Philip Rocco
@PhilipRocco
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associate professor at @MarquetteU // co-editor of Publius: The Journal of Federalism // yinzer
Milwaukee, WI
Joined November 2011
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For
@TheProspect
’s special issue on macroeconomic modeling, I wrote about how Congress has imprisoned policymaking by turning economic models into oracles.
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The fact that Covid-19 vaccines aren’t being covered by insurers is not a “bumpy rollout”. It is a deliberate policy choice set into motion at the highest levels of government.
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What's happening in Wisconsin is really, really, really not about the details of the law. If you want to know what it's about, you should ask someone who has studied democratic collapse abroad. Absolutely don't waste your time in this rabbit hole.
The legal questions in Wisconsin seem genuinely pretty difficult, without a lot of good options, and it's probably worth reading the Supreme Court majority opinion and dissent for background if you haven't yet.
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A reminder that C*ss Su*stein wrote this only a few weeks ago and that no one should listen to him now or ever again.
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John Roberts’ ruling in Shelby, which made the usurpation of democracy in Georgia possible, abjectly ignored thousands of pages of congressional factfinding about persistent examples of racial discrimination at the ballot box.
Georgia’s Secretary of State, running for governor, currently heads the office that has put on hold the registrations of thousands of voters who are disproportionately black. Asked for explanation, he doesn’t deny it but blames his opponent for it.
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This is insane. The US stood up the entirety of Medicare parts A and B in 11 months. Anyone advising them to write the timeline like this is committing policy design malpractice.
House version of Ds' Medicare expansion would not expand dental to seniors until 2028 -- 6 years after the 2022 midterm elections
As we reported last week, WH and Senate Dems looking to get money there MUCH faster
House Ds focused on ACA/Medicaid gap
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Subnational governments in Germany are suspending balanced budget rules during COVID-19. We should be encouraging the same in the US, especially if Congress refuses to act to stabilize cities/regional economies..
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“Nearly two-thirds of the income tax savings in the GOP proposals introduced Tuesday would go to the highest-paid 20% of Wisconsin taxpayers with average incomes of $304,000.”
And it's out. Once again, a tax cut proposal that delivers the biggest rewards to the highest income folks. And if you were wondering whether the governor's child care funding ask will get a hearing, you have your answer.
via
@WIExaminer
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In Oregon, it’s nullification. In Wisconsin, it’s lame-duck laws preventing elected officials from fulfilling duties of office. In Georgia, it’s voter disenfranchisement. All are evidence we should view subnational democracy in US as an incomplete project, certainly in jeopardy.
this is nullification, with Oregon Republicans rejecting the basic premise of democratic governance
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This yinzer has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. Immensely to my whole crew -- family, friends, colleagues, mentors, comrades, students -- who brought me to this point and made the journey worthwhile.
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In the end, focusing on what *ultimately* *really* *finally* becomes of the ACA misses the point entirely. Recognize that this is the current way of making US health policy: junk lawsuits, chutes-and-ladders eligibility, fragile markets made worse by political instability.
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First –– hold an illegitimate election.
Second -- give yourself the power to further consolidate wealth and immiserate poor people.
Wisconsin, and I can't emphasize this enough, is not a democracy.
BREAKING: Wisconsin Republicans are drafting a proposal aimed at providing coronavirus relief that also curbs
@GovEvers
' power and allows the Finance Committee to make spending cuts without his input
Evers tells the Journal Sentinel he would likely veto the bill if it stays
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@jakebackpack
The main ideology coursing through the Democratic Party is the commitment to politics not as vocation, nor even as profession, but as a brief investment leading to a more lucrative career
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The uncomfortable question I’m not seeing anyone ask is what WI Dems should do now that their national party has ditched legislation to rectify extreme gerrymanders, both federal and state courts have explicitly blessed unpopular rule, and state has no popular initiative process.
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17% of adults in Wisconsin do not have a usual source of care.
State Rep. Robin Vos (R): "As long as I'm speaker of the [Wisconsin] Assembly, Medicaid expansion will never happen,” adding that he would rather resign and that “everybody” in the state already has access to high-quality health care.
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The condition of government in Wisconsin: A board member's 6-year term on the Board of Natural Resources, which expired over a year ago, lasts for as long as the member wants it to if he refuses to leave and the senate doesn't confirm a successor nominated by the governor.
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The state GOP has seen Protasiewicz’s victory not as a moment to rethink its politics but as a means to provoking a constitutional crisis that they believe they’ll win because as yet there have been no penalties for their actions severe enough to alter their preferences.
Wisconsin Republicans talking about impeaching a state Supreme Court justice are pointing to the nearly $10 million she received from the Democratic Party.
But other justices who have taken GOP money haven't recused from cases
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Haven't done any deep analysis but at first blush certainly seems like CDC guidance that "most Americans can go without masks" contributed to weaker public support for mask mandates.
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A reminder that workers fought and died for the 8-hour day. In Milwaukee, the 8 Hour Movement launched a general strike beginning on May 1, 1886. The state government's response was to call out the militia, which killed 7 striking workers in Bay View.
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The problem with public health in the United States isn’t inadequate data or even underfunded public health departments, it’s our reliance on a privatized system of individual medicine to perform the functions of public health. And our addiction to that system.
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When the history of this pandemic is written, it will be a story about how a rather small number of powerful people, after failing to learn anything and without any incentive to do so, pretended they did all they could.
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1. bucks win
2. return of Milwaukee socialism
3. Medicare for All
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Milwaukee County used to make amazing covers for their election results booklets
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A fundamental lesson over the last year has been that, in the face of state failure (at all levels of govt), protecting public health hinges on workers’ ability to organize, quit, or otherwise withhold labor.
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The term “Medicaid unwinding” makes it seem as if states are just going back to pre-pandemic status quo. The reality appears to be something else: states like TX are just gutting their Medicaid programs.
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If you’re wondering why we keep seeing the reanimated corpse of ACA repeal strutting around, it’s not because of authentic objections to the law—policy-wise or constitutional. It’s because capital is trying with all its might to bury the very concept of “social rights”.
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@JStein_WaPo
Also iirc they published a pamphlet instructing young men to grow moustache a just in case anyone questioned their age at the polls.
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Don't know what authoritarianism looks like but probably one indicator is roving litigants seeking a $10,000 bounty in exchange for suing abortion providers.
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Writing a big national story on a public health policy change. Probably only going to interview Leana Wen and some pollster about the implications. Editor tells me that's "best practice".
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In roughly 2016 I tried to explain to someone rather gently that Wisconsin was no longer a democracy and had neo-feudalist elements even, and they looked at me incredulously and walked away.
In Wisconsin, instead of extending the governor’s eviction ban as the pandemic worsens, the State Legislature’s rules committee mandated that all late fees be paid.
That’s been their lone action on housing in 100+ days.
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The imprint of the conservative legal movement is Alito's opinion being premised need to "return decisions to the democratic process" after the Court has spent the last decade kneecapping majority rule in the states.
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Tremendous reporting here by
@hansilowang
on prison gerrymandering. And if you want a sense of the reality of what this double disfranchisement means, look no further than this passage.
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Today’s Medicaid block grant—which has received very little news coverage thus far—has to be understood in a wider context. If implemented, proposed changes across SNAP, Medicaid, SSDI, would be the largest rollback of social programs since 1996. A war on poor people.
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There is, I assure you, no such thing as “covid policy” in the United States.
So much of US covid policy seems to be driven by trying to fulfill two somewhat incompatible mandates ("we can't let people get covid!" / "we can't keep society shut down!") rather than any acknowledgment of the trade-offs, etc.
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The US plan, at all levels of government, is to allow the virus to rip through the population but to pretend that we are doing "everything possible" to ensure safety such that the greatest share of blame for outcomes is pushed onto the lowest levels of individual action possible.
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Illinois might as well erect a thank-you billboard at the border
NEW: Assembly GOP set to unveil their medical marijuana bill Monday
Today Speaker Vos said it will "probably be the most restrictive version in the entire country" adding if Gov. Evers continues talking about full legalizing it will "kill the bill"
THE INTERVIEW SUN ON UPFRONT
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I don’t know how you look at 650K dead and think we haven’t made some pretty definitive choices already.
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I hope everyone ends 2019 knowing Seema Verma’s name and the fact that she has harmed thousands of people, abused the office of CMS administrator, and lies about it nearly constantly.
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WeEnergies plans to double rates on residential customers, while cutting in half rates for large industrial customers and keeping its return on equity rate constant. Winter heating bills are expected to spike by up to 30% this year. We need a municipally owned utility.
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University faculty shouldn’t have their heads in the sand. We are witnessing an unprecedented episode of the shock doctrine in higher ed, the intended result of which is the eclipse of the university’s value in a free society.
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Love to be paid one million dollars to [checks notes] prevent people from accessing Medicaid
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Summary of what we know:
—Paid lockdowns would have saved lives
—We can still save lives by doing this.
—Congress can enact measures now that will make it easier for states to take the revenue hit if they do the right thing, or for households to do the same regardless.
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From Foxconn to Gableman, the purpose of government in Wisconsin is rapidly being reduced to the funneling of public money to private interests for the purpose of creating mirages and spectacles.
The Wisconsin election review has cost nearly $900,000 so far, going beyond its original budget
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With talk like this, prepare for the Biden administration to allow the PHE to expire on July 15, leading to a massive wave of Medicaid disenrollments
JUST IN: Dr. Anthony Fauci tells our
@JudyWoodruff
the U.S. is "out of the pandemic phase."
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Good a time as any for this video I did with
@GravelInstitute
to be released, a reminder of the places solidarity can take us, and where we’re left without it.
Also while I’m at it
@ColectivoCoffee
— stop union busting and negotiate with your workers.
NEW VIDEO: Wisconsin was once a place of thriving communities and strong labor unions. But over the last few decades, Wisconsin has become representative of something else – the betrayal of the American working class by America's elites.
Philip Rocco explains.
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There aren’t enough foul words in the English language for a budget that zeroes out a safety net insulin support program so you can give a tax cut to the richest people in Wisconsin.
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The U.S. is 2 standard deviations < than OECD’s average insured rate, has fewer physician visits than peers in most countries, far surpasses its peers on indicia of chronic disease, high suicide rates, avoidable deaths, and preventable causes. But do go on.
My number one “unpopular opinion” that is actually extremely popular is that the US health care status quo is pretty good for most people.
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On the federal side, the Purcell principle issue is not a "hard one". It's just one in which the majority could be reliably expected to refuse to change the rules.
The state court's decision is just arbitrary--contradicts plain text of statute.
We're looking at regime change.
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Feel compelled to point out again that the situation in Wisconsin is that a corrupt judge is being paid over 600K to invent evidence of election fraud and Republicans are using it to justify their call to destroy an independent election commission they created.
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*Planned time to implement*
Medicare (1965): 1y
Medicare level of care reqs (1972): 1y
ESRD Benefit (1972): 1y
Medicare extended care / home health (1972): 1y
SCHIP (1997): 3y
Medicare Part D (2004): 2y
Major ACA sections (2010): 4y
Proposed Medicare vision, hearing, dental: 8y
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The route out of this hellscape (really, I’m being an empiricist here) is not the right mix of policy instruments or the right legal arguments, but the right set of tools for building the power of the many. Unless and until that happens, time is a flat circle.
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Gorsuch’s opinion blocking Wilbur Ross deposition on
#census2020
imagines a world where there is nothing out of the ordinary or extra-constitutional about what the Trump admin is doing. The Census is in deep trouble.
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Surprising how few election postmortems note the effects of off-cycle elections on turnout, and the early 20th c history of moving elections off cycle as a means of limiting immigrant and working class voter power.
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Six months ago, anyone reasonable knew that universities would end up in their untenable position. But rather than mobilize faculty / parents / students to demand federal stabilization, most institutions soldiered on in vain.
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At an APSA reception in 2016 I remarked that Wisconsin probably didn’t meet the conditions to be considered an electoral democracy. Some colleagues thought I was being overwrought. They were wrong and I was right.
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Time to make it official. Paul Nolette and I have been named editors of Publius. We’re thrilled to continue the work of great editors like John Dinan, Carol Weissert, John Kincaid, and (founder) Daniel Elazar in publishing cutting-edge federalism research.
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The threat for conservatives was never the ACA itself, but the idea that the law would help to create a new reversion point for social policy, and a gestalt that anyone was due anything like—annual checkups, prescriptions for allergies, psychotherapy...
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It doesn't -- and I can't stress this enough -- matter.
Sorry, there is no way the Green New Deal pays for itself.
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Stepping back a bit, one notices the broader pattern in American politics. No major policy change gets out alive unless it finds a way to redistribute income upward. The ACA’s side payments and concessions were simply too narrowly targeted for organized business to stomach.
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The idea that America is locked down is still something you can say with a straight face on cable news and no one will question you.
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Counterpoint: it is entirely the CDC’s fault for not thinking about implementation. This is a basic component of agency decisionmaking, an absolutely 101-level public admin practitioner point.
This is the dilemma. The CDC should tell the truth. But we also need leaders to set good policy! Reconsidering my view on this per
@DaveAHopkins
: not CDC's fault that politicians and corporate leaders are using the guidelines as an excuse to drop needed indoor mask requirements.
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Who or what is really being worn thin these days? The armchair analyst or the nurse? You decide.
Look, we have lots of problems, but this constant doom-and-gloom thing is just wearing thin. The health care system has not collapsed.
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For every speculative thinkpiece about how the shutdown *could* end, we need 3 more reminding us that shutdowns like this didn’t exist until Congress decided to “rationalize” budgeting in 1974.
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Reading about Milwaukee socialists' advocacy for the development of municipal playgrounds and the attendant decrease in arrests for--that's right--playing ball in the street.
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What we should be doing: precautionary principle
What we think we’re doing:
Cost-benefit analysis
What we are doing:
Social murder
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My guess is that the reason Wisconsin Rs don’t want to legalize recreational — and why they continue to deny the fact of supermajority public support for it — is that they do not want the additional revenue, which would strengthen rationales for funding public services.
Robin Vos: “We are not Illinois. We are not California. We are not Colorado. We are a state that’s at best purple. And purple is not legalization of recreational marijuana."
States recently legalizing recreational: Missouri, Montana, Arizona, Michigan.
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Repeat after me: intergovernmental aid is not a “bailout” of anyone. It’s the federal government using the capacity it has under our system of fiscal federalism to support the integrity of state and local governance.
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Spending what would be the first week of teaching...in a hospital bed. Not anyone’s idea of a good time, but here we are. The bright side: amazing MDs and RNs and friends/family/colleagues/comrades. Hope to be discharged in a day or two.
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It seems worthy of further investigation that a landlord who owns a lot of residential properties and does a lot of evictions just did a *50%* rent hike on a commercial tenant who just happens to hold public office and has been an advocate of tenants’ rights.
The most read article in the past 24 hours: Bounce Milwaukee Will Close
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The language of policy and law erects a high modernist wall of technicalities that most cannot see over. But the secret is this: on the other side of the wall is the most brutal form of power: to control who lives and dies.
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Huge congrats to Darrin Madison, who will represent the 10th district in the WI State Assembly. “Folks didn’t believe a rose could grow out of concrete, but it did.”
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In the next few days, elected officials of both parties and many journalists will treat this as a flawed but legitimate election.
Wrong.
The narrative should be: Democracy in WI is dead. The state had an illegitimate election. So how do we build democracy here anew?
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If you're focusing mainly on the education partial veto, you're missing a huge WI budget story. In his January State of the State, Evers declared 2023 the "year of mental health". In bill he signed today, Legislature gutted virtually every mental health reform he proposed.
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A quick scan of the ideas put forward early in the pandemic suggests that things like this were by no means out of reach for the US. We chose / are choosing not to do them.
For those saying "there isn't much more the US government can do," look at what someone in Japan gets sent when they test positive for COVID so that they can recover and isolate.
We need to push our leaders to do more, and stop excusing their inaction.
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Hard to emphasize just how much Ron Johnson policy ideas sound like “drunk while golfing” gibberish
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@zdroberts
@emmaroller
I’m just going to start publishing a coffin catalogue. “Pine Box Monthly”
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The truly pervasive myth that there’s nothing government can do about any problem—the fatalism Albert Hirschman identifies as essential to the rhetoric of reaction—really does entail ignoring any and all comparative evidence or rejecting it as some kind of optical illusion.
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The key q to ask about WI GOP’s proposed “Iowa-style”redistricting legislation. What happens if the legislature rejects the first two (nonpartisan, unamendable) bills sent to it by the Legislative Reference Bureau?
They get a third bill, which they can amend as they please!
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Nearly through with the proofs and index for this volume and pretty excited about it.
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Lots of discussion on Wisconsin twitter today about the state legislature’s starving local govs of revenue while demanding restrictions on voting. They will keep doing it until local govs figure out that they can’t “bargain” w/o leverage from popular mobilization and disruption
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Democracy isn't the voting, it's the counting
This'll likely get buried today but the US Census director quit. The census is a hugely important part of democracy.
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And so it had to be killed, in the words of Michael Greve, “as a matter of political hygiene.” In other words: kill it before it legitimates the idea that people have anything approaching a right to healthcare.
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The US is the kind of country where a “national holiday” means that only about 39% of private firms give their employees the day off.
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To get a sense of “where we are as a country” you really need to have a look at what is going on with Medicaid expansion in Utah.
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About a year and a half ago (I forget which ep. it is), my main prediction for how the US would govern COVID is that the central state would fail to support people through surges and that failure would essentially devolve blame downward, turn us against each other.
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Situation in states like WI, best I can tell: even though executive-branch officials / DAs say they will not enforce 1849 law, providers appear to view current practice situation as containing high legal risk, requesting legislation protecting right to care for patients.
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1 year ago, grad students in my
@_MUPoliSci
federalism seminar started asking about how US territories interacted with counterparts in the states and advocated for themselves in DC. The first article based on our research came out yesterday.
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Would love to see one (1) article grilling Wisconsin Rs on exactly what they’d cut to get to ~$5 billion if flat tax passed. Also what they think of the results of the “Kansas experiment” , arguably the biggest state fiscal policy disaster on record.
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80% of hospital beds in the US are being utilized right now. CDC's national COVID death forecasts are soaring in next few weeks. And this guy, and many others, are salivating over the with/for conversation. Pathetic. Go back to poker.
This is a poor analogy. A broken leg is inherently serious. COVID sometimes isn't. People who are *incidentally* diagnosed *with* COVID while at the hospital are less likely to have serious cases than people who's cases were serious enough to require hospitalization *for* COVID.
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The Shelby decision, among others, is a hallmark of an institution fundamentally at odds with the practice of democratic citizenship and incapable of protecting civil rights. Because of it, Kemp’s subversion of democracy in GA will be replicated over and over again.
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Really,
@avierkant
,
@realLandsEnd
, and I have talked about how state and nonstate elites would try to end the pandemic sociologically for the last two years. Didn’t imagine it would be this transparently dumb and obvious
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Wondering if my life’s work should be a magnum opus on Milwaukee County government. Like if you agree.
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