To be clear, inflation is real: 6.2% in October. But despite that, “It’s safe to say the bottom 40 percent of Americans are definitely better off in the past year from a combination of rising wages and government aid, even with inflation,” University of Massachusetts economist Arindrajit Dube told The Washington Post.
Julia Coronado, president and founder of MacroPolicy Perspectives, told the Post that disposable income has been about 9.5 percent higher in 2021 than it was before the coronavirus pandemic—even if you factor in inflation.
But the statistics don’t matter if what people are feeling is higher prices at the gas station or grocery store. The problem there is that the media has a little something to say about what facts in their lives people feel are most relevant, and the media has taken wildly different approaches to good economic news and bad economic news.
“When the U.S. jobs report was released for the month of October, showing a surging economy adding 531,000 jobs, as well as revised estimates for September and August confirming that an additional 235,000 positions were created, “NBC Nightly News” did not cover the economic announcement. ‘ABC World News Tonight’ buried the story, devoting just two sentences to it, and running the story seventh in the lineup that night. Neither network considered 766,000 new jobs to be among the most important developments of that day,” Eric Boehlert wrote at his invaluable Press Run newsletter this week. “Contrast that to last Wednesday, when news broke that inflation had jumped 6.2 percent last month, fueling concerns about spiraling consumer costs. That evening, both ‘NBC Nightly News’ and ‘ABC World News Tonight’ slotted the inflation story as the second most important development of the news cycle.”
You know what else hasn’t gotten that kind of prominent coverage? The federal minimum wage being stuck at $7.25 an hour for more than a decade. If you want something that will erode people’s buying power, that right there is a factor for millions.
It’s not unreasonable for people to freak out about higher prices, especially combined with the stress of more than 18 months of a life-altering global pandemic, plus headlines about supply chain problems that could create scarcities and further raise prices. But when the media puts its thumb on the scale, breathlessly reporting about one set of problems while barely covering either other problems (the ones, like the minimum wage, that point directly to progressive policy solutions) or the good economic news that is also available and true right now, the media is responsible for creating or at least heightening people’s fears. We see that in the relative weight given to headlines on economic data, and we see it in human interest stories like the report on the effects of rising grocery prices on one family in which CNN completely failed to mention that the very same family was getting child tax credit checks that outstripped their increased grocery bills.
We see it when media coverage of rising fossil fuel prices isn’t accompanied by reporting on the possible benefits of investment in green energy, or when media coverage of food prices doesn’t take into account how climate change is fueling droughts and/or floods that hit farming areas and make food more expensive.
Inflation is both a reality and a story the media chooses to tell over other stories. It’s an easy story for them to tell. But “531,000 new jobs in October” is also an easy story. “Child poverty drops by 29% in one month thanks to expanded child tax credit” is an easy story. The media makes choices. It has to be accountable for them.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
It may seem impossible to believe that anyone could outflank Noem, a Trump sycophant who auditioned for a future presidential run by loudly denouncing any measures aimed at combating the pandemic, but Haugaard has no shortage of far-right credentials. Christopher Vondracek of Forum News Service notes that back in January, Haugaard attended a rally aimed at promoting the Big Lie that featured Proud Boys members as speakers. Haugaard, Vondracek also writes, is also “part of a group of ultra-conservative legislators” that often clashes with Noem.
Haugaard and Noem have also come into conflict over whether state Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges in August and avoided jail time for striking and killing a man with his car last year, should stay in office. Noem has called for the legislature to remove the attorney general if he won’t resign, and last week, the state House voted 58-10 to authorize the Special Investigative Committee to probe whether impeachment is justified. (House Speaker Spencer Gosch said the report may not be ready until January.) Haugaard, though, was in that small minority that voted against starting that investigation into his ally Ravnsborg.
Polling is scarce in South Dakota, so there’s little indication if a significant number of primary voters are open to parting ways with Noem. What we do know, though, is that the incumbent, who announced that she had $6.5 million on-hand, will not struggle with money.
Whoever emerges with the GOP nod will be the heavy favorite in a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since 1974. Back in 2018, the blue wave helped then-state Sen. Billie Sutton hold Noem to a 51-48 win in the closest South Dakota gubernatorial race since 1986, but we haven’t heard any notable Democrats so much as express interest in running so far.
Redistricting
●NV Redistricting: Nevada’s Democratic-run legislature passed new congressional and legislative maps on Tuesday, sending them to Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, who has said he will sign them. (The Assembly made minor amendments to versions the Senate had approved on Sunday, requiring the Senate to re-pass them on Tuesday.)
As before, the congressional plan would make the 3rd and 4th Districts bluer at the expense of the 1st District; under these boundaries, all would have supported Joe Biden by about 7-8 points. The 2nd, meanwhile, would remain solidly Republican. The legislative maps also favor Democrats: 14 districts in the Senate would have gone for both Biden and Hillary Clinton to seven for Donald Trump, while the Assembly map would have yielded a 28-14 advantage for Biden and Clinton. The median district would have been about 6 points bluer than the state as a whole in the upper chamber, and 8 points bluer in the lower.
●OH Redistricting: Just a day after releasing a new congressional redistricting proposal, Ohio’s Republican-run state Senate passed the map on a party-line vote, sending it to the state House. The plan differs from maps that lawmakers previously released, but it shares their most important characteristic: It’s an extreme gerrymander that aims to send 13 Republicans and just two Democrats to Congress. While two seats would have narrowly gone for Joe Biden, those same districts would have also backed Donald Trump in 2016, and in a normal midterm environment, Republicans will have a strong chance to win them.
●SD Redistricting: Apparently, Republican Gov. Kristi Noem signed South Dakota’s new legislative redistricting plan right after lawmakers passed it last week, but her move has gotten virtually no attention. A spokesperson tweeted that Noem approved the new maps, and one local outlet gave the news a very brief mention, but even the legislature’s own website still says, a week later, that the bill is on the governor’s desk.
Given the bitter GOP infighting in the state House that preceded the maps’ final passage—Democrats provided the necessary margin for a band of more moderate Republicans to approve the legislation over the objections of conservative dissenters—Noem might’ve decided to veto the maps to prove her bona fides. She didn’t, but it won’t surprise you that her new primary opponent, state Rep. Steve Haugaard, voted to reject the maps, which bolster Native representation. (See our separate SD-Gov item for more.)
●UT Redistricting: Republican Gov. Spencer Cox has now signed Utah’s new GOP-drawn redistricting plans for the state legislature, following his previous approval late last week of the state’s new congressional map.
●WA Redistricting: Washington’s bipartisan redistricting commission collapsed in chaos late on Monday night as its four commissioners failed to approve new congressional and legislative maps by a midnight deadline. As a result, the redistricting process will now get turned over to the nine-member state Supreme Court, which is composed entirely of liberals and is also one of the most diverse high courts in the nation (seven justices are women and four are people of color).
Monday’s turn of events came as a surprise, given that the commission had released draft maps in September. For unclear reasons, however, the panel’s members scrambled to finish their work and only voted on new maps just moments before midnight—a rush that revealed a whole host of problems. For starters, as Crosscut’s Melissa Santos explains, the maps hadn’t even been made public (and still haven’t). In addition, a required vote transmitting the plans to the legislature didn’t take place until just after midnight, and it also appears that commissioners may have violated state laws regarding public meetings by conferring in private.
On Tuesday morning local time, the commission finally admitted defeat, blaming the “late release of the 2020 census data combined with technical challenges,” though it did not specify the nature of those challenges. Under Washington law, the state Supreme Court must now adopt new maps by April 30. Once it does so, they’ll immediately take final effect; legislators won’t have the chance to amend them, as they would have any maps approved by the commission.
Senate
●MO-Sen: State Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz announced Tuesday that he was joining what was already a packed August Republican primary. St. Louis Public Radio writes that Schatz, who represents Franklin County as well as a small portion of neighboring St. Louis County, gave his 2014 legislative campaign “hundreds of thousands of dollars” and retains the ability to self-fund.
While Schatz launched his campaign by emphasizing his right-wing credentials, though, the Kansas City Star says that the state Senate leader has faced intense opposition from the chamber’s so-called “conservative caucus” this year. Notably, Schatz successfully pushed for Missouri’s first gas tax increase since the 1990s, which earned him a furious condemnation from the Franklin County GOP.
Now that Schatz has made his decision, the only major Republican who appears to still be making up his mind is Rep. Jason Smith. The congressman attracted media attention in late September when he launched a statewide digital ad, but if any observers thought that meant he was about to announce, they were wrong.
Saviello said he was motivated by his opposition to the construction of the New England Clean Energy Connect hydropower project, which the incumbent and her presumptive Republican foe, ex-Gov. Paul LePage, both backed. Saviello was part of the successful campaign earlier this month to pass Question 1, a referendum to “ban the construction of high-impact electric transmission lines in the Upper Kennebec Region and to require the Legislature to approve all other such projects anywhere in Maine.”
Saviello, though, also acknowledged that LePage had prevailed with a plurality in three-way races in 2010 and 2014, which does not seem to be an outcome he wants. (While Maine’s instant-runoff voting law applies to primaries for governor, it still only takes a plurality to win the general election thanks to a court opinion.) LePage, for his part, once called Saviello “the most repugnant human being I’ve ever seen.”
●NY-Gov: New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams announced Tuesday that he would challenge Gov. Kathy Hochul in the June Democratic primary. Williams joins state Attorney General Tish James, who would also be the first African American elected to this post, in the contest to take on the governor.
Polls taken last month, before Williams or James got in, indicate that the public advocate will start out as the clear underdog. An early October poll from Marist College showed Hochul leading James 44-28 with Williams a distant third with 15%. A Siena College survey done days later, meanwhile put the incumbent’s edge over James at 47-31, with Williams in fourth at just 8%. (Just ahead of him at 10% was New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has not yet decided on his 2022 plans.)
This is not the first time that Williams has gone up against Hochul, who became New York’s chief executive in August when Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace after James concluded he’d sexually harassed 11 women. Back in 2018, when Williams was a New York City councilman, the self-described “democratic socialist” campaigned against Hochul from the left in the primary for lieutenant governor and held the incumbent to a surprisingly small 53-47 victory.
Williams quickly used that strong showing as a springboard to win a 17-way 2019 special to succeed James, who had just been elected attorney general, as public advocate. That contest took place under some very unusual rules: Not only did it take just a plurality to win, but candidates also were not permitted to run under their normal party labels and instead had to come up with lines of their own creation. Williams, running under the moniker “It’s Time Let’s Go,” defeated his Republican colleague Eric Ulrich (of the “Common Sense” line) 33-19 to win this citywide post, and he’s had no trouble holding it.
Williams kicked off his new campaign by arguing that he’s the only Democratic contender who stood up to Cuomo at the height of his power. In particular he faulted Hochul, who was Cuomo’s running mate in 2014 and 2018, for not doing enough to combat what he characterized as a toxic political environment in the state capitol. Williams, by contrast, focused far less on James, who shares a Brooklyn political base with him; he even said James has been doing “a good job,” but that he believed he’s been the one with a “really consistent” vision.
Meanwhile, Politico’s Anna Gronewold writes that Cuomo’s remaining advisors (yes, he still has some) haven’t ruled out the idea that their boss, who still has an $18 million war chest, could be on the ballot for governor or another office next year. Gronewold spoke to several Empire State insiders, both on and off the record, who also were far from convinced that they were finally rid of the ex-governor.
Assemblymember Yuh-line Niou outright predicted he’d try again, while an unnamed legislative source memorably declared, “He’s nuts and he’s got a vendetta right now.” New York’s filing deadline isn’t until early April, though candidates need to start gathering petitions much earlier than that.
●PA-Gov: State Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman announced this week that he was joining the crowded May Republican primary to succeed termed-out Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. NBC 10 writes that Corman, who runs the upper chamber, has been part of the GOP legislative leadership team “that sent more than 50 bills to a veto on the Democrat’s desk, putting Wolf on track to compile the most vetoes by any governor since Milton Shapp in the 1970s.” Among other things, this includes bills to roll back abortion rights, restrict voting, and take away some of the governor’s pandemic authority.
Corman, who was elected in 1998 to succeed his father in a central Pennsylvania state Senate seat, told NBC 10, “Someone who comes from the Legislature, who understands the Legislature, can work with the Legislature to get good things accomplished is something that we need.” We’re, shall we say, skeptical that this will be a particularly compelling pitch to Trump-obsessed primary voters, though his attacks on Wolf’s public health measures may strike more of a chord.
Corman also said he’d be keeping his leadership post while he runs statewide. That’s not going to be welcome news for state Sen. Dan Laughlin, who said last week that he’d drop out if he won an intra-party race to succeed Corman as president pro tempore.
House
●CA-14: California Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat who survived the 1978 Jonestown cult shooting that murdered her boss, Rep. Leo Ryan, announced Tuesday that she would retire after a long career in Bay Area politics.
The current configuration of Speier’s 14th Congressional District, which includes most of San Mateo County and a portion of San Francisco to the north, is heavily Democratic turf at 78-20 Biden, and the new version of this constituency is likely to look similar once the state’s independent redistricting commission completes its work. Because this area is so blue, there’s a good chance that next June’s top-two primary will result in a general election between two Democrats.
Speier got her start in politics as an intern for then-Assemblyman Ryan, and she joined his staff after he was elected to Congress in 1972. Speier was part of the delegation that traveled to Guyana to probe allegations that some of Ryan’s constituents were being held against their will at Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple. She told Roll Call in 2015, “Back in 1978, there were not many women in high-ranking positions in Congress. I felt if I didn’t go, it would be a step back for women holding these high positions. I thought, ‘I can’t not go.'”
The party, which did find some members who wanted to escape, was ambushed at the airport by Jones’ assassins. The attack, which took place just before Jones killed himself and murdered 900 of his followers, resulted in the deaths of Ryan, three journalists, and one former cult member trying to leave. Speier herself was shot five times and spent 22 hours waiting for help; she recounted in her Tuesday retirement announcement, “Forty-three years ago this week, I was lying on an airstrip in the jungles of Guyana with five bullet holes in my body. I vowed that if I survived, I would dedicate my life to public service. I lived, and I survived.”
Speier, who underwent 10 surgeries over the next two months, campaigned in the following year’s special election to succeed Ryan, who remains the only member of Congress to die in the line of duty, in what was then numbered the 11th District. Speier, though, ended up placing sixth in the all-party primary with 16% of the vote in a contest that was ultimately won by Republican Bill Royer. In 1980, she prevailed in a race for the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors by defeating a 20-year incumbent; during that same year, Democrat Tom Lantos, who is the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, beat Royer.
Speier spent the following years in local government before winning a state Assembly race in 1986 and a state Senate contest in 1998. In 2006, Speier entered the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor (the Golden State would pass a ballot measure in 2010 to set up its current top-two primary system), but she lost 43-40 to state Commissioner of Insurance John Garamendi; Garamendi defeated Republican Tom McClintock in a close race that fall, and the trio would later spend over a decade serving together in the House.
Speier in late 2007 began making preparations to challenge Lantos for what was now numbered the 12th District, and she even released a poll showing her decisively beating him in a primary. Lantos, though, announced soon after that he was retiring because he had been diagnosed with esophagus cancer, and he went on to endorse his would-be rival Speier as his successor. Lantos died in February of 2008, and Speier had no serious opposition in the special election to succeed him.
Speier made national headlines in 2011 when, in response to then-Indiana Rep. Mike Pence’s attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, she became one of the first members of Congress to disclose that she had once had an abortion. The congresswoman took to the House floor after New Jersey Republican Chris Smith used graphic details to emphasize his own opposition to abortion rights and said, “I had a procedure at 17 weeks pregnant with a child who moved from the vagina into the cervix. And that procedure that you just described is a procedure that I endured.”
Speier also made a name for herself as an advocate for sexual assault survivors. In 2017, as the #MeToo movement was beginning, Speier revealed that she had been sexually assaulted by a senior staffer while she worked as a congressional aide. “I know what it’s like to keep these things hidden deep down inside,” the congresswoman revealed in a video. In September, Congress passed the new National Defense Authorization Act that included her amendments to change how the military handled sexual assault and harassment allegations.
Speier mulled a 2010 campaign for state attorney general, but she opted to stay in Congress and never had any trouble getting re-elected. In 2015 she said of Jonestown, “I had moved beyond being a survivor. It’s part of my life story, but it’s a small part of my life story.”
●CO-08: Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer announced this week that she was running for this new open swing seat in the Denver suburbs. Kirkmeyer, unlike most Republican candidates this cycle, actually acknowledges that Joe Biden won the presidency, though she less surprisingly attacked his vaccination mandate. She joins Weld County Commissioner Lori Saine, who made a name for herself as one of the Colorado GOP’s most extreme members during her eight years in the state House, in the June primary.
Kirkmeyer herself is a former member of the Weld County commission, where she backed a failed 2013 push for her constituents to join other northeast Colorado counties in creating a 51st state. Kirkmeyer ran for the House the following year in the current 4th Congressional District but took a distant third with 16% of the vote; the winner, with 44%, was Ken Buck, who still holds the seat.
On the Democratic side, EMILY’s List has endorsed state Rep. Yadira Caraveo, who faces Adams County Commissioner Chaz Tedesco in the primary.
But the big name, of course, is far-right Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who is running here even though his current 11th District makes up just 12% of this new constituency. We haven’t seen any polls so we don’t know how primary voters are reacting to Cawthorn’s move, but the past and present party officials who spoke to the Charlotte Observer’s Will Wright did nothing to hide their disgust.
Matthew Ridenhour, another former member of the Mecklenburg County Commission, was particularly angry with Cawthorn for saying he needed to campaign here because his absence could mean that “another establishment, go-along-to-get-along Republican will prevail there.” Ridenhour said, “Voters in the new 13th don’t need some savior swooping in to rescue them from themselves” and called the congressman’s declaration “an insult to the people of the 13th.” Former state Rep. Charles Jeter piled on with, “A lot of folks in the Republican Party recognize that, frankly, if Madison Cawthorn is the future of the Republican Party then the Republican Party doesn’t have a future.”
Both congressmen have been ardent Trump allies, but only McKinley voted to set up a committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack and for the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill. In his not-Tweet, Trump lauded Mooney for having “recently opposed the horrendous Biden Administration’s ‘Non-Infrastructure’ plan, and he opposed the January 6th Committee, also known as the Unselect Committee of partisan hacks and degenerates.”
Attorneys General
●NY-AG: Two more Democrats have joined next year’s primary for this open seat: Daniel Goldman, who was the lead Democratic counsel in Donald Trump’s first inquiry, and Assemblyman Clyde Vanel, who represents part of Queens in the legislature.
Other Races
●Nassau County, NY Executive: Democratic incumbent Laura Curran conceded the Nov. 2 contest on Tuesday after Republican Bruce Blakeman maintained a 50.4-49.6 lead after absentee ballots were tabulated. Blakeman’s 2,150 vote-win returns the GOP to power in a populous Long Island County they lost control over four years ago.
On this week’s episode of The Brief, hosts Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld discussed Republicans’ apparent willingness to burn bridges over an infrastructure bill supported by a majority of Americans and how this past week has seen further fracturing of the nation’s democracy. Meanwhile, GOTV efforts are well underway in Arizona, a key state for Democrats in next year’s elections. This week’s guest was Montserrat Arredondo, executive director of One Arizona, a coalition of 28 organizations active across the state. As their mission states, the organization is nonpartisan and is “focused on improving the lives of Arizonans, especially people of color and young people, by building a culture of civic participation.”
As Republicans continue trying to torch any legislation and attempts at progress from Democrats, it is becoming increasingly clear that they are willing to trade their constituents’ well-being for political gain. Eleveld censured the GOP’s behavior, noting its widespread harm:
‘Constituents can’t have nice things if it means that we’re going to give Democrats a win’—I mean, that is where the GOP mentality is now. And it’s really up to Democrats to make sure suburban voters realize how extreme this party has gotten, including death threats, including tweeting out videos of them executing congresspeople from the other side of the aisle.
It’s not hypothetical. If you hand this government over … to Republicans, you’re going to end up with Kevin McCarthy, who has had nothing to publicly say about his caucus member Congressman Paul Gosar tweeting out this animated execution of Congresswoman [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez. I mean, it’s just incredible he hasn’t said anything about it.
“They’re literally [calling for] burning books [too],” Moulitsas said. “They [the Trump base] are not interested in conservative governance … they want to ruin everything for everybody.”
“And destroy the Democratic Party,” Eleveld added.
The gridlock that has resulted from the GOP’s approach is making effective governance difficult for President Biden and is also harming Democrats’ image.
“Can a single party save the republic when the other party is not invested in that republic anymore?” Eleveld mused. “I think that’s a part of [the reason why] we’re seeing with Joe Biden’s approval numbers going lower. I think people were like, ‘Gosh, can we just get back to normal.’ … [But] there’s no way for Biden to really turn the ship around with a Republican Party that is so nihilistic, that is so bent on destroying things and not giving Democrats any wins and things like that.”
What’s more, 19 Senate Republicans and 13 House Republicans voted for the infrastructure bill, yet only five of them were willing to make an appearance at the bipartisan celebration of President Biden’s signing of the bill. Passage of the bill, to Eleveld, indicates that Democrats know they need to right the ship.
“Hopefully we’ll get Build Back Better. And once they stop having this debate among themselves to try and get this legislation through, which will hopefully be entirely sooner rather than later, then they can get to selling this stuff,” she added. “They can go back to their districts and say, ‘here’s what we’ve gotten for you. Here’s what we’ve done for you. We know you’re hurting … that could really start to turn things around.’”
Moulitsas and Eleveld then welcomed Arredondo onto the show, who shared her views on how Democrats can invest in communities of color and win in Arizona next year.
Moulitsas opened the conversation by asking Arredondo what motivated her to become a professional activist. Arredondo, whose mother is still undocumented, learned about the importance of getting involved in the political process when she and her friends began applying to colleges, as “many of my friends found out for the first time [through the college application process] that they were undocumented.”
OneArizona’s strategy for next year focuses heavily on getting more voters registered and to the polls. Moulitsas wondered, “Is there a lot of low-hanging fruit with the voter registration stuff?”
Arredondo believes that this is a worthwhile investment, elaborating that her organization has seen greater success speaking with potential voters in person and emphasizing the importance of giving people more than just something or someone to vote against:
We’re focused on communities that are moving a lot, that are coming of age. Our goal for next year is 300,000 voter registrations, and we’re looking to be back in the field, and not just do that digitally. That’s our best game, you know, when we’re out talking to folks in the community—they’re seeing us, they’re interacting with us, they’re getting their questions answered. I think we’re going to reach our goal, and again, we have 28 partners … we need candidates, we need these folks running for office to meet us the other way too. Folks want to have something that they’re voting for, not just something that they’re voting against. Personally, I’m tired of just voting against, you know? I want to be excited, I want to know that people coming into office are going to do something for me regardless of their political career.
Arizonans have also faced severe voter suppression efforts that may make getting to the polls more difficult for voters next year. Moulitsas asked Arredondo to expand on what Arizona has done to make it harder for voters to vote. As she explained,
During COVID we saw a lot of updates that we really liked, like drive through voter registrations, you used to be able to drop off your ballot in different places, we were able to extend our voter registration deadline through a legal battle … [now], there are [fewer] polling locations, we have to make sure our polling places open on time. Our native communities are constantly struggling to get translation services or support in these very rural polling places that we too as communities struggle to be at, to enforce or help folks say, ‘Hey, no, don’t leave—you deserve and have the right to get that support.’
Arredondo also highlighted the need for enough polling locations and more drop box locations, adequate translation services, and just making it easier to drop off your ballot is a big win. “Last year, not being able to knock on doors like we normally do was a big issue for us. We want to get ahead of that this year,” Arredondo said.
“Do you have a single policy or a few policies that you think would be heavy sellers, that would get people out [to vote]? For example, if Democrats were able to pass universal pre-K, would that be a big, big deal? Do you think you could get that across? Or what if Joe Biden got rid of $50,000 of student debt for people?” Eleveld asked. “I’m just wondering what you think the big motivators are for the communities that we need to get out as Democrats.”
Arredondo noted that regardless of party affiliation, people are focusing on what’s important in their daily lives, and that focusing on these issues will yield great results:
Free and great education—you know, our education is free, but we are one of the last in the country. I think healthcare, again, is a big issue, a rude awakening for many people … folks in our community get healthcare but don’t know what to do with it, and then still end up in the emergency room because we’re not going and seeing the doctor soon enough. And I think all those things that are going to make someone’s life easier on a day to day [basis] is what we want to see.
I think folks are tired of these future wins that are just taking way too long. How can we increase peoples’ salaries right now, how can we help support peoples’ status right now? You know, how can we make sure that people who feel sick can go to the hospital or call the ambulance without knowing that they’re going into huge debt? I feel like those are common sense solutions that make someone’s life better on the day to day that we keep tiptoeing around.
Communities remain concerned about the response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as well, Arredondo noted.
Before closing out, Moulitsas asked Arredondo, “What can people do to help you do your work?”
She replied:
[Our work] requires a lot of resources, both financial and also just people power. It’s an exhausting job and we’ve had folks visit the state before and we’ve figured out ways to accommodate that. Arizona gets really hot in the summer, and that’s our time where we’ve got to get things done. We have 28 organizations at One Arizona … I invite you to check us out and support one of our organizations, become a member of one of our organizations, and consider visiting the state when the time comes. We’re going to need all hands on deck to get 300,000 people registered to vote and also aware of how and when to vote so that those ballots are getting turned in and people are making their voices heard.
Moulitsas impressed upon the audience the importance of investing time, in addition to money, into the organizing work that happens on the ground in Arizona:
You don’t register 300,000 on Twitter or TikTok. You’re going to need hundreds of thousands of volunteers … What happens in Arizona next year is going to dictate whether we hold the Senate, whether we hold the House, whether Arizona has a pro-voting, pro-democracy government in place for 2024, and then all sorts of other things that are beneficial to the people of Arizona, right? But from a national perspective, Arizona is a very pivotal state in our battle for American democracy, and so we’re going to have to fight for it.
Note: It’s Random Drug Test Wednesday! Pick a random drug from the bowl next to the kiddie pool and give it a shot. First one to smell sounds and taste colors wins a six-pack of pumpkin spice ivermectin. Good luck. —Mgt.
Percent chance that the CDC just elevated to its highest-risk covid category Iceland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Guernsey: 100%
Number of members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees’ (IATSE) who would’ve gone on strike if they hadn’t approved a new contract Monday: 63,000
The last year there was a private-sector work stoppage of that size: 2007
Height of the Baby Yoda float debuting in this year’s Macy’s Day Parade: 41 feet
CHEERS to Infrastructure Week: Day 1. His $1.2 trillion victory in hand, President Biden strapped on Jetpack One and blasted off for New England’s ugly stepsister New Hampshire yesterday, where he spoke in front of a crumbling bridge. It was the first of many visits to cities and towns across the country that Joe and his team will use to promote the fresh infusion of cash that’ll be used to whip back into shape this pathetic country that, given how young we are relative to other industrialized nations, has been acting like a teenager who sits around stuffing his face with junk food while playing video games all day:
“This law is a blue collar blueprint to rebuild America and leaves nobody behind,” Biden said.
The bridge in Woodstock has been on New Hampshire’s “red list” since 2013, meaning it’s considered “structurally deficient” and requires inspections twice a year. Biden said the bridge can only carry 20 ton trucks, rather than 40 ton trucks, and that without the bridge it would be a 10 mile detour to cross the river.
“These bridges are essential in small towns, rural areas, to farmers and small businesses, like in my state of Delaware,” Biden said.
Moments after Biden spoke, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter showed up in tool belts with welding torches and a pickup truck full of rivets, and an hour later the bridge was deemed structurally sound up to 180 tons. Damn, they’re good.
CHEERS to 40+ years of public service. Jackie Speier’s first election win happened in 1980—two years after she was shot five times during an ambush by the Jim Jones cult in Guyana—when she became the youngest person ever elected to the San Mateo County, California Board of Supervisors. Fast forward to 2021, and she’s now a beloved six-term congresswoman, having carried each of her House races with a minimum of 75% of the vote. But Jackie’s 71 now, and wants to move on to other things. So yesterday she inconvenienced us all by announcing she won’t run for reelection:
“It’s time for me to come home; time for me to be more than a weekend wife, mother and friend,” Speier, 71, said announcing her decision. “It’s been an extraordinary privilege and honor to represent the people of San Mateo County and San Francisco at almost every level of government for nearly four decades.” […]
Moving on to new adventures…
The California Democrat, a co-chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, spearheaded the Me Too movement in Congress several years ago when she shared her story of sexual harassment from her experience as a congressional aide. She was a major contributor to legislative reforms that were signed into law in 2018 that aimed to address sexual harassment on Capitol Hill.
I know exactly who should fill her seat: a woman of color. (I really should’ve been a political consultant. I’d be living on a yacht next to Joe Manchin by now.)
JEERS to the hunchback of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Forty-eight years ago today, in 1973, floundering President Richard Nixon uttered his immortal words: “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”
And to prove he wasn’t a crook, Gerald Ford shielded him with a “full and unconditional pardon” after Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment for crooky things like high crimes and misdemeanors. Trust me: the less you think about it, the more it makes sense.
CHEERS to a fine use of nib and ink. Seven score and eighteen years ago, on November 17, 1863, our forefather President Lincoln brought forth on this continent a first draft of his Gettysburg Address, conceived in wanting to make a broad statement about the strength of our democracy in dark times, and dedicated to the proposition that future generations of Americans will have no clue what a score is. Friday: the thrilling conclusion.
JEERS to doctors without licenses. That’s what the anti-vaxxers all think they are in their fever dreams—medical experts who know for a fact that the Covid-19 vaccines is witchcraft concocted by [insert liberal boogeyman or woman here, plus Dr. Fauci] to implant microchips in their brains, and cause them to “shed” all the patriotism out of their faith-and-freedom pores. So now, on top of fish tank water, horse-deworming paste, UV light up the tuchus, bleach cocktails & injections, and “Jesus Is My Vaccine” t-shirts, here comes the latest prescription from Dr. MAGA:
In a TikTok video that has garnered hundreds of thousands of views, Dr. Carrie Madej outlined the ingredients for a bath she said will “detox the vaxx” for people who have given in to Covid-19 vaccine mandates.
This totally gets the Nobel Prize in Medicine next year.
The ingredients in the bath are mostly not harmful, although the supposed benefits attached to them are entirely fictional. Baking soda and epsom salts, she falsely claims, will provide a “radiation detox” to remove radiation Madej falsely believes is activated by the vaccine. Bentonite clay will add a “major pull of poison,” she says, based on a mistaken idea in anti-vaccine communities that toxins can be removed from the body with certain therapies.
Then, she recommends adding in one cup of borax, a cleaning agent that’s been banned as a food additive by the Food and Drug Administration, to “take nanotechnologies out of you.”
What utter nonsense. The only alternative therapy that actually works to remove the vaccine from your system is wedging candy corn under your fingernails while singing Puccini on top of your car while stopped at a green light in the middle of a busy intersection at rush hour. Somebody post that on TikTok. And then get the results on video. For legitimate medical research purposes, you understand.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 17, 2011
WHATEVER to going through the motions. The Feds are conducting a new round (the fourth) of “stress tests” on U.S. banks, to see if they can operate under extreme duress. It’s pretty simple: they drop Herman Cain into randomly selected bank lobbies to explain his 999 plan to see how long it takes before the tellers start sobbing. Today the Bank of America in Hoboken will try and break the current record: 5 seconds. [11/17/21 Update: Herman Cain is now dead from the coronavirus. He, of course, continues to deny it.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to that people-powered dude. Since I know you appreciate being made to feel old, here’s a fun fact: when Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign—the catalyst for bringing so many of us here to Daily Kos—was shifting into high gear, he was but a lad of 56. Today he finds 73 candles on his birthday cake.
Irrational exuberance on your birthday? I’ll allow it.
The former Vermont governor (first in the nation to sign same-sex civil unions into law—a quaint milestone, but groundbreaking at the time) became the loudest 2004 candidate to rail against the warmongering Bush II regime at a time when too many Democratic leaders were still searching for their spines. (His 2003 speech in Sacramento remains one of the most influential barn burners in modern political history.)
Of course, we all know Governor Dean met his Waterloo after he uttered “Yeah” in Iowa at a higher volume than is allowed in polite political society. He then went on to become the chairman of the DNC, unleashing a radical strategy that would give the Democratic party a robust presence in all 50 states, and remains forever a proud card-carrying Kossack. So when you’re pouring your first drinky this morning (may we recommend a cocktail made with pure Vermont maple syrup?), hoist it and send a happy birthday toast to ol’ Doc Dean. And you should also get together and bake him a cake. After all, YOU have the flour and YOU have the flour and YOU have the flour…!!!
Have a happy humpday. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today’s Shameless C&J Testimonial
“Bottom line: You can get most of your immune boosting vitamins from the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool.”
Biden and his allies need to disabuse themselves of the notion that we will see a return to “normalcy” anytime soon.
That means a re-calibration not only of his agenda, but his rhetoric, and the let’s-return-to-the-old-norms approach of his Justice Department. (Grand juries, anyone? Special Counsels?)
Perhaps Democrats could also take a break from their own internecine bloodletting long enough to make the case that the GOP has become an extremist, nihilistic, and reckless danger to the Republic.
If democracy really does face an existential crisis, perhaps the Administration and Congress should act like it.
It’s almost as if voters don’t actually care about policy… Or rather, as if elections and approval ratings are more complicated and related more to identity, conflict, media narratives, and general disaffection with the status quo. https://t.co/IlaJVGSGhI
A constitutional crisis is unfolding before our eyes
History shows us that our system is not guaranteed, and democratic experiments can fail — rarely from external attack, almost always from the corrosion of the system from within.
It doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Congress has the constitutional authority to change direction and protect the democratic process by enacting a set of basic guardrails to maintain the sacred right to vote. We must claim that role as the trustees of a tradition that goes back to Jefferson and Lincoln, carried on by Margaret Chase Smith, John McCain, and countless others. All were partisans to an extent, but all shared an overriding commitment to the idea that animates the American experiment. The idea that the people — all the people — are the ultimate arbiters of power.
New from me: it ain’t just Eastman anymore. In the last week we’ve learned about two more memos that Trump loyalists wrote justifying an overturning of the election results. And honestly, it’s wild that they all just…wrote these things down? https://t.co/XnhlzbyVLE
Is This the Worst Place to Be Poor and Charged with a Federal Crime?
The Southern District of Georgia does remarkably little to provide for indigent defendants.
Last year, the United States Sentencing Commission released a report on federal sentencing practices from 2005 to 2017, dividing the years into three different periods to reflect changes in sentencing guidelines. The Southern District had some of the highest sentencing averages in the country, exceeding the Middle and Northern Districts of Georgia in nearly every criminal category. The report found that sentencing disparities had increased since 2012, when a similar study was done. David Patton, who serves as the federal defender in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and who has written extensively on the need for independence in federal public defense, urged caution when evaluating such data. “As someone who’s given a lot of thought about how to judge attorney performance, I’ve not found a useful way to use data to make those assessments,” he told me. “This is something that’s vexed the profession, generally,” he added. (The court, when presented with these statistics, also maintained that there were factors other than the quality of defense that played a role.) Nonetheless, Patton said that all districts should have a defender program: “I have a very strong belief that the level of practice is much higher when you have a well-run defender office in the district.”
Monmouth poll: 73% of Americans approve of having the Jan. 6 select committee look into whether members of Congress played a role in the riot 67% approve of the committee looking into whether Trump played a role
Covid is surging in Europe. Experts say it’s a warning for the U.S.
U.S. states could look at Europe and take it as “a sign that the U.S. might still see resurgences, as well,” evolutionary biologist Tom Wenseleers said.
As Europe finds itself at the center of the Covid-19 pandemic once again, experts say it should serve as a warning to the U.S. and other countries about the coronavirus’s unremitting nature.
Case numbers have soared across the continent — more than 50 percent last month — and the worrying trend has continued this month as winter begins to bite.
The WHO said Friday that nearly 2 million cases were reported across Europe in the previous week — the most the region has had in a single week since the pandemic began.
This pattern happens over and over again. Migrant caravans, racial justice run amok, communism creeping to America… they are election games. The people running the show don’t believe a damn word of it. They just know how to sell. https://t.co/n5GfxEyqao
How America’s Pandemic Economic Response Fought the Last War
A focus on the challenges of the Great Recession has fueled some of the challenges of this crisis.
Last year, when the government sprang into action to respond to the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, it was with these experiences in recent memory. Key policymakers in Congress, two presidential administrations and the Federal Reserve were determined to avoid repeating missteps that had prolonged the problems of a decade ago.
The good news is they succeeded. The bad news is that it increasingly appears they were, in key respects, fighting the last war. Their focus on the challenges of the last crisis has fueled some of the challenges of this crisis.
NEW: @UKHSA study finds Pfizer booster is extremely effective against symptomatic infection, both compared to the unvaccinated and to those with 2 doses https://t.co/8OaeEGPJMU Whether first 2 doses were AZ or Pfizer, a Pfizer booster sends vaccine efficacy up to 93-94% 💪 pic.twitter.com/Y7QjIKInKN
Expect more to join NYC, CA, NM, and CO in offering boosters to those who want it. Check in with the large chains like CVS or Rite Aid to see if you can get yours now.
As infections rise, the San Joaquin Valley becomes the land of the eternal COVID surge
Over the last year and a half, the rural, agricultural San Joaquin Valley has been a perpetual hot spot for the virus — the land of the eternal COVID-19 surge.
Case numbers and hospitalizations plummeted across California, including in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, after the height of the summer surge. But not in the San Joaquin Valley.
“We kind of have been feeling like the forgotten area of California as we read that, statewide, things are improving,” Gary Herbst, chief executive of Kaweah Health Medical Center in Visalia, told The Times. “It’s like we’re almost in a different country, even though we are right here in the middle of the state.”
The San Joaquin Valley this week has the state’s highest rate of COVID-19 hospitalizations. For every 100,000 residents, the region had 24 people hospitalized with COVID-19. Southern California, by comparison, had eight per 100,000 residents hospitalized with the virus. The San Francisco Bay Area had four.
A lot more people were hired for new jobs this summer than we originally thought. The federal government underestimated job growth by 626,000 jobs from June through September — the largest underestimate of any other comparable period since the 1970s. https://t.co/rzUSZ2Cn04
Crime, Justice and the Surviving Belief in Governance
Four major stories offer a picture of two different versions of America
Yes, governance is often ugly…and frustrating…and infuriating when it reveals the fractures in perspective that fail to recognize and address the real needs of Americans. It’s made worse by a 50-50 Senate split with Republicans who refuse to participate in legislation that can meaningfully improve lives. But at a time when the country is confronted by the arrogance of extremists who relish violence and hunger to destroy democracy, the commitment to governance remains a reason for optimism—indeed, a crucial counterpoint.
A rare story (above) that highlights GOP refusal to participate in governance.
The other problem with not having a good strategy/toolset to deal with the freak show is that you end up inadvertently emboldening stuff like this. https://t.co/iEpLh364gB
US Retail Sales hit another all-time high while Consumer Sentiment is at its lowest level in 10 years. Watch what they do, not what they say. pic.twitter.com/x2Md4zFAj0
EXCLUSIVE Rating agencies say Biden’s spending plans will not add to inflationary pressure
The two pieces of legislation “should not have any real material impact on inflation”, William Foster, vice president and senior credit officer (Sovereign Risk) at Moody’s Investors Service, told Reuters.
The impact of the spending packages on the fiscal deficit will be rather small because they will be spread over a relatively long time horizon, Foster added.
In the news today: While President Biden vows the newly passed infrastructure bill is “just the beginning” of revitalization efforts, House Republicans are still focused on protecting even their worst members from consequences for their acts. Another revelation seems to confirm that Trump’s most vocal advocates for nullifying the election were swimming in a whole sea of crackpot conspiracy theories—and demanding Trump’s military act on them.
Meanwhile, a new poll of Republicans solidly demonstrates that the party’s members don’t know and don’t care what “CRT” is. What they want banned are school lessons about racism in America, period.
Just when we thinkSesame Streetcan’t do anything better, the muppets prove us wrong. Sesame Street continues to win hearts with its efforts toward inclusion and diversity. After creating a segment to address the rise in bullying and violence many Asian American children are facing, Sesame Streethas announced is it getting a new member.
During its Thanksgiving special, “See Us Coming Together: A Sesame Street Special,” Sesame Street plans to introduce its newest cast member: Ji-Young, a 7-year-old Korean American. Ji-Young makes history as the program’s first Asian American character. She is described as a musician who not only plays the electric guitar but is also very fashionable.
In addition to being the first Asian American muppet, Ji-Young, in an interview with the Associated Press, shared that her name has special meaning.
“In Korean, traditionally the two syllables, they each mean something different. And Ji means, like, smart or wise. And Young means, like, brave or courageous and strong,” she said. “But we were looking it up and guess what? Ji also means sesame.”
Meet Ji-Young — the first Asian American muppet on “Sesame Street.” She is Korean American and has two passions: rocking out on her electric guitar and skateboarding. She’ll be formally introduced in a special that drops on Thanksgiving. pic.twitter.com/mZDgwTZJK3
According to Sesame Workshop, this year’s Thanksgiving special celebrates “the rich diversity of Asian and Pacific Islander (API) communities as part of the organization’s ongoing racial justice initiative.” It was “created to support families of all backgrounds through ongoing conversations about race” and will offer the opportunity to discuss anti-Asian racism.
“It’s a powerful thing when kids see people like themselves represented on screen and in stories—it supports them as they figure out who they are and who they want to be,” long-time cast member and co-director of “See Us Coming Together” Alan Muraokasaid in a press release. “We can’t wait for families to get to know Ji-Young—in this special and in future seasons of Sesame Street—and celebrate some of the Asian and Pacific Islander people in our neighborhood!”
Muraokasaid also noted the importance of the timing of the special, as it comes amid a rise in attacks against Asian Americans. According to TODAY, in an offscreen incident, another child is seen telling Ji-Young to “go home.” This incident serves as an example of discrimination AAPI individuals face. Sesame Workshop shows how Ji-Young handles the situation by depicting her reaching out to friends and grown-ups who remind her she’s exactly where she belongs.
“What’s really cool about Sesame Street is that, no matter what you look like, or how you play, or where you come from, you belong, and that’s really cool,” Ji-Young said in an interview on TODAY. “I feel very welcome, and it’s the best neighborhood in the whole world.
I am so excited, thrilled and honored to announce that I’ll be appearing on @sesamestreet this Thanksgiving day, welcoming its newest resident, a 7-year-old Korean-American girl named Ji-Young! It’s crazy and surreal to even write these words but as a young immigrant boy… pic.twitter.com/CA1yFtm1VW
Although Koren American, Ji-Young’s character is meant to represent multiple Asian identities. Her existence follows a series of recent events including a rise in Asian American hate. Speaking to the Associated Press, Kathleen Kim, who voices Ji-Young, said it was crucial that Ji-Young not be “generically pan-Asian.”
“Because that’s something that all Asian Americans have experienced. They kind of want to lump us into this monolithic ‘Asian,’” Kim said. “So it was very important that she was specifically Korean American, not just like, generically Korean, but she was born here.”
“I remember like the Atlanta shootings and how terrifying that was for me,” Kim continued. “My one hope, obviously, is to actually help teach what racism is, help teach kids to be able to recognize it and then speak out against it. But then my other hope for Ji-Young is that she just normalizes seeing different kinds of looking kids on TV.”
Sesame Workshop has continued to play its part in keeping parents and young children aware of social issues by creating programming on a variety of topics including town halls on racism and episodes including refugees and other displaced children as muppets.
“Today, we uphold that mission by empowering children and families of all races, ethnicities, and cultures to value their unique identities,” Sesame Workshop’s executive vice president of creative and production, Kay Wilson Stallings told TODAY, when speaking of the company’s mission.
Research has proven that the media not only influences the view of children but how they perceive themselves.
“This new special continues Sesame Street’s proud legacy of representation with an engaging story that encourages empathy and acceptance and uplifts Asian and Pacific Islander communities.”
“See Us Coming Together: A Sesame Street Special” will debut on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 25.
Watch Ji-Young’s special song with her and Elmo’s band below:
New Jersey’s Bergen County was the remaining locality in the state to continue holding a federal immigration contract when the commissioner board voted unanimously last month to end the agreement. Last Friday, the remaining 15 immigrants at the jail were removed, a week ahead of schedule. It was the culmination of years of organizing by immigrants and advocates.
But they said hopes were still dashed that day, because rather than just releasing detained immigrants to their communities, officials transferred them elsewhere. While NorthJersey.com reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would not say where the men were, advocates say they “were moved hundreds of miles away to Batavia, New York.”
“Just after the stroke of midnight, people were roused from their sleep and told that they were
being transferred,” the Interfaith Campaign For Just Closures said in a statement Monday. “At least one person was able to place a call to a family member to let them know what was happening before they were placed in vans and driven through the night, for seven hours, arriving after dawn on Friday morning at the Buffalo Service Processing Center.”
The coalition said that the men had spent weeks agonizing over whether they’d be allowed to rejoin their families or just shuttled off to another harmful facility. Both advocates and the state’s U.S. senators had been urging officials to let detained immigrants go home to their communities, the latter citing ICE’s lax pandemic protocols. Detained immigrants in the days leading to Friday’s transfers had also recorded messages pleading for relief, advocates said.
“I don’t know what’s exactly happening,” Mr. R said. “I really hope and pray for God that we don’t get transferred to another state where we don’t know nothing about it or anything that what’s gonna happen to us, and we really pray that we be- that we really do be getting released.” Mr. K said he didn’t know if his future would be release, or deportation. “I mean, it’s putting a poisoning on my kids, on my wife, and on me.”
The Interfaith Campaign For Just Closures said that in the rush from Bergen early Friday, none of the men were able to collect any of their personal belongings, including important paperwork related to their immigration cases. Recall that the county commissioner board’s vote ending the jail’s immigration contract was weeks ago.
It must again be acknowledged that the termination of Bergen jail’s immigration agreement was the result of years of protests by affected immigrants and their advocates, “of protests inside & outside these jails,” WNYC reporter Matt Katz noted. But Friday’s transfers show that’s only half the battle. ICE had every power to release detained immigrants, but made a decision not to, shuffling them off in the night (a common practice by ICE). ICE also transferred detained immigrants as it’s already made clear its complete disregard for their safety. Recall this past summer a judge forced the agency to carry out the most basic of safety measures, like COVID testing, while transferring immigrants.
“ICE’s indifference to the health and safety of people in detention is unconscionable,” American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) National Prison Project Staff Attorney Eunice Cho said at the time.
“ICE has the sole discretion to release people in detention and our elected officials
have influence over ICE,” the Interfaith Campaign For Just Closures said. “All our friends deserve to be home, in their communities, surrounded by their families, not incarcerated indefinitely simply because of their immigration status. The struggle is not over until all our friends are free and ICE detention is ended in the United States.”
Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman is facing his first major challenger in years. The sheriff, who’s been in power for 17 years and automatically won his 2017 re-election bid because no one challenged him, has found himself in a runoff with former police monitor Susan Hutson. The two could not be more different in their approach to running the office that oversees Orleans Parish Prison. This is especially obvious with Gusman’s desperate plea to keep predatory prison phone call rates in place in order to generate more revenue for his office.
Gusman made a fuss about this ahead of last Saturday’s election, claiming that the 21 cents per minute rate doesn’t “cost a fortune” and that his office desperately needs the alleged $2 million in revenue those calls bring in, though records show that the sheriff’s office made $773,000 from calls last year. That accounts for around 1% of the office’s budget, according to the Times-Picayune. “It’s about $2 million that would have to go into the jail at a time when we are strapped for cash,” Gusman maintained when reached by the paper, “where we just took care of getting stable funding, doubling employee pay. So we would have to find that from somewhere.”
If you think Gusman’s priorities are somewhat skewed, look no further than how his office’s proposed budget compares with New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell’s proposed budget. The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office (OPSO) offered up no money for long-term care or temporary housing for incarcerated people while the mayor proposed funding of $100,000 and $1.4 million, respectively. The budget that ultimately passed offers no itemized expenses but does show a $3 million deficit in funding for OPSO compared with last year’s budget. Even if Gusman secured the $2 million he claims is coming from prison phone calls, the sheriff’s office would still fall short of having funds equal to the budget for 2020.
Hutson correctly argued that the calls placed by incarcerated people quickly add up for their loved ones and that those costs quite frequently fall on Black women to pay. “If you look at the people who all the wealth is extracted from [by] the jail—like phone calls, money for commissary—it’s coming from Black women,” Hutson told New Orleans public radio station WWNO last week. “They’re doing without lights and water and food to stay in touch with loved ones, or to help loved ones in the jail.”
The provider who has monopolized the prison phone service in Orleans Parish and around the country hasn’t exactly been good to the people in prison it purports to serve. Securus allowed clients, like the nearby Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, to track cellphones illegally without obtaining a warrant. The technology caught the eye of OPSO, who “learned of the new feature and sought its inclusion in any subsequent agreement,” the office told The Appeal. OPSO had access to location tracking from April to May of 2018.
Securus has been sued for both its price-fixing and recording of attorney-client conversations—something Hutson wants to put a stop to in Orleans Parish Prison. Gusman has offered little insight into the agreement OPSO has with Securus. A spokesperson for his office claimed that the allegations that monitored attorney-client calls were “without merit” when reached by WWNO earlier this year. What Gusman has spoken up about is his unfounded claim that allowing free phone calls would plunge the prison into chaos.
Gusman cited Rikers Island in New York City for doing away with paid phone calls, erroneously claiming violent incidents related to phone availability skyrocketed. Officials at Rikers found no evidence indicating a rise in violence after the prison did away with paid phone calls. Allowing free phone calls in prison is something frequently touted by prison reform advocates and was recently adopted by Connecticut.
A runoff election between Gusman and Hutson is scheduled for Dec. 11. I certainly know who I’m voting for.
In the run-up to the November elections a couple of weeks ago, right-wing operatives, news organizations, and politicians could not stop talking about the crisis of race and education and how American history is taught in our nation’s schools. The easily digestible catchphrase for it all was critical race theory, or CRT. Even though CRT was not, is not, and has never been taught in schools below the college or post-graduate level, the boogeyman of something with the term “critical” in it was a lot more catchy than the more descriptive articulation of what conservatives were whining about—race and stuff.
The best part of it all is that none of the coverage actually discussed American history and race, which might actually be something worth teaching children. In a remarkably unsurprising turn of events, not unlike the week where “caravans” of migrants were threatening to invade our southern borders, the mentions and acute terror of CRT being taught in mythic elementary schools has…vanished. In the end, CRT was and will always be a conservative talking point that provides cover for a lack of policy initiatives, while generating enough of the perception of a divide between working folks, of all ethnicities and beliefs, to rile up the media landscape and their base.
As the Washington Postputs it, “Fox News’ focus on the issue [CRT], frequent during the spring and summer, reemerged in October—and faded quickly after the elections in Virginia and New Jersey.”
The Post created an easy-to-read graph to visualize how ultra-right-wing propaganda works to lather up their potential voting base. One thing you will notice is that, by screaming as loudly and as uniformly as they do, the right-wing-o-sphere can create a rising tide of BS that pulls up traditional media mentions of the bogus stories, as well.
Meanwhile, when conservative Democrat Steve Sweeney was ousted from the New Jersey legislature in a major upset on election day, many people wondered what it meant for the Democratic Party that a conservative Democrat could lose to a nobody Republican, who seemed to have spent about $153 on his campaign. In fact, after winning the Republican nomination to run against Sweeney, in April, no local news outlet ever got around to researching anything about the GOP’s candidate. Instead, they talked about how teachers should best ignore race and our country’s history of racism.
The constant refrain from the right-wing in the country these days is to sow as much dissent and the perception of chaos, which gives voters anxiety that things are changing too fast. For every reactionary bigot who is terrified that their child or grandchild will be taught some strange version of history titled “White people are the devil,” the rest are primarily nervous that they don’t understand what exactly is happening and want things to remain closer to the same, even if that means growing inequality and an exacerbation of all of the things that are actually stressing their communities out.
This doesn’t mean that these make-em-up culture wars end, of course. It just means that the hyped-up tenor on right-wing media settles back down to a simmer. Fascists are gonna fascist, and those stories will continue to percolate along with immigrations stories and mask mandate and cynical vaccine requirement stories.
This will go on until the next election moment when, instead of talking about how to fix the economy and how to lower drug prices, and how to deal with our opioid epidemic, and how to foster more opportunities in our country for more Americans, Fox News, OAN and the like will begin screaming 24 hours a day about how everything is on fire. Everything will be elections are rigged but vote anyway. When you vote in your rigged election, only a racist bag of facial hair like J.D. Vance will be able to make you feel like you did before Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party sold off our country to the highest bidders.
But, as we have seen, the only thing that voting for the GOP gets you is a respite in covering a single culture-war artifact.
