November 8, 2022

Went to save democracy at 7 am in rural VA

Husband dragged me out of bed to go vote with him. It was quite busy at our rural polling station, which is a local elementary school, but no lines, moving quickly. Some idiot woman in front of me had brought her dog with her but at least it was reasonably well-behaved. There were more signs for the Democratic candidate, Jennifer Lewis, than for the Republican incumbent, Ben Cline, outside, and I've seen more this time around. That race was the only thing on the ballot so I duly filled in my oval, deposited my ballot in the whirr-click counting machine, and came on home.

November 7, 2022

Nikki Haley Says Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Black American Pastor, Should Be 'Deported'

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R), who served under Donald Trump as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on Sunday that Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.)—a Black American pastor—should be “deported.”

During a rally for Warnock’s Republican opponent, Herschel Walker, Haley talked about being the daughter of immigrants, telling the Georgia crowd, “Legal immigrants are more patriotic than the leftists these days. They worked to come into America and they love America. They want the laws followed in America. So the only person we need to make sure we deport is Warnock.” The crowd cheered.

That’s a pretty stunning thing to say. Deported to where, Nikki? Reverend Warnock was born in Georgia; his dad served in the U.S. Army in World War II, and he is currently serving in the U.S. Senate. Essentially saying this man should “go back to Africa” is quite a closing message, two days before a midterm election.

The race in Georgia, a former red state that recently gave Democrats control of the Senate by electing Warnock and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) in 2020, is shaping up to be a nail-biter. Despite Walker’s inane comments on the campaign trail, his abuse of his ex-wife, flashing a fake police badge at a debate, and lying over and over about having paid for abortions, mainstream Republicans like Haley and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have continued to prop him up, because the GOP desperately needs to flip that seat. RealClearPolitics’ latest aggregate of polling shows that it’s working: Walker leads by half a point. The latest polling from FiveThirtyEight shows the former Georgia footballer leading by an entire point.

https://jezebel.com/nikki-haley-says-sen-raphael-warnock-a-black-american-1849751700

That's a lot out of the mouth of Nimrata Rhandawa, a brown first-generation American... just saying

November 7, 2022

Iowa teen who killed alleged rapist escapes custody

An Iowa sex-trafficking victim who at age 15 killed her alleged rapist escaped custody on Friday, violating the probation she was ordered to serve at a correctional facility after pleading guilty to manslaughter, according to reports.

Pieper Lewis, who is now 18, could face up to two decades behind bars after this alleged probation violation. Authorities have issued a warrant for her arrest, the Des Moines Register newspaper reported.

Lewis pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and willful injury for fatally stabbing Zachary Brooks in a fit of rage in June 2020. Lewis said that Brooks, 37, sexually assaulted her multiple times, according to the newspaper.

Prosecutors and police have not denied that Lewis was trafficked and sexually assaulted. The prosecution contended that Brooks was sleeping when he was stabbed and that he did not present a danger to Lewis at that moment.

Unlike dozens of other US states, Iowa does not have a law providing trafficking victims even a minimal level of criminal immunity. In September, Judge David M Porter sentenced Lewis to five years’ probation, to be served at a women’s correctional facility, the Register reported.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/06/iowa-pieper-lewis-escapes-custody

This is Cyntoia Brown all over again. She should not even be imprisoned. If she is on probation, she should be outside the walls.

November 7, 2022

'A brazen intrusion': China's foreign police stations raise hackles in Canada

At a strip mall convenience store sandwiched between a hotpot restaurant and hair salon on the outskirts of Toronto, a clerk serves a steady flow of customers on a drizzly autumn morning.

In an office park a few miles away, a travel agent sorts through passports, arranging visas and booking tickets for her Chinese clientele.

And on a quiet street in a nearby suburb, a resident has grown frustrated that he and his family have been roped into an international row over a supposed network of clandestine Chinese police stations.

“I don’t know what this is all about,” the man said. “There’s some kind of mistake. We have nothing to do with this. Look around. This is just a house.”

All three addresses have been linked to a purported network of unsanctioned and illegal Chinese “police stations” around the world, used to exert pressure on exiles and expatriates.

The allegations came after a string of cases around the world in which China has been accused of overstepping diplomatic and legal norms to persecute its citizens far beyond its borders. In a report released last month, the Madrid-based NGO Safeguard Defenders detailed 54 alleged Chinese police stations around the world, prompting authorities in a number of countries, including Germany, the Netherlands and Canada, to launch police investigations.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/07/chinese-police-stations-toronto-canada

They're no doubt here too.

November 7, 2022

How Political Violence Went Mainstream on the Right

by RACHEL KLEINFELD


The attack against Paul Pelosi was horrific, but it was not an isolated event. In the last five years, political violence has skyrocketed on the right, and desire is growing on the left. The public’s willingness to support partisan violence in America now approaches levels recorded in Northern Ireland at the height of its troubles.

But the problem we face is not solely the number of incidents. It’s that violence has been mainstreamed on the right. It’s effectively become another partisan tool for too many in the GOP. Changing the climate that fuels political violence won’t be easy, but there are ways to do so, particularly by easing polarization so that mainstream Republicans step away from supporting a violent faction.

America has always had a high level of political violence compared to similar high-income, consolidated democracies. In the 1960s and 1970s, when such violence last peaked, it was committed by fringe groups, mostly on the left. In the 1980s and 1990s, extremist fringes on the right started growing. While violence was identifiably ideological, from left-leaning causes like the environment to anti-abortion activists on the right, it was not partisan. Supporting political violence could only hurt mainstream politicians, and it had nothing to do with the election calendar.

Today, violence on the left still looks like this. Progressives who support violence are disconnected from the Democratic Party and are generally disavowed by political leaders (though Democrats could do more to speak against the high levels of property violence that ravaged small businesses during the summer of 2020).

But on the right, support for violence is no longer a fringe position. Hate crimes remain the purview of the normal criminal demographic: unemployed and unmarried young men without kids. However, those joining violent political events like the Jan. 6 insurrection are more likely to be married middle-aged men with jobs and kids. Those most likely to support violence on the right feel most connected to the Republican Party according to a November 2021 Bright Line Watch survey. This is not a marginal movement: It is people who see violence as a means to defend their values, an extension of their political activity.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/11/07/political-violence-mainstream-right-wing-00065297

I rarely read Politico, but this seemed timely

November 6, 2022

Banned book lesson thrusts Oklahoma teacher into campaign

Summer Boismier was living her childhood dream. She grew up a bookworm, became a high school English teacher, and filled both her classroom and home with her favorite literature.

She taught her students: “Stories are what is fundamental about the human experience. We all have them.”

Boismier especially loves the fantasy genre, a passion sprouted from childhood favorite “Harry Potter.” But even in a world of fantasy, she couldn’t have dreamed that a lesson from her English class would land her in the center of a vigorous statewide political campaign and turn her into a target for candidates and voters on social media.

Over the past two years, the nine-year teaching veteran was growing alarmed with the Republican-controlled Oklahoma Legislature’s increasing efforts to restrict access to books in public schools. In her classroom, she covered some bookshelves with red butcher tape and labeled them “Books the state doesn’t want you to read.” She gave students a QR code link to the Brooklyn Public Library, which provides access to a variety of banned books.
She hoped to spark a discussion about the legislators’ book restrictions and a new law prohibiting lessons on critical race theory and other concepts about race and gender. Instead, she was summoned to a meeting with school administrators after a parent complained.

She hoped to spark a discussion about the legislators’ book restrictions and a new law prohibiting lessons on critical race theory and other concepts about race and gender. Instead, she was summoned to a meeting with school administrators after a parent complained.

A firestorm erupted as Boismier resigned and a reporter from a local television station covered the story. The state’s Republican candidate for superintendent of public schools, Ryan Walters, wrote a letter to the State Board of Education calling for Boismier’s teaching license to be revoked.

https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-entertainment-education-social-media-oklahoma-2a0efaa9fbd485df4e8657e2b95b901a?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_09

While this story has a happy ending, a lot of them don't. This crap has to be STOPPED.

November 6, 2022

Texas billionaires are spending millions to support private school vouchers

Texas Republicans bankrolled by Christian conservative donors are hoping to ride a wave of parental anger over the teaching of race and sexuality in schools to achieve what has long been an unattainable goal: state funding for private education.

Groups committed to giving parents the option of sending their children to private schools using taxpayer dollars — sometimes known as “school choice” or “vouchers” — have given millions of dollars to Republican candidates in Texas this year, helping win key races and pushing some establishment lawmakers further to the right on the issue. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott recently pledged to make school choice a priority in the next legislative session if he wins re-election over Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke.

As a result, political observers say, public school funding is effectively on the ballot Tuesday.

The push for private school vouchers has been funded in large part by Defend Texas Liberty, a Christian nationalist-aligned political action committee led by a former far-right Republican state lawmaker and bankrolled by a pair of West Texas billionaires. The PAC has spent nearly $10 million this year, largely backing candidates who support public funding for private education and attacking those who oppose it, according to an NBC News analysis of Texas Ethics Commission campaign finance reports and data compiled by the nonprofit OpenSecrets.

Defend Texas Liberty did not respond to messages requesting interviews with PAC leaders.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-politicians-far-right-christian-megadonors-rcna55546

Rottinghaus? Could someone come up with a more appropriate name?

November 6, 2022

How a team of Black paramedics set the gold standard for emergency medical response

It is difficult to imagine society without the assurance that skilled, professional paramedics will respond to a medical emergency. But before the 1970s, clumsy, haphazard care, often at the hands of police officers, was the norm for emergencies. So much so that negligent ambulance care was responsible for an estimated 1,200 to 2,000 preventable deaths per year in the United States, according to journalist and former paramedic Kevin Hazzard.

In his new book American Sirens, Hazzard narrates the eight-year saga of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, the all-Black team of paramedics who pioneered the profession from 1968-1975 in Pittsburgh.

The book documents an untold piece of American history, recording how Freedom House saved thousands of lives and influenced the emergence of professional paramedic services in cities across the U.S., eventually setting the gold standard of emergency medical care.

Hazzard begins the book through the eyes of John Moon, a Black man who was born into poverty at Atlanta's Grady Hospital but found his calling as a Freedom House recruit. Other prominent Freedom House contributors include Dr. Peter Safar, the Austrian-born physician who co-founded Freedom House Ambulance Service shortly after he invented mouth-to-mouth resuscitation; and Dr. Nancy Caroline, the first medical director of Freedom House who authored the seminal emergency medical services text Emergency Care in the Streets.

With his professional EMS experience, Hazzard's writing feels like a paramedic ride-along, witnessing medical chaos – intubating patients against the clock, confronting frightened patients and their distressed relatives, and competing with an adversarial police force.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/05/1132533191/how-a-team-of-black-paramedics-set-the-gold-standard-for-emergency-medical-respo

I didn't know any of this, and I'm a nurse, FFS. I bet most of us didn't know it either. I will be looking for this book.

November 6, 2022

Why Americans living abroad are a voting bloc with untapped political potential

After graduating high school in Georgia in 1969, Herbert Ruffin was drafted into the military to serve as an infantryman in Vietnam. A year later, he was badly wounded in a firefight. He was awarded the Purple Heart and went on to serve his country for more than two decades.

But when it came time to retire, Ruffin chose to continue living abroad.

"The quality of life for me, as a person of color — there was better opportunities for me to live in Germany," he says. "I was born in the 1950s, so I came through some very challenging years being raised in the South."

Ruffin, 72, remains a registered voter in Maryland, where he typically votes for Democrats. He says he still feels a deep sense of patriotism and takes voting as an American overseas seriously.

"Where I grew up, opportunities to vote were restricted," he says. "I have a voice and I can encourage others to vote and let them know they can vote from abroad."

Ruffin is one of at least 3 million American expatriates of voting age, a voting bloc that organizers and researchers are still trying to understand in an era of data-driven political targeting.

It's a group with the potential to wield substantial power, if fully activated.

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/06/1132730832/american-citizens-voters-overseas-abroad

November 6, 2022

A SCOTUS nursing home case could limit the rights of millions of patients

When Susie Talevski sued the agency that managed her elderly father's care before he died, she hoped to get justice for her family. She did not expect the case would grow into a national bellwether. A ruling against her could strip millions of vulnerable Americans of their power to hold states accountable when they do not receive benefits allowed by law.

"This case has taken on, really, a life of its own way beyond what I could have foreseen," said Talevski, a resident of Valparaiso, Ind.

Talevski filed a lawsuit in 2019 alleging that her father's rights were violated at a nursing home where he resided to get 24/7 care for his dementia.

"He went from being able to walk and talk ... to not being able to move," Talevski said. "[The nursing facility] treated my dad like trash, like a dog. In fact, dogs are treated better than that."

In court filings, the Talevski family claims that her father was overmedicated to keep him asleep, his dementia wasn't properly managed, and he was involuntarily transferred to different facilities hours away from the family's home, which accelerated his decline. Gorgi Talevski died a year ago, in October.

Talevski sued the Health and Hospital Corp. of Marion County, the public health agency in Indiana that owns the nursing facility. The agency declined to comment on the case. In court documents, it argued that Gorgi Talevski was violent and sexually aggressive and that affected his care.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/06/1133947431/scotus-nursing-home-case-could-limit-right-to-sue