Under Appreciated News Across America (Part 2)
Plus, One Past Providence Mayor's Pathetic Attempt at a Comeback Story
Feel free to check the entire blog archives from “Political Pulse” & “Salzillo Report” on the 2024 primary cycle, rural outreach, redistricting litigation, base dynamics, campaign organization, the current media landscape, the issues at stake, America’s political history, the progressive movement, the true story about Gina Raimondo, and much more.
Let me follow up quickly on a previous blog post on the recent June primaries. More specifically, I wanted to provide better context for the Congressman Rob Menendez race.
First, like I said in my last post, Congressman Menendez does not seem to have any connection with the illegal dealings of his infamous father. Nor does he appear to have any major (or minor) corruption scandals of his own. To the contrary, he apparently ran on an anti-corruption message directed against his opponent, Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla. In particular, local reports indicate that Bhalla faced multiple legal and ethics issues related to his law license. Most significantly, Bhalla “lost his law license in New York” in 2019, and “remains on the New York suspended list.”
This contrast provides a better sense of why Menendez won against his primary opponent on June 4. Check out the recent profile of the recent NJ-08 primary results from CBS News that very day.
In other primary news, a divisive primary later this month profiles the attempts of GOP dark money special interests to influence and buy Democratic primaries through AIPAC. We will have to wait and see how that NY-16 matchup plays out between Congressman Jamaal Bowman and Andrew Cuomo/Hillary Clinton ally George Latimer.
I also recommend you check out Catherine Herridge’s new blog. Herridge is a high-profile CBS News and Fox News reporter. A few years back, she dealt with a unique legal issue over her ability to protect an anonymous and confidential source behind one of her high-profile investigative reports. But it’s not an entirely new issue for journalists and news reporters by any means. Local RI WJAR I-Team legend Jim Taricani discussed his own experiences here, and WPRI 12 gave a good overview of them in a tribute to Taricani.
In the meantime, let’s examine the discussion over whether President Biden should incorporate progressive economic populism into his message of cultural common sense and support for democracy here and abroad.
Here is my case as to why he should.
Look at how OPEC+ and Big Oil have colluded together to keep oil and gas prices high as production and supply has been artificially decreased. Isn’t it time for a windfall profits tax and a ban on price gouging? Yes, but House & Senate Republicans still oppose that.
Let’s talk about Medicare Advantage and how private companies are trying to exploit these healthcare programs to pad their profits even more. Check out the late Ady Barkan’s and Be A Hero’s amazing work on this and their solutions to the issue (work that certainly worries special interests, dark money groups, and corporate monopolies).
While regular families are struggling, corporations are raking in record profits, as Inequality Media has tracked immensely to great effect. Wall Street should not make money off the struggles of Main Street. Which is what the corporate politics of Reagan conservatism and Clinton neoliberalism have allowed to happen.
We should follow the lead of President Biden and Congressional Democrats trying to change all that. Greedflation is as real as shrinkflation, another important global phenomenon. Here is a report from Korea on the 33 products accused of shrinkflation. Congressional Republicans are mocking your pain by dismissing this reality. Similarly, the FTC under President Biden is going after grocery price gougers, oil company mergers, and other bad actors taking advantage of the coronavirus recession and the inflation rise of 2021-2023.
Otherwise, there is a clear link between the fight for democracy in Ukraine and Taiwan and the fight to address the supply chain bottlenecks that fueled the global inflation problem. Ukraine and Taiwan alike supply us grain agricultural products and cutting-edge semiconductor technology respectively. They are key to helping us beat back and prevent further inflation. Trump’s foreign policy, on the other hand, will support Russia and encourage China, the very same adversaries who are currently disrupting those supply chains.
President Biden’s record of accomplishments on the foreign and domestic front speaks for itself. In the Build Back Better session of 2021-2022, legislation enacted placed caps on Insulin, expanded healthcare options from the Affordable Care Act, supported cheaper and more abundant renewable energy options, and gave significant aid to community colleges, Historically Black Colleges & Universities, and other Minority-Serving Institutions.
Not to mention the Administration’s work to hold TurboTax accountable, and the ongoing consumer safety push from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (an agency Republicans wants to see entirely dissolved). Or how the Administration’s promotion of “the Union Way of Life”—higher wages, safer working conditions, better industry standards, and fairer trade practices—improves the standard of living for working families, and helps rebuild the middle class (something that only Democrats support).
And finally, how Biden has vowed to undo the failed trickle-down Trump Tax Cuts & stop Project 2025 in its tracks.
Biden has shown he is a doer, working closely with Congressional Democrats on the issues that matter to you. Trump? He’s just a big overgrown whiner, and behind him are a whole chorus of professional do-nothing Congressional Republican complainers.
Now for some other notes in attention-grabbing headlines you should know about:
Sinclair Broadcasting/Conservative Propaganda Machine has programmed its local news anchors to use the same script on President Joe Biden’s fitness. Here’s the outside analysis on that too.
The ISIS-K threat is growing globally.
American citizens, not undocumented immigrants, are the ones mostly bringing fentanyl into the US.
The data on crime statistics in America, as of recent 2023 and 2024 reports.
Air turbulence is a sign of the pending climate crisis that is real and here.
CNN data (and this AP report) on Trump’s primary electorate power, special election trends since the Dobbs decision, and what it all means for 2024.
More on Judicial Watch and their role in future “election integrity” litigation for 2024.
IVF protections have been blocked once again by Congressional Republicans. And the Southern Baptist Convention has officially voted to oppose it. And where the Southern Baptist Convention goes, the rest of the Republican evangelical base probably will follow.
The Alito-Thomas Court has approved the use of military weapons on our city streets with its repeal of the Trump bump stock ban, and defended the interests of Starbucks executives over unionized workers.
JD Vance of Ohio was right the first time about Trumpism way back in 2016. Unfortunately, he, like so many others, has given up principles for votes. The GOP is now a pro-insurrectionist party, courtesy of its party elites. In the words of Vance, “no Real Republican” will ever blame Trump for what happened on January 6th from now on.
Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson refuses to say whether he will acknowledge the 2024 election results. And he still downplays 1/6.
Lastly, I could not help but mention former Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza’s interview with the Providence Journal. Elorza is now head of the pro-charter school group called “Democrats for Education Reform.” For those of who you do not know, Jorge Elorza defeated Buddy Cianci to become Mayor of Providence in 2014. Elorza’s career went considerably downhill since that election upset.
There are many reasons for his political decline in Providence and Rhode Island at large. For example, there was his record of extremely poor constituent services (from snowplowing and sand-sweeping, to trash collection), administrative incompetence at City Hall, a lack of responsiveness to public concerns, his obsession with national policy issues over more relevant job duties, his widely panned parking meter and speed bump programs, his ridiculously embarrassing idea to legalize and register ATVs and dirt bikes for city streets, and his dismally failed education policy.
On that last point, Elorza struggles to stick to what the facts are. As many in the Providence Public Schools community know, Elorza was practically absent on education issues—unlike previous Mayor Angel Taveras, who devoted a lot of time in office to education initiatives. Elorza clearly did not have anything of substance to offer to the scale of Taveras, who was a very popular one-term Mayor. In fact, Elorza level-funded Providence Public Schools throughout his entire 8-year tenure.
Most of us in Rhode Island know the rest of the story. In 2019, the state Department of Education took over Providence Public Schools. But not because Elorza pushed for then-Governor Gina Raimondo to take over the school district. It was because he had no other choice, given the dismal 2019 Johns Hopkins report on public education in Providence. The public and government pressure was too great; the state had to take over. It was not like the Mayor had a say in inviting the state at his own pleasure, as he likes to give on.
Only his increasing irrelevance can explain why Elorza has become more outspoken on Providence Schools. By “outspoken,” I mean he has launched near-constant attacks on the Providence Teachers Union and now advocates nationally for fully-privatized city schools. This transformation has been in the works for a while now. Before leaving the mayorship in 2023, he angrily finger-wagged and confronted Governor Dan McKee on “capitulating to” the Teachers Union until “a security officer backed him away.” It was an embarrassing and shameful stunt in preparation for an embarrassing and shameful second act.
Let me give you a sense of what I mean. These are the words of Elorza from this past week as reported by veteran reporter Tom Mooney: Elorza answers by saying New Orleans went to virtually all charter schools after Hurricane Katrina. “Many of the teachers from traditional schools went to work in charters.”
What a horrible example to cite. No matter Elorza’s fake optimism, the reality of a privatized New Orleans school district has not been pretty. I recommend Elorza look at the analysis from WWNO, Common Dreams, Current Affairs, In These Times, Slate, and other outlets about how much of a disaster this approach has been to the city. As early as 2018, even the Washington Post was voicing similar concerns. Elorza has just told us a thousandth of the story. The only people who can call New Orleans a charter school success story are either living under a rock or chumming up to for-profit DeVos-style charter school sellouts.
All of which is an example of why no one should listen to Elorza on any issue—never mind education. Elorza is simply incapable of listening to people or understanding the real world.
Stay tuned for more under-appreciated news near you.