New Walking Curriculum in Elementary School brings Prison Camp Discipline to Fond Du Lac.

It’s hard to know why or how something so outlandish as the "walking regimen" could have happened in the U.S.. At a time when school boards and principals have taken away teacher control with their dreaded new “handbooks,” is it just a coincidence that the North Korean marching torture has suddenly become a solution to playground mischief? 

As a parent of an elementary student, I would have seriously gone berserk confronting the dictatorial principal who came up with her “walking regimen.”

Some parents aren’t pleased with the start of the new school year at Waters Elementary School. A new walking regimen has raised the ire of several moms and dads who liken the mandatory 10-minute walk twice a day to a “concentration camp.” “This isn’t a prison. Children need to be free to run and play and socialize with their friends,” said Rebecca Fiebig. Her daughter came home upset after the very first day of school and from now on wants to be dropped off shortly before the bell rings.

If you have time to watch the story from WBAY, you'll notice how nonchalant the parents are over this insane Bataan student march.

Imagine doing the following in the blazing heat at summers end, or a string of hot days in spring…

According to a new walking curriculum, students are required to walk 10 minutes before school and again during the first 10 minutes of their only recess. After receiving several complaints, Principal Catherine Daniels sent a robo-message out to parents stating that in the past there have been occurrences of injuries and discipline problems on the playground. “In an effort to be healthy and safe at Waters School one strategy that we have implemented is the organized walks,” she said.

Healthy...walking in circles like in a prison yard? I'm stunned that anything like this could happen in America. It's not cute, it's not normal, it punitive and bizarre in a kinky sorta way.

After walking in circles in the hot sun, Ami King’s children asked their mother if this was some kind of punishment. “Basically, I feel the kids deserve to play at recess. It isn’t entertaining or fun to walk around and around in a circle, on blacktop,” she said.

Parent Jen Memmel said by the morning of the second day of school parents had already had it. Many of them sat in a grassy area, refusing to let their children participate.

This move to the authoritarian right, where "leaders" force their "tough decisions" on the rest of us in the name of discipline, is gaining general acceptance. For example, this comment was posted in response to the video:

"Seriously?  The children don't get to socialize for twenty minutes and some parents are upset?  They must have the fat kids."

Still not feeling that sinking feeling yet?

UPDATE: Just how bad were things at an "elementary school?" Here's the bizarre "settlement" from Principal Daniels:

During the noon recess, Waters School students will walk twice around the track and then be allowed to play, said Principal Catherine Daniels.

Remember, were talking about little kids...

In the morning, students can walk the track or socialize in specific areas that have been set aside, she said.

Ryan's Republicans take Shock Doctrine to new Level. Turn Americans despondent, forlorn and hopeless.

The Daily Koz got a hold of another citizen outburst at the recent pay per view town hall ($15 for food) meeting, the only time anyone has had a chance to meet with Paul Ryan.

Yes this is the new normal, where Americans feel like they're being backed up against the wall, seeing their futures slip away, outwardly frustrated and really, really desperate, like the man taken to the floor, cuffed and hauled away. This is the America Republicans see ahead, with jail cells filled with disenfranchised citizens pushed to their limit.

Enjoy the early signs of panic, like  this 71 year old "nobody" in the video.



According to Politico, it's really expensive to speak to your representatives these days, and it doesn't include an entree':

Sgt. David Patrick of the Greenfield, Wis., police department told POLITICO the three people arrested were issued municipal citations. Two of the three were cited for trespassing and fined $429. The third was cited for trespassing and resisting arrest and fined $681, Patrick said.

Gingrich Blames MSNBC of Dividing Presidential Republican Tea Party Candidates: Victims All!!!

The question was an easy one; Which is best, the state with the highest rate of uninsured citizens like in Texas, or Massachusetts, with the highest rate of coverage but an individual mandate?

Good ole' Newt Gingrich forgot it was a presidential debate, and accused the "media" of trying to get the candidates to fight with each other. Poor babies.

Newt supposedly wants to exempt the candidates from media scrutiny, the fourth estate, so the election in 2011 is again devoid of actual vetted issues. Instead, that damn media wants real answers.



Perry picked on it right away by saying "we're not here to fight." Right, you're there to play the victim of your own words.

State Sen. Jon Erpenbach Digging into Bait and Switch at DOT for Free Voter ID's.

So it wasn't our imagination? It looks like our trusting Republican politicians who were so concerned about the integrity elections and "voter fraud," are already gaming the system to suppress the vote. Big surprise. Cap Times:

An internal memo from a top Department of Transportation official instructs workers at Division of Motor Vehicles service centers not to tell members of the public that they can obtain voter identification cards free of charge -- unless they know to ask for it.

The memo, recently obtained by The Capital Times, was written by Steve Krieser and sent to all state Department of Transportation and Department of Motor Vehicles employees on July 1, the same day employees were to begin issuing photo IDs in accordance with a controversial new Voter Photo ID law adopted earlier in the year.

"While you should certainly help customers who come in asking for a free ID to check the appropriate box, you should refrain from offering the free version to customers who do not ask for it," Krieser writes to employees. Krieser, who was recently promoted to executive assistant to the DOT secretary, instructs staff that customers should "self certify" their eligibility for the free ID. They can do that, he writes, if they meet the documentation requirements; if they are at least 17 years old; if they have checked the correct certification box on the new forms; and, most significantly, if they are "asking for a product that is available for free issuance."

I'm glad Sen. Erpenbach is following up on the DOT's current policy . Here's Jon's letter: 

Department of Transportation: Secretary GottliebIt has been reported in the Capital Times, that in a memo from Steve Krieser, Department of Transportation (DOT) staff has been instructed not to help eligible citizens obtain a free, state issued identification card for purposes of voting. I find this action unacceptable and paramount to a “bait and switch” tactic. Helping people obtain a free ID card to vote should be no different than any other service the Department of Transportation offers as an agent of the people of this state. This is a job that has been assigned to your Department by the Legislature and one we expect you to do without prejudice. Please assure the Legislature that your Department will do the job we have tasked and provided funds to be completed, regardless of the beliefs and partisan affiliations of your senior staff.-JON ERPENBACH

Meanwhile, the GAB is attempting to help groups get out the vote:

The Government Accountability Board has opened a Speakers Bureau and is now accepting requests from groups for staff speakers to get the word out across Wisconsin about the new Voter Photo ID Law.

“Organizations that work with people who may need help getting a photo ID to vote can go to our website and request a speaker,” said Kevin J. Kennedy, Wisconsin’s chief election officer. “The Government Accountability Board does not have the resources to help every individual voter who needs to get a photo ID.  We can, however, provide organizations with the tools and knowledge to get the job done.”

Elections Division Administrator Nathaniel E. Robinson said, “Because a birth certificate is required to obtain a state ID card, the time to get a proper ID for voting purposes is now rather than at the last minute before the 2012 February Primary.”

The Speakers Bureau request form is available on the Board’s website.

For Ryan, it's the old "hide behind your kids ploy."

I was casually checking out the great coverage of the Janesville Labor Day Parade at Rock Netroots, when I came across this amazing "hide behind my kids" ploy used by Rep. Paul Ryan. I nearly spit out my coffee:

I walked about half the route in step behind Paul Ryan and heard plenty of boos and jeers for him and saw individual spectators holding anti-Ryan signs along the Main Street parade route. I also noticed significant areas of spectators that did not acknowledge him at all … Speaking of Ryan, he was pushing a baby stroller during the event, which I think shows extremely poor judgment on his part if he believes in his own fear mongering rhetoric. 

As you can see by the screen capture, there's Paul waving behind the person in a blue shirt, and he's pushing a stroller.

Remember, Ryan referred to the labor protests in Madison … as riots similar to those going on in Cairo, Egypt … So why would he subject his young children to that potential for harm if that's what he really thinks of labor? 

Here’s a glimpse of those "union thugs" and "rioters" ruining Ryan’s ceremonial appearance at what soon could be the last gasping breath of labor.  

Iraq and Afghanistan

The Register Guard of Eugene Oregon published an editorial, the type of which you can see in just about any newspaper. It caught my eye because it was brief, to the point and contained some basic stats which I found interesting.

For the first time since President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003, an entire month has passed without a single U.S. soldier dying in a conflict that has claimed the lives of 4,474 American service members.

The U.S. military is preparing to pull the last troops out of Iraq by the end of the year in accordance with a 2008 security agreement between the two countries. But there is troubling talk in Washington and Baghdad of extending that deadline to have U.S. troops remain longer in Iraq.

While Iraq was becoming less lethal, 67 U.S. troops died last month in the Afghanistan war, making August the deadliest month for Americans in the longest-running war in U.S. history.

Obama should also continue — and expedite — the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, site of a nearly decade-long war in which this country has invested $1 trillion, 10 years of effort and the lives of 1,754 U.S. troops.

I'm tired of the BS from Washington about withdrawing troops which usually comes with the disclaimer that the date could be postponed. What do the guys on the ground in Iraq think? Are they of the opinion that we're doing something worthwhile there? Or are they cynical and angry?

I suppose it's a good sign, no it definitely is a good sign that no fatalities happened in Iraq last month. My sincere prayer is that it may continue like that and somehow the government will do the right thing by the end of this year.

Afghanistan is another story. What in the hell has been accomplished there at such a cost? Was it all about Bin Laden and the Taliban? I doubt it, but whatever else it is, some strategic balance of power in the region or whatever, I say that's enough. Let's get out of there.

Unfortunately, as the August deaths indicate, it's going in the opposite direction. What do those troops think? Is the idea that the U.S. is policing the world in order to make it safer something that sustains them? Bush and Bush supporters always said that, but do people still think that way?

The op-ed I linked to made the point that in order to heal the economy at home we need to stop spending so much on these wars. That may be true, but to me there's a more important reason, a more human reason to end these ill-fated endeavors. We have young Americans dying over there and I honestly cannot see for what.

As has been said many times in defense of pacifist and non-intervention arguments, the best way I can see to support the troops is to bring them home, every one. We can spend some of that money on VA hospitals and PTSS clinics. We can invest in education and vocational programs for these young volunteers.

This is how we can make America strong.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
(cross posted at Mikeb302000)

How Fox News Created a Fear Mongering Lie about Teamster Pres. James Hoffa.

It has all the earmarking's of a Fox News hit job:

Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa vowed on Tuesday that he will "never apologize" for standing up for American workers, even in the face of considerable criticism for a Labor Day speech in which he targeted Tea Party politicians and urged supporters to "take these son-of-a-bitches out."

And it is, with a fancy bit of video editing. Below, I've put together how Teamster's James Hoffa's speech morphed into what has been interpreted by Fox pundits as a violent bloody threat to kill tea party members. Hoffa was talking about voting....




Here's Ed Schultz with Teamster President James Hoffa:

Ryan calls protesting citizens, "the new norm." Ah, I think they're trying to tell you something Paul?

Think Paul Ryan is going to cake walk his way into office this time around? Just because he has a high national profile doesn't guarantee his districts support this time around. Good for Greenfield residents who had the courage to really tell Ryan how they felt. TMJ4:

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan had to walk through and talk over protesters Tuesday during a public appearance in Greenfield.

3 people were arrested and 20 in all were removed from Klemmer's Banquet Center for disrupting Ryan's speech. Outside the building both pro and anti Ryan demonstrators marched around the area and chanted.

Like Ryan said in the clip nonchalantly, "Protests are something that are here to stay, I think." Funny, it wasn't like this a year ago Paul.



Fox6:

Onion predicted economic collapse by Bush.

Loved this piece then, love it now. Found it cleaning the clip file out, and thought it applied even better today. Bush tours the US disaster area.....

Finally Robert Reich with how we got here, the economic story, and what we can do about jobs.

I hate posting so much print copy, but this is good, better than the stuff Reich has to come up with on the talk circuit. By ROBERT REICH: 

THE 5 percent of Americans with the highest incomes now account for 37 percent of all consumer purchases … the middle class doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going without sinking ever more deeply into debt — which, as we’ve seen, ends badly … prone to great booms and busts. Even if by some miracle President Obama gets support for a second big stimulus … Pump-priming works only when a well contains enough water. During periods when the very rich took home a much smaller proportion of total income — as in the Great Prosperity between 1947 and 1977 — the nation as a whole grew faster and median wages surged. We created a virtuous cycle in which an ever growing middle class had the ability to consume more goods and services, which created more and better jobs, thereby stoking demand. The rising tide did in fact lift all boats.

Periods when the very rich took home a larger proportion — as between 1918 and 1933, and in the Great Regression from 1981 to the present day — growth slowed, median wages stagnated and we suffered giant downturns. It’s no mere coincidence …  when the nation’s total income peaked in 1928 and 2007 — the two years just preceding the biggest downturns.

Enabled by the flow of women into the work force … (In the 1960s only 12 percent of married women with young children were working for pay; by the late 1990s, 55 percent were.) When that way of life stopped generating enough income, Americans went deeper into debt.  

We might have enlarged safety nets — by having unemployment insurance cover part-time work, by giving transition assistance to move to new jobs in new locations, by creating insurance for communities that lost a major employer. And we could have made Medicare available to anyone.

Big companies could have been required to pay severance to American workers they let go and train them for new jobs. The minimum wage could have been pegged at half the median wage, and we could have insisted that the foreign nations we trade with do the same, so that all citizens could share in gains from trade. We could have raised taxes on the rich and cut them for poorer Americans.

But starting in the late 1970s, and with increasing fervor over the next three decades, government did just the opposite. It deregulated and privatized. It cut spending on infrastructure as a percentage of the national economy and shifted more of the costs of public higher education to families. It shredded safety nets. (Only 27 percent of the unemployed are covered by unemployment insurance.) Fewer than 8 percent of private-sector workers are unionized. More generally, it stood by as big American companies became global companies with no more loyalty to the United States than a GPS satellite.

Meanwhile, the top income tax rate was halved to 35 percent and many of the nation’s richest were allowed to treat their income as capital gains subject to no more than 15 percent tax. Inheritance taxes that affected only the topmost 1.5 percent of earners were sliced.

Most telling of all, Washington deregulated Wall Street while insuring it against major losses. In so doing, it allowed finance — which until then had been the servant of American industry — to become its master, demanding short-term profits over long-term growth and raking in an ever larger portion of the nation’s profits. By 2007, financial companies accounted for over 40 percent of American corporate profits.

Some say the regressive lurch occurred because Americans lost confidence in government. But this argument has cause and effect backward. The tax revolts that thundered across America starting in the late 1970s were not so much ideological revolts against government — Americans still wanted all the government services they had before, and then some — as against paying more taxes on incomes that had stagnated. Inevitably, government services deteriorated and government deficits exploded, confirming the public’s growing cynicism about government’s doing anything right.

Some say we couldn’t have reversed … Germany has grown faster than the United States for the last 15 years, and the gains have been more widely spread. While Americans’ average hourly pay has risen only 6 percent since 1985, adjusted for inflation, German workers’ pay has risen almost 30 percent. At the same time, the top 1 percent of German households now take home about 11 percent of all income — about the same as in 1970. How has Germany done it? Mainly by focusing like a laser on education (German math scores continue to extend their lead over American), and by maintaining strong labor unions.

THE real reason for America’s Great Regression was political. As Marriner S. Eccles, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, described in the 1920s, when people “with great economic power had an undue influence in making the rules of the economic game.” Yet the rich are now being bitten by their own success. Those at the top would be better off with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy than a large share of one that’s almost dead in the water.

The economy cannot possibly get out of its current doldrums without a strategy to revive the purchasing power of America’s vast middle class. Reviving the middle class requires that we reverse the nation’s decades-long trend toward widening inequality. Moreover, an economy is not a zero-sum game. Even the executive class has an enlightened self-interest in reversing the trend; just as a rising tide lifts all boats, the ebbing tide is now threatening to beach many of the yachts.

As the historian James Truslow Adams defined the American Dream when he coined the term at the depths of the Great Depression, what we seek is “a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone.”

A Tale of Two Ryan's. Follow the "Leader" Economics

This amazing piece by Ezra Klein will explain a lot about the contrarian nature of Paul Ryan and the Republican Tea Party. Ryan is an unintentional hypocrite? Maybe.

It has become common today for Republicans to deride the very concept of stimulus as absurd, to mock Keynesian economics as an ivory-tower fantasy, and to oppose temporary tax cuts as a recession-fighting measure. But during the Bush administration? All that was orthodox conservative policy.

In 2001, Grover Norquist called a national sales-tax holiday “exactly the kind of immediate stimulus our shell-shocked economy needs now.” Norquist went on to quote George W. Bush’s chief economist, Glenn Hubbard, saying we needed stimulus “sooner rather than later.” Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced a bill to that effect.

Around the same time, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) held a hearing in which he invited Kevin Hassett, a conservative economist based at the American Enterprise Institute, to make the case for a fiscal stimulus. “The economists who studied this were quite surprised to find that fiscal policy in recessions was reasonably effective,” Hassett testified. “It is just that folks tried a first punch that was too light and that generally we didn’t get big measures until well into the recession.”

Ryan was delighted by his answer. “That is precisely my point,” he replied. “That is why I like my porridge hot. I think we ought to have this income tax cut fast, deeper, retroactive to January 1st, to make sure we get a good punch into the economy, juice the economy to make sure that we can avoid a hard landing.”

So not only was it non-controversial that deficit-financed stimulus spending was an effective and desirable way to fight economic downturns, but it was taken as obvious by Paul Ryan — Paul Ryan! — that the big danger was that you did too little. Now, of course, Ryan takes the initial stimulus’s inability to fully combat the recession as evidence of the policy’s failure, even though we now know the recession was deep enough that standard calculations — the sort of calculations Hassett was referring to in his testimony — would have argued for a stimulus of more than $2 trillion.

So what happened?

Some say the explanation for all this is obvious: Republicans want the economy to fail ... How much clearer can it be?

I don’t believe this sort of behavior is quite that cynical. Psychologists and political scientists talk often of a phenomenon known as motivated skepticism. The idea, basically, is that we believe the evidence and arguments we want to believe, and reject ideas and information that undercut our preferences.

My favorite study in this space was by Yale’s Geoffrey Cohen. He had a control group of liberals and conservatives look at a generous welfare reform proposal and a harsh welfare reform proposal. As expected, liberals preferred the generous plan and conservatives favored the more stringent option. Then he had another group of liberals and conservatives look at the same plans, but this time, the plans were associated with parties.

Both liberals and conservatives followed their parties, even when their parties disagreed with their preferences. So when Democrats were said to favor the stringent welfare reform, for example, liberals went right along. Three scary sentences from the piece: “When reference group information was available, participants gave no weight to objective policy content, and instead assumed the position of their group as their own. This effect was as strong among people who were knowledgeable about welfare as it was among people who were not. Finally, participants persisted in the belief that they had formed their attitude autonomously even in the two group information conditions where they had not.”

I tend to think there’s much more motivated skepticism in politics than outright cynicism, much less economic sabotage. But it’s a distinction without a difference, at least so far as policy outcomes go. The bottom line is this: Until quite recently, both parties supported the idea that you combat bad economies with stimulus spending. Now, during an extremely bad economy, the Republican Party has completely abandoned that position. That has left them without plausible solutions — the GOP talks now of things that have very little role in boosting short-term demand, such as deficit reduction and regulatory reform — and has left the Democrats without the votes to pass anything. And that’s left the country deep in the hole. 

Destroying the Labor Parade from within....

The Wausau Labor Day Parade saw two Republican Tea Party politicians participate, dispite knowing they weren't welcome by the labor council. And just like a cancer killing its host from within, State Sen. Pam "guns" Galloway and Rep. Sean Duffy marched with union members as though they belonged there.  

WSAU: It received national attention, the Marathon County Labor Council deciding not to include republican candidates in its annual parade ... republicans marched, and the reception was enthusiastic, but mostly unpleasant.

Republican State Senator Pam Galloway and Congressman San Duffy showed up. They marched with a large group of supporters, and heard some cheers ... but a decidedly democratic crowd lined the Wausau Labor Temple at the end of the route. As Duffy's people passed, many turned their back and faced the other way. They also chanted "recall Walker" until he turned the corner.

Besides chants, union supporters raised posters along the route. Those included slogans like "unions help all workers" and "walker your pink slip is coming." When republican candidates came by they held up signs saying "shame."

From WEAU:

Democrats received a more warm response. Rep. Donna Seidel and her campaigners lead the parade, as she posed as the parade marshall ... They chanted "this is what democracy looks like" and raised signs saying "enough is enough vote democrat."

Seidel said "This is about workers and what workers have done to make the middle class of America strong and to make all of our state and country really stronger than ever before."

Perry challenges Obama with a slice of Real America...

Paul Fanlund/Cap Times put this Republican Tea Party list together that should bode well for job creation and the American Dream:

The governor of Texas has vaulted ahead in polls for the Republican presidential nomination in recent days by taking positions like these:
• Evolution is "just a theory that's out there."

• Scientific consensus on climate change is "all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight."

• All top jobs in his administration would be filled by abortion foes.

• It's time to "turn America over to God" for Him to fix.

• Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme" and it and Medicare are unconstitutional.

• Gay Americans are "part of Satan."

• Actions by the Bush-appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve are "treasonous."

• President Obama is not sufficiently American or does not necessarily love his country.

Yeah, Family supporting income...how rare!! Thank you Governor.

Supposedly hiding with his family somewhere safe from the protesters, while the state tries to celebrate labor under the hell Scott Walker created, the governor couldn't help rubbing his bullshit in a little: 

Governor Scott Walker issued the following statement on Monday morning about Labor Day:

This is extremely important to highlight on Labor Day as we move forward with our plan to ensure we have an economic climate that allows the private sector to create 250,000 new jobs by 2015. "While our state and national economy have suffered over the past few years, I am optimistic about our future. When I hear stories about people who find jobs that provide a family supporting income, it reaffirms my belief that by working together we will get Wisconsin working again.

That's right, "a family supporting income" is now something we're just hearing stories about now, and not something we could expect for our labor. 

Labor Day is not the day to put aside differences!

Rep. Donna Seidel and Sen. Pam "guns" Galloway give their opposing views on marching in Labor Day Parades. Seidel thankfully gives no ground to Galloway's callous disregard history and the future of labor.

From WPT's Here and Now:

Thanks to You Republican Tea Party Dummies, We're Losing Labor and the Middle Class.

The private sector has seen much better days, when more people were in unions, got higher pay, received comfortable retirement benefits and sustained a strong middle class life style.

But union bashing, "right to work" laws, global competition and Wall Street pretty much killed those glory years. But its economic twin, the public sector, remained stable and unionized. And for those politicians who enriched the private sectors bottom line with cheap labor and neo-liberal trade policies, the public sector represented a surviving part of the middle class. It was time to attack.

Here's AFL-CIO's Stephanie Bloomingdale with her take on the frontal assault on labor in Wisconsin:



The great quote going around the blogs, from Uppity Wisconsin, to MALcontends, is this great observation:

Former GOP staffer, Mike Lofgren:

Having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and 'shareholder value,' the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. Under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one.

If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté. They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be 'forced' to make hard choices' - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked.

HP TouchPad $99 in Labor Day BLOWOUT Sale.

I feel really sick right now, because I really, really, really wanted one of these now discontinued HP Touchpads, but the $400 price was ridiculous. Well this Labor Day sale was enough to shock the senses. The price also made it impossible to obtain. With only 14 to sell, "while quantities last," I sadly had to give up on this deal. It wasn't a misprint folks;

Having not read the sales ad completely, I rush to the store (American TV, Madison) to try and buy one. Wrong day. Labor day only, not the day before. The clerk told me over fifty customers were waiting in line to buy one when they opened the doors. Another 300 or so followed. Guess the sweet spot for touchpads was $99.

I'm blogging this as a way of venting.

Postal Service Funding Health Care Benefits 75 years in Advance!! Over Regulation?

When you hear how dramatically bad the Postal Service is doing financially, many think it’s another reason why government can’t do anything right. They would be wrong.

The bizarre requirement to fund its health benefits fund 75 years in advance…that’s right 75 years ahead of schedule, is the real reason.

CNN: The U.S. Postal Service does not have the money to meet an obligation to a retiree health care trust fund coming due at the end of the month, but if there's a default, officials promise no interruption in the mail, the payroll, or payments to suppliers … spokeswoman Yvonne Yoerger … "We are required to make this $5.5 billion dollar payment into the future retiree health benefits fund … the fact is, no other government agency, and few corporations in the private sector are required to fund retiree health benefits 75 years out."  One answer is to adjust those mandated payments.

She acknowledged the basis for the advance payments were mandated in 2006 because lawmakers wanted assurances the Postal Service could cover benefits for its future pensioners.

But 75 years funding in advance? Who the hell thought that was a good idea…Democrats?

Tuesday, congressional lawmakers will address the matter in a hearing on postal operations.

She said "We want to have the pre-funding mandate eliminated, and have the money already paid into it used for those purposes" of covering health care benefits for future retirees. She said, "We've overpaid into our retirement funds, and we'd like some of those overpayments refunded and used for future funding."

This great ad tells the whole story in 30 seconds:

Walker's "Brown Bag Lunch" YouTube series viewed by...hundreds. Apparently no one's listening to him either.

I've watched a few of Gov. Scott Walker's YouTube Brown Bag Lunch's, and yawn, they're all the same. It's really like listening to the same broken record over and over. But Walker isn't deterred. When asked about attracting more than a few hundred viewers:

Walker: "I suppose if I was "more" obnoxious, or something, maybe they would (watch)."

Besides the nonstop propaganda contained in his responses to citizen questions, perhaps Walker has a personality problem. Here's a sample from WPT's Here and Now:

Labor Day Message from radio wind-bagger Vicki McKenna: "Don't let anyone tell you, you don't OWN your own labor."

The Daily Caller's Ginni Thomas, Justice Thomas' wife and ideological twin, features "leaders" (there's that authoritarian term again) from around the country, like...Vicki McKenna?

Vicki's message on Labor Day is, "own your own labor" (new slavery), is a powerful one for the corporately backed tea party supporters (Americans for Prosperity). Sadly, Vicki McKenna's message is an inadvertent warning that those same supporters, their kids and the whole middle class, are about to become 21st Century slaves. Bottom line: who the hell thinks like this?



The other message; McKenna weaves a hyperbolic tale around a failed Capitol protest. From over estimated crowds, to a large angry mob of liberals that threatened tea party speakers to the point of requiring police protection, McKenna's picture of the bused in tea party rally on April 16 at the Capitol is pure fiction. I superimposed a few comments. It's not like the guest speakers didn't attempt to insult and agitate the crowd:



According to the Daily Caller's Ginni Thomas:

The self-described “converted conservative” helped galvanize, educate and activate the grassroots in Wisconsin during the recent battle over Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s reform agenda … McKenna had up-close-and-personal encounters with organized labor … Besides reducing tax burdens and cutting spending, one of those changes was entirely new: “shared sacrifice” by government employees. Instead of respecting the ballot box, Wisconsin’s organized left rebelled, physically occupying the state Capitol building … Their tactics ultimately failed, however, and Wisconsin voters have now rejected their agenda three times in nine months.

On Labor Day, in particular, what happened in Wisconsin needs to be told and re-told because it could happen in any state. Vicki McKenna’s Labor Day message to America:

“Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you don’t own your labor. What we have learned here in Wisconsin over these past several months is that there is a substantial group of people that somehow want to convince our citizens that they own your labor.”

Raise the Cap on Social Security, Lower the Retirement Age for Job Creation

I first learned of the idea from radio host and writer Thom Hartmann. It was so starkly different from normal discussions about saving Social Security, that it's taken me this long to absorb it. I'm still researching the idea, looking at a few other countries with lower retirement ages, but it kind of makes sense, especially when you look at the chart below. Would the balance shift and reverse the numbers of unemployed?

The Unemployed

Concealed Carry's Slippery Slope; the Castle Doctrine!

Keep an eye on the new "Mr. Crazy" in the state senate, Van Wanggaard. 

Can there ever be too much scrutiny over why a person was shot to death? State Senator Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) not only thinks so, but wants to codify it into law.

Caledonia Patch: To protect homeowners in situations like this, there is a new bill in the state legislature that would allow law enforcement to make the presumption that the homeowner is the victim. Senator Van Wanggaard fully supports the measure, commonly known as the "Castle Doctrine" because he said he wanted to prevent the victim of a crime from being victimized again by the very system designed to protect them. "There's too much scrutiny when a victim has to testify," he said.

He really did say that.

In a nutshell, AB 69 and SB 79 state homeowners have the right to use force intended to or likely to cause great bodily harm in defense of their home and the people inside. The law would also apply to a place of business and a car in the case of, for example, a car-jacking attempt. "You can't run outside and shoot someone if they're stealing the radio out of your car," Wanggaard clarified.

But to find that out would require “too much scrutiny,” wouldn’t it Mr. Wanggaard? 

My New Hero; Larry Johnson? Read his Letter in Praise of George Will's Analysis of Wisconsin's Recall Elections..

From the Columbian, WA: 

Thanks to George Will’s insightful examination of what ails America, I have finally come to see the true light.

Will’s Aug. 28 column on the lessons learned after the Wisconsin recall elections indicts labor unions, trial lawyers, and ivory towers as the greatest obstacles in America’s exceptional march toward greatness.

Though retired, I am now considering renouncing my pension and medical benefits, and throwing myself on the tender mercies of compassionate conservatism. Likewise, should I find myself crossways with monolithic corporatism, I’m certain that my plea for their ear and appeal to their sense of justice will prevail.

And as for higher education, well, apparently, as denigrated by Will, that just makes you dumber, less able to distinguish how you as an enterprising American individual can exert your personal power to effect changes on a very uneven playing field.

And as Will so ably reeled off extemporaneously on “Meet the Press” that same Sunday, every one of our current maladies, politically, socially, economically, is directly attributable to Barack Obama.

And I thank Will for his thoughtful revelations.

Larry Johnson

Republican Rep. Robin Vos Bashes Union Spending in Recalls!! But Corporate Spending...?

In what can only be described as bizarre, Rep. Robin Vos basically thinks the unions should have play dead during the recall election, while anti-labor forces spent wildly swaying and influencing voter opinions. According to Vos, it’s a way for unions to prove their public support, without unfairly tipping the scales with a positive union message.     

Republican Wisconsin state Rep. Robin Vos said the big money spent by pro-labor forces in the recall elections shows "that they're not about protecting workers rights, they're about protecting political power."

Union money is free speech, the last time I looked at the Citizens United decision. But the new normal according to Vos, leaves only corporate free speech rights in place, because they are the all-powerful and omnipotent “job creators.” With so few jobs available, who needs those union “job protectors” anymore?

But no one ever takes the time to ask Vos, or any other union busting Republican, why “corporate bosses” are so much better than “union bosses.”  

“This is the last grasp of those political bosses to be able to showcase why they need to have the political power, and they lost," he said.

The unions didn’t lose. But the real point Vos admits to should be much scarier; the only political power now is corporate. Vos appears to relish the shift in power.   

One warning for Wisconsinites who don’t mind seeing wages, benefits and their quality of life lowered:

“As the changes have had time to sink in, people appear to be accepting it, and it appears to be part of the new status quo," said James Sherk, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

They would like that.

National Socialist Movement Rally just a more honest Tea Party Crowd.

A great counter protest blunted the pathetic neo-Nazi protest today in West Allis. It must have been a confusing day for conservatives, who might have agreed with the National Socialist Movement's racist message, but wondered why they went and called it socialist.

Fox 6: Hundreds of counter-protesters crowded in West Allis to shout over the voices of 30 to 40 members of the National Socialist Movement Saturday afternoon. Both sides brought their messages to city hall to be heard.

"That message is not welcome here in our community and we're here to stand together and let them know that we're not going to take that," said Mandela Barnes with Coalition for Racial Justice.

"Are you hate mongers, are we racists, are we biggots?  Absolutely not.  There's nothing hateful or racist about our message," said Jeff Schopp of the National Socialist Movement.

Through fences and police protection, the neo-Nazi group waved flags bearing swastikas. One speaker among the neo-Nazis called the Holocaust a "phony" event. The neo-Nazis say their rally was in response to reports of black youth attacking white people on the opening day of the Wisconsin State Fair.
 

Ron Johnson’s authoritarian desire for “leadership.” Follow the leader conservatives love it.

Leave it to dumb Ron Johnson, the two bit Ayn Randian actor playing a senator, to reveal his craven desire to march in lockstep to someone’s fearless leadership. Is it any wonder why Johnson wants Paul Ryan to step into the presidential race; Ryan claims he’s a leader.

Always in touch the senseless side of analysis:

U.S. employers stopped adding jobs last month – and Senate Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin blames a “lack of leadership” from President Obama. 

How (Ron Johnson) simple was that?

Neo-Nazi Rally Claims Peaceful Demonstration!

While the press and right wing media played up the angle that the Neo Nazi rally in West Allis related in some way to socialist liberals, the real story played out during an interview last night during the Fox 6 coverage:

A group of neo-Nazis held a news conference Friday evening to assure the public they were planning a peaceful rally on Saturday. During that news conference, an African-American man confronted them and there was a calm but tense exchange of words between the two.

A group called the National Socialist Movement has planned a rally in "defense of white America" for 2 p.m. at the West Allis City Hall. The Chicago-based group claims the rally is in response to mob attacks where whites were beaten by African-Americans at the Wisconsin State Fair.

More to come.....

The Democrats "Backlash" video shows the Town Hall Rebellion against Republicans Supporting Ryan's Plan.

I guess I can't complain. The following videos lack of many of the available clips of town hall meetings showing public outrage over the Republicans call for ending Medicare and inaction of a jobs bill. But it's a start and on the right track:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) released a powerful new web video, "Backlash," to highlight news clips and scenes from town halls and protests all around the country that show Republican Members of Congress facing outraged constituents for choosing to protect millionaires and Big Oil instead of Medicare and seniors.

"Backlash" is part of the DCCC's "Accountability August" grassroots and paid campaign to hold vulnerable House Republicans accountable for “choosing Millionaires over Medicare.”

Obama White House Whispers, “Deficit 20 Percent Lower!!”

In another example of Democratic wimpiness, Obama whiffed on the Republican campaign topic of deficits. They can’t be serious?

“The federal budget deficit will run 20 percent lower than expected this year.”

That’s big. According to the OMB, the expected shortfall of $1.645 trillion is now just $1.316 trillion. And that’s despite the continuation of the Bush tax cuts and roll out of the Affordable Care Act.

What I don’t get is the logic of making cuts when the economy is at an all-time low point. You would think a reasonable time to get your house in order, and curb spending, is when the economy is back to normal. 

Democracy to negative, overwhelming to voters!!! Recalls threw our “political system into utter turmoil!” Are they kidding?!!

Thank you New Richmond News, for your pathetic call for recall reform. No shallower words were ever written. For some this whole democracy things is just too troublesome.

And supposedly the loser’s in this whole democratic experience were...the voters? Jaw dropping in its misguided understanding of our government, the New Richmond News editorial spelled out the Republican position well:

Now that election is done, we vote for recall reform: The recently completed recall elections … were an interesting exercise in the democratic process. No matter what side … the loser in the whole situation was the voter.

Because of big money negative ad campaigns, we’re supposed to give up on democracy:

Elections continue to bombard voters on a regular basis. As the debate rages, and the negative campaign tactics mount, voters tend to become disenfranchised with the whole democratic process. People become overwhelmed by the onslaught of political messages. And, with the recent recalls, the campaign messages were even more negative than your typical election battle. Even though large numbers of voters cast their ballot in the recent local election, one has to wonder if the battle was all worth it.

So the weary public turned out in droves to “ cast their ballot? For the sake of “stability,” we need to protect politicians from the voters.

Wisconsin needs to return some sense of stability to its political system. Elected officials … should be left alone to complete their appointed terms without the threat of such political reprisals … limited to those people who have broken the law, those who have been found guilty of ethics violations or those who have generally proven themselves unfit for public office.

The New Richmond News’ closing statement is not only scary, but profoundly wrong on so many levels:

The ability to recall elected officials at any time for any reason throws our political system into utter turmoil. Such uncertainty in the political landscape harms our state, and it harms the state’s election process.

I’m breathless. 

Another Eulogy for the Teaching Profession.

In their successful bid to tear down societal progress made by the American people, the Republican Tea Party destroyed an entire profession, all because they were taxpayer supported "public" employees.

We are now relegated to stories like the following, in praise of those special teachers who turned us completely around. It's also true that those same teachers did little or nothing for our other classmates. 

NY Times-Charles Blow’s Op-Ed, In Honor of Teachers

I wanted to celebrate a group that is often maligned: teachers. But how do we expect to entice the best and brightest to become teachers when we keep tearing the profession down? We take the people who so desperately want to make a difference that they enter a field where they know that they’ll be overworked and underpaid, and we scapegoat them as the cause of a society wide failure.

A March report by the McGraw-Hill Research Foundation and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that one of the differences between the United States and countries with high-performing school systems was: “The teaching profession in the U.S. does not have the same high status as it once did, nor does it compare with the status teachers enjoy in the world’s best-performing economies.” High school teachers in the U.S. work longer hours (approximately 50 hours), and yet the U.S. devotes a far lower proportion than the average O.E.C.D. country does to teacher salaries. A 2005 National Education Association report; nearly 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession within their first five years teaching; they cite poor working conditions and low pay as the chief reason.

Take Wisconsin, for instance, where a new law stripped teachers of collective bargaining rights and forced them to pay more for benefits … “about twice as many public schoolteachers decided to hang it up in the first half of this year as in each of the past two full years.”

I was not a great student. My work began to suffer so much that I was temporarily placed in the “slow” class. I came back to my hometown school. I was placed in Mrs. Thomas’s class. On the first day of class, she gave us a math quiz … I quickly jotted down the answers and turned in the test — first. “Whoa! That was quick. Blow, we’re going to call you Speedy Gonzales.” She said it with a broad approving smile, and the kind of eyes that warmed you on the inside. She put her arm around me and pulled me close while she graded my paper with the other hand. I got a couple wrong, but most of them right.

I couldn’t remember a teacher ever smiling with approval, or putting their hand around me, or praising my performance in any way. It was the first time that I felt a teacher cared about me, saw me or believed in me. It lit a fire in me. I never got a bad grade again. I figured that Mrs. Thomas would always be able to see me if I always shined. I always wanted to make her as proud of me as she seemed to be that day. And, she always was. I went on to graduate as the valedictorian of my class.

And all of that was because of Mrs. Thomas, the firecracker of a teacher who first saw me and smiled with the smile that warmed me on the inside. So to all of the Mrs. Thomas’ out there, all the teachers struggling to reach lost children like I was once, I just want to say thank you. You deserve our admiration, not our contempt. 

Jacksonville FL - Crown Jewel of the Sunshine State

First Coast News reports on the latest action in Jacksonville FL.

Eyewitnesses told police that Richardson, 20, and Billy Lorenzo Johnson, 31, arrived together at 1324 Prince Street around 4:30 p.m. and soon thereafter got into a physical confrontation with 26-year-old Kenneth E. Curry.

Police believe Richardson pulled a handgun, then so did Curry, and they began shooting at each other.

During the shooting, 19-year-old Danielle Dominique Melton and a toddler, Marc Smith, were shot, as was Johnson. Another person reported that Richardson fired into her apartment.

Just a couple days earlier this happened.

Ten people were wounded and an unborn child died in a hail of bullets in a neighborhood shooting near Riverside just before 9 p.m. The pregnant mother lost her 29-week unborn boy and an 18-month-old girl was in critical condition after the gunfire.

Six of the victims were women and three were men, all unidentified. A male victim remained at Shands Jacksonville hospital Monday.

Police were looking for at least two shooters Monday and did not say if they knew of a motive. No suspects have been identified.

One of the first things that comes to mind is the pro-gun argument that guns are not the problem. They say violent people are the problem and they always say that as if we don't agree with it. We do agree. We understand perfectly well that there are bad guys who do bad things and the gun does not make them do anything.

The problem is gun availability, and that's where the pro-gun guys themselves come into it. They are the source of the guns used in crime. They'll scream and yell and twist and lie and do everything possible to obscure that fact, but if you think about it, it's clear these guns used in Jacksonville shootings were not manufactured in some gang member's basement. They started out lawfully owned and somehow were allowed to flow into the criminal world.

In their enthusiasm to deny all responsibility for this problem, as a type of distraction, we often hear the ridiculous proposition that even if we removed all the guns, these violent criminals would use other weapons to do the same thing.

I wonder how that would have worked in Jacksonville. Would as many people have been wounded and killed if no guns had been used? That's a rhetorical question, you don't have to answer.

Florida continues to wear the crown and Jacksonville is one of its most precious jewels.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Per Student Funding and Teacher Jobs Cuts Stall the Economy.

As I hear it, we should all be happy Gov. Walker provided the tough love and “tools” to deal with the cost of education and bring about a balanced budget. Ah, but the cuts aren’t over, the shortfalls haven’t ended, and the austerity measures now will look gentle by comparison. 

Remember, we’ve been cutting education and services to the bone for at least ten years, and the tightwad whiners haven’t noticed a thing. Let's face it, they’ll never ever be satisfied. Rest assured, they’ll be the first ones to whine, “private schools don’t want to meet or listen to us.” They're accountable to the bottom line, not us.

But if we’re so worried about our kids future, why are we cutting their education off at the knees? Is it just so they won’t have to pay higher taxes as adults. Sounds like a little tightwad parental projection. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities broke down the numbers:

They described the problem this way;

These cuts are occurring at a time when schools face demands from parents, employers and civic leaders to bring more and more students to higher levels of academic proficiency, in large part because workers will increasingly need higher levels of educational attainment to thrive in the workforce. States' large cuts in spending on education have serious consequences for the economy, both in the short and long term. They also counteract and sometimes undermine important state education reform initiatives, and put upward pressure on local property taxes.

State education budget cuts have deepened the recession and slowed the pace of economic recovery by reducing overall economic activity. The spending cuts have forced school districts to lay off teachers and other employees, reduce pay for the education workers who remain, and cancel contracts with suppliers and other businesses. All of these steps remove demand from the economy.

Local school districts already have eliminated 293,000 jobs nationally since August 2008, federal data show. In addition, education spending cuts have cost an unknown but probably very large number of additional jobs in the private sector as school districts cancel or scale back private-sector purchases and contracts (for instance, purchasing fewer textbooks). These job losses shrink the purchasing power of workers' families, which in turn affects local businesses and slows recovery. While it is not possible to calculate directly the additional loss of jobs resulting from state education budget cuts, it appears very likely that school districts will continue to cut jobs and also to cut funding for some private-sector jobs, negating some of the job growth that otherwise would occur in the economy as a whole. 

Far Right Wing Verbal Gymnastics: Stimulus Lost Jobs…from the higher estimates.

We catching on, aren't we?

Like Paul Ryan’s ginned up expectations that all of Obama’s predictions are to be factual and numerically perfect, Rick Santorum has decided that estimates made by the administration must be exact too.

In a moment of absolute stupidity, Santorum not only said the stimulus lost jobs in a ludicrous attempt at spin, but he got his numbers wrong, never thinking long enough to realize the impossibility of those numbers. In this clip from CNBC, Ali Velshi:

SANTORUM: [Obama] passed a huge stimulus package that now we know, over the past two quarters, has actually cost American jobs, and that’s from the report of his own administration. They claimed in December that, uh, by the end of last year that they created 280 million jobs, and now they’re saying that they created only 240 million jobs. So look, in this, you’re talking about huge increases in spending. In other words, there’s 30 million less jobs as a result of the stimulus package.

VELSHI: That’s not a loss of jobs, Senator, that’s a smaller aggregation of jobs. You can’t go on a campaign, a national campaign with this kind of math Senator. It’s just incorrect…I know you’ve got a lot of interviews to do. You might want to check that math.

Cheeseheads and the Vanishing Paul Ryan Town Hall Ploy Inspire Others to Protest...

This great post from the Job Party shows how inspirational the Wisconsin labor movement has been.

This afternoon we took the Wisconsin Fight Back local to Rep. Michael Grimm's Staten Island office.

The energy and enthusiasm was strong, as New Yorkers demanded that their congressman create jobs now as opposed to supporting the slashing of the social safety net inherent to the Paul Ryan budget.

The Wisconsin inspiration was real and palpable, and the connection to Paul Ryan intrinsic. The Wisconsin fight back is similarly being taken local in almost all of the town hall outbursts nationwide, as it is the nihilistic cuts of the Ryan budget that has inspired such activation. We just addressed it directly and made the Wisconsin-spirit of the event more overt. Moreover, as Wisconsin has taken the town hall model up a notch in light of Ryan refusing to hold a free one, we followed suit by bringing the town hall to Grimm---including unemployed constituents of his walking inside to apply for jobs! Grimm followed Ryan's lead in not holding any town halls where he could be held accountable to his constituents, so we wanted to make sure he also heard from those he purportedly represents who are suffering direly from the jobs crisis.  

Like Ryan in Wisconsin, Grimm in New York now has to dodge angry cheeseheads in his back yard.

Ryan, on the “Promises of Job Creation.”

You can blame the media, again, for pretending “predictions” are more than just that…a prediction. Predictions aren’t promises either, like Rep. Paul Ryan suggests.  

Yet that’s the meme posed over and over by Ryan and the Republican Party, who oddly enough, are successfully portraying Obama as a lousy two bit version of Nostradamus.

The Hill: House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) blasted the White House; “Today’s report confirms that the President’s policies have failed to deliver on his promises of job creation, deficit reduction, and much-needed economic growth. Today’s report estimates that the unemployment rate — despite assumptions of stronger economic growth — will remain above 8% through the end of the President’s term in office.”

The presumed precision of “promises and assumptions” is something Ryan continues to get away with, despite his own poor record of promises and assumptions about deregulation that created the Great Recession.

No one would “promise” lower unemployment, but they sure as hell would try to achieve it.

My fear is that we’ll continue to vote against our own self-interest, to lower the standard of living, and to cede control in our quest to downsize government.

Giving up our government to corporate interests, while at the same time defining corporations as “people,” is not a subtle reinterpretation of the Constitution. It's a takeover. We’re one president away from realizing this scenario.  

Not Obama, but Congress should create jobs. House Republicans have the purse strings, have Done Nothing!!!

I am so tired of the press pretending Obama dropped the ball on jobs. Excuse me, the congress was tasked to do that, and the House Republicans were put in charge of job creation. How did the message get so screwed up? From Fox News: