Wisconsin Democrats could stay away for weeks

[SiriuslyLong]

Public unions force taxpayers to fund Democrats

By: Michael Barone 02/22/11 8:05 PM
Senior Political Analyst


Everyone has priorities. During the past week Barack Obama has found no time to condemn the attacks that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has launched on the Libyan people.
But he did find time to be interviewed by a Wisconsin television station and weigh in on the dispute between Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the state's public employee unions. Walker was staging "an assault on unions," he said, and added that "public employee unions make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens."

Enormous contributions, yes -- to the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign. Unions, most of whose members are public employees, gave Democrats some $400 million in the 2008 election cycle. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the biggest public employee union, gave Democrats $90 million in the 2010 cycle.

Follow the money, Washington reporters like to say. The money in this case comes from taxpayers, present and future, who are the source of every penny of dues paid to public employee unions, who in turn spend much of that money on politics, almost all of it for Democrats. In effect, public employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced to fund the Democratic Party.

So, just as the president complained in his 2010 State of the Union address about a Supreme Court decision that he feared would increase the flow of money to Republicans, he also found time to complain about a proposed state law that could reduce the flow of money to Democrats.

And, according to the Washington Post, to get the Democratic National Committee to organize protests against the proposed Wisconsin law. Protests that showed contempt for the law, with teachers abandoning classrooms, doctors writing phony medical excuses, Democratic legislators fleeing the state and holing up in a motel. The lawmakers played hooky without losing any salary, which is protected by the state constitution.

Read the rest HERE: http://washingtonexaminer.com/politi...fund-democrats

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Unions and democrats = the most self serving relationship in all of political history. At least the Koch Bros have their own free will to support the party of their choice, but then again, "free will"means NOTHING to a liberal. Nor does "individual liberty" nor "personal responsibility". Liberals HATE these beliefs. Check it out: http://www.armchairviews.com/commie.htm

[Atypical]

Tuesday 22 February 2011

by: David Theo Goldberg, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

If you are not numbered among the wealthiest five percent of Americans with the distinct prospect of securing 85 percent of your annual income across the length of your retirement, you should be terribly worried. If you don't qualify, the present Republican onslaught is not for you.

Thirty years in the making, the Republicans are bent on evaporating anything that resembles a public good, on curtailing government and most anything government does beyond security and basic services. They are committed to dissolving all regulatory regimes, from financial and banking to environmental conditions and labor standards. They are insisting on swapping out social security support for privatized and self-directed retirement schemes (401(k)'s). They are pushing to dissolve public education and to destroy union representation, especially for public workers such as teachers. And they are working to outsource public functions to private for-profit outfits.

The current trend has a long trail. Contrary to what tax-cut rationalizers have been insisting, Bush-era tax cuts diminished, not increased, total income in the US - by $2.7 trillion. In 2008, average income was down 5.8 percent compared to 2000. One in every eight dollars in tax reductions went to the top .1 percent of taxpayers (those earning $2 million per year or more). These are the same tax reductions extended in December 2010 for another two years by Obama under Republican pressure. In the mid-1970's, the top one percent owned 20 percent of the nation's wealth. Today, it is closer to 35 percent. The top 20 percent own 80 percent, the bottom 20 percent something like one percent.

Where Republicans are unable to achieve their desired ends directly, they do it by indirection, starving public services of the means to pay for public activities, or now, as in Wisconsin, fabricating budget shortfalls by arranging large corporate tax reductions as a pretext to cut social programs. The overwhelming beneficiaries of this drastic rolling back and restricting of taxes, old and new, are corporations and the wealthiest of citizens, to the detriment of everyone else.

Republicans intimate that taxes are justifiable only if taxpayers are receiving immediate direct benefits. They ask why anyone should support salaries and pensions of public workers whose services don't make them directly better off, or pay to school others' kids, or contribute to roads and services that don't directly and immediately service them, or cover costs of hospitals that treat those who cannot afford health care for themselves. People are for clean air and water, polls are indicating, so long as they cost them nothing. In his Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) address last week, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) asked the audience whether they would support paying just a flat ten percent income tax rate to cover basic security services, and pay for everything else on a strictly use-only basis. The response was overwhelmingly affirmative.

By extension, Republicans seek to defund any public institution they deem aversive to their ideological commitments or political interests. Among the 150 programs cut last week by the House of Representatives in their budget slashing frenzy are the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. All are considered liberal institutions, supposedly biased against, if not overtly critical of, the Republican agenda. The current budget crisis has become a vehicle to rid Republicans of their perceived nemeses. This is a coup by other means. As America becomes more heterogeneous, the Republican strategy is dramatically to depluralize the political, to control message-making through tying up the purse strings and to extend wealth by narrowing access.

While there are deep structural challenges to US fiscal health, much of the immediate budgetary crisis has been carefully crafted by the Republi-scammers. Even as they loudly profess their concern over US Treasury debt, they have cut taxes wherever possible, adding dramatically to that same debt. Thus, in December, they insisted on extending the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest two percent of taxpayers, knowing full well the move would add $700 billion to the very national debt they feel so strongly compelled to reduce. Two months later, they cut $60 billion from social and regulatory programs with which they take ideological issue, including Planned Parenthood, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

So, the Republican numbers don't add up, and their logic doesn't hold up. While unabashedly criticizing runaway spending, they add exorbitantly to the deficit; amid scathing accusations about labor's selfishness and public workers' cushy pension benefits, they nevertheless license record tax cuts for corporations and extensions of tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Libertarian to a fault, they are overwhelmingly against choice; claiming loudly to be pro-democracy, they are as noisily dismissive of it when its consequences run against their interests.

Wisconsin has become the battleground for the future direction of the republic. After inheriting a budget surplus of $120 million, in his first month in office, the new Republican governor, Scott Walker, orchestrated a nearly $140 million tax break for out-of-state corporations. He then declared a budget shortfall for this year of $136 million. To balance the budget, he and his Republican supporters have sought to force state workers to contribute to their pension funds, amounting to a salary reduction of roughly $5,000 per employee.

Republican justifications have been multiple. Private employees contribute considerably more to their retirement funds than public workers are now being asked to, so this is only fair, we are told. But numerous studies show that before the new pension contributions, public worker compensation is at least five percent less than that of comparable private employees, other things equal. The corporate tax giveaways are necessary for job creation, it is said. But there is little evidence that general tax reductions create jobs. George W. Bush enacted large and sustained tax reductions while president, and his efforts cost the economy eight million jobs during his eight years in office. If Republicans were serious about the job-creating incentives of tax breaks, targeting those breaks specifically to jobs created would be a far more effective and honest means to this end.

Republicans claim that union power has created the budget mess Wisconsin and other states face. Wages and working conditions are set by governors and legislatures in negotiating with local unions, not by the latter alone, and the fact that public service employees earn less than their non-unionized private employer counterparts reveals the relative lack of union power. One only has to look at unionized autoworkers in Detroit for evidence of reasonableness in the face of dire economic conditions. The US auto industry would not have survived, let alone so effectively revived, without considerable union compromise. So much for Walker's back-to-the-wall hyperbole.

It seems evident, then, that Walker reduced corporate taxes to give himself the platform both to cut state employee salaries and to diminish the power of labor in the state by seeking to desiccate bargaining rights. It is the latter move - the arrogant disrespect for hardworking and economically challenged state employees - that has so infuriated them and a broad sweep of supporters across the state and the country. The responses to the protests have been revealing. Sarah Palin has chided state workers that "You must be willing to sacrifice." But of course, legislators and the governor have not voted to sacrifice their salaries, and corporations have not been asked to contribute a small percentage of their profits for the public good - quite the contrary. The fix proposed is once again on the backs of the more vulnerable among the state's citizens.

Paul Ryan, Wisconsin congressman and Republican chair of the House Budget Committee, ventured that the Madisonian protests are mimicking "the riots" in Cairo. Not only were there no riots in Cairo - what violence there was, revealingly, was instigated by the Egyptian government - there has been nothing that could closely resemble rioting in the Wisconsin sit-ins. Ryan's remarks reveal a profound lack of understanding of democracy, of the power of the relatively powerless, of pluralism and of quintessentially American forms of political life. Madison, like Cairo, is a popular democratic social movement.

Republicans, then, have arrived in force, no doubt sincere in their core convictions and dogmatically forceful in their imposition (Walker refuses to negotiate with, or even listen to, his Democratic interlocutors). Implementing his ideas, nevertheless, has been nothing short of profoundly disturbing. The pushback by Madisonians (in the political sense, too) in Wisconsin, and now, elsewhere across the Midwest, suggests that Americans are just waking up to the betrayals and dangers of the latest chapter in the Republi-scam. Whether, over the next two years, Republi-scammers or Madisonians will win out depends on the national and local resolve, organizational savvy and rhetorical effectiveness of the latter, for right is surely on their side.

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/di...Ak67jDlrQDmkKL
____________________________________________
Take the time to read this. It contains the truth as to what is happening to our country. And see my posts above to see what kind of 'conservative' is behind this assault on working people.

[SiriuslyLong]

Follow the Money: What the Wisconsin Education Association Isn’t Talking About

As Americans, we’re often taught that trusts and monopolies are the product of big business and are bad. However, if trusts and monopolies are bad when Big Business engages in monopolistic ways, why isn’t it bad when Big Labor engages in the same sort of behaviors that are condemned when committed by Big Business?

For over a week now, the nation has watched tens of thousands march in protest to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s budget plan. Democrat lawmakers (aka Fleebaggers) have fled the state in order to avoid doing their duty, while Obama’s OFA has bussed in the astroturf from out of state. While the union meme has been that Walker’s plan is “union-busting,” perhaps a more apt description would be “trust-busting.”

One of the most vocal opponents of Scott Walker’s budget plan has been the Wisconsin Education Association Council [WEAC]. As a union affiliated with the NEA, WEAC (according to its website) represents 98,000 “educators” in the State of Wisconsin.

Like any union, WEAC has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo when it comes to forced dues from Wisconsin school teachers, as well as automatic dues deduction from teachers’ paychecks—both of which would be eliminated under Walker’s proposal.

Employers will be prohibited from collecting union dues and members of collective bargaining units will not be required to pay dues.

In essence, Walker’s proposal threatens the life blood of the WEAC which, according to its most recent financial report on file (FY 2009), raked in over $25 million from teachers in a one year period.

Another threat to WEAC, which no one in the mainstream media is talking about is the threat to the union’s insurance trust, called WEA Trust. The WEA Trust is, in essence, a union-run “multi-employer” health insurance trust (the employers, in this case, are school districts).

The way it works is that WEAC has, through collective bargaining (negotiations), convinced school districts to pay into the WEA Trust and, in turn, the WEA Trust is responsible for administering teachers’ benefits. According to PublicSchoolSpending.com, Walker’s proposal would give school boards the ability to shop freely for more competitive insurance rates and save the state millions.
Last year, the Education Action Group issued a report which stated, among other things, that:

WEA Trust, an insurance company established and closely associated with the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), siphons millions of crucial dollars from K-12 schools and their students every year.

WEA Trust has grown very fat on public school dollars, with a net worth of $316 million and a team of 12 administrators all receiving compensation packages worth six figures per year.

Sadly, this insurance swindle is endorsed by state law.

The group’s Communications Director, Steve Gunn, explains:

The pressure derives from state law, which makes the identity of a school’s health insurance carrier a topic of collective bargaining between local unions and school boards. That allows union representatives to come to the table demanding expensive WEA Trust coverage, and frequently school boards give in.

Once school districts sign up for WEA Trust coverage, and write the carrier into collective bargaining agreements, the shackles are on. And they aren’t easily removed.

Local unions often refuse to have the provision stricken from school labor contracts in subsequent negotiations. If a school board presses the issue in an effort to save money, WEAC will frequently take the case to arbitration.

The Trust’s business practices also complicate the problem.

Districts need employee claim histories to provide to potential bidders, but WEA Trust sometimes refuses to surrender the information, making it more difficult, if not impossible, for competitors to draft an accurate insurance estimate.

WEA Trust also reportedly threatens districts with higher premiums – by removing them from regional insurance pools with lower rates – if they consider a cheaper carrier.

Some districts have managed to break WEA Trust’s shackles and the savings tell the story. Officials from 15 districts recently told EAG that they saved six figures the first year under new coverage, while still providing quality health benefits for employees. They also say the cost of their new coverage has remained steady in subsequent years.

But there is a catch. Officials at all of the breakaway districts said they had to surrender, or at least share, the insurance savings with their local unions, generally in the form of salary increases. That left them with little or no extra revenue to cover other costs.

In other words, WEAC, the union that has been most vocal during the last week’s protests has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. If the union can defeat Scott Walker’s reform plans, not only does it keep the union dues of teachers, it also gets to keep its health insurance monopoly intact.

Of course, you’re not hearing this in the press as it doesn’t fit the convenient narrative of class warfare. So, the next time you have someone tell you how “mean” Scott Walker is for attacking the teachers’ union, you can simply reply: Follow the money.

http://biggovernment.com/laborunionr...talking-about/

[Havakasha]

Feingold Calls On Walker To End His 'Assault On Wisconsin's Traditions'
Brian Beutler | February 23, 2011, 8:00AM

In an interview Tuesday night, former Wisconsin Democratic Senator Russ Feingold characterized Governor Scott Walker's crusade against public sector unions as an "assault on Wisconsin's traditions," and called on him to drop his bid to ban state and local workers from engaging in collective bargaining.

Feingold took particular issue with the threat Walker issued in his fireside chat Tuesday evening -- that if Democratic state senators don't return to Wisconsin and help him pass his legislation, thousands of state workers will lose their jobs.

"This is not about the budget at all this is about trying to destroy people's right to collectively bargain," Feingold told me. "If you begin with a dishonest approach...and begin making threats, it's a really an assault on Wisconsin's traditions. It's really something a new governor shouldn't be doing."

"I call on him tonight to pull back, to drop this issue of collective bargaining and get back to budgeting," he added.

Democrats lost all elected branches of government in Wisconsin this past November. Feingold thinks Walker's actions should be a wake-up call to Democratic voters to take back the legislature from the GOP in 2012. But he declined to endorse a fledgling push by progressives to recall Walker early next year, at least until the new governor has established a more complete record of leadership.

"We're going to have to elect a different legislature so this guy doesn't have the kind of absolute power that he's trying to abuse," Feingold said. "This is about stopping this now, so we don't have to recreate these rights that have been in place for so long on."

[Atypical]

To readers of this thread-

There have been a number of very revealing articles posted here about what is happening in Wisconsin. These articles have been concerned with the alleged 'truth' of the claims made by the governor of that state. They are factual with numbers and sources for the claims.

It conclusively appears that what is being claimed by the governor, including the motivations for his actions, are in serious doubt. His history in the state is not exemplary and neither are his 'friends'.

Notice that the recent defense posted does not answer any of the points made in the many criticisms previously made. It is only an attempt to find some alleged mud to throw that might stick. This is the MO of any hard-line ideologue. Ignore facts and attack!

And what is the defense? An allegation by Andrew Breitbart. Do you know who this is? Look it up and try not to puke. Nevertheless, my MO is to treat all information initially as valid so this 'fact' will be analyzed.

This story is not over yet. More details about the entire issue will come out. I will wait and see who and what is ultimately right but so far there is no doubt.

Stay tuned.

[SiriuslyLong]

To readers of this thread-

There have been a number of very revealing articles posted here about what is happening in Wisconsin. These articles have been concerned with the alleged 'truth' of the claims made by the governor of that state. They are factual with numbers and sources for the claims.

It conclusively appears that what is being claimed by the governor, including his motivations for his actions, are in serious doubt. His history in the state is not exemplary and neither are his 'friends'.

Notice that the recent defense posted does not answer any of the points made in the many criticisms previously made. It is only an attempt to find some alleged mud to throw that might stick. This is the MO of any hard-line ideologue. Ignore facts and attack!

And what is the defense? An allegation by Andrew Breitbart. Do you know who this is? Look it up and try not to puke. Nevertheless, my MO is to treat all information initially as valid so this 'fact' will be analyzed.

This story is not over yet. More details about the entire issue will come out. I will wait and see who and what is ultimately right but so far there is no doubt.

Stay tuned.

Dear readers of this thread: If you are not liberal, you may want to consider not posting. You will be accused of being an idealogue and you beliefs will likely be ridiculed. Your facts will be lies, and they will be dismissed. There is no discourse here. Either you are liberal, and espouse rigid liberal idealogy, or you are wrong. This has been evidenced time and time again.

Posters beware lol.

[Atypical]

Ronald Reagan
Radio Address to the Nation on Solidarity and United States Relations With Poland
October 9, 1982

My fellow Americans:

Yesterday the Polish Government, a military dictatorship, took another far-reaching step in their persecution of their own people. They declared Solidarity, the organization of the working men and women of Poland, their free union, illegal.

Yes, I know Poland is a faraway country in Eastern Europe. Still, this action is a matter of profound concern to all the American people and to the free world.

Ever since martial law was brutally imposed last December, Polish authorities have been assuring the world that they're interested in a genuine reconciliation with the Polish people. But the Polish regime's action yesterday reveals the hollowness of its promises. By outlawing Solidarity, a free trade organization to which an overwhelming majority of Polish workers and farmers belong, they have made it clear that they never had any intention of restoring one of the most elemental human rights—the right to belong to a free trade union.

The so-called new trade union legislation under which this contrary and backward step has been taken claims to substitute a structure and framework for the establishment of free trade unions in Poland. But the free world can see this is only a sham. It is clear that such unions, if formed, will be mere extensions of the Polish Communist Party.

The Polish military leaders and their Soviet backers have shown that they will continue to trample upon the hopes and aspirations of the majority of the Polish people. America cannot stand idly by in the face of these latest threats of repression and acts of repression by the Polish Government.

I am, therefore, today directing steps to bring about the suspension of Poland's most-favored-nation-tariff status as quickly as possible. This will increase the tariffs on Polish manufactured goods exported to the United States and thus reduce the quantities of these goods which have been imported in the past.

The Polish regime should understand that we're prepared to take further steps as a result of this further repression in Poland. We are also consulting urgently with our allies on steps we might take jointly in response to this latest outrage. While taking these steps, I want to make clear, as I have in the past, that they are not directed against the Polish people. We will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Poland, through organizations such as Catholic Relief Service and CARE, as we have since the beginning of martial law.

At the same time, I stand by my earlier offer to provide recovery assistance to help the Polish economy back on its feet, once Warsaw restores to the Polish people their human rights.

There are those .who will argue that the Polish Government's action marks the death of Solidarity. I don't believe this for a moment. Those who know Poland well understand that as long as the flame of freedom burns as brightly and intensely in the hearts of' Polish men and women as it does today, the spirit of Solidarity will remain a vital force in Poland.

Surely, it must be clear to all that until Warsaw's military authorities move to restore Solidarity to its rightful and hard-won place in Polish society, Poland will continue to be plagued by bitterness, alienation, instability, and stagnation.

Someone has said that when anyone is denied freedom, then freedom for everyone is threatened. The struggle in the world today for the hearts and minds of mankind is based on one simple question: Is man born to be free, or slave? In country after country, people have long known the answer to that question. We are free by divine right. We are the masters of our fate, and we create governments for our convenience. Those who would have it otherwise commit a crime and a sin against God and man.

There can only be one path out of the current morass in Poland, and that is for the military regime to stand up to its own statements of principle, even in the face of severe outside pressure from the Soviet Union; to lift martial law; release Lech Walesa and his colleagues now languishing in prison; and begin again the search for social peace through the arduous but real process of dialog and reconciliation with the Church and Solidarity.

I join with my countrymen, including millions of Americans whose roots are in Poland, in praying for an early return to a path of moderation and personal freedom in Poland.

Thanks for listening. I'll be back next week. Let Poland be Poland. God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 9:06 a.m. from Rancho del Cielo, his ranch near Santa Barbara, Calif

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/di...fVTeC%2BER6c2F

________________________________________________
I guess if you're not Reagan then unions are BAAAAD!

[Atypical]

No, we shouldn't ever label vicious nuts (oh, sorry) like this an 'ideologue'. No, he and his like-minded jerks (oh, sorry, again) are just gentle, caring, people who just like to...uh... um...kill. Sorry, I was pressured to say that. Let's see, he's an attorney, too. Does that make it worse? You know, a law enforcement type person.

Oh well, let's just say he is 'challenged'. All better now!

__________________________________________

Following a tweet suggesting riot police "use live ammunition" against demonstrators outside Wisconsin's capitol building on Saturday night, Jeff Cox is no longer employed as a deputy attorney general with Indiana Attorney General's Office.

The official statement released today from the agency follows a report from "Mother Jones" detailing Cox's response to a tweet from the political magazine regarding riot police possibly being brought in to deal with demonstrators on Saturday (they weren't).
Taking issue with this response, "Mother Jones" staffer Adam Weinstein called out JCCentCom from his own Twitter account:

I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were "political enemies" and "thugs" who were "physically threatening legally elected officials." In response to such behavior, he said, "You're damned right I advocate deadly force." He later called me a "typical leftist," adding, "liberals hate police."

Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.

According to Weinstein, "Mother Jones" sent an e-mail to Cox's work address to confirm that Cox was the author of the tweets, as well as the blogger behind "Pro Cynic" (now disabled), where he "evinces contempt for political opponents," and asked if Cox wished to provide context.

Cox, one of 144 attorneys in the A.G.'s office, responded from a personal e-mail address: "For 'context?' Or to silence me? All my comments on twitter & my blog are my own and no one else's. And I can defend them all."

Screen captures to Cox's defunct blog reveal contempt for political opponents, Weinstein wrote:

... from labeling President Obama an 'incompetent and treasonous' enemy of the nation to comparing 'enviro-Nazis' to Osama bin Laden, likening ex-Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Service Employees International Union members to Nazi 'brownshirts' on multiple occasions, and referring to an Indianapolis teen as 'a black teenage thug who was (deservedly) beaten up' by local police. A 'sensible policy for handling Afghanistan,' he offered, could be summed up as: 'KILL! KILL! ANNIHILATE!'

Earlier today, People for the American Way called for Cox's resignation. Cox's "call for violence" is "beyond the pale," the national progressive advocacy organization said in a statement, adding that he "should step down immediately."

Following the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords last month, an attack that left six people dead and a dozen others wounded, it's unsettling that someone in the public sector would call for violence. It's worth noting that tweets and other Internet comments expressing anger over Cox's remarks come from people who identify themselves as conservative, liberal and all points in between.

Responding to msnbc.com's inquiry regarding the the "Mother Jones" piece, Bryan Corbin, spokesman for Indiana Attorney General's office, stated, "An immediate review of this personnel matter is now under way to determine whether the assertions made in the 'Mother Jones' article about an employee are accurate. When that review is complete, appropriate personnel action will be taken."

A few hours later, Corbin followed up with this statement:

Today the Indiana Attorney General's Office announced that Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Cox is no longer employed by this agency.

The Indiana Attorney General's Office conducted a thorough and expeditious review after "Mother Jones" magazine today published an article attributing private Twitter postings and private blog postings to Cox.

Civility and courtesy toward all members of the public are very important to the Indiana Attorney General's Office. We respect individuals' First Amendment right to express their personal views on private online forums, but as public servants we are held by the public to a higher standard, and we should strive for civility.

Helen A.S. Popkin

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news...weet?GT1=43001

[Havakasha]

That Reagan address on unions is just amazing in light of todays events in Wisconsin.

Great find Atypical. Thanks

[SiriuslyLong]

Democrats War Cry: http://www.moviewavs.com/php/sounds/...&file=mp12.wav

Have a great day! Thursday's are like mini Friday's.