NCGA

Oklahoma expands Medicaid; now it's North Carolina's turn

Submitted by scharrison on

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It's not a radical progressive plot, it's just common sense:

With all precincts reporting Tuesday, State Question 802, which asked voters to expand Medicaid, passed by 6,488 votes. The question will enshrine Medicaid expansion in Oklahoma’s constitution — effectively preventing Oklahoma’s GOP-controlled Legislature and Republican governor from limiting or undoing the expansion.

The campaign for SQ 802 was launched after years of legislative inaction on Medicaid expansion. The Yes on 802 campaign turned in a record number of signatures to qualify the question for the ballot. But the majority of Oklahoma's counties opposed the expansion Tuesday. A mere seven of the state's 77 counties, including Oklahoma and Tulsa, approved the question.

With NC's record on ballot initiatives, I'm not sure I'd want to go this route even if we could (NC doesn't allow grass roots movements to populate ballots). But we don't have to amend the NC Constitution to expand Medicaid, a simple majority vote in both houses of the Legislature would do it (it's possible I might be wrong about that, but I don't think so). It will save lives, not to mention stop the death knell of rural hospitals, and that should be more than enough.

Tuesday Twitter roundup

Submitted by scharrison on

When you get caught with your hand in the video recording jar:

Dandy has apparently taken this ad down, but cue the RW nutters complaining about "Liberal" media not allowing conservatives to steal their intellectual property...

Art Pope, defender of the Ku Klux Klan

Submitted by scharrison on

When your idol is David Duke, you may have taken a wrong turn somewhere:

Despite attempts from University Officials, Student Body President Marcus Williams, and even Duke himself, the students refused to leave or to be silent until David Duke left the building and his podium and microphone were removed from stage. They disrupted his speech. But one freshman from Raleigh was especially perturbed. So much so, that he decided to sue the then President of the Black Student Movement, Algenon Marbley, in undergraduate honor court for “disruption”, a charge that could’ve led to Marbley being expelled from school.

The freshman from Raleigh who brought the suit, who tried to get the BSM President kicked out of school for disrupting a speech on campus by the KKK, was Arthur “Art” Pope UNC ’78.

You'd have to be an exceptionally privileged white prick (PWP) to attack a black student leader for protesting the Klan. Granted, this was 45 years ago, and Pope may have changed quite a bit since then. But it would take a Saul-to-Paul, road to Damascus conversion to overcome that level of racist dumfuckery. I mean, what was he thinking? Was he thinking similar thoughts decades later when he tried to get a "school" dedicated to Western Civilization installed on the UNC-CH campus? Is he still angry at some of the faculty for shutting that effort down? These are questions that need to be asked in the NCGA Committee hearing, and Art needs to answer those questions. Clear the air.

Tuesday Twitter roundup

Submitted by scharrison on

All hands on deck tomorrow:

They better not start back with their tricks during this pandemic, but I don't trust them to grasp how inappropriate that would be.

COVID 19 is devastating minority populations in NC

Submitted by scharrison on

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Forsyth County's LatinX community is suffering at an alarming rate:

COVID-19 is surging through the Latinx community in Forsyth County with a ferocity that lays bare challenging employment and housing realities that make it difficult for many members of the community to protect themselves from the virus.

Latinx people account for 68.1 percent of COVID-19 positive cases recorded by the Forsyth County Public Health Department, but only 13.0 percent of the county’s overall population, according to the most recent Census numbers, although some say that their actual share of the population is higher. Six out of 25 people who have died from COVID-19 in Forsyth County — 24 percent — are Latinx.

I wanted to highlight this particular problem, but I also wanted to give a hat-tip to NC's independent news outlets, which (very often) give us a deeper look into issues that mainstream media tends to fly over. Triad City Beat was formed from former Yes Weekly contributors, and has done some astounding work since then. But they are also under attack by anonymous actors, having their Facebook page closed down a few times in the last week. Here's more on this story:

And here's the cure: Gail Young for HD 83

Submitted by scharrison on

Jerry Wayne Williamson has all the deets:

Incumbent Republican House member Larry Pittman decided to emulate Trump by saying yet another outrageous thing (he has a history) -- that Black Lives Matter protestors are "vermin" and need to be shot down in the street if they don't obey -- which prompts me to highlight this a.m. his Democratic opponent on the November ballot, Gail Young. I've been following her since she ran the first time in 2018 (in both a Democratic primary and in the General), and she earned a very respectable 47.22% of the vote against Rev. Pittman (yes, he's a preacher of the Gospel, though it's a version I don't recognize).

Lillian's List of North Carolina made her a featured candidate. Now or Never NC, an independent political action committee that backs "top challengers who strongly support public education, redistricting reform, voter access, and who have an appreciation for local governance," has promoted her. The NC League of Conservation Voters, the NC Sierra Club, Equality NC, Moms Demand Action, and Planned Parenthood have all endorsed her.

Learn more about Gail and contribute to her campaign right here.

Tuesday Twitter roundup

Submitted by scharrison on

This is a serious problem:

Not sure how many of these operations were able to secure government loans to stay afloat, but just from anecdotal evidence I've seen on social media, probably not many.

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