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 Sept. 30 edition. Inclusion of a blog post does not necessarily indicate my agreement with—or endorsement of—its contents. |
Rob Schofield at The Progressive Pulse of North Carolina writes—National legal experts: Unless Supreme Court acts, NC gerrymandering will become the national norm:
University of California, Irvine law professor Rick Hasen had a fascinating and extremely important post yesterday in the aftermath of Tuesday’s U.S. Supreme Court argument in the Wisconsin political gerrymandering case, Gill v. Whitford.
In “Justice Kennedy’s Partisan Gerrymandering Hypothetical is North Carolina’s Reality,” Hasen cites national redistricting expert Micheal Li’s analysis for the premise that unless the Court acts to limit gerrymandering, North Carolina’s rigged elections will become the national norm.
Li notes that in a hypothetical posed by Justice Kennedy (at left), the objectionable situation described is precisely what’s been happening in North Carolina. For confirmation, Li inks to an August, 2016 Charlotte Observer story which quotes Rep. David Lewis making patently clear that GOP maps were designed specifically to provide Republicans with a partisan advantage.
Hasen sums things up this way:
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but if the Court does not rein in partisan gerrymandering, it will be North Carolina that will be the norm, and it surely will make things even worse in terms of the public’s views of our democratic process.
Jim Fuglie at The Prairie Blog of North Dakota writes—‘Quit Farming? Heck, What Would I Do?’
I want to tell you a story today about a really remarkable woman, a true North Dakotan, a real character, and my favorite relative: my Aunt Deloris.
Deloris Boehmer is my last living aunt. She’s the only remaining member of my parents’ generation in our family. She’s 88, and lives in Edmore, North Dakota, about 40 miles northeast of Devils Lake. She’s got a pretty nice house in Edmore—used to be the Lutheran parsonage. She and my uncle Leonard—my mother’s brother—bought it about 40 years ago and moved off the farm into town.
But they didn’t quit farming. The farm’s just a few miles out of town and they kept the machinery there, and drove out there to work. They drove together, until my Uncle Leonard died about seven years ago. She buried him, and kept on driving to the farm to work. She’s still doing it. At 88.
Aunt Deloris is a little spitfire, about 5 feet tall if she stretches up on her tiptoes, a bundle of energy who weighs less than 100 pounds. Aside from a chronically bad back, she keeps pretty fit, and her work uniform in the summer is cutoff jean shorts, tee shirts and tennis shoes. In the winter she substitutes blue jeans for the shorts and puts on a sweater.
“I’ve never seen two years like the last two,” she told me. “So much rain. We can’t get anything done.”
The wheat finally got combined, in mid-September, “but it isn’t worth anything,” she said, mourning this year’s low grain prices. She’s hoping the canola, a relatively new crop for her, puts some money in the bank this year. And she and Jimmy still have soybeans to combine.
“I can’t remember combining in October before,” she told me. “I remember one year we finished on September 21st—I remember that because it was my mother’s birthday—and I thought that was late.”
But by the end of last week she’d finished cultivating the wheat stubble—four quarters of it—and was ready to start on the canola fields, probably later this week. Before she’s done this fall, she’ll have cultivated ten quarters, “black and pretty.” [...]
Sally Jo Sorensen at Bluestem Prairie of Minnesota writes—Yuck! Minnesota River still sick & dirty from too much phosphorus, nitrogen and nasty bacteria:
When it comes to our stretch of the prairie along the South Dakota-Minnesota boundary waters, a river runs through it.
And the water quality in that river is pretty disgusting.
That's an unavoidable conclusion from a new study posted at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), The Minnesota River: Evaluating its health:
A recent study by the MInnesota Pollution Control Agency shows there's still much work to be done for the health of the Minnesota River. The monitoring and evaluation work encompasses most of the river, from Big Stone Lake to where it meets the Mississippi in St. Paul. The study led to these primary conclusions:
- Overall, the Minnesota River is unhealthy. Sediment clouds the water, phosphorus causes algae, nitrogen poses risks to humans and fish, and bacteria make the water unsafe for swimming.
- Too much water flowing into the river plays a big part in all these problems. There’s more rain, more artificial drainage, and not enough places to store this water.
Much of this pollution is caused by industrial strength agriculture, so we're sure to be told often in the coming months about how we shouldn't point our algae-covered fingers about anyone along the Little Minnesota River in Roberts County, South Dakota, on its way to Big Stone Lake and the Minnesota River. Pity.
David Jonas at Blue Virginia writes—The Easiest Way To Reduce Gun Violence in America:
Bullets are the Achilles’ heel of gun violence. Guns can last forever, and there are already more than 300 million guns in circulation. This saturation of guns limits the effectiveness of most traditional gun control measures. Bullets, however, have very short shelf lives and aren’t very easy to produce oneself. The deadliest guns in America can be rendered obsolete if a class of ammunition is simply too difficult to access.
Think of it this way: if you found out that iPhones were killing 30,000 people a year, you could pass a bunch of laws banning them or requiring licenses or have the authorities seize them. Or, you could do the much easier thing and just have Apple perform a software update that bricks them all.
Congress already has broad powers to regulate and tax ammunition, and best of all, regulating bullets sidesteps the disadvantages of traditional gun control efforts due to the endowment effect. The idea of regulating bullets just doesn’t muster the same emotional response as regulating guns does.
On the taxation front, a savvy group of legislators could easily put together budget instructions that place increased excise taxes and import duties on individual classes of ammunition, exempting safer recreational ammunition like .22 caliber bullets. An aggressive approach would identify the deadliest ammunition and ratchet the tax level up to some prohibitively high figure. Legislators can tailor the level of taxation as needed to win 51 votes.
Schafer Sirmer at Better Georgia writes—Trump’s tax reform plan would cut taxes – for Trump:
Trump released his new tax reform plan this week, and Ga. Republicans such as Sen. Johnny Isakson, Sen. David Perdue and Rep. Jody Hice are backing it, claiming that the plan would help middle and working class folks.
Is that true?
Of course not.
While there are tax breaks for some middle class folks, the biggest benefits in the new blueprint go to top earners, including Trump himself.
In Georgia, 74.8 percent of the tax cuts would go to the richest one percent of Georgia residents.
The people in this group make an average of $552,200 next year, and the plan provides them an average tax cut of $83,070, which would increase their income by an average of 4 percent.
Meanwhile, the middle class of Georgia, despite being 20 percent of the population, would receive just 5 percent of the tax cuts that go to Georgia under the framework – the plan would cut their taxes by an average of $260, or increase their income an average of 0.6 percent.
McDuffy McKay at Dirigo Blue of Maine writes—Maine Medicaid Expansion, or Politics As Usual:
Casting a vote for Maine Question 2 (Medicaid Expansion Initiative 2017) is a no-brainer. To their credit, state lawmakers actually passed legislation that would have provided health insurance to an estimated 70,000 Mainers by expanding Medicaid coverage. In fact, they passed this legislation on five separate occasions –only to see it vetoed by a Governor devoid of compassion (not to mention comprehension).
Increasing coverage would result in rural hospitals and community clinics receiving critical funding, and pave the way for the creation of an estimated 3000 new, good-paying jobs in the health care field. Most importantly, gaining access to health coverage would prevent family illness or health problems from resulting in bankruptcy and/or the loss of a home.
Furthermore, expanding access to coverage will assist in addressing Maine’s catastrophic drug crisis by allowing for investment in treatment so that our families, friends, and neighbors can receive the help they need in their struggle with addiction.
I’d venture to say that all of us have been impacted by addiction, or witnessed the consequences of individuals trying to get by without health insurance. Perhaps both. [...]
The late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone and the Progressive Caucus fought to make health care a right, not a privilege. Maine Question 2 will at least allow for a step in the right direction. I am curious to hear what Democrats–and specifically the candidates for Governor– say about this initiative. Let’s hope they can rise above vague platitudes and politics as usual for a change. Opposing Shawn Scott’s York County casino is easy–there’s no political risk involved. I want to know that decency and empathy will once again occupy the Blaine House after being kicked to the curb these past eight years, and that each of these candidates will make decent, affordable health care a top priority for ALL Mainers. I want to believe there’s still a chance for my friend Paul… VOTE YES on 2!
David DeWitt at Plunderbund of Ohio writes—‘Pizzagate’ Hoaxers Launch Pro-Mandel Super PAC:
Remember the guys who started a hoax conspiracy theory accusing Hillary Clinton of running a pedophile sex ring out of a pizza shop in Washington D.C.?
And remember how a guy from North Carolina believed that malicious hoax and went to the Comet Ping Pong pizza shop with his AR-15, firing three rounds into the place in December 2016?
Well now the two terrible human beings behind that fiasco are launching a Super PAC that will support Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel as he attempts to slime his way into the U.S. Senate in 2018.[...]
Let’s straighten out this corkscrew of spite real quick: Two guys who started a vicious, repugnant lie about Hillary Clinton literally incited an attempted act of terrorism on the innocent owners and employees of a pizza shop.
The Anti-Defamation League identified those two cretins as cretins, and because of that Josh Mandel accused the Anti-Defamation League of inciting terrorism!
And now, the two cretins are launching a dark money, unaccountable Super PAC to try to help put Mandel in the U.S. Senate. I swear people, you can’t make this stuff up.
Paul Deaton at Blog for Iowa writes—Grit Alone Won’t Protect Local Food Systems:
The marketplace of home vegetable gardens, community supported agriculture, farmers markets, road side vegetable stands, restaurants, retail interests and direct farm sales hasn’t coalesced into a sustainable local food system, and may not.
One should never doubt the resilience of farmers. At the same time, due to unwelcome changes in society, our local food system is at risk before it has become sustainable.
A small group of pioneers made progress toward a sustainable, local food system. People like Denise O’Brien, Dick and Sharon Thompson, Fred Kirschenmann, Francis Thicke, Laura Krouse and Susan Jutz took ideas about sustainability and put them into practice. Their work enabled a new generation to enter the local food business — people like Tony Thompson (New Family Farm), Kate Edwards (Wild Woods Farm) and Carmen Black (Sundog Farm).
The idea of a return to diversified farms producing food for local markets begs the question how did we get away from it? [...]
A local food system is about cooperation and support: between farmers, and with their customers, suppliers, workers, volunteers and bankers. Without that a family may have their dinner on the table, but the entire system is risked if such individualism is the prevailing attitude.
Change is in the air. Change driven by economic hardship and oppressive policies originating in Des Moines and Washington.
It doesn’t look good for growers, retailers or consumers, not because business models have changed, but because we are entering an era when wealth flows to the top, leaving the rest of us struggling. How will farmers get health insurance if the individual market becomes too expensive? They may take a job in town and let their agricultural aspirations go.
James Rowen at The Political Environment of Wisconsin writes—Booster discharges murky Foxconn spin:
The intended removal of environmental protections for the Foxconn site is discharging some predictable spin. I call it "murky," though "sudsy" might be more applicable. Read on.
The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce's Tim Sheehy tried hard in remarks to the Journal Sentinel to downplay concerns about the company's adherence to environmental law even though much Wisconsin environmental policy has been waived for Foxconn:
Sheehy said as an international company that supplies electronic giants such as Apple, Foxconn has management systems and standards in place that include substantial environmental controls. “They want to go far beyond command and control,” he said. “In other words ‘here’s your law, we have to comply with it.’
For the record, the MMAC was among groups lobbying for the mercifully-failed effort to clear cut, dig up, blow up and other wise fill the Penkoee Hills wetlands during 35 years of toxic open-pit iron mining that would have wrecked the Bad River watershed [...]
Which explains also why in the MMAC's Foxconn Project webpage text you will not find any of these words: environment, land use, ground water, surface water, streams, lakes, wetlands, state environmental protections or federal environmental protections.
Robert Mann at Something Like The Truth of Louisiana writes—Providing the oil industry with billions in corporate welfare is not Louisiana’s patriotic duty:
Louisiana and its politicians have long embraced some unhealthy myths: Corruption in our politics isn’t so bad. Teachers are the real problem with our schools. Poor people are lazy. Climate change is a hoax. Oil is crucial to our economy because it employs so many workers and funds our government.
Few myths have damaged us more than the last one. Our blind allegiance to oil and gas has led to lax or poorly enforced environmental laws. The worst actors in the industry have destroyed our wetlands and poisoned our water.[...]
Since 2013, Louisiana has absolved one natural gas company, Cameron LNG, of more than $3 billion in property taxes. Since 2010, the state has awarded Cheniere Energy and its subsidiaries more than $3 billion in local and state tax subsidies. And in 2016, Louisiana gave Venture Global LNG $1.86 billion in property tax exemptions.
Total permanent jobs promised by those companies in return for the tax exemptions: about 1,400 (an average of $5.5 million in state and local subsidies per job). Industry officials claim without these generous tax breaks, they cannot afford to do business here.
That might be a stronger argument if energy exploration and refining weren’t already among the most profitable enterprises on Earth. Five of the 12 largest corporations in the world (by revenue) are oil companies, despite the slump in oil prices.
WillyKay at Show Me Progress of Missouri writes—Wagner and Hartzler insult those who died in Las Vegas:
The House passed a so-called fetal-pain bill, Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 36), that, adhering to the best junk science ideology can compel, declares that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks – even though all major U.S. and international medical societies, such as the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, have gone on the record that, although a fetus can respond reflexively to stimulation much earlier, the essential components of the cerebral cortex have not developed sufficiently to permit the experience of pain until at least 26 weeks.
No surprise to Missourians, our local GOPers were among those so overcome by antics of a shooter in Las Vegas that they just had to put in jeopardy the lives of women who have potentially life-threatening, problematic, late term pregnancies – because the largest number of late term abortions, a procedure that is exceedingly rare to start with, is a due to just such complications. Among those Missourians who were offered especially emotive support for the bill were Reps. Ann Wagner (R-2) and Vicky Hartzler (R-4).
Hartzler goes all the way with junk science declaring, in opposition to all reputable evidence, that “babies at this age are hypersensitive, feeling pain more acutely than you and me.” But, hey, this is the lady who thinks that our toasters are rigged by the Chinese to spy on us. Of course, this begs the question of why we allow someone incapable of evaluating evidence to make laws that depend on competent evaluation of evidence.
Jason330 at Delaware Liberal writes—A closer look at Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore:
Two-time former Chief Justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court Roy Moore, the confirmed “birther” and believer of inane right-wing conspiracies, is running to become the Alabama’s next senator despite his lawless actions that twice forced him from his elected offices. And he very well may win. He won the GOP primary and is favored in the general election. But let’s be clear: It is insane for any American (Republican, Democrat, Other) to support Roy Moore, a man whose derelictions of judicial duty due to his refusal to accept the Constitution – and not the Bible – as the supreme law of the land twice resulted in his vacating a position entrusted to him by the people of Alabama, for the United States Senate.
Moore’s disdain for man-made law is not a quirk. He is running on his contempt for man made law.
Following his first election as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court (he ran on a largely theological platform), Moore erected in the Supreme Court’s building a 5,280 pound monument to the Ten Commandments. At its unveiling, Moore announced “today a cry has gone out across our land for the acknowledgment of that God upon whom this nation and our laws were founded.” The taxpayer-funded religious monument quickly earned its day in court as a lawsuit claimed that its installation on state property “sends a message to all who enter the State Judicial Building that the government encourages and endorses the practice of religion in general and Judeo-Christianity in particular.” Lawyers of different religious beliefs changed their work practices to avoid the religious atmosphere and public prayer around the monument.
Defense of the statue largely fell flat with Moore citing its necessity to “remind the Appellate Courts and judges of the Circuit and District Court of this State and members of the bar who appear before them, as well as the people of Alabama who visit the Alabama Judicial Building…that in order to establish justice we must invoke ‘the favor and guidance of almighty God.’” In other words, Moore claimed the state needed the monument to reinforce his belief that justice comes not from the Constitution, but from God – Roy Moore’s God.