You may have your favorites from Daily Kos this week, but these are the articles our staff writers picked as the ones they liked best, or stuck with them the longest, or hit them hardest emotionally, or felt were the most important. Here are the staff picks for this week.
And if you were one of several people who recommended last week that something similar be done for community posts … good idea! Hang around, say, 30 minutes or so.
West Virginia Republicans are trying to execute a state Supreme Court coup
In a step toward a Republican-engineered coup of an entire branch of government, the GOP-controlled West Virginia House voted to impeach all four remaining (of five total—more on that shortly) state Supreme Court justices late Monday night.
But in a surprise move Tuesday morning, Democratic Justice Robin Davis announced her resignation just in time to trigger a special election to replace her this November. The crucial timing of her maneuver will help mitigate—but not obviate—Republican lawmakers’ scheme to fill the entire court with GOP appointees. Unless the last three justices follow Davis’s lead by midnight Tuesday, rather than wait until they’re forcibly removed from office by the legislature, Republican Gov. Jim Justice will get to name replacements—who would serve, unelected, through 2020.
Appeals board ruling hands Kansas dad who faced deportation a ray of hope
More than six months after a heart-wrenching saga that saw him arrested by immigration agents on his own front lawn and nearly deported until a judge ordered him off a plane, there is hope on the horizon for Kansas dad Syed Ahmed Jamal.
Jamal, who was finally released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in March, will get his full day in court, an immigration appeals board ruled. “The board’s decision allows Jamal, a married father of three U.S.-born children, the opportunity to a full hearing on his arguments to stay in the country,” The Kansas City Star reported.
After a weekend of embarrassing Omarosa claims, the predictable Trump meltdown arrives
It's only Monday, Donald Trump hasn't bothered to check in on his day job for days, there haven't been any new indictments of his inner campaign circle in the last week. Nonetheless, he's starting off his week with his coif fully aflame; the reason for it is that 'a lowlife like Omarosa' has been appearing on his idiot box saying unflattering things about him, and this will not stand.
Enjoy this, because it's a sitting president of the United States burping out these things, and the entire national Republican Party, every elected official, mid-tier functionary and paint-licking Republican voter that continues to bring it to you.
Democrats have nothing to fear but fear itself
The results of an Ohio special election last week that many viewed as a harbinger for November—and that should have been a gimme for Republicans—aren't even final yet. And yet even as the GOP candidate in Ohio's 12th congressional district, Troy Balderson, clings to a lead of less than one percent over Democrat Danny O'Connor, a Washington narrative is developing that the Democratic advantage could all fall apart under the weight of either longtime liberal Nancy Pelosi of California or progressive phenom Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, depending on which article you read.
Disneyland's non-union workers are getting a big raise ... thanks to unions
Disneyland recently negotiated a $15 minimum wage for thousands of its unionized workers, and now it’s announced that a $15.75 minimum wage is coming for its non-union workers. Yay for workers getting raises, but there’s a lot going on here!
First, many of Disneyland’s union workers, in particular members of UNITE HERE, continue to have an $11 minimum wage, which is far from a living wage in southern California. So Disney is willing to give its non-union workers a raise while it continues to resist negotiating the same amount with at least one of its unions.
A year after Charlottesville, activists ramp up the fight against white supremacy
August 12 marked the one-year anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. This event represented our reality under a Donald Trump presidency—one in which white supremacists not only incite violence and death in cities across the country but also make government policy. To mark the occasion, Jason Kessler, the same organizer who planned last year’s rally, planned a Unite the Right 2 in Washington, D.C. Kessler’s rally, which took place Sunday, was a complete flop, with about 40 supporters showing up only to be met by thousands of counter protesters. But prior to Sunday’s sad little showing by Kessler and his white supremacist friends, organizations and activists across the country were preparing online and offline actions in order to protest the rise of white supremacy in the United States. Daily Kos heard from activists in Charlottesville about their experiences over the last year and spoke by phone with Brandi Collins, senior campaign director at Color of Change, to learn about the work they are doing to fight racial injustice everyday.
A shorter story than it should be
My grandfather was a wonderful guy. Never angry. Never cruel. Interested in everything. A man with a hundred hobbies always looking for 101.
He built boats, grew potatoes, made dandelion wine, kept bees. He knew where to find catalpa trees, and what kind of fish liked the caterpillars that lived only on those trees. He knew the location of hidden springs of icy water.
It should be no surprise that the Trump regime has zero interest in fighting voter suppression
The U.S. has a long history of suppressing the votes of people of color. In the Deep South until the 1960s, Jim Crow laws were designed to keep all but a handful of African Americans from voting. West of the Mississippi, even after all American Indians got the legal right to vote in 1924, state authorities kept them from doing so—or tried to—in several states. Voter suppression these days is a bit more subtle than it was in the past, but as we have seen in the past few years, it’s still widely practiced. And since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 gutted one of the key sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that practice has been made easier.
The promoters of this suppression won’t publicly say they seek to reduce the number of people of color who vote, but a few of them have slipped up and admitted that their intent is to get Republicans elected. All it takes for a win in some instances is shaving a percentage point or two off the election results by inserting hoops for voters to overcome: cutting back on the number of polling places and the hours they are open, reducing the days of early voting, purging voter rolls to restrict the number of eligible voters.
This isn't how judicial nominations are supposed to work
Keeping Brett Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court is priority number one. But saving the appellate courts is nearly as important. Donald Trump’s managed to get 24 of his picks on the federal appellate bench. Another two are a sure thing, and he’s got 11 vacancies yet to fill. These vacancies are among the dozens engineered by Senate Republicans, who blocked President Obama’s nominees—including Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland—to set up just this kind of judicial takeover.
Maybe 24 doesn’t sound like a lot. There are 179 federal appellate judgeships, after all. But it’s not about the number of overall seats or total Trump confirmations: It’s about where Republicans are planting their judges and what that does to the ideological balance of various appellate courts. On the smaller courts especially, Trump’s making an outsized impact.
GOP primary frontrunner for Arizona secretary of state wants to stop printing ballots in Spanish
Wow: At a recent debate ahead of Arizona’s Aug. 28 Republican primary for secretary of state, businessman Steve Gaynor advocated for banning the printing of ballots and other election materials in Spanish, arguing that they should only be in English. Furthermore, Gaynor called for repealing the 1975 amendment to the federal Voting Rights Act that, thanks to a history of discrimination by many states—including Arizona itself—requires jurisdictions with large populations of non-English speakers to provide election materials in voters’ native languages.
Greedy insurance companies deny cancer treatment in the face of expert medical advice
The wealthiest in our country get the best care. This is not simply because they can afford the best health insurance. That helps, but is not the full story. The fundamental problem with health insurance is that it is a business that must make profits, and it is a huge business. In order to make profits, insurers of any industry make a bet with the patients they insure. Insurance companies bet you won’t get too sick, and you bet that maybe, possibly, you will. As someone paying for health insurance, it’s a bet we all hope to lose. But, as we get older, that bet is statistically less advantageous for insurance companies, thus the rising prices of premiums.* This, of course, is nothing new to people reading about health insurance at Daily Kos, but it bears repeating because it truly is as simple as that.
Black women in Midwest denied jobs because of 'ghetto' names; company claims they were hacked
A Midwestern men’s healthcare company is blaming a disgruntled employee for rejection emails sent to as many as 20 applicants via the Indeed job search site. The messages, which appear to have been sent only to black applicants, start out politely enough, only to take a nasty turn.
Hermeisha Robinson, of St. Louis, was the first to post the hideous email she received to Facebook.
Stormy Daniels isn’t the only sex worker who matters
Listen, everyone should care about Stormy Daniels. She is a witty and charming adult industry performer, who has long been embroiled in a serious legal scandal with a sitting president whom we'd all like to oust. However, we also need to care about her—and other sex workers—even when they aren't politically convenient to us.
Everyone should take issue with the police state attempting to intimidate and silence her with arrest, and not just because we want Daniels to speak out about crimes committed by the Trump campaign team. We need to care because law enforcement often uses arrests and bullying tactics against sex workers as a means of silencing them, and taking away their measures of safety.
Kris Kobach presents a dark vision for Kansas. A Democratic senator stands in his way.
On election night in the bottom floor of the Topeka Ramada, results came flooding in — and while the Republican race would be contested for another week, on the Democratic side, state senator Laura Kelly would win going away, solidifying the field and beginning the campaign for the fall.
“I believe in Kansas and the good people who live here,” said Senator Kelly, speaking to a group in the room where she had just announced her victory in the primary election. Surrounded by friends and young volunteers, Kelly’s campaign offered a vision for the future of Kansas.