Wisconsin Democrats could stay away for weeks

[Havakasha]

Shep Smith: Wisconsin Fight Has Nothing Do With Budget, All About Busting Unions (VIDEO)
The Huffington Post Jack Mirkinson
First Posted: 02/24/11


On Wednesday's "Studio B," Shepard Smith said the battle over union rights in Wisconsin was all about busting unions and securing Republican political power, not about the state's budget deficit.

It was a take that placed Smith squarely in agreement with people such as Rachel Maddow, who has repeatedly argued essentially the same thing on her show.

Speaking to a mostly-in-agreement Juan Williams, Smith said the fight was "100 percent politics."

"There is no budget crisis in Wisconsin," he said, adding that the unions "[have] given concessions."

The real point of the fight, Smith said, could be found in the list of the top ten donors to political campaigns. Seven out of the ten donated to Republicans; the other three were unions donating to Democrats.

"Bust the unions, and it's over," Smith said. He then brought up the Koch brothers, the billionaires who have bankrolled much of the anti-union pushback in Wisconsin. The fight, Smith said, "started" with the Kochs, who he said were trying to get a return on the money they donated to Walker's campaign.

"I'm not taking a side on this, I'm just telling you what's going on...to pretend this is about a fiscal crisis in the state of Wisconsin is malarkey," Smith said.

[SiriuslyLong]

Shep Smith: Wisconsin Fight Has Nothing Do With Budget, All About Busting Unions (VIDEO)
The Huffington Post Jack Mirkinson
First Posted: 02/24/11

On Wednesday's "Studio B," Shepard Smith said the battle over union rights in Wisconsin was all about busting unions and securing Republican political power, not about the state's budget deficit.

It was a take that placed Smith squarely in agreement with people such as Rachel Maddow, who has repeatedly argued essentially the same thing on her show.

Speaking to a mostly-in-agreement Juan Williams, Smith said the fight was "100 percent politics."

"There is no budget crisis in Wisconsin," he said, adding that the unions "[have] given concessions."

The real point of the fight, Smith said, could be found in the list of the top ten donors to political campaigns. Seven out of the ten donated to Republicans; the other three were unions donating to Democrats.

"Bust the unions, and it's over," Smith said. He then brought up the Koch brothers, the billionaires who have bankrolled much of the anti-union pushback in Wisconsin. The fight, Smith said, "started" with the Kochs, who he said were trying to get a return on the money they donated to Walker's campaign.

"I'm not taking a side on this, I'm just telling you what's going on...to pretend this is about a fiscal crisis in the state of Wisconsin is malarkey," Smith said.

Liberals, democrats and unions of course think it's "union busting", but if you actually listen to the reasoning to eliminate collective bargining, it seems plausible. What the guy is saying is that he going to cut money for municipalities and those muncipalities need a means to find cuts in their budgets (i.e. work with unions to reduce costs). In some ways it is analogous to mandating health care insurance coverage for everyone. If all don't have it, the plan doesn't work.

I don't remotely expect you to agree, but wanted to make the point anyway.

How'd you like that soundbite?

[Havakasha]

Dont agree with it (extreme position) and even Mitch Daniels (Republican Gov of Indiana) and Rick Scott (Republican Gov. of Florida) dont seem to agree as well.

Just one more of the many far right positions you seem to hold though you continue to argue you dont follow any ideology.
Very interesting indeed. LOL.

P.S. Shepard Smith is not a liberal and some of your rants about liberals are really just plain silly. Talk about
trying to pigeonhole people. Jeez.

[Havakasha]

Just thought this was interesting.


On May 2nd, 1933, the day after Labor day, Nazi groups occupied union halls and labor leaders were arrested. Trade Unions were outlawed by Adolf Hitler, while collective bargaining and the right to strike was abolished. This was the beginning of a consolidation of power by the fascist regime which systematically wiped out all opposition groups, starting with unions, liberals, socialists, and communists using Himmler’s state police.
Fast forward to America today, particularly Wisconsin. Governor Walker and the Republican/Tea Party members of the state legislature are attempting to pass a bill that would not only severely punish public unions (with exception for the police, fire, and state trooper unions that supported his campaign), but it would effectively end 50 years to the right of these workers to collectively bargain.
Collective bargaining is a process of voluntary negotiations between employers and trade unions aimed at reaching agreements which regulate working conditions. Collective agreements usually set out wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs. -wiki

First of all, assaulting the rights of workers to collectively bargain has absolutely nothing to do with any immediate budgetary issues. It does however have everything to do with ending one of the basic rights of labor to organize.
Second, and more importantly, the budget “crisis” in Wisconsin is both exaggerated and created in part by the new Republican power base as a tool to attack political opponents. Walker decreased state revenue when he enacted tax cuts for the rich and big corporations, who are not surprisingly large campaign donors for his political campaign.

To the extent that there is an imbalance — Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit — it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January. If the Legislature were simply to rescind Walker’s new spending schemes — or delay their implementation until they are offset by fresh revenues — the “crisis” would not exist. -The Cap Times
Decimating unions has long been an objective of the rich and powerful. Growing out of trade guilds in Medieval Europe, they were banned starting with the Ordinance of Labourers 1349 and Statute of Labourers in England. It was not until the Industrial Revolution that labor began to organize again.
Every little gain for the rights of workers was hard fought and bitterly resisted by the rich and powerful. The photo above shows the Lawrence Textile Strike (also known as the Bread and Roses strike) where mostly immigrant workers rebelled against increasingly harsh work conditions and lowered pay caused by mechanization. Specifically, state law mandated a reduction in working hours for women and children from 56 to 54 hours, and factory owners responded by cutting salaries, something the poor workers could not afford.
Over time, organized labor managed to abolish child labor all together, as well as institute an 8 hour work day, 40 hour work week, mandatory breaks, safety guidelines, grievance procedures, a minimum wage, the concept of a work free weekend, workers comp, pensions, health safeguards, and paid sick days, vacation days, and holidays. If you enjoy any of these things, thank a union member and support the passage of a strong Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).
Collective Bargaining in the US was finally legalized for the private sector on a countrywide scale in 1935 with the National Labor Relations Act signed by FDR. JFK signed an executive order extending this right to the public sector in 1962. This is the key measure

Governor Walker’s bill being sped through the Wisconsin legislature would mandate health insurance contributions by public employees, force them to pay more for their promised pensions, and remove bargaining rights. When public employees started protesting, Walker instructed the state National Guard to be “prepared” if any “problems” should arise, in what could be described as a thinly veiled intimidation tactic.
Although this draconian bill will not outlaw unions, it will effectively neuter them, as their CPI adjusted wages will be frozen and all other means cannot be improved as a whole. Public sector unions will lose their freedom to negotiate against the state together. This is a deliberate tactic to punish political opponents and to effectively lessen the rights of working Americans everywhere for the benefit of the rich and multinational corporations.
Walker’s plan to eviscerate collective bargaining rights for public employees is right out of the Koch brothers’ playbook. Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have long taken a very antagonistic view toward public-sector unions. Several of these groups have urged the eradication of these unions. In Wisconsin, this conservative, anti-union view is being placed into action by lawmakers in sync with the deep-pocketed donors who helped them obtain power. (Walker also opposes the state’s Clean Energy Job Act, which would compel the state to increase its use of alternative energy.) At this moment—even with the Wisconsin uprising unresolved—the Koch brothers’ investment in Walker appears to be paying off. -Mother Jones

In response to this open revolt on at the Wisconsin state capitol, which saw crowds initially in the hundreds quickly swell to tens of thousands, a Tea Party group hastily organized a counter rally on Sunday. Dozens of free buses were mysteriously available from both inside and outside the state for Tea Partiers, with no mention of who paid for them, leading to speculation that this is blatant corporate astroturfing. At publishing time no camels were being charged into the estimated 70,000 pro-worker/anti-Walker demonstrators [creative humor license].

The Americans for Prosperity group, a Tea Party group that is a Koch Brothers front, has put up a website [for the Tea Party Rally that] attacks all collective bargaining – not just for public employees’ unions. -Forbes
Wisconsin is ground zero in the fight for worker’s rights in America. Following the ultra-conservative sweep of many state legislatures and governorships in the 2010 midterms, most Republicans are salivating at the opportunity to destroy the last stronghold of organized labor in America: the public sector.
Last year, more working people belonged to a union in the public sector (7.9 million) than in the private (7.4 million), despite the fact that corporate America employs five times the number of wage-earners. 37 percent of government workers belong to a union, compared with just 7 percent of private-sector employees. -Alternet

The percentage of the work force that have been organized has been declining (along with many other things) since Reagan and the conservatives took power, ending the Great Compression and starting an epoch in American history known as the Great Divergence (which culminated in the Great Recession, which we are in today). Pro-corporate, fiscally conservative policies (such as deregulation and underfunding) have severely damaged private sector unions, unions that set the bar for standards and pay for all workers (thus, contributing towards the huge wealth concentration that is taking place).
The one point where this anti-union trend has not taken place is in the public sector.

This is precisely why the conservatives (mostly in the Republican Party) and their corporate masters are now planning the next phase in their strategy: to destroy public sector unions across the country. Right now, their assault has triggered a massive and growing revolt by not only public sector unions, but students, progressives, and working men and women across the Upper Midwest region of the US.
The corporate front groups are desperately trying to play catchup and unleash their Tea Party legions, who need little convincing as apparent from the We Stand With Walker Facebook page. The fear and hate caused by disinformation and Fox Propaganda is palpable, and they are only too eager to “fight back” against supposed union transgressions both in the workplace and in demonstrations.
Which brings us back full circle. Union busting measures by Republicans in Wisconsin this week have brought up some disturbing historical parallels to another sad chapter from human history. This writer is not trying to say that Republicans are Nazis and the Tea Party are their Brownshirts, only that the union busting, corporate control over the government is part of the definition of fascism (along with authoritarian nationalism).
The attacks on unions that are taking place in American society today echoes a very sad chapter in Western history where unions were smashed for the benefit of a far right authoritarian corporate regime. When Hitler abolished unions in 1933, it was followed by a 25% drop in real wages, and ended the ability of workers to protect living standards, and this is one of those times where history should not be allowed to repeat itself

[SiriuslyLong]

Dont agree with it (extreme position) and even Mitch Daniels (Republican Gov of Indiana) and Rick Scott (Republican Gov. of Florida) dont seem to agree as well.

Just one more of the many far right positions you seem to hold though you continue to argue you dont follow any ideology.
Very interesting indeed. LOL.

P.S. Shepard Smith is not a liberal and some of your rants about liberals are really just plain silly. Talk about
trying to pigeonhole people. Jeez.

What am I holding and what am I arguing?

[Havakasha]

Just curious. Which political positions do you disagree with the Tea Party on?


On Wednesday's "Studio B," Shepard Smith said the battle over union rights in Wisconsin was all about busting unions and securing Republican political power, not about the state's budget deficit.

It was a take that placed Smith squarely in agreement with people such as Rachel Maddow, who has repeatedly argued essentially the same thing on her show.

Speaking to a mostly-in-agreement Juan Williams, Smith said the fight was "100 percent politics."

"There is no budget crisis in Wisconsin," he said, adding that the unions "[have] given concessions."

The real point of the fight, Smith said, could be found in the list of the top ten donors to political campaigns. Seven out of the ten donated to Republicans; the other three were unions donating to Democrats.

"Bust the unions, and it's over," Smith said. He then brought up the Koch brothers, the billionaires who have bankrolled much of the anti-union pushback in Wisconsin. The fight, Smith said, "started" with the Kochs, who he said were trying to get a return on the money they donated to Walker's campaign.

"I'm not taking a side on this, I'm just telling you what's going on...to pretend this is about a fiscal crisis in the state of Wisconsin is malarkey," Smith said.

[SiriuslyLong]

Democrats, don't hide from democracy
By Michael Wolraich, Special to CNN
February 24, 2011 11:38 a.m. EST

Finally, a voice of reason

(CNN) -- Democratic state legislators have begun fleeing their respective capitals as if the plague has broken out. Perhaps they see it that way. Republicanism has gone viral, and it seems that no state is safe, no matter how unionized.

But this plague is called democracy, and the cure is worse than the disease.

In Wisconsin and now Indiana, Republican-dominated legislatures have proposed laws to reduce the power of the unions. Unable to block the bills, Democratic legislators have skedaddled in a desperate gambit to deny Republicans the minimum quorums required to vote.

The catch-me-if-you-can tactic was pioneered by Texas Democrats in 2003; they fled to Oklahoma and New Mexico in a vain attempt to block Republican efforts to redistrict the state. Republicans asked the FBI to arrest the fugitive Democrats. Hilarity ensued. Eventually, the wayward Democrats returned, and the Republicans concluded their redistricting.

The recent vanishing acts in Wisconsin and Indiana will probably be no more successful. Voters may or may not approve of the anti-union bills, but they elected their legislators to govern, and their anger will grow as the stalemate persists. Realizing this, some of the holdouts will inevitably crack, and so the bills will eventually pass anyway.

But political self-interest is not the only reason to quit the obstructionist parliamentary games. Let's suppose that the Democrats are successful in blocking the bills. After weeks or months of glorious deadlock, the Republicans finally blink. The courageous Democrats ride home to ticker tape parades, and they parlay their victory into recapturing their respective legislatures in 2012.

What then is to stop Republicans from running away to block Democratic bills? After all, how could Democrats complain when they employed the same tactic themselves? How well will our state governments function when breaking quorum becomes a common parliamentary strategy?

Sound farfetched? Just look to the proliferation of obstructionist tactics in the U.S. Senate. In the 19th century, there were only 23 Senate filibusters. During President Obama's first two years in office, there were over a hundred.

Although Republicans hold the record, Democrats were hardly shy about filibustering when they were in the minority under President Bush. Each successive Congress has used the behavior of opponents in previous Congresses to justify its tactics.

In short, obstructionism may provide short-term gains to one party or another, but it tends to breed even more obstructionism. Then we all lose.

Personally, I oppose the anti-union bills. I urge every legislator in Wisconsin and Indiana to vote against them, and I support the many protestors and union members who have organized to fight them.

But the Republicans won the elections in Wisconsin and Indiana. If they have the votes to pass the bills, that is their prerogative.

If the Democrats hope to defeat these bills or repeal them in the future, they need to take their case to the voters and win elections in 2012. That's how democracy works.

And here's the link, be sure to check it out: http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/2...ss_igoogle_cnn

[Havakasha]

So what are those positions of the tea party you DISAGREE with?

As Shepard Smith argues, its clear this is about politics and not budget cutting.

[Havakasha]

John Stewart on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker prank call.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_827551.html

[SiriuslyLong]

Just curious. Which political positions do you disagree with the Tea Party on?

Hold on, I have to find out their positions............

"It endorses reduced government spending,[9][10] opposition to taxation in varying degrees,[10] reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit,[9] and adherence to an originalist interpretation of the United States Constitution.[11]"

uhoh, I kind of agree with much of this. Damn, I don't want to wear this label.

"73% of Tea Party supporters disapprove of Obama's policy of engaging with Muslim countries, 88% approve of the controversial immigration law recently enacted in Arizona, 82% do not believe that gay and lesbian couples should have the legal right to marry, and that about 52% believed that "lesbians and gays have too much political power".[70][71]"

Phew, here are a few things that are pretty dumb.

"More than half (52%) of Tea Party supporters told pollsters for CBS/New York Times that they think their own "income taxes this year are fair".[64] Additionally, a Bloomberg News poll found that Tea Partiers are not against increased government action in all cases. "The ideas that find nearly universal agreement among Tea Party supporters are rather vague"

Hmmm, 50% think their income taxes are fair, and they are not against increased government action. I'm actually impressed. I most certainly would have thought otherwise.

Read all about them Tea Partiers right here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement

Religion and abortion rights are two areas that I differ on with these people; though religion is interesting in respect to the constitution and "natural law".

"Because of the intersection between natural law and natural rights, it has been cited as a component in United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. The essence of Declarationism is that the founding of the United States is based on Natural law."

Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law

For the record, what I have said about this event is that I think it's funny that the democrats have run away, and that some democrats might now know what it feels like to be "helpless" to their rival party just as the republicans did for two years. Ask yourself, how did these republicans come into power??