Alaska is now the 30th state to accept Medicaid expansion

An email this afternoon from my Alaska State Rep, Andy Josephson says:

"Today, Alaska Governor Bill Walker announced plans to take advantage of federal funding to expand eligibility for Medicaid in Alaska. This action is supported by the Alaska Independent Democratic Coalition, which made Medicaid expansion a priority during the First Session of the 29th Alaska Legislature. Medicaid expansion comes with tremendous benefits including over a billion dollars in new federal revenue over the next six year, the creation of 4,000 jobs, and $1.2 billion in additional wages and salaries. Studies suggest Medicaid expansion would result in $2.49 billion in increased economic activity across Alaska.

There are multiple legal opinions showing that the Governor has the authority to expand Medicaid. Medicaid expansion is supported by the public and, I believe, a majority of lawmakers but that did not sway the Majority leadership, which refused to allow an up or down vote on the matter. I believe the Governor’s decision is justified based on the merits of the argument and the inaction of the Alaska Legislature. . . ."

The Republican leadership in the House and Senate in Juneau refused to pass this and fortunately Walker has found a way to do this administratively.  They have been and still are wrong on so many issues:  climate change, medicaid expansion, oil taxes, big construction projects, passing budgets that ignored warnings about declining oil revenues year after year, etc, etc. etc.  Influence from major donors/lobbyists (oil and construction particularly) or national far right wing pressure like the Koch's ALEC keep them from getting it right, from making decisions that benefit Alaska in the long term.   One can make micro-level arguments for many of the things they did or didn't do, but the long term evolution of things has proved their blindness to the larger issues.  

I make that fairly sweeping statement in light of this example of the Alaska Republicans who spearheaded the move for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman and who fought the addition of lgbt folks to Anchorage's anti-discrimination ordinance:

"On Thursday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission unanimously ruled that sexual orientation discrimination is already illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner reports, the EEOC's groundbreaking decision effectively declares that employment discrimination against gay, lesbian, and bisexual workers is unlawful in all 50 states."  [From Slate]

I guess the Anchorage ordinance has been effectively amended, at least in employment.  

And in light of Obama's visit to the Federal Correctional Institution El Reno near Oklahoma City to highlight the horrendous outcomes of the simplistic War on Drugs and Three Strikes You're Out programs which gave non-violent drug offenders long prison sentences.  This resulted in (Obama's stats) the US, with 5% of the world's population having 25% of the world's prisoners.  In ripping apart families, huge costs of prisons, and so many lives wasted behind bars.  And the Right's solution of privatizing governmental functions including prisons, meant there was now a new industry with a vested interest in expanding the prison population.  This is also in light of the legalization of marijuana in a number of states - both medical marijuana in many states and recreational marijuana in a few. 

Cain and Lin in 2012

OK, in 2008 the Republicans nominated McCain and Palin.

So, as Herman Cain is stepping into the Republican primary spotlight, does this mean the Republicans think the last candidate's name was good, but a bit too long?

If they nominate Cain, should they also nominate a vice president that reduces the 2008 candidate's name by the first two letters? Someone named Lin?

This could lead to some interesting possibilities.  Let me offer some prospects.

The only Governor Lin (since Palin was a governor at the time, let's start there) I could find is Governor Junq-tzer Lin of Taiwan. This, at first, seems like insurmountable odds, but given that so many Republicans think that Obama is a Kenyan citizen, I really don't see the problem. They can tell their followers his Taiwan birth certificate is a fake and he was really born in San Francisco. Or better yet, that Taiwan is the 51st US state. That, of course, won't go down well with China. But they could show this is the chance for the US and China to reach unprecedented cooperation. I'm sure the people who come up with all the Republican talking points can work this out.

It's hard to find American politicians with the last name of Lin. So we should consider others, who, like Cain himself, is not a politician.

There's Sherry Lin, an investor.  She should fit right in.  She could pull in the female and Asian vote.  Though she has degrees from Columbia and Northwestern which may pose a problem for anti-elitists. 


 Maya Lin, also could appeal the female and Asian vote.  The sculptor who designed the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial offers name recognition that Sherry Lin doesn't have.  And she was born in Ohio, an important state in the next election.  An artist as VP doesn't sound too Republican. Maybe she can be in charge of a jobs program that would build long monuments to freedom, perhaps a modern version of the Statue of Liberty, along the Mexican and Canadian borders. 

True 'Lins' are hard to come by in the US, so what about settling for a spelling variation, like Lynn?

There's Alaska's Republican State Rep. Bob Lynn.  That allows the Republicans to try again with an Alaskan VP candidate, gives them a proud veteran of the Air Force, a blogger, and a musician who played the alto sax six times in the Rose Bowl Parade as a member of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Boys Band. Lots of pluses here.

Kansas' State Senator Julia Lynn has blond hair, is a Republican, and supported  a conference report that prohibits any individual or group health insurance policy from covering elective abortions, which I'm sure helped her get her 100 rating from the Americans for Prosperity - Kansas Chapter.

Wait, here's a perfect one:  Former Tennessee Representative Susan Lynn.  She now works for ALEC - the Koch brothers supported group that writes model legislation for state representatives who want to dismantle government.  And she's a civil libertarian - she sponsored legislation that  

"would prevent Tennesseans from being coerced or required by either the private sector or the government to have an RFID chip inserted into their body. Similar legislation passed the Georgia Senate last week, it is being voted upon in Virginia and it has already passed in several other states."

Republicans might like the state being restricted there, but it seems an unfair intrusion into the rights of businesses to do whatever they want.  But an earlier quote Lynn made cited by Tennessee reporter Jeff Woods clears this up.  There's a reason for her passion here:

As the bill's sponsor, Rep. Susan Lynn, explained to Pith when her proposal first came up a couple of years ago, "In the Christian religion, and I'm a Christian, in the book of Revelation, there was a reference to, you know, the Mark of the Beast. Some people interpret that to be one of these microchips." Lynn concedes "it's hard to say" whether microchips are actually Satan's stamp. "Other people think it could be some type of tattoo," she explains.

Straying a bit further, they may want to allow someone with the first name of Lynn. I offer:

 Gov. Lynn Frazier of North Dakota. The biggest negative here is that he's been dead since 1947, but if you believe that, you probably believe that global warming is real and caused by humans. Another possible negative is that he founded the Bank of North Dakota, the only state run bank. Did I mention that he was the first US governor to be recalled? And he wasn't really a Republican, but ran in their primary as a Non-Partisan League candidate, whatever that means. Maybe that could be used as a cover to show the Republicans want want to work across party lines like they are trying to do with Obama, but he just blocks all their proposals. And Lynn (Frazier) was elected to the US Senate after he was recalled. Given the popularity of zombies, today, I think there's real possibility here.


And a first name that actually preserves the Lin spelling:

Gov. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.  This may be a stretch.  I don't even know if anyone calls him Lin.  But an advantage is that he's only been governor since January 2011, which would mean he'd have about as much experience as governor as Palin had when she was nominated.


As you can see, the possibilities here for the Republicans are endless.  Cain and Lin in 2012