Tag: gop governors
Bobby's MAHA Mania: Die Now, Eat Healthier Later

Bobby's MAHA Mania: Die Now, Eat Healthier Later

On Tuesday Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited Indiana, where GOP Gov. Steve Braun, a former Senator and business owner, unveiled nine executive orders that underscored all the contradictions in the Make America Healthy Again movement.

The positive aspects of his program included:

  • Preventing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s low-income beneficiaries from using food stamps to buy sugar-sweetened soda or candy;
  • Annual physical fitness testing in the state’s schools;
  • Subsidies for Indiana farms to grow more nutritious foods; and
  • A study of dyes and chemical additives in the food supply.

On the downside, he ordered:

  • Work requirements for SNAP beneficiaries; and
  • A campaign to root out “improper spending” from “eligibility errors” in the Medicaid program, which he claimed accounts for 28% of all Medicaid spending in the state.

To sum up, then, Indiana, like most GOP-run states, is taking minor steps to improve diets and physical fitness, which will take years to show results in the form of better health and reduced health care spending. Meanwhile, the state, whose businesses spend more on their health insurance than any other state, will be moving quickly to eliminate thousands of people from receiving SNAP benefits or government-funded health insurance. Both moves rely on setting up bureaucratic roadblocks to beneficiaries affirming their eligibility status.

Taken together, the SNAP and Medicaid cutbacks will increase food insecurity among the very poor while forcing many to postpone care for their chronic diseases, which will be treated later, more expensively and with poorer outcomes, including a higher level of mortality. Allowing Medicaid to cover more people “improved health outcomes, including lower mortality rates from cancer, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, and maternal mortality,” a Kaiser Family Foundation issue brief noted in December.

Blue states are doing more to protect health

As with much of his tour to promote MAHA, which kicked off last week in Utah with Kennedy praising its governor for removing fluoride from drinking water, the HHS secretary’s visit to Indiana ignored states that are doing far more to promote the positive aspects of his agenda. Yesterday, in next door Illinois, the state senate passed a bill that would prevent foods containing four harmful additives from being sold starting in 2028. Democratic Gov. Jay Pritzker supports for the bill, which should easily pass the Democratically-controlled House.

The banned additives included brominated vegetable oil (BVO), potassium bromate and propylparaben, which having been linked to cancer or toxic effects on the heart, reproductive, and endocrine systems. Each has been banned in the European Union. The Illinois law also bans use of Red Dye #3, whose elimination starting in 2027 the Biden administration’s Food and Drug Administration finally ruled last December. The FDA concluded more than three decades ago the dye was carcinogenic.

For decades, food industry lobbying has largely paralyzed action by the scientists in the FDA’s food division, which failed to police not just food additives, but excess sugar and salt and other harmful ingredients in processed foods. The Trump administration’s massive cutbacks in personnel at the agency, and the fear that has instilled in those who remain, makes it highly unlikely the FDA will be making regulatory changes at the federal level anytime soon.

Kennedy’s heightened attention to the issue has given states political room to act. Illinois followed in the footsteps of California, which passed a similar law in 2023. Lawmakers in at least 20 states have introduced similar bills. Several, including deep Red West Virginia, are GOP-run.

Proponents are making the same argument everywhere: There are safer, less costly alternatives. After protests in Canada, Kellogg’s changed the dyes used in its Fruit Loops and Apple Jack cereals to concentrated carrot juice, watermelon juice and blueberry juice.

Major food companies, whose CEOs met recently with Kennedy, worry that there will be a patchwork quilt of state regulations that will make it difficult to market products nationally. “What’s happening in the states like Indiana is going to drive change,” he said today.

Actually, Indiana, whose farmers are leery of challenging their major customers in the food processing industry, is only going to “study” the issue. It is mostly the Democratically-run states that are taking the lead and actually doing something about it.

Merrill Goozner, the former editor of Modern Healthcare, writes about health and politics at GoozNews.substack.com, where this column first appeared. Please consider subscribing to support his work.

Reprinted with permission from Gooz News.


Mark Robinson

In North Carolina Church, GOP Candidate Says 'Some Folks Need Killing'

Republicans sure know how to pick them, huh?

In an hour-long diatribe in a church, North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. and gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson tossed aside the Ten Commandments his ilk want to install in schoolrooms. Rather than “thou shall not kill,” Robinson opined with, “Some folks need killing!”

The New Republiclistened to the whole sermon:

Robinson’s call for the “killing” of “some folks” came during an extended diatribe in which he attacked an extraordinary assortment of enemies. These ranged from “people who have evil intent” to “wicked people” to those doing things like “torturing and murdering and raping” to socialists and Communists. He also invoked those supposedly undermining America’s founding ideals and leftists allegedly persecuting conservatives by canceling them and doxxing them online.

“Kill them,” Robinson added. “Some liberal somewhere is going to say that sounds awful. Too bad. Get mad at me if you want to.”

Calls for murder don’t “sound awful,” they are awful. This is not normal, no matter how much MAGA Republicans and Donald Trump may desperately want it to be so.

This is what we’re fighting against this November.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Christine Todd Whitman

Former GOP Governor Compares Trump's Project 2025 To 'Nazi Manifesto'

In an interview earlier this week with the right-wing Real America's Voice network, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts praised the Supreme Court's Monday immunity ruling in favor of Donald Trump, and appeared to threaten violence against Democrats should the former president lose his reelection bid in November.

"In spite of all this nonsense from the left, we are going to win," Roberts said. "We're in the process of taking this country back. We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be."

Earlier this year, legal analyst and New York University professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat told MSNBC's Ali Velshi that the far-right organization's Project 2025 "would effectively transform American government from a meritocratic democracy to a regime resembling Vladimir Putin's Russia."

Months later, a former Republican leader is warning that the GOP's plan also resembles former Nazi Party Adolf Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf.

Speaking with MSNBC's Katie Phang on Wednesday, former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (R) said, "If you look at Project 2025, and compare it to the Nazis' manifesto, it's very, very scary. There's so many parallels there of what can be done, of what they're promising in 2025 to do. Do away with the justice system, basically. Get rid of all public servants, do away with actually every department and agency that provides any kind of stability for this country. It's really frightening. The people who say 'Oh, well, he'll never do that.' Why would you say that? If you believe he's gonna cut taxes, and you believe he's gonna do away with regulation, why don't you believe the rest of it? You can't have it both ways. Our democracy is teetering the brink right now."

In December, while speaking to an Iowa rally crowd, Trump denied that he'd ever read the manifesto.

ABC News reported, "Trump's denial that he had read Hitler's memoir came after he has made a series of incendiary remarks in recent weeks referring to his political opponents as 'vermin' and saying illegal immigrants are 'poisoning the blood of our country.'"

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Nevada GOP Governor Nominee Greased Donors With Millions In Contracts

Nevada GOP Governor Nominee Greased Donors With Millions In Contracts

Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, the Republican nominee for governor in Nevada, has given out tens of millions of dollars' worth of contracts from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to companies that donated to his political campaigns, according to records reviewed by the American Independent Foundation.

Since 2014, when Lombardo first ran for sheriff, at least eight donors to his campaigns have received at least $18.7 million in contracts from the LVMPD, which Lombardo oversees.

Some of the contracts have a concrete dollar amount, ranging from a few hundred thousand dollars to $17 million. Other contracts are harder to quantify because they encompass ongoing work.

Among the quantifiable contracts is a pair of agreements with Motorola that amount to nearly $17.5 million over 10 years to support the LVMPD's radio systems. Motorola, which has been reported to have a pattern of lobbying law enforcement, has donated $20,000 to Lombardo since 2013, according to filings with the Nevada secretary of state's office.

Another is a 2018 contract Lombardo petitioned for that gave $606,312 to TASER International (now known as Axon), a company that makes tasers and other weapons used by law enforcement. The CEO of the company, Patrick Smith, later donated $2,500 to Lombardo's gubernatorial bid.

In December 2017, Lombardo requested a $394,000 contract for Capriati Construction for a gun range. That contract was increased in February 2018 to $473,000 due to "safety issues." The company has given $5,000 to Lombardo's campaigns.

And in 2015, the Institute For Executive Development received a $102,000 contract for consulting work. The company, which claims to provide "executive coaching, leadership development, and strategic planning" to its clients, was founded by Rick Culley, who gave $1,200 to Lombardo in late 2014.

The other contracts appear to be lucrative as well.

On May 23, 2016, Lombardo successfully sought a five-year contract for the law firm Carbajal & McNutt LLP to represent the LVMPD in "defense of liability claims and causes of action resulting in potential liability; in contract disputes; in employment actions; in bankruptcy proceedings as the Attorney's expertise and experience may allow."

The same day the contract with the law firm was approved, Lombardo received a $3,000 donation from the firm, according to filings with the Nevada secretary of state's office. To date, the law firm and its founder, Dan McNutt, have given $6,500 to Lombardo’s political campaigns.

While it's unclear how much Carbajal & McNutt has received from the LVMPD, according to the contract, the firm receives $190 per hour for work done by partners, $160 per hour for work by associates at the firm, and $90 per hour for work done by paralegals.

Another law firm, Marquis Aurbach, donated more than $12,000 to Lombardo's campaigns. The firm, which handles "open litigation" for LVMPD, had its contract renewed for three more years at Lombardo's request in 2016.

Lombardo's campaign did not comment on the contracts and political donations to Lombardo's campaigns.

Instead, campaign spokesperson Elizabeth Ray responded to a request for comment by accusing Lombardo's opponent, incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, of being "the least ethical governor in Nevada history." Ray cited a Department of Health and Human Services investigation into a COVID-19 testing company that received millions of dollars in contracts funded by Nevada taxpayers but provided faulty test results.Sisolak has not been implicated in any wrongdoing.

Lombardo won the Republican gubernatorial primary in June, defeating a large field of candidates that included Joey Gilbert, a former boxer turned trial attorney who attended the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol; and former Sen. Dean Heller, a Republican who was cold to former President Donald Trump before deciding he was a "great leader" and losing reelection in 2018 to Democrat Jacky Rosen.

Sisolak was first elected governor in 2018, defeating Republican Adam Laxalt by four points in what was then a strong year for Democrats up and down the ballot.

In 2022, however, Democrats are expected to face headwinds: Historical trends show the party in power often experiences a backlash from voters in the first midterm election year after its candidate takes the White House.

There have been few public polls of the race, but Sisolak leads Lombardo by just 1.9 points in the FiveThirtyEight average.

Inside Elections, the nonpartisan political handicapping outlet, rates the race Tilts Democratic.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

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