Issue of the Week: Walker's Fake Bipartisan Talk
Plus Hero of the Week
Is Gov. Scott Walker lonely?
At the same time his fellow right-wing buddies like presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry are dominating the national news, Walker has gone from the GOP's golden boy to Wisconsin's lonely boy.
No longer sought after by the national media to discuss his politically toxic collective bargaining bill, Walker has gotten so lonely that he's said he wants to work with Democrats in the state Legislature.
Walker made that claim before the recall elections, when he wanted to sound reasonable to the state's voters, 53% of whom now disapprove of him. He repeated that claim this week, saying that he's working on a legislative agenda that both parties could love.
But Walker's new bipartisan focus is a fraud.
At the same time Democrats were beating two Republicans on GOP turf in the Aug. 9 recall elections, Walker signed legislation that implements the most partisan, corrupt redistricting map in this state's history. The governor signed the bill on Tuesday afternoon, knowing that the state's media would be caught up in the historic recall elections. Walker must have also sensed that he'd be lonely in the state Capitol, now that his Republican allies were being ousted from office by angry voters. Why else would he ensure that competitive swing districts would become solidly Republican next year?
So don't believe Walker's newly moderate tone. He has never been anything but a Republican Party extremist who doesn't care about anything but his personal ambition. He may have fooled voters last fall, but Wisconsinites are far wiser now.
Heroes of the Week
IndependenceFirst Advocates and Volunteers
Established in 1979, IndependenceFirst is a community-based, nonresidential independent living center for individuals with disabilities. With main offices in Milwaukee (540 S. First St.) and outreach offices in Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties, IndependenceFirst is one of southeast Wisconsin's primary resource centers for disabled persons and their families.
The nonprofit organization provides individuals with support, skills training and information and referral services. Volunteers play a crucial role in the success of the organization's programs, and spend many hours advocating on behalf of the disabled with local governments and businesses.
Readers who would like to donate their time to help empower area individuals with disabilities are encouraged to call 414-291-7520 or visit www.independencefirst.org to find out about current volunteer opportunities.
Do you have evidence that the "union bosses" told them this? If so, lay it out please and we can discuss it.
Point in all this? Elections do matter, not just for the person at the top, but also for the many many more members of the legislative body. People need to get out and vote for a good front line, good linebackers, even a good defense, it is not enough to just pick a great coach or quarterback. One man does not make a team! -- More direct, Voting in Obama on "Hope and Change" is like drafting that top quarterback, but he still needs the help of 100 senators and 453 congressmen. There's your front line, linebackers, defense and such. Obama can't make it work if 553 people were put in by partisan politics, many of the 453 were gerrymandered hard-liners. Note that both D and R are all backed by big money, (doesn't matter which one won), and not one of them wants it redistributed from Super-Rich to Middle Class... the real game.
For all who voted Tea Party and the 2010 Republican sweep because of Obamacare... read on.
Obamacare was only "allowed" because it meant that the healthcare industry, both the providers and insurers, were being boosted in the volume of business, they stood to make lots of money from it. Lots of extra private business because citizens were being forced to buy private insurance, now they were going to get served by private healthcare. (It has to be private, Reagan convinced us all that "Government IS the problem".) -- I would say, let it run, we can always "fix" it later when we find that there's too much record profits. At least those healthcare jobs are here in the US, spread out nationwide, not concentrated in a few wealthy areas.
What every American's goal needs to be is to keep our election system under the control of the people who must live life here, not the special interests in their out-of-state high-rise offices who have money to invest, not the people who own the means of getting the messages to us.
The sooner that the Voter realizes the true battle over their money, the sooner we can fix the system. It is not about keeping their limited money from being "redistributed down", but rather over keeping their money from moving to those higher up. More money moves up than trickles back down, always has. They are just moving it up faster now. Record profits is money moving up. Corporate subsidies is money moving up. All this rhetoric about lowering taxes on "the upper half who pays taxes" is really about letting the businesses who already collected those record profits do what they will with it, like letting them pay it out to their execs instead of investing it in the business as more jobs.
The talk about Warren Buffet himself saying that the supper rich like him need to pay more taxes? That's at least the second time he made that statement. There is something wrong with a system that lets the Capital Gains people pay only 15% on that gain (his income is from capital gains, he has no salary) when his staff is paying 40% on their paycheck.
What this country needs (not just Wisconsin), is the ELIMINATION of taxes on corporate profit, but keep high tax brackets on the super rich PEOPLE. Maybe then they will keep the money in the corporation (meaning jobs) instead of removing money out of the company by paying it to high staffers.
You want to fix the capital gains problem?Then help the retired by letting them take the first $200K as 15% capital gains, like a big standard deduction for the capital gains crowd, but then tax anything above that as normal income, high tax brackets and all.
Bottom line, we need jobs, jobs here that allow people here to be valued customers of private business. Room and board subsistence jobs do not make for valued customers. We need changes that keep the American people going as good customers.