Daily Kos

Open thread for night owls: Six banks scoop up $9 billion in extra profits thanks to GOP tax scam

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday October 18, 2018 · 8:00 PM PDT

2018/10/18 · 20:00

Jake Johnson at Common Dreams writes—Less Than Year After GOP Tax Scam, Six Biggest Banks Already Raked in $9 Billion in Extra Profits:

It has been nearly a full year since the Republican Party rammed through its transparent scam of a tax bill in the face of massive grassroots resistance, and the results have been almost precisely what nearly every analyst predicted: Record profits for the rich and massive corporations, little to nothing for American workers.

Among the greatest beneficiaries of the GOP's bill have been America's six largest banks, which this week reported soaring third quarter profits and—according to the Not One Penny coalition—have already raked in over $9 billion in extra profits as a direct result of President Donald Trump's $1.5 trillion tax law.

"These latest filings show that big banks have stopped at nothing to make more money—and that the GOP's tax law gave them license to put profits over people," Not One Penny spokesperson Ryan Thomas said in a statement on Thursday, highlighting the enthusiastic earnings reports of Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.

"These six banks have constantly chosen to use these tax breaks to enrich their shareholders and executives while laying off employees and exploiting consumers," Thomas noted, pointing to the explosion of stock buybacks since the GOP tax bill became law. "These shameful actions—and the Republican tax law that permitted them—indicate just how rigged the system is against working people and the middle class." [...]

TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES

QUOTATION

“For fascism is a lie told by bullies. A writer who will not lie cannot live or work under fascism. Because fascism is a lie, it is condemned to literary sterility. And when it is past, it will have no history, except the bloody history of murder.”
~~Ernest Hemingway, 1937

TWEET OF THE DAY

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the most bullied person in America pic.twitter.com/fGTzOMehNr
— Turnip (@Turnip2020) October 18, 2018

BLAST FROM THE PAST

On this date at Daily Kos in 2004—Bush nixes Muslim peacekeepers in Iraq:

Lovely.

President George W. Bush rebuffed a plan last month for a Muslim peacekeeping force that would have helped the United Nations organize elections in Iraq, according to Saudi and Iraqi officials.

As a result, the UN continues to have a skeletal presence in Iraq, with only four staff members working full time on preparing for elections set for the end of January. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has refused to establish a new UN headquarters in Baghdad unless countries commit troops for a special force to protect it.

Saudi leaders, including Crown Prince Abdullah, personally lobbied Bush in July to sign off on the plan to establish a contingent of several hundred troops from Arab and Muslim nations. Abdullah discussed the plan in a 10-minute phone conversation with Bush on July 28 after meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell, according to Saudi officials familiar with the negotiations.

Diplomats said Annan accepted the plan. But the Bush administration objected because the special force would have been controlled by the UN instead of by U.S. military officers who run the Multi-National Force in Iraq. Muslim and Arab countries refused to work under U.S. command, and the initiative died in early September.

Yet another reason we need to get rid of Bush.

On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: The Khashoggi story isn’t going away just yet. Greg Dworkin explains the mechanics of Gop's planned switcheroo on preexisting conditions. Does opening up to "the other side" work? Doubt about Chinese hardware hacks. ALEC for judicial clerks.

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Trump Organization files $90,000 lawsuit against estate of man killed in Trump Tower apartment fire

Walter Einenkel

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday October 18, 2018 · 7:40 PM PDT

2018/10/18 · 19:40

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 07: Broken and burned windows are seen after a fire broke out on the 50th floor of Trump Tower on April 7, 2018 in New York City. One person has reportedly died and four firefighters were injured in the four-alarm blaze. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images)

Trump Organization lawyer Sonja Talesnik has filed a lawsuit against the estate of Todd Brassner, the 67-year-old former art dealer who died after an electrical fire started in his Trump Tower apartment. According to the New York Post, the Trump Organization is seeking “$90,000 in unpaid common charges and fees from a Trump Tower resident.” Brassner’s apartment was not equipped with sprinklers, as Trump himself had spent tons of money lobbying against having to retrofit his towering monstrosity years before.

Following two fatal fires in Brooklyn and Manhattan in 1998, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani and other elected officials debated legislation mandating landlords to retrofit existing buildings with sprinklers, if they did not already have them. Trump lobbied then-Councilman Archie Spigner that sprinklers were too expensive — at $4 per square foot — to install throughout an entire building, the New York Times reported at the time.

The legislation was signed into law by Giuliani in 1999, but not before buildings like Trump’s crappy tower were given the loophole of being grandfathered out of the requirement. The rich in our country like to say that dying is too expensive. It’s the reason they claim to want to do away with the inheritance tax. But the real reason is that they want all of that money for themselves, and if you die before them, they want your money too.

This is how police officers should approach all children

Rebecca Pilar Buckwalter Poza

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday October 18, 2018 · 7:15 PM PDT

2018/10/18 · 19:15

TOPSHOT - Nimani Darch-Walker, 3, wearing a sign that reads "Don't Shoot", looks on during a rally by the Black Lives Matter movement at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco, California on July 8, 2016..About 1,000 people marched along Market Street to City Hall to denounce recent police shootings around the country. / AFP / Josh Edelson (Photo credit should read JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images) — Nimani Darch-Walker, 3, wearing a sign that reads "don't shoot," looks on during a rally by the Black Lives Matter movement at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco, California, on July 8, 2016.

Peter Casuccio, a Columbus, Ohio, police officer received a call reporting two young African-American teens for having a gun last week. He approached the pair in his car, exiting with his gun drawn, then calmly ordered them to stop, face him, and show him their hands.

The purported culprit, aged 11, removed an object from his waistband. In that moment, the officer believed it to be an real gun, but the officer decided not to shoot. A millisecond later, after the “gun” left the 11-year-old’s hands, it broke into pieces. It was a BB gun.

11YO W/BB GUN- LESSON LEARNED:
Saturday, 10/13/18@5:30pm Officer Peter Casuccio was called to a gun run.
When he got to the scene he discovered it was an 11yo boy with a BB gun.
Here is their interaction as seen on Officer Casuccio's body worn camera. https://t.co/3KqZXT7jHh pic.twitter.com/rq4GowtTiJ
— Columbus Ohio Police (@ColumbusPolice) October 15, 2018

More than 70 faith leaders, activists call on Kansas candidates to back off anti-immigrant hate

Gabe Ortiz

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday October 18, 2018 · 6:50 PM PDT

2018/10/18 · 18:50

NEWARK, NJ - JANUARY 22: Immigrants take the oath of citizenship to the United States at a naturalization service on January 22, 2018 in Newark, New Jersey. Although much of the federal government was shut down Monday morning, the U.S. and Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) offices remained open nationwide. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

More than 70 Kansas interfaith leaders and activists, including prominent Christian, Jewish, and Muslim voices, have signed onto an open letter expected to be going out in the coming days calling on the state’s political candidates to back off anti-immigrant attacks, writing that they “are dismayed by the vilification of our immigrant sisters and brothers by politicians who seek to pit us against one another for their own political gain.”

Hateful, anti-immigrant messages “tar every immigrant with accusations of criminality; and complex problems are simplified and blamed on immigrants,” the signatories—“including Rabbi Moti Rieber of Kansas Interfaith Action, Moussa Elbayoumy of the Council on American Islamic Relations-Kansas and a dozen Catholic nuns”—write. “Many Kansans face real problems around education, healthcare, good jobs, and safety, but we must not point an unwarranted accusatory finger. Immigrants are not the source of our problems nor will blaming them solve them.”

While the letter does not specifically address any political candidate by name, Republican Kris Kobach, an ally of Donald Trump, vote suppressor of people of color, and architect of some of the worst anti-immigrant laws in the nation, is running for governor in the state. Kobach—who was handpicked by a white supremacist group as a possible 2016 vice presidential pick—is so extreme, two former Republican governors of Kansas have endorsed his Democratic opponent, Laura Kelly.

“Immigrants—including our undocumented brothers and sisters—are a vital part of our community, they contribute to our economy, they go to school with our kids, they attend religious services with us,” the faith leaders continue in their letter. “Despite the fear-mongering, immigrants commit less crime than native born. In short, immigrants are an important part of us and an important part of the United States.”

Unlike the sycophantic, pro-Trump religious personalities who ignore craven policies like child separation because they’re more interested in gaining access, this is truly welcoming the stranger. “As a pastor I cannot tell you who to vote for,” Rev. Bobby Love, Sr. told The Kansas City Star. “But let us put our faith to action by selecting candidates that will hold to the values of treating people like we ourselves want to be treated, not to pit one against the other.”

Mike DeWine pretends the great recession only happened in Ohio so he can pin it on Richard Cordray

Laura Clawson

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday October 18, 2018 · 6:25 PM PDT

2018/10/18 · 18:25

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 16: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray arrives at a meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council November 16, 2016 at the Treasury Department in Washington, DC. The council held a meeting "to receive an update on the work of the Alternative Reference Rates Committee, an update on the Council's review of asset management products and activities, and revisions to the Council's regulation under the Freedom of Information Act," according to the media advisory distributed at the event. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) — Richard Cordray

Ohio Republican Mike DeWine has released a pair of ads blaming Richard Cordray, his Democratic opponent for governor, for the great recession. Or, if not for the recession as a whole, for its effects on Ohio. “We didn’t forget you, Richard Cordray,” one of the ads says. “You were there when our taxes were hiked. And over 400,000 jobs were killed, forcing so many of us to the unemployment line. And now that we’ve recovered, you’re back.” Images in the ads tie Cordray to Ted Strickland, Ohio’s governor at the time of the recession.

”You were there when our taxes were hiked. And over 400,000 jobs were killed.” There are so many problems with these lines. Cordray was state attorney general, not exactly a tax policy position. Jobs were killed not because of some Ohio-specific policy but because there was a national recession. And about that tax “hike”:

The spots again raise the long-cited red herring that when Strickland postponed the final year of a five-year, 21 percent income-tax cut to help avoid further cuts to a beleaguered state budget, it constituted a tax increase of more than $800 million. The intended 2009 tax cut was deferred for one year, to 2010. The move did not increase Ohioans’ taxes; it delayed tax relief for a year.

There was a massive national jobs crisis and Ohio was not exempt. There was a massive national crisis and in Ohio a tax cut was delayed for a year to respond. But it sounds so much scarier the way DeWine’s ads put it, as if the delayed tax cut was a tax hike that singlehandedly killed 400,000 jobs, rather than the 400,000 lost jobs causing the delay in the tax cut.

If Ohio wants to vote for dishonesty, the choice is clear.

Get out the vote without leaving your house: Write letters to infrequent voters in battleground House districts.

Double your impact: Can you give $3 to help elect Richard Cordray?

Final column from murdered journalist mourns the 'silencing of the media'

Mark Sumner

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday October 18, 2018 · 6:00 PM PDT

2018/10/18 · 18:00

ISTANBUL, TURKEY - OCTOBER 17: Turkish forensic police work in a room inside the Saudi Arabian consulate general residence as investigations continue into the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on October 17, 2018 in Istanbul, Turkey. Turkish police first entered and searched the Saudi Arabian consulate on October 15 amid a growing international backlash about the disappearance. Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and critic of the Saudi regime, has been missing since visiting the Saudi Arabian consulate on October 2. Turkish officials have said they believe he was killed inside. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images) — Turkish police test for blood inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Donald Trump calls the free press the “enemy of the people,” says that no one can prove Vladimir Putin has killed any journalists, and has done everything possible to protect Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman from the fallout of a horrific murder. In the meantime, the final column from Jamal Khashoggi arrived at the Washington Post just after he first went missing. The Post held off releasing the column for several days, in hopes that Khashoggi would reappear and work with the Post editors on some suggested changes for the piece … that is never going to happen.

So the Washington Post has now released Jamal Khashoggi’s final column, as written.

I was recently online looking at the 2018 “Freedom in the World” report published by Freedom House and came to a grave realization. There is only one country in the Arab world that has been classified as “free.” That nation is Tunisia. Jordan, Morocco and Kuwait come second, with a classification of “partly free.” The rest of the countries in the Arab world are classified as “not free.”

As a result, Arabs living in these countries are either uninformed or misinformed. They are unable to adequately address, much less publicly discuss, matters that affect the region and their day-to-day lives. A state-run narrative dominates the public psyche, and while many do not believe it, a large majority of the population falls victim to this false narrative. Sadly, this situation is unlikely to change.

All the voices of opposition in those countries—all the journalists that Trump calls “fake news” and “enemies of the people”—have been silenced. The result is not a better informed public. It’s a better controlled public. When the United States will not lead the fight to stand up for freedom of the press, it makes it much, much easier for that fight to be lost everywhere.

These actions no longer carry the consequence of a backlash from the international community. Instead, these actions may trigger condemnation quickly followed by silence.

As a result, Arab governments have been given free rein to continue silencing the media at an increasing rate.

And now one more voice has been stilled.

'How do you think I'm feeling?': GOP rep makes meeting with incarcerated addicts all about him

Jessica Sutherland

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday October 18, 2018 · 5:40 PM PDT

2018/10/18 · 17:40

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 09: Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) (L) reacts as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says it would be 'the end of his political career' if Brat does not support Trump for president during a rally against the Iran nuclear deal on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol September 9, 2015 in Washington, DC. Thousands of people gathered for the rally, organized by the Tea Party Patriots, which featured conservative pundits and politicians. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Everyone knows that Republicans aren’t exactly famous for their compassion for others, but Virginia Rep. Dave Brat managed to take that stereotype to the next level this week. Brat, a Freedom Caucus member who is facing a far-better-funded former CIA operative in his battle for a third term, spent some time with inmates at the Chesterfield County Jail on Wednesday, and made sure the incarcerated folks knew just how hard he’s got it as a congressman.

After one inmate described the difficulties she would face after release in finding work and stability—and Chesterfield Sheriff Karl Leonard mentioned the need for additional funding for longer-term stays—Brat turned the conversation back to his campaign against Democrat Abigail Spanberger.

“You think you’re having a hard time--I've got $5 million worth of negative ads coming at me,” he said. “How do you think I’m feeling? Nothing’s easy. For anybody.”

Florida Gov. Rick Scott put his millions in a 'blind trust' that wasn't so blind after all

Laura Clawson

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday October 18, 2018 · 5:20 PM PDT

2018/10/18 · 17:20

MIAMI, FL - AUGUST 19: Florida Governor Rick Scott addresses the media gathered at the Miami-Dade County Department of Health as they announce 5 cases of Zika in a 1.5 mile area of Miami Beach on August 19, 2016 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Angel Valentin/Getty Images) — Rick Scott

Knowing that Florida Gov. Rick Scott, now running for Senate, is a corrupt plutocrat requires no more than looking at the $1.7 billion Medicare fraud fine against the hospital chain he once ran. But before he was forced out of running Columbia/HCA, he made enough money to pump tens of millions of dollars into his campaigns and to establish some financial arrangements that underline his ongoing status as a corrupt rich guy.

Scott says he put his money in a blind trust as governor of Florida. Not so much:

… an examination of Mr. Scott’s finances shows that his trust has been blind in name only. There have been numerous ways for him to have knowledge about his holdings: Among other things, he transferred many assets to his wife and neither “blinded” nor disclosed them. And their investments have included corporations, partnerships and funds that stood to benefit from his administration’s actions.

Only in late July, when compelled by ethics rules for Senate candidates, did Mr. Scott disclose his wife’s holdings. That report revealed that his wife, Ann Scott, an interior decorator by trade, controlled accounts that might exceed the value of her husband’s. Their equity investments largely mirrored each other, meaning that Mr. Scott could, if he wanted, track his own holdings by following his wife’s.

Scott insists that “I have never made a single decision as governor with any thought or consideration of my personal finances.” Yeah, right. The New York Times documents a series of Scott’s investments in companies that do business with the state of Florida, from pipelines to pharmaceuticals. Scott’s “blind trust” arrangement meets Florida’s ethics rules, but it would not meet Senate standards.

GET OUT THE VOTE for Democrats. Just click here, enter your zip code, choose the event that works best for you, and RSVP to attend.

And let's make sure Andrew Gillum is Scott's successor as Florida governor. Can you chip in $3 to Gillum?

Big tobacco is still trying to kill us off, fighting Obamacare one state at a time

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday October 18, 2018 · 5:00 PM PDT

2018/10/18 · 17:00

A clerk(C) stands at the cigarette counter at a CVS drugstore February 5, 2014 in Washington, DC. The second largest US drugstore chain, CVS, announced Wednesday it will stop selling cigarettes by the end of the year, a decision President Barack Obama hailed as a "powerful example."CVS said its 7,600 stores across the country will cease tobacco sales by October 1, despite the projected $2 billion loss the move will entail. AFP PHOTO / Karen BLEIER (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)

Big tobacco has the people of Montana in its sights, and is spending massively to make sure 100,000 Montanans—10 percent of the population—lose the Medicaid coverage they only secured a few years ago. A ballot initiative in Montana would secure permanent funding for the Medicaid expansion the state finally got approved in late 2015, lasting for two years contingent upon finding a funding source. The funding source they landed on is an obvious one for providing healthcare—a tobacco tax. Enter Altria, formerly known as Phillip Morris.

The astroturf group Montanans Against Tax Hikes, the main group opposing the I-185 initiative has received $12 million to fight Montanans' healthcare, about $15 per voter. They've also gotten several hundred thousand from RAI Services (the parent company of RJ Reynolds), meaning 90 percent of their campaign funds to fight the measure come from big tobacco. The initiative would increase taxes on a pack of cigarettes by $2 and introduce a tax on e-cigarettes, which have previously been untaxed. The funding generated wouldn't just go toward Medicaid, but also home health care and suicide prevention in veterans.

But it gives the state an awfully good enemy to fight to keep expansion. In one ad the campaign is running, Gov. Steve Bullock (D-MT) calls them out: "Big tobacco corporations are spending millions of out-of-state dollars misleading Montanans about efforts to protect our health care." Misleading is definitely what they're doing, saying in ads that the measure "doesn't add up" without mentioning the source of the news tax or where the opposition funding is coming from. The official analysis from the state says that the measure would provide plenty of funding for Medicaid, even if it causes a reduction in cigarette consumption.

So big tobacco is continuing its death crusade. Either it will kill by getting people addicted to its products, or it will kill them by taking their health care away.

Click here to browse and sign up for virtual Get Out the Vote activities you can plug in to—such as remote phone banking or writing letters to Democratic voters to get them out to the polls.

Welcome to the Trump administration, where nobody knows what the #$@% is going on

Hunter

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday October 18, 2018 · 4:40 PM PDT

2018/10/18 · 16:40

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 12: HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson speaks before U.S. President Donald Trump signed a proclamation to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. day, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, on January 12, 2018 in Washington, DC. Monday January 16 is a federal holiday to honor Dr. King and his legacy. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) — Place your bets on how all this turns out, everybody.

This is a baffling story. No, really—I defy anyone to make sense of it. Last Friday, unlikely HUD Secretary Ben Carson announced to his department that HUD assistant secretary Suzanne Tufts was moving to the Interior Department to be their new inspector general. This was news to approximately everybody, and did not go over well because the inspector general is supposed to be a nonpartisan, career position and Trump campaign stalwart Tufts is not that, and because the inspector general's position has been vacant for close to a decade, and because Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is the subject of multiple investigations and scandals and putting a political hire in charge of investigating that looked extremely damn crooked.

Now the Interior Department is saying the hire ... never happened. They're saying that Ben Carson was being "100 percent false" in his announcement. No, really!

[Interior press secretary Heather Swift] wrote that HUD “sent out an email that had 100 percent false information in it.” She affirmed that Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall, who has led the office for nine years, is still in the job. [...]
HUD officials did not respond to a request for comment. Tufts could not be reached.

It took the Interior Department nearly a week, mind you, to make the announcement finally declaring that they didn't know what Ben Carson was talking about. The Washington Post says "top White House officials" also had no notion what Ben Carson was talking about. Nobody knows anything, and as of the moment the official spokesperson reaction is: That never happened.

So what do we make of this?

This Week in Statehouse Action: Fall From Grace edition

Carolyn Fiddler

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday October 18, 2018 · 4:20 PM PDT

2018/10/18 · 16:20

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 16: A grey squirrel forages amongst the autumn leaves in Liverpool's Sefton Park on October 16, 2014 in Liverpool, United Kingdom. Despite the current unsettled weather, according to the Forestry Commission England, the warm temperatures, lots of sunshine and spells of rain experienced during the summer, twinned with recent dry, warm early-autumn days and cooler nights of September is a promising recipe for a spectacular show of seasonal colour in England's woods and forests over the next few weeks. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) — I'm just a squirrel tryin' to get a nut to move your butt to the voting booth (everybody vote now)

Even in the frenetic final weeks of election season, it’s important to take a moment to soak in the sights and sounds of autumn.

Leaves turning, falling, crunching underfoot.

The warm glow and low crackling of a woodstove or backyard fire pit.

Campaign Action

Apple picking.

Hayrides.

Pumpkin-spiced everything.

The slightly stale smell of those jackets and coats you suddenly have to dig out of storage when that unexpected cold snap hits.

The bite that’s crept into the night air that reminds you that our time on this planet is short and death comes for us all

Et cetera.

Yay fall!

Now, back to that other stuff.

Autumn Sweating: A couple of months ago, I wrote in this space about the GOP-controlled West Virginia legislature’s opportunistically timed attempt to impeach the state’s Supreme Court justices.

Believe it or not, an already sideways situation got even more tilted this week when the state’s acting Supreme Court (the members facing impeachment recused themselves, obvs) granted a writ of prohibition blocking the legislature from moving forward with three of the four impeachment proceedings (one judge was already acquitted but officially censured).

This whole thing is a mess. Let me break it down for you:

But why would the GOP-controlled legislature want that when foot-dragging would let the Republican governor just appoint the replacements himself?

In early August, Republicans in the legislature finally got around to passing 14 articles of impeachment against all four remaining justices.
Their timing ensured that impeachment proceedings couldn’t wrap up by that Aug. 14 deadline.
If the justices are successfully impeached, four GOP appointees would be able to serve at least two years on the bench.

Oh, and just in case you thought this whole affair was anything but a brazen Republican attempt to replace an entire branch of government through GOP appointments, consider this:

A Democratic member of the House attempted to initiate impeachment proceedings back in February—which would have left plenty of time to resolve the matter and place judicial candidates on the ballot this fall.
At the time, Republican leadership called the move “a political stunt.”

And why entertain timely steps to remove corrupt justices when you can slow your roll and execute a Supreme Court coup instead?

Fast forward to … now.

One justice went through her impeachment trial. As I mentioned above, the legislature acquitted but censured her early this month.
One justice resigned to prevent the governor from appointing her replacement. Impeachment proceedings against her are moving forward anyway, for some reason. (She’s fighting the impeachment process in federal court.)
The justice who faced all those felony counts of various types of fraud was found guilty last week of 11 of them. He was suspended from the court last summer, but he’s refused to resign, and he has yet to be impeached and removed.

And now the acting state Supreme Court has halted the legislature’s impeachment fun—likely for good.

The state Senate plans to ask the court to reconsider their writ of prohibition, but … yeah. It’s not likely the court will change its mind.
And since the writ was issued on a matter of state constitutional law, the state Supreme Court is the final authority on the matter.

So … that’s it?

Stay tuned!

In groundbreaking survey, young Latino voters in Texas name health care for all as top issue

Gabe Ortiz

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday October 18, 2018 · 3:55 PM PDT

2018/10/18 · 15:55

AUSTIN, TX - FEBRUARY 16: Protesters march in the streets outside the Texas State Capital on 'A Day Without Immigrants' February 16, 2017 in Austin, Texas. The crowd, which grew to well over a thousand participants marched from the Austin City Hall to the Texas State Capital. Across the country hundreds of restaurants and eateries are closing for the day to protest President Trump's immigration policies and to highlight the contributions of immigrants to U.S. business and life. (Photo by Drew Anthony Smith/Getty Images)

Young Latino voters in Texas name health care for all as their top priority, a groundbreaking survey of more than 1,000 young Texans finds. Permanent protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients—Texas is home to the second-largest population of beneficiaries in the nation—rank a close second.

“The Latinos we interviewed,” says the report from Jolt Initiative, Ethnifacts, and US-ness, “demonstrated a deep understanding of the issues they cared about and were most motivated by liberal issues, including universal healthcare, protection for DREAMers, racial and ethnic equality and justice, economic prosperity, and raising the minimum wage.”

And these issues are personal. In a state where one in three Latinos do not have health insurance, state Attorney General Ken Paxton (indicted on state securities-fraud charges) is leading the latest Republican effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. “We’re being taxed but we don’t have healthcare,” survey recipient Jose said. “I’m a server in a restaurant … how do you expect me to pay $400 per month? Meet us halfway.”

Others expressed support for putting young immigrants facing deportation onto a path to citizenship. “I have friends who depended on DACA and one friend was going to college and had dreams of doing what they wanted, and now they can’t,” 28-year-old David said. “They are now working at some manual labor job so they can save money and prepare to get deported. It’s saddening that something like this can happen.”

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