SquareState - Wisconsin

Stat of the Day: Wisconsin Edition

Zappatero — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 23:06:25 GMT

Union members voting against their own interest and having Karl Rove rub it in your face the next day:

We'll be talking about Tuesday's Wisconsin recall election for a long time to come.
The results were a historic setback for organized labor, which failed to oust Gov. Scott Walker in a citadel of modern progressivism. And how it must have stung that 38% of union households voted for Mr. Walker, up a point from 2010 when he was first elected.

This could be a self-reinforcing cycle, bought and paid for by Republican funders, perpetuated by those who continually vote against their own best interests.

Breaking News: Eric Cantor And Jethro Bodine Separated At Birth!

Bill Egnor AKA Something The Dog Said — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:30:40 GMT

Bondeism started as a way for me to highlight the nitwittery of the Republicans in the 111th Congress. They say and do really gob smacking things and I post about comparing them to that gormless but loveable hillbilly Jethro Bodine. But I have to wonder if I have actually, through some unintended and accidental sorcery called this disease into reality (I'm probably taking too much on myself with that, still)?

It is one thing to misinterpret the Constitution, it is open for interpretation and people can be honestly wrong, but it is quit another for a Member of Congress in a leadership position to propose action that is completely outside the boundaries of the Constitution. Which is exactly what Eric Cantor is doing.

He is proposing and will force the House to bring to a vote a measure he is calling the "Government Shutdown Prevention Act". What this Act will say is that if the Senate does not pass a budget measure by April 6th, then HR 1, the Republicans draconian and job slaughtering bill (which, by the way the Senate has already voted down) will become the law of the land.

I hear you all going "But, but, but... Doesn't the Senate have to pass a bill and the President sign it for it to be law?" Why, yes, yes it does. It seems that the raven haired, square jawed Virginia Republican who is the House Majority Leader does not understand how the body he has been part of for a decade now works.

If there were an "All Time Jethro Bodineism Award" it is certain that Rep. Cantor would be earning himself a place in the nominees. It is easy to dismiss this as insane and a stunt, but I see a bigger picture emerging among Republicans nation wide.

The lawless behavior of Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin has shown that he and his Republicans have a shocking disregard for the laws of their state. They have broken and bent the rules to pass their union busting bill and have even defied a court order in the implementation of the law.
In Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has proposed a law that would allow his office to declare "financial marshal law" and then appoint and unelected business manager to take over a municipality, and go as far as dissolving the elected government of that city or town, all without any input from the voters there in.

Combine this with Rep Eric "Jethro For Life" Cantor's plan, which he proposes as "getting serious about the budget impasse" and you see something very disturbing; a political party that not only does not understand the Constitution but is actively trying to thwart it at every turn.

It was one of the things that we Liberals warned about in the days of the criminal Bush administration, that if the flagrant disregard for the Constitution of that administration was allowed to continue it would degrade the affects of our founding document beyond just those instances.

The abject failure of the Obama administration to investigate, and where appropriate prosecute the offenders had proven that this slippery slope is indeed real. I completely understand that it would have been and continues to be politically difficult to follow the rule of law in this case; however this failure is not without consequences.

Without the firm backstop of Constitutionality, and the enforcement of laws against heinous crimes like torture and indefinite detention we open ourselves up to debate exactly what every right and responsibility in the Constitution means. The Conservative movement has opened a Pandora's Box and is more than happy to start taking bed rock assumptions apart now that we do not have clarity on issues as black and white as torture.

From Birth Right Citizenship, to how Senators are elected, to EPA to collective bargaining rights they are ready to ignore centuries of progress and try to take our nation back to a time when we were, frankly less free. It is of course, ironic that these fools wrap themselves in the mantle of the Framers of the Constitution. It is a good thing I don't believe in an after life, else I would have to endure the image of Franklin, Jefferson and Addams puking their guts out at the mockery these asshats are making of their nation.

One thing that we can do is to start to push the media not to give a platform to the Jethro's. Rep. Cantor is protected in his right to say any damned fool thing he likes, but that does not mean it should go unchallenged.

Take a couple of minutes to write a letter to your local newspaper about the fact that one of the top Republicans is going to waste the time of the Peoples House to vote on a bill that will never be law and acts like the House has more power than it does.

The floor is yours.

When What You Study Makes You A Political Target, Labor Edition

Bill Egnor AKA Something The Dog Said — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:36:19 GMT

At what point does your work make you a target for political harassment? As a blogger I get a small amount of hate mail and a moderate amount of harassing mail (the two are different, one you can see the person foaming at the mouth, the other you can see their grin at wasting your time), but that is kind of par for the course.

However a troubling trend has started from the Right with regards to State University professors. They are nominally State employees, so the Right as begun to use Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to look at all of the e-mails of professors.

It all started with Ken "the Cooch" Cuccinelli, the Attorney General of Virginia, talking about going after a climate science researcher in the totally discredited "climate gate" incident. Since then there have been FOIA requests of a William Cronon of University of Wisconsin in connection with the illegal and unethical actions of the Republicans and Gov. Walker in that state.

Now it is spreading.
Talking Points Memo first reported and now the
New York Times is picking up the story of several conservative groups in Michigan who are asking for a wide swath of e-mails from three professors from the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University.
The group is called the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. It is one of a network of state based conservative groups that is associated with the uber conservative Heritage Foundation, with donors like the Koch Brothers and the Walton family of the Wal-Mart fortune.

From the TMP article:

But where those requests were relatively narrow -- looking for emails surrounding a specific incident or specific plans for a strike -- the FOIAs sent to state university labor studies faculty are quite broad. The parameters for the request, from a version of the FOIA obtained by TPM and confirmed by Mackinac, cover emails that mention:

"Scott Walker"; "Wisconsin"; "Madison"; "Maddow"; Any other emails dealing with the collective bargaining situation in Wisconsin.

The request covers all faculty emails from "January 1, 2011 to March 25, 2011."

That covers a hell of a lot of ground and it is unclear exactly what this fishing expedition in the Labor Studies departments of three large universities is really looking for. One thing to be aware of is that professors are not allowed to use university resources for partisan political activities. So if they slipped up and said something to a college that could be interpreted as partisan, they could be embarrassed.

What is more troubling to me is the notion that this is being done to intimidate not just the profs who are subject to the request but all labor studies professors. The battle to retain hard won collective bargaining rights is one that anyone who studies labor and the labor movement would be fascinated by. As they should be, it would be like astronomers seeing a super nova on 300 light years from Earth.

To make them the target of political attacks or intimidation for interest in their chosen field of study merely because Conservatives and the Koch Brothers want to bust all unions is plainly an abuse of the intent of the FOIA. I am all in favor of the public being able to know what is done with the money it pays in taxes, yet there has to be some boundary.

Professor Cornon made himself a public figure by blogging about the union busting fight in Madison. He raised his profile and as such has a lower expectation of privacy in his writing and speaking. It just goes with the territory. But Professor Douglas Fraser of Wayne State and the entire Labor Studies Center at U of M did not.

They have been targeted in this matter merely from the perception of the anti-labor forces that they are pro-labor. I don't know one way or the other if they are or are not, but that is hardly the point. They are academics studying a field that touches the entire nation.

One of the reasons that tenure is granted to professors is so that they can study and write about anything they want. It is supposed to give them freedom to be controversial in the hopes that they will use it wisely to push the boundaries of human knowledge. Since this is an unfettered right to speak and investigate, of course the Right hates it and wants to quell the voices that come from this system.

Another problem with this tactic is that Universities are not places where there is tons of extra money laying around. If this becomes the de rigor method of trying to keep voices the Right does not like silent, then the cost to schools could sky-rocket. This combined with the stifling affect that making academics at State schools worry about all of their e-mail communication is dangerous for a society that is already devaluing expertise in favor of politically motivated positions.

It remains to be seen what the Mackinac Center will do with this giant pile of e-mails. If past is prolog for the future, I would expect there will be a lot of smoke, but no fire about abuse of e-mail combined with a lot of outrage over selectively edited experts designed to discredit anyone who study's labor or who is willing to say that what is being done to unions across the upper Midwest is wrong.

Sadly this seem like the start, not the end. I know that we have a lot of areas where we must push back against the Conservative tide trying to unravel our rights, but the area of academic freedom is an important one.

The floor is yours.

Letter to Scott Walker

peacemonger — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 21:22:08 GMT

Dear Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker,

Thank you for your assistance in bringing together workers from every walk of life: teachers, firefighters, police officers, government employees, nurses, union members, people of faith, civil rights activists, environmentalists and many others. Thank you for giving us a reason, and a renewed commitment, to publicly declare that we stand together in solidarity to protect the middle class, and to ensure justice for workers. Thank you for helping us find our voice for democracy, and our passion for equal opportunity to the American Dream.

You see, when you and your corporate friends threatened the very fabric of our society -- the working middle-class people of America -- with your heavy-handed wrecking-ball policies, we woke up. We were not stupid; we knew this is not about the economy, or one state budget, or helping small businesses. We knew your power grab was really about weakening our voices -- the voices of millions of hard-working people, as well as students, youth, immigrants, and people between jobs. We knew it was a way to make more profits for billionaires, at the hands of struggling American families. We are awake now, and we are not going to let you take our country from us without a fight.

On Monday, April 4th, we will stand together with our working brothers and sisters all over America. We will participate in marches, vigils, teach-ins, rallies, demonstrations, protests, and other events. We will take back our country, demand jobs that earn a living wage, and make our country better for all working people.

You see, we've been here before.

In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. joined a group of 1300 city sanitation workers who marched for economic justice in Memphis. Dr. King stood with civil rights leaders, the faith community, and worker's unions to demand justice for the striking workers. Together, they faced all who sought to suppress their free speech that day, and they won the moral battle.

The following day, April 4th, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated. We will not allow history to record that his life -- and his work -- were in vain.

Forty-three years later, Mr. Walker, you also threatened peaceful demonstrators -- your own good citizens -- that you would bring in the National Guard and illegally bar the doors of the Statehouse to the people of Wisconsin. You dared to take away the civil rights of hard-working Americans -- public servants who only want their right to bargain collectively. Like the unified voices of the people's movement four decades ago, our unified middle-class will not back down. We will not be intimidated. We will not be afraid.

We will stand together.
We will fight back.
We will WIN.

On April 4th, 2011, we will remember April 4th, 1968. Coloradans will join the people of Wisconsin, and Michigan, and all of the other United States of America, and we will honor the memory of Dr. King with our own courage and determination to reject your political over-reach, and your attempt to steal the American Dream. We will stand together for the future of our children, and for the future of this country. Together -- firefighters, teachers, police officers, students, small business owners, sanitation workers, and many others -- will take back America for the middle class.

Why? Because "We are One."

Sincerely,
The People of Colorado

For the Colorado Event Schedule, please go to http://local.we-r-1.org/ . Check it frequently, as new events are being added daily. See you there.

Don't let these 'Democrats' get away with it either

wade norris — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 19:55:14 GMT

I am very glad that the political backbone has stiffened up in opposition to Republican led efforts to strip bargaining rights or introduce draconian budget cuts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio.
But I am troubled with what i am seeing in Colorado. Here our 'Democratic' Leadership in the office of the Governor, Senators and even some of the Mayoral candidates are taking a page from the Republicans and doing the same kind of things.
Our Governor, Former Mayor John Hickenlooper has introduced a budget that is as bad as some of these Republican Governors.
The only difference instead of saying "I'm the boss so shove it" he says
"Aw shucks, the budgets in trouble, we have to do tough things" like pass a budget that will lay off 3,600 teachers and public employees after campaigning on creating jobs. Sound familiar?
Our Democratic Governor says the budget is in trouble and this is the way it has to be. But that's not so, to quote Michael Moore,
COLORADO IS NOT BROKE there is just a problem with who is getting the tax breaks and who is getting the paying dearly with these budget cuts.

That's right our 'Democratic' Governor says the budget is in trouble and these tough cuts are the only way out - and even more interestingly, he has said that there is no 'appetite' for tax increases - a talking point now being repeated by Republicans in the House.
Actually what he wants is a tax decrease for the wealthy during this recession.

Guv wants 'flatter, fairer' business taxes
Changes would bring no overall increase
Gov. John Hickenlooper plans to rewrite the tax system for businesses to make Colorado more competitive with other states, he said Friday.
"We don't have a tax system that allows us to compete better with Georgia or Texas that have a flatter or fairer tax system," he said.

http://durangoherald.com/artic...

To this statement I have to say:
Why would you make it your aim to emulate TEXAS for business?

Colorado's regressive tax policies have already put our state in competition with the 48th through 50th spots in funding for things like Medicaid reimbursements and education funding.

But wait, there's more, after this budget was proposed, some reporters wrote about a tax loophole that could be tapped for revenue.

It seems that if you make any effort at all to farm on your multi acre luxury ranch in Colorado, you get a real deal - an agricultural tax rate

In Colorado, some famous faces, names get ag-land tax breaks, too
Tom Cruise, Goldie Hawn, Walker Stapleton, Charlie Ergen considered 'farmers'
.
Hay on West Meadows.
Dick Ebersol and Susan Saint James own a 35-acre lot in the upscale West Meadows subdivision near Telluride. They purchased the land for $1.8 million in 1996 and pay $123 in property taxes on it annually because there is hay on it. They also own an $11 million home in the Mountain Village.
Land to develop.
Walker Stapleton, Colorado's newly elected state treasurer, co-owns nearly 180 acres near Castle Rock with taxes of $116. Stapleton is planning to develop that land.
6,500 acres at Gateway.
John Hendricks, chairman and founder of Discovery Communications, owns more than 6,500 acres of agricultural land in Mesa County in his name and under subsidiary companies. The land is in and around Gateway, where Hendricks owns a luxury home, a car museum and a hotel-and- restaurant complex. Hendricks has plans for more housing and commercial development as part of the Gateway Canyons Resort project. His taxes are as low as $7.27 for some 40-acre parcels.
Star Mesa's empty land.
Craig Slater is executive vice president of the Anschutz Corp. He owns 41 acres of grazing and irrigated empty land on Star Mesa near Aspen that he purchased for $4 million in 2005. He paid $55.44 in property taxes for the land last year

.
http://www.denverpost.com/news...
How lax is this loophole?

The report shows the taxable value of 35 acres around a San Miguel County mansion drops from $1.7 million to $6,900 if sheep have the run of the grounds for two to four days a year.

http://washparkprophet.blogspo...
How about that, all these very wealthy - in some cases multi millionaire land owners are paying pennies on the dollar - when it could bring in an estimated 330 million in revenues.
So why doesn't the Governor go after these obviously tax delinquent ranch owners?
Oh...

anyone looking for a telling example of a landowner who has taken advantage of this generous tax status need look no further than Colorado's incoming governor. John Hickenlooper owns 225 acres in the mountains of Park County. His annual property-tax bill, according to county assessor records: $75.

http://facethestate.com/by-the...

It's amazing that a busy Governor has the time to run a farm. Or maybe it's amazing that a millionaire Governor doesn't have the 'appetite' to raise the money on his friends and himself, but thinks the other 90% of us should have to bear the costs.

Headlines like today's are all too common since the budget came out.

Florence-area public schools in Colo. put off buying school bus, ask parents to supply copy paper

http://www.denverpost.com/news...

Well now there has been some push back:
Some REAL democrats are finding their voice:

Saying that just cutting spending wasn't the answer to Colorado's budget problems, a Democratic state senator on Monday filed a citizen initiative that would ask voters in November to enact a three-year, $1.63 billion tax increase.
"I am in hopes that the citizens of this state will say, 'Enough is enough,' " Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder, said in a news conference at the Capitol announcing his initiative.
"The straw that broke the camel's back for me was when the governor presented his budget to the JBC (Joint Budget Committee)," Heath said, referring to Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper's plan to impose deep cuts to K-12 schools and higher education.
"Republicans do not believe we can tax our way out of this recession," said House Majority Leader Amy Stephens, R-Monument. "Instead, we are focused on working with Gov. Hickenlooper to make the difficult decisions to ensure the state's spending is in line with revenue."

http://www.denverpost.com/legi...

To sum that up - our 'Democrat' Governor is being cited by the Republicans as having the right point of view - no taxes on the wealthy, and 'difficult decisions' for all the rest of you dirty middle class folks.
At least Senator Heath is standing for middle class values and Congressman Ed Perlmutter recently signaled his support for the measure.

But wait, there's more, our 'Democratic' Senator Michael Bennet who once campaigned on his finger in the wind commitment to the Public Option has a new letter with Republican Mike Johanns of Nebraska calling for cuts in discretionary spending and ENTITLEMENTS like Social Security.

Michael Bennet, the crown prince of "bipartisan" shock doctrine
In a letter to the President, 64 Senators ask him to engage in budget negotiations beyond FY2011 that include discretionary spending cuts, entitlement changes and tax reform, to create meaningful deficit reduction.

http://www.squarestate.net/dia...

Hey, you know how 'Democrat' Michael Bennet got into office? By appointment.
He moved to Colorado from DC and went to work for the richest Republican and Right wing Media Mogul, Phillip Anschutz. Bennet did well, making Anschutz 373 million dollars through a series of company closings and employee downsizing of several companies Anschutz bought that had "Budget" problems. (sound familiar?)

Next Bennet got appointed to the Denver Public School Board by fellow millionaire Mayor John Hickenlooper.
Bennet made unpopular decisions - like closing schools and starting up 'charter' schools - which visibly angered parents. Parents are so angry it has caused a recall effort of a 'Democrat' board member that sided with Bennet and his successor.

Hey I wonder where Bennet thought of closing schools and starting these charter schools - schools that don't accept special needs or second language learners - schools that have a lottery system, not a guaranteed entry program for all students.
These are the schools like the ones in "Waiting for Superman". It's a neat little coincidence that "Waiting for Superman" is produced by Walden media, which happens to be owned by former Bennet boss Philip Anschutz who apparently has an agenda against public schools.

So Bennet was a hero of the Public Option, a man for the little people, the middle class, right?
Now that he is a Senator with no challenge until 2016, he is making the center piece of his office slashing into all of those 'Entitlements' that the middle class depend on to retire with some dignity or to have access to decent Medicare coverage or to attend a good public school.

I believe that there is a pattern here, one where the true democrats who work for the middle class are being supplanted by the other 'democrats' who look out for the wealthy and their interests. They have joined with Republicans for attacks on our middle class institutions in the guise of 'budget' problems.
In Wisconsin we have the full frontal assault on Public Employees and the middle class, while here in Colorado, we have people that we fought to put in office doing the exact same thing, only we are not supposed to mind, since they are 'Democrats'.

If you, our 'Democratic' leaders are true democrats, then stand on our side - the side of FDR, the middle class, the teachers, the public employees - start going after the tax loopholes and make the sacrifices shared - or even uneven. Why should a multimillion dollar ranch that is a third or fourth home get taxed less than $200 but a single family home be taxed at $1500? Uncut our budget deficits.
Prove to us you deserve to be called a Democrat -
Because from where we are standing its kind of hard to tell you and the Republicans apart.

Republican Über Strategist: "This will be a role model"

Zappatero — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 19:19:56 GMT

This is old news in the scheme of things. I posted it elsewhere but it didn't seem to take, and it hardly needs confirmation, but Republican Über Strategist Ed Rollins confirmed on AC360 a few weeks back something we all know about the continuing and coordinated hit on Unions, Democrats, and The Middle Class :

COOPER: He (Wisconsin Governor Walker) can still go after collective bargaining rights six months down the road if he wanted to?
SPITZER: Absolutely. Absolutely.
ROLLINS: He's going to get this. He's got a Republican majority that wants the same alteration that he does. And so, you know, it may take a month. It may take three weeks, whatever. And I think at the end of the day, the public is behind him in Wisconsin, and the public's behind him nationally. And I think the 29 Republican governors all have fiscal problems. This is going to be a role model.

If anyone knows anything about Republican stategy beyond the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove, it's Ed Rollins.

He was there for Reagan, he was there for Bush I and Bush II, and he's here now doing his dirty work under the covers and behind the scenes. President Bush was surprised to see see us hippy scum protesting his visit to Colorado Springs in 2004, and I'm sure few noticed, but I saw the Bastard Rollins come in early to prep the World Arena in Colorado Springs for Bush's final push toward re-election.

Republicans are looking at 29 laboratories for the cold-blooded murder of the middle class. If they fail in Wisconsin, they'll try elsewhere. And if anyone thinks they won't try it in Colorado they have another thing coming. So long as Ed Rollins can make his Lexus payment he'll be plotting the demise of America's Middle Class..... come hell or high water.

On Taking It Back, Or, Wisconsin Recalls, Explained

fake consultant — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:22:10 GMT

News is suddenly moving so fast that it's becoming hard for me to keep up; that's why we're not finishing the story today that we just began Tuesday. You know, the one about Titan Cement suing two North Carolina residents who appear to be doing nothing more than speaking the truth.

Unfortunately, other important news has forced itself to the front of the line, and it's going to demand that we break schedule, whether we like it or not.

That's why today we're going to be talking about Wisconsin, and how workers there are fighting back against the State's Republican legislators and Governor, who seem to have gone out of their way this past three weeks to govern without the consent of the governed.

It's kind of chilly today in Wisconsin...but I can assure you, things are heating up fast-and it ain't because of spring.

"I will tell you this: Any business where two partners don't trust each other, any business where one party says, 'You need to do X, Y and Z because I told you,' is a business that is not only not run well, it is a business that can never be as successful as it can be,"
--Former National Football League Players' Association executive director DeMaurice Smith

As so often happens, we need a bit of background:

In Wisconsin, a recall involves first, the collection of signatures, then, if you get enough, a recall election.

Once the proper papers have been filed, those who want to recall an elected official have 60 days to gather signatures for a recall petition that equal 25% of the number of votes cast in the prior gubernatorial election in that "political subdivision".

What that means in English is that if you're looking to recall a State Senator and the last time a Governor ran, 50,000 votes were cast in that Senator's District, you need to gather 12,500 signatures in 60 days to force a recall election in that District.

The election is not to ask the question: "Should this officeholder be recalled?"

Instead, the incumbent will run against other candidates, and whoever has the most votes either keeps or takes over the office.

It is possible that multiple candidates will emerge from within the same Party; if that happens a "recall primary" election is held.

A primary would take place four weeks after the signatures are turned in, the recall election itself would be six weeks after, and both elections would be held on a Tuesday; all of this according to Article XIII, Section 12 of the Wisconsin Constitution.

You can't recall someone until after they've been in office for a year, so the Governor can't be recalled...today...but because the Senate elects half of its Members every two years there are a group of State Senators who can be recalled; they were elected in 2008.

If three Republicans were to be recalled and replaced by Democrats, the State Senate would change from majority Republican to majority Democratic.

If you've ever been to Embarrass, Wisconsin (home of The Chair That Grew), you've visited Robert Cowles' 2nd District. (For the record, it's more or less 100 miles due north of Milwaukee, and there's some football team that plays in Green Bay that's also in his District.) He's been a Senator since 1987, and in '08 he ran unopposed. His District voted 52-46 for Obama over McCain in '08, and chose Bush over Kerry by almost exactly the same margin in '04.

I do not have a feel for who might run against him, but I have some calls out to try to get an answer; if I learn more, we'll add it to the story.

One Senator who might be in trouble is Alberta Darling (so far as I know, she's unrelated to cricket great Joe Darling), who represents District 8, which is basically Milwaukee's northern suburbs.

In '08 she only won by 1007 votes (of about 100,000 cast).

It's worth noting, however, that her District cast the most votes for Governor in 2010; as a result her opponents will be required to gather more valid signatures than in any other District (20,343, by one reckoning).

Her opponent last time was Sheldon Wasserman; he's a former State Representative, an OB/GYN from Milwaukee, and a member of the State's Medical Examining Board.

(On a side note, it looks as though the Governor might be messing with the Board as well; he refused to allow two recent physician nominees selected by the Board to be seated, and he's apparently looking to nominate his own people.)

Just as in District 2, this District voted for Obama in '08, and Bush in '04.

Sheila Harsdorf, who currently chairs the Senate Committee on State and Federal Relations and Information Technology, was sent to Madison to look after the interests of the State's westernmost District, "The Fightin' 10th", as Sir Rev. Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, would say.

Even though she thinks State workers are taking too much from the public Treasury...her relationships with the Federal Government are so good that she had no problem taking in $195,000 in Federal farm subsidies over a ten-year period for Beldenville's Trim-Bel Valley Farms, of which she just happened to be a 50% owner as recently as 2008 (for all I know, she may still be an owner, more current information was unavailable).

This is another one of those Districts that went for Obama in '08 by about just the same margin as it went for Bush in '04.

Luther Olsen of the 14th (located about 40 miles or so due north of Madison) is another farm owner; he owns 20% of Waushara's Riverview Farm; they also happily accepted at least $58,502 of your money and mine, because Olsen, like Sheila Harsdorf, apparently believes that's a better use of our money than, you know, paying a public school teacher or something.

(Fun Fact: did you know Golda Meir, the former Prime Minister of Israel, used to be a Milwaukee public school teacher?)

Olsen did not face an opponent in '08...and once again, this District went Obama in '08, Bush in '04-although it went about 4 points farther for Bush than for Obama.

And that brings us to Randy Hopper.

This District (the 18th, which most notably includes Oshkosh and Fond Du Lac) is another one of those Republican seats that are considered among the most "gettable"; that's because just 163 votes separated Hopper and his '08 opponent, Jessica King.

There's also this:

"I have a lot of correctional facilities, a couple universities, and a couple of tech schools [in my district]. I have the second largest population of state employees in the state."

Hopper also chairs the Senate Education Committee...and there's also a story going around that his wife is telling people that he's been providing some "private lessons" to his 25-year-old mistress down in Madison; this according to the "MAL Contends..." blog-and that's not going to help a family-values candidate.

He owns two radio stations, one an AM-talk Ag Report and Hannity broadcaster, the other an FM station that caters to the "music at work" market; this may allow him to mitigate some of the potentially-about-to-occur bad publicity, and certainly can't hurt at election time.

Perhaps the most unrepentant Republican during this process has been Glen Grothman of the 20th (which actually, literally, includes Fredonia, and that has to have some deeper meaning...), and he can afford to take a strong stand.

This guy might well be a mortal lock in this District: the Sheboygan area is one of the most reliably Republican-voting regions of the State over the past 30 years, and of all the Senate candidates who faced opposition in '08, he won with a larger margin of victory than any of 'em. (He didn't get 61% of the vote in '08...he won by 61% of the vote.)

(Fun Fact #2: Our friends at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel created these two most excellent voting trend maps for your dining and dancing pleasure; they illustrates how Wisconsin can swing wildly back and forth between Republican and Democratic "electoral domination".)

Moving on: Mary Lazich, of the 28th, occupies another seat that is going to be tough to get-her District encompasses Milwaukee's western suburbs (a reliably Republican voting region; in both '04 and '08 Republican Presidential candidates won with over 60% of the vote), she did not face an opponent in '08, and this is another District that will require more than 20,000 signatures to force an election.

"...Fate has been hounding me like a Mormon missionary with an Amway franchise..."
--A. Whitney Brown, appearing on the television show "Almost Live!"

We're going to complete today's "Recall Roundup" with one of the most vulnerable of all the Senators: Dan Kapanke, the Senate Majority Caucus Chair (and a pretty good "get" if you're running a recall campaign). He's from the 32nd, which is all the way across the State from Milwaukee, on the Minnesota border, pretty much in Wisconsin's southwest corner.

He won by less than 3 points in '08, his District voted 61%-38% for Obama over McCain...and 53%-46% for Kerry over Bush in '04, which is the largest margin of any of the 8 Republican Senators currently under recall threat. (Go back and have another look at those voting trend maps, and look at what's happened to this corner of the State.)

He's hard right on social issues, but the Farm Bureau loves him.

He is quoted as saying that he expects the signature gathering effort in his District to be successful (only about 15,400 signatures are needed) ...and he's also quoted as having the belief that there is such a thing as a Wisconsin State Senate arrest, despite the presence of an "immunity from arrest" clause in the Wisconsin Constitution.

As of March 8th, 57% of voters in the 32nd would rather have "generic" than Kapanke in a recall election, and they had to close the road outside his house on Friday to keep the hundreds of peaceful protesters gathered there safe.

Now before we close today...we need to offer "big ups" to DavidNYC, who posted a fantastic interactive results spreadsheet at the Swing State Project site; we've been referring to it a bunch in this story and you should have a look at it yourself.

And with all that said, that's today's "scorecard", folks, and you can keep track of all the races-or volunteer to help-from one handy location: WisconsinRecall.net...so bookmark the spot, help out any way you can, and let's start with Wisconsin...and then move on to Ohio and Indiana and Michigan next.

Governors, Mayors, and organizations that support unconstitutionally concentrating power

Fong — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 21:42:44 GMT

The thing about being particularly defensive about education or any of the other issues around the mayoral race this year, is that Denver has great potential and I don't want to see it squandered because some Mayoral candidate who is a power-hungry sell-out has it in mind that they really want to be governor, or that they ultimately want to get their foot in the door with the lobby for education privatization because it's job security.

Speaking of which, you should really check out this .pdf of education-related responses from five of Denver's mayoral candidates. The most agenda-revealing question is:

If DPS is proven to be going in the wrong direction, the Mayor should take responsibility and work towards shared governance or Mayoral control of the city's public schools (like Chicago, DC, NYC, Boston, LA(partial) and a growing number of cities).

Now, if that isn't a loaded question, I dunno what is. First, what's proof? Who gets to decide? Second, it assumes that concentrated Mayoral power is a viable option which indicates that organizations that would support such takeover are more than willing to compromise community power and input so as to further whatever agenda they have. Third, big city name-dropping pressures candidates into thinking well FUCKSTICKS! I don't want Denver to not be like those big cities. Everyone who's anyone wants Denver to move away from being a cow metropolis and more towards a massively-sprawling-rent-too-damn-high-perpetual-importer-of-resources-at-the-expense-of-the-natural-world-killing-machine! I have to say yes to concentrated Mayoral control now or I'll look like a dirty hippie!

Anyhoo, below the fold is a related comic from Salon which I found via Joel's Hindbrain:

If you prick us, do we not ooze?

It's Not Just Union Busting, Its Failing To Honor Contracts

Bill Egnor AKA Something The Dog Said — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 14:47:00 GMT

The Randites and most Conservatives will go on the whole live long day about the sanctity of a contract. They will tell you how it is of critical importance that people be allowed to freely enter into any kind of agreement and be completely and totally bound by the contents therein.

The reason they like this is that most contracts are made with a vast difference in power and that it lets the party with the most money and power put limits on the party with less. Take cell phone agreements. You probably know (or maybe you don't) that when you sign up with a phone company you're generally giving up the right to sue them over any complaint you might have.
With your contract you're agreeing to have any dispute mediated and in the state of the companies choice, usually with their choice of mediation company. This not only gives them a lot more control but almost guarantees that they will prevail if you want to act up cranky about them screwing you over.

However there is something in the recent State labor disputes that has been overlooked. Gov. Walker and others are saying that it is the pensions of the Unions and their need to fund them that is part of why the States are in a budget whole. You see most public employees have a lower salary than they would in the private sector, because they have negotiated a pension.

It is akin to having your boss take a certain amount of money out every month and put it in a 401K. What is different is that there is defined benefit for taking less pay now. CEO's of major corporations do this all the time, but they don't call it a pension plan they call it deferred compensation.

The idea of paying less and then paying a pension is a good one for states as long as they do what they are supposed to do and fund the pension plans. The problem is that because it is a long term issue every time Republicans take the State Houses they cut taxes, without thinking about what it will do to the pension obligations they have. Or maybe they are aware of the obligations and just don't care.

Funding a pension fund has been an obligation for a long time, it is a bill just like any other, but it has not been treated that way. The way it should work is that if your fund it under then you have to raise taxes to cover it, just as you would have to raise taxes to cover salaries.

To get around this the States have generally invested this huge pot of money. That is a good idea as long as you don't take huge risks with the money or your financial regulatory system is not compromised. We have seen that we do not have the appropriate amount of regulation and so these funds have taken a huge hit.

Is that the fault of the workers? Hell no! Yet the argument coming out of the mouths of the Republican Governors (like a bunch of ventriloquist dummies with the Koch Brothers hand up their butts to the elbow) is that they have been greedy in deferring their compensation until retirement and now we need to change the contract with them to reflect that.

Why is it that it is okay for CEO's to defer compensation and continue being lavishly paid after they leave and it is not okay for a cop to have a pension after 20 years of taking less money in the front end?

What is worse about this whole thing is the fact that the States have been falling down in their obligations. It is not until they had an aging workforce that the chickens of underfunding or mismanaging their pension funds have come home to roost. Where are the defenders of the All Mighty Contract now? Why are they not gnashing their teeth about the betrayal of a contract that the state made, of its own free will and is failing to live up to?

I have come to the conclusion that I don't think it fair to ask the public employees to contribute more to their pension fund until the states make good on the funding obligations they agreed to in the past. Without that how can there be any assumption of good faith? The funds are not in trouble because the workers demanded too much, after al they don't get any of those benefits for decades, so it is the financial shenanigans of using money that should have funded this to cut taxes that in large part led to this turn of events.

I understand why Labor in Wisconsin caved on the monetary demands of Gov Walker. It made their overall position stronger and highlighted the fact that this was more about killing the rights of Labor to negotiate with management than it ever was about money.

Still there is a need to stand up to and point out the failures of just about every State to take the appropriate actions to meet their contractual obligations. They could have negotiated less in pensions long ago. They could have kept taxes at whatever level was required to fund the pension funds, they could have chosen not to take risks with money that was never really theirs to risk in the first place, but they did none of those things.

The point of the Labor movement and unions is to balance power between the workers and management. It is a never ending struggle as management is always going to have more money and power, all Labor has is the power of the collective will of the members and the ability to deny the fruits of their labor to management.

For too long we have been passive about letting Labor be pushed around. We have stood by and let them fight the fight of everyone who is not part of upper management for decent working conditions, for days off, for reasonable increases in pay. Even as the power of Labor has waned they have fought this fight and all of us have benefited.

Now it is time for us all to stand up and insist that contracts with Labor be honored. If that means corporations and fat cats have to pay more in taxes, well that is only fair, as they have benefited from the tax breaks in the past. There is only a problem when they benefit in the past and then the workers are asked to make up the difference in the present. Having to take less pay and then being screwed on your pension is an unacceptable double whammy for our teachers and police and nurses and firefighters and everyone else that works in the public sector There is enough brain damage with dealing with politicians as your bosses, we should not be screwing them on pay they earned too.

The floor is yours.

SCFL Calls For General Strike If Walker Plan Is Passed!

Bill Egnor AKA Something The Dog Said — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:40:45 GMT

As the protests in Madison have continued and even grown in the face of an obdurate Governor and even a major winter storm they have not been alone. This weekend there were rallies in all 50 states in support of the public employees unions.

That first-term Governor Scott Walker has overreached in this labor dispute. It is one thing to want to get concessions out of Labor when times are tight (though maybe he should have not given away massive tax cuts in the first place) but to try to end the right of workers to bargain collectively is a bridge too far.

With public sentiment firmly on the side of Labor, and protests growing not shrinking it is hard to see what the Governor can do other than back down. But that is not preventing one union from both planning for the future and turning up the heat.

The Capital Times is reporting that the South Central Federation of Labor, which has 45,000 members, is endorsing the idea of a general strike if and when Gov. Walker's union busting plan is passed. This is a pretty big step but it is one that I am glad to see.

Without the right to collectively bargain, you are not a union. At that point there is not a lot left to do but deny management the fruit of your labor if they will not agree to recognize your right of collective barging. It is how Labor initially established their rights in the first place. Since that was more than an entire working life time ago, it is probably time to remind folks like Gov. Walker what it looks like when you can't run your schools or state offices because all the qualified and trained people are gone.

We know that Walker, who fancies himself the new Reagan, has given some thought to what he would do if there were a strike. He has had his National Guard commanders preparing to have troops do some of the work at the state level, but it is really unclear if they would be able to keep the State going.
After all he has had trouble with even getting the Capital building closed. The prank call from a Buffalo blogger and the revelation that he has at least thought about putting trouble makers among the crowds protesting his ridiculous overreach has put him at logger-heads with local law enforcement.

What would make this interesting is that the SCFL is not just state workers they have plumbers, electricians as well as SEIU (nurses and such) and AFSCME members. This means if they did follow through on their threat of a general strike the affect would be felt at more than just the government offices.

Right now this is all theoretical, as the 14 Democratic State Senators have hung tough, even in the face of not being paid (which is a pretty big sacrifice) and show no signs of cracking and returning to allow the Republican dominated Senate to have the quorum it needs to pass this union busting law. However what is clear it they will be unable to hold out forever. After all sooner or later they will have return to their homes.

If they are finally defeated there it will take more than a general strike by one Labor organization and that will be tough to do.

One of the pillars of these protests have been the teachers unions. They called in sick for multiple days in a row to kick start this protest movement and they should be commended for that effort. But teachers unions are often loathe to strike and make it stick.

Teachers don't get paid a lot for the work that they do (to our eternal shame), and the work is not particularly easy. As a result many of the people who go into it, especially in primary education, do it because they love kids. It is this love that make a strike difficult. They know what it means for the kiddies to be out of class both in terms of losing ground on their education and being suddenly at home when both parents work.

This opens up the argument that they can't really strike and stay out for weeks or months at a time if that is what is required. Without the real threat to deny management the fruits of your labor you don't have a lot of authority when bargaining.

A general strike is also a harder thing to bring about. It is not like when there is a particular company that Labor is negotiating with or has a grievance about. This is about making your power as workers know by shutting down big swaths of the economy. No matter what happens it is going to hurt more people than just the management.

Of course that is the point. To make the all the customers (in this case the citizens who benefit from the work of teachers, nurses, and other state workers) feel the pain that management is trying to cause the workers.

Of course a general strike is more than just a work stoppage. It is a public relations battle. To strike and have it be perceived that greedy Labor unions are trying to get more money and perks would be a blow to the fabric of Labor that might not be recoverable.

Then there is the coordination issue to consider. To be truly effective and to show as much strength as possible a General Strike has to be general. It has to really shut down as much of the economy as possible that requires that all of the unions involved really stand together. I am not an expert on the relations between the various unions in Wisconsin to say if this is a problem or not but I am willing to bet that the folks over at SCFL are working through it right now.

To me this is a good time for someone to be talking about a General Strike. Gov. Walker is looking more and more like a petulant ideologue and his Republicans in the House and Senate are not looking much better. The crowds are growing on weekends at the Capital and the protesters have managed to keep occupying the Capital building itself.

Labor, for the most part, has agreed to the monitory cuts that the Governors plan requires, leaving only the issue of collective bargaining on the table. Public opinion, nationally and in the Badger State is firmly on the side of allowing Labor to keep this right, even in biased and flawed polls like Rasmussen. All this says that there would be a willingness to blame any disruption of the state economy and services on the intransigence of the Governor and not Labor.

The story of Labor is the fight of the little guy against the Fat Cat Owners. With exposure of the involvement Koch brothers and their billions in the plan to strip public workers of their bargaining rights and the realization that the private sector unions would be next, we are playing out that same story again.

It is time for Labor both public and private sector to make it clear once again who does the work in this nation, and what it means when you have pushed the workers to the point that they will no longer just take what is given them while Owners and their politicians grow fatter and wealthier on the their efforts.

I hope it does not come to this, but if it does I completely support a General Strike in Wisconsin, and elsewhere. As the Grandson, Nephew and Uncle of Union members I say Solidarity!

The floor is yours.