It's a Center Left Country - Beeyotch

And the Republican Minority gets it.  They also get that because they were able to steal the House of Representatives while America sleeps, now they want the presidency!  They are not going to change their policies or people so they are changing the rules.

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The Tyranny of the Minority

The republican minority, not just in Wisconsin, but nationwide also has taken over our government and it is going to be here to stay for a while!

As Dana Milbank of the Washington Post writes:

The mantra has been intoned by John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist and many other party eminences, and there is a certain logic to saying that the voters, by giving Republicans the House, were asking for divided government.

But the claim to represent the voters’ will doesn’t add up.

The final results from the November election were completed Friday, and they show that Democratic candidates for the House outpolled Republicans nationwide by nearly 1.4 million votes and more than a full percentage point — a greater margin than the preliminary figures showed in November. And that’s just the beginning of it: A new analysis finds that even if Democratic congressional candidates won the popular vote by seven percentage points nationwide, they still would not have gained control of the House.

Why would that be?  Redistricting of course:

 In a very real sense, the Republican House majority is impervious to the will of the electorate. Thanks in part to deft redistricting based on the 2010 Census, House Republicans may be protected from the vicissitudes of the voters for the next decade. For Obama and the Democrats, this is an ominous development: The House Republican majority is durable, and it isn’t necessarily sensitive to political pressure and public opinion.

Of course the EXACT same thing has happened in Wisconsin:

 Gordon analyzed election results in state senate races and this was his conclusion: “Based on the numbers reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, adding up all votes cast in the Wisconsin State Senate races shows that Democrats received 475,116 votes (50.5%), Republicans received 451,928 votes (48.1%), and others received 13,100 (1.4%), yet the Republicans gain seats and take the majority in the Senate.”

It also happened in the Wisconsin State Assembly!

They continually take electorol votings beating and continue to keep or gain control of the Government.

Its of no wonder why the "tea party" has been dropping in popularity as quick as  you can say "earl gray".   I guess all the pretending to "wrap themselves in the Constitution" and then loving their artificial hold on Government has shown them to be the hypocritical astroturf group we all knew they were!  

Even the right wing editor of the Beloit Daily News thinks the republicans have gone too far! 

However the best quote of all of this comes from Robin Vos, new speaker of the Assembly:

 "I don't have any plans to ever run for a political office higher than this one," Vos says. "I'm not using this position as a steppingstone to run for Congress, to run for governor or became the state treasurer or whatever. I care for the institution. I love the Legislature. I think we should be the most powerful branch of government because we are the most representative of the people. And I want to do everything I can to make my constituents proud back in Racine County."

 What Vos really needs to say, to make it more accurate is, that they are most representative of the least amount of people.

Somewhere Thomas Paine is rolling over in his grave!

"The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case."  -Thomas Paine, First Principles of Government (1795)

The Imaginary Skills Gap

is getting so much play that Tony Evers even put out a press release today regarding it:

 The 2013-15 education budget proposal calls for the Department of Public Instruction to work with the state Department of Workforce Development and Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) to identify occupations with potential skilled worker shortages. The proposed budget would provide school districts with $1,000 for each student who graduated from high school with an industry-recognized credential for a high-need occupation. Accounting for students earning industry certificates would become part of the college and career readiness data point for School Report Cards

The problem with "potential skilled worker shortage" is that it just is not real. As Paul Krugman points out, and what everyone who has taken econ 101 knows, that the problem is not skills its pay and training:

If the righties were truly in favor of the free market, then free market principles would tell them that if they have a hard time filling specialist positions, then the company would have to raise the pay and work on an internal training program to meet their needs exactly.

Logic dictates that if you can not fill a job at $8/hr, there is a pay rate where you can start filling those jobs.   The problem that we have to overcome is the anti-business republican minority, led by our own Governor, who thinks certainty is part of the free market! 

 UGH  we have alot of work to do!   

AFP Cries "WOLF" (again)!

We know that Americans for Prosperity likes to celebrate, when the majority of American people are feeling pain.    They also(like all of our friends on the right) love to play the victim.  

We all know the mess that's happening in Michigan at the moment as a lame duck legislature has to ram through right-to-work(for less) legislation quickly before the new Legislature comes in and they no longer have the votes to pass it..  

Well AFP has on their website how upset they would be if Congress tried to pass something major in their lame duck session. 

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) has released an entertaining computer game called Lame Duck Hunt based on the old-school Nintendo ‘Duck Hunt’ game to inform the public about the bad economic policies retiring and defeated members of Congress could push through in December, the final month of the 112th Congress.

Yet a bunch of right wing extremist republicans, who were voted out already, have decided to use the lame duck Michigan legislature to ram through Right to Work for less legislation IN an hour and half discussion.    Of course if this was a bill that actually helped the people of MI, AFP would be besides themselves upset, instead they celebrate.    This bill brought such incredibly anti democratic thug tactics to the  Michigan Capitol as

 This is how republicans ram through bills in America these days(h/t Randy Bryce for the pic). 

To be fair, its not like the Michigan republican party knew what they were passing as they certainly did not write the bill.   If they were not smart enough to write the bill themselves, I doubt they were smart enough to actually read and comprehend it. 

All of this politics going on that would make Fidel Castro and Joseph Stalin proud also appeals to Americans for Prosperity so much they set up tents to party!   The problem is they did not use Union Labor to put them up correctly. 

Luckily, most people who are paying attention, know that when the republicans cry wolf, there is usually not a wolf in sight!  Thanks to Capper for this catch!

When you have an organization run by someone as vile as Tim Phillips, what would you expect I guess.  Americans for Prosperity/Freedomworks has become so extreme it has even chased far right ex horrible congressman Dick Armey away! 








Unfortunately in Wisconsin we are used to these tactics, as they will use their own kids as pawns to score political points.  We also know that the republican minority,  has "right-to-work" (for less) legislation ready to go here.   

Now we will see if the Wisconsin republican minority in the legislature wants to "out right wing", or if they will slow their take down the Wisconsin middle class agenda.  

Capper has much more detail here!