Friday cat blogging

She travels along with her people on the road and watches the world go by.

Across the country ...

There's nothing like an overnight flight, a bus and ferry ride to leave a traveler simply pooped.

Having arrived on the far east coast, it's nice to see the same themes that thrive in my home turf.

In terrible times, community and solidarity are precious, even when taped above a salad bar.

Why is health care a privilege for some rather than a right for all?

When EP and I worked in unreformed South Africa in 1990 on anti-aparthied newspapers, we discovered something astonishing: contrary to the conventional wisdom among our leftie friends, it wasn't quite true that the United States and South Africa were the only developed countries which didn't provide universal access to medical care for their populations. In fact, South Africa did had a rudimentary public health system that covered everyone, awful and segregated as it was. Somehow, the rich United States really was the only country that didn't provide health care to all its citizens.

This peculiar status is not some mysterious, incomprehensible accident. Like so many aspects of our society, the U.S. healthcare non-system is the inequitable, inefficient, and wasteful mess that it is because of our death grip on white supremacy. Vann R. Newkirk II has delved into this history.

... As German Prime Minister Otto Von Bismarck’s Health Insurance Bill of 1883 created the first modern national health-care system, and as many other countries moved down the path to truly nationalized, universal health care, America instead largely expanded the existing segregated system of local private providers and religious-based charity care. In essence, the United States’s peculiar private-based health-care system exists at least in part because of the country’s commitment to maintaining racial hierarchies. ...

... In 1965, just a week before also passing the Voting Rights Act, Congress passed the amendment to the Social Security Act that authorized Medicare and Medicaid... The law’s effects on segregation were felt immediately. Since Medicare’s universal coverage of elderly people brought federal funds to about every hospital in America, it also bound them by Title VI’s nondiscrimination clauses, which essentially ended segregation in those hospitals—some of the last public arenas in which Jim Crow legally held sway. Medicare was the final federal legal blow for de jure segregation, and without it, there would still be few legal mechanisms to force hospitals to integrate. It’s hard to overstate how much Medicare and Medicaid themselves did to end formal segregation.

By the same token, it’s hard to overstate just how deeply that waning segregation had mattered in health outcomes. From the end of slavery onward, American health-care has been deeply bifurcated along the lines of race, and that bifurcation was always reflected in how well people lived and how early and often they died. ...

The Affordable Care Act -- Obamacare -- was passed as a compromise with a private system that privileged the well-off and white, while extending care mostly via federally funded Medicaid to the poor, many of whom are non-white. The Supreme Court allowed states that wished to do so to opt out; no one should be surprised that the states which refused to get with the ACA's more generous plan were largely in the unrepentently white supremacist South and the homogeneously white upper Mid-West and Mountain states.

The current Republican Senate bill (the BCRA) is a tax cut for the rich masquerading as health policy.

But in addition, the BCRA is about Making America White Again with a vengeance, pushing our most vulnerable citizens out of the medical system where our white supremacist history never meant them to have a chance anyway -- except perhaps washing bedpans.

In essence, the BCRA not only erases the ACA’s market-oriented experiment in health equity, but also strikes a blow at the previously established elements of “socialized medicine” that were longtime objectives of the civil-rights movement. In this—as is true of other civil-rights victories that were the bedrock of the 50s and 60s liberation movement, like education and voting rights—a central tenet of American freedom now finds itself in danger of simply vanishing. The country cannot follow through on its commitment to equal protection for life and liberty under the law without addressing fundamental inequalities in mortality.

It’s worth noting that much of the animus behind the opposition to Obamacare is tied to race. Studies have shown that racial prejudice is a good predictor of opposition to the bill, and its central policy of Medicaid has always been subject to implicit racial biases in public opinion. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study found that Republican voters tend to view Medicaid as welfare, with all the attendant stereotypes and dog whistles. ...

H/t to Jamelle Bouie for interviewing Newkirk on Trumpcast.

Building a labyrinth on Bernal Hill

That's one way to celebrate Independence Day. These folks were having a good time as the fog burned off. 

This is a test of a new publishing system. 

A flag I can believe in; getting there

Here's my flag for the Independence Day holiday. I recognize no other.

And here's part of how we get there. Not sufficient, but necessary.

Encountered while Walking San Francisco.

Miscellany: health insurance, cost control, and California single payer

Obviously, the number one priority over the next few weeks for people who think the government should ensure that medical care is available to all citizens is to sink the Republican Senate Obamacare repeal. Can this be done? We'll find out. Making noise strategically and even unstrategically must continue.

Aaron Blake at the Washington Post passes on this data from Pew Research which shows pretty clearly that just about everyone except the well off GOPers think providing health insurance coverage to all is simply the government doing its job. As he summarizes: The biggest winner in the current health-care debate [is] single-payer.***Meanwhile, Josh Barro at the Business Insider points out, I think correctly, that what voters want more than any complex, bureaucratic scheme that arranges for payment is simply for medical care to cost less. And he provides an interesting list of possible policies that would actually reduce cost, once politicians are dragged into accepting that government must do its job of ensuring universal access.

• Impose price controls on prescription drugs.

• Block hospital-system mergers, so healthcare providers have less power to raise prices.

• Offer a Medicaid-based public option, so people can buy insurance that enjoys Medicaid's low negotiated payment rates — and that can therefore offer more affordable premiums and deductibles.

• Break up state medical cartels. Force states to allow nurse practitioners an appropriately broad scope of practice, to recognize other states' medical board certifications, and to honor foreign medical degrees. Abolish "certificate of need" requirements that make it hard to open new medical facilities. Issue more visas to foreign doctors and nurses. These changes would make it easier to find a medical provider and put downward pressure on prices.

• Ban surprise medical bills. A hospital that's in your network shouldn't be able to stick you with an astronomical bill for an out-of-network anesthesiologist you didn't even know was going to treat you.

• Move more drugs and medical devices over-the-counter. [Senator Elizabeth] Warren and Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican, have a bipartisan bill to allow some hearing aids to be sold without a prescription. Some forms of hormonal birth control could also be made available OTC.

For decades, healthcare policy has mostly been about who gets what: Who will be eligible for free or subsidized insurance, how big the subsidy will be, and who will be taxed to pay for it. People are terrified they will come out on the losing end of changes to that system. They are wary of handing control over the allocation of those resources to their cultural enemies.

The great thing about this cost-reducing agenda is it makes anyone who consumes healthcare into a winner. ...

***Don't get me wrong, I totally support a single payer system in which government pays all medical bills, regulates providers so they don't gouge, and taxes us all progressively to pay for the care we need. But California single payer advocates, led by the California Nurses Association and some Sanders-campaign offshoots, ran a scam on the great mass of their supporters this year by pushing legislators to pass a state system that lacked any realistic funding source, would require non-existent federal cooperation, and which would have required a constitutional amendment by initiative, at best, to get off the ground. Advocates had to know this was symbolic political theater, but they sold it as a real thing. And that's rotten political behavior. David Dayen dissected this play at the Intercept.

With so many single-payer supporters in California and across the country unaware of the facts, playing this cat and mouse game is at best a sin of omission, at worst the kind of dishonesty that breeds cynicism in the public when it learns it was conned.

When asked straight-up about the obstacles, CNA Director of Public Policy Michael Lighty pointed to language in SB562 that would stall adoption of single payer unless adequate funding was available. He called it “a failsafe mechanism.”

Lighty is implicitly saying that SB562 can never create a single-payer system. The failsafe will always be triggered unless the state constitution gets changed at the ballot, because there will never be enough money under the current iteration of Prop 98. Saying that out loud would depress enthusiasm and lessen CNA’s perceived power. So they hide the ball.

... The entire debate is one big game of passing the buck, with single payer’s loudest champions earning plaudits from the liberal base but doing nothing to advance universal health care.

I feel personally pissed off by this because I was asked by a friend just getting started in political agitation how she could work on health care. I hadn't been paying attention except in a general way, so pointed her to the California single payer campaign. She's no dummy and she shouldn't be conned. This sort of exploitation of people's greatest hopes leads to disillusion and drives away too many political novices. Stop playing games!

A San Francisco angle on Nancy Pelosi's House leadership

Matt Yglesias wrote an interesting article at Vox about whether House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, head of the Democratic caucus since 2004, has become a liability or remains an asset to Democratic hopes for an electoral comeback.

Earlier this year, newer members got behind Rep. Tim Ryan’s challenge to Pelosi’s leadership, and it’s clear they’re not mollified by anything they’ve seen since. At the same time, progressive activists have grown increasingly frustrated with some of Pelosi’s priority to maintain caucus unity by keeping left-wing ideas like a public option or Medicare expansion off the table during the debate over Affordable Care Act appeal.

Yet despite these new developments, the dominant story of Pelosi’s standing vis-à-vis the caucus remains exactly what it’s been for the past 15 years. She’s a prodigious fundraiser to whom many members owe favors, and her main antagonists are white men with voting records that are at least somewhat more conservative than hers. That’s not a formula for success in today’s Democratic Party, and unless the rebels manage to recruit a more formidable challenger, Pelosi’s position will be secure for about as long as she wants it.

I thought it would be interesting to look at Pelosi from the perspective of one of her leftist constituents.

From where I sit, my Congresswoman is often a frustrating impediment to feeling I'm represented in Congress. By the standards of Congress, she's certainly a liberal, but by the norms of San Francisco, she's a moderate centrist. Given the chance, we might have elected a flaming socialist anti-imperialist from this town (at least until so many folks got priced out) but since 1987, we haven't had a chance to try.

Now to be fair to Pelosi, she did vote against the Iraq war (118 Democrats voted against the measure authorizing use of military force in 2002). Heck, she even voted against Iraq War I in 1991. She was instrumental in assuring that we enjoy the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, a remarkable urban while still wild park surrounding our city. She never supported the US embargo of Cuba. She (along with the former occupant of the White House) deserves credit for insisting that dilatory Dems grow spines and push through Obamacare in 2009 when this was a tough vote. She occasionally turns up in public among her constituents; the photo shows her speaking at my church to a beyond skeptical audience of Latinx locals seeking a better deal on immigration policy. We could do much worse.

But from the perspective of a San Franciscan, having Pelosi in office is a lot like not having a Congressperson. There's no point in calling her to ask for this measure or that: her actions will be rooted in holding her caucus together, not doing what we ask from her. I call anyway, sometimes thanking her for holding her caucus on the right side of votes. These people are human after all, and should be thanked when they do something good.

Citizenship atrophies when it seems that our votes and our opinions don't matter. Pelosi's long tenure has, I think, turned many San Franciscans' attention away from the House of Representatives. Our woman in Washington is embedded there; she's powerful; House doings are not worth our attention. That goes for many long-serving reps, but perhaps particularly for the Leader.

Ed Kilgore, a seasoned operative and commentator on Democratic Party gyrations, thinks Pelosi's long leadership tenure is having a similar effect within Congress itself and with the public. He makes the case that all occupants of Congressional leadership positions, of both parties, gradually become more unpopular the longer they stay in their roles. The more visibility they accumulate, the more citizens accumulate grievances. He thinks Pelosi has been a necessary, path breaking figure but

... the most compelling case for a change in leadership has nothing to do with Pelosi’s actual performance or perceptions of her ideology: She’s just been there too long.

If Dems can manage to take back the House in 2018, perhaps it will be time to replace Pelosi. This would be an earthshaking event, not only in Washington but also in San Francisco.

I think we'll miss her a lot -- but change has got to come.

Saturday scenery: Northern California coast

We drove north, just beyond Fort Ross, this week. The coast could hardly have been more dramatically lovely. What's that column in the distance?

The column is a Peace Totem, a creation of prolific sculptor Benny Bufano.

Is peace polydactyl? Perhaps.

Farther north within Salt Point State Park is Gerstle Cove where locals dive for abalone.

Close in, the cove is calm even while the ocean is roiled by prevailing winds.

Sea Ranch is a an exclusive, planned development along 10 miles of Sonoma County coast further north. Californians were distressed by the idea of a developer cutting off the public from such a beautiful open stretch of coast, resulting in an initiative, coalition building among coastal interests, and political agitation that resulted in the establishment of the California Coastal Commission in 1972. This body is charged with preserving coastal access for the people.

The result is several access trails and an open route along the bluff providing remarkable views of land and sea. Our brief exploration made me want to come up sometime and run the entire length of the trail. Perhaps one day ...

Annoyed by the tweets?

Since the frustrated Great Cheato is tweeting up a storm these days, this seems a great moment to pass along We Can Resist. The site enables you to contribute small sums (as low as 10 cents per tweet) every time he goes off.

The available list of possible recipients is broad, including among others Clean Water Action, Black Lives Matter, the National Center for Transgender Equality, Crisis Text Line, and the National Immigration Law Center. Once you sign up, you pick your recipients and they charge your credit card monthly, so long as Trump runs up a $5.00 total. He shows no sign of failing to do that.

If this relatively painless resistance option appeals to you, start here.

Friday cat blogging

If I didn't know better, I'd think there was deep thought in that furry head. We all rely on some attribute for our survival. Morty's is his beauty. He improves the standard around here.

UPDATE: Ooops, not Friday yet, so you got Morty a day early.

Democratic renewal in a season of loneliness

Ned Resnikoff of Think Progress has been pondering the toxic stew of historic white supremacy, fears both rational and irrational, and alienation that has gifted us with the aspiring autocrat in the White House. His nuanced argument reaches the conclusion that a democratic (small "d") renewal is possible, if we choose to make it. Do read it all. Here's a teaser:

... resistance to Trump is not enough. To eliminate the conditions that would lead to another Trump — or worse — the United States needs to undergo a process of democratic renewal. The countrywide network of formal institutions, informal communal bonds, and overlapping belief systems that hold a republic together is in dire need of repair. Patching it back together will require both widespread social movement activism and sweeping public policy changes at every level of government.

The point of all this activity, as trite as it may sound, would be to make people feel less lonely — to make them feel connected to their neighbors, to public institutions, and to something like an integrated national community. Activists and policymakers alike must apply themselves directly to the problem of alienation and meaninglessness.

Resnikoff's essay called to mind the two photos accompanying this post; they catch mundane features from my San Francisco environment that I might easily fail to note. Both come from big, conventional institutions which choose to use their megaphones to affirm social solidarity. I think it is fair to say that, in this geographical island of resistance, even plodding institutions instinctively grasp that what we value can best be preserved by what we share, by the connections we forge between isolated individuals.

Signs on walls seem a tiny gesture -- and they are. But a decent society and a viable community is made up of tiny gestures and it behooves us in bad times to foster every one of them. Where have you seen this happening? It matters.

Reality or Reality TV?

Erudite Partner continues to try to remind us of our wars. Her reminder runs against the flow in our society. Most of us, most of the time, float on, oblivious. She writes:

Suppose you got up one morning and your phone hadn’t charged overnight, the light switches had all stopped working, you couldn’t toast your Pop-Tarts, and there was no hope of a cup of coffee, because there was no water. No water all that day, or the next day, or the one after. What would you do after the bottled water was gone from the stores? What would you do as you watched your kids grow weak from thirst? Where would you go, when you knew you would die if you remained in the familiar place that had so long been your home? What, in fact, would you do if opposing armed forces (as in most of the cities mentioned above) fought it out in your very neighborhood?

I’ve been teaching college students for over a decade. I now face students who have lived their entire conscious lives in a country we are told is “at war.” They’ve never known anything else, since the moment in 2001 when George W. Bush declared a Global War on Terror. But their experience of this war, like my own, is less reality, and more reality TV. Their iPhones work; the water and light in their homes are fine; their screens are on day and night. No one bombs their neighborhoods. They have no citizenly duty to go into the military. Their lives are no different due to the “war” (or rather wars) their country is fighting in their name in distant lands.

Theirs, then, is the strangest of “wars” ....

Go read it all at The Nation.

Time for a deep breath ... and then to kick more ass

... as the GOPers try to line up recalcitrant Senators who are hesitating to shove poor people over a cliff. We need to continue to remind them that constituents might get the message, if they vote for this thing, that Republican Senators are the ones who should be pushed into free fall.

The Progressive Change Committee is running this tear-jerking, but truthful, ad in West Virginia where Senator Shelly Moore Capito acknowledges that health care access in her state depends on Medicaid, but might be open to being bought off with a token fund for opioid addiction treatment.
This seems a worthy effort.

An ironworker for Wisconsin?

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, that utopian capitalist working to replace government with Ayn Rand's war of the strong on the weak, has a challenger.

Randy Bryce, local community activist and life-long resident of southeastern Wisconsin launches campaign for Congress in Wisconsin's first district to take on Speaker Paul Ryan.

I have no idea whether this iron worker and union leader can make a viable electoral run, but he sure has kicked off his campaign with first rate story video. Defeating a sitting speaker is a stretch, but it has happened. Anyone remember Tom Foley?

Bryce is a fountain of homespun quotes, candy for interviewers:

Right now people are dying to be heard. We just want [politicians] to know what problems we're facing. Things are getting worse, they're not getting better. And promises were made that are not being kept. And that's why you see me, and I'm hoping a lot more people like me around the country step up. Who better to talk about our issues than one of us?

Pacific Standard

[Bryce has] spent two decades as an ironworker, and aims to contrast that with Ryan’s record.

“I’ve been doing this for 20 years. And that’s about the same time that Paul Ryan has been in Congress. And I mean, I’m driving around and I’m pointing out to my son: ‘Look, daddy built that, daddy worked on that.’

“And I’m proud of helping build things in the last 20 years. And then I look at what Paul Ryan has done and he’s done nothing.”

Guardian

***So is this quotable guy the right candidate who can win Paul Ryan's carefully gerrymandered district? He might be. Or perhaps, someone else will think they can do a better job and convince more Democrats to nominate them in a primary. (Bryce has lost a pair of previous primaries.)

Democrats are currently going through one of those knock-down, drag-out family quarrels about the direction of the party. That's what Dems do when losing. It's healthy. I have no doubt that the party is drifting left in most ways, that Dems are ever more aware they need answers to both the economic and existential identity struggles that too many of us feel these days. Business as usual isn't working for too many people and the other party has no answers at all.

As is usually the case, when the people lead, our leaders will follow. Eventually.

There is no generic message for all districts and no one-size-fits-all sort of candidate who would be right for every district. The right person is going to differ a lot -- and who gets to run needs to be fought out locally through the primary process. National advocates and funders will think they can dictate who ought to run and sometimes they might be able to. But candidates who can't convince the locals of their "authenticity," whatever that means in local circumstances, usually can't win.

I will be honestly curious to see how the explosion of interest in running for office which has become one prong of resistance to Trump and the GOPer ascendancy plays out. In lots of areas, whatever party apparatus once existed has atrophied and there haven't been "natural" leaders stepping up to run. Newbie candidates are going to discover that running for office is draining, sometimes demeaning, and can be devastatingly disappointing. They won't succeed unless they know why they want these offices and unless they burn with drive to win. And should they win, they'll quickly learn that governing requires different skills, more painstaking and policy-centered, than running for office.

Randy Bryce is going to be fun to watch. May we see hundreds like him!

Unfortunately, all that really needs to be said ...

in one cartoon. Apparently the Republican powers-that-be sent their flacks out on Sunday (I skipped reading news) to say that nobody will be hurt when they pass this thing -- but that is a lie.

For example that if you are over 50 (and too young for Medicare), and have to buy your own insurance, on average your insurance premium will rise by $4500 a year.

But hey, gotta cut taxes for a few rich people.

Wealthcare will rapidly and perhaps slightly less rapidly, cut and cut some more from federal funding for health care for poor people -- this bill aims to sink Medicaid by a thousand cuts.

But hey, gotta cut taxes for a few rich people.

A decimated Medicaid will force old people out of nursing homes. We live longer these days; people -- most often women -- who end up in long term care will simply be warehoused as funding for Medicaid shrinks.

But hey, gotta cut taxes for a few rich people.

The beating will continue until some of these greedy GOPers fail at re-election time.

Resistance reminiscence

Vietnam-era draft refuser David Harris has shared what he learned from struggling to end the U.S. war whose horrors shaped my generation. For refusing to be drafted into the army, and organizing others to do the same, Harris served two years in prison, including tough time in solitary.

I am now 71 and the war that defined my coming of age is deep in my rearview mirror, but the question it raised, “What do I do when my country is wrong?” lives on.

For those looking for an answer today, here are some lessons I learned:

We are all responsible for what our country does. Doing nothing is picking a side.

We are never powerless. Under the worst of circumstances, we control our own behavior.

We are never isolated. We all have a constituency of friends and family who watch us. That is where politics begins.

Reality is made by what we do, not what we talk about. Values that are not embodied in behavior do not exist.

People can change, if we provide them the opportunity to do so. Movements thrive by engaging all comers, not by calling people names, breaking windows or making threats.

Whatever the risks, we cannot lose by standing up for what is right. That’s what allows us to be the people we want to be.

Harris' movement called itself the Resistance. The war and the movement against it engulfed a generation.

By the time the feds let Harris loose in 1971, the U.S. Army itself was falling apart as young citizens simply stopped playing by the rules, however they could. I was trained in "draft counseling" (advising young men about their legal options to avoid the draft) in that year. But in truth what we were doing after years of unpopular war was often trying to help unwilling soldiers who had gone AWOL stateside to figure out what options they could find. Often, the army didn't seem to want to find them. Other men served and fought in Vietnam for a cause they seldom fully affirmed. I know vets who completed high school, were drafted into the army, and quickly became addicted to the plentiful cheap heroin that Saigon supplied. Some even sabotaged the U.S. war effort from inside, so alienated were they from a war they felt was immoral and wasteful of lives, including theirs. Many had a very bumpy return to civilian life. By the 1980s, Vietnam vets were a huge proportion of the homeless population that ballooned on city streets in that decade. Believe it or not, U.S. cities weren't home to large, visible populations of homeless people before the Reagan recession of 1982.

Not surprisingly, the last thing both political elites and the military would want today is a broad compulsory citizen draft. Unwilling and unenthusiastic draftees can ruin an army. Our rulers know they must fight their wars with some mix of high tech armament and professional soldiers. This doesn't seem to much constrain them.

I think Harris's points remain germane to our current circumstances.

Saturday scenes and scenery: San Francisco

We do live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. These days, EP and I are hiking diligently, trying to get ourselves in shape for carrying (small) loads later this summer. Mostly, we've stayed in the city or close by. You get the benefit of some local pics, all taken for practice using an iPhone as a primary camera.

Here EP poses next to a vehicle we encountered while heading to an urban trail. It is a good half a decade older than she is.

The grasses on the side of San Bruno Mountain, just south of the city, are extraordinarily colorful right now.

If the local rabbits don't learn to keep under cover, they are in danger of becoming some hawk's dinner.

The city looks magical from this San Bruno trail.

This shot is proof you don't have to leave the city to get a good hike; after an 800 foot climb from the Mission, you can nearly get blown over at the top of Twin Peaks.

Hidden away below the mansions of the Sea Cliff neighborhood, China Beach was once used by Chinese fishing boats, presumably because they weren't much welcome at anchorages in the harbor proper.

Now the beach is administered by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. If you can find it, there is free parking which was half empty on a summer morning. A tai-chi class had taken over the rec center roof.

Republican Senate health insurance atrocity

So rich people can be given a tax cut, poor and sick people must suffer. Unfortunately, it is that simple. GOPers don't care who will be hurt. They act as if they don't really consider the people who will suffer to be human like themselves; those who will lose access to quality medical are to be treated as worthless litter cluttering the playgrounds of the plutocrats.

The smart wonks at the Labor Center at UC Berkeley illustrate the story for this state:

All so Republicans can cut taxes for people who already enjoy more than they need.

There's something broken in the souls of elected officials who would pass this horror.

Friday cat blogging

Nicky and Sadie condescended to pose for their humans' visitors. Lovely, aren't they?

How to win in Georgia

I don't know whether Democrats can win many elections in Georgia at this time, but I am wildly enthusiastic about Stacey Abrams, a contender for the Democratic nomination for Governor. Abrams is currently the House Minority Leader for the Georgia General Assembly and a State Representative. And she's an organizing wonk with a belief in person-to-person campaigns that warms my own wonkish heart.

Abrams insists that what Democrats need in Georgia is a robust field operation -- the capacity to knock on thousands of doors, identify potential sympathetic voters, listen to and talk with them, and get them to the polls. She believes there is a broad coalition to be built, if Dems will only do the work. She knows this takes time, but this -- not screaming TV ads -- is how she plans to succeed

Listen to her interview last night with Rachel Maddow.

If we invest in field, we can close the gap. ... to win a statewide election in Georgia, we have to close a 5 point gap. [By closing a 20 point gap in an historically Republican district, Jon Ossoff demonstrated] it can be done. ... We have voters in Georgia who will vote if we ask.

I'm pretty sure that somewhere, Abrams has a political consultant in her circle who is saying something like: "C'mon -- if you get on the Rachel Maddow show, tell her all the wonderful things your government will do for Georgians ... don't give 'em that campaign math ... that doesn't move voters."

I'd be saying that myself if I were in that role.

But hey, she's right about what Georgia Dems have to do to become a winning force, so you go Ms. Abrams!

For more on Abrams the uniter, see this excellent Joan Walsh story from the Nation magazine.