill made the words “sexual harassment” common language and just a year after the #MeToo movement brought down titans in the business, political and entertainment sector, Republicans are still jeering and dismissing sexual assault and misogyny instead of stopping it. President Trump–as though tweeting from a time warp–is predictably blaming the survivor and dismissing Ford’s trauma since she didn’t broadcast it the day it happened. Kavanaugh’s second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, may even be denied the opportunity to testify before Senators.
The Republicans’ response to these devastating accusations against their nominee is part of an overall pattern to turn the back the clock for women. The implications for our nation’s future are dire, particularly for poor women and women of color who will face the greatest consequences if we end up with another Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court.
Arizona’s Politics at Blog for Arizona writes—AZ Sen. Jon Kyl DID Work For Dark Money Giant JCN In Preparing For This Supreme Court Vacancy:
In an apparent contradiction to earlier comments, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl did provide material assistance in 2017 to the Judicial Crisis Network for the current Supreme Court vacancy. Kyl has not yet responded to repeated requests to clarify the extent of his work for the dark money group that is spending millions of dollars supporting the Brett Kavanaugh nomination.
Arizona’s Politics reported in July on Kyl being named the “sherpa” (or, guide) for Kavanaugh through the confirmation process. Kyl’s role in that trek was interrupted earlier this month when Arizona Governor Doug Ducey tapped Kyl to return to the Senate – this time, to serve out the remainder of Sen. John McCain’s term.
At that time, Arizona’s Politics asked if he was supporting the Kavanaugh nomination on behalf of the Trump Administration, JCN, or both; Kyl answered that he was “working gratis for the White House in my personal (not law firm) capacity.”
However, in his lobbying disclosure to the Senate last year, Kyl and his lobbying partner Bill Wichterman at the law firm of Covington & Burling indicated that not only did they help JCN with the Gorsuch nomination, but they worked to “prepare for possible additional Supreme Court vacancy.” That 2nd disclosure report indicated that JCN paid $115,000 for the work between April 1 and June 30. Gorsuch was confirmed on April 7, so it would appear that a sizable chunk of work was done for replacing the next Justice to leave the bench.
#50ShadesOfDarkMoney: Arizona’s Politics has written about the dark money nature of the JCN in the past, and more recent reporting shows that it has been largely funded by one anonymous donor. In the current Kavanaugh battle, JCN has spent more than $4M to bolster Kavanaugh, and says the allegations of sexual assault and misconduct are “unsubstantiated.”
Regina Willis at Better Georgia writes—How long do you want to live? How long will you live?
There’s a 25 year life expectancy difference across neighborhoods in Georgia.
In Georgia, the neighborhood with the shortest life expectancy is just five miles south of Macon, Ga. With a poverty rate over fifty percent, the life expectancy is just over 63 years. However, Vinings, a suburb northwest of Atlanta, has a poverty rate under 5 percent, and a life expectancy of over 87 years.
Where you live impacts the quality of education your children get, the availability of healthy food, the safety of your neighborhood and the affordability of good housing.
These differences are so strong between Georgia neighborhoods, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that it profoundly impacts the length and quality of our lives. Without equitable access to healthcare, good paying jobs and quality education, we have vastly different outcomes in our lives. [...]
As Georgia struggles with rural hospital closures, the growing abuse of opioids and a refusal by policymakers to expand Medicaid we can expect these differences to persist. Are our policymakers willing to act to literally save our lives?
A staffer at Colorado Pols writes—Laughter is (Not) a Yuge Sign of Respect:
The only thing sadder than world leaders laughing at the President of the United States is when Trump supporters try to pretend that it was actually “respectful” laughter. As The Hill reports, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley appeared on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday morning to say this:
“When he said that, they love how honest he is,” she said. “It’s not diplomatic, and they find it funny. I mean, when he goes and he is very truthful, they kind of were taken back by it.
“Whether he said good things about him or not, they love that he’s honest with them,” she added. “And they’ve never seen anything like it, so there’s a respect there. I saw that the media was trying to make it something disrespectful, that’s not what it was. They love to be with him.”
Remember when your mother would tell you that people were laughing with you and not at you? Even as a kid you knew that she was just saying that to make you feel better.
Zach W at Blogging Blue of Wisconsin writes—Chris Abele’s BHD to outsource inpatient mental health services to a for-profit healthcare company:
What could possibly go wrong with this?!?!?!?
In early 2021, for the first time in more than 100 years, Milwaukee County will no longer operate a hospital to provide care to people with severe mental illness.
The Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division’s board on Wednesday voted to contract with a for-profit company to provide inpatient care in a new hospital that would open in 2021.
As noted in Guy Boulton’s report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Universal Health Services faces fraud investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys general at more than 30 of its behavioral health hospitals. The investigations include criminal investigations at four of its hospitals as well as of Universal Health Services as a corporate entity.
According to the Journal Sentinel report Mike Lappen, Chris Abele’s hand-picked administrator of the Behavioral Health Division, believes Milwaukee County can learn from Universal Health Services’ “proven model,” saying, “We believe we can learn from them.”
This has all the makings of a disaster, and County Executive Abele’s fingerprints will be all over it.
Don Pogreba at The Montana Post writes—Matt Rosendale Cannot Be Trusted with Our Public Lands or The Constitution:
Rosendale had more to say in 2014. He told Chuck Johnson that he had been working with the American Lands Council to transfer federal land in 2014. The American Lands Council is the preeminent advocate for federal lands transfer and the group that famously includes Yellowstone, Glacier, and Montana’s Indian reservations in the lands it wants states to seize. They do, however, helpfully point out that Rosendale did vote for a crackpot bill to establish a public lands task force in 2015.
In this interview with Northwest Liberty News, Rosendale makes his views clear: that states’ rights demand the transfer of federal lands. In fact, he does so far as to call PILT payments from the government nothing more than “welfare for the state.”
It was appropriate for Montana Public Radio and the Lee Newspapers to report this week that Matt Rosendale no longer supports the transfer of federal lands, but it’s not enough to let him get away with saying he’s changed his mind. Given the passion with which Rosendale argued for lands transfer in the past—and his belief that the very idea of federal land management is against the Constitution—the media must demand he explain how those views changed and when they did.
As for me, I don’t believe a word of it. Rosendale has certainly seen the polling and has seen how Montana voters feel about politicians who want to threaten our public lands, so he’s saying what he thinks we want to hear.
What Mr. Rosendale can’t seem to see or ever manage to do, though, is what Montanans want most: for him to just tell the damn truth.
LOLGOP at Eclectablog of Michigan writes—Putting a guy like Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court is exactly the point:
We cannot underestimate how badly Republicans want to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, regardless of what they find out about him.
Sean Trende, the analyst behind the “Missing White Voters” theory, compares putting a conservative on the Supreme Court before the midterms to the Democrats push to pass the Affordable Care Act, meaning getting it done is essential for the party leadership, regardless of the costs.
I agree but I don’t think any conservative would do. It has to be Brett Kavanaugh, even if they don’t have the votes yet. Because this isn’t about sexual assault and it’s not even about Roe. It’s about the thing that makes whatever Kavanaugh has done fine and the thing that unites someone like Mike Pence who can’t be alone with alone with any woman but his wife and Donald Trump who you’d never leave alone with your wife.
It’s about the right to force your beliefs on your perceived enemies, and only your enemies.
To understand how badly they want to confirm this guy, just pretend that the lie Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are telling their voters is true — imagine there is any doubt how Brett Kavanaugh would rule when it comes to protecting women’s reproductive rights.