The right wing tide
continues. Voters in Ohio turned down
the marijuana initiative that would legalize both medical and recreational
marijuana. Part of the anti Prop 3
campaign was that they should not turn the business over to just twn
growers. Meanwhile in Kentucky as stated
below- - the tea party continues to ride high.
This “red shift” we observed so much of in the mid term elections a year
ago continue. Back then a lot of races
were “too close to call” and virtually all of them broke for the Republican
candidates once the votes were counted.
And this guy isn’t just a Republican but a far right republican- of the
sort that’s been sweeping government lately.
(CNN)Matt
Bevin, the controversial Kentuckian who attempted to dethrone Sen. Mitch
McConnell last year and has vowed to eliminate the state's Obamacare programs,
orchestrated a remarkable political comeback on Tuesday to win the state's
governorship. In an upset victory by a
surprisingly large margin, Bevin bested Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway,
a Democrat, in the contest. Bevin, a
Republican often at odds with more mainstream elements of his party, solidly
beat Conway 53%-44% in a race that Bevin was not expected to win by any
significant margin. The wealthy
businessman has pledged to shutdown the state's healthcare exchange and he's
also expressed concerns about the expansion of Medicaid in Kentucky under the
Affordable Care Act. In a related story
Ohio voters got rid of gerrymandering so that from now on congressional
districts will be drawn fairly. This is
one bright spot of hope.
We now move to the
latest polls, all of which now are showing Ben Carson leading the Republican
pack. Trump has stepped up his attacks
on Carson calling him unqualified to be President and this I agree with
Trump. Carson would be one of the most
supremely unqualified people to ever be President, shades of Clarence Thomas on
the Supreme Court, who should never have gotten that job either. But now the worst news of the day is that
Hillary Clinton is beating every Republican challenger except she’s tied with
Ben Carson. That’s scarey. Given this “red shift” we’ve been talking
about- - the door is left open a bit for Carson to win. If you look around to other states such as
Texas and Virginia, the news isn’t good either.
There is a new survey
that’s featured on Washington’s blog and Thom talked about it this morning that
whites between 34 and 55 or something, peak working years, are dying off
younger than they used to. The rates are
rising in only this group and it’s not explainable by environment such as
pollution or cancer. It’s alcohol and
drug addiction. These people were part
of the old guard of white unionized factory workers. But when NAFTA passed it threw them all out
of work and they haven’t felt purpose in their lives since. I’m Glad that Hillary is stating that she is
neither running for either Bill Clinton’s or Barock Obama’s third term, but
that she’s running for her own first term. Good. People can change and it’s very likely that
Bill Clinton genuinely regrets all the garbage he allowed the Republicans to
pass and for him to sign.
On Days of our Lives,
Benjamin kidnapped Abigail to some abandoned shack, and we’re not sure
how. If I were him I’d be worried about
harm to the baby because that baby is his and his father’s meal ticked to all
that land in Ireland when the relative dies.
It’s better not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs before she
lays the eggs. The crowd at Martin Manor
or whatever it’s called doesn’t believe that Caroline Brady actually talked to
her son, Bo. Now Caroline is just
shouting “stop this wedding”. Bo and
Patch plan to make their enterance on a motorcycle. What else would be fitting? But this time they’re going to be a little
late.
Shawn Hannity reminds
us that there were many victories for the right wing yesterday. There was some gay and transsexual rights
proposition that was overturned by the voters from something passed in Houston. The Virginia senate stayed Republican and no
republican lost his seat there despite avid campaigning by the democratic
governor. And this sheriff in San
Francisco was promoting sanctuary cities- - was booted out of office. Shawn regards that as particularly
satisfying. Shawn reminds us that since Obama
got elected in 2008 America has been transformed all right. We are far more racist and we’ve become gun
crazed nuts and even more avidly anti union and anti “entitlement program”. They used to call Social Security and
Medicare the “third rails” of congress, but this is true no longer. When you add up all the congressmen and state
legislators that have gone republican it’s impressive. We have about double the number of states now
with Republican legislatures- - about thirty state legislative boties have
flipped, not to mention the number of republican governors themselves that we
have now. Democrats can say till the
cows come home that “This time we’ve learned our lesson and now we know what
mistakes we made and how to do better”, but they don’t.
Yesterday I had Shawn Hannity on
till 12:20 and then I switched to Bill Carol.
His topic today was “banning the box”.
This is the box you have to check if you’re a convicted felon, and once
you check it you can be pretty sure your application will go in the trash
can. One female said she was utterly
against banning the box. However this
lady is also dead set against hiring felons under any circumstance it
seems. To her people don’t make
“mistakes” –ever- . Circumstances don’t
matter to her; each felony conviction is the result of a willful act for which
one must pay the consequences. And one
of those consequences is not being hired by her. If everybody did what she did there’d be even
more felons roaming the streets being tempted to get into their old line of
work. Bill Carol is for giving felons a
chance “once you get out of prisons”.
But despite the fact we are warehousing prisoners in record numbers now,
Bill Carol doesn’t think the average felon spends [nearly] enough time in
prison. Some people also want to
penalize people convicted of child molestation from 20 or 25 years to a life
term, where the only suitable exit is suicide.
They say things like no living within fifteen hundred feet of a school
or park or perhaps spend your whole life never venturing closer than that far
from a school or park. That would be
pretty difficult. President Obama wants
to do more to re-integrate ex convicts into society.
Commentary from Yesterday: Thom Hartman among
others are talking about one of two of Ohio’s big voter measures today and that
is marijuana legalization for both recreational and medicinal use. Of course we are reminded by opponents that
“this is not your father’s marijuana”.
It’s a lot more potent. And Thom
notes that the selling of the weed will be restricted to ten producers - -
growers. But Thom also reminds that in
terms of airlines or health care companies or broadcasters we have a lot fewer
than ten choices in this modern era of merger mania. He has a point. The other measure Ohio will be voting on is
to get rid of gerrymandering their congressional districts. This measure was put on the ballot by a
Republican state legislature and that’s a good thing. It could be that of people see the
republicans being for it they’ll conclude it’s kosher and vote for it. I don’t feel so optimistic about this contest
for governor in Kentucky. The Democrat is
pledging to keep Obama Care and “Kynnect” the exchange for Kentucky. The Republican candidate wants to throw all
these new applicants off the rolls. I can
hardly see how such a measure would meet with any broad approval but after the
election of 2014 virtually anything is possible. The Democrat is only leading by a little in
the polls and you know what that means.
With the “red shift” that invariably goes on (since 2004) you know the
Republican candidate is going to win under such a situation. We’ll have to pray and keep our fingers
crossed.
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