Snake Oil!

By Jeff Simpson

Apparently it is now illegal to sell snake oil to the general public. 

That does not bode well for the future prospects of Scott Walker:

We are trying to confirm the rumor that there is already an arrest warrant out for Paul Ryan:

I am sure these three would get along tremendously! 

Common Clowns With No Standards!

By Jeff Simpson

For those of you who have and have not been following the state of education in the country and in our state, one of the debates right now is a set of Common Core State Standards, that every state is trying to adopt so kids graduate high school with a basic understanding of how the world works.  Whether you grow up in Janesville, WI, Detroit Michigan, Rockland County, New York, or South Alamo, Texas there are basic math, reading writing skills that everyone will have.

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

The theory is that we as a country have too much invested in our youth that when someone graduates West Bend high school and thinks that dinosaurs lived with man only a few thousand years ago that kind of ignorance harms us all.   

It seems as though anti-intellectualism has become standard practice in politics today.   Some of it can be attributed to the education vampire profiteers like former convicted felon Scott Jensen who prefers public education money in his pocket instead of your kids classroom.  We can also contribute it to the failed state of our politics when we have serious candidates for president say things like this:

A little refresher course on Common Core, it originated as a republican idea: 

 On the face of it, Republicans should love the Common Core State Standards. Eisenhower called for higher education standards in response to Sputnik. Reagan decried that U.S. standards were too low. Conservatives have railed against lax standards, zero accountability and bloated education budgets for decades. We want measurable results, bottom-line solutions, and we don’t want them come from Washington.

Common Core does that. Developed by teachers, created by the states, it provides the kind of education that big business and colleges are demanding.

 The initiative started in 1989 when President Bush (the elder) hosted a summit of governors to develop higher standards for public education. The idea came to fruition in 2007 when the National Governors Association (led by Sonny Perdue) created standards for English and math.

The goal? To create graduates with the necessary skills to be employable by businesses or go to college. Funded by big business, with 10,000 different inputs by ordinary parents and teachers, developed by teachers, benchmarked against competitive foreign countries, the group created a yardstick that could measure every student across the nation.

 Up until that point, Republicans who knew about Common Core were unified behind the zero-budget, state-led initiative to an education system we’ve been trying to fix for generations. We welcomed these standards because they’d finally make all schools across the nation equally accountable – not to the meddlesome feds – but to 46 of our fellow states.

Then something devastating to Common Core happened.  President Obama endorsed it!  As "tea party" republican school board member Dan Belton from Rural Georgia says:

Then Obama endorsed the initiative, and conservatives turned against it.

 I wish they’d look closer. I’d be annoyed if Obama announced he was suddenly a Braves fan. But that wouldn’t make me cheer for the Mets. That is the kind of backwards logic that some are now employing.

 Obama did not develop Common Core. It is not a federal program. Not one federal official was on any of the teams that created these standards.

 “But, wait!” you say. “The feds are controlling Common Core by using Race to the Top money!” Yes, that is one way federal money can be earned, but it is not the only way. Virginia, for example, won that money while rejecting Common Core.

 “But the curriculum tells teacher what to teach!” Actually, Common Core isn’t even a curriculum. It is a set of standards that each child needs to know. One teacher put it this way, "It's not about how to teach; it's about where students need to be by the time that teaching is done."

 It’s the end zone - home plate - the goalie’s net. It’s a yardstick that nearly every state agreed upon; a goal that is much harder than before.

 Now let's bring it back to WI where a group of "tea party" laggards are foaming at the mouth upset that we would even think about implementing anything the current President of the United States would endorse.  They pressured the extremist elements of the current republican party(which is most of them) and they forced statewide hearings on common core.

Unfortunately, for the children of Wisconsin, these hearings turned out to be as big of a sham as everything the republicans have done in the last three years.   It was so bad that Rep. Christine Sinicki quit the common core committee because nothing was being accomplished but a bunch of paid goons from out of state were the only ones being allowed to talk!

The John Birch Society, a conservative political advocacy group, paid experts to testify against the controversial Common Core academic standards in public hearings last week, which Sinicki called “immoral” in her resignation letter to committee chairs Sen. Paul Farrow, R-Pewaukee, and Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, R-Fond du Lac.
“It has become painfully clear that this committee and its activities are occurring at the behest of interested parties outside of this Legislature, and even this state,” Sinicki said in her letter.
Sinicki said in her letter she would not sit on a committee that involves itself with “extreme” interest groups during legislative hearings but does not pay attention to the teachers and administrators affected by the standards.

(Edit Note: In case you don't know the history of John Birch Society - it is not pretty)

After the right wing extremist were able to force the republican party to hold sham hearings, that was not enough.  Now somewhere around 60 of these extremist groups and their laggard heads all signed a letter asking Governor Walker to display his "unintimidated" principles and not implement it!  

Nor could they better embody the principles that must guide you, Wisconsin’s chief

executive, in boldly rejecting Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in this state

.

Governor Walker, we ask that you match your bold words with decisive leadership and action on the most important issue that will ever be before you in your current office: the future of the children of Wisconsin

Yes a sane person would think they were talking about the devastating effects of his voucher school program on Wisconsin Students. but they are talking about Common Core.  

As HuffPo points out:

The Common Core State Standards have been adopted in more than 40 states and are being taught to the same benchmarks. While the standards are typically seen as more rigorous than what most states previously used, in Wisconsin, some critics are arguing the standards are too mild and represent an example of federal overreach.
On Tuesday, the groups sent Walker a letter asking him to encourage the legislature to pass a bill rejecting the Common Core Standards, even though the state adopted the voluntary benchmarks in 2010.
 Schools in Wisconsin have already spent about $25 million on the standards’ implementation process, the AP notes.

Whats $25 million in Wisconsin taxpayer money to the "tea party" anyway?  they have proven that no amount of money matters when it comes to their agenda.

Their hilarious, yet scary letter can be found here.    

A couple quick thoughts on their letter:

* The people that loved No Child Left Behind now are upset with testing in schools?  Huh?

*  Don't tell us about Wisconsinites are against it when you have a letter signed with "expert witnesses" from Utah.

*   Anytime the cowardly Orville Seymour's name is attached then you know its a joke. 

*   The Southern Poverty Law center, who tracks domestic terrorist groups, tells us that one telling sign of an American dangerous hate group is the word "patriot" in their title.

Finally why do we need Common Core? Back to Ben Belton:

 Why is this necessary? Nationwide, only 75 percent of ninth graders graduate from high school. Only 19 percent of our graduates are ready for college, only 44 percent enter college and only 21 percent earn a degree. Shockingly, 35 percent aren’t educated enough to enter the military. The United States is 25^th among developed countries in math and 21^st for science.

Over 600,000 jobs remained vacant last year because no one was educated enough to fill them. If you think those stats are good enough, then, yeah…Common Core is a horrible idea.

 Common Core gets rid of No Child Left Behind. The dirty little secret is that although the feds administered that very unpopular reform program, they let the each state decide what their individual standards were.

The result? Some states made their standards hard and others quite easy, making it impossible to compare one state to another.

 Common Core isn’t mandatory. State leaders, accountable to their constituents, can withdraw at any time. Which states opted out? Texas, Alaska, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Virginia -- evenly matched between Red and Blue.

Common Core only involves English and math. It does not include social studies or science and probably never will.

 In a nation like France, where people rarely move much from place to place, having national standards isn’t a big deal. In America, where children commonly move thousands of miles from state to state, it’s absolutely essential. Our tiny, rural system has dozens of children moving from out of state every month. Finding that your child is one or two years behind another state is extremely common. 

 I’ve talked to a lot of teachers about Common Core. Their biggest concern? That we’ll scrap it and start over (yet again) with something else. Georgia DOE is famous for rolling out plan after plan without sticking to anything more than a year or two. Teachers have been using these standards over a year. It would be a crime to derail them yet again.

 Some parents complain it’s too hard or too confusing. Welcome to the 21^st century! Our students will either rise to the challenge of the ever-competitive global marketplace or America will fail. Staying the course towards pale mediocrity is not a plan.

 Measuring performance is the cornerstone of accountability. Imagine if the Crimson Tide refused to play anyone outside the state of Alabama! How could they possibly say they were the best team in the nation? States must be able to compete and measure themselves against other states. Every Republican knows that.

Sorry Ben, the republican party of your youth is no longer around. The logical conservative elephant is as extinct as the Zanzibar leopard!  

If Scott Walker listens to this surly group of half wits, anti intellectuals, radicals, subversives and antagonists then it will prove that Scott Walker is not only out of touch with what Wisconsinites truly feel, but that he is completely unfit for duty!









  

PS:  To our friends on the right who signed the letter:  Keep Writing them!  PLEASE!

Thanks Dave!

 

By Jeff Simpson

Yesterday, Dave Blaska, part of the new era of "conservatives", felt that the best way to petition the government was ask for their permission to do so, THEN go where and when they were told, and sing their praises! Blaska, who the news shows could not give enough airtime too, was able to prove his points perfectly!  Unfortunately for Blaska, the point he proved was not the one he was going for!

Let's start with the arrest.



This unnamed man was arrested for SILENTLY holding a sign that read simply - "Article 1, Section 4." 
Not only was he alone holding the sign, the letters on the sign did not reach the 20 member threshhold.  Yet he was arrested and hauled away in handcuffs.  YEs - HAULED AWAY IN HANDCUFFS.   Proving that what gets you arrested is NOT  not getting a permit but instead saying something that the PArty Leader does not want to hear(or read).  

FYI:

Article 1 Section 4 of the Wisconsin State Constitution reads as follows: "The right of the people peaceably to assemble, to consult for the common good, and to petition the government, or any department thereof, shall never be abridged."

Secondly, Blaska  tried to have radio personality Sly Sylvester arrested for asking him a simple question!

Dave how do you like your state funded pension? 

See Dave Blaska is a former elected official and state worker.  You pay his pension.  YOU pay for him to be able to run around the state and do childish pranks in the name of Scott Walker.  YOU pay for him to have numerous forums to talk about how horrible it is that YOU one day will be getting a pension!   Dave has never offered to give a penny back on his state funded pension, see unlike YOU he earned his.

Apparently once you take out a permit you decide who can and can not be in the Capitol and what they will be doing.  An hour's worth of power must have been all consuming for Blaska!  It is nice that we have three police agencies spending time at the Capitol, its not like they have anything else they can be doing.    It is more important that we keep the police in Madison to make sure Scott Walker or Dave Blaska's feeling never get hurt!   It's only tax dollars, its not like they have to pay for it!

Unforrtunately, the one person NOT arrested was this republican thug!  

As is the theme for this blog, BUT wait there's more:  While never being overly creative, the right decided the best way to prove a point was to sing thinly veiledracist hateful silly songs (badly I might add):

But WAIT, There's more.   It appears that Mr. Blaska was giving out twinkies to participants!  I will give Dave the benefit of the doubt in that I am sure he was making a political statement and not judging his peers.

 Blaska’s event lasted about a half hour, after which he handed out Twinkies to celebrate “American resilience.”

 Lets take a look at what Twinkies "celebrates", which is everything that the republican party loves!  

*   Corporate greed

*   Unemployed Americans

*    Misperception and Lies from the right to push an agenda

*   Corporations giving you less for more money

*   Jobs outsourced 

*   Sh*t food! 

I always say that when people tell us who they are, we should listen!

Yesterday David Blaska and the modern day Wisconsin "conservatives(term used very loosely)" spoke volumes!   

PS: Want to know whats wrong with Wisconsin?  Today on WKOW Wake Up Wisconsin, Blaska received about 6-10 minutes an hour of TV time, Wisconsin Ride for Kids was afforded a whole two minutes!  

Nuff' Said!

We're Not Living in the Union of American Socialist Republics

I truly believe that the right-wing is nothing but a hotbed of willing ignorance, stupidity and sheer assery. While reading through the news this morning, a particular story caught my eye. A teacher in Marietta, GA thought it was a great idea to have their students write a paper noting the "comparisons" between President Obama and Vladimir Lenin/Josef Stalin (who aren't even comparable to each other) and how President Obama is apparently turning us all into freedom hating commies. Not wanting to leave students without the proper sources to research, the teacher also provided a list of places the students could go to "find" these comparisons. Not incidentally, all these ''sources'' were right-wing hack websites i.e. Fox News and the Drudge Report to name a few. After enough complaints, the teacher was given a tap on the wrist and the assignment rescinded.

The faux issue of President Obama 'being' a socialist is nothing new. Sarah Palin tried her best to use that as a wedge issue to send her and McCain to the White House in 2008, and, like everything Sarah Palin does, it failed. Why won't this issue go away? Why hasn't it been made blazingly apparent that in fact, the president isn't a communist/fascist/nazi/socialist yadda yadda? Because fear and manipulation are the favorite tools of the right-wing election puppet masters.

I think it's important that Americans finally crack open a book and took a peek at this whole socialism thing. If those on the other side of the aisle would educate themselves for 5 minutes, they'd see how President Obama is most certainly not a socialist, not even close. Oh, but he cares for the poor! And wants everyone to have health care! And wants corporations to pay their fair share! And people to have affordable housing! And CIVIL RIGHTS! Oh god, what ever will we do! I mean, honestly, if that's the right-wing's definition of a socialist, then hell, count me in. And honestly, if trying to portray the president as something he isn't is more important than feeding and clothing poor families, than your priorities suck and that's why you're losing elections and support.

Conservatives

Stolen from Facebook:

Putting the Con Back Into Conservative

The other day, Jeff Simpson stole my thunder when he pointed out that the conservative propaganda site "Human Events" named Scott Walker as their "Conservative of the Year."

Jeff rightly pointed out the irony of this in the fact that Walker is an utter failure in all aspects. To say otherwise is pure denial. He has raised taxes on the poorest of the poor, killed tens of thousands of jobs, corrupted everything he has touched and has made the state the armpit of the country.

If one reads their drivel, and manages to keep their lunch down, it's obvious they've gone in full propaganda mode, make Faux News look like pikers. For example:

The Editors said Walker was chosen because he brought the benefits of conservatism to a financially troubled state, and survived numerous harsh encounters with a relentlessly hostile political environment. He was denounced, protested, and demonized to the point where he shared space with Adolf Hitler and deposed Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak on protest signs.

Big Labor unleashed a tidal wave of money and organizational power against him. His adversaries were willing to break every rule to take him down — from unionized teachers abandoning their classrooms so they could join protest marches, to Democratic officials literally fleeing across state lines in a desperate bid to shut down state government.

And yet, Walker beat them time and again, becoming the first U.S. governor to survive a recall election. Friend and foe alike testify to Walker’s sincerity and conviction. He is soft of voice, mild of manner, and has a steel spine.

In the years to come, as Americans deal with the consequences of the vote they cast in 2012, they’ll want to hear from leaders with a resume of both political and policy success like Scott Walker.

The tripe from Grover Norquist was just as bad, if not worse:

The next Republican candidate for president will have to pass the “Walker Test.”

Walker’s reforms changed the balance of power, the correlation of forces between taxpayers and statists in Wisconsin: a traditionally blue/left-of-center state. Walker showed those reforms could survive a counterattack by every union in the nation focused like a laser on crushing liberty in one state before it could spread.

Walker won his election in 2010. The Left tried to defeat him by winning a Supreme Court race that could have undone his reforms. They failed. The left tried to recall Walker himself—and failed. In 2012, Walker and his Republican majorities in the Wisconsin House and Senate remain in power. Stronger than ever. Tested by fire.

• Walker did it first.
• Walker did it in a blue state.
• Walker defended his progress in three elections.
• Walker kept his legislative majorities intact.
• Walker’s model is scalable. His reform can be implemented in all of the 24 other states with Republican governors and a Republican legislature. He has a raised a standard that all Republicans can follow to success.

He has left no excuses for other Republicans who would offer themselves for state or national leadership.

By taking forced union dues off the table Walker has begun to correct an imbalance between taxpayers and the state. By allowing contracts to reform government worker pensions, Walker has ended the game where today’s politician gets yesterday’s dues money in payment for signing contracts that promise gold-plated pensions for a few at the expense of all taxpayers in a rapidly approaching tomorrow. The greatest source of unfunded liabilities at the state level has been reformed.

As the gentle reader surely noticed, both of these articles rely heavily on praising Walker's Act 10, the union busting bill.

This is where the first "con" comes in. They are pulling a con game on their readers by not telling them that Act 10 was responsible for sending our state's economy into a death spiral even as the rest of the country was recovering from the Great Recession.

They are also pulling a con game on their readers by willfully telling them that Act 10 is dead, having been found unconstitutional. Oh sure, Walker and his pet legal weasel, Attorney J.B. Van Hollen plan on appealing this, but right now, after more than three months, they can't even find a court to stay the injunction against it.

That got me thinking about why they would give Walker this "honor," if you can call it that. Judging by the other people they bestowed this on, it's pretty obvious they have low expectations and even lower standards.

The reason for their con game is simple. They're helping Walker run his presidential bid for 2016.

And this is where the other two cons come in.

Either Walker has not told them all about the John Doe investigation into him, his staff and his campaign, or he minimized it to the point where he has them believing, like so many Republicans in Wisconsin, that it is a non-issue. The fact that he is going to be a con (as in convict) himself is either below their radar or they think it is just a political stunt and not a real problem for Walker.

In other words, Walker, being the ultimate con artist, is pulling the ultimate con game on the other con artists.

Which leads me to the question, and I apologize for it ahead of time:

If a con can con con men, how many con men can a con con man con?

If you donate to support Cog Dis, I promise not to do anything like that again.

American Taliban!

This could be the best, most honest two minutes in all of television!



  


See Also Voter Fraud is a Problem!

The Cult of the Almighty Dollar

An alert reader tipped me off to a post at the Democratic Underground. It's about an overheard conversation at an airport, between a man and woman who cannot see past their noses and a young woman who tried to speak rationally with them.

It reminds me of hundreds, maybe thousands, of conversations that I've had over the past ten years.

I can't remember how many times I've been told that I'm some kind of $%#^@&*! lefty that needs to die or how many times that I have been "diagnosed" with "Walker Derangement Syndrome."

It does become more than a little frustrating and baffling at times.  The facts are plain as day.  Walker's policies are driving jobs out of the state by the tens of thousands.  The jobs that remain are low-paying and offer overpriced benefits because no one wants to truly fix health care.  People have less rights than they did two years ago. The state has become notably much less safe due to neglect of the infrastructure and the increasing number of hot heads allowed to carry a gun.

So why are right wingers are so obstinate and refuse to see what's going on?

Well, that's something else that's been discussed hundreds, maybe thousands of times.

Well, in my humble opinion, it's because they hold their beliefs with a pseudo-religious, or cult-like faith.

Catholics are instilled from childhood to believe the teachings of the Church, and that the Pope is infallible.  This is reinforced weekly at mass and if they stray, well, guilt is a wonderful tool to bring people back in line. The more devout have this ingrained with them and will not bide with any sort of dissension from that faith.  That is why history is filled with things like the Inquisition and witch trials.

Similar things can be said about most other religions as well.  A prime example of how insane the extremists are would be Osama bin Ladin and all of the terrorist attacks he had masterminded in the name of Allah.

And don't even get me going on the cultists.

The right worship at the alter of the Almighty Dollar and the high priests are the Koch Brothers, WMC and other Big Businesses that wish to rule the world.  They hold forth promises of their version of heaven, "an opportunity" to be rich if they just work hard enough, save enough and invest wisely.  They lead through fear-mongering, false promises and made up parables.

And these messages are reinforced daily, through talk radio, Fox News and the newspapers.

And when their agendas fail, as they are destined to do? Well, they have an app for that.  They just blame the sinners - in this case, liberals, 99%ers, unions, Democrats, and free thinkers.  Sort of like Pat Robertson blaming every natural disaster on the left or the Westboro Baptist Church blaming everything on homosexuals.

When Scott Walker takes money out of the economy and gives it to the wealthy and the corporations, to them, that's a blessed and holy act.  And when the resulting lack of demand causes smaller businesses to shut down and people to lose their jobs, well, that's because the Democrats raised taxes to feed the "big union bosses."  Never mind that corporate taxes are as low as ever and spending is down and that the public sector workers had always made less than their private sector counterparts. That is not what High Priest Big Business taught them.

When people can't afford their homes, food and/or medicine because their insurance rates went up by 15% each and every year, the power company needs yet another rate hike and the oil companies raise prices because they barely netted a half a trillion dollars in the last quarter, well, obviously it's the tax hike of $10 that's forcing them out.  Big Business taught them so and so it must be true.

And so on and so forth. Amen.

And when you present a conservative with a fact that is irrefutable and does not jive with their world view, like that young lady at the airport did, you will find conservatives will get very personal and very insulting.  Don't take it personally.  Look at it from where they are coming from.

When a person has their worldview challenged to its very core, and there is no way for them to deny it, it is very, very difficult to deal with.  That's like telling a Catholic that the Pope is fallible, telling a Muslim that Muhammad ate pork sammiches all the time or a Chicago Bears fan that, after further review, the call stands.

The more open minded might be able to accept it, or at least give it serious thought.  The more adamant will try to explain it away as a fluke or using some far fetched bit of rationalization.  The truly devout will merely attack you, hopefully only verbally, with all sorts of name-calling and irrational accusations.

You see, it causes a person great psychological and emotional angst to confront the fact that they might have been wrong all this time and helped cause so much damage, albeit unintentionally.  This discomfort and pain, the feeling of having all they believe in being set on its end, produces a fight or flight response, causing them to emotionally withdraw and/or attack the perceived threat.

But it's too late. The seed of thought has been planted and now they will either have to double down on their beliefs, no matter how much cognitive dissonance it might cause (see Tea Parties and Koch employees), or they will come around to the realization that they've been wrong, and while not embracing liberalism, they will be more willing to work to find a solution everyone can live with.

Our job, my friends, is not to control our conservative brothers and sisters, since that is not we are about.  We must continuously point out the errors of their ways and help them understand that the things they've been taught are false and are actually harmful to themselves and others.  With patience and self-control, we will be able to get through to most of them.

Sadly, we won't be able to save everyone from themselves.  Sometimes their need to believe is stronger than their sense of self-preservation, like the alcoholic who can't stop drinking or the cultist who believes so strongly that they are willing to drink the poisoned Kool Aid.

But to paraphrase the famed union leader, Mother Jones, we must mourn those that won't change and fight like hell for the rest.

Walker Supporter Suffers Cognitive Dissonance

Poor Aaron Rodriguez must be suffering from some buyer's remorse and doesn't know how to deal with it.

For the unfamiliar, Rodriguez is a conservative blogger who has drunk deeply of the Scott Walker Kool-Aid.  So much so that he had even done some posts that ended up on Walker's campaign website.

Rodriguez is also a member of a local first responder department.  Unfortunately, his conservatism has led him to stop supporting the union that supported him.  There has been no word that he has given up the benefits that the union had won for him, like a living wage, vacations and holidays, or a respectable health care and pension benefit package, which makes him a goldbricker and a user.

Now, Rodriguez is bemoaning the fact that Scott Walker's inept and maleficent tenure has Milwaukee County Executive has caused the county to have a $55 million budgetary deficit, which has only been exasperated by cuts in state aid, ordered by the same man that Rodriguez promoted for governor.  As an end result, the current county executive, Chris Abele, has put the county's contribution to the paramedic system on the chopping block.

Ironically, last year, when his hero, Walker, had proposed the same very thing, he dismissed my concerns as not really being a problem.

But now that Rodriguez could lose his job, it is suddenly a serious issue.  In his lashing out at everyone but the person to blame for the fiscal mess that could make this a necessity, he decides it's my fault:

In the campaign season of 2010, one liberal blogger led the charge to protect the paramedic program from the clutches of then County Executive Scott Walker. Although the County Executive didn't say for sure he would cut the program, it didn't stop activist blogger Chris Liebenthal from drawing up a petition bemoaning the cuts and claiming that areas in Milwaukee would go without paramedic services. Where is Liebenthal on the issue now? He has not posted single word on his blog about preserving the integrity of the program. We're not giving up hope though, there is still time for him to make his stand.

Really? Most rational people with the ability to use basic logic would recognize that if it was bad last year, it's bad this year as well. Perhaps Rodriguez also needs me to confirm that water is still wet and that the sun still rises in the east. I haven't written that in a while either, so that might mean my thoughts on that changed, right?

But it is unfortunate that Rodriguez, like other conservatives that have forsaken reality for Walker's false promises, cannot just admit that he was wrong on this as well.  But then again, like most conservatives, they only care about something when it finally has a direct impact on them.  It's sad that it takes so much longer for some folks to hit rock bottom and start making the necessary changes in their attitudes and lives that they need to make in order to make things better, not only for themselves, but for their communities as well.

Baby, I've Got A Huge Anterior Cingulate Cortex!

A tip from an alert twitterati:

Using data from MRI scans, researchers at the University College London found that self-described liberals have a larger anterior cingulate cortex--a gray matter of the brain associated with understanding complexity. Meanwhile, self-described conservatives are more likely to have a larger amygdala, an almond-shaped area that is associated with fear and anxiety.

"Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual's political orientation," lead researcher Ryota Kanai writes of the study in the latest issue of Current Biology. "Our study now links personality traits with specific brain structure."

If you don't believe the part about conservatives being strong in fear and anxiety, just walk up to one and say, "Taxes."

Some "Choice" Terms

When conservatives refer to the privatization of education, they are fond of calling it "school choice." Anyone that is for this sort of privatization is identified as being "pro-choice."

However, it the word choice is applied to a woman's reproductive rights, in the eyes of a conservative, it becomes synonymous with "pro-abortion." They will portray the pro-choice individual somewhere just beyond Ed Gein or Jeffrey Dahmer, as if they want to go around and kill every fetus in the world.

Given these two uses that conservatives have for the word "choice," one must conclude that the people that are pro-choice for schools are, in reality, out to kill education.

Which sounds pretty darn accurate seeing that the results of school choice, if the school stays open long enough to get any results, aren't all that great.

Conservative's Motivation Poster

H/T folkbum's

The TEA Parties: A Mushroom Roots Movement

Eric Alterman at the Daily Beast has a story about a recently discovered PowerPoint created by the Republican Party which shows great disdain for their own members:

Well, this is something. Just when you thought politics could not possibly get any more cynical than phony accusations of “death panels” and “Tea Party” conventions that rip off crazy people with the promise of revolution, we discover that the Republican National Committee thinks its funders are so stupid that they can soak them the basis of “fear,” “socialism,” and tchotchkes.

No really. According to a document uncovered by Politico, RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart gave a presentation at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida, on February 18 in which he explained how “ego-driven” Republican donors could be bilked by a campaign of fear and the promise that only the Republicans could "save the country from trending toward socialism."

The document is breathtaking in the contempt demonstrated for Republican supporters, expecting them to insist that a president who, on the one hand, is accused by his own supporters as being overly cozy with Wall Street and the pharmaceutical industry—to say nothing of his hawkish foreign policy—while he's also dubbed the second coming of Joe Stalin. "What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate...?" the memo asks. The answer is apparently a series of cartoons in which Obama is portrayed variously as The Joker, and “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively.”

Illusory Tenant points us to a similar story at Politico which also points out the documented proof that the conservatives have only one play in their playbook, the old Fear and Schmear:

The most unusual section of the presentation is a set of six slides headed “RNC Marketing 101.” The presentation divides fundraising into two traditional categories, direct marketing and major donors, and lays out the details of how to approach each group.

The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear;” “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “Reactionary.”

Major donors, by contrast, are treated in a column headed “Calculated Giving.”

Their motivations include: “Peer to Peer Pressure”; “access”; and “Ego-Driven.”

The slide also allows that donors may have more honorable motives, including “Patriotic Duty.”

A major Republican donor described the state of the RNC’s relationship with major donors as “disastrous,” with veteran givers beginning to abandon the committee, which is becoming increasingly reliant on small donors.

Now I can just imagine my two or three readers who traditionally defend the teabaggers as saying that there is no connection between the Republicans and the conservatives who attend these rallies. I would beg to differ with that.

In both articles, they discuss things like the poster portraying President Obama as the Joker, fighting against socialism, etc. etc. yada yada yada. These are the same signs and posters one often sees at the TEA Parties.

But besides the uncovered plot by the conservatives, there are other reasons to be suspicious of these events.

Fred Dooley posted a video* on his website of the recently held Bonfire TEA Party in Franksville. In it, they would show the occasional clip of one of their guest rabble rousers intoning the usual rhetoric. But as you can see in this screencap, the event was at least partially sponsored by the ironically and inappropriately named Americans for Prosperity.



These are the same clowns that bring you the annual "Defenders of the American Dream" revival meeting. It is pretty common knowledge that the AFP was created and is sponsored by the co-owners of Koch Industries, a multibillion dollar company that is part of oil and chemical industries among many others. Koch Industries has a deep seated hatred for the government, probably due to some degree to the fact that they were slapped with hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments and fines for causing hundreds of oil spills, damaging the environment and not properly maintaining their oil pipelines, which led to an explosion which killed two teenagers.

The two brothers who co-own this company have such a love of money that they have even been accused of cheating their other two brothers when they bought them out.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put the pieces together and see that the whole TEA Party movement is a cynical attempt of the uber-rich to try to regain control of the government from the people. In their effort to do so, they are using all the tools at their disposal, like talk radio and these TEA Parties to play on people's fears, hatreds, and bigotries and plying them with misinformation and flat-out lies to help stoke the fires.

Between the Republican memo and the ultrarich big businesses that are behind the TEA Party movement, the one thing for certain is that these are not the grassroot movements they pretend to be. It would be more accurate to call them a mushroom root movement, since they apparently like to be kept in the dark and feed off of the manure that is being flung at them.

*Do pay attention to the video, and if you can stomach it, watch it all the way through. There are the Obama as the Joker signs, signs spelling tyranny at "tyrrany" and at the very end, the producer puts up his own graphics which reads, "Politicians, you have our attention...do we have your's?"

The War On Thanksgiving

The holidays are upon us once again, along with their many traditions. Turkey and football on Thanksgiving Day, shopping on Black Friday, Christmas trees, lights at Candy Cane Lane and eggnog to name just a few.

Another tradition are the right wingers that build their straw Santa of how there is a war on Christmas. It has already started with people complaining about a Best Buy ad that mentions Eid-al-Adha, but not Christmas. There will also be the obligatory rants about how this store or that has the audacity to be inclusive and say "Happy Holidays" instead of singling out Christmas and ignoring the other holidays like Channukah or Kwanzaa.

But for all their piousness, they seem to be missing the real war on Christianity, even though they use it examples of it in their straw arguments about Christmas. It baffles me on why these holy rollers will complain that some clerk wouldn't wish them Merry Christmas, probably after they have griped for twenty minutes at said clerk about a sales tax the clerk has nothing to do with, but they don't complain about the diminishment of Thanksgiving.

I remember when I was a teen and as a much younger adult, I would end up working each Thanksgiving. I didn't think much of it, since I was involved in jobs that required someone there every day. Just like cops and hospital workers, there are jobs that require around the clock staffing. But I would always find it a bit eerie to go to work and back home and see all the parking lots empty as most stores were closed so that their employees could celebrate this very Christian holiday with their families. My young mind and active imagination could always picture it as if it were some sort of post-apocalyptic world.

Nowadays, most stores are open for at least a few hours, and some, like K-mart, are open for more than twelve hours. I can understand some businesses being open, like gas stations, but why does every business need to stay open all day?

Even if you aren't Christian per se, there is undeniable value to being able to just enjoy a day with family and friends and being reflective on how fortunate you are. It is good for the mind and the soul to be able to do that, if nothing else. But with these stores being open all hours, it makes it harder and harder for families to spend time together.

This should be causing outrage among the conservatives, who purportedly hold both Christian and family values in such high regard. Instead, they choose to rehash the same nonsensical arguments year after year, while ignoring the crass commercialism and the profiteers putting financial gain before families. It's enough to make one wonder exactly which deity they are worshiping: The Almighty God, or the Almighty Dollar.

Things Will Not Be Picking Up At The Courthouse

This past Thursday, a majority of the housekeeping crew at the Milwaukee County Courthouse didn't show up to work. Thursday was the day after the County Board chose to sell them out in order to support Scott Walker's gubernatorial campaign. I've heard a similar thing happened at other facilities, like the mental health complex.

While I can't condone their actions, I can appreciate their lack of motivation knowing that their careers and their livelihoods were sold out from under them, just so Walker could score some cheap political points that no one will remember in a few weeks. It was probably emotionally harder for the ones that did show up, since Walker had his HR people pouncing on them with pink slips and offering them "other chances" at County employment, even though they are already one of the lowest paid groups.

What I found more interesting is the reaction of the right wing bloggers to this bit of news.

The unemployed Kevin Binversie thought it only verified why the workers should be laid off. If not showing up to work correlated to worthiness, then I'm sure old Kevin would agree that Walker deserves to be laid off too.

Patrick Dorwin said that he'd mail their last checks to them at their home. That'll really show them, since that is what they were going to do anyway. Well, that is what they would do, except they required everyone to go into direct deposit when Walker contracted out for the over-budget-but-still-not-working-right-a-year-and-a-half-later Ceridian system.

But the oddest post was by Owen Robinson, who worried that this won't make them attractive to the private company that would eventually take over. Take it from someone who has seen the county lay off hundreds of people before. The private companies wouldn't hire them because they would be required to offer them the same salary.

Furthermore, based on our observations of the privatized housekeeping at the Coggs Building where I work, the turnover rate is incredibly high, both for the employees within said agency, and even for the agencies that are contracted to do the cleaning. I can't imagine where the County is saving money by having to constantly going through the process of contracting with a new agency and then having to orientate each company to what to do and then monitoring them to do what they are supposed to.

And we have already seen how much more money privatizing costs anyway. So much for them being fiscal conservatives, eh?

Why Would Anyone Equate Conservatives With Terrorists?

Earlier this year, the federal government came out with document advising law enforcement agencies to keep an eye on the more fringe right wing groups for possible regression into a terrorist sect. This caused the predictable faux outrage and consternation among conservatives nationwide.

How dare the feds for insinuating these sort of things!

After all, who could take anything scary or inappropriate from national squawking head, Pat Buchanan telling Todd "First Dude" Palin to go out and murder the father of his grandchild:

BUCHANAN: “Well, first, with regard to Levi, I think First Dude up there in Alaska, Todd Palin, ought to take Levi down to the creek and hold his head underwater until the thrashing stops.“

I mean, that's an innocent statement, right? Who could misconstrue that?

Or on a local level, there is Frank J. Tamel, writing at the Conservative Hispanic that came out with this warm and fuzzy peace-loving post.

Crazy like a fox, Sarah Palin is not the quitter that some people think she is. She bought her license and armed herself to the teeth. She walked out of the Alaska Governor’s mansion to go donkey hunting where the donkeys roam; on the plains of the blue states in the lower forty-eight.

By shedding the encumbrances of governorship, she has freed herself to bag a few trophies. Look out, you donkeys; Sarah Palin is your worst nightmare. She will track you down, expose you in your lair, and take you out.

No, Sarah Palin hasn’t quit. She has just begun the hunt.

Can't you just feel the acceptance and tolerance from that?

Just makes you feel at peace knowing that all of these people want to go around carrying guns, because the other people are the scary ones.

While I did write this rather facetiously and tongue firmly in cheek, it is undeniable that there are some real psychos out there, regardless of political persuasion. What will keep me awake is knowing that there are some right wing nutters out there, probably with guns, and wondering if any of them were the 80+ people that have been trying to Google my home address (per Google Analytics).

Conservatives Want To Keep Your Taxes High

You cannot go a day without hearing some right wing politician, some right wing blogger, and/or some right wing radio squawker bombarding you with the same old, same old line of "Wisconsin is not business friendly because the taxes are so high."

They may be correct, but they are also continuously opposing any chances for our taxes to go down.

One of the biggest reasons taxes are so high in this country, according to some, it due to the benefits, like health care, that go to public employees. Almost every year, health care insurance rates go up many times the rate of inflation. Not only does this mean taxes go up and/or services get cut, but it also puts a real crimp in small businesses directly.

Small businesses often don't even offer health care insurance because it is so costly. And if they do, the premiums make it unaffordable for the employee.

Small Business Majority did an independent study and recently came out with the report. The results(pdf) were interesting and flew in the face of the standard right wing talking points:

Wisconsin’s small business owners overwhelmingly indicate that affordability is the barrier to providing health insurance. Where they do offer coverage, cost creates a significant struggle to continue to afford it, yet they feel a responsibility to provide coverage. They view lack of access to high-quality, affordable health insurance as a significant barrier to entrepreneurship; see reform as necessary and important to getting the economy back on track; and see themselves as part of the solution, working together with the federal government, insurers and providers.

• The number one concern for Wisconsin small businesses in healthcare reform is controlling costs, followed by having insurance that covers everybody and ensuring at least high-quality standard benefits.
• 85% of small businesses want to eliminate preexisting condition rules, and 75% see these rules as a barrier to starting a business.
• 84% of small businesses not offering health insurance say they can’t afford to, while 70% of those who do offer it say they’re really struggling to do so.
• 84% of small businesses support establishing a health insurance pool to create a marketplace where small businesses and individuals can choose their coverage. Only 11% oppose this proposal.
• 75% prefer having the choice of a private or public health insurance plan, with 14% preferring private only and 6% preferring only a public option.
• 72% say healthcare reform is important for getting the economy back on track.
• 67% say it’s important for individuals, employers, insurers, the government and healthcare providers to share the responsibility for making healthcare more affordable.
• 55% say their company has a responsibility to provide health coverage for its employees.
• 53% believe businesses that don’t offer health insurance should be required to pay something to cover their employees, although 32% say no contribution should be required. Of those who agree that employers should contribute, more than half believe it should be more than 5% of payroll.

Wisconsin’s small business owners are concerned about the cost of health coverage. They believe healthcare reform is necessary and are willing to participate as part of the solution. Access to affordable health insurance is currently a problem for most of them. A majority believe that in order to make healthcare more affordable, it is important to share the responsibility for financing among government, individuals, insurers, providers and employers. Small business owners support a variety of reform approaches that involve government action. These include eliminating preexisting health status in the provision of insurance and creating a large insurance exchange.

All in all, these are intuitively sensible findings. So if the Republicans are always claiming to be pro-business and anti-taxes, why do they continuously and religiously try to keep businesses at a disadvantage and keep all of our taxes up?

Keith Schmitz has more at folkbum's.

Dual Dissonance

Two sides: Liberal and conservative.

Two issues: Abortion and the proposed smoking ban.

Two Incidents of dissonance:

Liberals want to ban smoking in public settings, because exposure to second hand smoke can cause cancer, heart problems, etc., and could kill you. Conservatives think it should be the choice of the business.

Conservatives say abortion should be banned because it kills babies. Liberals think that the choice should be up to the woman.

Total Lack Of Self-Awareness

This morning, K. Carpenter, at Stepping Right Up wrote a diatribe against President Obama called "Our Immature President."

Merely two hours later, she puts up another post, this being a cutesy little poem, which maturely ends with:

BUT I AM GLAD I AM AN AMERICAN, I AM GLAD THAT I AM FREE.

I WISH I WERE A DOG AND OBAMA WAS A TREE.

I am sure if one were to point this bit of irony to her, like most conservatives, it would go right over her head.

Defeating The American Dream

I see a lot of the right wingers are getting all pumped up for the second installment of "Defeating The American Dream."

Guest speakers include Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, Milwaukee County David "I only ran as a Democrat" Clarke, and Randy Koschnick, who is on his all conservative nonpartisan tour of Wisconsin.

Let's see, a county executive that is failing in his job so miserably that the State had to come in and save him from himself, a county sheriff that helps drunk drivers, and a judge who can't even handle a traffic case.

I never realized that the American Dream included incompetence. Unfortunately for them, Michael Brown must have had a previous engagement.