More Ramifications from the Michigan Financial Martial Law Bill:Look at what's happening in the Detroit School System

A question here ----where is the opposition from the CBC Members from Michigan? Why aren't they on tv talking about this?

................................

Rachel Maddow has done a yoeman's job in trying to be the town crier on the violence against communities that is resulting from the Financial Martial Law Passed in Michigan.

Here is a piece on a school in Detroit, a school that sends its graduates - teenaged mothers - onto college.

Rachel said this towards the end of the story : "What is new here is that this state has decided that local elections, locally elected officials are a problem that has to be done away with, that democracy is in the way of fixing problems in the United States now, of making things more efficient, particularly in poor places. Not that democracy is the way we fix problems but that democracy is the problem and it therefore needs to be sidestepped for efficiency sake, for our own good. Governor knows best.

"The point here, what makes Benton Harbor a national story and Katherine Ferguson Academy a national story is that the whole idea of choice for them anymore is purely hypothetical. The state has chosen for them. And that they've got is, frankly, that aforementioned dictator. Their hope -- their one hope -- is the dictator is benevolent.

"Is that how we think problems should get solved in America now?"

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Here's more background on this story:



from Daily Kos:

EFM Takeover Of Detroit Schools: Teen Mothers Arrested, Children taken Into Temporary Custody

Approximately a dozen teachers, teen mothers and their children were arrested and taken away by Detroit police while staging a peaceful sit-in protest at the Catherine Ferguson Academy in Detroit on Friday April 15th. Eight students, along with their children and some faculty members of the Catherine Ferguson Academy of Detroit, MI began the sit-in at the end of the school day in protest to Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb’s announcement to close the school for pregnant and parenting teens. The decision to occupy was made after many other attempts by students, staff and supporters to have their voices heard by EFM Robert Bobb through letter writing and petition campaigns, to no avail.

The protestors were told by police that they were trespassing and the building needed to be closed. The peaceful occupiers refused to leave and many were brought out in handcuffs. It has been reported by local news that “Some struggled, some screamed, all were put in squad cars and hauled away", while many more protestors and supporters outside watched in shock. The students themselves say they did not resist arrest. One told local reporters, "We just stood there and they just arrested us one by one ."
One supporter recorded this video of a protestor who describes being “manhandled” by police after choosing to sit down and not leave the building:

The protesters were planning to occupy the school building for an unspecified amount of time and had arranged food and water and plenty of support from outside protestors to accommodate a possible extended sit-in. The protestors released a list of demands prior to the occupation:

No School Closings
Keep All Detroit Schools Public – No More Charters or Privatization
Reinstate all programs and services that have been eliminated, including art & music as well as counselors & social workers
Student Control of Curriculum and School Character to assure that every Detroit school provides equal, quality education for all
No discipline or retaliation against any of the participants in the occupation
source

On the heels of the shocking announcement last month by Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) Robert Bobb to close up to eight schools and sell up to 45 schools to charter companies, he slated the highly successful and unique Catherine Ferguson Academy for closure. The school, which has been featured in the film Grown In Detroit documenting the school’s urban farm and in O: The Oprah Winfrey Magazine, boasts a 90% graduation rate and 100% college and higher education acceptance upon graduation. The award winning school is specifically for pregnant and parenting teens and their children, offering a wide range of classes and child care. It is the only school of its kind in the nation.
.......................


Lastly, EFM Robert Bobb also plans to close the Detroit Day School for the Deaf.

More Information about this Robert Bobb:

Detroit EFM, Robert Bobb, Salary Paid in Part by Billionaire Conservative Foundation


So who is Robert Bobb?

It turns out, he’s a recent graduate of the Broad Foundation’s Superintendent Academy. The Broad Foundation, along with the Kellogg Foundation, pays Bobb $145,000 a year on top of his $280,000 government salary. For those of you not familiar with Broad, it is one of the leading foundations promoting school choice and privatization across the country. One might almost think that paying a public official hundreds of thousands of dollars a year might amount to nothing short of bribery, especially given the very specific agenda of a foundation like the Broad Foundation.

Now, Bobb is proposing to create charter schools for 16,000 students from 41 schools slated for closure. He argues that this will save millions of dollars. I have to wonder, however, at the conflict of interest.

And the money quote:

This is nothing short of a coordinated effort between the billionaire foundations pushing school reform and Tea Party conservatives intent on slashing benefits and ending collective bargaining rights. Public schools are under assault by the forces of privatization, and public school teachers face benefit and salary cuts while the very rich are promised tax cuts.

If you thought MEDICAID would be spared by the GOP, you were DELUSIONAL. Their plans to destroy it

I already posted about the GOP Scam to DESTROY MEDICARE...

you didn't think Medicaid would be left untouched, did you?

Silly people.

Medicaid gets a bad rap, gutless politicians have let the right wing tar it as a program that only helps the undeserving poor Black and Brown children, and you know the Brown children are illegal...and cause they're poor, they're leeches, who shouldn't get any medical care, because after all, that's what emergency rooms are for.

Here's a graph of the actual breakdown in Medicaid Recipients and Medicaid funding:



Look....while the children are the highest % of enrollees, look at the % of DOLLARS that they take get from Medicaid. Children are behind the Disabled AND Elderly in how many dollars they get.

I've been talking about the little acknowledged secret about Medicaid for awhile now..

PERCENTAGE WISE- IN TERMS OF DOLLARS, LOOK AT IT...

MIDDLE CLASS FOLKS PUTTING MOM AND DAD IN NURSING HOMES.

The elderly get 2 and a half TIMES the money compared to their percentage of enrollees.

I can’t wait for all those Middle-Class White folks, especially those that voted GOP - from around the country to realize that the GOP is cutting off the money for Mom and Dad’s Nursing Home.

I say Middle-Class White folks, not to say that Middle-Class folks who aren’t White don’t use Medicaid for Mom and Dad’s Nursing Home, it’s just that the likelihood of them having the schizophrenia of voting for the people who would throw Mom and Dad out onto the street is just smaller….because they don’t live in the land of delusion where they believe that the GOP is NOT talking about them when they discuss ’ cuts’......and a whole lot of White Middle-Class and Working Class do.

Here's how the scam is going to go down:



Medicaid in the Crosshairs

.....

In the meantime, though, I hope that anybody writing on these proposals mentions, prominently, that rolling back the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion would entail taking health insurance away from about 15 million people. That's the official, Congressional Budget Office projection of how many people will get coverage under Medicaid once the Act is fully in place.

As for turning Medicaid into a block grant, here's a quick refresher on what that involves. Right now, Medicaid is an entitlement program. That means the federal government, in partnership with the states, must enroll everybody who meets the program's guidelines. In other words, if millions of additional people become eligible because, say, they lost their job-based insurance in the recession, than the feds and the states have to provide them with coverage and find some way to pay for it. And it can't be spotty coverage, either. By law, Medicaid coverage must be comprehensive.

At least, that's the way it works now. If the law changes and Medicaid becomes a block grant, then every year the federal government would simply give the states a lump sum, set by a fixed formula, and let the states make the most of it. Conservatives claim block grants would give states the flexibility they need to make their programs more efficient. But, as Harold Pollack has noted in these pages, states already have some flexibility. And because demand for Medicaid tends to peak during economic downturns, when state tax revenues fall, the likely impact of a block grant scheme would be to make Medicaid even less affordable at the time it is most necessary.

That's not to say plenty of governors wouldn't take advantage of block grant status to change their Medicaid programs in ways they cannot now. They surely would--by capping enrollment, thinning benefits, increasing co-payments, and so on.

In the past, states have cut Medicaid (or stretched it, depending on your perspective) by reducing what it pays doctors, hospitals, and other providers. But the payments are so ridiculously low now that many providers have simply stopped seeing Medicaid patients. It's hard to imagine states could find more savings by reducing payments even further, although I'm sure a few would try, making it even more difficult for beneficiaries to get timely care.

Do you really want these folks to be at the mercy of a Governor like Jan Brewer in Arizona, who gave tax breaks to corporations, all the while creating her own death panel on transplant candidates.

From Ezra Klein:

In Medicaid’s case, the reform is block-granting. Right now, the federal government shares Medicaid costs with the states. That means their payments increase or decrease with Medicaid’s actual rate of spending. Under a block grant system, that’d stop. They’d simply give states a lump sum at the beginning of the year and that’d have to suffice. And if a recession hits and more people need Medicaid or a nasty flu descends and lots of disabled beneficiaries end up in the hospital with pneumonia? Too bad.

That's right...too fucking bad, because it's Darwin-Lord-of-the-Flies mentality for these people.

And, there might be Medicaid fraud, but nobody will convince me it's a large portion of what's spent on Medicaid. The problems with Medicaid are laid out by Ezra Klein:

But the part that worries me the most is his effort to slash Medicaid, with no real theory as to how to make up the cuts.

A full two-thirds of Medicaid’s spending goes to seniors and people with disabilities — even though seniors and the disabled are only a quarter of Medicaid’s members. Sharply cutting Medicaid means sharply cutting their benefits, as that’s where the bulk of Medicaid’s money goes. This is not just about the free health care given to some hypothetical class of undeserving and unemployed Medicaid queens.

Let's repeat this, shall we?

A full two-thirds of Medicaid’s spending goes to seniors and people with disabilities — even though seniors and the disabled are only a quarter of Medicaid’s members. Sharply cutting Medicaid means sharply cutting their benefits, as that’s where the bulk of Medicaid’s money goes. This is not just about the free health care given to some hypothetical class of undeserving and unemployed Medicaid queens.

So, if you know a Senior, or a family with a member that's disabled, more than likely, you know someone who uses Medicaid. It's NOT Rosa with her 3 'Anchor Babies', or Lashawnda with 5 kids, who is eating up that Medicaid money. It's Grandma or Grandpa in the nursing home, or that family in church who has the disabled family member. My aunt's best friend that she met 55 years on the train to Tuskegee took care of her older disabled sister from the time her mother died in 1970 until last year. Her sister had the mental capacity of a child, but never had to go into a home. She was able to stay, first with her parents, then with her sister, until she died last year at the age of 88. Medicaid helped them with all the services her sister received.


How The GOP Plan To Kill Medicare And Medicaid Would Work:

Eliminating Medicaid

The reviews are even worse for Ryan's plan to turn Medicaid into a block grant program. Ryan would eliminate the federal parameters governing the program and instead have Washington send states lump sums of money to put towards health care for the poor. In some states, that will mean patients -- the poor, disabled and elderly -- will suffer dramatic benefit cuts, particularly during tough economic times.

Seventeen Democratic governors have signed a letter to congressional leaders strongly opposing the block grant idea. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) wrote a separate letter attacking the plan as well.

"It's a hidden way to cut Medicaid," Gruber said. "I don't see the argument for it at all."

AARP seems if anything more concerned about the Medicaid proposal than the Medicare plan.

"A wholesale overhaul of Medicaid to block grants would likely lead to reduced benefits and eligibility, resulting in powerful negative repercussions for the millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid for their health and long term care," Nora Super, AARP's director of federal government relations for health, tells TPM.

Medicaid is often conceived of as a less luxurious version of Medicare for the poor, but many elderly Americans benefit from both. The GOP has been at war with AARP over its support of the health care law.

...........................

Klein continues:


But perhaps cutting it wouldn’t be so bad if there were a lot of waste in Medicaid. But there isn’t. Medicaid is cheap. Arguably too cheap. Its reimbursements are so low many doctors won’t accept Medicaid patients. Its costs grew less quickly than those of private insurance over the past decade, and at this point, a Medicaid plan is about 20 percent cheaper than an equivalent private-insurance plan. As it happens, I don’t think Medicaid is a great program, and I’d be perfectly happy to see it moved onto the exchanges once health-care reform is up and running. But the reason that’s unlikely to happen isn’t ideology. It’s money. Giving Medicaid members private insurance would cost many billions of dollars.

That’s why it’s well understood that converting Medicaid into block grants means cutting people off from using it, or limiting what they can use it for

So, Medicaid is CHEAP. There's not much, if ANYTHING to CUT. The block grant thing is nothing but a SHAM.

So, here's the thing. Talk to everyone you know. Someone has someone elderly or disabled, or gasp, a low-income child that they know. Fighting this, and informing folks of the scam they want to do is an act of civic responsibility.

You know, I know THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE, but sometimes, their obviousness borders on the obscene

from The Miami Herald:

Legislators: They. Are. For. Sale.
By HOWARD TROXLER
htroxler@sptimes.com

There is no state, no nation, no planet and no universe where it should be legal to pay off a Legislature directly.
There is no government in which a sworn lawmaker should be able to take unlimited payoffs from those seeking favorable treatment.

And yet this is now precisely the law of Florida.

In an earlier column I called the Florida Legislature “the Whore of Babylon” for passing a law last week that legalizes its own bribery.

But the topic cries out not to be forgotten — because this is a turning point in the state of Florida’s history.

It is now legal in Florida for the leaders of our House and Senate, of both the Republican and Democratic parties, to operate what are laughably called “leadership funds.”

If you are an interest group in Florida, a corporation, a lobbyist seeking favor, you go to these “leadership” funds run by lawmakers

And you pay them.

They will launder the money into local elections around the state, to keep electing more obedient followers.

This is so astonishing a corruption that it defies belief.

The bill in question is House Bill 1207, passed in the 2010 legislative session.

Then-Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed it. Last Thursday the Legislature overrode the veto.

The House vote was 81-39. The Senate vote was 30-9.

The twisted logic used in the Capitol, and what your legislator will try to tell you, is that it’s better for the Legislature to be paid off directly.

See, they will write it down in a separate little report. So this is all about “informing the public” and “transparency.”

If they try to give you this line, just ask this question:

“So, is it legal to make unlimited payoffs to ‘leadership funds’ that are operated directly by the leaders of the Legislature, or not?”

Yes.

People ask: What can I do?

You can call or you can e-mail. You can go to the House’s website, www.myfloridahouse.com, or the Senate’s, www.flsenate.gov, and find contact information for your legislator. (However, I beg you to be firm but civil, especially to the hard-working staff — the world is rude enough already, isn’t it?)

But they are counting on you not to do anything at all.

Instead, here is what they are counting on you to do:

Reelect them.

Howard Troxler is a columnist for the St. Petersburg Times.

You know, this doesn't surprise me. Nothing they do surprises me anymore, but still, we must put it forth, because there are some out there with the utter delusion that the GOP is about anything other than being BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY BIG BUSINESS. Yes, there are those delusional out there, and they are realizing it - the HARD WAY. You elect a STRAIGHT UP CROOK for Governor - what did you expect. This proposal was so repulsive that even the oil slick known as Charlie Crist had to veto it. I want to feel bad for you in Florida, I really do. But, sometimes, you get what you elect, and so, ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. Now that your state is up LITERALLY to the highest bidder....see what happens to you NOW.

In 'THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE' News - Buried Provision In House GOP Bill Would Cut Off Food Stamps To Entire Families If One Member Strikes

from ThinkProgress:

Buried Provision In House GOP Bill Would Cut Off Food Stamps To Entire Families If One Member Strikes

All around the country, right-wing legislators are asking middle class Americans to pay for budget deficits caused mainly by a recession caused by Wall Street; they are attacking workers’ collective bargaining rights, which has provoked a huge Main Street Movement to fight back.

Now, a group of House Republicans is launching a new stealth attack against union workers. GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (OH), Tim Scott (SC), Scott Garrett (NJ), Dan Burton (IN), and Louie Gohmert (TX) have introduced H.R. 1135, which states that it is designed to “provide information on total spending on means-tested welfare programs, to provide additional work requirements, and to provide an overall spending limit on means-tested welfare programs.”

Much of the bill is based upon verifying that those who receive food stamps benefits are meeting the federal requirements for doing so. However, one section buried deep within the bill adds a startling new requirement. The bill, if passed, would actually cut off all food stamp benefits to any family where one adult member is engaging in a strike against an employer:
..............

The bill also includes a provision that would exempt households from losing eligibility, “if the household was eligible immediately prior to such strike, however, such family unit shall not receive an increased allotment as the result of a decrease in the income of the striking member or members of the household.”

Yet removing entire families from eligibility while a single adult family member is striking would have a chilling effect on workers who are considering going on strike for better wages, benefits, or working conditions — something that is especially alarming in light of the fact that unions are one of the fundamental building blocks of the middle class that allow people to earn wages that keep them off food stamps.

This is who they are. Time and time again, they are showing you who they are. They have absolutely nothing but contempt for the working man and woman that doesn't want to spend their lives as serfs to companies, and want to fight for a decent wage. This isn't a shock...because this is just another example of how these lowlifes operate.

Some More Updates on the Lying Wisconsin Governor

1. He got punked yesterday.





If you want to read a detailed transcript of the call is right here.

2. He admits what the end goal is, and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with 'FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY'




From Salon.com:

Ian Murphy, editor of the Buffalo Beast, just did something wonderful. Murphy, pretending to be billionaire industrialist and secretive conservative political activist David Koch, called Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, currently in the midst of attempting to crush the public employees' unions. "Koch" got through to Walker (who hasn't been taking calls from the Democratic state Senate minority leader). He taped the call and put it online.

So Walker will happily take a call from a Koch brother. He says that he considered "planting some troublemakers" among the protesters. He is convinced that everyone is on his side. Like most people who only watch Fox, he has a skewed impression of the popularity of his union-crushing proposals. (His plan is, nationally, roundly unpopular. Except on Fox.)

When "Koch" calls Mika Brzezinski "a real piece of ass," Walker does not respond by saying something awful, which is a bit of a disappointment.

Walker does reveal that he is planning to trick the Democrats into coming back into town for a "talk," despite his lack of interest in compromising anything. He will ask them to open a session in the Assembly, and then take a recess for this talk. At that point, the Senate Republicans would hold the vote on the bill while Walker distracts the Democrats with this entirely pointless discussion:

They can recess it ... the reason for that, we're verifying it this afternoon, legally, we believe, once they've gone into session, they don't physically have to be there. If they're actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they’d have quorum because it's turned out that way. So we're double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that's the only reason why. We'd only do it if they came back to the capitol with all 14 of them. My sense is, hell. I'll talk. If they want to yell at me for an hour, I'm used to that. I can deal with that. But I'm not negotiating.

So, get that through your mind. I mean, we had already guessed that the threatening to fire the workers in order to force the Democrats back was a bunch of bullshyt, but now we have confirmation from his own mouth.

The benefit from the Democrats' stance is that all the hidden crap that Walker tried to sneak through in the bill is being brought to light...like him being a tool for the Koch Brothers, his attempted takeover of Medicaid, the no-bid contracts, etc. Before, nobody was paying any attention to the depth of the bill that he tried to ram through.

From the Reid Report:The National Journal this morning uncovers another possible wrinkle in the Scott Walker union busting saga: whether his plan for balancing his state’s budget is actually a multiple bait and switch.

From the National Journal:

while Walker argues that his budget-repair legislation must be passed soon to avoid job cuts, the most controversial parts of his bill would have no immediate effect.

The state’s entire budget shortfall for this year — the reason that Walker has said he must push through immediate cuts — would be covered by the governor’s relatively uncontroversial proposal to restructure the state’s debt.

By contrast, the proposals that have kicked up a firestorm, especially his call to curtail the collective-bargaining rights of the state’s public-employees, wouldn’t save any money this year.
“What we’re asking for is modest, at least to those of us outside of government,” Walker said in a televised address Tuesday night.

In January, the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau reported that the state would face a $137 million shortfall before the end of the fiscal year on June 30. The governor’s budget repair bill proposes a debt restructuring that would save the state $165 million in the near term, more than covering the shortfall.

The legislation would also borrow money from a federal welfare program to cover further state shortfalls, and it includes a provision that would allow the sale of the state’s public utilities without a bidding process or public oversight.

.......................

The bill also employs “emergency” powers that would allow the governor’s appointed health secretary to redefine the foundations of the state’s Medicaid program, Badgercare, ranging from eligibility to premiums, with only passive legislative review. The attorney in the legislature’s nonpartisan reference bureau who prepared the bill warned that a court could invalidate the statute for violating separation of powers doctrine.

The legislation, the lawyer wrote in a “drafter’s note” about the bill, would allow the state Department of Health Services to “change any Medical Assistance law, for any reason, at any time, and potentially without notice or public hearing… in addition to eliminating notice and publication requirements, [the changes] would leave the emergency rules in effect without any requirement to make permanent rules and without any time limit.”

Like I said, the longer this goes on...the more you see what Walker is REALLY about...and it's not about any 'Fiscal Responsibility'.

Rachel Maddow did excellent work on the bringing this roach's garbage to light.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Ed Schultz had an interview with one of the Wisconsin State Senators on the lam:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Let's get this clear about Wisconsin Governor Walker: 1. He's a liar 2. He's a paid stooge of the Koch Brothers, 3. He's a bully.

hat tip-3CHICSPOLITICO.COM and others

1. Governor Walker is a LIAR.

PERIOD.

Wisconsin's Pension Fund isn't in trouble.

In fact, Wisconsin's Pension Fund Among Nation's Healthiest

While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has painted a dire picture of his state's pension obligations, Wisconsin's pension fund for public employees is among the nation's strongest, according to a report by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

The Pew report, issued last year, concluded that Wisconsin is a "national leader in managing its long-term liabilities for both pension and retiree health care." Walker has cited the fund's lack of sustainability as grounds for his plan to revoke collective bargaining rights for state employees, but that proposal has sparked outrage among state employees and drawn tens of thousands of protesters to the state's capitol.

"We're going to ask our state and local workers ... to pay a little bit more, to sacrifice, to help to balance this budget," Walker said in a Sunday interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace, adding that he would be forced to lay off 5,000 to 6,000 state employees if his budget plan was not approved, as well as a comparable number of local public employees.

But the Wisconsin pension fund is simply not in fiscal trouble. Its managers weren't burned by subprime mortgage assets or mortgage-backed securities as the housing bubble collapsed. The fund also relies on an automated dividend system, which pays out benefits in years the system is making gains while restricting payouts in years when it takes losses. And while the pension fund had a rough year during 2008 due to stock market losses, it remains robust, both in terms of fundamental financial stability and in comparison to other state pension programs.

According to the Pew study, Wisconsin had about $77 billion in total pension liabilities in 2008. But according to that same Pew study, those liabilities were 99.67 percent "funded," giving Wisconsin one of the four-highest of such ratios in the nation. Other states had funding ratios as low as 54 percent. For comparison, expert analysts and the Government Accountability Office consider an 80 percent level to be a good benchmark for pension fund stability, while Fitch Ratings considers 70 percent adequate.

He lied about the budget. He inherited a BUDGET SURPLUS that turned into a budget deficit because of TAX BREAKS that he gave to his friends.

2. He's a paid stooge of the Koch Brothers.



From the NYTimes

Billionaire Brothers’ Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute
By ERIC LIPTON
Published: February 21, 2011

Among the thousands of demonstrators who jammed the Wisconsin State Capitol grounds this weekend was a well-financed advocate from Washington who was there to voice praise for cutting state spending by slashing union benefits and bargaining rights.
The visitor, Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, told a large group of counterprotesters who had gathered Saturday at one edge of what otherwise was a mostly union crowd that the cuts were not only necessary, but they also represented the start of a much-needed nationwide move to slash public-sector union benefits.

“We are going to bring fiscal sanity back to this great nation,” he said.

What Mr. Phillips did not mention was that his Virginia-based nonprofit group, whose budget surged to $40 million in 2010 from $7 million three years ago, was created and financed in part by the secretive billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch.

State records also show that Koch Industries, their energy and consumer products conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., was one of the biggest contributors to the election campaign of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican who has championed the proposed cuts.

Even before the new governor was sworn in last month, executives from the Koch-backed group had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown, Mr. Phillips said in an interview on Monday.

More from The Cap Times:


Koch brothers quietly open lobbying office in downtown Madison

The billionaire brothers whose political action committee gave Gov. Scott Walker $43,000 and helped fund a multi-million dollar attack ad campaign against his opponent during the 2010 gubernatorial election have quietly opened a lobbying office in Madison just off the Capitol Square.

Charles and David Koch, who co-own Koch Industries Inc. and whose combined worth is estimated at $43 billion, have been recently tied with Walker's push to eliminate collective bargaining rights for public workers. The two have long backed conservative causes and groups including Americans for Prosperity, which organized the Tea Party rally Saturday in support of Walker's plan to strip public workers of collective bargaining rights and recently launched the Stand with Scott Walker website.

.......................

The lobbyists for Koch Companies Public Sector registered with the state on January 5, two days after Walker's inauguration.

The expanded lobbying effort by the Koch brothers in Wisconsin raises red flags in particular because of a little discussed provision in Walker's repair bill that would allow Koch Industries and other private companies to purchase state-owned power plants in no-bid contracts.

"It's curious that the Kochs have apparently expanded their lobbying presence just as Walker was sworn into office and immediately before a budget was unveiled that would allow the executive branch unilateral power to sell off public utilities in this state in no-bid contracts," says Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy.

And what do they get in return for their ownership of Walker?

The Less Discussed Part of Walker’s Wisconsin Plan: No-Bid Energy Assets Firesales.

Have you heard about 16.896?

The fight in Wisconsin is over Governor Walker’s 144-page Budget Repair Bill. The parts everyone is focusing on have to do with the right to collectively bargain being stripped from public sector unions (except for the unions that supported Walker running for Governor). Focusing on this misses a large part of what the bill would do. Check out this language, from the same bill (my bold):

16.896 Sale or contractual operation of state−owned heating, cooling, and power plants. (1) Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state−owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).

The bill would allow for the selling of state-owned heating/cooling/power plants without bids and without concern for the legally-defined public interest. This excellent catch is from Ed at ginandtacos.com (who, speaking of Madison, took me to the Essen Haus on my 21st birthday, where the night began to go sideways). Ed correctly notes:

If this isn’t the best summary of the goals of modern conservatism, I don’t know what is. It’s like a highlight reel of all of the tomahawk dunks of neo-Gilded Age corporatism: privatization, no-bid contracts, deregulation, and naked cronyism. Extra bonus points for the explicit effort to legally redefine the term “public interest” as “whatever the energy industry lobbyists we appoint to these unelected bureaucratic positions say it is.”

In case it isn’t clear where the naked cronyism comes in, remember which large, politically active private interest loves buying up power plants and already has considerable interests in Wisconsin. Then consider their demonstrated eagerness to help Mr. Walker get elected and bus in carpetbaggers to have a sad little pro-Mubarak style “rally” in his honor. There are dots to be connected here, but doing so might not be in the public interest.

It’s important to think of this battle as a larger one over the role of the state. The attempt to break labor is part of the same continuous motion as saying that the crony, corporatist selling of state utilities to the Koch brothers and other energy interests is the new “public interest.”

That's right....NO BID CONTRACTS for utilities.

UH HUH

That's the free market working?

NO BID CONTRACTS?

3. He's a BULLY.

In the beginning, he threatened to sic the National Guard on the protestors.

Then, he threatened to sic the State Troopers on the AWOL Dem State Senators...like they could send Troopers into ANOTHER STATE to bring them back.

Make no mistake....the UNIONS had already given in financial concessions.

This isn't about FINANCIAL CONCESSIONS....he already has that.

This is about STRIPPING THE UNIONS OF THEIR RIGHT TO COLLECTIVE BARGAIN.

But, here's the latest from the bully:

From TPM.com

Scott Walker To Democrats: Come Home Or The Workers Get It

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) took to the state airwaves Tuesday evening to offer another defense of his controversial budget package, which includes a provision that would strip many state workers of their collective bargaining rights. Speaking to camera, Walker repeated his threat of layoffs to come, if 14 state Senate Democrats who skipped town to prevent a vote from taking place, don't return to Madison. Walker said the protesters still packed in and around the state Capitol in Madison don't represent the people of Wisconsin.

"As more and more protesters come in from Nevada, Chicago and elsewhere, I'm not going to allow their voices to overwhelm the voices of the millions of taxpayers all across this state who know we're doing the right thing," Walker said. "This is a decision that Wisconsin will make."

Walker warned of "dire consequences" if the AWOL Senate Democrats -- who left the state last week to prevent the Senate from getting the necessary quorum to vote on Walker's budget bill -- don't return to Madison immediately.

The people who will suffer if the Democrats stay away, Walker said, will be the very state workers they say they're trying to protect.

"Failure to act on this budget repair bill means at least 1,500 state workers will be laid off before the end of June," he said. "If there's no agreement by July 1, another 5-6,000 state workers as well as 5-6,000 local government employees would also be laid off."

Walker said that if the Democrats don't come home soon, the responsibility for those potentially 10,000 plus layoffs will fall squarely on their shoulders.

They're already going to get it. That's what this is all about. They know it. And, if the firefighters or policemen have any doubts, let me say this one more time:

Look at what they did to the 9/11 responders..

You don't think he'll do that to you?

Secret RNC Files Reveal Republican Strategy

Republicans were seriously busted this week. An RNC fundraising presentation reveals the core of their overall strategy. The files reveal what many of us have been saying for years regarding how the Republicans manipulate the public. It confirms how the Republicans use fear (this is why their propaganda is so ridiculously over the top)...and it is also why they target the ill informed. But the papers reveal something worse...that the leadership of the Republican Party has a certain contempt for their own base voters. Stunning (not in the sense that this is what really goes on...many of us already knew that. But stunning in the sense that it is now out there for all to see). Sadly though... stupid American voters will still support these people.

Hear Howard Deans take on this.

From TPM

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele appeared on Fox News this afternoon, and had to answer some tough questions about the recent internal fundraising presentation that included negative depictions of President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- and the RNC's own donors.

The fundraising presentation, which was originally reported by the Politico, included the infamous illustration of Obama as the Joker, and also compared Pelosi to Cruella de Vil. It also directed how to appeal to "ego-driven" large donors, and to appeal to small donors through "fear" and "extreme negative feelings" and "reactionary" attitudes against the Obama administration.

Watch as Steele fumbles in his attempts to explain... lol

Rep. Anthony Weiner - the GOP is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry

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