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In an email to legislators obtained by CMD, ALEC touts that “your ALEC team has been value-pushing your ideas and solutions into the mainstream” with “9 across the States podcast episodes with guests such as Newt Gingrich,” “30 policy prescriptions,” and hosting of “9 calls with top government officials and policy experts.”
ALEC is also coordinating a sign-on letter from “policy leaders and elected officials” to President Trump and state leaders urging them to “reopen the economy and get people back to work.” The letter praises Trump for his “Opening Up America Again” plan and thanks him for a “disaster response [that] is locally executed, state managed and federally supported.”
Recent polling shows ALEC’s aggressive position on resuming commercial activity to be outside the mainstream of public opinion. Three in four voters (73 percent) think we need to continue social distancing measures despite the impact on the economy, 80 percent want more testing before schools and restaurants reopen, and 65 percent said “they did not want to go back to work without more thorough testing.”
ALEC writes in the letter that, “It is possible and preferable for employers to implement best practices to protect the health of their customers and employees – without micromanagement from the government,” but industry practices during the pandemic suggest otherwise.
“Essential” businesses that have stayed open have repeatedly jeopardized the health of their workers, including “thousands of employees across the country” at meat processing plants and shift workers in over 55 of Amazon’s fulfillment centers who have contracted the coronavirus.[…]
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“The past is always tense, the future perfect.”
~~Zadie Smith, White Teeth: A Novel, (2000)
At Daily Kos on this date in 2012—Georgia becomes the seventh state to cut off abortions at 20 weeks. No exceptions for rape or incest:
Acting on contentious legislation passed by the Republican-dominated state House and Senate, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) signed a bill Tuesday that forbids abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy except when the woman’s life is at risk. No exceptions are allowed for rape or incest. The bill, HB 954, effectively cuts six weeks off allowable time when abortions are now permitted in the state.
It wasn’t the total victory the law’s drafters had hoped for, however. In spite of vigorous opposition from forced-birther lobbyists, abortions will be permitted in cases where there are “irremediable” fetal congenital or fetal abnormalities “incompatible with sustaining life after birth.” So hurrah for a small victory in two years’ of the worst series of defeats for the women’s reproductive rights since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide 39 years ago.