- Chart of the Day, Big Government Nanny State Edition | MoJo Blogs – Tim Murphy
- Faced with a choice between cutting farm subsidies and cutting funding for food stamps, House Republicans have overwhelmingly chosen to cut funding for food stamps. Unrelatedly, House Republicans have received a ton of farm subsidies:…
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- Florida Bill Will Force Women to Look at Their [Redacted] | MoJo Blogs – Kate Sheppard
- "How do you ban the word 'uterus' at the same time you're debating a bill that would force women to look at a picture of their uterus?"…
There are a total of 18 bills in the Florida legislature this year that would limit abortion access.
- How Citizens United Increases Foreign Influence Over American Politics | Blog For Arizona – mbryanaz
- …the legal infrastructure supporting globalization ensures … the foreign corporations … that control large accumulations of [foreign capital] need recognize no borders, and owe no ultimate allegiance to any nation-state. All a …company need do to begin buying public policy wholesale…is incorporate in any U.S. state or territory and use that legal personality to buy influence in our political discourse without any significant limits.
…the rewards for investing in the purchase of American policy, and policy-makers, are irresistibly vast. …
Already, lobbyists openly flack for foreign interests and governments perfectly legally. Citizens United allows those foreign interests to bypass lobbying registration requirements and directly expend funds on issue advocacy and independent election campaigns. …
…We will end up with a system of representation without taxation…
- Wisconsin and Beyond | The American Prospect – Harold Meyerson
- What with conservatives' continual demonization of public-employee unions, the support that Americans show for public employees' rights has to come as a surprise.
…Americans aren't keen on the idea of taking away long-established rights, particularly when doing so fundamentally destabilizes the social balance of power that we take (or took) for granted. …Wiping [unions] off the map, as…Republicans are trying to do, is not only undemocratic but violates every precept of Burkean conservatism. …
While the Wisconsin backlash could restore public employees' rights, the nation's anemic labor laws still make it almost impossible for private-sector workers to organize and win contracts. Restoring workers' rights in both the public and private sectors would require, just for starters, a mobilization that would dwarf Madison's in size, intensity, and duration — and who knows what else?
- Wisconsin recall drive already making history – The Plum Line – The Washington Post
- …activists collected and filed … 145 percent of the total [number of signatures] required — and Wisconsin election experts tell me it virtually ensures that a recall election will take place despite any challenges to the veracity of signatures.
Because the news…broke late on a Friday, the signficance of it has gone entirely unnoticed. Dems and labor activists in the state collected nearly 23,000 signatures in Kapanke’s districts in 29 days — less than half the 60 alloted …
The question remains whether the drive on display in Kapanke’s district will manifest itself with similarly strong recall signature showings in other districts. But that said, even though the national press has moved on from this story, the energy and staying power of what has been unleashed in Wisconsin continue to surprise.
- No degree, little experience pay off big – JSOnline
- Just in his mid-20s, Brian Deschane has no college degree, very little management experience and two drunken-driving convictions.
Yet he has landed an $81,500-per-year job in Gov. Scott Walker's administration overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees at the Department of Commerce. Even though Walker says the state is broke and public employees are overpaid, Deschane already has earned a promotion and a 26% pay raise in just two months with the state.
How did Deschane score his plum assignment with the Walker team?
It's all in the family.
His father is Jerry Deschane, executive vice president and longtime lobbyist for the Madison-based Wisconsin Builders Association, which bet big on Walker during last year's governor's race.
The group's political action committee gave $29,000 to Walker …
- ‘No cop in the state’ would arrest Senate dems: Fitzgerald
- Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald was repeatedly warned he would be stepping outside the law if he forcibly returned 14 Democratic senators who fled Wisconsin in February, according to internal emails.
Records obtained from the offices of Fitzgerald and Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Ted Blazel show Fitzgerald was told he was on shaky legal ground by attorneys from three state agencies. …
He said the reality was brought home when police agencies refused to carry out his March 3 order to forcibly detain the senators. Among them was Rock County Sheriff Robert Spoden, who said his department would not honor any order to bring in Sen. Tim Cullen, D-Janesville…
“Every time we made a move it was always something that you in your wildest dreams never that you’d be involved with,” Fitzgerald said. “The discussions we had were incredible, almost surreal.
"They characterize me as some evil overbearing guy who was trying to do all these dirty tricks…"
- The Religious Right’s Anti-Union Crusade | Mother Jones
- Wisconsin's ongoing labor battle has officially become a holy war. The Family Research Council, the evangelical advocacy organization founded by James Dobson, has been dipping into its war chest to defend Republican Governor Scott Walker's efforts … FRC president Tony Perkins interviewed backers of Walker's anti-union bill on his weekly radio program…directly linking social conservatism with an anti-union, pro-business agenda: …
The FRC's anti-labor campaign in Wisconsin is part of its larger agenda to meld fiscal conservatism with its family-values message. Its recent priorities have included fighting health care reform, new taxes on the wealthy, and President Obama's budget proposals. … Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) [said,] "The bigger government gets, the smaller God gets."
…This strain of private-property-centric Christianity has deep roots within America's fundamentalist movement. For an excellent rundown of that history, check out [link]
- Judge re: McPier – No Interference in Collective Bargaining – Chicago Conservative | Examiner.com
- In a ruling that has far-reaching implications for Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Maine, Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri, a federal judge threw out labor law reforms at Chicago’s McCormick Place that the Illinois state legislature enacted in 2010 following supplication from the convention industry.
- Examining the "Liberal Media" Claim | Fair.org
- The conservative critique of the news media rests on two general propositions: (1) journalists' views are to the left of the public, and (2) journalists frame news content in a way that accentuates these left perspectives. Previous research has revealed persuasive evidence against the latter claim, but the validity of the former claim has often been taken for granted. This research project examined the supposed left orientation of media personnel …
The findings include:
On select issues from corporate power and trade to Social Security and Medicare to health care and taxes, journalists are actually more conservative than the general public.
Journalists are mostly centrist in their political orientation.
The minority of journalists who do not identify with the "center" are more likely to identify with the "right" when it comes to economic issues and to identify with the "left" when it comes to social issues.
- Gazette » I’m Sorry I’m a Teacher
- I honestly didn’t mean to place so many states in danger of going bankrupt.
…I am also sorry that, as a teacher, I did such a poor job of teaching students to think for themselves, allowing the fear mongers to drug their critical thinking skills. I worry that I have done a poor job of teaching my students not to ask for proof when an organization says it offers fair and balanced news reporting.
…I left the financial world after tiring of the constant manipulation of the general public in order to add to the company’s bottom line… At age 22 I had my own upscale apartment in Los Angeles and a racing Cobra. Life was good and the pension plan was lucrative. I paid nothing into it… All I had to do was ignore my desire to help others.
- In Clubby World of SF Mothers, Men Need Not Apply – The Bay Citizen
- But he and his husband are men. As such, they and their little boy are personae non gratae at the Golden Gate Mothers Group, which since its founding in 1996 has grown to an organization of 4,000…
The group, which takes in revenue north of $300,000 annually, mostly from dues, is by far the dominant parenting organization in town…
In San Francisco, being gay and married and adopting a baby is hardly controversial. But even the most credentialed of that set are finding that for the alpha mommy play group, they just don’t measure up.
[My bookmarks live at delicious.com/camryl. In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. Also, signal boosts are awesome! --L.]
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