Walker saw himself in his Hand Picked Staff, emails reveal.

Scott Walker will insist there's nothing in the emails that could get him arrested, but that doesn't discount the ugly disregard he had for the people he served or the kind of staff he chose that reflected his values. After all, these emails do show us what they talked about behind closed doors, and how they talked about it.

Walker surrounded himself with petty thugs and thieves back then, and still does. So can you imagine Walker putting together a White House staff?

Surprise, Walker didn't expect any media attention. This says so much:

Blind Obedience to her Leader

Gov. Scott Walker won't be taking media questions Thursday about the tens of thousands of pages of documents unsealed in a criminal appeal made by a former aide. "The governor doesn't have any media availability ," spokesman Tom Evenson said … he was confident there wouldn't be anything damaging in them beyond what had already led to criminal charges.

Nothing damaging? Really? I suppose Walker still doesn't see anything harmful in the following:

Top aides for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) made a habit of forwarding off-color emails. Case in point: one email from former Walker chief of staff Thomas Nardelli featured a photoshopped picture of President Barack Obama with a giant acorn cap for a hat. The text: "New fall hat… Acorn cap with the nut still attached," a clear reference to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which conservatives in Congress defunded in 2009 ... Congress has voted to defund the organization several times after it has folded.

TPM has already noted that Nardelli forwarded a racist and bizarre email where the narrator describes a nightmare of waking up black, gay, drug-addicted, disabled and HIV positive.

 How about playing the media, like the Journal Sentinel:

Respect for mental health patients? Not much: Emails show Scott Walker's role in managing mental health complex crisis … (while) running for governor … "We need to continue to keep me out of the story as this is a process issue and not a policy matter,"

And Walker suggested reaching out to Journal Sentinel editorial writers, noting: "The next problem will be editorials and this can nip it in the butt." Rindfliesch wrote … a Journal Sentinel reporter "doesn't get any traction if he can't get anyone to say anything," she said.

Or Walker's contempt for the mentally ill, with staff reactions like this: 

Rindfleisch was sarcastic about the Mental Health Complex issue, in a Sept. 2, 2010, "Last week was a nightmare. A bad story every day on our looney bin. Doctors having sex with patients, patients getting knocked up. So, it's been crazy (pun intended.)" … she expected Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to make the issue "the center of his campaign … "Yep," Rindfleisch replied, "No one cares about crazy people." 

Walker Criticism over Emails coming from Naysayers who want things bad to happen in Wisconsin?

Hypocrites on the right have another big problem; projection.

While Republicans keep waiting and waiting, hoping for Obama failures, they've resorted to manufacturing them instead. They're hoping ObamaCare will fail, they want the minimum wage to fail, they wanted the auto bailout to fail, hoped the stimulus would fail, hoped foreign policy failed, know instinctively Common Core will fail...you get the idea, right?

Well here's Mr. Projection himself, Scott Walker, claiming the "naysayers" on the left are always hoping for failure, especially when they're just pointing out his record. The Authority is above all that. Nice try but...

Walker's glaring example of projection is almost laughable. From WKOW raw footage:

Saving tourism and our lakes from Phosphorus Pollution and Algae delayed due to costs! 700 Waterways Fail, and counting...

Pollution is okay, because despite revenue surpluses, we can't afford to reduce it:

jsonline: In another bill passed by the Senate, the state would delay costly phosphorus reduction regulations that would reduce algae-causing pollution in waterways. Aimed at addressing one of the top water problems in the state, the regulations were approved in 2010 during the administration of Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. About one-quarter of the state’s more than 700 waterways fail to meet water quality standards for phosphorus.

That's a lot. Yet, business and community treatment plants can't afford it. Really, but the environment and tourism can? Seems we have a problem, great lovers of the outdoors:

But business groups and some municipalities said that the new limits would place undue burden on them while other major sources of phosphorus pollution, such as farms, avoid such limits. The bill gives a community or industry an option to delay stricter regulations, for as long as 20 years, if it can prove financial hardship in trying to meet them. 

Funny thing, PBS's Market to Market took an in-depth look at Iowa, who seems to take phosphorus and nitrogen pollution very seriously. They seem to care about their drinking water:

See, as we cut taxes and give back revenues, now we can’t afford to pay for ways to stop pouring phosphorus into our lakes and rivers. Common sense:

During that time, permit holders would have to cut phosphorus discharges. Environmentalists have expressed worries about the bill such as the length of the two-decade delay. Amber Meyer Smith, a lobbyist with Clean Wisconsin, said her group is now officially “neutral” after amendments approved in committee last week addressed some of the group’s concerns. “We think they have made some positive changes,” she said.

There you go, compromise by those trying to save the environment. And so continues our slide into the trash heap. This is what we’re leaving out kids, who will have to raise their own taxes to clean this up.

Scott Walker emails hit national news!!! "They've gone through a legal process..." says Walker, so there's nothing to see.

The one thing to remember about the emails showing Scott Walker knew more than he was willing to disclose, is that because the legal standard is so much higher for an arrest, there still wasn't enough to press charges. And because there's no proof Walker "did anything," there's no reason to think he didn't know. 

And knowing a big story when he sees it, MSNBC's Chris Hayes led with the Walker story, and got lots and lots of help from The Progressive's Ruth Conniff. The country is now about to get to know the real Walker, with Chris Christie comparisons all over the place:

Here's WKOW's Greg Neumann on a few emails: 

WKOW: Thousands of unsealed emails and documents from the secret John Doe probe into the Milwaukee County Executive's Office show that investigators believed Scott Walker "appeared to be aware" his staff was using laptops and a private internet router to conduct  illegal campaign activities on county time ... emails show staffers talked about communicating with Walker on the secret email system.

In a March 22, 2010 email that Cindy Archer, the head of Milwaukee County Department of Administrative Services at the time, wrote to Kelly Rindfleisch: "Consider yourself now in the "inner circle". :) I use this private account quite a bit to communicate with SKW and Nardelli. You should be sure you check it throughout the day." SKW are the initials for Scott K. Walker, used by various members of both the county and campaign staff.

Another email shows that on at least one occasion, Walker suggested that staffers from his 2010 gubernatorial campaign contact his office to have McLaughlin "dig up" information they needed for a reporter doing a story on General Mitchell International Airport.

Lowering Wages to $4 an hour for Long Term Unemployed.

Another incredible idea from the conservative American Enterprise Institute that demoralizes the long term unemployed even more than they already are.

Republicans are feeling incredible lately. As bad as their ideas are, they’re oddly still the ones setting the agenda.

But this has also given Republicans the courage to say anything that pops into the heads, giving us an invaluable insight into what our world would really be like if they had their way.

Wanna see another brilliantly demoralizing and demeaning shot aimed at the long unemployed?

Bloomberg: A $4 Minimum Wage Can Get People Back to Work: The fate of the long-term unemployed is arguably the most immediate social and economic challenge facing the U.S. today. One goal should be to make it easier for companies to hire the long-term unemployed. And a step forward would be to let companies pay the long-term unemployed less by lowering the minimum wage for them. 

After all, employers are taking a big risk hiring experienced workers:

If we knocked the minimum wage down to, say, $4 an hour, we would significantly mitigate employers' risk from hiring a long-term unemployed worker. Allowing employers to pay this group of people 45 percent less than other minimum-wage workers provides a strong incentive for businesses to give the long-term unemployed a shot.

Thanks for giving us a shot at the good life again. Oh, and don't forget making the public take all the risk and responsibility for taking care of $4 an hour labor:

This policy would have to be paired with an expanded earned-income tax credit, or with more straightforward wage subsidies -- federal transfer programs that supplement a worker’s labor market earnings with tax dollars. 

Many on the left will cringe at the thought of lowering the minimum wage. Many on the right won’t like a new government program of wage subsidies. 

Another words, taxpayer would be picking up the tab for business.

Walker turns Education into Politics, Dismantles Common Core, wipes out Constitutional Power of State Superintendent...shh, don't mention ALEC.

National Treasurer of ALEC, State Sen. Leah Vukmir is about to kill Common Core in the hopes of replacing it with something so much better…whatever that is, + profits. 

And again, another major piece of reporting completely leaves out mentioning ALEC, its opposition to Common Core, its obsessive pursuit of school privatization, and the fact that its national treasurer is actually spearheading that dismantling.

State Journal reporter Molly Beck really didn't think it was important? Or that the public should know Vukmir’s motivation and conflict of interest? Who is she really representing? ALEC!!!

Suddenly, both the senate and assembly are about to pass bills that not just dismantles Common Core, but replaces it with one-size-fits-all big government bureaucratic meddling. And Scott Walker's been in on the planning:

The Board: Walker appoints 1, DPI’s Tony Evers appoints 1 = advantage 0

The Committee: Walker picks 5 members, Evers picks 4 members, Senate picks 2, the Assembly picks 2 = Walker advantage +1

The Committee subcommittee: That board would create subcommittees to write each standard, which could include non-voting education experts to advise the process.

Here come the big government bureaucrats, the good conservative kind: Let's neutralize the Constitutional duties of the state superintendent of public instruction:   

The proposed legislation also would allow DPI to review or revise the resulting standards recommended by the board. The revisions would then be sent to the legislative council and then sent for approval to the legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules, comprised of six Republican and four Democratic lawmakers, of which Vukmir is co-chairwoman.

Walker advantage +2.

Get ready for it…

If the committee rejects the standards containing DPI’s revisions, then the original recommended standards — as written before DPI’s review — would be sent to the full Legislature for a vote.

Voila'! DPI revisions disappear with a little political ALEC magic. A truly jaw dropping political takeover of education by low information tea party “scholars.”

State Superintendent Tony Evers said Tuesday this proposal to set up a process to replace Common Core is “wholly unacceptable” and would politicize the process of writing standards for education in Wisconsin. He said if the bill is approved, education standards could be developed on the floor of the Legislature instead of by experts. “Frankly, I can’t believe that this is what the citizens of Wisconsin want — that legislators are going to be writing standards. “There’s an effort to outnumber me, which seems odd, and then it just throws it into a political arena and has people writing standards that don’t have a clue.”

According to Vukmir’s spokesperson, Evers has nothing to worry about, if he doesn't make any "politicized" changes, adding:

“I think it really only politicizes it if the state superintendent decides to grossly reject what the board comes up with. The only time the legislature is going to act is if the superintendent says, ‘You know what, we are going to go in a completely different direction.’ ”

See, what could go wrong. ALEC has all the answers. 

Lawless Obama? Where was Paul Ryan when a lawless Bush extended Medicare Part D Deadlines and waived Penalties?

It’s amazing what a little investigative reporting can turn up!

MSNBC: It was easy to note the similarities between its difficulties and those associated with the Bush/Cheney Medicare Part D policy. On Friday, Sam Stein had a terrific report noting just how deep the parallels go. Stein’s report is quite comprehensive … Both the ACA and Plan D struggled during the rollout; both suffered technical glitches; both shrunk networks to the surprise of consumers; both struggled with overwhelmed call centers; both suffered in the polls.

Here’s a new wrinkle that should embarrass Paul Ryan, who has based his “lawless Obama” claim on the “illegal” delays Obama put in place regarding the Affordable Care Act. But Ryan said nothing about his own backing and roll-out of Medicare’s Plan D implementation:

When Plan D implementation struggled, the Bush/Cheney administration unilaterally extended deadlines and waived penalties – relying on nothing but executive discretion and regularity authority. Why is this important? In general, it’s not, except now that the Obama administration is taking similar steps, Republicans are characterizing it as the end of our constitutional system of government.

Here's a list of Obama offenses:

-President Obama is creating a “government of one” by ignoring the Constitution and further delaying ObamaCare’s employer mandate, according to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).

-The Republican senator said on “Fox News Sunday” that the president seemed to be flouting the law in order to improve Democrats’ chances in the 2014 midterm elections. “The president knows this is wrong and it’s not defensible,” Lee said.

-There is something wrong with holding one leader to a new standard – an “Obama standard” – that doesn’t apply to anyone else.

-When other presidents issue executive orders, it’s fine. When Obama does it, Republicans insist it’s scandalous.

-When other presidents rely on “czars,” it’s fine. When Obama does it, Republicans insist it’s scandalous.

-When other presidents make recess appointments, it’s fine. When Obama does it, Republicans insist it’s scandalous.

-When other presidents decide not to defend certain federal laws against court challenges, it’s fine. 

-When Obama does it, Republicans insist it’s scandalous.

-When Bush used his powers to improve implementation of a federal health care policy, no one raised a fuss, but now that Obama’s done the same thing, congressional Republicans are convinced he’s a lawless radical violating the Constitution.

Asteroid Disaster HD TV Ad Campaign.

What a great idea; a candid camera like ad by LG proving how life-like their HD video pictures are.

First, people being interviewed for a job believe they're looking out of a window witnessing the end of the earth. Second, a men's room urinal wall is fixed up with video screens that distract guys from try to do their business.

Fond Farewell to American TV....

The stunning news....

I've had a long history with American TV, from simply being a customer to producing many of their ads in the 1980's when Crazy TV Lenny was their owner and spokesperson. Lenny Mattioli is now selling motorized bicycles on Madison's west side.

I never kept up with the inner workings, but did have major misgivings about a few rising managers, and their impersonal know-it-all approach to the market. It took awhile, but they eventually drove the company into the ground. Just one rising manager, Doug Reuhl, was responsible for the death spiral. He had this pathetic comment:

jsonline: It's a moment to be proud of our efforts and to be proud of what we have delivered to the community," Doug Reuhl, president and chief executive of American since 1988, said in a statement Monday.

Real proud? Any surprise Reuhl brought down the company that employed 989 employees?

American TV & Appliance, headquartered in Madison, has six retail stores in Wisconsin, two in Illinois and two in Iowa. Its Milwaukee-area stores are in Waukesha, Brown Deer and Oak Creek.

They had some great long time sales people, experts really, who knew their products inside and out. 

Perhaps the market changed, but maybe managements approach should have also changed. 

Why did they refuse to feature the hottest consumer items on their ads front page? Even worse, why did they stick with a newspaper supplement that looked the same for decades? Many people got so used to seeing the same drab red and blue advertising colors that they just shuffled the section into the recycle bin. It's like they never really looked at their own sales pitch. 

They will be missed by many of us. Here are three ads that ran in the 80's, along with Lenny's late night horror show "Lenny's Inferno." 

Lenny's Inferno:

Shouldn't Republicans be forcing Businesses into the Exchanges? Come on, make them and reign in Obama's power grab.

Let's see how business would react, shall we?

Here's my idea, based on the GOP outrage over the employer mandate delay. Utah’s Sen. Mike Lee, who isn't happy, explains:

The Hill: President Obama is creating a “government of one” by ignoring the Constitution and further delaying ObamaCare’s employer mandate, according to Sen. Mike Lee.

This from a tea party Republican hell bent on turning the country into a one party state, under the watchful eye of a national father figure like “leader” and disciplinarian. But I digress.

The Obama/Democratic response should be this question; “Do you have a bill in the senate and house now that would force businesses onto the exchanges?” It’s that simple.

I wonder how business would react? Tea Party Rep. Steve King, like Lee, should pursue legislation to make businesses, ready or not, get into the exchanges:

WashingtonTimes: Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) accused Obama of similarly violating the Constitution in executive actions he took on ... the implementation of his signature healthcare law. "I think we should bring a resolution to the floor and say so, and restrain this president from his extra-constitutional behavior. Obamacare itself is probably the clearest one. When the president extended the employer mandate for a year, clearly it’s unconstitutional because the law says that the employer mandate shall commence each month after December of 2013.” 

Yes, make business a part of the exchanges...retroactively. Please, reign Obama in. 

Dumb Ron Johnson doesn't want to fix the Post Office, he wants to destroy it!!! And Big Business in Wisconsin is Pissed Off.

Tea party zealot Dumb Ron Johnson is starting reveal his true intentions; he didn't go to Washington to fix things, he went there to destroy things. Like the U.S. Postal Service.

I've never understood why conservatives decided they really hated the post office. It's even in the constitution for gods sake. And the odd thing is, Johnson hasn't tried to solve any problems since he took office. That inaction is about to seriously hurt the survival of the Post Office, and private industry is starting to get pissed off. From reporter Matt Pommer:

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is in the political doghouse of Wisconsin's largest industry. At issue are Johnson's tea-party rhetoric and committee votes on postal-reform legislation. Postal votes are a vital issue for the multifaceted mailing industry, which accounts for more than $26 billion in annual economic activity and employs more than 180,000 Wisconsin residents.

The industry warns that ever-increasing mail rates will become a disincentive … The industry had supported an amendment advanced by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., that would have retained the existing power of the Postal Regulatory Commission and kept the latest increase as a “temporary” measure.

But Dummy just can’t stop whining about the cost to taxpayers, even though it's not about the taxpayers, yet:

Johnson criticized the Baldwin amendment saying higher rates “could put jobs at risk,” but added, “My job is to protect the American taxpayer.”

Business is getting a taste of being on the receiving end of this ideologically driven Republican Party monster they've financed and create:

Wisconsin's mailing and publishing industry quickly issued a sharp rebuke to Johnson. It issued a public letter signed by top paper and mailing industry executives and officials at 52 newspapers. It noted the mailing industry provides about 90 percent of Postal Service revenue.

“We are confused by your taxpayer statement, considering the fact the Postal Service is funded solely by revenue from postage, most of it paid by mailing customers like us. No taxpayer dollars are used to fund the Postal Service. The real threat to the American taxpayer is allowing the Postal Service to price mailing out of the market, causing steep declines in mail volume that will further destabilize the Postal Service financially and lead to a taxpayer bailout. Postal reform is critical, but only if it accomplishes the goal of encouraging customers to use the Postal Service, which in turn will keep business costs reasonable and protect Wisconsin jobs,” the letter said as the committee prepared for a decision.

We ask that you join your fellow senator from Wisconsin and allow the Postal Service to right-size, innovate, reform health care costs and create a postal system which reflects the 21st century,” it concluded.

Baldwin's plan never got a chance. The committee chair offered a plan that advanced to the floor of the U.S. Senate and that severely limits the power of the Postal Regulatory Commission. Joel Quadracci, chief executive of the printing-industry giant QuadGraphics, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “It will result in reduced mail volumes and further acerbate the Postal Service's financial trouble.”

Well, that doesn't sound like Dumb Ron Johnson is solving the problems of big business either. In fact, Johnson complained about what he will ironically force the taxpayers to do someday:

Johnson's response to the industry letter suggested he hadn't changed his emphasis on the taxpayer. “The Postal Service is on a crash course. If it is not fixed, it will need a taxpayer-funded bailout.”

Pommer ends his piece with this:

There are many elements of the industry, including small, medium and large firms. It includes paper manufacturers, publishers, marketers, catalogers, magazines and newspapers. In Wisconsin, it means a lot of jobs.

What Scott Walker has really done for Wisconsin, and it ain't pretty!!!

Isn't it amazing how Scott Walker doesn't seem to be getting any heat over his failed jobs plan, lack of business creation and an ever growing one-size-fits-all top down big government takeover of everything? This is what he calls success? Yes.

It was this obvious when he was County Executive.

This is the same blase' attitude the media took that helped Walker get elected three times as Milwaukee County executive. They're about to become accomplices again when the stakes are even higher.

Ironically, Walker and his GOP pirates are flush in tax revenues thanks to Obama's failed economic recovery plan and stimulus. It's nothing they've done.

Thankfully, a few articles are seeing the light of day, but still not enough to be any kind of clarion call to give this guy the boot. 

Today, we can take comfort with the following take down of Walker that may seem hyperbolic, but sadly isn't:

jsonline-JamesRowen: He will probably blame the weather for yet another dismal Wisconsin jobs report released Thursday - - as if it were warm and sunny in the other 49 states - - but leading the nation in new jobless claims counted by the federal government blows another hole in Scott Walker's failed record as a jobs creator … more new jobless claims in the week ending February 1st than big states like New York, Ohio and others: Change WI +5,041.

It’s also interesting to note, according to the labor department's data where Gov. Chris Christie is neck and neck with Walker: (1st Place) Wisconsin (+5,041), New York (+4,830), Pennsylvania (+2,448), (4th Place) New Jersey (+1,853), and Ohio (+1,780). Again, that's success?

Walker is now in the absurd position of embarking on campaigns for re-election and national stature with an ineffective, stumbling record of economic leadership, by the numbers.

He might be able to find … one month in a bygone quarter where Wisconsin incorporated more scout packs and ping-pong clubs than other states … but when Walker ran for Governor it was on jobs, jobs, jobs, of which there are fewer, fewer, fewer. More, here … Act 10's enforced austerity stalled the recovery here, that instituting business tax cuts and hiring credits while handing back to everyday Wisconsinites the surplus at the rate of a Happy Meal a week are worn-out bumper-sticker palliatives, that cutting state revenue to big cities where poor people live while raising taxes on low-income citizens - - PolitiFact gave Walker a "broken promise" for that - - only embed poverty - - as does Walker's opposition to raising the poverty-enforcing minimum wage … turning back federal billions set aside for Amtrak rail and train construction, and for health-care expansion, too, further starved home budgets, consumer spending and growth statewide.

The numbers don't lie. After three years of Walker, we're #1 in failed promises because inept leadership … confuses ideology with innovation. It's time for Walker to own the reality and consequences of his malaise…

Radio "Rightist" Vicki McKenna's legal opinion on "leftists...SHOOT THEM."

A license to shoot liberals? Yes.

Not recognizing the inherent and dangerous unintended consequences of the Stand Your Ground/Castle Laws, Vicki McKenna continues to fan the racially motivated open season on black teenagers. She knows her culpability in gun violence would be impossible to prove in court, so what's the harm to her.

With jaw dropping Tweets like the one below, and her Clear Channel enablers who've done nothing to protect their own public image, will McKenna continue to enjoy her bi-weekly paycheck drenched in the blood of others.

And would Clear Channel be able to defend themselves at license renewal time? According to FCC regulation:

Each radio and television licensee is required by law to operate its station in the “public interest, convenience and necessity.” This means that it must air programming that is responsive to the needs and problems of its local community of license … each station must provide the public with information about how it has met this obligation by means of quarterly reports, which contain a listing of the programming that it has aired that the licensee believes provided significant treatment of issues facing the community. 

So is shooting liberals responsive enough to deal with the problems they pose to local communities of license? 

Programming Inciting “Imminent Lawless Action.” The Supreme Court has held that the government may curtail speech if it is both: (1) intended to incite or produce “imminent lawless action;” and (2) likely to “incite or produce such action.” 

Anyone want to make a case that Clear Channel’s employment of Vicki McKenna violates FCC requirements? 

Democratic Candidates must use these Powerful Political Frames Over and Over....

Democrats are horrible at framing issues. That's why the following two great frames should be a part of every interview, and every campaign.

Get the Koch Brothers nose out of out state: North Carolina's Kay Hagan nails it, framing the Koch brothers as out-of-state and out-of-touch meddlers, who oppose policies that negatively effect her constituents. An essential frame for Mary Burke:



Joe Biden framed what should have been a strong Democratic agenda for the last decade. It should be now and forever, repeated often and slipped into conversations and interviews leaving the listener with no doubt about where you stand:

Jordan Davis's Murder...ends in Mistrial!

This is how stand your ground has changed our view of shooting someone, and the lower value we've put on life, especially black teenagers:

USA Today: Circuit Judge Russell Healey declared a mistrial on the first-degree murder count. A Florida jury found a software engineer guilty of attempted murder and shooting into a car full of teenagers, but they could not agree on first-degree murder in the death of one of the teenaged boys.

You could see that shocking verdict in the face CNN's Don Lemon, and the guests that followed:



Here's what a very shaken legal reporter Sonny Hosten had to say, while people in cars circle the court house shouting "Not guilty," and the Jordan family's reaction:

Billionaires finally put us in our place!!!

I've been collecting billionaire comments for weeks, and now it's time to share their wisdom with everyone else.

Here's a short collection tied in with idea there should be no minimum wage:



AOL CEO Tim Armstrong accidentally revealed corporate thinking that most people found outrageous:



Here's Kevin O'Leary praising the wealth gap...hey, it's an incentive for everyone to want to be a billionaire too. From Ed Schultz:



The now infamous Sam Zell on our problem with billionaire envy:



Tom Perkins and Grover Norquist on the same Nazi page. Chris Hayes:



And finally, Nicole Miller CEO Bud Konheim on the incredibly wealthy American poor who should go to India to see real poverty. Chris Hayes interviews billionaire Nick Hanauer who tears apart their egomaniacal whining:



Read the Root River Siren's take on Tom Perkin's and his monetary support of Scott Walker.

No Union at VW Plant in Tennessee!!!

Tennessee VW workers sent a clear message to union organizers; "we're southerners and we always vote against our best interest, like before."

Apparently those tough negotiations between management and labor is too nerve-racking for Tennesseans to justify better wages and benefits, especially at a union friendly company? These people are really scary.

From the Wall Street Journal: The vote was held amid public campaigning against the union by Republican politicians, including Gov. Bill Haslam, and conservative activist groups. Conservative political groups, including one backed by antitax activist Grover Norquist, put up anti-union billboards around Chattanooga. A small but determined group of workers who oppose the UAW also worked to tilt their colleagues against the union, an effort that ultimately proved successful. But more workers were persuaded to vote against the union by the UAW's past of bitter battles with management, costly labor contracts and complex work rules. "If the union comes in, we'll have a divided work force," said Cheryl Hawkins, 44, an assembly line worker with three sons. "It will ruin what we have."

Other UAW opponents said they dislike the union's support of politicians who back causes like abortion rights and gun control that rub against the conservative bent of Southern states like Tennessee. Still others objected to paying dues to a union from Detroit that is aligned with Volkswagen competitors like GM and Ford. "I just don't trust them," said Danielle Brunner, 23, who has worked at the plant for nearly three years and makes about $20 an hour—about $5 an hour more than new hires at GM, Ford and Chrysler plants.

Here's Rachel Maddow's take, starting off with the Scott Walker attack on unions;



It's important to see how Tennessee state GOP politicians threatened a private business like VW. Chris Hayes interviews John Nichols:

CBS is the new Fox News, after blaming ObamaCare for Out of Network Hospital.

This CBS story is so wrong it's no wonder the RNC picked up on it.

Really, research?

After a couple signed up for insurance on the health care exchange, their child needed treatment at a local children's hospital that wasn't considered an in-network facility by the insurer.

The reporter blamed ObamaCare for some reason when we know the marketplace only provides access to insurers, not individual doctors or hospitals. The parents in this piece should have looked a lot closer at their policy choices first. But CBS should have known better:

Before watching this hack job, keep these facts in mind:

1. Insurers always have their own in-network doctors and hospitals, where they've negotiated terms of payment. Being excluded from other insurers is not "unprecedented" as one doctor describes it. 

2. Two other insurers in the Marketplace to include Seattle's Children's Hospital. 

3. Dr. Sandy Meltzer is either ignorant or a crazy ObamaCare opponent.

4. The reporter presents two false premises: that the Affordable Care Act was to provide a wider network of doctors and lower premiums. Actually, no one knew, but hoped this would happen. Yet reform changed that model, and premiums have seen historically slower growth.

GOP to Impose Huge Tax Increase in their Health Care Reform Plan

Want to know how to argue against Republican opposition to the Affordable Care Act? Turn the tables on them with their own incredibly costly plan that includes shifting the burden to labor...you and me. Another gift to business.

After reading through a number of conservative articles critiquing their own parties plans, something Democrats better start doing, I found it a treasure trove of talking points that would kill them in political ads this midterm.

Simply, their plan in some ways repackages ObamaCare, while putting in place everything that made the individual market deadly and unaffordable. And they need one thing to happen; free market competition must lower costs. Anyone want to roll the dice on that pipe dream?

Forbes: There has been a kind of intellectual laziness, a belief that there’s no need for critics to come up with better reforms, because Obamacare will “collapse under its own weight,” relieving them of that responsibility ... it’s not going to collapse. And that makes the development of a credible, market-oriented health-reform agenda more urgent than ever.

The Republican Study Committee put out a plan last fall that would replace Obamacare by capping the employer tax exclusion, and making a standard deduction for health coverage available to everyone. A similar plan proposed by George W. Bush in 2007 would have expanded coverage by 11 million ... Obamacare aims to expand coverage by 30 million, not 11 million. And so a replace plan in 2017 will have to contend with the fact that it is likely to throw people off of their existing, ACA insurance. 

The following includes what we have now; keeping your insurance alive to avoid getting rejected for pre-existing conditions and "high risk pools" paid for by taxpayers so insurers can make higher profits. And instead reducing medical errors, the GOP would reduce malpractice settlements to victims. Oh yea, it's grows the deficit and spends more:

The new Coburn-Burr-Hatch proposal, called the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment Act (“Patient CARE Act”) wouldn't maintain ObamaCare’s individual mandate, nor its requirement that insurers offer coverage to everyone regardless of pre-existing health conditions. This structure ... described as a “repeal and replace” ... is remarkably similar to the one that Obamacare uses. What are the key differences? The CBH plan would grow its subsidies and tax exclusion cap at a higher rate than Obamacare does—CPI+1% vs. CPI+0% for Obamacare ... the CBH plan would spend more on subsidies, and recoup less in revenues, than Obamacare does. It won’t satisfy the purest Obamacare haters ... And it won’t drastically shrink the scale and scope of federal spending on health care, at least in the near term.

Here comes deregulation, and the fantasy that health care is a consumer product:

Deregulate ... a process that is likely to make health insurance less costly over time. If health insurance is less costly, then federal spending on health insurance can shrink alongside.

BIG GOP TAX INCREASE:

Except the Coburn-Burr-Hatch plan (read it here) amounts to a big tax increase. The main way that it remains budget neutral is by making employer provided health insurance plans, which are currently not taxed, partially taxable as income. In fact, this income replaces income that, under ObamaCare, comes from taxing companies, including the tax on medical device companies paid by firms like Medtronic MDT -0.62% and Stryker SYK +0.15%. This fact has not escaped the notice of some prominent health reform allies. 

“It is a huge tax increase on workers without any confidence that they will be able to afford health insurance in the future,” says Bob Kocher, a partner at venture capital firm Venrock who previously worked in the Obama administration.

It is “essentially a very large Republican tax increase,” says Ezekiel Emanuel, the Diane V.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policyat the University of Pennsylvania and another former Obama advisor. “It’s quite clear the plan is to put a bigger burden on middle class Americans.”

How big a tax might this be for an average American family? Ezekiel has some numbers. 

The average employer health plan for a family of four costs $16,351, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the employer covers 72% of that, or $11,772. Thirty-five percent of $11,772 is $4,120.35. The employee’s share of the Social Security and Medicare payroll tax is 7.65%, or $315.21. Assuming this family of four is in the 25% marginal income tax bracket, that would add another $1,030.09, for a total tax increase of $1,345. (For more from Emanuel, see this Times piece.) 

Removing a bunch of corporate taxes so that the middle class can pay more seems like a political non-starter, even given the public backlash against Obamacare. This plan would likely mean that more people would lose insurance, or be forced to go to smaller networks of doctors. Those are the same criticisms levied against the Affordable Care Act.

What the plan does emphasize is the degree to which any plan to reform the insurance system can seem like a zero-sum game – the money has to come from somewhere. 

Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, Dumb Ron Johnson put "health of state" over "well-being of people." It's that simple, and wrong.

If you’re like me, the purely ideological obsession to “balance the budget” and cut government down to size, no matter what, never sounded right.

What makes cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and other safety net programs created to solve societal problems suddenly okay, when the problems still persist?  

It just didn't seem right.

The following may be that ah-ha moment for you. It was for me.  

The American Spectator ran an article called “Wisconsin Thrives Under Scott Walker“ … the state is boasting a $911 million surplus, credited to “good stewardship of the taxpayers’ money.” I find these articles revealing because they show how the Tea Party mindset has affected the definition of success in Republican circles generally. Why has Scott Walker been a success in their view?

Because Wisconsin’s state government is financially healthy.

The actual people of Wisconsin take a back seat to that. A friend of mine in Indiana summed up the mindset when she noted that many people today equate the financial health of government with the well-being of the people in the state. This I think is the Tea Party mindset writ large.

As I’ve noted before, under Tea Party influence, Republicans have come to see government as purely a fiscal machine in which nearly the entirety of good policy consists in reducing the amount of money flowing through it. This is rooted in a single factor determinism view of economics. The fiscal health of government is no doubt important. But to determine if Wisconsin is actually “thriving” you need to look at statistics that actually affect people. So let’s do that. Scott Walker took office in January 2011. So above is the percentage change in jobs in Midwest states between December 2010 and December 2013 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
I actually support many of Scott Walker’s reforms. What I object to is declaring victory when the budget is balanced. Big deal. You’re supposed to balance the budget. That’s just doing your job.