"All Politics Is Local": from your house to

Yeah: local as you want, but let's try to keep it outside the Beltway, unless that's your hood.
This is a bit sweeping, but might as well start here, getting more local as it goes along, at least in intent:

INSURERS ON DEFENSE — Foreign-based insurers are getting a taste of the anti-ESG medicine that Republican policymakers have been serving to U.S. financial firms, and they’re clearly not enjoying it.

European insurers are pulling out of the UN-convened Net-Zero Insurance Alliance over concerns that red states’ antitrust allegations could hurt their businesses. Bloomberg reported Wednesday that the group was holding a meeting to discuss recent departures, a week after 23 Republican attorneys general sent letters to members of the group raising antitrust concerns.

The UN is pushing back: “Regardless of the situation, UNEP reaffirms its conviction ever since it initiated, convened, and launched the NZIA — that in order to successfully tackle the climate emergency, there is a fundamental and urgent need for collaboration, not just individual action,” the UN Environment Programme said Wednesday.

And regardless of the legal merits of the antitrust argument, it makes sense that insurers would be spooked in the same vein as Vanguard, which pulled out of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative last year in the wake of similar threats. They may be worried about jeopardizing their business in the U.S., one lawyer said.

“There’s a new cost to these initiatives that I think people are now starting to factor in and wonder if they are worthwhile,” said Lance Dial, a partner with K&L Gates’ asset management and investment funds practice. “There was a thinking three years ago that this was a great Good Housekeeping seal of approval…. But now there’s a downside that’s become very apparent with the U.S. state actions.”

Meanwhile, the medicine continues being spooned out in Texas, as Jordan reports. The state Legislature sent Gov. Greg Abbott (R) a bill this week that would bar insurers in the state from considering environmental, social and governance factors in setting rates.

It’d be the first anti-ESG bill to go after the insurance industry. Environmentalists aren’t sure how it would actually work, but the intent is clear.

“It’s very difficult to evaluate what this law would actually do because it appears to ban a practice that insurance companies aren’t actually undertaking,” said Jordan Haedtler, a consultant with the Sunrise Project. “That said, I don’t want to suggest that the bill has no impact whatsoever, because I do think it is still sending a clear signal to insurance companies that they should ignore risk factors that are material to their business.”

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/the-long-game/2023/05/26/insurers-retreat-under-anti-esg-fire-00099007

wtf is ESG

^ that. Also have fun living during the climate crisis w/o insurance

have fun living during the climate crisis w/o insurance

Lotta stories coming out of Florida about people's premiums quadrupling pre-renewal, or companies simply not offering property insurance anymore.

ESG unpacked:

The state Legislature sent Gov. Greg Abbott (R) a bill this week that would bar insurers in the state from considering environmental, social and governance factors in setting rates.

Word.

Also, this doesn't have to be US-only local.

simply not offering property insurance anymore

fire insurance in California is being dropped everywhere
Earthquake is handled by a state-run agency

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signs legislation freeing up child labor:

“With this legislation Iowa joins 20 other states in providing tailored, common sense labor provisions that allow young adults to develop their skills in the workforce..”

Well, tbf, proponents point with pride to this new restriction:

...a provision that eliminates exemptions previously allowing children under the age of 14 to work, including selling newspapers and other items door-to-door.

Otherwise:

Under the newly signed law, 14- and 15-year-olds are allowed to work two additional hours per day when school is in session, from four to six hours. They are also able to work until 9 p.m. during most of the year and until 11 p.m. from June 1 to Labor Day, two hours later than previously allowed. Sixteen- and 17-year-olds are now permitted to work the same hours as an adult.

The law also allows teens as young as 16 to serve alcohol in restaurants during the hours food is being served if their employer has written permission from their parent or guardian. It also requires that two adults be present while the teen serves alcohol and for the teen to complete “training on prevention and response to sexual harassment.”

Among the expanded employment opportunities outlined under the new law, 14- and 15-year-olds would be able to do certain types of work in industrial laundry services and in freezers and meat coolers – areas that were previously prohibited.

The law also gives authority to the directors of the education and workforce development departments to provide an exception to the work hours and some of the prohibited work activities to teens 16 and older who are enrolled in a qualified work-based learning program.

The law is part of a broader effort by states to roll back child labor laws. Arkansas’s governor signed a bill in March that allows youth under the age of 16 to be employed without a work certificate, and New Jersey and New Hampshire have enacted laws to extend work hours. Several states, including Minnesota and Missouri, have also recently introduced similar bills, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Also some v sweeping changes in education law, beyond the headlines even:
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2023/05/26/iowa-governor-kim-reynolds-signs-law-to-ban-school-books-with-sex-acts-gender-identity-lgbtq/70147865007/

xp Andy -- there was a long article years back (maybe in like SF Bay Guardian or SF Weekly) about the absurdity of earthquake insurance in CA, in that (at the time) it was either prohibitively expensive or covered nothing really. But yeah, it's like the rest of the country is now experiencing something that California dealt with for decades.

wtf is ESG

― broken breakbeat (sleeve), Friday, May 26, 2023 3:03 PM (yesterday)

sorry ... had to do it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_tZqYMDTvI

Also have fun living during the climate crisis w/o insurance

― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Friday, May 26, 2023 3:07 PM (yesterday)

idk ... where I live "the climate crisis" is less of a concern than crime. The people who are concerned about the fire threat to their property are mostly the rich people in the hills. And there are actually different building/planning codes in that area to mitigate risk, as opposed to the rest of the city

Going more national for a sec, since we're talking woke insurance carpetbaggers and "climate change,"
maybe this will get funded, for a while:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) say they will create a research center that focuses on bringing climate change data to the insurance industry.
It's not that insurance companies aren't already considering climate change. "Insurers are incredibly sophisticated around trying to understand physical climate risk," says Sarah Kapnick, NOAA's chief scientist.

But, Kapnick says, the methods that insurers currently use to figure out how much to charge for a property insurance policy don't typically include detailed, long-term projections about how the climate will change in the future. Instead, companies rely on information about what has happened in the past: how frequently hurricanes have caused flooding, for example, or how hot the weather gets in August.

The problem is that the future, and even the present, no longer look like the past. Large hurricanes that used to be infrequent are getting more common. The hottest days are often beyond what anyone has ever experienced.
...The goal of the new research center will be to make detailed federal climate data available to insurance companies so they can use climate science to look into the future.

In the coming months, the National Science Foundation will choose one or more universities to lead the center. Academic researchers, graduate students and federal scientists will work with insurers and reinsurers to make scientific information about climate change accessible to insurance companies, NOAA says.

This type of collaboration between universities, government scientists and companies is not limited to climate science. The NSF oversees more than 70 such centers, including in agriculture, materials science and transportation.

From the Alabama Reflector, a good source for state, regional, sometimes national news sites, here's excerpt of commentary by publisher-editor Brian Lyman:

We’re going to interrupt the jeremiads of this space for some good news.

Back in February, I wrote about Arthur Madison. For those who don’t remember, Madison was an attorney who Alabama disbarred in 1944 — on highly questionable grounds — after he tried to register Black voters in Montgomery.

“If you’re a lawyer, that is the ultimate disgrace,” says his great-nephew, Quinton Seay.

But refusing to acknowledge defeat, Madison came back and helped register hundreds of Black men and women on the voter rolls. Rosa Parks asked him to be present when she registered to vote in 1945.

Madison died in 1957. The state of Alabama still lists him as disbarred.

That may be about to change.
This month, Madison was inducted into the Alabama State Bar’s Hall of Fame. The citation praises Madison for his voting rights work, his educational attainments and his entrepreneurial spirit.

Seay, an attorney in Atlanta, accepted the award. Seay told me last week that the honor, while appreciated, sparked some questions.

“Folks in the family immediately said, ‘How can they induct him into the Hall of Fame while he’s still disbarred?’” he said.

Seay is working on that.

Quinton Seay comes from a long line of civil rights heroes. His grandfather, Solomon Seay Sr., was Madison’s brother-in-law and attended his trial in 1944. Later, Seay played a major role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and sheltered the Freedom Riders from a white mob. White thugs later shot at Seay, hitting his wrist, but he survived.

His father, Solomon Seay Jr., worked alongside Fred Gray. He provided legal counsel to the Freedom Riders; secured the Selma-to-Montgomery march and fought for compensation for the victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.

To Quinton Seay, Madison called Alabama to live by the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

“What he was trying to do was protect the Constitution,” he said. “That’s what he was trying to do. He believed in the Constitution, regardless of how Black folk had been treated. He was trying to ensure this country lives up to the principles in those two documents.”

Seay said he plans to file a petition this summer — perhaps in late July or early August — to restore Madison’s law license. He said he heard encouragement from other judges and attorneys at the Hall of Fame ceremony.

Pt 2: Why Madison Matters

You may ask what the point of all this is. Madison has been dead for more than 60 years.

Slavery and legal segregation are gone, but the wounds it inflicted on this state — in education, in health care and in economic attainments — are still open. What does a gesture like this do to fix all that?

Seay says it would be a sign of reconciliation, and that it would send a message that Alabama is trying to move on from its awful past.

“It shouldn’t have taken this much time, but it says the state fixed this situation and restored his bar license,” he says.

I’d add this. In a time when we have to seriously consider the possibility of authoritarians capturing the federal government, Madison gives me hope.

Despair is hard to keep at bay when a shift of a few thousand votes in a single state could mean pointless suffering for any number of people.

So we stay on edge. We mumble “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance” under our breath, the way my mother would pray the Rosary. We hear, over and over again, that evil triumphs when good people do nothing.

But what happens when good people do something?

What happens when a person fights for basic decency, scorning the danger and the long odds of success?

Arthur Madison didn’t break Jim Crow or voter suppression in 1944, or in any of his subsequent trips to the state.

But he made it harder for the oppressors.

White registrars who had casually denied Black Montgomerians the right to vote suddenly had to face the possibility of a lawsuit for their racism. Slowly, and without abandoning the basic discriminatory patterns, they started registering obviously qualified Black residents. By 1953, there were enough registered Black voters in the city to elect a racial liberal (for the time) to the city commission.

Most importantly, Madison’s work drew other courageous people. Parks. E.D. Nixon. Solomon Seay Sr. These three played major roles in organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which — through 382 difficult and often terrifying days — set Jim Crow on the road to extinction.

It’s easy to give into despair when the powerful seem so deaf to the calls of citizens and so stubbornly determined to hurt people who lack their wealth, connections or resources. The Alabama House and Senate do their work in front of public galleries that are sealed behind soundproof glass.

But think of all the people who have assembled at the Statehouse over the last two decades.

Former inmates and their families. People struggling with health bills. Immigrants trying to live in peace. Women demanding to be treated as American citizens.

Just last week, LGBTQ Alabamians, facing an avalanche of hateful legislation, rallied to demand the respect due to them. And Chinese Alabamians spoke out against a paranoid law that would have prevented them from owning property in the state.

All saying, firmly and unmistakably, that they will not meekly submit to the decisions of the powerful.

I don’t know what the future holds. But history tells us that these efforts are never in vain. Arthur Madison’s brave stand rippled forward in ways he could not have imagined.

Courage echoes far beyond the limits of a human life. So too will the work of the brave men and women who stand up for their fellow Alabamians. Like Madison, they show us a better future.

trending: baby boxes---in Tennessee, for instance.
from an article by Ella Wales---

KNOXVILE, Tenn. (WATE) – Tennessee’s first Safe Haven Baby Box was used for the first time early Saturday morning according to the Knoxville Fire Department.

The box was installed in February at Knoxville Fire Department Station 17 on Western Avenue. Shortly after midnight Saturday, three crew members responded to the box after the alarm was set off.

hey found an uninjured baby boy inside, who appeared to be approximately 30 minutes old. The firefighters called an ambulance to transport the baby to the hospital.

Assistant Chief Mark Wilbanks with KFD said they are grateful to be able to help children and parents in crisis.
“The whole purpose of this box is to be a resource for our community, that a mother or a parent that is in crisis and doesn’t know what to do with a child, has a place to go,” Wilbanks said.

He said not only does the box provide a safe place for the child, but also resources for the parent. There is a bag inside the box that has information about resources for the parent that they can take with them.
...“When they close the door, it takes just a minute for the station to be alerted, that’s the anonymity part of the box itself, it does not immediately alert us to the fact that there’s a baby in the box, and that gives the person time to leave the fire station without us knowing who they were,” Wilbanks said.
The box is weight sensitive and has a magnetic, automatic lock that activates when something is placed inside.
“Once the baby’s placed in the box, it’s safe inside of a bassinet, the box is heated to roughly 85 degrees, and then within a few minutes, the station is alerted through our alarm system that there is a baby in the box,” Wilbanks said.

Tennessee is expected to have more safe haven baby boxes soon.

brb optioning the story of the firemen who raised a baby

would this be the place to talk about the catholic cult in my neighborhood? i can link to news stories if necessary

When I read the phrase "baby box" I thought of the box of stuff-a-newborn-baby-needs that they give all new moms in Finland.

This is Tennland, son.
xpost Heez, please(do that)!

(30 minutes old, already in the box?)

the story is old: https://www.npr.org/2017/04/10/522714982/catholics-build-intentional-community-of-like-minded-believers

there's a new yorker one too that's mostly a profile of Rod Dreher. i posted the npr one because my oldest child is in it. you can barely see his head. he was around 5 months then. the neighbor catholic lady holding him had answered our desperate message board post because my wife's maternity leave was ending and we couldn't get in a daycare. she said she watched her two boys full time and was happy to watch our son for an affordable daily rate. everyday we picked him up we asked what they did that day and she never mentioned going to a house full of catholic moms and paying over the rosary (this was pre-covid).

one day, maybe 3 weeks in, my wife came home early and wanted to pick our son up early. she called the lady but no answer. called a coupe more times still no answer, so she decided to walk over and see if they were at the house. their home was maybe 3 blocks away, small front yard with a porch not far from the sidewalk. when she got there my son was in his car seat on the porch and the lady's two little boys were playing in the yard (3,5). the door to the house was shut and no lady in sight. she sat there for 5-10 minutes to see if she would come out and finally her kid ran in and told her my wife was outside.

thankfully my mom came up and was able to watch him until we found a nanny share situation. a week or so later my wife was driving into work listening to npr and they teased the story about our neighborhood right before she walked into the office. she looked online later and there's our boy looking like some baptized child

they keep coming to the neighborhood now, these young preppy 30 somethings with no less than 5 kids. Catholic University is nearby and it used to be on the cheap side for the DC area. my neighbor is a federalist society lawyer and his buddy who actually seems like a slightly bigtime-for-his-age federalist society lawyer is attempting to buy my next door neighbor's house

Yipes, that all sounds creepy. The daycare story is terrible!

Yeah, so sorry about that, Heez.
Speaking of The New Yorker, this is what the Knoxville report reminded me of---from "Amy Coney Barrett's Long Game," by Margaret Talbot, this is about oral arguments before overturning Roe:

Barrett devoted more of her time to a line of questioning that was not especially jurisprudential—and not one which any other Justice likely would have pursued. Speaking politely, in her youthful-sounding voice, she began asking about “safe haven” laws, which allow a person who has just given birth to leave the baby—anonymously, with no questions asked—at a fire station or some other designated spot. States began passing such legislation in 1999. (Some legislators found the idea appealing partly because it was about saving babies and partly because—unlike programs that subsidize child care or help beleaguered parents in many other ways—safe havens generally cost little to set up.) Barrett seemed to be implying that such laws posed a feasible alternative to abortion. In a colloquy with Julie Rikelman, who represented Jackson Women’s Health Organization—the only abortion clinic in Mississippi—Barrett noted that safe-haven laws existed in all fifty states, adding, “Both Roe and Casey emphasize the burdens of parenting, and, insofar as you . . . focus on the ways in which forced parenting, forced motherhood, would hinder women’s access to the workplace and to equal opportunities, it’s also focussed on the consequences of parenting and the obligations of motherhood that flow from pregnancy. Why don’t the safe-haven laws take care of that problem?” Pregnancy itself, Barrett went on, might impose a temporary burden on the mother, but if you could relinquish the baby you could avoid the burden of parenthood. And, in a peculiar sideswipe, she described pregnancy as “an infringement on bodily autonomy . . . like vaccines,” a comment that seemingly built on anti-vaxxers’ appropriation of pro-choice rhetoric to make a novel suggestion: that being required by your employer to get a shot against a deadly communicable disease is somehow equivalent to being forced to give birth.

brb optioning the story of the firemen who raised a baby

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, May 29, 2023 7:52 PM (yesterday)

cool, i'm optioning the story of the firemen who found a human head in the baby box

Wait, what if they're related? Part heartwarming firehouse baby comedy, part serial-killer thriller. With Christina Applegate as the fire chief.

I must insist that Timothy Olyphant is involved

This is cool:

Utah parent upset by book bans gets Bible pulled from school shelves to expose ‘bad faith process’

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/utah-parent-upset-book-bans-gets-bible-pulled-school-shelves-expose-ba-rcna87450

SCOTUS thread may well have this, but can't resist because holy shit on two counts:

Supreme Court backs landmark voting rights law, strikes down Alabama congressional map
The justices threw out Republican-drawn congressional districts that a lower court said discriminated against Black voters.

...In the ruling, Roberts, writing for the majority, said a lower court had correctly concluded that the congressional map violated the voting rights law.

In 2013, Roberts authored a ruling that gutted a separate, important provision of the Voting Rights Act and has long argued that various government efforts to address historic racial discrimination are problematic and may exacerbate the situation.

So, first of all, it's my home state, and yet, second, I'm still amazed that the law is so brazenly bad that even Roberts rules against it.(He and Kavanaugh concurred with the three liberals.) Like when Trump was busted for housing discrimation by Nixon's Justice Dept., and then, even more unlikely, by Reagan's. Like when Saddam sent out that memo, later found while looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction, warning his lieutenants that Bin Laden was a very bad man. Like---?!

sorry, here's link: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-strikes-alabama-congressional-map-voting-rights-dispute-rcna64476

Looking forward to the Kidz Bop "Do They Owe Us a Wivving?"

You are a subtle poster, Ne, but I think I get your drift: Roberts is waiting for the cleaned-up (acceptably/non-woke-threateningly fucked up) version of this map.

one more today, can't resist:

Illinois set to become first state to end book bans
Governor JB Pritzker expected to sign bill that would block state funding for public libraries and schools that ban books

So it's a ban ban?

Given the proliferation of laws that block bans and laws that prohibit the blocking of bans I, for one, cannot wait until we reach the sacred four-level anti-ban-anti-ban law that prohibits the blocking of a ban on the ban on blocking something.

Move aside, and let the ban through
You gotta take the elevator to the mezzanine
anti-ban ban anti-ban ban anti-ban ban

*ban go through -- :(

LOCAL
Satanic Temple, Hindu leaders speak out after religious charter school vote

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said approval of this type of application that is overtly religious in its teachings and operations will set a precarious precedent.

“While many Oklahomans undoubtedly support charter schools sponsored by various Christian faiths, the precedent created by approval of the … application will compel approval of similar applications by all faiths,” Drummond wrote. “I doubt most Oklahomans would want their tax dollars to fund a religious school whose tenets are diametrically opposed to their own faith. Unfortunately, the approval of a charter school by one faith will compel the approval of charter schools by all faiths, even those most Oklahomans would consider reprehensible and unworthy of public funding.”

His wife was even worse:

Two Grade 4 girls accused of being boys or trans at Kelowna track and field event

https://oaklandside.org/2023/06/14/sideshow-ordinance-spectators-alameda-county/

“Sideshow” implies a carnival or circus to me. Is this local slang?

Think people acting out Fast and Furious car stunts

Doing donuts, but with guns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLvlGVNInw4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4d7UwaNrIQ

new terminology to me too but here's info

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow_(automobile_exhibition)

those two videos are a good primer -- i had forgotten how fun the Mistah FAB video was!

The U.S. Supreme Court shot down a controversial legal theory that could have changed the way elections are run across the country but left the door open to more limited challenges that could increase its role in deciding voting disputes during the 2024 presidential election.
...“They’ve rejected a lot of the extreme stuff, but there is still a lot of room for ideological and partisan judging to come into play,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California Los Angeles who filed an amicus brief in the case urging the court to reject the theory across the board.

Conservatives who had advocated for limits on the role of state courts in federal elections agreed with Hasen that the court didn’t settle the question of when, precisely, state courts need to stay out of federal elections. The issue may only get resolved in a last-minute challenge during the presidential election, they warned.

“Unfortunately, it’s going to be 2024 on the emergency docket,” said Jason Torchinsky, a Republican attorney who filed an amicus brief urging the court to adopt a more limited version of the theory.

The high court this week will decide whether to hear another case that touches on similar issues, an appeal by Ohio Republican lawmakers of a pair of state supreme court rulings directing them to draw fair congressional maps. The issue could come up in other cases where a state supreme court overturns congressional maps, such as in Wisconsin, where Democrats hope a new liberal majority on that state supreme court will reverse what they claim is a Republican gerrymander there.

Stir-fry battle cry:

The battle over gas stoves started with efforts to curb climate change and air pollution. But it’s morphed into a debate about flame-seared burgers and the perfect stir-fry.

As Democratic-led cities and states work to ban natural gas hookups in new buildings, professional chefs and home cooks are wrestling with the fossil fuel’s role in American cooking, writes David Iaconangelo .

“If a dish has grill marks on it, it’s tougher to do that with electricity,” said Mike Whatley, vice president of state affairs for the National Restaurant Association.

Gas stoves emit benzene — a carcinogen — and contribute to fossil fuel use in buildings, which accounts for a sizable chunk of the country’s planet-warming emissions. But many in the restaurant industry insist cooking with gas is necessary for quality food.

Earlier this year, the California Restaurant Association used that argument to successfully petition the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to strike down Berkeley’s gas ban in new buildings. (The ban remains in effect as the city’s lawyers push for a rehearing on the decision).

#NotAllChefs. Some chefs dismiss the necessity of gas for fine cooking. Martin Yan, a restaurateur and host of the long-standing PBS television show “Yan Can Cook,” said it’s more about using the right equipment.

Stir-fry battle cry

Russians in Afghanistan

We didn't start the fryer

(#onethread)

Earlier this year, the California Restaurant Association used that argument to successfully petition the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to strike down Berkeley’s gas ban in new buildings.

this only applies to new construction ... though, I think they might apply it in cases of converting older buildings to new uses if new service had to be installed? Though the thing is, they could just go on a case-by-case basis and ask for AMMRs and offer other environmental benefits to offset the gas service ... or just say, "hey can we modify the code to exclude commercial kitchens, but still leave the ban in place on residential use" ...

Okay I don't need continual recognition from the ilxverse. I am and will be fine. But I will go to my grave thinking "we didn't start the fryer" was at least B+ pun making, fu if u disagree

it was good, you're fine. sorry I failed to acknowledge it, the article that inspired it is literally very close to home.

"Shut-down" a (chronologically, at least) brief delay, but I did not see this coming:

Before the parade started, LGBTQ+ members of Just Stop Oil called on organisers to condemn new oil, gas and coal licences.

"These partnerships embarrass the LGBTQ+ community at a time when much of the cultural world is rejecting ties to these toxic industries," they said in a statement.

LGBTQ+ people are "suffering first" in the "accelerating social breakdown" caused by climate change, they added.

The "suffering first" part, that is.

This isn't quite local to me, but Nashville's close enough. I don't know what Freddie O'Connell's chances are in the Nashville mayoral race, it's a crowded field with several well-funded candidates. But this is a good ad for a local progressive candidate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYwfnpT8j0g

Yeah, looking good there, tipsy, always good to know about such candidates here in the South, especially.

LONDON — According to committed conspiracy theorist and climate change skeptic Linda Skinner, the Covid-19 pandemic was just the start of the global elite’s effort to oppress the world.

What’s the shadowy cabal’s next goal? Take away your car, the Londoner said.

While there is no evidence such a plan exists, Skinner is part of a growing group that evolved out of anti-vaccine protests and has energized a campaign against environmental measures across Britain and elsewhere. Many of these fears are generalized into opposition to “15-minute cities,” an urban planning idea designed to reduce traffic and increase walking and cycling that has become an obsession of the post-pandemic protest movement.

“This is only the beginning,” said Skinner, 64, who works at a jewelers and believes Covid was developed and released by a shadowy and powerful group “as a trial to see how compliant people would be.”

The April demonstration was a protest against Mayor Sadiq Khan’s plan to charge people if they drove older, more polluting cars anywhere in the Greater London area.

Drivers already have to pay £12.50 ($15.50) to drive high-polluting vehicles, typically older diesel cars, in central boroughs, and beginning in August this will apply to all of Greater London, a huge geographic area.

Line item vetoes! Some bad calls, but also:

The governor also rejected the legislature's attempt to bar local regulation of tobacco products and alternative nicotine products, which presumably would have wiped out the city of Columbus' restrictions.

"Tobacco and alternative nicotine products also have a direct impact on increasing health care costs for all Ohioans," said DeWine, a longtime opponent of tobacco use, especially among youth.

"Worse yet, the marketing of flavored tobacco products often targets children," he added. "In the absence of an effective and comprehensive statewide flavored tobacco ban (including menthol) — which is this administration’s preferred policy approach — local government bans are essential because they reduce access to flavored tobacco and nicotine alternative products and interrupt the cycle of addiction.

"The removal of local regulation would encourage youth nicotine addiction and immediately undo years of progress to improve public health, which is why a similar provision was previously vetoed."

The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network had called on DeWine to veto that provision, saying, "Amid the growing youth tobacco epidemic, we need local laws to protect our kids, not state interference."

Just five states — California, Colorado, Washington, Minnesota and Oregon — have worker heat protections on the books. There is no occupational heat rule at the federal level, though one is in the early stages of development.

Also from that (note to self):

"By the time you start experiencing the symptoms of heat stress, you're on the way to some very dangerous medical conditions," said Debbie Berkowitz, a worker safety and health policy expert at Georgetown University and former chief of staff at the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Fun fact, I went to high school with Debbie Berkowitz

What I think of as the Local aspect of this shows up in bold:

Sánchez’s tricky road to victory after shock Spanish election result
The Socialist may remain prime minister if he can cobble together enough support from wildly different political groups.

BY AITOR HERNÁNDEZ-MORALES
JULY 24, 2023

...The inconclusive national vote resulted in a split parliament with no clear governing majority. The center-right Popular Party secured the most votes, but it doesn’t have nearly enough seats to form a government on its own or even with the far-right Vox party, its preferred coalition partner.

On Sunday night, conservative leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo said he would attempt to form a minority government and demanded “no one be tempted to blockade Spain.”
But in parliamentary democracies like Spain, the head of government isn’t necessarily the person who wins the most votes in the election, but rather the one who can secure the support of the greatest share of MPs — and right now Feijóo does not have the backing needed to make his candidacy for prime minister viable.

Socialist leader and current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, meanwhile, has a possible — though extremely complex — route to victory.

Sánchez’s Socialists and his preferred partners, Yolanda Díaz’s left-wing Sumar coalition, control 153 seats in parliament. Although the left-wing allies are unlikely to secure the backing of the 176 MPs needed for Sánchez to be confirmed as prime minister the first time the new parliament votes on the matter, they could make a bid during the second round of voting, in which the candidate to head the new government must receive more yeas than nays.

But Sánchez will have to move quickly to prove his bid to stay in power is realistic.
...In the days following the start of the new parliamentary session, Spain’s King Felipe VI will summon the leaders of the political groups for consultations at Zarzuela Palace and quiz them on who they think has the most support to form a government.

Feijóo will press his case and insist that, as the leader of the party that received the most votes, he should be named the candidate for the next prime minister.
While thus far Spain’s prime minister has indeed always been the politician who garnered the most votes in the election, Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III university, said the king’s responsibility would be to entrust the formation of a new government to whichever leader can show they have the backing to overcome the key investiture votes in the Spanish parliament.

“The king is cautious and will follow the rules set out in the constitution,” Simón said. “In other words, he’ll order a government from the person whose candidacy is viable.”

So Sánchez will need to ensure that when he shows up at Zarzuela Palace, he does so with a convincing list of supporters, preferably with several other party leaders openly indicating their willingness to back his candidacy.

...This time around, Sánchez will need Basque and Catalan separatist groups like EH Bildu and the Republican Left of Catalonia to vote in favor of his candidacy. He’ll also need to convince Junts — the party founded by former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont — to not vote against him.

Although Sánchez’s left-wing coalition government has sought to mend ties and take a softer approach with Catalan separatists during the past four years, relations are by no means ideal.

Puigdemont, who fled Spain in the immediate aftermath of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, remains in self-imposed exile in Belgium. The politician, who is currently a member of the European Parliament, recently had his legal immunity by a top EU court, paving the way for his extradition to Spain.
But she signaled negotiations with the Socialists would not be easy, and that a positive outcome was by no means certain.

“But we will not make Pedro Sánchez president in exchange for nothing,” she said.

MADRID — Basque terrorist group ETA ceased operations more than a decade ago but in the lead-up to Spain’s July 23 election the group has made a surprising comeback in the rhetoric of the country’s right-wing parties.

Throughout the campaign, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the center-right Popular Party, has sought to link socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to the terrorist group by pointing out that his government has sometimes relied on parliamentary support from the Basque political party EH Bildu.

Although the Spanish judiciary repeatedly has found EH Bildu is a democratic political group that is allowed to legally exist, Feijóo and other members of his party routinely equate it to ETA, which was responsible for the murder of over 850 people between 1968 and 2010.

...Ordoñez said Spain’s right wing had spent decades trying to appropriate the suffering of ETA’s victims and use it as a political weapon, with little interest in how the strategy affected the family members of people killed by the separatist organization.

Former Popular Party politician María San Gil — herself a witness to the murder of Ordoñez’s brother — recently admitted as much in an interview in which she admitted that constantly mentioning the defunct terrorist group angered victims but that it was worth doing “because it gives us votes.”

"Local" in contrast to the way that, say, there's some widespread general sense of the Irish struggle and its significance---Basque and Catalan, not so much.

California’s attorney general sued a southern California school district Monday over its new policy requiring schools to notify parents if their children change their gender identification or pronouns...Bonta is seeking a court order to immediately block the policy in Chino valley, a district about 35 miles (56km) east of Los Angeles, which requires schools to notify parents within three days if employees become aware a student is asking to be treated as a gender other than the one listed on official records...A couple of nearby districts have adopted similar policies and at least one more is considering doing so...In California, the proposals are coming from communities that have elected more conservative school board members since the Covid-19 pandemic...

Tennesse Legislature at it again. They had a "special session" on public safety that lasted a week and accomplished basically nothing, because they wouldn't consider a single bill having to do with guns. But along the way they managed to get an injunction slapped on them by a judge for First Amendment violations (for not allowing audience members to hold signs), and just for fun they suspended Rep. Justin Jones' ability to speak on the floor yesterday, literally taking a vote to silence him. As the video shows, it all ended ugly.

WATCH: The Tennessee House erupts into chaos after Republicans adjourn the special session without meaningful gun reform.

Rep. Justin Pearson (D), who approached Speaker Cameron Sexton (R), is pushed by security (via @WKRN)

They reconvene next in Jan. 2024. pic.twitter.com/VO8NCfZ5C5

— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) August 29, 2023

More scenes from the dystopian debacle

Covenant mother Sarah Neumann is being consoled by Reps. Gloria Johnson, Jason Powell and Justin Pearson as special session adjourns in chaos.@WKRN #TNLeg23 pic.twitter.com/HB7DEvIx4Z

— Chris O’Brien (@THEChrisOB) August 29, 2023

And one more.

COVENANT MOM: “I’m sick of it! Listen to me! I’m a pleading mother! I don’t want anyone to feel what this feels like.”

The Covenant families left in tears after #KremlinCameron & the @tnhousegop ended #TNSpecialSession in anti-democratic chaos with very little accomplished. pic.twitter.com/q4Yw0UlTw9

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) August 29, 2023

The race to be the dregs of state legislative politics keeps accelerating. Used to be you could count on Mississippi to set the pace as worst in the nation, but at least a dozen states are competing hard to seize that distinction.

More Tennessee news, and more local — Flamy Grant is suing a local DA for threatening to enforce the state's drag ban (which was already blocked as unconstitutional be a federal judge elsewhere in the state).

https://www.lawdork.com/p/blount-pride-flamy-grant-sue-anti-drag-law

...AP African American History has been banned in the state, and teachers are no longer allowed to talk about anything that causes discomfort or guilt for a child. In July, Florida approved new African American history standards that teach kids, quote, "slaves developed skills which in some instances could be applied for their personal benefit."

Michigan Rocks!

It Wouldn’t Be Make-Believe If You’d Believe In Me
A major political party in a major swing state bets on a new leader: a total political outsider. How does that work out for them?

More tasty details here, for inst:

By November, Karamo was trying to sell the party’s former headquarters, a building blocks from the state Capitol in Lansing that had been paid for by two wealthy donors. Karamo and the state party do not own the building; it is owned by a trust controlled by former state party chairs.

Karamo had vacated the headquarters months earlier, arguing that its maintenance fees were an unnecessary cost. When she left, Karamo allowed the electricity to be shut off, which released the building’s electronic locks and left it open to the public, according to the report from Republicans opposed to the party chair.

What? The punctuation there at the end? Dunno, sorry---the kind of mysteries that come along everyday---that's why all politics is are local.

As recent history shows us, irresponsible political crazies do not confine their crazy irresponsible ideas to just politics. They are free spirits whose irresponsibility embraces disorder and nonsense of many varieties.

We're going to
Party
Karamo
Fiesta
Forever