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If Trump is re-elected, he may have Mark Penn to thank.

New Kansas moms getting kicked off Medicaid

Kansas Medicaid covers a pregnant woman if her income is at 177% of the federal poverty level or below. With just one child, she could make almost $29,000 per year and qualify.

Two months after childbirth, coverage for the child remains the same, but for the adult caregiver,

it’s a different plan. That income limit is 38% of the federal poverty level. With one child, that means making no more than $6,452 a year.

With Medicaid expansion, she’d qualify at 138% of the federal poverty level or $22,336 a year with one child. Kansas lawmakers have been wrangling over Medicaid expansion for years. In 2017, it passed but was vetoed by Governor Sam Brownback.

Governor Laura Kelly has pushed hard but the Democrat-backed plan failed to make it to a floor vote this year.

Senate majority leader Jim Denning, a Republican from Overland Park, says he will propose a different expansion plan next year.


https://www.kctv5.com/news/local_news/new-moms-getting-kicked-off-medicaid/article_2ef9fc82-0a8f-11ea-8f32-b79f693b46bb.html

Tweet of the Day

Pa. bill would require death certificates for fertilized eggs that never implant in the uterus.

Anti-abortion lawmakers in Pennsylvania want to pass a bill that would require health providers to arrange burials or cremations for all of a person's "fetal remains," which under the lawmakers' terms, includes fertilized eggs that never implanted in the uterus.

But fertilized eggs must divide to become the ball of cells that implants in the uterus for a pregnancy to occur.

The proposed bill also means health providers would have to obtain death certificates for all fertilized, but not implanted, eggs, since in order to to obtain a burial permit, you first have to obtain a death certificate, Christine Castro, a staff attorney at the Pennsylvania-based Women's Law Project, told Vice. "The bill is written in a misleading way," she said.

If the bill, known as the "Pennsylvania Final Disposition of Fetal Remains Act," passes and isn't followed, it could result in a $50 to $300 fine or up to 30 days in prison for providers.

The problem is women, and even their doctors, can't track when or how many fertilized eggs don't implant in the uterus because those eggs typically dissolve in utero and are shed through a woman's menstrual lining every month, making them undetectable.


https://www.businessinsider.com/pennsylvania-bill-would-require-death-certificates-for-fertilized-eggs-2019-11

Drunk Kid Rock hauled off stage after profanity-laced anti-Oprah rant

All-around good guy Kid Rock was at it again last week.

The controversial artist launched a profanity-filled tirade against day-time talk show hosts at a bar in Nashville. An apparently intoxicated Rock was later removed from the stage by security.

In video obtained by TMZ, Rock, 48, tells the crowd, “F--- Oprah. Oprah Winfrey is like ‘Hey, I just want women to believe in this s---’. F--- her. She can s--- d--- sideways.”

Rock, whose legal name is Robert Ritchie, is a longstanding Oprah hater. In a 2008 interview with The Independent, Rock put Winfrey in the category of his “real-life villain” and said, I just don't believe her. Maybe it's because I'm not one of the 150 million brainwashed women who heed her every word.”

An avowed Trump supporter who’s dealt with accusations of racism in the past, Rock attempted to downplay any racist overtones to his anti-Oprah stance. First he attacked other talk show hosts Joy Behar and Kathy Lee Gifford. Rock has previously clashed with Behar, who he called a “b----” on a 2018 episode of “The View,” which Behar co-hosts.

Then, he concluded his bizarre rant with “If you say that, you’re like, ‘Hey, well, pretty sure Kid Rock’s a racist.’ I’m like, OK, fine. F--- off. Sideways.”




https://www.nydailynews.com/snyde/ny-kid-rock-drunk-kicked-off-stage-oprah-rant-20191129-dychscxqwfhozcuibcrlu3st4m-story.html

Trump has turned the suburbs into a GOP disaster zone.

MESA, Ariz. — For decades, there was an unvaried rhythm to life in America’s suburbs: Carpool in the morning, watch sports on weekends, barbecue in the summer, vote Republican in November.
Then came President Trump.

The orderly subdivisions and kid-friendly communities that ring the nation’s cities have become a deathtrap for Republicans, as college-educated and upper-income women flee the party in droves, costing the GOP its House majority and sapping the party’s strength in state capitals and local governments nationwide.

The dramatic shift is also reshaping the 2020 presidential race, elevating Democratic hopes in traditional GOP strongholds like Arizona and Georgia, and forcing Trump to redouble efforts to boost rural turnout to offset defectors who, some fear, may never vote Republican so long as the president is on the ballot.


https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-11-29/2020-battleground-suburban-women-voters

GA-SEN: Georgia gov expected to tap finance exec for US Senate next week

Gov. Brian Kemp plans to tap financial executive Kelly Loeffler for a U.S. Senate seat next week as he pushes to expand the Georgia GOP’s appeal to women who have fled the party in recent years.

The appointment would defy President Donald Trump and other Republican leaders who have repeatedly urged the governor to appoint U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, a four-term congressman who is one of the president’s staunchest defenders in Washington.

It would end months of jockeying for the seat to be vacated by Republican Johnny Isakson, who is stepping down at year’s end because of health issues. Loeffler would be the second woman in Georgia history to serve in the U.S. Senate.

The governor is expected to announce Loeffler’s appointment at a press conference early next week, barring any last-minute change of heart, several senior GOP officials told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution exclusively. Kemp’s office declined to comment Friday.

Her appointment would do little to tamp down the internal Republican fighting over the seat. Trump and his allies have repeatedly pressed the governor to tap Collins, and the two were still at odds over Loeffler’s appointment even after Kemp brought her to a secretive meeting with the president last week.



https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/georgia-gov-expected-tap-finance-exec-senate-next-week/qDibvzRR0L6VvyUmjnB1QJ/

Black Friday: Fremont police arrest 5 after video games stolen, shots fired at Target

FREMONT, Calif. - Fremont police arrested five people, including one 17-year-old, whom they say fired off shots into the air and stole video games on Black Friday from a Target store at the Hub shopping center.

Spokeswoman Geneva Bosques said the shoplifting and gunfire was reported Thursday at 11:38 p.m. outside Target on Fremont Boulevard, which was set to close at midnight.

Spokeswoman Geneva Bosques said one of the suspects fired off a gun into the air on Thursday at 11:38 p.m. outside Target on Fremont Boulevard, which was set to close at midnight. No one was injured.

At that point, the suspects' friends drove up in a getaway car and that's when one of them fired multiple rounds in the air, Bosques said, before they took off in a silver Volkswagen. No one was injured.



https://www.ktvu.com/news/black-friday-fremont-police-arrest-5-after-video-games-stolen-shots-fired-at-target

Translators help Korean American voters in Harris County (TX) find their electoral voice

Following a dust-up last year during which translators crossed the protected zone to approach voters waiting in line, Korean American civic groups and the Harris County Clerk’s Office began searching for a way to make translation services more easily available. The solution was found in an approach communities across the country have begun using to bridge language barriers and help fill gaps in federal voting rights law: putting volunteer translators on the county payroll. That way, if a voter doesn’t bring a translator to the ballot box, there’s someone inside the polling place who can help.

Next year’s elections are expected to drive large turnout, and the model could serve as an electoral blueprint for expanding language access in one of the country's most diverse counties.

“We wanted to come to something that would help the Korean group but others as well. Something that was scalable to any part of the county,” said Roxanne Werner, the county clerk’s director of community relations. “There’s no reason we can’t also hire poll workers who are bilingual in other languages or familiar with American Sign Language.”

Population growth has pushed Harris County across federal thresholds that require offering ballots and other election assistance in four languages: English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese.


https://www.texastribune.org/2019/11/26/how-korean-americans-lobbied-harris-county-bilingual-pollworkers/