Modoc County, Which Has Voted To Secede From California, Decided To Follow Texas And Open Up Businesses Yesterday

An L.A. Times newsletter yesterday talked about "Californians’ Line in the Sand" and noted how "Last weekend, hot weather and perhaps a touch of spring fever sent crowds flocking to Orange County beaches during the coronavirus pandemic. As the photos that went around the internet showed, few were wearing masks. This weekend, even though the forecast is cooler, Gov. Gavin Newsom is having none of that. He has directed a temporary “hard close” of all state and local beaches in Orange County as part of the effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 2,000 people across the state. Newsom is cracking down on the Orange County coastline at a critical moment, when some communities have begun pushing to loosen local restrictions. Sparsely populated Modoc County, in the northeastern corner of California, might even defy orders and allow all businesses, schools and churches to reopen starting today, as long as people stay six feet apart... Perhaps as a consolation, state officials emphasized there are many other outdoor activities Californians can do while adhering to the stay-at-home order. Those include tree climbing, crabbing, meditation, trampolining, outdoor photography and washing the car. But not congregating at the beach."

A new poll of California voters from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found that we approved of how Newsom is doing his job, and that 61% said Trump is mostly or completely responsible for the shortages of tests and medical supplies that have dogged efforts to combat the coronavirus. But probably not up in Modoc County-- population, not quite 9,000 people.

Modoc County is the northeast corner of the state, where Oregon, California and Nevada meet. In 2016, Trump did better in Modoc County than he did in any of the states you probably think of as Trumpist hellholes. 71.8% of Modoc County's 3,000-some-odd voters picked Trump. Trump didn't do as well in any of the 5 worst Trump sewer states:

• Wyoming- 70.1%
• West Virginia 68.7%
• Oklahoma- 65.3%
• Alabama- 62.9%
• Idaho- 59.2%

We last looked at Modoc County almost a full decade ago-- Modoc County-- A Lesson In Republican Extremism And Their Cult Of Freeloading-- when the tax-adverse sociopaths who run the county were preparing to shit down the county's only hospital, which also happened to be the county's biggest employer.

The county's board of supervisors voted to allow its schools, hair salons, churches, restaurants and the county’s only movie theater to reopen, to open yesterday, flouting Newsom's safety orders. A few years ago, the board of supervisors voted unanimously to secede from California and form its own state, Jefferson.

On Thursday, Ned Coe, a cattle rancher and county supervisor, said "county officials sent Newsom a letter about a week ago outlining their plan, "which he said meets the guidelines outlined by the governor for stay-home orders to be eased out in phases, but they haven’t received a response. He said he was not worried the state might take legal action against the county for violating Newsom’s order, which does not yet allow such businesses to reopen."

“The governor himself has indicated that it is time to start opening in a staged and safe manner, and that will be different for different areas of the state,” he said.

Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter, but when asked about Modoc County’s plans at his daily coronavirus briefing, Newsom did not say whether he would move to stop the reopening.

“Nothing would please me more than pleasing those local officials … but we’re not out of the woods,” he said. “No part of the state, no part of this country, few parts of the globe have been immune to this virus.”

He also reinforced that while local governments are free to adopt more stringent guidelines, they cannot adopt looser ones.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness and lead to death, and nursing homes have been hit hard.

In the Modoc County seat of Alturas, population 3,000, where restaurants serving Mexican, Italian, Chinese and other cuisines cater to travelers using Highway 395, some restaurant managers were removing tables or spacing them out to make sure they are ready to keep the required distance between customers.

Most parts of the county are so sparsely populated that people already keep their distance from each other, Coe said. He said the hairstylist he frequents has only one chair at her salon and works alone.

“Social distancing was the norm here before it became the popular thing in the state,” Coe said.

The plan will be revisited after two weeks, and the stricter measures could be reinstated if at least two people test positive for the coronavirus, according to the new guidelines.

At Brass Rail, a large Basque restaurant in Alturas, employees were getting the bar area ready to open Friday by spacing out tables, said owner Jodie Larranaga.

“Everyone knows each other very well in this town and we can’t wait to see each other. Most people here are pretty fed up and done and over it,” she said of the shelter-in-place orders.

Larranaga said she will have signs throughout the bar reminding people about social distancing and other guidelines but she has no plans to police her patrons.
Trump's job approval ratings have collapsed in the states he needs for reelection. But he'll still win both Dakotas https://shar.es/aHk9nA “My bar tables are already far apart but if people pull their stools together, I’m not going to stop them,” Larranaga said.

“As far as I’m concerned, right or wrong, that’s their choice. They are adults,” she added.

Yes, adults who drive cars, into Redding and down to Reno, where normal people don't want to get COVID-19. And speaking of cars, the 395 Freeway goes right through the county, where people stop and eat and shop.

Is A Modoc County Strategy The Republican Party's Path To Winning Back California?

Republicans have been having a rough time in California ever since the party decided it would be smart policy to demonize Hispanic voters, in the same way Trump does today. 1994's explicitly anti-immigrant Proposition 187 destroyed the GOP as a viable party with Hispanics and to some extent with Asians. Almost a quarter century has passed since then and it's just gotten worse and worse for the Republicans in the most populated state in the country.

This past spring statewide registration figures horrified GOP officials. What they saw is a disintegrating party that is now in third place... and dropping rapidly:

• Democrats- 8.4 million (44.6%)
• No Party Preference- 4,844,803 (25.5%)
• Republicans- 4,771,984 (25.1%)

So how did that play out at the polls last month? Democrats won every single statewide office. Republicans in the state's congressional district dropped in half, from 14 to 7 and with the likelihood that 2020 will see the number decrease further, possibly to just 2 or 3-- out of 53! With Trump spouting his racist bullshit, it looks more than likely that Doug LaMalfa, Tom McClintock, Devin Nunes and Duncan Hunter will have very little chance to be reelected. Democrats gained 4 seats in the state Assembly which already had a Democratic supermajority and 3 in the state Senate, enough so that it too now has a Democratic supermajority. The U.S. Senate race didn't even include a Republican-- just two Democrats! And the gubernatorial race was a blowout. A profoundly flawed and mediocre Democratic candidate, Gavin Newsom, beat Republican John Cox 7,686,476 (61.9%) to 4,722,299 (38.1%).

On Friday the outgoing state Republican Party chairman, conservative former state Sen. Jim Brulte, warned national Republicans to look closely at what has happened to the California Republican Party before they continue their reflexively anti-Hispanic policies. His point was that the GOP has "not yet been able to figure out how to effectively communicate and get significant numbers of votes from non-whites," a very rapidly growing segment of the voting population.

Despite trend lines that show the “the entire country will be majority minority by 2044," he said, the GOP has failed to confront the reality of those changes-- or recognize the possibility that the recent "blue tsunami" midterm election in California was a harbinger of what lies ahead for the national party.

Brulte said he‘s repeatedly warned that the party’s overwhelmingly white and male candidates must “figure out how we get votes from people who don’t look like you."

But he said those warnings about the changing political and ethnic landscape have gone unheeded.

“And that’s why I have said that I believe California is the canary in the coal mine-- not an outlier," for the GOP in the coming cycles, he told Politico.

...Brulte, who said in 2013 it would take a minimum of six years to rebuild the dilapidated state party, has taken heat within the GOP for speaking out about the dangers it faces.

But veteran Democratic strategist Darry Sragow, who has advised the California Democratic Assembly and publishes the non-partisan California Target Book, predicts that if Brulte’s tough love advice is ignored again in 2020, “the Republican Party is destined to slide into the ocean.”

Despite Brulte's stark assessment of the GOP's future, three potential candidates are vying to replace him as chair when his term ends next February-- and all of them insist the real problems lie somewhere other than in its message to the changing ethnic electorate.

Steve Frank, a conservative Republican activist and former party official, said that the GOP has “unilaterally disarmed itself," by failing miserably in outreach to church-going conservatives and other GOP voters-- and by standing by helplessly while laws that have advantaged Democrats, including the state’s top-two primary, act as “illegal voter suppression” against Republicans in California.

Former Assemblyman Travis Allen, a favorite of the party’s far right conservative wing-- who failed to get the GOP gubernatorial nomination last year-- says he strongly rejects Brulte’s suggestion that demographics are at fault for the party’s 2018 battering.

“This is the same chatter we’ve heard form the GOP establishment for the past 20 years. The concept that Republicans need to look and sound more like Democrats to be elected in California is exactly what got us into this mess," said Allen. “It’s about time for the Republicans in California to stand up for our values, our ideals-- and yes, even support our GOP president.”

David Hadley, a former assemblyman who is viewed as the most centrist of the GOP chair candidates, told Politico said that a key problem for the Republican Party in the last election is that “the circular firing squad is out in force," and that Republicans must stop “blaming other Republicans."

“We need to start with the central matter at hand: the Democratic Party, and the special interests that control it, are the mightiest political machine in the history of American politics," he said.

In California, as in the national party, Republicans continue to dismiss the stark evidence of growing ethnic voter clout in hopes of returning to “an America that was the way it used to be," Sragow said. “They’re rubbing the rabbits’ foot and think they’re going to take back the homeland."

I spoke to a Democratic Party higher up who told me everyone she knows has their fingers crossed that Travis Allen wins since "he's in such a state of denial that there won't even be a viable Republican Party left after his first term in office... He thinks celebrating Donald Trump is going to help win back the state? The only counties with sizable populations they're still competitive in are Riverside, Fresno and Kern and his ideas will deliver all three to the Democrats." She told me it doesn't matter if Republicans continue winning massive victories in places like Modoc County since fewer people vote there than in most named L.A. or San Diego neighborhoods. [Around 3,500 people voted in Modoc County this year, 1,600 in Sierra County, 6,000 in Colusa, 5,000 in Trinity and 7,000 in Inyo, all counties where Cox posted big percentages against Newsom-- and all utterly irrelevant.]

Cox's 76.2% of the Modoc vote yielded him 2,628 votes, Newsom's 86.4% of the vote in San Francisco borough him 312,181 votes, his 71.9% in L.A. County gave him 2,114,699 votes, and his 80.6% in Alameda County brought in 462,268 votes. Travis Allen seems eager to just cede those counties to Democrats and work to move Modoc from 76.2% to 80%. Go for it!

Trump's War Against Rural Voters

Lindsey Graham, who fancies himself a bit of a stand up comic, got off a hilarious one yesterday. He said he doesn't believe Trump was colluding with the Russians because Trump isn't even able tp collude with his own staff. It would be even funnier if we soon read that racist pig Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III or IV gets fired as Attorney General after giving up a for-life Senate seat to work for the volatile Trumpanzee. And, speaking of comedy, the whole nation-- except maybe Republicans up for reelection-- is looking forward to Trump live-Tweeting the Comey testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee tomorrow.

But no one's been as much the butt of cruel humor as the poor folks who took Trump at his word and voted for him in the hope his policies would be better for them than the more-of-the-same agenda they identified with the overly-confident Hillary Clinton. This week McClathy's DC bureau ran with a piece about rural counties in California that voted for Trump, only to see his regime turn around and cut programs that they need for survival.

California isn't Trump country, but he won most of the rural vote. He had West Virginia-sized wins in the state's most backward and deprived counties. The 5 worst hellholes in the state:

• Lassen Co.-72.7%
• Modoc Co.- 71.8%
• Shasta Co.- 65.6%
• Tehama Co.- 65.5%
• Glenn Co.- 61.7%

These are tiny counties with few votes but Trump won smaller percentages but far more votes in big Central Valley farming counties like Kern County-- 119,164 votes (54.7%)-- and even in Fresno County, which he lost but which gave him a hefty 113,949 votes (45.5%). The big electoral story in California was that Trump lost reliably Republican suburbs like Orange County-- where he was defeated in all 4 congressional districts Romney, McCain and every other Republican in recent decades has won. But it might be more interesting to go talk with the delusional idiots who voted for him in such overwhelming numbers in alienated, miserable places like Lassen and Modoc counties now.

The Maxwell Public Utility District in Colusa County, California, just northwest of Sacramento, got a $1.28 million loan and a $74,700 grant from the federal government for a water well replacement project in 2015.

Last year, President Donald Trump won the county by 13 percentage points.

Next year, the money that funded the well could completely dry up.


Rural communities across California, many of which voted for Trump, stand to lose millions of dollars in federal funding if proposed cuts in Trump’s budget proposal, unveiled in detail last week, are enacted. While the prospect of the cuts becoming law is dim, it still poses a threat that state lawmakers are readying to fight hard.

Business and industry loan guarantees, funding for water and waste disposal and direct loans for single-family housing are just some of the programs that would be eliminated under the draft budget for the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program. In the 2016 fiscal year, it accounted for more than $800 million in federal dollars flowing to California.

“The cuts in this budget proposal to the USDA and our rural development programs would do great harm to those of us living in rural America,” Jim Costa, co-chair of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, said in a statement. “We should be increasing investments in these communities to create conditions for improved economic growth, not cutting the very investments needed to help our communities recover.”

In a statement, Jennifer Cressy, spokesperson for Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., said the congressman, “ is working with the administration to protect rural areas that have been devastated by federal land use restrictions and cost-prohibitive environmental regulations and are (sic) confident the result will be a renaissance in our mountain communities.”

USDA Rural Development provides support to rural areas in the form of loans and grants for development projects. As of last fall, it was managing nearly $216 billion in direct and guaranteed loans. The president’s budget reduces spending by 26 percent, according to analysis by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, a D.C.-based nonprofit agency that represents agricultural groups around the country.

On Tuesday, a group of 28 Democratic senators sent a letter to Trump to raise concerns over proposed cuts.

“If enacted, these cuts would have a damaging impact on rural communities throughout the country,” the Senators wrote in the letter.

The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.

One of the programs USDA Rural Development funds in California is value-added producer grants, money that helps farmers test and develop new business ideas. Top O’ The Morn Farms, a dairy based in Tulare, California, received a grant in 2016 to study and then launch a home delivery service for their milk. Trump won Tulare County by more than 10 points.

Nearly $2 million in grants were awarded in California in 2016. The proposed 2018 budget would do away with new grants completely.

“They're trying to eliminate government programs that basically help small business” Dave Runsten, policy director for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, a non-profit organization in Davis, California, said.

Runsten said the grants were effective in helping farmers expand their businesses. He said the private sector, “just doesn’t deal with the small people.”

“It’s all a question of the numbers and it’s just not worth it for them to deal with small enterprises,” he said.

Daren Bakst, research fellow in agricultural policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group, disagreed. He said investments of this type reduce private investment and distort the market.

“If something is worthy of investment, private capital will find its way to it,” he said.

Bakst said that Trump’s budget eliminates many duplicative programs and that rural communities would ultimately benefit from a leaner federal government.

“What I think it’s going to do, is it’s going to help taxpayers and it’s going to help rural communities that have taxpayers,” he said.

The proposed budget also eliminates loans and grants for farm labor housing, a program that benefits California. In July, 2016, the USDA awarded $26 million for farm worker housing and $18 million went to California, including $3 million for a project in Bakersfield, home to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

A spokesperson for McCarthy did not immediately respond to request for comment.

In 2014, the USDA awarded $20.7 million in loans, including $12 million to California.

Together, these awards helped build more than 500 affordable housing units for farm workers.

“It looks like a cut, but really it's a tax on rural communities,” Wes King, policy specialist with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition said.

King said federal money is crucial because investment in rural areas is “low profit and high risk” and therefore unattractive to the private financial market. He said local governments may have to raise taxes to make up the shortfall. King said projects that are already underway will most likely be unaffected, but the uncertainty caused by the budget could hamper development. He also said that the cuts could affect the USDA’s goal of promoting trade.

“Agriculture doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” he said, “it exists as part of these communities.”

Don't say, "They deserve it; let them rot." That's because the greatest burden falls on the people who can least afford it, many of whom did not vote for Trump. Remember, those 113,949 fools who voted for Trump in Fresno County were outvoted by 123,660 people who voted for Hillary and over 11,000 more who voted for other candidates. And even in Kern County-- Trump country and much of McCarthy's district-- around 97,000 people who voted chose someone other than Trump. [Lassen and Modoc, on the other hand, should be handed over to Idaho, Utah or Wyoming. They should go-- and take crackpot Congressman Doug LaMalfa with them. Trump won his pathetic district 56.2-36.5%, Trump's second biggest win in the state (after McCarthy's district, where he beat Hillary 58.1-36.1%).]

There are 2 rural congressional districts that look ready to flip from red to blue-- Dehham's and Valadao's. Hillary narrowly won both and each would have had Democratic congressmembers by now if not for serial DCCC incompetence, incompetence that they are somewhat likely to duplicate in 2018.

People Steeped In Primitive Superstition, Ignorance, Fear And Bigotry Back Trump... By A Lot

No, they're not invited to Trump's "victory" party at the Hilton in NYC next week

In The Atlantic this week, best-selling urban studies author Richard Florida is best known for his concept of the creative class and its implications for urban regeneration, compared states where science and technology are leading economic development to states where science and technology are distrusted by a backward, brain-washed (conservative) population. Top of the food-chain: Massachusetts, Colorado, Maryland, California and Washington. Bottom of the barrel: Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia. And the divide between the leading states and lagging states is immense when ranked "on dozens of indicators spanning five broad categories: research and development, entrepreneurship and risk capital, human capital, the scientific and technological workforce, and the concentration and dynamism of high-tech industries."

Florida asserts that there is "a close association between a state’s technology and scientific capability and a state’s economic success and asks "what kinds of states do better in science and technology?" He uses a new study, the State Technology and Science Index> (STSI) from the Milken Institute for his conclusions and measurements. "There are," he wrote, "certain basic characteristics that distinguish more technologically and scientifically innovative states from those that are less so. To get at this, my colleague Charlotta Mellander ran a basic correlation analysis between the Milken Institute’s STSI measure and key economic, demographic and political characteristics of the 50 U.S. states."

Economists have long argued that science and technology are generators of wealth. So it’s not surprising to see that states with higher scores on the STSI are also wealthier. The STSI is positively associated with wages (0.77), income (0.61), and economic output per capita (.49).

More educated states also do better on science and technology. There is an even closer connection between the STSI and the share of adults who are college grads (.84).

More innovative states are not only more affluent and educated, they are healthier and fitter as well. The STSI is positively associated with both overall well-being (.48) and the share of the population that engages in regular exercise (.59). That said, these same states are also more expensive to live in; the STSI is higher in states with more expensive housing (with a correlation of .49).

The kind of work people do factors in as well. The STSI is highly correlated with the share of the workforce who make up knowledge, professional, and creative workers (.80), and negatively associated with the share that are members of the blue-collar working class (-.59).

The reality is that some kinds of creative and innovative work are more highly connected to the science and technology capabilities of states than others. It’s not surprising to see that states with greater concentrations of computer scientists and mathematicians are more innovative (with a correlation of .83), as these are the kinds of occupations required to staff science and technology organizations. The STSI is also closely associated with the share of business and finance occupations (.80) and engineering and architecture occupations (.57).

What is perhaps more surprising is the close connection between the arts and the scientific and technological capabilities of states. Indeed, the STSI is more closely associated with the share of workers in arts, culture and entertainment occupations (.53) than it is with the share of the workforce that is comprised of scientists (.41).

Many states have invested in educational and medical institutions, so-called “eds and meds,” as a way to build up their high-tech capabilities and spur economic development. But, we find no statistical association whatsoever between the STSI and the share of workers in eds and meds occupations.

Another thing that matters is openness to diversity. I’ve long argued that innovation turns on tolerance and diversity. Scientists and technologists come from all backgrounds and ways of life. Many are immigrants. Openness to diversity is a feature that enables places to attract top scientific and technical talent across the aboard. The STSI is positively associated with both the share of the population that is foreign-born (.45) and the share that identify as LGBT (.40).

Urbanization plays a role too. Urbanists have long argued that innovation requires density. More urbanized states are also more innovative. The STSI is positively associated with the share of a state’s population that lives in urban areas (.55) and negatively associated with the share that drives alone to work, a proxy measure for sprawl (-.30). This stands in contrast to the older notion that innovation and high-tech industries grow up in suburban office parks and nerdistans like those of California’s Silicon Valley or in the suburbs along Route 128 outside Boston. Indeed, my own research has found high-tech startups coming back in large numbers to urban centers in order to attract talent.

Innovation at the state level also reflects America’s long running political and cultural divides. Liberal, blue states are more innovative than conservative, red ones. The STSI is positively associated with the share of voters who voted for Obama (.48) and who currently favor Hillary Clinton (.56). They’re negatively associated with the share of voters who voted for Romney (-.48) and favor Trump (-.64).

The sociologist Max Weber long ago argued that the growth and development of Western nations was tied to their “Protestant work ethic.” But today religiosity appears to be a fetter on innovation. The correlation between the STSI and religiosity, measured as the percent of the population who say they are “very religious,” is negative (-.40).

More innovative states are also more highly taxed states, with the STSI being positively correlated with state income taxes per capita (.45). Building a state knowledge economy which requires public funding for universities and research institutes. Spending for urban infrastructure is another expensive investment, but one that ultimately pays off in the form of greater scientific and technological capability as well as higher wages and incomes.

Ultimately, the science and technology capabilities of states not only reflect, but underpin America’s underlying economic, political, and cultural divides. Our most technologically advanced states are bluer, denser, more expensive, more diverse and richer, while those that lag in science and technology are redder, more working class, and falling further behind in the knowledge economy.

Meet the typical Trump supporter in the typical Trump area. Science, technology and critical thinking aren't big in the lives of these simple folks.



So let's look again at the 5 highest ranking states and the 5 lowest ranking states on the state technology and science index and see where they fall in terms of today's presidential polling averages.

1- Massachusetts (83.66)

• Hillary 59.7%
• Trumpy-the-Clown 28.7%

2- Colorado (80.40)

• Hillary 43.3
• Trumpy-the-Clown 41.3

3- Maryland (80.30)

• Hillary 58.3%
• Trumpy-the-Clown 25.7%

4- California (75.94)

• Hillary 54.3%
• Trumpy-the-Clown 32.0%

5- Washington (71.83)

• Hillary 48.8%
• Trumpy-the-Clown 35.3%

46- Mississippi (29.84)

• Hillary 39%
• Trumpy-the-Clown 52%

47- Louisiana (31.40)

• Hillary 34.7%
• Trumpy-the-Clown 51.0%

48- Kentucky (30.53)

• Hillary 37%
• Trumpy-the-Clown 54%

49- Arkansas (27.95)

• Hillary 31.0%
• Trumpy-the-Clown 54.7%

50- West Virginia (25.83)

• Hillary 31%
• Trumpy-the-Clown 49%

It would be interesting to note smaller geographic areas as well. For example, Texas ranks towards the middle of the pack-- the 20th best score (58.65) and Trump leads Clinton statewide, 47.3% to 39.7%. However, when you look at the counties in Texas with high scores in the factors ranked by the study-- human capital investment, risk capital and entrepreneurial infrastructure, research and development inputs, technology concentration and dynamism and technology and science workforce-- you find a very different picture. In Travis County (Austin), Hillary is leading Trump by a staggering 31 points. In Dallas County, she's up by 17%. In Bexar County (San Antonio) she's up by 7 points and in Harris County, she's up by 3 points. Look at a really backward, primitive Texas county, where the Mississippi video above could easily have been made, and you find a very different story. Look at the backward Texas counties, hopeless dumps of human misery, where people worry that Ted Cruz isn't right-wing enough and where there is no education, no hygiene and no hope-- Trump territory. The ten Texas KKK counties that God cursed and which have been left behind by the rest of humanity to rot with its guns and Bronze Age superstitions:

• King- Trump +90

• Roberts- Trump +84
• Sterling- Trump +75
• Oldham- Trump +78
• Glasscock- Trump +81
• Hansford- Trump +77
• Ochiltree- Trump +81
• Motley- Trump +78
• Borden- Trump +78
• Armstrong- Trump +75

And even in an advanced state where the STSI is high and the economy is buzzing, you run across backward places, almost as primitive as the Texas counties or Mississippi. Take California-- very science and technology-oriented, very prosperous and well-educated, very blue... then look at the inland, inbred counties time left behind... even in the Golden State:

• Modoc- Trump +36
• Lassen- Trump +36
• Shasta- Trump +24
• Tehama- Trump +22
• Glenn- Trump +19

Modoc County-- A Lesson In Republican Extremism And Their Cult Of Freeloading

Remote Modoc County, the extreme northeast corner of California has around 10,000 people. Most of it is ghost towns and the 10,000 people living there make it the most Republican County in the Golden State. Not just Republican, a home for teabaggers, militia kooks, racists, conspiracists, Glenn Beck viewers and every kind of extremist you can think of. The last Democrat to win there was LBJ in 1964. It gave McCain his biggest California victory-- 67.9% (2,980 votes) and it is happy to boast the most extreme right wing lunatic fringe maniac in the state's congressional delegation, Tom McClintock, who replaced John Doolittle, after he was forced to resign for multiple criminal activities by he and his wife.

Modoc only has one city: Alturas, the county seat and there are around 3,000 people living there. And Modoc only has one hospital, which also happens to be the county's biggest employer. And there's a problem. Being Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh/Tom McClintock fanatics, many of the citizens don't believe in taxes. Like almost all Republicans, they're bums looking for a free ride. NPR focused on Modoc and it's about-to-be-shut-down hospital yesterday.

Residents in Modoc County, in the remote northeastern corner of California, will soon vote on whether to tax themselves to save their local hospital.

The county has gone broke trying to keep the hospital open, and a fractious debate has erupted in this proudly conservative frontier community over the best way forward... [T]he county hospital in Alturas-- even with its limited services-- is a lifeline to the people who live here. The closest full-service hospitals are hours away, and the nearby medical centers over the mountains are often unreachable during winter storms.

...The hospital is not just a lifeline-- it's an economic engine, even if it is just sputtering along. Like many rural hospitals, Modoc Medical Center is the largest employer in town, and people here worry what will happen if it closes.

"We'll be reduced probably to one grocery story, we'll probably lose a hardware store. We'll lose a lot of things, and a lot of people can't stay here," says Judy Mason, who is secretary of the Save Our Hospital committee. "Then you get a reduced value of properties, so now your tax base is smaller also. So the county becomes more impoverished simply because the tax base isn't there. So it's kind of a signpost: 'Ghost town this way.'"

County officials estimate the proposed parcel tax would generate $3 million a year. That's enough, they say, to keep the hospital afloat and even buy some new equipment. Still, there's strong opposition to the tax measure.

Doug Knox retired with his wife to a small ranch outside of Alturas. His driveway is lined with American and Confederate flags, and he is single-handedly leading the opposition to the parcel tax with radio and television ads.

"If it costs me $10,000 to $15,000, I'm willing to do it," Knox says. "Because I do not believe that throwing money at a problem is the way to go it, and put it on the backs of the taxpayers."
But even the staunchly conservative county supervisors-- who've come under fire for creating the crisis-- admit the parcel tax may be the only choice.

And the problem for normal people is that if these fanatics bankrupt their county and they all have to move out, normal towns are going to get an influx of these freeloaders. Unless they all move to Idaho or Utah or Mississippi, where they'd feel right at home, those being among the worst freeloader states in the Union.