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Thousands Protest at Capitol Against Walker Budget, Supreme Court Ruling

Crowds of protesters who flocked to the Wisconsin state Capitol June 14 anticipating Assembly action on the divisive collective bargaining bill, which essentially eliminates collective bargaining for public workers, were shocked to learn the Supreme Court had reinstated the law in a hotly contested 4-3 decision.

Speakers at a planned 5:00 p.m. rally were quick to lift the faltering spirits of the Wisconsin Democracy Movement. Mahlon Mitchell, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin, told the crowd of thousands, “We’re going to be here every day. We didn’t pick this fight, but if it’s a fight they want, it’s a fight they’re going to get.”

Mary Bell, a middle school English teacher from Wisconsin Rapids serving as president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, urged protestors to hold Republican legislators accountable for their actions by voting in various recall elections across the state.

“This extreme agenda has to be seen for what it is and what it does to our Wisconsin values. Change begins when we stand up and speak out for what we believe in,” Bell said.

Republicans Signal Approaching Court Ruling, File Fake Candidates

The 4-3 ruling reflected the sharp conservative-liberal divide that many believed would determine the outcome of the Court’s decision. In her dissent, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson attacked the implicit “partisan slant” in Justice Prosser’s concurrence and the shaky rhetorical foundation of the majority opinion.

In hastily reaching judgment, Justice Patience D. Roggensack, Justice Annette K. Ziegler, and Justice Michael J. Gableman author an order, joined by Justice David T. Prosser, lacking a reasoned, transparent analysis and incorporating numerous errors of law and fact,” wrote Abrahamson. “This kind of order seems to open the court unnecessarily to the charge that the majority has reached a pre-determined conclusion not based on the facts and the law, which undermines the majority’s ultimate decision.”

The timing of the decision surprised those who had been keeping an eye on collective bargaining proceedings. Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald announced just yesterday that comittee hearings would be held Tuesday on the collective bargaining proposal, and that his Republican caucus was prepared to vote on it irregardless of a Supreme Court decision. The hearings were delayed several times throughout the day, raising a few eyebrows at the Capitol despite Fitzgerald’s categorical denial of any wrongdoing or insider information.

Some protesters did in fact speculate that not all is as it seems.

“The way they passed the budget bill initially was wrong, and the fact they did this behind closed doors is wrong,” said Sarah Fuelleman, a writer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Ophthalmology, adding, “I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I’m starting to become one.”

Lauren Schmidt, a 22-year-old home health care worker from Madison, didn’t mince words.

“I think its horseshit,” she said, before joining a contingent of protesters screaming and blowing vuvuzelas outside the window of Rep. Stephen Nass’s office, where the Republican lawmaker quietly ignored, and at times playfully provoked, impassioned Walkervillians.

Tuesday’s other big piece of news — that Republicans officially filed “fake Democrat” candidates in six Democratic primaries for the upcoming recall elections — didn’t come as much of a surprise. Republicans have openly admitted their intention of delaying the elections by fielding puppet candidates, but have been less forthcoming about the tactic’s collateral damage. According to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation, the GOP plan would cost taxpayers upward of $428,000.

Budget Cuts Start to Hurt

Teachers, steel workers, firefighters, and other union workers began their Capitol Square march at 11:00 a.m., hoisting signs that read “Recall Walker” and “RIP Democracy.”  Many expressed concern that various budget provisions would leave their families reeling financially.

Stacy Farasha Rhoads, adance instructor from Milwaukee who wore an all pink outfit to symbolize her opposition to proposed Planned Parenthood Cuts, worried that her two children, one of whom is autistic, would suffer from reduced funding for state-provided health services.

“I’m a single mother. I’ve got two children who are on Badgercare and I have a daughter with special needs. So all of the services that my family needs on a regular basis are under attack,” said Rhoads.

Rhoads marched in solidarity with other parents and families anticipating economic hardship, such as Chris Breihan, a part time teacher at Milwaukee Area Technical College. Proposed cuts to Family Care threaten to prevent her 21-year-old special needs son from attending an adult day services program recently recommended to him.

The mood was relaxed for most of the day, as Assembly Democrats and Republicans spent the majority of the afternoon behind closed doors at party caucus meetings. At a midday press conference, Representative Peter Barca and his Democratic caucus announced their intention to offer “a couple dozen” amendments to Governor Walker’s proposed budget, as part of their effort to push back against budget cuts targeting working class families.

At the end of the rally, firefighters led protesters in a “hands around the Capitol,” ceremony. The Beatles’ “Revolution,” written in response to the anti-war protests of the late 1960s, blared from event loudspeakers as pro-union activists took their places along the square. Hand in hand, the group sang a Sconnified version of “We Shall Overcome,” signaling their intent to keep fighting back against Governor Walker’s anti-middle class agenda.

Debora Marks, a 1st grade teacher at Lindbergh elementary, vowed to keep returning to Walkerville for “as long as it takes.” The frequent trips to the Capitol haven’t, however, distracted her from what she considers her top priority.

“My job is about something far more important than Scott Walker: its about educating future generations, and that’s something teachers can not stop doing, whether the Governor wants us to or not,” said Marks.

 

By: Eric Carlson, Center for Media and Democracy, June 15, 2011

June 15, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Democracy, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Government, Governors, Ideologues, Ideology, Lawmakers, Middle Class, Planned Parenthood, Politics, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Maine GOP Chair: We Must Make It Harder To Vote Because ‘Democrats Intentionally Steal Elections’

For nearly four decades, Maine has been one of eight states which provides same-day voter registration to voters at the polls. This policy of enfranchising the greatest number of Maine voters is likely to end, however, now that the GOP-controlled state legislature has passed a bill ending same-day registration and Tea Party Gov. Paul LePage is expected to sign it. Worse, state GOP Chairman Charlie Webster explained it was necessary to disenfranchise the thousands of Maine voters who take advantage of same-day registration every election year in order to save Maine from one of his paranoid fantasies:

“If you want to get really honest, this is about how the Democrats have managed to steal elections from Maine people,” Webster told a columnist for the Portland Press Herald in a piece published Friday. “Many of us believe that the Democrats intentionally steal elections.”

Sadly, Maine’s voter disenfranchisement bill is only the latest example of the Republican war on voting that began almost immediately after the GOP took over several statehouses this year. Numerous GOP state legislatures have rammed through “voter ID” laws which disenfranchise thousands of elderly, disabled, and low-income voters. Republicans typically justify these voter disenfranchisement laws by claiming that they are necessary to combat voter fraud at the polls, but in-person voter fraud is only slightly more common than unicorns. A recent Supreme Court decision upholding a voter ID law was only able to cite one example of in-person voter fraud in the last 143 years.

Nor are voter ID laws the only front in the GOP’s war on voting. As Jonathan Chait explains, their efforts also include measures “restricting early voting, shortening poll hours, [and] clamping down on students voting at their campus.” And in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker (R) even plans to  gut his state’s public financing program — a program designed to make candidates less dependent on wealth donors — in order to pay for a voter disenfranchisement law.

Yet, while the Maine GOP may have won a skirmish in the war on voting with their repeal of same day registration, it is anything but certain that they will win this war. The state’s Democrats hope to invoke Maine’s “people’s veto” process, which allows the voters to repeal a newly enacted state law by referendum. To invoke this procedure, they must collect just over 57,000 signatures before a 90-day window closes.

By: Ian Millhiser, Think Progress, June 13, 2011

June 15, 2011 Posted by | Conservatives, Democracy, Elections, Equal Rights, GOP, Government, Ideologues, Ideology, Lawmakers, Maine, Politics, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Tea Party, Voters | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Flashback 2007: Tim Pawlenty Proposed Establishing A Health Insurance Exchange

Politico’s Kendra Marr and Kate Nocera reviewthe health care records of the GOP presidential candidates and find that Mitt Romney isn’t the only contender who previously supported parts of the Affordable Care Act. Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, and Newt Gingrich all flirted with various provisions that ultimately ended up in the health law.

ThinkProgress Health reported on Pawlenty’s past support for “universal coverage” here, and his positive assessment of Massachusetts’ individual mandate, but Cal Ludeman, his commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, recalls that Pawlenty also advocated for establishing an exchange:

Minnesota’s exchange proposal would have required all employers with more than 10 employees to create a “section 125 plan” so workers could buy cheaper insurance with pre-tax dollars. During a 2007 news conference, Pawlenty said launching such a system would only cost employers about $300.

“Remember how new that idea was, even back then,” said Ludeman. “Everybody was talking about how this was a new Orbitz or Travelocity, where you just go shop. It was never talked about in our conversations as a hard mandated only channel where you could go. But that’s where Massachusetts ended up.”

Pawlenty advanced the non-profit Minnesota Insurance Exchange in 2007, arguing that it could “connect employers and workers with more affordable health coverage options.” “If just two of your employees go out and buy insurance through the exchange, the benefits to the employer on a pre-tax basis — because of their payments to Social Security and otherwise into the 125 plan — more than cover the cost of setting up the plan,” Pawlenty explained.

The exchange originated as a Republican idea and was developed in part by the Heritage Foundation’s Stuart Butler. The measure was eventually adopted by Mitt Romney and later became part of the Democrats’ health reform plan. Under the Affordable Care Act, states that don’t establish their own exchanges by 2014, cede control of the new health market places to the federal government. In 2010, while still governor of Minnesota, Pawlenty rejected the ACA’s “insurance exchanges,” dubbing them a federal takeover.

 

By: Igor Volsky, Think Progress, June 13, 2011

June 14, 2011 Posted by | Affordable Care Act, Conservatives, Democrats, GOP, Government, Governors, Health Reform, Ideologues, Ideology, Individual Mandate, Politics, Republicans, Right Wing, States, Under Insured, Uninsured | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Polls Are Sinking For New GOP Governors Like Scott Walker

If you’ve  been wondering lately who’s been writing the Republican playbook, I think I’ve  found him. It’s none other than Lenny Dykstra.

Back in his baseball  playing days, Dykstra was a tough as nails leadoff hitter famous for filling  his cheeks with huge wads of tobacco and crashing into outfield walls.  After his playing days were over, he wowed the world with his stock-picking  acumen. Made millions. Drove fancy cars. Owned an $18 million  mansion. He even had a sink that cost $50,000. (It’s true.)

And then, it all came  tumbling down. He went bankrupt. His house was  seized. He was indicted.  And what did he do? He broke back into his old  house … and stole his  prized sink.

Back in November, a new  breed of Republican governor was enjoying its own “wow” moment. Rick  Snyder was the “one tough nerd” to get Michigan’s financial house in  order. Scott Walker was about to take a blow torch to Wisconsin unions.  Florida’s Rick Scott won perhaps the most coveted prize on the presidential  election map. They were supposed to be the leading edge of the Republican  revolution, finally doing what conservatives have long held Americans want  their leaders to do: fundamentally recalibrate the way government operates in  the public square, and disentangling it from the everyday lives of ordinary  people.

But in Sunday’s Washington  Post, Norman Ornstein of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute took a  moment to detail the woes these boy wonders have since encountered. Rick  Snyder’s approval rating is at 33 percent. Scott Walker’s is 43  percent. Rick Scott: 29 percent.  [Read the U.S. News Debate: Should Congress Raise the Debt Ceiling?]

Seven months ago they were  the toast of the town. Now, milquetoast. What happened?

Well, as Ornstein  describes it, the governors launched initiatives aimed at “cutting benefits for  the poor and middle class while adding tax breaks for the rich” while also  trying to get rid of collective bargaining. As you might imagine,  that wasn’t very popular with a lot of people (for instance: the poor and  middle class). And, shockingly, it hasn’t done much to balance their state budgets either. So now, according to Ornstein, “the only areas left for  meaningful budget reductions are education, Medicaid, and prisons.”

Let’s see: Your approval  numbers are in the tank, and all you’ve got left are gutting schools, letting  out convicts, and taking healthcare away from disadvantaged kids.  I’m guessing, as a re-election strategy, that leaves something to be desired.

In other words: fellas, it  ain’t working. And what’s so surprising about all of this is that for  some, it’s so surprising. Is it really so hard to figure out that one of  the reasons government is its current size and shape is that people have needs  that they want their government to try and meet? It doesn’t always work,  of course. But frustration over government spending on programs that  aren’t working isn’t the same thing as saying people no longer want good public  schools. Understanding that distinction is the difference between doing  the hard, more complicated work of reforming something that isn’t working as  well as we would like, and becoming fixated on an ideological goal that doesn’t  end up fixing anything at all.

Which brings me back to  Mr. Dykstra and his beloved sink. Now, in fairness, those of us who have  been consigned to using standard-issue sinks can only dream about the  hydrological wonders of the $50k variety. Perhaps it dispensed nothing  but delicious milkshakes. More likely: Even as his world was crashing down,  Dykstra couldn’t take his eyes off the one thing he coveted the most. Now  it looks like he’s going to prison.

Republicans may be in for  a similar electoral fate. Instead of helping the people they were elected  to serve, they’ve gone about ruthlessly pursuing an elusive conservative holy  grail. Dismantling government—it’s the GOPs $50,000 sink. And they can’t  take their eyes off of it even as their house burns down around them.

By: Anson Kaye, U. S. News and World Report, June 13, 2011

June 14, 2011 Posted by | Bankruptcy, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Democracy, Elections, GOP, Government, Governors, Health Care, Ideologues, Ideology, Labor, Lawmakers, Medicaid, Middle Class, Politics, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Voters, Wealthy | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The GOP Health Care Assault On Planned Parenthood Exposes The Hypocrisy Of The Pro-Life Movement

I tend not to get involved in discussions on abortion because I have never been able to resolve the conflict which comes from understanding both sides of this difficult issue. I understand those who believe in the pro-choice approach. Certainly, a woman wants, needs and deserves to be in control of her own body and make the decisions that she believes are best.

But I also get the pro-life movement. If an individual believes that a life is ‘in being’ at the moment of conception, I can well appreciate the distress such a person would feel over such a life being terminated.

What I cannot understand is how the very people who are so profoundly committed to the pro-life movement seem to lose all care, concern and compassion for that life once the child is born into the world.

Nowhere is this hypocrisy more prominently on display than in the current war being waged by the GOP on Planned Parenthood – the organization that spends 97% of their efforts and money providing millions of impoverished American women with critical front-line health care, essential medical testing to discover disease before it is too late to successfully treat a patient, and the very family planning and sex education services that might help women avoid an unwanted pregnancy and thus moot the question of abortion.

Yes, the remaining 3% of the Planned Parenthood budget is dedicated to providing abortion services but, contrary to what the anti-abortion forces would have you believe, not one cent of taxpayer money – federal or state – pays for so much as an IV needle used in an abortion procedure. The legal prohibition against taxpayer money being spent on abortions is as clearly enforced as the Roe v. Wade decision that confirms a woman’s right to choose in the United States.

Despite the important work done by Planned Parenthood – and the lives they save – the GOP has made it a cornerstone of their social agenda to put this vital service to the working and non-working poor out of business.

Should you doubt that the organization does, in fact, save lives, take a look at this letter written by Maggie Davis of Saratoga Springs in response to her Congressman’s voting to defund Planned Parenthood.

I am writing this in answer to Congressman Gibson’s vote against the funding for Planned Parenthood. I have no idea why he did this. Regardless of the pro and con of Planned Parenthood, they do save lives. I speak from experience.In the early ’70s I went to Planned Parenthood here for a checkup and they found something that was wrong and advised me to see my doctor right away. I did and within one month I had to have surgery to save my life. I would not be here today writing this letter. If it were not for Planned Parenthood and Dr. Streit of Saratoga, I would be dead. I will always be thankful to Planned Parenthood for discovering something and telling me to go to my doctor.

Mr. Gibson, I think you should take another look at how many lives Planned Parenthood does save. When we voted for you, we expected you to work for the taxpayers who pay you.

Maggie Davis, Saratoga Springs

Via The Saratogian

So, how do the pro-life forces defend their position that Planned Parenthood must go because, on occasion, they perform medical procedures that end what these folks perceive to be lives in being while fully understanding that closing the organization’s doors will result in the loss of lives of women we know are in being?

How did the 240 Members of the House of Representatives (a total which included 10 Democrats) justify their votes when they passed a bill in February to defund Planned Parenthood knowing that while their vote may or may not have resulted in a few less abortions had the Senate agreed (they did not), that same vote would also take the lives of people like Maggie Davis as a result of the legislation?

Had the House had their way, how many additional abortions would result – under conditions one shudders to contemplate – due to the loss of the counseling services designed to help women avoid unwanted pregnancies?

Now, as we watch the GOP assault on Medicaid – the federal and state funded health program relied on by over 40% of women who visit Planned Parenthood – one is left to wonder just how much of this drive to destroy the state-based medical safety net is based on actual budgetary concerns or whether budget difficulties are simply a cover for the effort to win the battle against legal abortion.

And while we are looking at the questions, maybe someone can answer how the eleven states that have either passed or introduced legislation this year designed to ban groups like Planned Parenthood from receiving family-planning funding or prevent them from contracting with the state for payment for services provided by these organizations, justify their own actions?

The simple truth is that there is no rational way to conclude that these alleged pro-life forces are, in fact, pro-life as it is difficult to fathom how one can desire to protect the life of the unborn by sacrificing the life of the already born. If you believe in protecting the unborn, does it not necessarily follow that you are equally as concerned about protecting the lives of those already here in the flesh.

What I can work out is how pro-life politicians are, in reality, ‘pro’ their political careers and are more than willing to sacrifice the lives of the poor who rely on the services of Planned Parenthood to burnish their anti-abortion credentials.

Seriously, does it get any worse than that? Making the matter even more despicable is the reliance upon religion as the basis for the pro-life consciousness. I fully understand and respect that religions teach that taking the lives of the unborn is morally wrong just as I understand and respect that it is up to each individual to hear those teachings or not. This is the way we roll in America.

Yet, I am aware of nothing in any of the competing religious tomes suggesting that while is it essential to protect the unborn so that they may have life, protecting those currently here so that they might continue life is no big deal. I’m also pretty sure that the Bible does not endorse allowing people to get sick and die because ‘we can’t afford it.’

Here’s a thought for those dedicated GOP ‘fighters for life’ – show a little consistency and maybe you’ll have more success in convincing the public that your closely held religious beliefs are something more than just the worst kind of cynical and despicable politics.

Show you are as concerned for the lives and health of those already walking the planet as you profess to be for those who have not yet arrived. Then, and only then, can any one willing to scrutinize your motives view you as the God fearing, compassionate human beings you pretend to be.

Failing the same, even the most religious and zealous among us should not, in good conscious, avoid the fact that our elected officials are picking and choosing between the lives they save and the lives they sacrifice in the name of good politics.

If your beliefs lie with the pro-life side of the abortion issue, I respect that. I encourage you to continue your fight just as I heartily support both your right and need to do so.

But don’t effectuate that fight by requiring the taking of the lives and health of others because you have not yet won your battle.

While you may be right that compassion for life must begin with conception, there is no logical or emotional basis that suggests that the same compassion should end with birth.

Tell your elected representatives to back off on Planned Parenthood. Then, and only then can you truly be among those who are pro-life.

By: Rick Ungar, The Policy Page, Forbes, June 13, 2011

June 14, 2011 Posted by | Abortion, Anti-Choice, Class Warfare, Congress, Conservatives, Democracy, Equal Rights, GOP, Government, Health Care, Human Rights, Ideology, Lawmakers, Medicaid, Planned Parenthood, Politics, Pro-Choice, Public Health, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Women, Women's Health, Womens Rights | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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