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 in Alabama, countrycat writes—Alabama's Poor Have It Worse Than Most - And It's Not Getting Better:
It sucks to be poor anywhere. In Alabama though, the deck is really stacked against you from the git go and those who snarkily suggest you "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" seem willfully blind to the fact that you're barefoot. Let's look at how one of the most religious states in the country treats the least of those among us.
• Refusal to expand Medicaid hurts the working poor & the unemployed, who would LOVE to have some of the 30,000 new jobs it would create.
• Rural hospitals in financial trouble may close. Ten rural hospitals in Alabama have closed in the past 3 years, and more are teetering. Lack of Mediciad expansion means lower reimbursement rates and more uncompensated care. Longer drives for care often mean worse outcomes for emergency patients.
• No state minimum wage law. Even as other "red states" like Arkansas raised the state's minimum wage above the federal minimum, Alabama is one of five states with no state minimum wage law at all.
• Alabama's infant mortality rate is well above the national average. The rates in minority communities "are comparable to those found in third world countries."
• After four years of GOP supermajority rule, Alabama's poverty rate has gone UP.
• Alabama is in the top five of states that levy the most taxes on the poor.
Alabama's legislature restricted the ability of county & city governments to require sick leave: the Give your boss the flu act. This hurts low wage workers the most because they're less likely to have any sort of paid leave.
• The Alabama Accountabiliy Act - aka the Great Private School Giveaway helps middle & upper income families afford private school tuition, while draining public education money from poor schools. Oh, and it enriches Bob Riley & his pals too.
• Inmates in county jails (which includes people who haven't been convicted, but are too poor to raise bail money) die for lack of adequate medical care.
• State government ignores the needs of existing Alabama businesses & just "tsk tsks" when long-time employers like International Paper or Meadowcraft close. Meanwhile, Governor Bentley was willing to spend $600 million or more to lure more Boeing jobs to the state.
• Alabama deregulated telephone rates, with Senators noting that "everybody" has cell phones nowadays. Except they don't & there are few towers in hilly rural areas - or even in flat rural areas in the Black Belt.
• The Republican Party & Alabama Power fought PSC commissioner Terry Dunn tooth and nail when he asked a simple question: "Why are rates for Alabama Power customers higher in Alabama than in surrounding states?" He lost the primary & there will be no formal review of rates.
The only citizens that state government truly cares about, it seems, are those with open checkbooks & big bank accounts. It's easy to mouth religious platititudes - Alabama politicians of both parties do it all the time - but that's as far as it goes. The only "religious precepts" these clowns are willing to enact are those that restrict the civil rights of women & the GLBT community.
At
Blog for Arizona,
Pamela Powers Hannley writes—
Grijalva & Ellison of Progressive Caucus Urge Obama Immigration Decision:
While Republicans are threatening President Obama if he dares to take legal action on immigration through an executive order, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is encouraging him to go bold. In fact, they’re giving him ideas for action.
"Expansive and robust action that addresses the economic, family, community and national problems we now face is urgently needed … Fixing our broken immigration system will benefit our economy and allow us to use our national security resources more wisely,” write the Progressive Caucus co-chairs Congressmen Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison in their memo. Obama has multiple choices.
Check below the orange gerrymander for more excerpts from progressive state blogs.
At The Orange Juice Blog of California, Vern Nelson writes—Dave Ellis Named in Lawsuit by Muckraking Journalist Framed & Jailed for Child Porn:
Sleazy old Newport Beach consultant Dave Ellis had a mixed week, last week.
It was surprising to see this secretive figure actually run for public office – the Municipal Water District of OC this year. He’d evinced a feeling of relief and liberation when he pried himself free, not long ago, from the last position where he was expected to show some responsibility to the public – his disastrous and near-criminal stint on the Fair Board, where he took advantage of his position to try to sell the public property to himself and friends for development and profit. [...]
And to cap off Dave’s big week, we now hear he will soon be subpoena’d and deposed to find out what he knows about, and how much he may have had to do with, the outrageous railroading of his old political foe Sam Clauder on completely false child porn charges, for which Sam served 50 days but was later exonerated.
At
Capital & Main of California,
Seth Sandronsky writes—
Wage Theft Confidential: Do Laws Work?
California has roughly a dozen labor codes governing wage-theft on the books, with more proposed each year in the state legislature. Are these laws proving effective? Fausto Hernandez is one worker who doesn’t think they are. The 55-year-old native of Oaxaca, Mexico, has labored in the carwash business for a decade.
“For several years I worked at Slauson Carwash in South L.A. — 10 to 11 hours a day,” he told Capital & Main. “The employer would only pay me for three hours, never for all the hours I worked.”
According to Hernandez, he sought relief by contacting the CLEAN Carwash Campaign, a community coalition led by the United Steelworkers union. The campaign helped him file a claim with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), an office of the state’s Labor Commissioner.
Workers who take such action face employer retaliation. Hernandez’s employer fired him, he said. Hernandez was eventually hired at another carwash that later closed. “Recently I received a letter saying that the [Slauson Carwash] owner didn’t pay me correctly and that I’m owed tens of thousands of dollars,” he said. “I am still waiting to see the actual money.”
Hernandez’s story is one of many that underscore the enforcement shortcomings of the state’s current wage-theft laws, which on paper appear robust. According to a study conducted by the National Employment Law Project and the UCLA Labor Center, “Only 17 percent of California workers who prevailed in their wage claims before the DLSE and received a judgment were able to recover any payment at all between 2008 and 2011.”
At
Colorado Pols,
Colorado Pols writes—
Red-on-Red Recriminations Over Recall Winners’ Defeats Go On:
We've talked about the enormous black eye the victory of former Mayors Against Illegal Guns state coordinator Michael Merrifield over 2013 recall victor Bernie Herpin represents, being by far the more competitive of the two seats picked up last year by the GOP. Republicans don't want to talk about it now, but we'll say it again: the 2013 recalls were the biggest news event at the state legislative level in Colorado in many years. The national attention these recalls earned last year should make the flipping of both of these seats right back to Democrats–especially Merrifield with his former relationship with MAIG–big, big news. Instead, it seems like the significance of this conflicting result in an otherwise great year for the GOP has yet to fully sink in.
With that said, at least one major operative from the 2013 recalls is sowing fresh dissent against Colorado Republicans, not just over Merrifield, but the failure of Republicans to defend Pueblo's SD-3 seat:
Breitbart News spoke to recall spokeswoman Jennifer Kerns on November 12. She says: "The state Republican Party party chair lived up to his threat to not fund operations in Pueblo because of the 2013 recall elections, which state party did not support." And although the Pueblo County Republican Party chair was able to shame the state party into sending a meager amount of funding late in the cycle, Kerns said it was considered "too little, too late." |
Now the truth is, of course, that there was no way Republicans were going to keep heavily Democratic SD-3 in any general election, and the pickup of this seat in last year's recall had as much to do with intra-Democratic squabbling in Pueblo as it did anti-gun control backlash. But we suspect that nuance will be completely lost on Breitbart's national audience, and the comments of recall spokesperson Jennifer "CAPartyGirl" Kerns will further fuel already burning discord on the Colorado GOP's gun-crazy right flank. Herpin's defeat, and the speculated role of follow El Paso County Republican Bill Cadman in hanging Herpin out to dry, certainly fit this emerging narrative.
At
Delaware Liberal,
Jason330 writes—
Tom Carper Supports GOP Protest Over Executive Action on Immigration:
I should never be surprised. I should just assume that Carper agrees with the Republicans on any given issue. And yet, he continues to surprise me.
Democrats say they want the opportunity to work out the immigration issue in the Congress.
But Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, which has jurisdiction of the immigration enforcement agencies that would be affected, said Obama should wait until next year.
“If I were the president, what I’d say to the Congress — House, Senate, Democrat or Republican — I’m going to give you a little bit of time and in the new Congress expect you to do something,” he said. [...]
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I have to wonder if he supports shutting down the government in the event of executive action on immigration. If he does, I’m sure the Republicans will “reciprocate” and it will be the vote that ushers in an era of bipartisan peace and prosperity.
At
Blue in the Bluegrass of Kentucky, writes—
Because We Always Let Our War Criminals Skate:
When was the last time America even tried to prosecute our own war criminals? J. Edgar Hoover died in his bed. Henry Kissinger still walks free and dares to give advice on foreign affairs. Jamie Dimon is still committing the crimes that brought the global economy to its knees. Exxon-Mobil and BP keep turning the planet into a hellscape that will destroy human civilization.
And bloody-handed SmirkyDarth goes on book signings.
The Rude Pundit:
Why are we doing this? Why is Bush allowed to go anywhere without crowds pelting his car with shit and rotten tomatoes and eggs? Why aren't there riots at his book signings, demanding his arrest for crimes against humanity? Why hasn't he been run so far out of any town that he has to live in an underground bunker so that the angry masses don't tear him limb from limb? Are we that brain-damaged a nation that we've forgotten? Are we that delusional that we can't just say, endlessly, "Shut the fuck up," and mean that we never want to hear from him again until we all jubilantly join hands and do a crazy jig on his grave? |
At
Eclectablog,
Eclectablog writes—
After slashing teacher benefits, firing staff, and outsourcing “nearly everything,” Flint schools face Emergency Management:
Flint schools have been in financial trouble since 2011 when [they] first went into debt. In 2012, they eliminated 460 teachers and staff positions. In May of this year, they laid off 91 more teachers and staff and slashed benefits of the remaining teachers as an alternative to a 19% pay cut. Later in the summer, another 12 teachers and 8 administrators were fired. In the meantime, they have “closed and sold off buildings, eliminated staff and outsourced nearly everything except instructional and administrative positions.”
The result? An increased deficit that now leaves Flint schools $21.9 million in the hole and facing an Emergency Manager.
This is a classic case of an urban area that has seen its manufacturing crumble and, with it, a loss of students as people leave the city. Fewer students, lower tax base, and no plan from the state government to deal with our struggling urban centers leaving Flint and so many other cities and their school districts high and dry.
At
Progress Illinois,
Ellyn Fortino writes—
Disability Rights Activists Demand Closure Of Troubled Rogers Park Nursing Home:
Activists protested Monday afternoon outside of a Rogers Park nursing home where numerous disabled children and young adults have died in recent years.
Toting signs reading "Kids need love not nursing homes," about 20 disability rights advocates with the group Access Living demanded that the troubled facility now called Alden Village North shut its doors for good. The activists, who staged a similar protest against the facility in September, also stressed the need for more community-based supports for people with disabilities.
"We believe that no child with a disability should be in a nursing home, but if they have to exist, this is not one here that should" remain open, said Gary Arnold, public relations coordinator at Access Living.
At
Blue Oregon,
Kari Chisholm writes—
No, really, Monica Wehby wants to run Obamacare in Oregon. Really!:
Hilarious? Sad? Some of both, I guess.
It seems that Dr. Monica Wehby—who ran as a single-issue anti-ObamaCare candidate— called Gov. John Kitzhaber and offered herself up as a candidate to run the Oregon Health Authority.
From the O[regonian]:
A day after losing her bid for U.S. Senate, Monica Wehby picked up the phone and reached Gov. John Kitzhaber on his cell. ... According to multiple sources, she asked about a job opening: director of the Oregon Health Authority. |
And here's another important reaction that seems spot-on:
Jeff Heatherington, president of FamilyCare Health Plans, chuckled when he heard about Wehby's interest.
Heatherington, whose company contracts with the state to provide managed care to low-income families on the Oregon Health Plan, said the Health Authority needs a strong administrator to clean it up, then manage it with a great deal of political know-how.
"About $16 billion runs through the Oregon Health Authority," he added. "You don't put a novice in there."
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You can't make this stuff up.
At
Ohio Daily,
Anastasia Pantsios writes—
State Rep. John Barnes Suing Democratic Party Because It Didn't Endorse Him After He Cozied Up to GOP:
Oh dear God. I’ve been reading about poor, put-upon Cleveland-area state representative John Barnes Jr. and how he’s all sad at his fellow state Democrats for not endorsing him in his primary and at his fellow state House members for not giving him a plum committee assignment because RACISM RACISM. I haven’t stopped laughing for hours.
So now he’s suing the Ohio Democratic Party claiming he’s the powerful independent voice for black people who deserves the support of a party he has dissed just because … well, I don’t know.
Barnes loves to tout his “independence” from the Democratic Party and the Ohio Black Legislative Caucus as if he is some brave and daring free thinker. He seems to think going against your own party and aligning with Republicans on significant issues is somehow heroic because hey, you’re your own man and not beholden to party leaders. (Whether he is truly his own man or Bill Patmon’s mini-me is an issue we won’t take up here).
Barnes is upset that the party endorsed his challenger in last May’s primary. He thinks they should faithfully endorse the incumbent, never mind that that’s one of the things that has led to stale thinking and a closed system that shuts out new blood.
At
Keystone Politics of Pennsylvania,
Jon Geeting writes—
Lame Duck Corbett Trying to Sabotage Real Medicaid Expansion:
Tom Wolf thumped Tom Corbett on Election Day running on, among other things, real Medicaid expansion.
But apparently Corbett didn’t get the message the voters sent him, because he’s apparently planning to spend his remaining months in office trying to lock in his fake Medicaid privatization plan, and make it harder for Tom Wolf to keep his promise to bring Pennsylvania the real thing.
This plan is much more expensive than simply accepting the real Medicaid expansion, but apparently running up a $2 billion structural deficit wasn’t satisfying enough for our failed Governor.