Alaska Republicans are planning to spend $450,000 of tax payer money to stop Governor Walker from expanding Medicaid.

"No seriously, what in the hell is wrong with you people?"

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch: 

The Alaska Legislature on Tuesday said it will sue Gov. Bill Walker to block his move last month to expand the public Medicaid health care program without lawmakers’ approval. 

Following a private discussion Tuesday morning, a Republican-controlled House-Senate committee voted 10-1 to spend up to $450,000 on two law firms to represent the Legislature in a suit against the governor. 

In a news conference after the committee vote, Republican leaders framed their decision to challenge the governor as a constitutional one. They’re seeking an injunction to stop Medicaid expansion from going into effect Sept. 1. 

“This is not a policy issue — we’re not discussing whether we should or shouldn’t expand Medicaid,” said Senate President Kevin Meyer, R-Anchorage. “This is a question of authority and process and our constitution.”

Okay that last part is complete bullshit.

The Republicans, originally lead by ex-Governor Sean Parnell, have been trying to keep Alaskans from receiving the benefits of Obamacare ever since the program was initially put in place.

So here is Governor Walker finally helping those of us who cannot access affordable health care any other way, and the Republicans are going to spend OUR tax dollars to stop him.

You know sometimes I really hate living here.

John Oliver takes on overly expensive stadiums and you may never be able to watch sports the same way again.

Courtesy of The Verge:  

This week, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver tapped into the angst of the many American cities on the verge of losing their professional sports teams over stadium negotiations. Owners of football teams currently in St. Louis, San Diego, and Oakland are angling to make a move to Los Angeles, and they're leveraging the potential departure locally for taxpayer support of new or improved stadiums in their current municipalities. As Oliver makes clear, this strategy often leads to the comically vile scenario in which billionaires demand that cities provide hundreds of millions of dollars to appease privately owned teams that charge many of those same taxpayers hundreds of dollars for tickets.

Okay I have to admit that I did not know any of this.

Of course I live in Alaska and we really don't have any sports stadiums, or local teams worth buying a ticket to see. (And please don't bother mentioning the Alaska Aces or the Anchorage Glacier Pilots, because that would just be embarrassing yourself.)

And now that I have seen this report from John Oliver, I think not having a sports team worthy of building a stadium to see is probably a good thing for Alaska.

Hey you know all those awesome patriotic celebrations at NFL games? Well your taxes paid for those.

Courtesy of PBS: 

The United States Department of Defense paid the National Football League more than $5 million in taxpayer money between 2011 to 2014 to honor U.S. soldiers and veterans at games, an investigation revealed this week. 

Nearly $5.4 million was given to 14 NFL teams across the country, the bulk of which ($5.3 million) was supplied by the National Guard and the rest paid by the Army and Air Force, according to government records obtained by NJ.com. 

But instead of purely heartfelt salutes to soldiers from hometown football teams, the halftime segments were reportedly part of paid promotions under federal advertising contracts for the military. 

Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) called out the spending as an “egregious and unnecessary waste of taxpayer dollars.” 

‘Those of us go to sporting events and see them honoring the heroes; you get a good feeling in your heart,” Sen. Flake told NJ.com. “Then to find out they’re doing it because they’re compensated for it, it leaves you underwhelmed. It seems a little unseemly.”

Well now I just feel dirty. 

Okay here's the thing, I know this report only covers the years between 2011 and 2014, but does anybody really think this program started at that time?

I would suggest that this has been going on for quite some time.

I would also suggest that if the government pays the NFL this kind of money to promote the military that it is highly likely there is tax payer money flowing to other places to promote them as well.

Such as, oh I don't know, certain cable outlets? The budgets of pro-military Hollywood movies perhaps? Or how about former politicians turned reality show personalities?

That would explain some things, wouldn't it?

All I know is that now when I see what appears to be a spontaneous celebration of our American troops. my first thought will be, "Gee I wonder how much THEY were paid?"

Chris Christie spent over $82,000 of tax payer money on snacks at football games.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:  

New Jersey governor Chris Christie is a big football fan, but he is also apparently a big fan of snacks at football stadiums. According to New Jersey Watchdog, Christie reportedly spent over $82,000 of taxpayer money on concessions at MetLife Stadium. 

Christie paid for food and drinks at MetLife with a debit card 58 times over the 2010 and 2011 NFL seasons, accruing a bill of $82,594. That means he spent an average of nearly $1,500 on food and drinks every time he attended a football game.

Apparently the money came out of a $95,000  fund he is given quarterly to be "used for official receptions on behalf of the state, the operation of an official residence, for other expenses."

He gets $95,000 every three months? That is $390,000 annually. And he spends this much of it for food at football games?

How many hot dogs can one man eat?

I used to simply think we could not afford to have Chris Christie in the White House due to his abrasive nature, slippery relationship with the truth, and his conservative politics.

But now I wonder if we could even afford to feed him if he were the President of the United States.

By the way the Washington Post suggests several ways that Christie could have better spent that $82,594.

Texas is now heavily funding anti-Abortion clinics with tax dollars, while slashing the funding of actual health clinics that offer access to abortions, or even counseling which includes that option.

Courtesy of The Austin Chronicle:  

Persuading women to "choose life" is the core mission of Austin LifeCare; in fact, under the terms of their state funding as well as their stated mission, the center cannot refer clients for an abortion, no matter if their clients need or request the service. Despite the religious overtones, overt anti-choice agenda, and documented claims of dispersing medical inaccuracies, LifeCare and 24 other "crisis pregnancy centers" – from Dallas to Houston – are generously subsidized by the state of Texas. And even as the women's health network drastically erodes at the hands of conservative lawmakers, taxpayer dollars to CPCs stand to receive an unprecedented increase in funding this legislative session. 

Texas crisis pregnancy centers – pseudo-clinics designed to discourage abortion – have seen an infusion of taxpayer funding over the years, beginning with a 2005 effort by Republican legislators who succeeded in diverting funding intended to assist low-income households into the "Alternatives to Abortion" program. Former state Sen. Tommy Williams, R-Woodlands, initiated a new program redirecting $5 million of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funding to instead offer "pregnancy support services that promote childbirth," underwriting organizations that do not refer clients to any group that provides abortions. In following sessions, lawmakers redirected funding dedicated to family planning into the Alternatives program. 

In each subsequent session, lawmakers have maintained or increased funding for the Alternatives to Abortion program – starting with $2.5 million in 2008, steadily rising to $5.15 million allocated for 2015 – while deeply slashing family planning funds and otherwise blocking women's access to health care. For example, in 2011: As conservatives cut the family planning budget by $74 million (two-thirds of the previous allotment) and blocked state dollars to Planned Parenthood, they simultaneously raised funding for the unregulated, unlicensed CPCs. By the Department of State Health Services' own estimation, some 180,000 women lost access to basic care each year following the cuts as 82 state-funded family planning clinics eventually closed their doors or stopped offering services.

Not only has reduced funding put some low income women in a desperate situation, the anti-abortion clinics are spreading dangerous misinformation.

One oft-perpetuated falsehood espoused by CPC counselors is a purported link between breast cancer and abortion (long discredited by the National Cancer Institute, and other medical authorities) found in the state-funded "Woman's Right to Know" pamphlet, which also propagates the notion that abortion causes psychological trauma to women or "post-abortion stress syndrome" (a condition not recognized by the American Psychological Association). Some CPCs even linked abortion, incorrectly, to a higher death rate, all to dissuade women from undergoing the procedure. "CPCs frequently use lies, deception, and intimidation to achieve their end goal," said Heather Busby, executive director of NARAL-Texas. 

One investigator was falsely informed she would be four times more likely to die in months following an abortion, while another was told she would be eight times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer. "Those are crazy, false statistics. That's not true by any stretch of the imagination, and they don't even have a fake study to support it," said Busby. Instances of victim blaming (in sexual assault scenarios) and refraining from discussing contraception altogether – or claiming contraceptives are ineffective at preventing pregnancy – also made the list of CPC strategies. 

One CPC tactic, in particular, has the potential to place pregnant clients' health at risk; delaying doctors' visits and ultrasound appointments are integral to the CPC strategy. Counselors assure clients they have ample time to decide whether they want an abortion, while pushing visits further into the future – making pregnancy increasingly irreversible. As costs associated with abortion increase after the first trimester, and the procedure itself has been made illegal after 20 weeks of pregnancy, the delay can add substantial barriers to access.

 Just a reminder that Texas conservatives see women as nothing more than baby factories, and idolize the fetus. Yet of course after the fetus is born and becomes a child suddenly Texas has more important things to do rather than provide access to necessary medical or child care.

The idea that red state tax dollars pay for blue state social programs, is in no way supported by the actual data.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

One of the most hilarious talking points coming from far-right Republicans and the Tea Party is that when “red states” like Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana are asked to bail out California or Massachusetts, that’s when they will finally become “fed up with socialism” and secede from the Union once and for all. 

The problem with that meme is that it has no basis in reality: the more prosperous and Democrat-leaning areas of the United States are likely to be subsidizing dysfunctional “red states,” many of which are suffering from insufficient tax revenue and an abundance of low-wage workers who don’t have much to tax. Tea Party Republicans like to point out that poor cities like Detroit, Baltimore and Camden, New Jersey are run by Democrats, but they neglect to mention that some of the most affluent parts of the United States—from Manhattan to the Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area to Cambridge, MA to Seattle to Chicago’s North Shore suburbs—are dominated by the Democratic Party. People in those heavily Democratic areas pay a lot of federal income taxes, and quite often, their tax dollars go to red states.

Raw Story then lists the ten worst offenders, including Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Indiana, Montana, South Carolina, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and of course Alaska.

Concerning Alaska they have this to say:  

Alaska didn’t become part of the U.S. until 1959, and since then, it has gone Republican in every presidential race except 1964 (when Alaska favored Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson over Republican Barry Goldwater). A bastion of hard-right politics, Alaska is the state where Sarah Palin was elected governor in 2006. But when it comes to “small government,” Alaska Republicans don’t practice what they preach: according to WalletHub, Alaska receives $1.42 from the federal government for every dollar it contributes. Tax Foundation’s research showed Alaska receiving $1.93 from Uncle Sam for every dollar paid in. Alaska Republicans love to rail against the federal government, but the reality is that Alaska needs federal tax revenue badly in order to function. 

Alaska is infamous for its harsh winters, which put considerable wear and tear on the state’s infrastructure—and the money for that much upkeep and maintenance has to come from somewhere. That somewhere is Boston, Santa Monica, Brooklyn, Seattle and all the other places that are full of upscale Democrats Palin considers “un-American.”

Still burns my ass that my state is now synonymous with Sarah Palin, and Tea Party politics.  However they are not wrong that we are indeed parasites feeding off the largess of America's tax payers.

And in years past we were well aware of that fact, and grateful for the support.

Ted Stevens did not typically rail against big government, but instead made sure that when money was doled out that Alaska was at the top of the list. In fact for a time he was the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and made sure that Alaska got more than its fair share of federal moneys.

He was famous for working the system, not working against it. And in those days Senator Frank Murkowski, and Rep. Don Young were working right along with him toward that same goal.

However it must be remembered that this state is only one year older than I am. So it is, by comparison, only in its infancy. (Much like I am.) Hopefully when we reach our teen years we will become more capable, and finally get off our lethargic asses and start contributing a our fair share to this country.

However until then, much like Tennessee, Mississippi, and Montana we need to shut the fuck up about reducing the size of government and start demonstrating more respect for our federal sugar daddies.