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 Dec. 2 edition. Inclusion of a blog post does not necessarily indicate my agreement with—or endorsement of—its contents. |
At FortBoise of Idaho, Tom Van Alten writes—In other collapse of civilization news:
News from upper right Idaho, the Kootenai County commissioners have stood up against one world government, and just said no to the next edition of the International Building Code for new residential and commercial construction, because, FREEDOM.
At least outside incorporated city limits, denizens of KootCo will be free to "voluntarily" comply, or not. “Let people make their own decisions,” said commission Marc Eberlein. What could possibly go wrong? Building codes are just a “protection racket for special interest groups.”
The arguments for unfettered construction include (not making this up) that someone else in Idaho can do it, so why not us? and "having the government involved in building your home does not automatically mean peace of mind." Which ok, was someone in an online comment talking about some houses in the Boise foothills on unstable ground. Since building codes did not save them, why should we have building codes?
It doesn't have to make sense. That applies in spades to what one Russell Mclain added at the top of the comments. (For what it's worth, I think he's arguing in favor of building codes.) Sic:
"Well this is what they missed the permit does two things it insures that a builder gets payed a judge will see to that and it's a tattle tail to the tax man so in this agenda twenty one based idea existing home owners and city dwellers will pay the loin share of property taxes but the none permitted will still demand eqail services that they don't pay fore some time I just wonder about people"
Don't you just.
At The Left Hook of California, a staffer writes—Google Skips Third Consecutive Community Meeting About San Jose Mega-Campus Expansion:
Last night, Google representatives skipped a third consecutive community town hall meeting to discuss the impact of the tech giant’s proposed mega-campus development in San Jose.
San Jose residents and community leaders gathered to discuss the development that would bring up to 20,000 Google employees, plus an estimated 8-10,000 service workers, to the downtown area.
The town hall meeting, which took place at Gardner Community Center, was standing-room-only. Representatives from Google were invited to the event but did not attend. They also failed to show at two previous community town hall meetings about the project. Last month, Google missed a deadline (Oct 18) to deliver its community engagement plan to San Jose City Council.
Around 150 people attended for two hours to discuss their concerns about the proposed mega-campus, including the impact on rent prices, living costs and traffic. The event was put on by the Silicon Valley Rising, a coalition of labor, faith and community organizations that are inspiring the tech industry to build an inclusive Silicon Valley.
At Dick & Sharon’s L.A. Progressive, David A. Love writes—It’s Time for Clarence Thomas to Go Once and for All:
Powerful men are starting to lose their jobs and reputations, thanks to today’s national climate against sexual assault and harassment. Men who were once deemed untouchable are no longer.
Since we’re on the issue, it’s time we finally admit now is the time for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to go.
It’s been over 25 years since Thomas’ Senate confirmation hearing. In October 1991, law professor Anita Hill testified that Thomas had sexually harassed her 10 years prior, when she was in her mid-20s and worked for him at the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Hill testified that she had heard Thomas discuss a porn star named Long Dong Silver, and refer to pubic hair on a Coke can.
She was an extremely credible witness. And too often like Black women in this society, Hill was not believed. She was lambasted, denigrated and smeared, her credibility and motivations questioned. And some of Hill’s Black critics accused her of trying to bring the Black man down. The 14 white men in that Senate judiciary committee panel, some of them such as Ted Kennedy, with their own problematic history with women, remained silent or treated Hill like a criminal. And as others have said, former vice president Joe Biden owes Hill an apology for his role in the hearings and allowing the Republicans to interrogate her as if she was the one on trial.
At Better Georgia, Shelby Steuart writes—Goodbye, Ralph Hudgens: 8 years of failing taxpayers:
[State Insurance Commissioner] Ralph Hudgens has allowed car insurance, homeowner’s insurance and health insurance to skyrocket in the nearly 8 years since he took office. He’s done nothing to protect ratepayers or push back against the companies that swindle them.
We couldn’t be more thankful that he’s leaving. His entire tenure has been characterized by ratepayers being taken advantage of by insurance companies. [...]
Under Hudgens, Georgia has suffered some of the highest auto insurance rate increases in the nation–more than twice the national average. The state has ranked first or second for highest annual rate increases in the country, for the past four years.
When asked about this, Hudgens claimed that it was out of his control, because of a law that allows insurance companies to increase rates without government approval. But in 2008, as part of the state Senate, Hudgens supported this bill.
The only good thing about Hudgens? The fact that he’s not coming back.
At Blog for Iowa, Ralph Scharnau writes—Section 702 Of The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Set To Expire:
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a warrantless surveillance law, seeks to track and foil foreign terrorists. This enables the National Security Agency (NSA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and other US bodies to gather and/or search private communications without a warrant. The law will expire on December 31, 2017, unless Congress acts to renew or revise it.
The law authorizes warrantless telephone and internet monitoring programs. The massive dragnet potentially includes a vast number of calls, emails, chats, texts, and other conversations. The information obtained might include family photographs, love letters, personal financial matters, discussions of physical and mental health, and political and religious exchanges.
This widespread spying without safeguards against abuse violates the fundamental rights to speech and privacy guaranteed by the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution. It also sweeps up the electronic data of innocent Americans who may be communicating with foreign nationals, even when those foreigners aren’t suspected of terrorist activity.
The activities conducted under Section 702, moreover, lack transparency and oversight. Intelligence officials refuse to tell Congress how many and how often unknowing Americans have had their personal data collected. This operational secrecy of FISA activities opens the door for violations of constitutional, civil, and human rights. It can undercut privacy and dignity while having a chilling effect on freedom of expression, religion, association, and thought.
Human Rights Watch warns that Americans exercising their legitimate free-expression rights are also at risk of discriminatory or arbitrary monitoring. The FBI has identified some of those associated with the Black Lives Matter movement as black identity extremists. This casts those objecting to racism and injustice as extremists and can lead to racial profiling. Besides, recent reports of attacks on police officers come overwhelmingly from those in the white community, not blacks.
The Trump administration wants Section 702 renewed without alteration.
At The Bayou Brief of Louisiana, Casey Parks writes—Louisiana’s “free college” program was supposed to help the poor. It may have made things worse:
Thirty years before Bernie Sanders turned “free college” into a Democratic party platform, a conservative billionaire oil magnate saw free tuition as the cure to Louisiana’s inner-city ills.
Nearly two dozen states offer some form of free tuition today. But after three decades, Louisiana lawmakers aren’t sure their program is worth the annual $300 million the state spends on it. The accomplishments and shortcomings of Louisiana’s program may help other states get free tuition right – or at least a little more right.
Yes, the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students helps send 50,000 kids to college every year. Louisiana’s post-secondary graduation rates have climbed. Fewer of Louisiana’s “best and brightest” leave the state to study. But the program is not accomplishing its original purpose: helping more kids, especially poor kids, get to college. In fact, only 29 percent of all Louisiana adults have bachelor’s degrees, the second worst rate in the country behind West Virginia. Louisiana still has the worst rate of black college graduates in the country.
Perhaps most striking: The scholarship may be helping to widen the socioeconomic gap in Louisiana. Today, nearly half the kids who use it come from families who earn $100,000 or more a year.
At Montana Cowgirl, Montana Hat writes—Teddy Roosevelt is Rolling Over in His Grave:
Outside Magazine wrote a profile on our former Congressman chronicling his journey from moderate Whitefish legislator to looney-tune Interior Secretary. But it ends with a conclusion this blog has held for a long time: Regardless of Zinke’s ever-changing policy positions, he’s been a fraud all along.
From the profile:
As Zinke and I casted over the ice-cold water, I noticed something funny about his setup. He kept struggling to strip line out of the bottom of the reel. For a while, I thought he was simply having trouble concentrating on our conversation while casting. No, there was something wrong, and when I asked him to stand for a portrait, I finally saw what the problem was. He had rigged his reel backward, so that the line was coming out of the top of the reel. Every so often when he went to strip line out, he would grasp air where the line should’ve been.
Seems like an inconsequential thing, but in Montana, it’s everything.
At R.I. Future, Bob Plain writes—Regunberg makes one more effort on superdelegates ahead of DNC decision:
State Rep. Aaron Regunberg has been working since July to convince the Democratic Party to eliminate superdelegates from its presidential nominating process. When the DNC Unity Reform Commission meets for the fifth and final time on Friday and Saturday in Washington DC, we’ll see if he was successful.
As a kind of final effort, he reaffirmed his opposition in a post on Mediumyesterday in the form of an open letter to Tom Perez, the party chairman.
“Put simply, the continued existence of superdelegates in the nominating process is unfair to our voters and inconsistent with our core values,” wrote Regunberg. “By eliminating superdelegates, we will send a strong message to grassroots Democrats across the country that it is their voice — and only their voice — that ultimately matters in the Presidential nominating process. Moreover, we will make it clear to our future candidates that it is the will of our voters — and only their will — that will determine our nominee in 2020 and beyond.”
Superdelegates are Democratic Party leaders who get to cast an independent vote for the party’s presidential candidate, regardless of whom regular delegates are bound to vote for at the convention based on the state primary. The DNC Unity Commission, made up of supporters of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, was to decide on their fate. [...]
He mentioned that Rhode Island’s nine superdelegates all supported Hillary Clinton while state Democratic voters supported Bernie Sanders. “Indeed, here in my state of Rhode Island, superdelegates overwhelmingly opposed the winner of the popular vote in the 2016 presidential primary, meaning that our state gave substantially more delegate votes to the candidate who won substantially less actual primary votes.”
At Leftwing Cracker of Tennessee, Steve Steffens writes—Phil Bredesen for US Senate?
So, after hemming and hawing, Cari Wade Gervin scooped the state last night when she broke the story that 74-year-old former governor Phil Bredesen was entering the Democratic Primary for US Senate to replace Bob Corker.
I am all for primaries because they help us sort things out, well, USUALLY they do, any way. I had been a little worried about James Mackler, the Nashville attorney who has been running for a while now. However, I met him this past weekend and came away with the idea that he can be elected and can get people to the polls who have not been voting, which is the REAL Democratic issue. He is 44 years old and can fire people up.
Bredesen put out this video today filled with both-siderist BS. He talks about reaching across the aisle (AHAHAHAHAHAH) and talks about what he accomplished as governor while conveniently failing to note that he only did that because he had a DEMOCRATICALLY CONTROLLED Legislature to pass good legislation.
THE ONLY PEOPLE THAT WILL GET EXCITED ABOUT HIS CANDIDACY WAS ALREADY GOING TO VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT NO MATTER WHAT.
Whenever I hear that "BUT HE CARRIED 95 COUNTIES IN 2006!" crap, I feel compelled to point out that 2006 was a Democratic Wave year and he was running against someone the GOP wasn't even supporting. Also, I feel compelled to mention THAT IT IS NOT 2006 ANY MORE PEOPLE, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!!!
At Juanita Jean’s of Texas, Juanita Jean Herownself writes—What Is Wrong With You, Woman?
Susan Collins got herself in a mess of trouble when she got caught lying about the tax bill.
She told Meet the Press that the tax bill would use growth to offset the tax cut so the national debt wouldn’t explode.
She cited Glenn Hubbard, Larry Lindsey, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin.
Well hell’s bells, somebody called two of them and –
Jennifer Rubin got ahold of two of the three, Hubbard and Holtz-Eakin. Both economists denied having ever claimed the Republican tax cuts would produce enough growth to recoup the lost revenue.
So Collins headed home to people who praised her for her courageous vote against the health care repeal to face some really pissed off people. Some met her at the airport and turned their backs to her. And it’s continuing.
An electrician, a nurse, a senior, and a veteran were arrested at Senator Susan Collins’ Bangor office Monday evening for refusing to leave until the Republican lawmaker promised to pull her support for the GOP “tax scam.”
“We are not trying to cause trouble, we are trying to be heard and represented,” Tina Davidson, a disability rights activist and veteran, said.
So Collins, the last Republican moderate, jumped onboard a sinking ship and is now cuddling to the donor class.
At Blue Delaware, Delaware Dem writes—Constituency Matters:
The dam broke today. Perhaps it was just organic after writer Tina Dupuy shared her own experience with Al Franken and groping. Perhaps it was an organized effort among the Democratic caucus organized three weeks too late. Regardless, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and several other Democratic women senators led their colleagues in calling for Minnesota Senator Al Franken to resign after more allegations emerged from women who said he sexually harassed them. Even Tom “I want to cut Medicare” Carper, who should consider his own future what with his own domestic violence story lurking in his past.
But finally, it looks like Al Franken will resign. I am sad. Al Franken is and was a good Senator. But he was a bad man. And in this new world, bad men who mistreat women, whether through harassment or outright abuse or rape, are no longer to be tolerated. Period.
I am sad that it took this long for that simple fact to settle in with our Democratic Senate, and among our Democratic, liberal and progressive colleagues. It still hasn’t and probably won’t ever settle in for some. And they are to be shunned from society as fervently as we on the liberal left side of the political spectrum shun racists. If misogynists want a political home, they, like the racists, are free to join Trump on the right.
Why did the Democrats finally jump on board the Resign Now train? Josh Marshall explains that it is all about constituency. ”[...] It’s not the press’s fault that Donald Trump is still President and Al Franken is about to an ex-Senator. The same applies to Roy Moore. All of these incidents play out based on the constituency of the accused or the larger organization they represent. That applies whether it’s consumers or voters or comparable category. Most Trump supporters simply don’t care. Same with Roy Moore.”
The Democratic constituency cares. That’s the difference. And we shouldn’t stop caring just because the Republicans don’t. And I bet you anything that Senate Democrats or the DNC got back some polling today showing just how much the Democratic constituency cared about this and just how angry they were that some Democrats wanted to protect the harassers among us.
At ColoradoPols, Jason Salzman writes—Saine’s talk-radio-host lawyer does a bad job of convincing us his client is a responsible gun owner:
“Do you see why people are concerned that a state lawmaker walked into a security check point with a weapon?” asked Channel 7 reporter Jaclyn Allen.
“Well, I would hope more people would feel sorry for her for forgetting she had [the loaded gun] and being in custody here [in jail] for going on 30 hours,” replied State Rep. Lori Saine’s (R-Firestone) attorney Randy Corporon, who moonlights as a conservative talk-radio host on KNUS-710 AM.
That’s one of a number responses Corporon gave Allen about his client’s bad behavior with guns at the airport, where she was arrested after her gun was discovered this week.
During the unusual interview, Corporon repeatedly downplayed the security risks posed by someone who tries to run a loaded weapon through airport security, saying such a move does not translate into irresponsible gun ownership.
Told by Allen that a lot of people can relate to forgetting a bottle of water but not to forgetting a loaded weapon, Corporon said, “I think responsible gun owners who conceal carry don’t have to think about it as some special nuclear-powered weapon or something.” [...]
“They just made a mistake in a hurry,” said Corporon of the 106 people who got caught carrying a weapon through a security check point this year. He asserted, without citing evidence, that none of the 106 intended to “take down a plane” or “cause a stir.”