eric135

Wisconsin Isn't Ohio

Well, it turns out it won't be as easy a task to push the recall of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, despite encouraging results in Ohio the other night.

• Wisconsin law does not permit a public referendum on the Collective Bargaining law. The only way to repeal the law is to recall Governor Walker.
• Unlike the Ohio law defeated Tuesday, Wisconsin's Senate Bill 5 specifically excludes firefighters and police.
• Wisconsin voters may not be as ready to recall a Governor as Ohio was to block a specific law or policy.
• Wisconsin voters may not be ready to recall a Republican and replace him with a Democrat.No Democrat is clearly interested in taking over the job of being Governor of Wisconsin.

From NPR

 

Listening to what people have to say... sounds like a good plan...

Yesterday was a good day for the little people.

Ohio voters rejected a law, proposed by Governor Kasich, that would have worked against collective bargaining via unions in the state. In his statement, Kasich admitted that he had to "spend more time listening to what the people have to say" about this issue. I thought he did a good job with the reality check. I don't know how the Republican Party ever got the idea that villainizing fire-fighters, teachers and nurses and protecting the rights of the richest rich would get the vote. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus downplayed the importance of the vote, stating that this was "just a local state matter" and that the real news was the defeat of Obamacare in Ohio. Yeah, his finger is right on the pulse of voting Americans. Interesting that the numbers of votes defeating this law is greater than the number of votes that put Kasich in office in the first place.

Speaking of Obamacare, although defeated in Ohio, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Obamacare is constitutional. Probably far more compelling than what happened in Ohio.

In Mississippi, voters rejected the law that defined personhood as beginning at conception. The law, if passed, would have had frightening implications for women who not only became pregnant as a result of rape or incest, but all women who rely on certain hormone-based birth control. As written, a woman could possibly be the subject of criminal investigation for having an ectopic pregnancy, or hell, for even having an unusually heavy menstrual flow. Those that wrote this law really needed to find a state where, say, there weren't any women at all. Certainly a state where the women don't have sex. I mean... so simple...

Yes, Arizona, there's hope for us too. We voted to recall Russell Pearce, the Arizona State Senator who authored the law that enabled police to ask for immigration papers for "anyone that looked in any way suspicious." 

The lesson here, one I hope that the Republican Party is busy learning today, is that you can't demonize and villainize 99% of the people, in blatant favor of the richest rich, and expect to do well at the polls. You can't make healthcare decisions for half of the voting population without any sympathy to the health impact a law would have on your own mothers, sisters, and daughters (much less your neighbors' mothers sisters and daughters) without suffering at the polls. And you can't turn your back on the fact that, just a few generations back, your family were immigrants (unless you're a Native American) and that all of us are standing on American soil cultivated, nurtured and indeed slaved over by the aching backs of immigrants.

 

What... On Earth... is going on with the Republican Party?

I'm a hopeless junky for political news. I watch mostly MSNBC and CNN, and also try to watch BBC and PBS Newshour. I've been appalled by the hot mess going on in the Republican party. It just seems they are doing enough damage to their own party, much less offering any real alternative to the Democratic Party. The debates have been ludicrious, even silly, and the sound bytes coming from the Romney, Cain and Perry campaigns are just plain weird ... singing, weird hugging of bottles of syrup, reversals of opinion... it's all very strange. 

To put my political views in some perspective, I haven't always voted Democrat. I voted for Reagan, daddy Bush, and even baby Bush (twice!). There have been times that I have agreed with their fiscal policies, their views on world politics, and their ability to keep the American Dream alive.

But what on Earth is going on with them now? It just seems, since the McCain/Palin campaign, the Republican Party's poor showing and their forced marriage to the Religious Right has forced the Republicans to make a lot of concessions.

It's like they haven't been able to get a date for the senior prom, and so they were forced to ask some weird chick, and when they picked her up to take her to the dance, her Dad opens the door holding a few snakes, drinking from a very large barrel of red Kool Aid, and speaking in Tongues. But you can't say, "whoa, dude, you are totally fucked up, no way am I going to have a thing to do with you or your religion or political views," because you know you're going to have to talk all nice to him so he'll let you sleep with his daughter.

Yeah, it's just like that.