This week in progressive state blogs focuses attention on the work of people who look at the political doings 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 Ohio Daily, Anastasia Pantsios writes—Ohio Republicans' Deep Antipathy Toward Women's Freedom Is Massively Increasing:
Almost two years ago, the legislature and our governor, Taxin' John Kasich, stuffed some anti-choice stuff into the budget bill—a probably illegal and definitely inappropriate move—that instantly plummeted Ohio to the basement as far as women's reproductive rights go.
But they're not happy, no. Ohio's neanderthal misogynists are proposing still more mean-spirited intrusive, super-big government measures to limit women's life choices and assure that more Ohio women and children fall into poverty.
What do they want to see happen?
First they want to ban ALL abortions at 20 weeks — the ones overwhelming sought due to tragic medical complications by women who really really wanted a baby. This would cause a massive amount of suffering and probable deaths. In addition, due to the obstacles already put in the way of abortion for poor and working women, more and more women are pushed into later abortions.
Then they want to make sure that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, Ohio can be first out of the box to return to the "good old days" of coathangers and back-alley abortions by banning all abortions. Watch young people flee the state in even greater numbers.
More excerpts from progressive state blogs can be found below the orange gerrymander.
At Bold Nebraska, Mark Hefflinger writes—Rep. Brad Ashford Again Sides With Foreign Oil Corp. Over Nebraska Farmers and Ranchers:
Rep. Brad Ashford (D-Omaha) today voted for a second time to approve the risky Keystone XL tarsands export pipeline, despite strong opposition from his constituents and a promised veto of the wrong-headed bill by President Obama.
“Rep. Ashford continues to support eminent domain for private gain with his vote for the risky Keystone XL pipeline,” said Bold Nebraska director Jane Kleeb. “To pretend this massive, foreign tarsands pipeline somehow does not impact climate change or risk our water discounts science and common sense. Farmers and ranchers can only breathe a sign of relief because President Obama will veto this reckless bill.” […]
Rep. Ashford recently stated in a response to a constituent’s letter critical of his support of TransCanada’s Keystone XL that he “will be an active voice in Congress seeking to decrease our energy dependence on foreign sources of energy.”
Last time we checked, Canada is a foreign country.
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North Decoder,
Chet writes—
Why Brian Williams Should Get Back To Work:
OR ... Why it’s easy for me to forgive Brian Williams. […]
I am a lawyer. In my work, I sometimes deal with people who are witnesses in court. Sometimes those witnesses are my clients, sometimes they are not. Sometimes they are “hostile,” and sometimes they are not. Sometimes they seem to have perfect, vivid memories, and sometimes they do not. But many witnesses have terrible, inaccurate, selective memories. They are not necessarily bad people. They are people. […]
We’re human.
Brian Williams is human.
He had an inaccurate memory just like you’ve had inaccurate memories before and I’ve had before, too. So let’s acknowledge the obvious—that nobody is perfect—and move on.
If there’s going to be a discussion about Brian Williams, it should be a discussion about the science behind inaccurate memories including a discussion about the trouble with eyewitnesses; not a discussion about how Brian Williams is a big, fat liar.
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Bluestem Prairie of Minnesota,
Sally Jo Sorensen writes—
Tim Miller calls Andrew Falk's dad a "leading Republican," hits him up for campaign cash:
With the pixels barely dry on his campaign committee's 2014 year-end funding report to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, Tim Miller is outraged with "liberal Mark Dayton and the Democrats' wild and reckless taxing and spending spree!"
And since he claims he needs $14,500 in the next two weeks in 2015 campaign contributions to stop it, he's leaving no stone unturned as he combs the countryside in search of loose change.
Indeed, he sent a fundraising letter to one of Swift County's most successful farmers and business people, Murdock seed farm owner Jim Falk of Murdock, whom Miller's letter identified as a "fellow Republican" who shares Miller's values. Miller asked Falk, "Can I count on you, one of our area's leading Republicans, to help me right away?"
Bluestem suspects that Miller shouldn't get his hopes up, since Falk is not only Swift County DFL chair, he's also the father of Andrew Falk, whom Miller defeated in a fairly personal campaign last fall.
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Blue Virginia,
lowkell writes—
Delegates Lopez, Sullivan, Rasoul; Senator Favola Speak Out on Combatting Climate Change:
Thank you to everyone fighting for climate action in Virginia. The forces of inaction are strong and well funded, but their position is completely untenable, certainly in the long run but hopefully in the short-to-medium run as well. That is, if we want to have a habitable planet to live on. Sadly, a lot of fossil fuel folks and their political allies care more about profit and greed than about current and future generations. Also note that moving to clean energy is a "win-win-win," in that it's good for the environment AND for the economy AND for electricity consumers (aka, all of us). So don't buy the false environment/economy tradeoff meme; it's utter bull**, just like most other words you hear coming out of the fossil fuel folks' mouths.
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Uppity Wisconsin,
Jud Lounsbury writes—
Another "Drafting Error"? Walker Also Deleted "Fair and Peaceful" From Labor Relations Statutes:
Long before Scott Walker dusted off the statutes and tried to put "search for truth" and the rest of the Wisconsin Idea in the 'ol wood chipper, he successfully obliterated something almost as big: he deleted "fair and peaceful" and the rest of the Declaration of Policy for labor peace from the State Employment Labor Relations Act (SELRA), which was a general mission statement for how Wisconsin should deal with its public servants.
I know this going to shock you, but Wisconsin hasn't always had peaceful labor relations. Strikes and other labor unrest were common and a huge inconvenience to the public. Historically speaking, Wisconsin was home to the Bayview Massacre, where seven unarmed workers were shot and killed by the Wisconsin National Guard during protests for a little bitty thing called the eight hour workday.
To ensure that labor conflicts were resolved peacefully, Wisconsin passed a wide variety of laws and developed "suitable machinery for fair and peaceful adjustment of whatever controversies may arise."
This "machinery for fair and peaceful adjustment" led to forty years of labor peace in Wisconsin. But in 2011, Walker changed all that. He literally tore-up the longstanding peace agreement between Wisconsin and its public servants, in what is now known as Act 10—even removing "fair and peaceful" and the rest of the Declaration of Policy for labor peace from the statutes.
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The Orange Juice Blog of California,
Debbie Tharp writes—
A Trojan Horse of a Different Color: Dispatch from the Cannabis Legalization War:
A marijuana legalization round table was held by a group called Reform California just a few days ago here in Orange County. As expected, the meeting was somewhat contentious rather than unifying, even though Congressman Dana Rohrabacher chose to grace the meeting with his presence.
Since the meeting took place, negotiations for this unity movement have deteriorated somewhat, and some are speculating that the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), Americans for Safe Access (ASA) and CalNorml may be unable to bring California’s disenfranchised legalization movement to a workable agreement in time for the 2016 ballot.
Many members of the “unity” movement and the press speculate that this lack of agreement is due mainly to a group of rabble-rousers and contentious outsiders who are unwilling to make any compromises for an amicable solution. […]
Long story short, Dale Gieringer, head of CalNorml has been recorded by an attendee, Craig Beresh, at a Reform California public meeting saying that he is not concerned with what 90% of his constituents at CalNorml want, but instead what 51% of the voters will vote for.
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The Mudflats of Alaska,
Jeanne Devon writes—
Speedo Sinks Alaska Gov’s Appointee:
Amid a firestorm of gasps, giggles, and moral outrage, Alaska’s Governor Bill Walker (I) has withdrawn from consideration an appointee to the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct.
Jeff Landfield’s own conduct came under scrutiny after several Facebook photos came to light, which the governor’s spokesperson Grace Jang said were “disrespectful” and “misogynistic,” a characterization Landfield disputes. No specific images were cited, but Landfield’s personal Facebook page is a cornucopia of party pics, poolside Las Vegas romps, and boozy musings.
The position Landfield hoped to take for the Walker administration handles complaints filed against state judges—an unpaid appointment which would have required legislative confirmation. Landfield currently chairs the Anchorage Federation of Community Councils, and is a former candidate for the Alaska State Senate. […]
Several of Landfield’s Facebook photos circulated around the Capitol building in Juneau to raised eyebrows. The images showed him clad in a leopard skin-patterned Speedo and a cowboy hat, surrounded by women in bikinis at a Las Vegas swimming pool. Another showed him grabbing a woman’s breasts in a bar. Landfield said he thought better of sharing that particular image, and quickly deleted it after posting – about a year ago. Other pictures showed him at a bachelorette party making a crude and suggestive gesture with a party favor, and hiking an Alaskan trail drinking whiskey from the bottle.
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Democratic Diva of Arizona,
Donna writes—
Cap Day at the Capitol and Yet (Another) Anti-Choice Law:
Here’s a neat little thing about abortion law in Arizona that you may be unaware of: It has an exception written into it that just so happens to make it so that some affluent ladies are able to have their “procedures” done by their private physicians with no one bothering them.
2. “Abortion clinic” means a facility, other than a hospital, in which five or more first trimester abortions in any month or any second or third trimester abortions are performed.
So if a general practitioner or gynecologist with a posh office in Scottsdale keeps it to five or fewer abortions a month s/he can provide them to patients without going through most of the rigamarole placed on the clinics that serve non-wealthy women. Nice, huh? Gotta hand it to right wingers. They sure are good at exempting themselves from the pain they want to dish out to others.
The other thing the [proposed] bill does is ban insurance coverage for abortion from women using the federal ACA exchange by changing the language of the existing law that only pertains to state run plan to any health care exchange operating in the state. Neat how they didn’t want to set up a state exchange under the ACA but now they want to tell the federal one what it can do (and it already doesn’t use federal funds to cover abortion because compromise had to be made with anti-choice Dems to get the ACA passed). It’s unlikely antis are even going to pretend this is about “safety” so I’m guessing they’re going with the argument that godly virtuous Americans should not have to subsidize women getting the dirty slut operations. Even if said women are paying 100% of the costs of the premiums for their insurance themselves.
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Progress Illinois,
Ashlee Rezin writes—
Victory for Workers: Cook Co. Board Passes Anti-Wage Theft Law:
The Cook County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday unanimously passed legislation that aims to protect employee wages and force businesses to more closely follow labor laws.
Under the ordinance, companies or business owners found guilty of wage theft are barred for five years from obtaining Cook County procurement contracts, business licenses or property tax incentives. Also, companies pursuing business with the county will now have to certify compliance with federal and state wage and labor laws.
"[Wage theft] is unfair to hard-working employees and their families and it's unfair to competing businesses which are operating within the confines of the law," said Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, shortly after Tuesday's vote. "The legislation passed today will make Cook County a national leader targeting wage theft."
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My Left Nutmeg,
ctblogger writes—
Forces behind effort to eliminate democratically elected Bridgeport [Board of Education] donate to Kenneth Moales Jr:
Let's hear it for less democracy!
Just days before the voters of Bridgeport overwhelmingly defeated Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch's bizarre 2012 proposal to eliminate the democratically elected board of education in Bridgeport and replace it with one appointed by the Mayor, millionaire charter school champion Jonathan Sackler quietly wrote a personal check for $50,000 to help pay for the final set of mailings and advertisements designed to persuade Bridgeport voters to give up their right to vote for those who oversee their City's public schools.
Now Jonathan Sackler and many of the same pro-charter, anti-public education, pro-corporate elite are pumping money into Reverend Kenneth Moales Jr.'s campaign for State Senate with the goal of helping Moales qualify for a taxpayer-funded state campaign grant that he would use to pay for his campaign in the February 24th 2015 state senate special election.
It won't come as any surprise to those who have watched the ongoing effort to undermine and denigrate the people of Bridgeport that the very same individuals and groups that worked so hard to take away democracy in Bridgeport and keep Paul Vallas in charge of Bridgeport's schools are now working overtime to put Moales - a Malloy/Finch ally and disgraced former chairman of the Bridgeport Board of Education - into the Connecticut State Senate.
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bluenc of North Carolina,
scharrison writes—
GOP tax reform: Lose your home to foreclosure, and then pay taxes on it:
They have absolutely no shame:
One of the other provisions in the legislation would startlingly hurt homeowners struggling with foreclosure by counting as income any portion of their mortgage debt forgiven by a lender.
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Sen. Tamara Barringer, a Republican, bucked her leadership and voted against the bill because of the change, telling the News & Observer, “these are people that have lost their homes. Are we going to tax them when they’re trying to get back on their feet?” Apparently the answer from Senate leaders is yes. There were no hearings on that part of the gas tax bill, no discussion with mortgage lenders or people who work with struggling homeowners.
I hope my friends who support the gas tax will join me in calling for a Veto for this bill. And I also hope AG Roy Cooper speaks out, and quickly, since he has been a champion for those suffering from the unethical practices of those lenders who propagated the mortgage fiasco that has ruined so many lives. This provision will put families thousands of dollars in debt to the state, money they don't have and can't get, quashing any hopes they might have of recovering. And all because Republicans wanted to give people with three homes and two boats a tax cut. Disgusting doesn't even cover it.