By Jeff Simpson
Scott Walker, in his never ending quest for less government yet one that works, as he told Morning Joe yesterday:
"That’s the difference between Washington and Republicans at the state level. We may as Republicans want less government, but we want the government we have to work.” - Gov. Scott WalkerNow Scott Walker and Mike Huebsch, after clearing the halls of 80 year old women who wear socks with sandals, have decided to start arresting public servants(and apparently yelling at everyone else).
After spending tons of money, rewarding a right wing Hollywood director, to film a "tourism" commercial displaying Wisconsinites as bumbling dolts....The Capitol Police and the Dynamic Duo of Huebsch and Walker drive the point home:
The crackdown also focused press attention on the standoff between protesters and police. (Isthmus put together a storify and local activist and photographer Leslie Peterson captured good photos of the event.)
Meanwhile Erwin and his second-in-command have grabbed headlines with hefty raises, made legal through a bureaucratic shell game, prompting speculation that Erwin is being rewarded for arresting the state's most visible critics of Walker. The state Department of Administration denies the crackdown has anything to do with Erwin's pay raise.
Last week officers targeted the Raging Grannies singing troupe — comprised, you might have guessed, of elderly women — as well as a Madison alderman and a leftie journalist.
Capitol police is recent days appear to be making the point that anyone connected with the Solidarity Sing Along is game for arrest, with no exceptions for the young, the old, elected officials, journalists and now fellow protective services personnel.
Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteCall me a mal content (I surly am), but I really think all Democrats should get off their collective ass.
Bystanders, even more perpetrators, are the worst.
@ Mal-----do you think that we should not be allowed to protest what our government does??
DeleteIf you've ever seen an episode of AMC's "Hell on Wheels" -- how the Union Pacific Railroad (a.k.a. the *Crédit Mobilier* company) billed the government for services, for which it has a blank check from the Treasury, authorized by Crédit Mobilier stock-holders in Congress -- that's the model for Walker of "Wisconsin Working."
ReplyDeleteIt happened right after the Civil War, as the Party of Lincoln almost overnight began to remold itself into the Party of Corruption, Secrecy and Fraud.
For a long time, "Crédit Mobilier" was synonymous with "scandal," but these days we simply refer to the concept as "privatization."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit_Mobilier_of_America_scandal
Excerpt from that link:
Crédit Mobilier was the exclusive construction and management agent for the building of the Pacific Railroad. The Union Pacific "suspected" nothing, and they "paid" Crédit Mobilier (actually themselves) whatever "they" were asked to pay. Crédit Mobilier's corporate balance sheet regularly showed high earnings in excess of its expenses, and very high net profits in every quarter that it was engaged in the construction of the railroad. It also declared substantial quarterly dividends on its stock.
The Congressmen and others allowed to purchase shares at a discount could reap enormous capital gains simply by offering their discounted shares to a grossly under-subscribed market, where demand was high for shares of such a “profitable” company. These same members of Congress voted to appropriate government funds to cover the inflated charges of Crédit Mobilier. Ames' actions became one of the best-known examples of graft in American history.