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 Blue Virginia, lowkell writes Corruption of Dominion Power, Virginia Tobacco Commission Summed up in Political Cartoon:
The following political cartoon, sent to us by a talented artist, refers to this story on "Dominion's Strange Tobacco Money."
Dominion Resources, the powerful, Richmond-based utility with $13 billion in revenues, has strangely been getting $30 million public funds to bring a natural gas pipeline to a new generating plant in Brunswick County.
Odder still (or maybe not so) the public funds are coming from the GOP-controlled Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission which has figured in a wave of corruption since it was formed in 1999.
Even more bizarre, the tobacco commission made up of politically-appointed people arranged for Dominion to receive millions more than its own staff recommended,according to an intriguing report by the Associated Press.
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Keep in mind, as the AP story points out, that "Dominion is without peer in terms of political sway in Virginia and routinely gets friendly legislation passed with broad bipartisan support." Not coincidentally, Dominion "is the single biggest donor to state-level politicians, as well as one of the biggest gift givers - often treating lawmakers to Washington Redskins games or paying for them to attend events like the Masters golf tournament in Georgia."> Oh, and "CEO Thomas Farrell II and McDonnell are childhood friends."
Also worth noting is that Farrell - pictured in the political cartoon - received $10.9 million in compensation in 2013, while his company earned $545 million in the third quarter of 2014 alone. Does this sound like a company that needs any taxpayer-funded corporate welfare at all, let alone $30 million?!?
Below the orange gerrymander you will find more excerpts from progressive state blogs.
At Keystone Politics of Pennsylvania, Jon Geeting writes Most of PA Policed by Militias:
That’s what you call a 5 or 10-person “police department” of mostly part-time officers right?
Did you know that two-thirds of the state’s police officers are part-time, and 15% of the departments are part-time? And that the federal government is giving these lil’ militias terrifying weapons of war to play with in the course of their township policing duties.
Also, a little less than half of PA’s municipalities fall into the category where they are too small, have too little governing capacity, or are too tax-allergic/exurban, that they mooch off the state police for coverage at a cost of about $500 million to state taxpayers. Police department consolidation is the second place Tom Wolf should go looking to close the Republican budget deficit, after canceling tax subsidies for fossil fuels.
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The Mudflats of Alaska,
Zach Roberts writes
Clooney’s Wife: Fascinating, but not for that reason:
Barbara Walters chose Amal Ramzi as one of her ‘most fascinating people’ — ABC decides it’s for marrying George.
[…] I want to punch the writer of this piece in the face right now. Yeah, I know that’s a bit aggressive, but I’m tired of this shit. Here’s how some nameless writer decided to open a short article about Amal Ramzi being named Barbara Walters ‘Most fascinating person of the year.’ [You can read the article here, if you want to hate yourself]
“Amal managed to do the seemingly undoable, locking down a man thought to be one of the world’s most determined bachelors. In fact, Clooney, who had been briefly married in the early 1990’s, told Walters himself in 1995 that “I’m never going to get married again.” |
For those keeping score at home, Barbara Walters and ABC decided that Amal Ramzi Clooney is one of the most fascinating people of the year for one sole reason: she married an actor. But not just any actor, GEORGE CLOONEY, FAMOUS BACHELOR. For this reason alone, it seems, she is commended and held up for honor.
But who is Amal Ramzi Clooney? I mean clearly she did something before meeting George Clooney, right? I mean she wasn’t just a homeless vagabond – that star of Return of the Killer Tomatoes!, George Clooney threw some change towards—right?
In a more just and proper world we’d be writing about how actor George Clooney got lucky and snagged one of the most significant and famous women on the planet.

Here’s how a better writer opened an article about Amal:
Amal Ramzi Clooney is a London-based British-Lebanese lawyer, activist, and author. She is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, specialising in international law, criminal law, human rights, and extradition. Her clients include Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, in his fight against extradition. She has also represented the former prime minister of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko. In September 2014, she married American actor George Clooney. |
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Left in Alabama, in his excellent series,
country cat writes
Part 5: Private Prisons - Sweetheart Contracts Fill Beds & Pad Profits:
At 192% occupancy, Alabama's prisons are so overcrowded that some fear a federal takeover. It's likely that some sort of prison reform (or maybe just a building spree) will be a major topic of the 2015 legislative session. And when the private prison lobbyists start waving donation checks and ALEC-inspired bills at legislators, there's a good chance some form of privatization will be under discussion.

The private prison industry is generous with contributions. Between 2004 & 2012, half the members of the Oklahoma legislature received $200,000 in gifts and campaign contributions.
But before we start looking at a short-term fix, it's important to see how these contracts have played out in other states. For the most part, prison privatization is a zero sum "solution" to a problem: when corporations win, taxpayers lose.
"Guaranteed Occupancy" Is a Crucial Part of the Business Model: When CCA made its 2012 offer to 48 states to buy the state prison systems outright, that offer came with one important condition: the state would have to "guarantee" a 90% occupancy rate. Last year, In the Public Interest (an anti-privatization group) reviewed 62 private prison contracts. Two-thirds of them (41 total) included occupancy requirements.
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Capital & Main of California,
Charles Davis writes
Lawyers and Law Students Stage ‘Die-in’ Outside L.A. Courthouse:
“Racism doesn’t take a break when it rains and neither will we,” Priscilla Ocen, a professor at Loyola Law School, announced over a loudspeaker outside the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles Tuesday. Before her stood a crowd of about 200 people, mostly lawyers and law students, who braved a downpour to protest state violence from South L.A. to New York City, culminating in a four-minute-and-thirty-second “die-in” — representing the four-and-a-half hours that police in Ferguson, Missouri, let Michael Brown’s dead body lie in a street.
“I think it’s a really important thing to stand up to the injustice that we’re seeing around the country,” said Mona Iman, director of Taslimi Foundation, which works to defend human rights in Iran. “This wave of killings of unarmed black men is just so disturbing,” she told me, “and when you feel the frustration and you feel the anger at what’s happening in the world, you have to do something about it.”
Organizers of the “Lawyers for Black Lives” protest argued that those who work in the legal profession have a special duty to stand up to injustice that’s given the cover of law – and even they were surprised by how many diverse demonstrators answered their call to spend their morning lying down on the wet steps of a courthouse.
“We’ve consistently seen police literally get away with murder,” said Erin Darling of the National Lawyers Guild. He argued that when the state fails to indict a police officer for a homicide, as happened in Missouri with the shooting of Michael Brown and in New York with the choking death of Eric Garner – both unarmed black men – it’s not an accident or case of prosecutorial incompetence, but by design.
In Los Angeles County alone, at least 590 people have been killed by police since 2000, or about one person every week; more than three-quarters of those killed were black or Latino. Nationally, media reports suggest around 1,100 people are killed each year by law enforcement – the federal government itself doesn’t keep track – which works out to about three killings a day. By contrast, in Germany, a nation of more than 80 million people, there were just eight fatalities involving police over the last two years.
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The Left Hook of San Jose, California,
The Left Hook writes
Comprehensive Living Wage Law Passes, a Model for the Nation:
After months of research and public discussions, Santa Clara County Supervisors have officially passed the most comprehensive Living Wage ordinance in the nation. A week ago, Supervisors approved the progressive details of the newly proposed law, which include: requiring county contractors to pay employees a living wage, with health and retirement credits, paid sick leave, a voice on the job without fear of retaliation, and groundbreaking fair workweek provisions including full time work and flexible hours .
In the Valley of Plenty, despite the booming tech economy, one in three residents does not earn enough to get by. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, led by Supervisors Ken Yeager and Dave Cortese, have created an ordinance that will change the standard of living for thousands of people.
A report titled “Setting Job Standards for a New Economy: An Innovative Living Wage for Silicon Valley,” lays out elements for the most comprehensive local legislation covering county employees and entities that do business with the county. The report was written by public policy think tank Working Partnerships USA.
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My Left Nutmeg of Connecticut,
ctblogger writes
Steve Perry Claims Victory - Tweeting - "Not leaving, just expanding.":
Hartford and Connecticut taxpayers appear poised to subsidize Steve Perry's private charter school management company thanks to an agreement announced last Friday between Perry and Hartford's Superintendent of Schools. [...]
The lucrative deal for Perry was put together and announced without a vote of the Hartford Board of Education. [...]
What is absolutely clear is that according to the documents Perry and his private company provided the New York Board of Regents, control of Hartford's Capital Prep Magnet School was critical to his plans, not only since he would be collecting a multi-million dollar management fee for running Hartford's public magnet school but because he would be using Capital Prep to employee the majority of the members of his private company.
By deciding not to turn Capital Prep Magnet School over to Perry and his charter school management company, Hartford put Perry's financial plan in serious jeopardy.
However, as a result of the Hartford Superintendent's new "informal, non-binding'" agreement, the Hartford Board of Education and the taxpayers of Hartford and Connecticut seem ready to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars in subsidies to Perry's operation by paying the salaries of Richard Beganski,( the "Chief Academic Officer" for Perry's company) and seven other Capital Prep Magnet School teachers, who according to the New York charter school application, will be playing key roles in Perry's private company.
Considering the financial issues facing the City of Hartford and the State of Connecticut it is astonishing that the Hartford would agree to divert scarce resources to support Steve Perry's ambitions to develop a lucrative charter school management company.
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The Seminole Democrat of Florida,
Independent Thinker writes
Corrections: The Rick Scott Barometer:
The burning question for 2015 has been, which Rick Scott did Florida's benighted voters re-elect?
Did they re-elect Tea Party Rick Scott, the one who cuts funds for disabled children and education? Or did they re-elect Happy Face Scott, who put those funds back?
As I've said before, while I think we need to watch out for Tea Party Rick Scott returning, I think that we'll see Happy Face Scott, thanks to the national GOP, which needs Florida badly for the 2016 Presidential election. The fact that Jeb Bush is taking steps to run for President in 2016 makes this even more likely: How embarrassing would it be for him to run, and not win Florida?
The good news (maybe) is that we now have a barometer to help us figure out which Rick Scott was re-elected. That barometer is Julie Jones, Scott's newly selected head of the Florida Department of Corrections.
The fact that Scott selected her so soon after the resignation of Michael Crews is itself nothing sort of parting-the-Red-Sea miraculous. Remember, Scott was the one who took nine stinking months to select a new lieutenant governor, and left hundreds of lower appointment positions unfilled. Scott is never in a hurry to replace people, and that he brought Jones in so quickly is a point in favor of the return of Happy Face Scott.
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43rd State Blues of Idaho,
MeAndG writes
Dear Angry Democrat:
The Idaho Democratic Party receives some very negative messages from those who call themselves supporters.
Here is a suggested response to these missives:
Dear Angry Democrat,
We received your reply to our fundraising solicitation. While we appreciate the time it took for you pen a handwritten note, it still lacked specifics that we can use to better evaluate our progress and make adjustments
You said you would be willing to donate if “we got off our dead asses, and started doing something.” In fact, we have been running an aggressive program to recruit excellent candidates, raise the funding needed to assist them in their campaigns, and help grow local Idaho Democratic parties.
You saw this work at play with very competitive candidates we fielded for statewide seats this past year. Though we are also dissatisfied with the results of the election, we in fact weathered a national pro-Republican wave that hurt candidates in every state.
Idaho is one of only seven states NOT to lose seats in the Legislature—in fact, we bucked that trend by gaining a seat. We also expanded, by 15, the number of county seats now held by Idaho Democrats.[...]
We invite you to work with us to make Idaho a better, balanced place.
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Progress Illinois,
Ellyn Fortino writes
Chicagoans Urge Emanuel To Support Reparations Package For Burge Torture Victims:
Chicagoans urged Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the city council on Tuesday to advance a long-stalled ordinance seeking reparations for survivors of torture committed by former Police Commander Jon Burge and his officers.
Members of Amnesty International, Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, Project NIA, We Charge Genocide and others marched Tuesday afternoon from Chicago Police Department (CPD) headquarters at 3510 S. Michigan Ave. to City Hall, where they delivered over 40,000 petition signatures to Emanuel's office in support of the reparations ordinance.
The roughly 150 activists, who toted signs that read, "Two decades too many," and "Reparations now," also held a memorial outside of Emanuel's office honoring the survivors of police torture under Burge's regime.
Between 1972 and 1991, Burge and his officers used torture to coerce over 100 African-American Chicagoans into confessing to crimes, such as rapes and murders, that they did not commit. The former Chicago police commander was convicted in 2010 of perjury for lying about the police tactic of torturing suspects into confessions. Burge, who was released from federal prison in October, got time off of his four-and-a-half year prison sentence for good behavior.
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Blog for Iowa,
Paul Deaton writes
Gasoline and the Shale Boom:
Yesterday I filled my gas tank for $23.70, with the per gallon price in the mid-$2.40 range. That’s not low compared to when I commuted to Eldridge and fueled at Walcott for $1.02 per gallon for what seemed like months. Neither is it like when I was young and gas wars yielded prices below $0.30, enabling me to top off my tank for a buck or two. However, we are now below $3 per gallon with the prospect of going lower, so prices seems low in a short-term, relativistic way.
There is no doubt that the revolution in shale oil production through hydraulic fracturing is causing the lower oil and natural gas prices in the U.S. The shale boom is replicable world-wide (at least to some degree) because shale is a common and abundant form of sedimentary rock. In some ways, the game changing of shale is just getting started, even though it began in the 1940s. [...]
xWhile shale oil production is booming, 2014 will be the warmest year on earth since record-keeping began, and a clear departure from the climatic conditions in which the industrial revolution emerged. It’s hot and getting hotter world-wide. The climate has changed and is changing.
It is a scientific fact that man-made pollution is contributing to the warming planet. Natural gas is a fossil fuel that emits carbon dioxide when burned. While part of domestic carbon emission reductions during the last ten years have come by switching from coal to natural gas for electricity generation, there are problems. [...]
It is important that we extend our reach beyond personal or family budgets and do what is right about the shale boom. That means developing the political will to finish a transition to a fossil fuel free world.
Easier said than done, but the price society will pay for failing to do so is much higher than what we see at the gas pump.
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Burnt Orange Report of Texas,
Katherine Haenschen writes
Just How Wrong Was Rick Perry About Income Inequality In Texas?:
The line from the interview that has gotten the most press is Perry’s claim that Texas doesn’t have a problem with income inequality. The Post reports that Perry “dismissed the notion that income inequality is a problem in the state, saying, ‘We don’t grapple with that here.’”
Unfortunately for a substantial share of Texans, Perry’s assertion is not true. Texas ranks 5th in terms of income inequality in the United States. [...]
The job growth in Texas isn’t all due to Perry—data shows that the economy here has been strong for four decades. And as the Houston Chronicle reported today that for many populous counties in Texas, their highest earning days are behind them—back in 1999, and even 1979. And many of the jobs that Rick Perry brags about—that is, the ones he didn’t steal from other states—are low-wage service sector jobs that offer little in terms of professional advancement, benefits, or financial stability.
So basically if you’re Rick Perry, or one of the people he pals around with, income inequality isn’t something you personally grapple with, because you’re incredibly well off. And if you’re everyone else in Texas it’s a part of your daily life, whether you realize it or not.