Red States Tend to Have More Government Workers

This is nothing new, just another angle on the same story.  This is from Floyd Norris's article in today's Times.  You really should read the whole article but here are some excerpts:

Whatever the explanation, the states whose economies are most dependent on government employment and economic activity are also the states that are most likely to vote for Republicans, who generally campaign on promises to reduce the size of government.

Consider one measure, the proportion of civilian employees in each state with government jobs, whether federal, state or local. Nationally, the proportion last month was 16 percent, the lowest figure since 2001.

But the variance among the 50 states is large. At the top of the list, with one out of four workers employed by the government, is Wyoming. At the other extreme is Pennsylvania, with just one in eight.

Wyoming is among the most Republican states, and that is part of a pattern. Of the 15 states with the highest proportion of government employment, 10 voted for Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, in last year’s presidential election. (The District of Columbia, with more than 30 percent of the employees working for the government, is not included in the list because it is not a state, but it voted for President Obama.) Of the 15 states with the lowest level of government employment, only two — Indiana and Tennessee — voted for Mr. Romney.

Once again we see that reality in this world is much different from the alternate reality concocted by the current Republican Party.

Quote of the Day for Sept. 25

from the Blogger Hunter of the Daily Kos, on Cruz's expected upcoming appearance on the Limbaugh's radio program.

"The two [Sen. Cruz and Rush Limbaugh] are expected to share their tips on how to get paid to talk for long stretches of time without saying or accomplishing anything in particular."

Funny Stuff

Recently seen exchange on Facebook (I was not a participant, only an observer):

FB Questioner:  Tell me one specific thing that you don't approve of in Obamacare...

Answers (combined and paraphrased):   blah blah blah founding fathers blah blah blah states' rights blah blah blah death panels blah blah blah deceit blah blah blah health care rationing blah blah blah inhumane blah blah blah fascist blah blah blah take away our guns blah blah blah single payer (say what?!?!) blah blah blah.

Translation:  I got a chain email about this and it said Obamacare is really bad, maybe even the end of our country as we know it, and you know how chain emails are usually accurate.

Quote of the Day for Sept. 23

"A civilization which for any reason puts a human life at a disadvantage; or a civilization which can exist only by putting human life at a disadvantage; is worthy neither of the name nor of continuance. And a human being whose life is nurtured in an advantage which has accrued from the disadvantage of other human beings, and who prefers that this should remain as it is, is a human being by definition only, having much more in common with the bedbug, the tapeworm, the cancer, and the scavengers of the deep sea."

James Agee,  Let Us Now Praise Famous Men


 

GOP Hyper-Hypocrisy on the Affordable Care Act

A nice summary of the real GOP feelings about Obamacare:  we hate the law but we will take credit for the money and spend all we can.

Church Obsessions

From today's New York Times:

...Pope Francis, in the first extensive interview of his six-month-old papacy, said that the Roman Catholic church had grown “obsessed” with preaching about abortion, gay marriage and contraception, and that he has chosen not to speak of those issues despite recriminations from some critics

In remarkably blunt language, Francis sought to set a new tone for the church, saying it should be a “home for all” and not a “small chapel” focused on doctrine, orthodoxy and a limited agenda of moral teachings....

The Pope could just as well be describing what has happened to my church--Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS)--especially the part about "a limited agenda of moral teachings".  This coincides with the increased politicization of the WELS.  The "moral teachings" emphasized by the current church seem to be limited to those near and dear to the Religious Right and other politically conservative groups.

Quote of the Day

Charlie Dent, Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania:  "It's important that Republicans stop pretending that Mitch McConnell is the Senate majority leader and Mitt Romney is the president."

Editorial from a Southern Newspaper

Presented without further comment:   Recent editorial from Alabama

Another Lie from Christian Life Resources

Quote from an article on today's Christian Life Resources (CLR) website: "On Friday, a judge in Wisconsin issued an injunction blocking part of a pro-life law designed to protect the health and safety of women considering abortions."  This statement is a lie.  The law is not "designed" to protect women.  It is designed to prevent a woman from exercising her constitutional right to an abortion.  CLR may regard that as a worthy goal, but then they should say so instead of lying about it.

Indeed, as another source noted:

[...]Quite simply, it does not matter whether an abortion provider has admitting privileges for a local hospital.

For all of Wisconsin’s claims, therefore, that these regulations are “reasonably related to ‘the preservation and protection of maternal health,’” it seems clear that is not the case. Indeed, as the court pointed out, the legislative history of Act 37 revealed no medical expert speaking in its favor, or articulating a legitimate medical reason for the admitting privileges requirement.

In response to the evidence submitted to the court that the admitting privilege restrictions serve no purpose in advancing maternal health, Wisconsin admitted that serious complications rarely result from a pre-viability abortion. Nevertheless, Wisconsin argued that the requirement for admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the location of the abortion would reduce risk to the patient. But Judge Conley wasn’t buying it. He wrote, “Aside from the claimed need for ‘continuity of care,’ counsel was unable to offer any support for this position, which does not bear even superficial scrutiny on the current record.”

Judge Conley seems to understand what pro-choice advocates know to be true: The real purpose of the law—like similar pending legislation in Alabama, Mississippi, and North Dakota—is not to protect maternal health, but to prevent women from exercising their constitutional right to choose an abortion, through forced closure of the clinics subject to targeted regulation of abortion provider (TRAP) laws, by making it virtually impossible to do so.

Quite simply, the first sentence in this CLR article is a lie.