Joy Reid analysis of the MAGA candidates for House Speaker (8 minutes)
For gawd’s sake is that very best that MAGAs have these days? Putting into leadership and only 2 medical crises away from the presidency a man who compares himself favorably to one of the worst people America has ever produced? What in the hell are you thinking about?
“David Duke without the baggage.” What the hell does that mean? I am a racist, but I say ‘please and thank you’? What a HUGE step backwards in this country!
The other guy purportedly watched sexual molestation at Ohio State University and said nothing. The people saying this are the athletes that were molested. Jim Jordan – a law and order fellow – still refuses to honor a congressional subpoena. Reports have Jordan at the center of the coup on January 6th 2021.
In both cases these candidates for the third most powerful position in our government refuse to say that the 2020 election was legitimate. Both cast votes to not accept the validated electoral votes from the states. These are the people that MAGA House members have nominated as their leadership.
Iowans – think about this long and hard before you vote next year. Do you want your vote to help bring about leadership that is more in line with dividing the country that voting for the party that will work for all Americans? Do you want to be part of electing leadership that forces the country into crisis after crisis with bad outcomes?
Do you want your vote to go to a party that is espousing policies that weaken America both on domestic and international issues? If you want all that vote MAGA. If you want to be part of the solution, vote Democratic.
Iowa is challenging a new Massachusetts law that bans the sale of pork that doesn’t meet strict hog-confinement requirements.
In July, a coalition of pork producers including Triumph Foods sued the Massachusetts attorney general over the state’s newly enacted Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, which restricts the sale and transportation of pork in that state by requiring hogs to be raised under certain conditions.
Massachusetts’ law is similar to one in California that restricts the sale of pork in that state. But the Massachusetts law goes a step further by also prohibiting the shipment of non-compliant pork through the state. That provision of the law means that if Iowa-produced pork doesn’t meet Massachusetts’ standards for hog confinements, it not only can’t be sold in Massachusetts, it can’t be transported through Massachusetts to other states.
The stated purpose of the law is to “prevent animal cruelty by phasing out extreme methods of farm-animal confinement, which also threaten the health and safety of Massachusetts consumers, increase the risk of foodborne illness, and have negative fiscal impacts on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
The law was approved overwhelmingly by Massachusetts residents on a ballot initiative that garnered the support of 77% of voters.
Triumph Foods and the other pork producers argue the new law’s minimum size requirements for hog confinements are “inconsistent with pork industry practices and standards,” which is a point on which they and animal-welfare advocates agree. But the producers go on to argue that meeting Massachusetts’ new standards will impose “costly mandates” and “substantial burdens on pig farmers and pork processors” that are located in other states.
On Tuesday, the office of Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird filed an unusually phrased amicus brief siding with the pork producers, arguing “the increased costs on pig farmers and pork processors will make American consumers squeal about higher pork prices.”
The brief notes that Iowa is the nation’s top producer and exporter of pork. “The pork industry employs more than 147,000 Iowans and contributes billions of dollars annually to Iowa’s economy,” the brief states. Massachusetts, Iowa points out, consumes 396 million pounds of pork annually but produces only 1.9 million pounds of pork.
In a written statement announcing the filing of the amicus brief, Bird said the Massachusetts law “sets a dangerous precedent” that will allow states to upend markets across the nation based on what she calls their “political” agendas.
“Massachusetts’s radical pork ban hogties Iowa pork producers,” Bird said. “With these strict new mandates in effect, Iowa farmers will face extreme costs and regulations to compete in the industry, forcing many family hog farms to close shop. Massachusetts doesn’t get to dictate how Iowans farm. We are fighting to support our pork producers and protect Iowa family farms.”
Twelve other states have joined Iowa in the filing of the amicus brief alleging the Massachusetts law violates the U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause, which gives the federal government, not state governments, the power to regulate interstate commerce. Iowa also claims the law violates the Constitution’s import-export clause, which prohibits states from imposing import taxes on products brought in from other states, and the full faith and credit clause that requires states to respect laws passed in other states.
Lawyers for the state of Massachusetts argue that some of those legal theories and arguments have already been rejected by one or more courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, in lawsuits involving the California law.
Earlier this year, for example, in the National Pork Producers Council’s lawsuit alleging the California law violated the commerce clause, the Supreme Court stated it was declining to “prevent a state from regulating the sale of an ordinary consumer good within its own borders on nondiscriminatory terms.”
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.
These interviews are good but they don’t do justice to her story. This conversation with Jamie Raskin starts a bit slow and gets better as it goes along. I recommend watching it and also highly recommend her bestselling book.
Believe it or not, but we’re only four weeks away from Election Day.
As part of our No-Off Years campaign, we’re doing everything we can to educate voters ahead of the November 7 elections and encourage folks to vote in these critically important local elections.
The school boards and city councils that are elected in these elections have direct impacts on our lives and communities. Ensuring progressive control of local governments is an important check against Kim Reynolds and the extremist Republicans in the legislature, and electing local progressive majorities across the state will help build momentum leading into the 2024 elections.
Now is the time to make your plan to vote:
We’ve seen a coordinated effort by MAGA Republicans in our state to target these local elections and take control of critical school boards and city councils. They’re banking on lower turnout to sneak extremists into positions of power. We can’t let them – make your plan to vote in the November 7 elections now.
Nobel prize winning climatologist Michael Mann who has a new book, Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth’s Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis, was Al’s guest on the Al Franken Podcast Oct. 7.
This was a useful podcast for those of us who don’t know a lot about climate change and have been too afraid to find out. It was realistic but not terrifying to listen to. They discuss why the climate change that is happening now is different than at other times of change in the history of earth.
Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.
The choice is ours, Mann asserts. We can create a disaster movie or we can create a livable planet.
I never post the video or picture of the “Dean Scream.” Not even for fun although Howard Dean himself laughs about it today. Howard Dean was one of the early casualties of extreme disinformation in the media via the so-called scream. It was played over and over and over on TV after the Iowa caucuses during the run up to the 2004 election and it put a fork in the Dean presidential campaign. It was a distorted video that made it sound much louder than it actually sounded in the room where he could barely be heard above a cheering crowd. But the worst part to me is that it is the only thing most people know about Howard Dean, which is just plain sad. But I digress..
This episode of Iowa Press was really hard to watch even without Republican guests on the program for the panel to fawn over. Well at least the first five minutes was bad, which is all I could watch. Who knows, maybe the rest of it was quite good. Here is my report of what I could sit through, which wasn’t much.
First name that comes up in the conversation as always, Donald Trump of course saying whatever he said in Iowa about the abortion issue – who really cares and what does it matter? Nothing he says can be trusted, don’t we know this by now? Move on, people. It’s not news. Must you all hang on his every word? You’re embarrassing yourselves.
And then the cynical media frame comes next. The topic that Iowa Press decided Iowans everywhere need to know about was this: What will the Republicans say about their position on abortion so that they can still win elections?
For starters, it was distressing, infuriating and downright neurologically dysregulating to have to listen to the panel dispassionately discuss how “interesting” it is to watch the Republican presidentials figure out how to twist their anti-woman agenda into a positive (fake) political message that they hope to deceive voters with.
Dear Iowa Press panel, so glad you all are having a good time watching the “interesting” national dumpster fire while women in America are reduced to second class citizens after fifty years of having the right to sovereignty over our bodies, just like men have always had and will always have. Really glad you all are enjoying yourselves but you appear to be uninterested in informing voters how the Republican stance on this issue and others will affect individual lives.
One must ask, what exactly do you feel your job is as a member of the Iowa Press panel? It appears that you feel your job is limited to being nice to Republicans.
Back to my earlier point. How many times did the panel say “interesting” or make a cynical or otherwise irrelevant comment referring to the Rs’ attempts to find a fancy sounding lie to make voters not notice that they think women are lesser beings whose bodies and lives should be controlled by the Republican party? A few times, but I stopped counting.
Murphy: “It’s kind of interesting to see that play out on this issue within the primary.”
Amanda Rooker: “And this, as Erin mentioned, has been an issue that Republicans have maybe struggled to find a winning message on.”
Because that’s the most important aspect of this conversation – for Rs to find that winning message while they are taking away our rights.
Somebody please get this program off the air before someone gets hurt. People are watching it – well, no one I know, but it is a statewide broadcast so a lot of innocent Iowans are probably watching it.
Brianne Pfannenstiel: “And it’s really interesting to see how they’re responding to these messages…. And so it’s really interesting to see the candidates kind of, you know, figure out how to talk about this….Another thing that that he [Trump] said was, again, you know, kind of doubling down on this idea that Republicans can’t win by talking about abortion in a general election…. essentially Trump’s comments bring into question his pro-life credentials, if you will.
Pro-Life Credentials if you will? Seriously, how cynical is that. Yes I’ve heard the phrase before.
This is the best you all could come up with? I get it, but where is the larger picture, the educating of viewers on what life will be like when America is turned into a third world shit-hole country where women have no rights and are forced to bear the children of their rapist?
Next we have to endure again the old classic – But will this move Republican voters away from Donald Trump? And the same answer that every member of the media has given over and over, more times than the Dean Scream – no nothing will ever move them!
Murphy finishes with this: “And we always talk about the people who support Trump are going to support him no matter what.” That’s true, Erin. You all always do talk about that. You project the idea that the Trumpsters cannot and will never change, giving them perfect permission to never change and making everyone else feel beaten because it was said on TV so it must be true. Can not a single person in the media offer a more thoughtful idea beyond “Trump supporters will never change?” I have yet to hear one. It’s as if it is their secret wish.
What if members of the press started saying this true statement over and over: Trump supporters need to learn what is really going on because if they knew, they wouldn’t agree. I didn’t make that up. It was Bill Clinton the master politician who said it – he said simply, if people knew what the Republicans were doing, they wouldn’t be for it. I happen to believe that.
I will only digress on this so far by saying, if you think people understand what Rs are really up to and still agree, I have only to point to the existence of the vast right wing media. If disinformation didn’t work, it wouldn’t be out there.
This is why Rs lie so much – they’ve got a lot to lie about. Iowa Press should stop helping them. Iowa Press should make their focus the education – not politicization – of voters. They should stop what basically amounts to weekly gossiping about the inner circle of Rs and they should stop framing and presenting every single issue according to how it affects Republicans’ electoral chances.
At least think of something new to say other than Trump supporters will never change. It’s been said a zillion times already. In Jon Stewart’s words, you’re hurting America. Well Iowa, anyway.
If we really believed as the media says, that they will never change then the logical thing to do would be to stop talking about them on TV and everywhere 24-7 and move on to giving the non-*Trumpworld voters some useful information that will offer them a reason to vote and work to get the traumatic Trump years behind us once and for all.
As for the rest of the program, I couldn’t watch but I wouldn’t recommend.
*According to Cassidy Hutchinson, the term “Trumpworld” was commonly used by the Trump inner circle, including White House Staff and members of congress to describe themselves.
That is enough to end Medicare premiums and add services
Physicians For a National Health Policy (PNHP) released a scathing report on the HUGE amount of money that the so-called “Medicare Advantage” (it is not Medicare, nor is there any Advantage) overbills our government on Wednesday. A little more than half of the amount of overpayment could easily fund adding dental, vision and hearing to traditional Medicare.
PNHP has been working on reforming America’s health care for decades. As I often say, America pays twice as much for half the care that all other industrialized countries get. This video is three members of congress pointing out that “Medicare Advantage” is simply a corporate ripoff: (1:40)
A report published Wednesday estimates that privately run, government-funded Medicare Advantage plans are overcharging U.S. taxpayers by up to $140 billion per year, a sum that could be used to completely eliminate Medicare Part B premiums or fully fund Medicare’s prescription drug program.
{snip}
But when accounting for induced utilization—”the idea that people with supplemental coverage are likely to use more health care because their insurance pays for more of their cost”—PNHP estimated that the annual overbilling total could be as high as $140 billion.
“This is unconscionable, unsustainable, and in our current healthcare system, unremarkable,” says the new report. “Medicare Advantage is just another example of the endless greed of the insurance industry poisoning American healthcare, siphoning money from vulnerable patients while delaying and denying necessary and often lifesaving treatment.”
{snip}
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that adding dental, vision, and hearing to Medicare and Medicaid would cost just under $84 billion in the most costly year of the expansion.
“While there is obvious reason to fix these issues in MA and to expand traditional Medicare for the sake of all beneficiaries,” the new report states, “the deep structural problems with our healthcare system will only be fixed when we achieve improved Medicare for All.”
{snip}
“If seniors understood that the $165 coming out of their monthly Social Security checks was going essentially dollar for dollar into profiteering of Medicare Advantage, (ed. note – my bolding) they would and should be angry about that,” said Weisbart. “We think that we pay premiums to fund Medicare. The only reason we have to do that is because we’re letting Medicare Advantage take that money from us.”
I heartily recommend reading Mr. Johnson’s full summary.
Whatever you decide on regarding treatment, many Advantage insurance company will regularly second-guess and do everything they can to intimidate you into paying yourself out-of-pocket. Often, they simply refuse payment and wait for you to file a complaint against them; for people seriously ill the cumbersome “appeals” process is often more than they can handle.
As a result, hospitals and doctor groups across the nation are beginning to refuse to take Medicare Advantage patients. California-based Scripps Health, for example, cares for around 30,000 people on Medicare Advantage and recently notified all of them that Scripps will no longer offer medical services to them unless they pay out-of-pocket or revert back to real Medicare.
{snip}
Not only is the Medicare Advantage scam a screw job for healthcare providers and people who are on the programs and are unfortunate enough to get sick, it’s also preventing Americans from getting expanded benefits from real Medicare.
MAGA Republicans create a circus style diversion to draw attention away from America’s real problems. They have no solutions and frankly have no plans to do a damn thing about fixing our real problems such as a medical system that doesn’t serve the needs of our citizens. If they won’t do the work needed, fire them and hire somebody that will.
When I think of America’s ridiculous health care system I think of Howard Beale in the 1976 movie “Network” – I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it any more! And you should be too.
Hey guess what? The writer’s strike may be settled and the union is so confident that it has let them get back to work sooooo – the late shows are back:
Lots of things to think about this week. While the corporate news media continues to focus on Trump and the gang that can’t shoot straight (MAGAs in congress), Democrats continue to try to do the work that the people of the US are demanding. Even though Democrats have shown over and over that they are the adults in governing, they may still lose next year due to voter purges and gerrymandering aimed to suppress Democratic turnout or make their votes of less value than a MAGA vote.
Indigenous People’s Day? Remember when it was Columbus Day until we found out how much of a bad guy Columbus really was? If you didn’t know that, look it up. Many years ago I told an indigenous guide at a federal park that her people had it about right, living a sustainable life in harmony with nature. Columbus and his ilk sure screwed that up.
We are heading into the autumnal season of celebrations involving thanks for the harvests and the season of celebrating the ancestral dead. I never thought of this before, but our friends to the north in Canada kick off these seasons with their Thanksgiving celebration Monday. More turkey, eh?
“It’s just mind-blowing really,” said Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo. “Never seen anything like that in any month in our records.”
And what a week politically and otherwise.
A) Speaking of climate change, what American city is dealing with salty sea water coming into replace river fresh water due to low water levels in their local river?
B) Who lead the ultra-MAGA rebellion in the US House that saw Speaker Kevin McCarty expelled from his position Tuesday?
C) Donald Trump was ordered not to do what with his money as the penalty phase of his fraud trial?
D) Indigenous people question: What people were led by great leaders Geronimo and Cochise?
E) Due to all the drama on Monday and Tuesday we almost forgot that congress barely averted what major incident with a late vote Saturday night?
F) Out in Arizona, Governor Katie Hobbs stopped a farm owned by Saudis from pumping underground water to grow what for their horses in Saudi Arabia?
G) More climate news: it was reported that over 100 dolphins died in the Amazon River as the temperature in the river went over what temp?
H) In Michigan, the parents of Ethan Crumbley who killed four fellow students at Oxford High, were ordered to stand trial on what charges?
I) What was the name of the confederation of indigenous people nations that played a pivotal role in the North American battles between the French and the British?
J) What two MAGA congress members have announced they would run to replace Speaker McCarthy?
K) And meanwhile the President just gets better. Once again job gains far exceeded expectations as how many Americans went to work in September?
L) And for a kicker, the president was able to cancel student debt for how many students?
M) Who is LaPhonza Butler?
N) What four states congressional redistricting maps are being litigated before the SCOTUS due to their radicalized gerrymandering?
O) In 1832, what Sauk leader led 1000 indigenous people across the Mississippi to reclaim land the the tribe had ceded to the US government in 1804?
P) What two actions did temporary Speaker Patrick McHenry take upon assuming temporary Speakership?
Q) According to reports, Trump shared what highly secured secrets with Australian businessman Anthony Pratt at Mar-a-Lago a couple of months after Trump left the presidency?
R) Meanwhile, what former Trump lawyer saw the IRS put a lien put on his Florida property in lieu of $550,000 in back taxes?
S) Last week what major midwest metropolis canceled its annual marathon due to extremely hot temperatures?
T) A man in what midwest capital came to the capital with a gun to see the governor. After he was arrested he made bail and returned that night with a rifle looking for the governor again?
BONUS) What company was fined $150,000 for failure to move its disabled satellite to a higher orbit where it would cause little problem to capable satellites?
The biggest winner from Kevin McCarthy’s ouster today was Amy Coney Barrett
She was exposed for belonging to the Christian cult People of Praise which the FBI is investigating for sex abuse
McCarthy & Gaetz’s combustion buried that damning exposé
Don’t let her get away with it. – Lindy Li (Tuesday.)
Matt Walsh pic
Answers:
A) New Orleans
B) Matt Gaetz of Florida
C) Move any of it so it couldn’t be hidden from using it to pay his fines
D) The Apache
E) a government shutdown
F) Alfalfa – lousy use of precious water
G) 100 degrees F
H) Involuntary manslaughter since they let their son have access to guns
I) The Iroquois league
J) Jim Jordon of Ohio and Steve Scalise of Louisiana
K) 336,000
L) Biden canceled $9 billion for 125,000 students
M) Butler is the senator named by California governor Newsom to replace the recently deceased Diane Feinstein
N) Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas (Alabama seems to have accepted court drawn districts this week)
O) Blackhawk
P) He called for week’s adjournment and kick Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi from her current office as Pelosi was at Feinstein’s funeral
Q) Trump spilled secrets on how many warheads that nuclear subs could carry and how close our subs could get to Russia without being seen. Pratt in turn told some 45 people.
R) Rudy Giuliani
S) The Twin Cities – temperatures were over 90 – normal for that time of year is ~65
T) Madison, Wisconsin. He was looking for Governor Evers
BONUS) DISH
You know what Karma looks like?
Kevin McCarthy trying to impeach President Biden for no reason at all with sham accusations just like his sham Benghazi campaign against Hillary Clinton and instead he ended up losing his own job. – Ricky Davila
While Hutchinson’s plaintive cry to stop those traitorous games within that administration there is a rising chorus throughout the country that WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH! ENOUGH of the purposeful throttling of government by MAGA Republicans as they refuse to do anything but cut taxes for the wealthy – the wealthy that need no help but who are the only ones that MAGAs work for.
This month we are seeing kids starve as meals are cut back at schools, as Medicaid is pulled from millions and as a corrupt Supreme Court gavels back into session to hand out even more victories to the wealthy who fund MAGA Supreme Court justices to lifestyles far beyond the justices means.
There are so many problems in this country it would take a book just to list them. It seems I write a similar column about every couple of months, but while we are in the interim between elections our pathetic media spends most of its time playing the circus side of politics and pay little to no attention to real issues.
As the climate burns (September goes out like middle of July), as America’s medical industry slides more and more into the hands of wealthy capitalists who have no desire to serve the health care needs of the country, as children starve while being taught that the prejudices of haters are American values, as our politicians grovel for bribes and as the price of housing sky rockets as we kill each other at the rate of 100 a day, and as race and gender are used to divide our country our media ignores real stories and play hours and hours a day of a traitor in such a way that makes him seem a hero.
We are coming off one of the worst days in American history as a Speaker of the House is fired by his own caucus for not being crazy enough and players on both sides of the MAGA party turn to blame the Democratic Party for not stopping the MAGAs for committing their public suicide. As this happens cameras give the MAGAs hour upon hour of media time as our country’s problems worsen.
If we keep electing people who are only concerned about stirring up the shit but will do nothing to clean it up, expect the shit show to get bigger and stinkier. MAGA congress members only want to stir up the shit. Donald Trump and the other dwarf MAGA presidential candidates are nothing but shit-stirrers with no practical ideas of how to fix problems but only how they can use the problems to funnel money to their supporters.
And at the base of the problem is how MAGAs are attacking the very democracy we live in as they work hard to block a huge percentage of the population from doing or having those votes count equally with those of their supporters. The very existence of democracy in this country is itself in danger of being removed from this country.
Josh Micah Marshall of talkingpointsmemo.com does a quick analysis of the current state of republicans as being accepted as bad and Democrats must fix their problems or the Democrats get blamed:
The idea that Ds should have bailed out McCarthy is a codicil of the larger logic of DC punditry in which R bad behavior/destruction is assumed, a baseline like weather, and Ds managing the consequences of that behavior is a given. It’s part of DC being hardwired for the GOP.
We have all heard it over and over – when the bad boy MAGAs throw their temper tantrums and inflict real pain on us everyone expects the Democrats to be the adults in the room and make things better.
ENOUGH of that! Let’s just elect adults to begin with. ENOUGH of the Miller-Meeks who do nothing but follow the MAGA dictates. ENOUGH of the Hinsons who take credit for programs she voted against. ENOUGH of the Joni Ernsts who have no clue what the issues are about – boy is she clueless. ENOUGH of the far right Randy Feenstra who is little more than Steve King in different clothes. ENOUGH of Zach Nunn’s ignorance.
ENOUGH of Brianna Bird and Kim Reynolds turning their religious beliefs into laws and policies that hurt Iowans.
Quit waiting for the adults to fix things – elect them to begin with and let’s start cleaning up some of the shit that MAGAs have spewed all over.
Just remember, Iowans, when you vote next year that if you want chaos, shutdowns and financial crises vote Republican. If you want a government that actually works, vote for Democrats. It really is that simple.
Governor Kim Keynolds: (515) 281-5211 U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 Iowa Members of Congress - Rep. Randy Feenstra (R) - Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) - Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) - Rep. Zach Nunn (R) Iowa US Senators - Senator Joni Ernst (R) - Senator Charles Grassley (R)
These interviews are good but they don’t do justice to her story. This conversation with Jamie Raskin starts a bit slow and gets better as it goes along. I recommend watching it and also highly recommend her bestselling book.
Action alert from Zach Wahls –
Media rant alert. Talk about wag the dog..
Blog For Iowa 