Just as states with progressive lawmakers and activists have themselves initiated innovative programs over a wide range of issues, state-based progressive blogs have helped provide us with a point of view, inside information and often an edgy voice that we just don't get from the traditional media. 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 Left at Alabama, countrycat writes—Southern Poverty Law Center Map of Hate: 22 Active Hate Groups In Alabama:
Well, it's a real melting pot of intolerance that contains Neo Nazis, Neo Confederates, White Nationalists, the Nation of Islam, and the plain old KKK. Alabama is tied with Mississippi in this survey, but far behind Georgia, which has 50 cells identified. [...]
The Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) is the modern reincarnation of the old White Citizens Councils, which were formed in the 1950s and 1960s to battle school desegregation in the South. Created in 1985 from the mailing lists of its predecessor organization, the CCC, which initially tried to project a "mainstream" image, has evolved into a crudely white supremacist group whose website has run pictures comparing pop singer Michael Jackson to an ape and referred to blacks as "a retrograde species of humanity." The group's newspaper, Citizens Informer, regularly publishes articles condemning "race mixing," decrying the evils of illegal immigration, and lamenting the decline of white, European civilization.
Wetumpka, already famous for its active & "out there" TEA Party members, is also home to two "Neo Confederate" cells: the League of the South & the Southern National Congress. [...]
There's something strange about the phrase "neo Confederate," isn't there? For the most part, these guys don't want anything to be new.
At
The Left Hook of California,
Bob Brownstein writes—
The Saga of San Jose:
How San Jose’s suffered under Chuck Reed
A once fine city now gone to seed
No A’s, no cops, no libraries open
From the Merc, not a word of dissent is spoken
AND SAM DOESN’T GIVE A DAMN
Reed’s buddies got millions that could have fought crime
While the firefighters can’t reach the blazes on time
There aren’t safe parks for a family to play
And the potholes will swallow a whole bus one day
YET SAM DOESN’T GIVE A DAMN
Increasing crime rates are scary and steep
While the crooks are laughing and the victims weep
And mothers and fathers just can’t see
Why their kids should be worth less than Measure B
STILL SAM DOESN’T GIVE A DAMN
Reed promised reform, but he’s twisted the rules
And his allies just sit there and bray like mules
But change is coming on a powerful wave
And the voters are calling- “It’s time for Dave!”
YEAH, SAM SHOULD HAVE GIVEN A DAMN.
More excerpts from progressive state blogs can be found below the orange gerrymander.
At Leftwing Cracker of Tennessee, autoegocrat writes—This was going to be the year Democrats won Shelby County. It still is, but it used to be, too.:
Shelby County is the largest Democratic stronghold in Tennessee. It is well within our power to become the most dominant force in state politics. We once were, and we will be again. We have to, we don't have any other choice if we want to move forward. Like it or not, Shelby County is attached at the hip to Memphis, and we will never help disadvantaged Memphians rise out of poverty if we can't even get them access to Medicaid, if HOPE scholarships get raided for the governor's pet projects, or if our attempts to reform the school system are undermined at every step. We can't just clean our house, that's not going to be good enough. We have got to elect more Democrats who can lead by example, who can influence their peers on difficult issues, and who will make Democratic voters across the state feel a sense of pride by dint of mere association. This is all within our power to do.
The very first step we can make in that direction is helping Lee Harris in his challenge to Ophelia Ford. That election will likely be decided by fewer than 2,000 votes and Senate District 29 desperately needs better representation in Nashville. This simple, small victory will go a long way toward reforming our image in the state capital and will put forward someone we can be proud of.
The next step should be making the party machinery more useful to candidates and elected officials so that we can all be on the same page and maintain some degree of party discipline. The SCDP should take an official position on every issue within its scope. That does not mean all Shelby County Democrats must take those same positions, but it is immensely important that the party communicates to its members the official party position on all local problems which have a political solution. That leaves room for individual innovation among its elected members while informing those same innovators about how they should maneuver relative to the party.
The county party must develop its own fundraising apparatus. Noble attempts have been made at this in the past, and they must be attempted again.
At
Blog for Arizona,
Donna Gratehouse writes—
Huppenthal/Thucky was wrong on the Internet about Margaret Sanger, abortion:
It’s pretty clear at this point that prodigious-commenter-on-blogs-at-all-hours-of-the-day “Thucydides” is none other than AZ Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal. Huppenthal’s other alter egos include “Falcon 09″ and “Socrates” but we know him affectionately as Thucky around these parts. Thucky likes to opine on a variety of subjects, and here he is last fall weighing in on the misogynist-cesspool blog Seeing Red AZ about Margaret Sanger.
When Darwin wrote his treatise on evolution, it was titled ” Survival of the Favored Races.” There were two parts to his work, one was to give a foundation to evolution, the other was to explain the dramatic differences between species. As he explained it in his 1859 work, as a species evolves it begins to develop different races. When one of those races develops a superior advantage, it wipes out the genetically inferior race. It was Darwin, not Hitler who named the Germans the master race. It was Darwin who expressed approval of eliminating both Jews and Africans. Hitler worked to eliminate the Jews. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood was given the job of eliminating African Americans. Hitler fed 6 million Jews into the ovens. Sanger has fed 16 million African Americans into the abortion mills.
One obvious problem with Thucky’s theory on Darwin and Sanger is that Darwin died in 1882 and Margaret Sanger was born in 1879. I’m dubious that Darwin would assign such a monumental eugenics project to a toddler. But the major flaw in Thucky’s reasoning is that it ignores Margaret Sanger’s actual position on abortion, which was strong opposition to it.
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Montana Cowgirl,
Cowgirl writes—
More Charter Lies Skewered:
After the Montana’s largest newspaper, the Billings Gazette, wrote a scathing editorial urging Montanans “Don’t Be Fooled by Charter’s Ballot Initiative,” the cable, phone, and internet giant appears to be desperately trying keep Montanans from finding out the truth about its proposed ballot initiative to force us to pay its taxes.
This in spite of the fact that the company has become somewhat of a national joke of late, inspiring websites like FU172 and causing bruising satire like this spoof video to go viral on Facebook and Twitter.
A senior Charter executive wrote a guest opinion in the Gazette last week with more blatant untruths–urging Montanans to sign their ballot initiative to force Montanans to pay its taxes “for fairness.” They don’t want Montanans to know that if their ballot initiative passes, our taxes will go up while their profits soar. [...]
Charter Communications is a multi-billion dollar corporation which is currently delinquent in paying its Montana taxes. The corporation is seeking its own personal loophole to Montana laws, as I wrote about here, in hopes of getting out of their tax bill. The ballot initiative asks voters to cut Charter Communication’s property tax rate in half–and would leave Montanans holding the bag for the rest.
At
The Seminole Democrat of Florida,
Independent Thinker writes—
Why are Rick Scott's Supporters So Surprised?:
Something very strange is happening, sort of a slow motion train wreck, with Rick Scott's campaign. His formerly loyal adherents are dropping him in droves.
Why?
Because he signed the Florida DREAM Act.
Really, they were already pretty pissed before that, about Common CORE. (Makes their kids get stressed out, you know. Not nice and relaxed any more, the way those starving kids in the Third World are.) But now it's like a bunch of miniature nukes went off. [...]
In light of all of this, the main question I have here is—why are these people so surprised?
Before he was elected, everyone knew Scott oversaw the largest case of Medicare fraud in history at the time, and had pled the 5th more than 70 times during a deposition. No problem, said the people who voted for him.
Before in office, Scott fought Obamacare tooth and nail. Once in office, Scott flipped on the most critical part of that a state governor can impact, the Medicaid expansion. One member of the Tea Party here famously quipped, "Will Medicaid expansion cover me for the knife @FLGovScott just buried in my back?" No one else remembers this?
At
Delaware Liberal,
jason330 writes—
What will be the ultimate price for our moral sloth in Iraq?:
In his second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln offered contemplative reflection on of the war’s larger meaning. For him, the war was God’s punishment for the abomination that was slavery. [...]
Speaking philosophically about our inhumanity and base willingness to mock the notion of a just God has gone out of style. If “God’s will” is invoked today it is by the charlatans and grifters. We rightfully recoil from them, the vermin who use fragments of the gospel to justify all manner of greed and brutality.
But what if Lincoln was right? What if God does want the scales of justice to come into balance? It boggles the mind to consider what price we will be asked to pay for the wanton misery and cruelty we’ve unleashed on the poor bastards who had the misfortune to be born in Iraq in this century.
“This mess has American signatures on it in indelible ink.”
It isn’t just Bush and Cheney—or just Republicans who voted for the blood thirsty criminals, but all of us. The journalists who put their career advancement ahead of the truth. The Democrats in Congress like Senators Clinton and Biden who knew better, but were mum out of political expediency, the silent pulpits of our so-called Christian congregations, and so on all the way down the line.
Lincoln made a point of saying that God’s judgement wasn’t leveled exclusively against the South, but against an entire people all of whom colluded over the course of 250 years to allow the evil of slavery to fester.
We all let the lies and brutality of Iraq fester. We went about our lives and, aside from the families of people who were pushed into the meat grinder, none of us has ever paid a price for all the wrongs and misery. If Lincoln’s God lives – we will.
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Progress Illinois,
Ellyn Fortino writes—
Are The Chicago Police Tracking People's Cellphones?:
A lawsuit was recently filed against the Chicago Police Department in an effort to learn whether it has purchased any surveillance equipment used to covertly scan people's cellphone data.
The suit, filed on June 6 in Cook County Circuit Court, was brought by the Chicago-based civil rights law firm Loevy & Loevy Attorneys at Law on behalf of 27-year old Logan Square resident Freddy Martinez, who works in the software industry.
Back in March, Martinez filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the police department seeking financial records involving any purchases of cellphone tracking devices known as International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) catchers or cell site simulators, which are used to identify a user on a cellular network. The commercial products are called Stingray, Amberjack, TriggerFish, Gossamer, Hailstorm, Harpoon or Kingfish, the suit states. Across the country, local police departments are reportedly using the technology.
The equipment, which acts like a cellphone tower and is typically attached to police surveillance vehicles, can collect data secretively from nearby cellular devices. The surveillance technology, intented to help law enforcement officials solve crimes, is capable of capturing cellphone data such as a device's unique identification number, location and numbers that have been dialed. Depending on the specific piece of equipment, some surveillance technologies can decrypt cellphone conversations in real time, said Martinez, a privacy advocate who teaches journalists and activists how to communicate securely.
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Indy Democrat Blog,
Jon E. Easter writes—
GOP Should Remember Whigs Before Turning on Turn Signal:
As I read some of the analysis of Eric Cantor’s loss in Virginia, I hear a theme that the Republican Party may be ready to make a right turn again.
My advice to the Grand Old Party would be to turn right, but turn right only knowing what it means. Turning to the right's going to leave behind a lot of moderates. Maybe even enough moderates to cause a political shift of epic proportions.
It's not unprecedented. At one point in history, Democrats had the Whigs to be worried about. The Whigs actually elected two Presidents (William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor) and counted among its membership memorable politicians like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.
For the Whigs (originally born out of opposition to Andrew Jackson), the question of slavery splintered the party. The stronger faction of the party which was more based in the northern states and was more anti-slavery became what we now know as the Republican Party, and the others dissolved away, quit politics, or tried to find other places to hang their hats politically.
Some Whigs tried to reinvent themselves as a part of the American Party and even nominated former Whig Veep turned President, Millard Fillmore, for President. They carried one state in 1856, Maryland. The Whigs threw their weight behind John Bell in 1860 for President before dissolving. A party that had been robust in 1852 and in the White House found itself dissolved by 1860.
At
Blue Cheddar of Wisconsin,
blue cheddar writes—
Wisconsin’s White Governor:
This post criticizes a few points in Alec MacGillis’ piece “The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker” but don’t get me wrong: IT IS GREAT. Read it, reread it, and save it.
In this article by the senior editor of The New Republic, we learn about how Walker remained a goody two shoe preacher’s son while he rode dirty race politics all the way to the seat of Governor. [...]
MacGillis says Walker exists in a protective bubble of conservative praise. That’s true to a point, but I think the author underestimates the strength of Walker’s talking point discipline as well as all the tests he faced during the recall. We make fun of his dead eyes but if he stays robotic, the press can’t get a rise or a slip-up out of him. This keeps him safe since absent sound bites, the press usually can’t or won’t research his past or his policies.
And it’s not just Wisconsin press that stays hands off. We see it from the national press, too. Such as when the Washington Post gushed that Walker is a “hands-on” tactician in this article about the John Doe emails. And when Monica Davey treats Walker with kid gloves in the so-called “liberal” New York Times.
That tough interview Mike Wallace gave Walker on FOX (mentioned in the “whiteness” article) was meant to put Scott Walker on warning. To tell him that he has disappointed his investors. It wasn’t meant to sink him.
His Unbearable Whiteness is a Feature Not a Bug for A Racist Party
At
Green Mountain Daily of Vermont,
Jack McCullough writes—
"Ain't gonna study peace no more.":
Norwich University is a military school justly known for its peace studies program, now known as Studies in War and Peace. Today it was one of the biggest warmongers of recent years speaking to a crowd of nearly three thousand.
Yes, as we posted the other day, Condoleezza Rice was the speaker this morning, and as the event unfolded it was clear that I wasn't the only one who could not imagine letting the event go by unchallenged.
The Burlington Free Press is reporting that several protesters were there, calling her a war criminal and repeatedly interrupting her speech. [...]
Naturally Rice made a show of being tolerant, while characterizing the protesters as "those who would defend Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda." Yes, she's still peddling the lie that there was some connection between the two.
At
Ohio Daily,
Anastasia Pantsios writes—
Kasich Signs SB 310, Makes Ohio America's Renewable Energy Caboose:
Last week, SB 310 made its way through the legislature and landed on Governor Kasich's desk. The bill places a two-year hold on Ohio's renewable energy standards, putting an anchor on energy innovation in Ohio and allowing other states that are looking to the future not the past to race ahead of us, with all the jobs and clean air that go with them.
When the bill sat on Kasich's desk without action for a week, many believed the sneaky governor was going to simply not sign it which, after a period of time, meant it automatically became law. Thus, he would be able to say his fingerprints were not on this regressive measure, even though his failure to veto it allowed it to become law.
Apparently, he got some pressure from the Kock Brothers, ALEC, Big Coal, and other opponents of moving Ohio into a clean energy future. He quickly signed it without fanfare, once again likely hoping he can get away without creating a firestorm. Let's hope he's wrong.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald, who has been monitoring the situation all week, came out with this statement:
Today, Governor Kasich ignored the voices of Ohio's working families, veterans, manufacturers, religious leaders, and business leaders. By signing SB 310 in secret, John Kasich is all but acknowledging that he has cost Ohio thousands of new jobs and millions in increased utility prices in order to appease the Koch brothers and other special interests.