Republicans, including Minnesota's, offer nothing

In fact, for most people in this country what they've "delivered" when in power is worse than nothing. Recessions, wars, assaults on rights, mega-corruption...

But on the very rare occasions when Republican candidates for office are required to articulate exactly what their policies would be if elected, that dominant, exclusive goal of tax cuts for corporations and the nation’s uber-wealthy is oddly never mentioned. Instead, we are treated to a seemingly never-ending litany of imagined Democratic evils and appeals to voters’ base fears and grievances (which, for the most part, boil down to racism and xenophobia).

When a Republican candidate loudly declares we must “Close the borders,” for example, he’s not talking about denying Texas businesses the 1.1 million undocumented workers those same businesses eagerly hire to reduce their operating costs and obligations to pay a living wage to their employees. Because that would swiftly wipe out Texas’s service, agricultural, and construction economy which, along with the economies of most Southwestern states, relies on exploiting those undocumented workers so its businesses can stay afloat. In this way, “immigration” simply serves as a shiny object for their voters to angrily focus on while Republicans drain the nation’s treasury for the benefit of their corporate donor base.

Beyond the “close the border” tripe (and fear-mongering about guns and abortion, hot-button topics trotted out in service of the same end goal of gutting corporate taxes) what exactly do Republicans have to offer Americans that will actually, tangibly make their lives better? The answer is: literally nothing. - Daily Kos

Current reality in the Palestinian West Bank

As is noted, people aren't getting much reality on this, from U.S. corporate "news" media.

The Palestinian West Bank, which is militarily occupied by Israel and which is being steadily colonized by Israeli squatters on Palestinian-owned land, is a seething cauldron. Some sort of gag rule appears to deter American television “news” from covering these dramatic events, which are pregnant with sinister implications for American security. Veteran newsman Tom Fenton once argued that the poor coverage on television news of international events actually forms a security threat to the United States, a republic that depends for its smooth functioning on an informed public.

Far right Israeli politicians such as Binyamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett, the two most recent ex-prime ministers, have assiduously cultivated equally far right squatters in the Palestinian West Bank, giving them carte blanche to arm themselves and to terrorize Palestinian townspeople.

When you encourage fascism, you should not be surprised when you get the equivalent of Mussolini’s black shirts, or Trump’s Oath Keepers. - Informed Comment

There's still a long way to go on fixing health care in this country

I suspect that just continuing to allow greedheads to run amok is not what most people support.

In what advocates call a “grotesque display of corporate profiteering,” the health insurance giant formerly known as Anthem reported making $2.3 billion in net profit off its policyholders over the past three months as analysts predict a dramatic spike in the cost of health insurance premiums in 2023.

Elevance Health, the largest for-profit company within the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, surpassed Wall Street expectations on Wednesday and reported nearly $40 billion in revenue during the third quarter of 2022. Returns to shareholders increased by 7 percent, generating $1.6 billion in profits for investors. Elevance provides health coverage for 118 million people across multiple states.

Elevance claims its profits are the result of offering more service to more customers. However, health care activists who help patients fight for coverage from their insurance providers say a chunk of this profit undoubtably comes from denying insurance claims from sick people who cannot afford proper care otherwise. Denying claims, they say, is a “regular business practice” for squeezing out extra profits. Insurers know the vast majority of patients do not exercise their right to appeal when claims are denied and are often unsure how to do so. - Truthout

Beating down SLAPP lawsuits

Minnesota is a state that still needs anti-SLAPP legislation that can survive court challenges.

(Krystal) Two Bulls is just one of many victims of the fossil fuel industry’s use of SLAPPs — strategic lawsuits against public participation — to silence and intimidate its critics. A report released last month by legal advocacy nonprofit EarthRights International identified 152 instances of legal and judicial harassment by fossil fuel corporations to suppress dissent in the United States over the past 10 years, including 93 SLAPP lawsuits.

Just (two weeks ago), a California oil industry trade association paid nearly $650,000 in fees to the city of Los Angeles and several environmental advocacy groups the company had targeted in court for years following the city’s implementation of new environmental safety requirements for drilling applicants. After declaring bankruptcy, the California Independent Petroleum Association was allowed to pay only a fraction of a judgment initially awarded to the city and groups by a trial court that ruled the lawsuit was a SLAPP.

“With the strengthening of our movements, the revelation of how long the fossil fuel industry has been aware of how their practices impact and contribute to climate change, and the rise of legal cases against oil and gas corporations, these companies are becoming more desperate to silence the voices of their critics,” said Deepa Padmanabha, deputy general counsel at Greenpeace USA. - DeSmog

Most parents still like, even love, their kids' public schools

In spite of the deformers' "best" efforts, and those of deformer allies in corporate media.

Right-wingers' real beef with public schools, though they themselves don't even realize it, is that they're doing too good a job compared to what wingnuts want. A large majority of contemporary public school graduates just plain know better than to be right-wing conservatives. And they especially know better than to be Trumpers.

Who would have imagined that after the past two tumultuous years, when so much was written and said about how the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic had convinced American parents that public schools were “failing” institutions, that as the 2022-2023 school year begins, “Americans’ ratings of their community’s public schools reached a new high dating back 48 years.” That’s the stunning finding in the highly respected annual survey conducted by PDK.

The finding aligns with a history of survey results showing parents are generally pleased with the public schools their children attend. Even during the height of the pandemic, in 2020 and 2021, Gallup reported that parent satisfaction with local schools declined only slightly, and “more than seven in 10 parents” still expressed satisfaction.

Puzzling over this phenomenon, Chalkbeat national reporter Matt Barnum judged the widespread assumption of parent dissatisfaction with local public schools to be one among a number of “common, fear-inducing claims about the state of American schooling [that] are inaccurate or unproven.” He concluded, “It’s not entirely clear what’s going on.”

In an attempt to explain what’s going on, education historian Jack Schneider noted that while most parents rate the schools their own children attend highly, with 70 percent assigning their schools a grade of A or B, a similar percentage grade schools in general C or D.

In considering what might be causing this “perception gap,” Schnider argued, “One obvious factor is the rise of a national politics of education.” - LA Progressive

Holding up students for their transcripts

This has been going on for too long. Should never have been able to happen at all.

Colleges that lend directly to their students cannot later refuse to release students’ transcripts as a way of forcing them to make payments, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced on (September 29), calling the practice “abusive” and a violation of federal law.

The loans made directly by a college, rather than a traditional lender, are used to pay for classes, but they don’t come with the same protections as federal student loans do. Hundreds of thousands of students at for-profit colleges have taken these loans, known as institutional loans, and some public and nonprofit institutions also offer them.

The consumer bureau’s ruling was aimed at stopping the colleges from withholding transcripts from students who haven’t repaid the debt. Some colleges refuse to release a student’s transcript until the full amount has been repaid, even when even when students had entered into a payment plan and is making regular payments. - Hechinger Report

Climate smart commodities?

Give 'em a way to greenwash...we'll see how it works out.

When Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack first announced USDA would spend $1 billion to support projects that produce “climate smart commodities” in February, there was confusion. What exactly is a “climate smart commodity” (CSC)? There is no current market, label or recognized standard. USDA suggested only that a CSC must reduce greenhouse gas emissions or sequester carbon. No details about how much GHG must be reduced, how long carbon must be sequestered, or how efforts might be measured and by whom. Last week, the USDA expanded the program and awarded $2.8 billion in an initial round of 70 grants (more to come) for CSC projects, with an upcoming second round to reach $3.5 billion in total.

Now 70 different projects, all with different definitions and approaches, can claim the USDA-approved “climate smart commodity” moniker. The mushiness of positive words without clear definition, standards, goals or independent verification has long been used by agribusiness and food companies to their own ends From labels like “natural,” “sustainable,” and more recently “regenerative,” companies frequently make claims about farm and food products without having to meet clear standards or independent verification. Such terms stand in contrast to strong protocols and standards established under certified organic, for example...

As a result, it wasn’t surprising that a who’s who of agribusiness and food companies jumped at the USDA’s open invitation to define a “climate smart commodity.” - IATP

The evidence for criminal levels of profiteering is conclusive

Something serious needs to be done about this. And the public will certainly respond positively, if that happens.

Progressive demands for congressional action to curb corporate monopoly power were renewed Friday after federal data confirmed that certain heavily consolidated industries are continuing to rake in massive profits while working households struggle under the weight of high prices.

The latest figures from the Bureau for Economic Analysis show that the profits of the U.S. coal and oil industry increased 340% between the first and second quarters of 2022. Companies selling petroleum and coal products made an estimated $49.7 billion in profits from April to June, compared with $11.3 billion from January to March.

Meanwhile, executives in the nation's transportation and warehousing sector enjoyed a nearly 40% increase in profits during the same time period, pocketing $124.4 billion in the second quarter after taking home $89.4 billion over the first three months of the year.

"We've heard directly from executives in the sectors that families depend on—from oil, to auto shops, to airlines—that inflation has been good for business," Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement.

"The latest corporate profit data shows their price strategies are bearing fruit," she added. - Common Dreams