US Politics: midterm elections are nigh: do you know where your voting rights are?

[daskool]

So, anyone care to compare levels of education, health, general human well-being between red states and blue states instead of looking at a handful of post-industrial cities with little to no power over macroeconomic trends? Because I can tell you that won't go well for the red states.

The really interesting debate is how a city like Pittsburg has managed to renew itself, despite facing equally challenging macroeconomic changes, whilst cities like Detroit, Flint, Cleveland etc have gone down the crapper.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

The really interesting debate is how a city like Pittsburg has managed to renew itself, despite facing equally challenging macroeconomic changes, whilst cities like Detroit, Flint, Cleveland etc have gone down the crapper.

Well if we're to pursue the same level of analysis applied to Detroit and Cleveland we'd have to say it's the liberal policies- all of them!- given that Pittsburgh has been run by Democrats for just as long. (more likely, cities are largely subject to trends outside of their control and can do very little against major economic headwinds)

[alguien]

Or cities like Seattle, which I would argue is probably the amongst the most liberal cities in the US, ($15 minimum wage), was also the fastest growing one in the country and is very prosperous.

[Jaxom 1974]

Or cities like Seattle, which I would argue is probably the amongst the most liberal cities in the US, ($15 minimum wage), was also the fastest growing one in the country and is very prosperous.

Okay. Sorry. First I read that as "very pompous" and I was shaking my head in agreement... then I reread it. I realize either reading works.

[alguien]

Okay. Sorry. First I read that as "very pompous" and I was shaking my head in agreement... then I reread it. I realize either reading works.

Hah! Trust me, either one works. :)

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Probably pompous because of all of the liberal policies, prosperous in spite of them. That's how these things work.

[TrackerNeil]

Probably pompous because of all of the liberal policies, prosperous in spite of them. That's how these things work.

Yeah, for all that I think we liberals usually have it right, we sure are an annoyingly self-righteous bunch, aren't we?

[Wee baby Shamus]

Yeah, for all that I think we liberals usually have it right, we sure are an annoyingly self-righteous bunch, aren't we?

Yep.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Why Mississippi Fails in Almost Every Imaginable Way

As designed, the Affordable Care Act provides Medicaid for everyone at or below 133 percent of the poverty line and subsidized private insurance for everyone above. Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court made the expansion optional, but they failed to extend the subsidies to poorer families, which left a gap. If you’re too poor to qualify for subsidies—but don’t qualify for the present Medicaid program in your state—you’re left in the cold. In Mississippi, this leaves 138,000 residents—most of them black—with no insurance options at all.

...

We know why Mississippi Republicans refuse to work with the ACA: A hyper-ideological, small government conservatism that disdains social programs and public investment. But it’s worth a look at the history behind that conservatism, which lives strongest in Mississippi but exists throughout the Deep South.

...

Where they existed, public services were sparse and utterly segregated. Anything public had to be kept separate from blacks, or degraded, if that wasn’t possible. To get a sense of the scale of white resistance in Mississippi, consider this: During the civil rights movement, white supremacists built a network of state and private agencies to wreak havoc on black activists with surveillance, economic reprisals, and extreme violence. One of them was the Mississippi Citizens Council, and it, writes historian Joseph Crespino, “[P]oliced a white racial authoritarianism that ran roughshod over the civil and political rights of white and black Mississippians both. Because of the Council’s influence, no place in the United States … came closer to resembling the repressiveness of apartheid South Africa than did Mississippi.”

More than a half-century later, and all of this is dead. But the ideas and culture it built are not. And why would they be? For nearly a 100 years, Mississippi was a white supremacist police state. Of course this made a mark on its culture. Of course these ideas of exclusion—and specifically, of racial hostility to outside interference and public goods—are still embedded in the structure of its politics.

Today, Mississippi is politically polarized along racial lines. Whites are Republicans, blacks are Democrats, and the former controls state politics. Public investment isn’t just disdained, it’s attacked as racially suspect. “The Republican Party has never been the food stamp party, or the party of pork until desperation set in with Thad Cochran’s re-election bid,” said state Sen. Angela Hill during the Mississippi Senate Republican primary, in reference to Sen. Cochran’s outreach to black voters. The state is harshly carceral—jailing more people per capita than almost anywhere in the country, the majority of them black—and has a huge number of all-white private schools while the public school system is largely segregated.

[Shryke]

Mississippi: so other states can feel better about themselves

[Ramsay Gimp]

And now for real non-I'm-going-to-ram-my-head-against-this-brick-wall-a-hundred-times-to-see-if-it-gives actual news:

Lindsay Graham is rumored to thinking about running for president.

In related news, Lindsay Graham is rumored to no longer be thinking about running for president.

Graham-McCain 2016: If you liked Dr. Strangelove, you'll love our Presidency!

His "male-only club" comment reaches a whole new level of funny given what a closet-case he is

[Shryke]

Graham-McCain would be funny.

Anything that happened would give Graham the vapours and cause McCain to pop a gasket.

It's like a setup for a sitcom.

[all swedes are racist]

Sad news, (Former) Mayor Menino died today. Pretty bummed, for sure. Dude will always be "Mayor" to me, and I'll say did damn good by this city.

[DanteGabriel]

The reality of how difficult it can be to get an ID:

Olester McGriff, an African-American man, lives in Dallas. He has voted in several Texas elections. This year when he went to the polls he was unable to vote due to the new photo ID law. Mr. McGriff had a kidney transplant and can no longer drive; his driver’s license expired in 2008. He tried to get an ID twice prior to voting. In May, he visited an office in Grand Prairie and was told he could not get an ID because he was outside of Dallas County. In July, he visited an office in Irving and was told they were out of IDs and would have to come back another day.

He is unable to get around easily. Mr. McGriff got to the polls during early voting because Susan McMinn, an experienced election volunteer, gave him a ride. He brought with him his expired driver’s license, his birth certificate, his voter registration card, and other documentation, but none were sufficient under Texas’s new photo ID requirement.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/29/this-is-what-its-like-to-try-to-get-a-voter-id-when-youre-disabled-poor-or-dont-drive/

The "getting an ID card is not that hard" crowd makes the common mistake of assuming that because something isn't that difficult for you, it's just as easy for everyone else. Either that or you've forgotten what it's like to deal with the DMV.

[ThinkerX]

Seems that this Sullivan / Begich race here in the frozen north may be a tad closer than some would think. Both Ted Cruz and Romney are coming to my area to stump for Sullivan either tomorrow or the next day. And the towns in my area are not large or important.

I am getting dang tired of sorting through round after round of political adverts at work (most of it for this race). Makes my day drag out way too long.

[The Fallen]

Arizona Republicans are criticizing Rep. Ron Barber, a Democrat, for supporting a budget compromise that resulted in cuts to - hold on to your hats - food stamps, pensions and didn't extend unemployment benefits.

http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/10/31/7137339/arizona-republican-ron-barber-paul-ryan

The more amazing criticism is that their tying him to Paul Ryan, since he was the one who worked out the compromise with the Democrats.

Have the Arizona Republicans grown a conscious? Or should I go with the more cynical take - Republicans will do anything to win an election?

[Summah]

I'd go with cynicism.

Republican politicians in Arizona supporting the safety net?

[TrackerNeil]

The "getting an ID card is not that hard" crowd makes the common mistake of assuming that because something isn't that difficult for you, it's just as easy for everyone else. Either that or you've forgotten what it's like to deal with the DMV.

But isn't that the story of privilege? I remember back in 2010, someone on this board saying that getting health insurance was as easy as going to healthinsurance.com (or wherever the hell it was) and signing up. There was no recognition of cost concerns, preexisting condition discrimination, lifetime limits, and the myriad other blockades that used to stand between people and health insurance. Well, these are the same people who think that getting a photo ID is just as easy as taking time off work and visiting the DMV.

[ThinkerX]

The "getting an ID card is not that hard" crowd makes the common mistake of assuming that because something isn't that difficult for you, it's just as easy for everyone else. Either that or you've forgotten what it's like to deal with the DMV.

My Social Security card disintegrated about ten years back. Getting a replacement for it was a pain that took several weeks - and I needed that card for a job I'd applied for.

[TrackerNeil]

My Social Security card disintegrated about ten years back. Getting a replacement for it was a pain that took several weeks - and I needed that card for a job I'd applied for.

That's what IDers also don't get. Even if the photo identification itself is free, the supporting documentation isn't. You need your birth certificate, at the very least, which a good many people don't have. I didn't have a government birth certificate until about ten years ago, for crying out loud; I got my driver's license in the days before you needed that. Lots of elderly people never had their birth certificates, and some of them were born outside hospitals and a certificate was never issued, so how do you untangle that bag of knots?

If these ID-requiring states were really interested in ensuring no one was disenfranchised, they would have opened more photo centers, devoted funding to mobile ID centers, streamlined documentation processes, and hired trained staff to assist people who have difficulties. None of these things have happened, and if a state isn't funding something, a state doesn't place much priority on it. That gives the lie to the notion that requiring an ID to vote is about security. It's about harassing people into throwing up their hands and staying away from the polls.

Now, unlike many liberals, I suspect that (so far) these laws don't actually prevent most people from voting; chances are, most people who lack ID weren't going to the polls anyway. However, an enlightened society should never be making it harder for people to participate in the democratic process, and that's what's happening.