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applegrove

The Public Option Is Now a Reality In Three States

(Political Wire) “Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed into law a public health care option, making it the third state in the US to approve the creation of a government-run health insurance plan to be sold alongside commercial coverage on the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces,” Vox] reports.

“As these states have drawn up their plans, one thing has become clear: The potential value of a public option is in keeping health care costs in check by keeping rates lower than those of private insurance plans. But it still remains to be seen whether a public option can expand health coverage to more people.”

TexasTowelie

Polls continue to show Dems have an open lane to win Murkowski's seat

(Anchorage Press) Two months ago I wrote in these pages that polling was showing that Lisa Murkowski is stuck in the high teens and won't survive a 4-way race (an ironic result of Prop 2 ranked choice voting) because she will come in third place, not second. Her team – per normal – scoffed, and wrote that off as Right-Wing smear. Well, now Politico reports Democratic pollsters are seeing the same numbers:

"This morning, Politico reported a new poll of the potential field in the 2022 race for U.S. Senate in Alaska. The polling, conducted by Change Research and paid for by 314 Action Fund, found that Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s weakness in the race poses an enormous opportunity for a Democratic challenger to win in Alaska."

Judi Lynn

What the moral panic about 'critical race theory' is about

(The Guardian) Whatever Republican politicians and rightwing media are referring to when they talk about “critical race theory”, it has little to do with critical race theory as an actual discipline. Developed in the 1970s and 80s by law professors – notably Derrick Bell and his acolyte, Kimberlé Crenshaw, at Harvard – the real CRT is analytic framework through which academics can discern the ways that racial disparities are reproduced by the law, and how the legacies of historical racism can persist even after discriminatory policies are revised.

But maybe the very obscurity of this genuine critical race theory is the point: before it became the object of the American right’s latest moral panic, few people had heard of critical race theory, and even fewer understood what it really was. The phrase itself sounds distant, lofty, and abstract – “critical”, “theory” – the kind of thing that comes out of the mouths of people in tweed blazers who think they’re better than you. The very opacity of the words made them the perfect vehicle for what the right wing wanted: a new vessel for white racial anxiety and grievance.

Tom Yossarian Joad

Fox News caught trying to pass off GOP operatives as parents

(Salon) Fox News failed to disclose to their audience that nearly a dozen guests billed as parents panicked by what they misleadingly label critical race theory being taught to their young children in school are also professional Republican operatives, according to a newly released report.

The liberal media watchdog organization Media Matters for America details how Fox News has repeatedly failed to mention that their guests, who included right-wing media personalities, GOP strategists and conservative think tank staffers, were far from apolitical despite billing them as your average outraged parent.

JHB

Friday TOONs

babylonsister

Donald Trump, Human Parasite, Is Now Telling People Not to Vaccinate Their Kids Against Coronavirus

(Vanity Fair) Given the opportunity to be of service to their country, most former U.S. presidents are happy to help. Then there’s Donald Trump. A stunted man-child who’s never done anything without first asking, “What’s in it for me?” the ex-president has actively hurt America since leaving office in January, largely by doing everything he can to undermine democracy, whether it’s his continued attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election or telling people he’s going to be “reinstated” as POTUS in a matter of months. Also unhelpful? His decision to prolong the pandemic by telling people not to have their children vaccinated for COVID-19.

Yes, despite regularly insisting that he doesn’t get enough credit for the coronavirus vaccines, Trump claimed during an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday that school-age children should not be inoculated against the deadly virus. “Now we have to get back and the schools have to get open—and frankly, we’re lucky we have the vaccine. But the vaccine on very young people is something that you gotta really stop,” Trump inexplicably said. “You have to get back to running your country—I mean, I don’t see reasons—and I am a big believer in what we did with the vaccine. It’s incredible what we did. You see the results. But to have every school child, where it’s 99.99%, they just don’t—you know, they’re just not affected or affected badly. Having to receive a vaccine I think is something that you should start thinking about, because I think it’s unnecessary.”

As usual, the majority of the words coming out of the 45th president’s mouth were a lie.

DonViejo

The Republican Party's mission: whitewash the Trump presidency

(CNN) The Republican Party has turned to another page in the authoritarian playbook as it whitewashes the history of Donald Trump's presidency. It's as if the fawning over Vladimir Putin never happened. Or Trump's assurance that Covid-19 would simply "go away" never passed his lips. Trump's acolytes have, meanwhile, rebranded the worst assault in American democracy in modern times into a January 6 tourist jaunt as they seek to cleanse the reputation of the former President who told rioters to "fight like Hell" and, months later, still holds enormous sway over the GOP. Trump and conservative propaganda media are also assailing Dr. Anthony Fauci to expunge the ex-President's neglect of a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans on his watch.

The attempt to reconfigure the often disastrous historical record of the Trump presidency comes as the former President eyes a political comeback ahead of a new round of political rallies this summer teeing up 2022 primaries. And it takes place as much of the Republican Party is engaged in a crusade built on the former President's lies about election fraud to make it harder for many Americans to vote and easier for GOP officials to interfere in free and fair elections. Since the truth is too painful for Republicans and is detrimental to their future political prospects, an alternative narrative must be constructed.

DonViejo

Trump was wrong about the law, Obamacare politics and his judges

(NBC News) Former President Donald Trump promised to repeal Obamacare, the health insurance program that helped fuel the backlash tea party movement and ultimately his own candidacy. If Trump couldn't get Congress to do away with the law — and he couldn't, even with Republicans in control of both chambers — he would choose Supreme Court justices who would declare Obamacare unconstitutional.

"If I win the presidency, my judicial appointments will do the right thing unlike Bush's appointee John Roberts on Obamacare," Trump tweeted in 2015, referring to the decision Roberts wrote that preserved the law's mandate for Americans to buy health insurance. But two of the three jurists Trump picked for the court — Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — voted with Roberts as part of a 7-2 majority Thursday to deny standing to a group of conservative states that claimed the law harmed them. It was a major blow — perhaps a decisive one — against the political right's long fight against Obamacare and a sign of the limit of Trump's influence on the justices he appointed.

Nevilledog

Fox News and Republican lawmakers push new false flag conspiracy

(CNN) Fox News, right-wing websites and Republican lawmakers are promoting a new false flag conspiracy that the FBI orchestrated the deadly assault on the US Capitol. The haywire theory originated from an article published Monday by Revolver News, a right-wing website. From there, it was picked up by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who used his opening segment on Tuesday night to slam the FBI, saying it played a role in the January 6 attack.

Several Republican lawmakers quickly piled on. They entered the article into the congressional record, tweeted about the Fox News segment, condemned the FBI agents who supposedly "organized and participated" in the Capitol attack, and demanded answers from the FBI director. But here's the problem: The underlying article was nothing more than a conspiratorial web of unproven claims, half-truths and inaccurate drivel about perceived bombshells in court filings.

DonViejo

Matt Gaetz 'excommunicated' from Fox News amid sex and corruption scandals: report

(Raw Story) On Thursday, Business Insider that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is no longer welcome at Fox News as his legal scandals continued to mount. "In March, Gaetz appeared on Fox shows at least 19 times, according to an Insider review of Fox News clips, including those the congressman posted to his YouTube channel," reported Robin Bravender and Tom LoBianco. "In April, May, and so far in June? Not once. Gaetz has been 'excommunicated within the Fox News circles,' said a former Gaetz staffer who spoke to Insider anonymously in order to protect professional relationships."