Waiting for the Market to open this morning I came across Margaret Carlson’s excellent analysis.
“It isn’t fair!” is a cry we try in kindergarten and never give up. To tamp down this thirst for instant justice, the nuns at my school invoked the sweet hereafter, where all wrongs would be righted, as a reason for us to suck it up at recess.
As an adult, and a lucky one, the last thing I want now is fairness. I could be waiting on tables instead of being served at them, delivering the papers instead of writing for them.
In that, I’m like Wisconsin’s Republican governor, Scott Walker. He didn’t want fairness to kick in after he assumed power in January and used the rubric of “budget repair” to bully the folks who clean his office and guard his prisoners.
The sweet hereafter made an early appearance in Wisconsin on Tuesday. A Democrat, Chris Abele, cruised to victory in the race to fill Walker’s former post, Milwaukee County executive. And state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, part of a 4-3 conservative majority seen as likely to support Walker’s assault on unions, ended up in a too-close-to-call election that may result in a recount. Just six weeks ago, Prosser was expected to coast to victory over JoAnne Kloppenburg, an assistant attorney general. Only five incumbent Supreme Court judges have been defeated since 1852.
Ordinarily it takes four years to right an electoral wrong. Not this time. Liberal and conservative groups descended on Wisconsin to turn what would normally be a ho-hum election into a referendum on Walker…
Regardless of the eventual outcome, Kloppenburg’s out-of- nowhere showing is a cautionary tale for those governors following in Walker’s path by curtailing workers’ bargaining rights, and for the Tea Party, which you’d think would be fighting for the little guy, not the big bully…
On April 5, voters in South Central Wisconsin approved two historic referenda by overwhelming margins. These referenda asked whether voters support amending the U.S. Constitution to make clear that corporations are not people and money is not speech. The City of Madison referendum passed with 84% of the vote, and the similar Dane County referendum passed with 78%.
These referenda are the first anywhere in the country to call for a constitutional amendment in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United vs. FEC decision. Members of South Central Wisconsin Move to Amend (SCWMTA), the local group that pushed for the referenda, believe they will not be the last. “Amending the Constitution will not be easy, and to succeed people across the country will need to stand up and demand it,” says Kaja Rebane, SCWMTA Co-Chair. “We hope our success will inspire others to organize their own efforts.”
The 2010 Citizens United case declared that limiting the amount corporations can spend to influence elections would violate the “free speech rights” of corporate “people” under the First Amendment. National polls have shown broad opposition to the Citizens United decision (85% of Democrats, 81% of Independents, 76% of Republicans), and widespread support for a constitutional amendment to undo it (87% of Democrats, 82% of Independents, 68% of Republicans).
“This really is common sense. Even a small child can tell the difference between a corporation and a living, breathing human being. How can this be so hard for the Supreme Court to understand?” asks Madison resident Kevin Gundlach.
Anyone else remember “We the People” being more important than “Them the Corporations”?
Thanks, Cinaedh
MikeN==it is only a rough equation but meant to equal the like of Walker taking money from the Koch Brothers to then ram thru legislation taking away employee rights to collectively bargain/have unions thereby destroying Democratic Party ability to counter Republicans Killing America. so the question really becomes: who do you associate more with, or more to the point, where do your actual self interests lie?===with the Super Rich top 1% of the economic pyramid, or somewhere below that with other wage slaves?
Wake Up Fools and you too Mickey. The Republicans want to Kill America and they can’t do it without your vote.
There are many ways to address budget deficits.
A really great article:
http://chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-us-brokenbudgets-the,0,7124128.story
This article demonstrates what California, Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois are doing.
Democrat Cuomo in New York is holding the line with his no tax increases pledge and slashing spending.
Texas and Florida are firmly establishing their states as pro-business to attract jobs. They are actually cutting taxes a little and cutting spending a lot.
California and Illinois are raising taxes.
From the way things look, businesses are fleeing California. There are already complaints by many employers in Illinois about tax burdens.
http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2011/03/caterpillar-threatens-to-leave-illinois-over-taxes.html
http://cabproreport.typepad.com/weblog/2011/01/companies-fleeing-california-for-utah-over-confiscatory-tax-rate.html
http://russel.activerain.com/post/2170897/one-reason-why-companies-are-fleeing-california
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/02/relo-expert-top-10-reasons-businesses.html
Wisconsin is really lucky to have Scott Walker.
What I find most amusing is that the most conservative states are also those whose residents search the web for the most intrinsically kinky porn. While liberals get caught sleeping with some ones wife, conservatives especially ministers and the most homophobic get caught sleeping with some ones husband.
Hey Alf as some one so opposed to internet anonymity one, why did you change your moniker and two, why don’t you just post using your real name?
I searched the internets for Alfred Persons and found one hit for a pedophile but the file was password protected. I tried Alfie and TEAdud but neither worked.
Speaking of which, I came across:
Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
The explanation is that God and Jesus still loves us, is straight, and everything in the bible is the absolute truth and should be taken literally but in ancient times “hate” meant anything less than total devotion up to and including hate. They had no continuum of adjectives back then, the Greeks were too simple a culture to make gradations of human appreciation.
Yea, verily.
Gee H, that’s like saying a hooker is lucky to have the clap.
Not true. The problem is most of the people that post at this blog are partisan mudslingers that have some party talking points built into their heads.
Look at Detroit, they had to close half their public schools because they neglected city planning for years.
What are any of the public sector employees including the teachers really losing in Wisconsin?
A bit more for healthcare, more of their own pension … it has been blown totally out-of-proportion.
Pretty mild stuff.
H way back in my freshman year my poli sci prof made the comment “the whole point of getting elected is to get re-elected”. Any politician would sell his mother for a triscuit if it will get him or her elected. No politician and I mean NO politician has the interest of the public at heart. I have worked both private and public sector including local, state, and federal government, and without fail every politician has an agenda from the small town council man to the president, and they don’t include the voters welfare. The argument against public sector employees always forgets to include the biggest leeches. Take a look at the pending shutdown. The military will not get paid, potentially thousands of government employees will not be paid, but hey the senate and president keep on keeping on, it won’t affect their paycheck. The constitution should be amended to state that any person who actually wants the job of representative, senator, or president should be immediately excluded from holding office. Walker doesn’t give a damn about Wisconsin, he just wants the office, it means he won’t actually have to work for a living. The older I get the more I believe that prostitute is an ancient word that actually means politician, and prostitution is the worlds oldest profession.
Your argument on Detroit is invalid, the city did not neglect planning. The politicians failed to plan. They refused to make the hard decisions or face reality. They refused to maintain the infrastructures water, sewer, street, schools, Those are the bedrock without which the city fails. You cant attract industry if you can supply it’s needs. Things like water, sewer, power, roads, and an educated populous that can be trained to perform the work the company needs. Instead politicians make pretty speeches with talking points to draws the populous away from the reality that the structures around them are crumbling and they have no knowledge of how to fix them. If they actually take the time to learn what needs to be done from those other public sector employees, the one who get dirt on their hands. They find out just how fucked up the situation is. Take a look at the water and sewer infrastructure in this country, it is literally into the trillions, not to replace but just to maintain what we have. The American Society of Civil Engineers give water and sewer a D-. But a politician knows if they tell the public the truth. That rates need to be increased to maintain what we have, they will be voted out, replaced by someone who will tell the public its ok nothing to worry about. So the talking heads continue to lie to us, and we know they are lying to us but we continue to elect them any way.
Link in case your interested 2009 report.
http://tinyurl.com/c796yj
Now you are speaking my language … partisan rhetoric and partisan name calling is a bore for Neanderthals.
Every politician has an agenda. This is nothing new. Yes, you are right that Detroit refused to plan. And Walker’s personal motivations are a bit irrelevant to me in the sense that once anyone is elected to high public office they are already “set for life” with the benefits.
One of the budget saving measures most states are going to have to enact is cutting teachers.
The school district I live in lost $13 million in funding and had to cut 87 teachers. It is one of the best school districts in Ohio and when you go in there, there are countless teachers, assistants and so forth that it is massively overstaffed. I feel sorry for those 87 that will be losing their jobs, but Ohio has an $8 billion deficit to close and the expiration of stimulus $$$ is part of the cut.
At the same time, this country has to trim down and get lean and mean.
We are going to face a continually worse economy — raising taxes can’t solve an overspending problem. Governments on all levels have been addicted to taxpayer $$$ that in the past ever-increased.
But we don’t live in that world any longer. Everyone is going to have to adapt. And unions serving as a pass-thru tax on taxpayer resources is certainly one expensive and overhead that can be discarded.
(I do not agree with the US government shutdown that looks like is going to happen. I am rather disappointed, but I’m not really a partisan guy but the Democrat’s idea of do-nothing and reform-nothing has no appeal to me. I was a very early Obama-supporter, btw.)
Btw … an easy solution for this country would be to kill NAFTA. No one wants to talk about that. Not Democrats, not Republicans. It would bring jobs and therefore taxes to the United States in a hurry. But corporate money permeating both parties funding assures that this won’t happen. So much for 1980-style Democrats with principles; they don’t exist in 2011.
In D&D terms, the GOP is layful evil and the Democrats are chaotic good. No souls vs. no spines. No wonder we’re all screwed up.