Outlier candidate Walker and mainstream candidate Sanders

Gov. Walker, photoCourtesy of USNews.com.

Photo of Sanders courtesy of fyar.com.

I had the disconcerting experience this afternoon of first reading yet another offensive quote by the not so mainstream Wisc. Gov. Scott Walker and then renewing my faith in humanity by reading  Juan Cole’s Informed Comment advising us on How Mainstream is Bernie Sanders. Turns out Walker is the outlier and Sanders is mainstream. And gosh, it would seem that the American people know the difference.

Back to Gov. Walker's quote: yes, Wisconsin's pride and joy outdid himself once again:

In an interview with conservative talk show host Dana Loesch, when asked about legislation he signed in Wisconsin in 2013 requiring women to submit to a mandatory ultrasound -- in some cases, meaning an invasive transvaginal ultrasound -- before getting an abortion, Walker said women should be forced to have ultrasounds because he thinks they are "just a cool thing."

After reading Walker's quote, I returned to Cole’s How Mainstream is Bernie Sanders with a huge sense of relief. Now you may have been under the impression, as the media would have it, that Sanders is kind of an odd ball, one of those kinky politicians who got elected by a weird twist of fate or whatever. Cole has news for you:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the presidential candidate for the Democratic nomination, has trouble being taken seriously by the corporate media, what with him being a democratic socialist and all.

If you go to Google News and put in his name, you get headlines about him being nothing more than a protest candidate, or having “odd views,” or promoting “dark age economics.”

But Sanders’s positions are quite mainstream from the point of view of the stances of the American public in general. Of course, the 1%, for whom and by whom most mainstream media report, are appalled and would like to depict him as an outlier.

Sanders is scathing on the increasing wealth gap, whereby the rich have scooped up most of the increase in our national wealth in the past twenty years. The average wage of the average worker in real terms is only a little better than in 1970; the poor are actually poorer; but the wealth of the top earners has increased several times over.

Some 63% of Americans agree that the current distribution of wealth is unfair. And in a Gallup poll done earlier this month, a majority, 52%, think that government taxation on the rich should be used to reduce the wealth gap. This percentage is historically high, having been only 45% in 1998. But there seems to be a shift going on, because Gallup got the 52% proportion in answer to the question on taxing the rich both in April and again in May of this year.

Bernie Sanders’ position is that of a majority of Americans in the most recent polling!

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Wisconsin anti-union law declared null and void

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker starred at the Republican convention  just days ago. Convention attendees celebrated the young governor’s apparently successful attacks on the rights of public service employees. 

Yesterday, a Wisconsin circuit court judge pulled the rug out from under Walker, and  it was time for the state’s educators, police, firefighters, et al to celebrate:

A Wisconsin judge on Friday struck down the state law championed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers.

Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas ruled Friday that the law violates the state and U.S. constitutions and is null and void.

The law took away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most workers and has been in effect for more than a year.

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A blue spot of consolation for Wisconsin Democrats

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Jason Stein reports:

Madison - A triumphant Gov. Scott Walker will meet with his cabinet Wednesday on jobs and start planning a Wisconsin-style bipartisan summit with lawmakers over brats and beer.

But for at least five months, it appears that he could have to accommodate a newly Democratic Senate. Republicans needed to win all four state Senate recall races Tuesday to hold onto that house but were declared winners in only three of those contests.

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Voter suppression reported in Wisconsin

 

I just received this message:

 

Urgent Action Needed: We've confirmed reports of voter suppression calls to recall petition signers. These calls tell signers that their "job is done" and that they don't need to vote on Tuesday.

This is a disgusting attack on our democracy and we need your help to fight back. Post this photo to your Facebook timeline and tell your friends that we need every eligible voter to cast a ballot for Tom Barrett -- including recall petition signers.

I have good friends in Wisconsin who worked hard to gather recall petitions and who will be working hard to get out the vote tomorrow. Do your part - Wisconsin needs you! 

The Nation endorses Tom Barrett for governor of Wisconsin

Tom Barrett

Got this note from Peter Rothberg at The Nation the other day regarding the upcoming Wisconsin recall election pitting Gov. Scott Walker against Milwaukee mayor Tom Barret:

Dear Nation reader,

      If Scott Walker and his allies are recalled from office in Wisconsin on June 5, the results will be seen across the country as a rejection of the idea that cutting taxes for the rich while attacking unions and slashing services will somehow spur job growth.

That's why The Nation is endorsing Tom Barrett for Governor of Wisconsin.

A candidate whom Russell Feingold hails as “a lifelong progressive [who] stood with me in voting against the deregulation that led to the Wall Street crash, opposing the Patriot Act and reforming our system of campaign finance,” Barrett is well-known for getting people to work together, keeping lines of communication open and uniting disparate interests.

Find out how to support and join Barrett's campaign today.

All best,
Peter Rothberg, The Nation

---

The people win in Wisconsin; Gov. Walker recall set

The photo of Professor Bowie was taken by a friend of hers.

Gov. Walker

 

Wow! Has it been a year since protests erupted in Madison in response to Gov. Scott Walker’s actions? In the foreground of the picture on the right, Katherine Bowie, Professor of Anthropology at UW-Madison, stares back at a couple of state troopers. She had just crawled through a window in the capitol building, shortly after the senate vote that stripped teachers and other state employees of their bargaining rights. Katherine’s rallying cry back then was, “On to the recall effort.”

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

Katherine must be celebrating this evening because the recall of Scott Walker was announced today with the primary scheduled for May 8 and the general election set for June 5. Almost immediately, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Walker’s Democratic opponent in 2010, entered the race.

Politico’s Mackenzie Weinger reports:

Barrett is aiming for a rematch of his 2010 battle with Walker, which the Republican won 52 percent to 47 percent.

“We need to bring our state back,” Barrett wrote in an email to supporters. “Wisconsin needs a governor who is focused on jobs, not ideology; a leader committed to bringing our state together and healing political wounds, not pitting people against each other and catering to the special interests. This is the governor I will be for the people of Wisconsin.”

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Dems oust two Republican state senators in Wisconsin recall election

Image courtesy of WKOW.com, Madison, WI

It wasn’t enough to take control of the state senate in Wisconsin, but Dems are celebrating two wins in the recall election, which makes it a 17-16 body with little wiggle room for Republicans in their union-busting efforts.

Here’s the wrap up of the recall election:

WASHINGTON -- Democrats won two Wisconsin state Senate seats in Tuesday's dramatic recall elections, but they fell short of the three needed to take the majority away from Republicans. 

Six incumbent GOP state senators were forced to defend their seats on Tuesday in historic recall elections. The efforts to change the makeup of the state Senate came after Republicans passed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) controversial measure stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights. 

Even though Democrats weren't able to take back one of the chambers of the legislature, they touted the fact that voters ousted two incumbent Republicans as a major victory.

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Michael Moore onstage in Madison: America is NOT broke! (Video)

If you’re feeling down and out about the state of the economy; union-busting amateur governors like Scott Walker; and uninformed talking heads spouting off about cutting “those entitlements,” watch the video of Michael Moore’s rallying speech to the protesters at the Wisconsin capitol in Madison on March 5.

It’s morning at the NY Times: the budget crisis “is all obfuscating nonsense”

Morning in NYC, photo public domain

A surprising editorial in the NY Times appears this morning titled “The Hollow Cry of Broke,” which suggests that John Boehner, Scott Walker, and company are exaggerating the nation’s so-called financial crisis in order “to break unions and kill programs they never liked in the first place.”

Keep in mind that in recent weeks, NY Times op-ed writers have railed time and again at those “entitlements” as the source of the nation’s scary budget deficit and more specifically, said pundits have blamed Social Security, a self-funding program, and Medicare for our current economic woes.

I’ve yet to see David Brooks or any of his colleagues at the Times mention that the government has violated federal law in raiding the Social Security Trust fund to pay for its two wars of choice and avoid taxing the wealthy or closing tax loopholes for major corporations. And they’ve certainly not mentioned that the nation’s seniors paid into the Social Security Trust Fund throughout their working lives with high payroll taxes.

So what’s with this Times editorial that begins:

“We’re broke! We’re broke!” Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday. “We’re broke in this state,” Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin said a few days ago. “New Jersey’s broke,” Gov. Chris Christie has said repeatedly. The United States faces a “looming bankruptcy,” Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

It’s all obfuscating nonsense, of course, a scare tactic employed for political ends. A country with a deficit is not necessarily any more “broke” than a family with a mortgage or a college loan. And states have to balance their budgets. Though it may disappoint many conservatives, there will be no federal or state bankruptcies. 

The federal deficit is too large for comfort, and most states are struggling to balance their books. Some of that is because of excessive spending, and much is because the recession has driven down tax revenues. But a substantial part was caused by deliberate decisions by state and federal lawmakers to drain government of resources by handing out huge tax cuts, mostly to the rich. As governments begin to stagger from the self-induced hemorrhaging, Republican politicians like Mr. Boehner and Mr. Walker cry poverty and use it as an excuse to break unions and kill programs they never liked in flush years.

Those programs "they never liked in flush years" included Social Security and Medicare. Anyway, it’s good to see the Times editorial board is waking up. I’m resisting the temptation to say, “Good morning, fellas.”

Read the rest of this on target editorial here.

 

Go Wisconsin Dems - recall those GOP senators!

Wisc. Gov. Scott Walker (R)

The Huffpost’s Sam Stein reports:

WASHINGTON -- The Wisconsin Democratic Party has launched a fundraising campaign to recall state Senate Republicans who have supported the budget bill by Gov. Scott Walker (R) that would strip collective bargaining rights from the state's public employee unions.

Stein’s report includes excerpts from the email the Dems sent out Wednesday afternoon.

In 60 days you can take Wisconsin back. It's that simple.
 
 

This morning citizens from around the state took the first steps by filing recall papers against key Republican Senators who have stood with Scott Walker and pushed his partisan power grab that will strip thousands of middle class teachers, nurses, librarians and other workers of their right to collective bargaining. And we learned just last night that their disastrous budget that will cut millions from our schools and universities.

In 60 days you can take Wisconsin back by recalling the Republican Senators who have decided to push Scott Walker's divisive attack on the rights of workers and his assault on schools, universities and local communities. Can you contribute $60 today to support the Democratic Party's recall efforts?

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