Would you like to hear from President Obama?

Do you remember this Barack Obama in Madison, thanking the people for their votes, thanking them for standing with him, for supporting him... And in 2007, do you remember when Barack Obama promised this? Do you think he should go to Wisconsin? What about Illinois? Should he go and talk to the 14 state senators, give them some encouraging words? How about some encouragement to the protestors? This story is exploding all across the country, your country Mr. President. These are your people Mr. President, please say more than those few words you said last week. We want to hear more from you, please....

Who will speak for the little guy?

Thank You Huffington Posts' Sally Kohn for this.....
What's happening in Wisconsin isn't about budget deficits or government spending or even public employee benefits. It's class war, wherein the big business, conservative Right tries to pit working class Americans against one another so that the super-rich can continue to pilfer our private and public coffers for their own boundless gain. Here are the facts you need to know -- and spread:
1. 60% of Wisconsin's largest corporations pay ZERO taxes
According to the Institute for Wisconsin's Future, in 2007 60% of corporations in Wisconsin with over $100 million in annual revenues paid zero taxes. None. Zip. Zilch.

2. Raising corporate taxes in Wisconsin to the national average would generate $1 BILLION in revenue
By comparison, Gov. Walker's union busting bill will "save" a measly $350 million (that is, if you consider lowering the income and security of a core group of tax-paying workers "saving" money...).

3. Cutting taxes on corporations and the rich created state budget crises.
States do not have a spending problem. They have a revenue problem. The recession caused all tax receipts to be lower, but government revenue was artificially suppressed long-before by tax cuts for the big business and the rich pushed through at both the federal and state levels. But with Wall Street tycoons still raking in big bonuses while the rest of us stagger and suffer, anger against big business might reach a boiling point... unless private sector workers can be pitted against public sector workers in a "blame government" charade to diffuse anger from the rightful target.

4. Gov. Walker and the attack on unions are paid for by anti-government Koch brothers
David and Charles Koch, scions of the second largest private corporation in the United States, know how to get a good deal for their dollar. Do you really think the brothers who fund the anti-government, pro-big business Tea Party really give a damn about Wisconsin's deficit? They are using Wisconsin in their larger play to destroy all unions, further strip all workers of benefits and decent wages, and increase power and profit for a very few, very large corporations like their own. The Koch brothers are among Gov. Walker's top political contributors.


It's so plain to see, so easy to understand!! Why are the rightie, teabagger, conservative, democrat haters, so blind??
This morning I listened to my Gov. Chris Christie on Morning Joe talk about unions in NJ. He ALMOST had me believing his bull but I had a second cup of coffee and came to my senses. This effort to abolish unions and silence the middleclass worker is un-American.  Who will protect the factory worker, the teachers, the janitors, the police and firefighter who puts his life on the line every day? The big corporations who republican governors can thank for their elections surely don't want unions in this country backing democrats, so this is how they begin the process of killing the democratic party, kill off the organizations who put dems in office.
Now let me say this, I do believe union workers should contribute to their healthcare costs, they should contribute more to their pensions, but they should not have their voices silenced.

Did I ever tell you my husbands story? He worked for a small town company that grew to be a world wide manufacturer of flooring, Mannington. He was a welder/millwright and worked for this company just like his grandfather before him. He was there for 15 years. This company claimed to care about their workers but was not gonna let any union come in and poison the minds of their workers. One night myhusband was called to work at 2 am. He went in, performed his job and even stayed all night and his shift the next day. After not receiving the over time pay he deserved he started asking questions. When he was repeatedly told he would not get that pay he did not back down and was subsequently fired for insubordination. When he went to his friend the boss, the plant founders son, he begged for his job back but was given no mercy. You talk about humiliation, it's hard for me to even write about it... Anyway myhusbamd was accused of trying to form a union or something to that effect, and it wasn't true but when he told his story to the Labor Relations board they immediately took the case. He won I guess you could say, but it was a tiny settlement,  he should have taken the bastards to court! So, if the plant had a union representing the workers rights, he would still be there today and retiring in a few yrs. This is just one of the reasons we have unions, without them the MIDDLE CLASS HARD WORKER gets shit on by the big guy every fuckin time!

Thanks for listening...

What does Hitler have in common with this union busting in Wisconsin and the spread across our great nation?

 As you can easily see by my postings lately, I am totally obsessed by this union busting story coming out of Wisconsin.... so today I found on FB a new one for ya. I saw Leslie had joined into the conversation on this article from the awesome informative site   News Junkie Post.  Tons of great info on the protests. And the truth, so go read!


On May 2nd, 1933, the day after Labor day, Nazi groups occupied union halls and labor leaders were arrested.  Trade Unions were outlawed by Adolf Hitler, while collective bargaining and the right to strike was abolished.  This was the beginning of a consolidation of power by the fascist regime which systematically wiped out all opposition groups, starting with unions, liberals, socialists, and communists using Himmler’s state police.
Fast forward to America today, particularly Wisconsin.  Governor Walker and the Republican/Tea Party members of the state legislature are attempting to pass a bill that would not only severely punish public unions (with exception for the police, fire, and state trooper unions that supported his campaign), but it would effectively end 50 years to the right of these workers to collectively bargain.

Collective bargaining is a process of voluntary negotiations between employers and trade unions aimed at reaching agreements which regulate working conditions. Collective agreements usually set out wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs. -wiki

First of all, assaulting the rights of workers to collectively bargain has absolutely nothing to do with any immediate budgetary issues.  It does however have everything to do with ending one of the basic rights of labor to organize. Please read the rest....

Now tell me folks, what has President Obama done in the past 2 years that looks anything like a dictatorship? Those who have turned their backs on Obama and criticize his every move better wake up to what the Rightwing wants to do to America. If you think I'm off base talking about Hitler and the Republicans in the same sentence then you better get yourselves educated on unions and Wisconsin.


I GOOGLED fascist republicans and found this...Hub pages

Are Republicans Fascist?

Roger Griffin, arguably the most prominent fascist historian, has a solution which succeeds where everyone else has failed, defining the concept of a fascist minimum of "paligenetic ultra-nationalist populism". Paligenetic means rebirth: Griffin is talking about a far-right party which exudes iconography suggesting the nation arise like a phoenix from the ashes.
Although the definition is not widely known outside of the historical community, it is the only definition which can sum up fascism in less than a couple of paragraphs, much less three words, and has gained widespread acceptance amongst scholars.
I thought for some time that this would eliminate the possibility of the Republican party being fascist. Its visual iconography is not remotely paligenetic. Mostly, you think of Republicans, and you think of old rich guys in suits. Throughout its history it has been a party of the centre right, not remotely fascist in nature.
But, this ignores the significant and growing influence on the party of influential groups such as evangelical churches, the Tea Party. The individual, like George Bush, who describes himself as born-again, is literally expressing his belief in paligenesis. Not of nationhood, though the nationalism of the Republican party is not in doubt, but of his soul. This suggests the possibility of a peculiarly American form of fascism, and one potentially more virulent than the ones we know of from the thirties and forties, as it has a spiritual, cult-like component. Only the followers of Codreanu in Romania, whose beliefs made Hitler seem mild-mannered, developed a form of fascism that perverse.
Additionally, the neo-con influence on the party provides additional defining characteristics of fascism. It has turned a moderate, isolationist patriotic party into an aggressive interventionist ultra-nationalist one, ready to invade other nations on purely territorial grounds.
When assessing the influence of these outside groupings, you have to consider how fascism would most likely emerge in America, if in fact, emerge it did. It wouldn't be possible for a radical third party to emerge and win office, the constitution has many specific provisions which make that almost impossible. In the most probable scenario, radical groupings would infect the body of a major political party, probably (though not necessarily) the Republicans, establish an elite with major influence over the president out of all proportion with their popularity. This is what has happened.
When it comes to historical parallels,it becomes much simpler to make comparisons. It is not difficult to see the similarities between the Reichstag fire that brought Hitler to power in Germany, through the subsequent Enabling Act, and 9/11 and the Patriot Act. Both were convenient if probably genuine acts of terrorism by menacing powers which led to authoritarian pieces of legislation superficially designed to eliminate an external threat which reduced civil freedoms at home. In fact, the Nazi's had much more justification-revolution had already occurred in Russia, and the Red Army stood ready to attack at any moment. The threat posed by Bin Laden is inconsequential by comparison.
It is not difficult to see comparisons between the rise to power of the modern Republican party and the Nazis, both in quasi-legal coup d'etats where a minority of the electorate returned each respective organization.
It is not difficult to see how the skillful use of propaganda has been used to pacify each people with selective truth-telling, paranoid nightmare, and appeals to shallow jingoism.
It is not difficult to see the comparisons between the Keynesian militarism of German Nazism and the big state spending of the Republicans on the US military machine.
Nor is it difficult to see how a succession of atrocities were hidden, uncovered and then papered over with a shallow veneer of justification, then subsequently ignored by an indifferent people. Fortunately, the scale of atrocities committed by the US and the Nazi's are not of the same order. But it was not till long after WWII that the horrors of the gas chambers were widely known. It is a good idea to be vigilant against the possibility.
On the most simple level, the Republicans are now seen by almost everyone outside the organization as the party of torture, the party of offensive military action, the party that opposes civil rights, even the party of concentration camps. These are not American values. These are not the practices of civilized, democratic peoples anywhere in the world. They are things we associate with authoritarianism, and, by implication, fascism.

Oh you can bet this is a battle we MUST win!

With each passing day it becomes clearer and clearer. As the protest grows larger by the day, as Gov. Walker turns his back on negotiations because the concessions don't go "all the way" for him and his cronies, it's all coming together, the light is shining on the conservative Koch brothers takeover of America and the quashing of the middle class. How ironic, Beck and his fuckin' chalkboard, his Nazi symbols, his communist rhetoric, It's HIM, it's HIS PARTY that is trying to bring down America, NOT the Liberals you stupid conservatives! You blind followers of assholes like Beck, like the teabagging governors you elected because you thought they cared about America! What a fuckin' joke you are, you are being had, it's all right before your eyes but you are too blind to see it!

This Alternet article by Robert Reich says it all in plain English....
The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class - pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don't believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.

This is a three part strategy by the rethuglicans. It's starting in Wisconsin and will be country wide before you can blink....

 Part one..The Battle over the Federal Budget,
The President has already fallen into the trap by calling for budget cuts in programs the poor and working class depend on - assistance with home heating, community services, college loans, and the like.

Part two..The Assault on Public Employees,  
Wisconsin's Republican governor Scott Walker and his GOP legislature are seeking to end almost all union rights for teachers. Ohio's Republican governor John Kasich is pushing a similar plan in Ohio through a Republican-dominated legislature. New Jersey's Republican governor Chris Christie is attempting the same, telling a conservative conference Wednesday, "I'm attacking the leadership of the union because they're greedy, and they're selfish and they're self-interested."

Part three...The Distortion of the Constitution, 
The third part of the Republican strategy is being played out in the Supreme Court. It has politicized the Court more than at any time in recent memory.

This assault doesn't have to happen. It's not written in stone. Will patriotic Americans cower to the evilness coming from the conservative right or will we fight? The good people of Wisconsin are fighting and that should give us hope.  You better get prepared  to take a stand when it comes to your state, if you have a Rethuglican governor like I do you can bet it's coming! Look what the country did in '08, we have the numbers, we can win this battle!  Please read the article by Reich...

This is far from over....

Beck has been saying a revolution is coming to America and blames liberals. Well Beck, what inside info do you have cuz it looks like your dream may come true! You don't have to live in Wisconsin to be angered by the goings on of their teabagger Governor Walker. Thanks to Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz the story behind the protesting is coming to light. This is serious people, pay attention because your state could be next..

Alternet...
The fact is, Walker is carrying out the wishes of his corporate master, David Koch, who calls the tune these days for Wisconsin Republicans. Walker is just one among many Wisconsin Republicans supported by Koch Industries -- run by David Koch and his brother, Charles -- and Americans For Prosperity, the astroturf group founded and funded by David Koch. The Koch brothers are hell-bent on destroying the labor movement once and for all.

All you rethuglicans in the country who believe the will of the people put teabaggers in all those governorships last year, think again. The protesting that will come out of those states where their GOP leaders are trying to destroy the unions because they believe it will bring down the Democratic Party are in for a rude awakening. If Glenn beck thinks liberals will take to the streets you ain't seen nothin' yet! No evil Koch is gonna turn our country over to the rightwing extremists!

Get ready Wisconsin here come the crazies!!

Tea partiers are arranging for buses to the state Capitol, with the help of a local talk radio host. They're promising a massive counter-demonstration to all those angry teachers. And this effort is being spearheaded by the conservative group American Majority, which has been

training activists to become candidates at the state level.

American Majority has set up an "I Stand With Scott Walker Rally" Facebook page to spread the word, and by 1 o'clock Friday, 1100 people had replied and said they were planning to descend on Madison. And if they and others do flock to the state capital, Madison could well become a media circus. Conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart will be headlining the tea party rally, along with Gateway Pundit blogger Jim Hoft, who recently scoffed at the Egyptian pro-democracy uprising. (Hoft also blamed CBS News reporter Lara Logan's "liberal belief system" for her sexual assault in Egypt.) Recently added: potential GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain. And there may also be a cameo appearance by Joe "The Plumber" Wurtzelbacher, who tweeted Friday morning that he was headed to Madison to "do some interviews."

STAND STRONG LIBERALS!!!

Wisconsin protests!

Republicans hate poor and needy people, unemployed people, those who collect some sort of government assistance, BUT they also hate hard working people, union people. Those that make a good living wage so they don't need government help. They go to work every day, they are teachers, cops, firefighters, nurses, cafeteria workers, etc, etc,  Where is the reasoning in this wingnuttery?

Thank God the good people of Wisconsin are protesting, they are uniting in protest of their governor, Rightwing pigmonger Scott Walker. This piece of crap governor is cooking the books so he can claim a budget crisis.  This guy is a fraud and a liar!

 Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit -- it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January. If the Legislature were simply to rescind Walker’s new spending schemes -- or delay their implementation until they are offset by fresh revenues -- the “crisis” would not exist.
The Fiscal Bureau memo -- which readers can access at http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/2011_01_31Vos&Darling.pdf -- makes it clear that Walker did not inherit a budget that required a repair bill.


In a Wednesday op-ed, the Capitol Times of Madison picked up on this theme.

In its Jan. 31 memo to legislators on the condition of the state's budget, the Fiscal Bureau determined that the state will end the year with a balance of $121.4 million. To the extent that there is an imbalance -- Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit -- it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January.

This just posted on TPMDC...

The weather in Wisconsin is cold this time of year -- but the budget fight is only getting hotter. Following a walkout by the state Senate Democrats, depriving Republicans of the three-fifths majority needed to pass the budget and its controversial anti-public union provisions, the NBC affiliate in Madison now reports that sources say the Dems have left the state entirely. (Democrats with backbone!!)
This comes after the state Senate majority leader said that the State Patrol could be called in to round up the Dems. However, leaving for another state would presumably place the legislators beyond the state's jurisdiction. (Fun fact: The state Senate leader and the Assembly Speaker are brothers -- and the new head of the State Patrol is their father.)

 Democratic Minority Leader Mark Miller released a statement on behalf of all Democrats urging Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans to listen to opponents of the measure and seek a compromise. His statement did not address where Democrats were or when they planned to return.
Bill opponents in the Senate gallery cheered when Senate President Mike Ellis announced that there were not enough senators present to proceed.

This is an on going event, minute by minute... events courtesy of TPM, Yahoo news,

My cousin Jeanette wrote this for me, she lives in Wisconsin......


I was in Madison on Tuesday and the similarity with what was happening there, and what I had just witnessed on TV in Egypt was striking.  Thirteen thousand people marched on the Capital, filling the Capitol Building and chanting "Kill This Bill" and spilling out into the square.  Teachers and Public Employees are under attack with a bill that Governor Walker has proposed which would dismantle their collective bargaining rights.   The so called Repair Bill is being driven through (and will probably be voted on today) under the guise that it will help the state budget's bottom line.  But this is not about the budget! This is about  union busting!  You can almost see Scott Walker smacking his lips! Nothing would make him happier than to see Wisconsin, a leader in Progressive politics for the last century, become a Right to Work State.  By pitting worker against worker, he and the Republicans are trying to make villains out of public employees because they have a union which has survived during  this recession, while one by one, unions in the private sector have fallen by the wayside.  Workers have suffered in the last 30 years while companies have moved, first to the South where unions were weak or nonexistent and then out of the country.
This is class warfare!  An injury to one is an injury to all!

I'll be back with updates!

Justin Bieber calls America evil because of our screwed up healthcare system...

Canadians love Americas' politics, they find us amusing and our political figures far more interesting than their own. So I wonder, do they understand what our wingnuts want to do to this country?  Do Canadians watch in horror as the wingnut party tries to destroy America, their beloved neighbor?  To our Canadian friends our politicians seem amusing, and even downright crazy, but the rightwingers are absolutely serious in their desire to destroy us all.

Here is the difference in the parties, and remember some say the two parties are one in the same, this is not true....
  While most of the world has been focusing their attention on the Middle East, we here in America are fighting over the budget. The House will be voting this week on a Republican bill, called a “continuing resolution” or CR, to cut $100 billion from President Barack Obama’s funding request for programs for the remaining seven months of this fiscal year. Don’t confuse the battle over the CR with that other battle which the House is going to be waging in the coming weeks over Obama’s spending request for fiscal year 2012, which begins on Oct. 1.

In this battle there's been over 400 amendments offered in the House, if the Rethuglican amendments are enacted this is what they would do...

– Eliminate the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Special Envoy for Climate Change, the Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, the NOAA Climate Service, the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E, National Science Foundation K-12 funding
– Block US funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Global Environment Facility
– Suspend enforcement of fisheries laws and construction and conservation acquisition programs of the National Parks and Department of the Interior
– Block rules for toxic cement plant pollution, hazardous coal ash, industrial boiler pollution, water quality, climate change pollution, climate change adaptation, energy-efficient lighting, mountaintop removal, atrazine, and water conservation..

  The existing language in the budget bill is already designed to deny global warming, slash and burn public health and green jobs, but the amendments would take even more radical steps to reward polluters who are killing our children’s future.
Most of the Republican amendments are budget neutral, not lowering the deficit one cent. Several defund effective jobs programs that cost only a few million dollars. The goal of these amendments is not fiscal responsibility or jobs creation, but polluter protection, even though the pollution is poisoning babies and causing the elderly to suffer.
Since taking the House there has not been a single bill for job creation by the Rethuglicans, did we really think they would concentrate their efforts on jobs? Hell NO, Boehner said if his partys' spending cuts lead to job losses then so be it.... What amazing arrogance!   Scott Lilly of the Center for American Progress calculated that the cuts - a net of $59 billion in the last half of fiscal 2011 - would lead to the loss of 650,000 government jobs, and the indirect loss of 325,000 more jobs as fewer government workers travel and buy things. That's nearly 1 million jobs - possibly enough to tip the economy back into recession. This is music to the GOPPERS ears! They want the unemployment numbers to stay high because they believe it will help them win the election in 2012. But they have not come forth with a candidate who could actually beat Pres. Obama, what a joke. For the good of the country GOP, put the people FIRST for once in your party's lifetime!

 NOW, the Democrats, I should say the progressive fighting Democrats in our party, have proposed amendments to eliminate billions of dollars that go to Big Oil subsidies.  Congressman Ed Markey put forth an amendment that would close a loophole that allows oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without paying ANY ROYALTIES! This bill will end the tax breaks, close the loophole and save the taxpayers 51 billion! The rethugs hate this bill, but Markey promises there will be a vote. He told Chris Matthews tonight..."I’m telling you what, we will have the vote sometime in the next 24 hours, and then I will have the list of names and you will know who believes the oil industry, while they’re reporting record profits still believe that they need American taxpayers money as they’re cutting the programs for the poorest people in our society. Free lunches for the oil industry they say? okay. Free lunch for grandma. uh-uh. that’s an extravagance the federal government cannot afford. We’re going to have a vote on that in the next 24 hours."

      Democrats have amendments which will reduce the deficit, restore LIHEAP (low income home energy assistance program) and NIH (national institutes of health)funding, amendments to defend America from global warming pollution, and for research and development into green energy programs.

      President Obama wants to invest in high speed rail and energy efficiency, he wants to put more money into education and infrastructure, but NO, that is spending and it really doesn't matter what type of spending, the GOP wants NO spending...well except for tax cuts and wars....

The debate is moving toward a standoff. Republicans are hell bent on passing legislation by the end of this week, 61 billion in cuts, that's their magic number. The White House says President Obama would veto such a bill.
"I think it is important to make sure that we don't try to make a series of symbolic cuts this year that could endanger the recovery," Obama told a news conference.
"We've got to be careful ... Let's use a scalpel; let's not use a machete," he said.

From what I've seen from President Obama he is standing strong against the GOP. I believe he will veto their ridiculous do nothing cuts. Give credit where credit is due. President Obama is not stupid, he knows what America needs to survive. He has a plan for America in the next 6 years and it's not what the wingnuts are saying...

Read more on the cuts proposed by the GOP from Congressman John Conyers