Medicaid Expansion Comes To–North Carolina! Heretofore only one of 11 states to not embrace the Affordable Care Act. A rare bipartisan political deal that’s worth embracing:
The agreement from Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore won praise from Democrats and advocates alike, who argue it’s long past time for North Carolina to take up Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. The new version of the legislation is still being drafted, and the two Republican leaders briefed the state’s Democratic governor on their plan after announcing the deal in a news conference yesterday morning.
“I support it,” Gov. Roy Cooper (D) said in a phone interview yesterday after he discussed the agreement with Berger and Moore. “We’re just working to try to see if we can change the timing on it a bit. … But overall, it is a monumental step for our state.”
North Carolina is one of just 11 states that have long refused Medicaid expansion, which was originally included in the 2010 Affordable Care, but made voluntary for states by the Supreme Court. Doing so in the rest of the holdout states is a tough climb for supporters of the program.
The Latest On DeSantis Vs. Disney. I liked this:
State Rep. Anna Eskamani (D), who represents the area around Walt Disney World, told Fox 35 after the bill was introduced she believes the legislation is a “complete power grab” by DeSantis “to award his friends these positions of authority, which can then lead to contracts being pushed toward his friends as well.” Eskamani introduced an amendment to the bill that would rename the district “Florida’s Attempt to Silence Critical and Independent Speech and Thought” (FASCIST), which did not pass.
Doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. In fact, a quick look at the people DeSantis chose for the new Board proves her point:
Bridget Ziegler: A member of the school board in Sarasota, Florida, Ziegler was one of the primary proponents behind the Parental Rights in Education bill, known as “Don’t Say Gay,” and co-founded the right-wing activist group Moms for Liberty, which has pushed for the “anti-woke” policies in schools that DeSantis’ administration has enacted.
Ziegler’s husband Christian was recently elected to lead the Republican Party of Florida, which Florida Politics reports has donated $1.75 million to DeSantis’ campaign (Ziegler and her husband have personally donated $42 and $252, respectively).
Martin Garcia: A Republican attorney from Tampa, Garcia’s appointment has been criticized after he donated $50,000 to DeSantis’ political action committee, and he was also named in court testimony as having been consulted when DeSantis’ administration was preparing to suspend local prosecutor Andrew Warren for espousing pro-abortion rights views.
Ron Peri: A Florida-based businessman who runs The Gathering USA, a right-wing Florida-based Christian ministry for men. (aka, a fraternal gathering of pedophiles.)
Michael Sasso: A Florida-based attorney who runs the Orlando chapter of the conservative Federalist Society, whom DeSantis has appointed to multiple state commissions in the past and has donated $770 to the governor’s campaign and PAC.
Brian Aungst, Jr.: A Florida-based attorney who specializes in land use, whom the governor has also previously appointed to a state judicial nominating commission.
Yet More Death Threats From Anti-Semites–Courtesy Of The Republican Party, QAnon And The Rest:
The FBI coordinated with local authorities in mid-February to arrest a heavily armed man who had threatened to kill all Jewish elected officials in Michigan on social media, according to a recently unsealed criminal case.
The man appears to have been a former employee of the University of Michigan.
Jack Eugene Carpenter III, a resident of Tipton, Michigan, had tweeted on Feb. 17 that he was “heading back to Michigan now threatening to carry out the punishment of death to anyone that is jewish in the Michigan govt if they don’t leave, or confess,” according to the FBI’s affidavit. There are several prominent Jewish elected officials in the state, including Attorney General Dana Nessel, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin and a handful of state senators and representatives.
On a Twitter account the FBI linked to Carpenter, he claimed to be a former employee of the University of Michigan who “was fired for refusing to take experimental medication,” apparently referring to the COVID-19 vaccine. The University of Michigan has more than 6,500 Jewish students, according to Hillel International.
Yes, he had guns:
Federal agents determined that Carpenter had previously been arrested on assault charges and had stolen one of his handguns from his girlfriend. His mother told authorities he was in possession of several firearms, including three handguns, a 12-gauge shotgun and a military-style hunting rifle.
Don’t tell me that the Rethugs aren’t marketing Nazism for perceived political gain. They are.
Speaking Of Neo-Nazis, How Am I Supposed To Ignore A Headline Like This?: “The Sacramento Dildo Saleswoman Behind A Neo-Nazi Network Advocating For Mass Shootings.”
It was the first time the Terrorgram Collective — a neo-Nazi propaganda outfit that uses Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, to encourage acts of far-right terror and to celebrate the people who commit them — had been cited in a mass murderer’s twisted treatise.
The Terrorgram Collective is at the heart of the international neo-Nazi accelerationist movement, the most extreme and explicit iteration of white supremacism, which advocates deadly violence and other acts of destruction to hasten the collapse of society so that a whites-only world can be built in its place. The collective produces propaganda — audiobooks, videos and memes — that travels across the web in hopes of inspiring the next Christchurch shooter, who killed 51 Muslims in two mosques; the next El Paso shooter, who killed 22 Hispanic people in a Walmart; the next Pittsburgh shooter, who killed 11 Jews in a synagogue; and the next Buffalo shooter, who killed 10 Black Americans in a grocery store.
The Terrorgram Collective maintains a horrifying hagiology of these shooters, calling them “saints” and sanctifying their likenesses with medieval-style church drawings. Last year, to the alarm of antifascists and counterterror organizations, the collective produced a 24-minute documentary that glorified the murders committed by 105 “saints” over the last 50 years.
These people are finally being exposed–including the one-time dildo saleswoman:
Evidence compiled by a coalition of anonymous antifascist researchers…reveals that one of the Terrorgram Collective’s main propagandists is Dallas Erin Humber, a 33-year-old woman living in Sacramento, California.
HuffPost has corroborated the research indicating that Humber is the person behind multiple Telegram accounts associated with the Terrorgram Collective, and identifying her as the narrator of the collective’s documentaries and audiobooks.
Finally, Some Action On Sex Trafficking In Delaware. Good. Although the articles should mention the names of the perpetrators. I want to know who these scum are by name.
Rail Industry Deep-Sixed Inspections And Killed Fed Safety Legislation:
In leaked audio heard by the Guardian, a manager for one of the US’s largest rail companies can be heard explaining to a former carman that they should stop tagging railcars for broken bearings. The manager says doing so delays other cargo.
The disclosure comes as federal agencies investigate the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. A wheel-bearing failure was cited as the cause of the crash in a preliminary report released by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The East Palestine derailment has incited a wave of scrutiny into the railroad industry’s record of deregulation and blocking safety rules.
Train-brake rules were rolled back under the Trump administration and have not been restored; hazardous material regulations were watered down at the behest of the railroad industry; and railroad workers have been decrying the safety impacts incited by years of staffing cuts, poor working conditions and neglect by railroad corporations in favor of Wall Street investors.
“The railroads have opposed any government regulation on train length; they have sought waivers to eliminate having trained inspectors monitor railcars; and they have pushed back on the train crew staffing rule.” said Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (Blet) national president Eddie Hall in a statement after the NTSB preliminary report on the East Palestine derailment.
“The railroads and their trade association the Association of American Railroads (AAR) employ armies of lobbyists on Capitol Hill who are there not to promote safety regulations but to slow the implementation of federal safety regulations – or attempt to eliminate them altogether.”
Edward Wytkind, who served as president of the Transportation Trades Department (TTD) at the AFL-CIO, which represents the unions in the railroad industry, said that throughout his 25 years at the TTD, the railroad industry blocked all attempts to pass legislation or advance regulation on safety.
Wait, that reminds me–seems like a bleepload of Delaware legislators have accepted campaign contributions from freight rail companies. Time for me to do some research…but not right now.
What do you want to talk about?