Madison protests

[Derron]

Suck it bitches.

Bode common sense and bode the taxpayer.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110225/ap_ ... get_unions





Can you bargain that stick going up your ass now ?

[Derron]

Are public sector negotiators better than private sector negotiators? What could possibly explain this disparity in pay, aside from the fact that parties at one side of the negotiating table are being paid by parties on the other side of the negotiating table, and the money on the table does not belong to either party?

This is written in the language of truth. Do not expect the libtards to grasp this concept. Expect multiple deflective blasts to move away from the truth and logic here.

[Goober McTuber]

Suck it bitches.

Bode common sense and bode the taxpayer.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110225/ap_ ... get_unions

It still has to pass the senate, idiot.

Can you bargain that stick going up your ass now ?

Can you post with both thumbs up your ass now?

[BSmack]

Only a dolt would look at these facts and conclude that he DESTROYED Wags' take because not ALL politicians are friendly to unions.

Wags was implying that unions benefit because politicians favor unions. Spin as you might, you can't escape the fundamental truth that by no means do all politicians favor unions. Even in Wisconsin, the wage and benefit concessions that you folks have made such a kerfuffle over were actually negotiated by the DEMOCRATIC administration that preceded Walker.

[Derron]

It still has to pass the senate, idiot.

Formality. Just one step closer to restoring common sense, fairness to the tax payers, and eliminating the union and liberal stranglehold on a very hurt economy.

One step closer to government employees being made more equal to the private sector. That is what you government honks have pussy bleeding about all these years right ? Being equal ?

[Goober McTuber]

It still has to pass the senate, idiot.

Formality. Just one step closer to restoring common sense, fairness to the tax payers, and eliminating the union and liberal stranglehold on a very hurt economy.

One step closer to government employees being made more equal to the private sector. That is what you government honks have pussy bleeding about all these years right ? Being equal ?

I'm not a government honk. I favored the financial aspects of the contracts, but not the union busting tactics. There's a lot of crap in that bill to oppose though. Like the governor being able to sell state power plants to anyone he chooses with no bidding process.

[LTS TRN 2]

But for some reason the Limpdick parrots here are in total denial about how this assault on unions is actually designed and funded...

WASHINGTON — 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.

Oh, so that's why Walker takes his calls and immediately starts gushing about his slimeball tactics, etc.. Gee, who knew?


Wake the fuck up!

[Dinsdale]

So, LTS...

if the Koch Bros (who I also have disdain for) were to speak out and create a foundation to say...

prevent cruelty to animals, you'd then be in favor of cruelty to animals?

Maybe, just maybe, if you wish reallyreally hard, you'll wake up one morning to finally discover that the Logic Fairy didn't pass by your house, and actually left something under your pillow for the first time.

And it's nothing short of gut-busting HILARIOUS that your passion for opposing everything Koch gets you to side with Soros and Strong -- who wield a great deal more influence from robbing-from-the-poor-to-feed-the-rich than the Koch Bros could ever dream of.

[Derron]

So, LTS...



Maybe, just maybe, if you wish reallyreally hard, you'll wake up one morning to finally discover that the Logic Fairy didn't pass by your house, and actually left something under your pillow for the first time.

Hopefully it will be a loaded pistol with the hammer pulled back and a list of instructions on how to "safe" the pistol in 1 inch block letters.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

...the union and liberal stranglehold on a very hurt economy.

I laughed.

[War Wagon]

So, LTS...

if the Koch Bros (who I also have disdain for) were to speak out and create a foundation to say...

Devil worship.

Afterall, they are the debil personified.

Or so I gather reading LSD takes.

[Dinsdale]

One thing I have learned from reading about this topic and the subsequent discussions...

Godwin's Law is indeed a "law," and not a theory or hypothesis.*


* -- And no, it's not a "law" by Feelix's definition, that no longer applies if it contradicts whatever crap you're spewing at the moment, but an actual law.

[LTS TRN 2]

So, LTS...

if the Koch Bros (who I also have disdain for) were to speak out and create a foundation to say...

prevent cruelty to animals, you'd then be in favor of cruelty to animals?

Maybe, just maybe, if you wish reallyreally hard, you'll wake up one morning to finally discover that the Logic Fairy didn't pass by your house, and actually left something under your pillow for the first time.

And it's nothing short of gut-busting HILARIOUS that your passion for opposing everything Koch gets you to side with Soros and Strong -- who wield a great deal more influence from robbing-from-the-poor-to-feed-the-rich than the Koch Bros could ever dream of.

Your entire repertoire of inverted and asinine twisted logic is on display in this typical stupid post.

If the Koch brothers were not total rapacious slimeballs? If they were committed to a socially responsible and conscientious agenda instead of plutocratic hording of wealth?

What the fuck is wrong with you?

How about if Hitler was a good man who merely painted pictures and preached peace?

Are you completely drunk?

As for your Glenn Beck hysterical auto-rant about George Soros, well neither you nor the medicated Mormon moron has produced a shred of evidence that anyone not in the Tea Bagger spelling contest would deign to acknowledge. Gee, you're really on a roll there. :wink:

Meanwhile, your bizarre and ludicrous attempt at equivocation allows you what..?...to completely ignore the plain evidence that indeed the Koch brothers are bankrolling not only Walker, but his union-busting efforts--as well as the Climate Change denial machine. Yeah, you just have another shot of courage and ignore it. Man you are one fucked up puppy.

[LTS TRN 2]

Now, SS, has all that goose-stepping around your backyard got you in such a tizzy that like Carrie you've melted your keyboard? Cuz that ain't a human language you've squirted out there.

C'mon, step up, shooter, and tell us why you dutifully parrot the Koch brothers'? Tell us why you think Reagan was a great president. Let's hear your palsied parsing of the neo-liberal mea culpa for the catastrophe of deregulating the banking industry. C'mon, you bloodless drone, defend your tedious barricaded front.

[Dinsdale]

I'll never cease to get a chuckle out of the Commies and their insistance that if they keep chanting "banking deregulation" loud enough and often enough it will magically become true.

Because in the warped mind of a Commie, the federal government telling banks who they have to loan money to somehow qualifies as "deregulation."

Then again, I should give them the benefit of the doubt, because I suppose it's possible that there's a colloquial definition of "deregulation" that means "putting a gun to someone's head and forcing them to do something."

[LTS TRN 2]

Sorry, Dins, but the canard that the government forced bad loans is just more Glenn Beck and Rusp Limpdick twisted bullshit--delivered exactly as you suggest: constantly repeated until idiots like you start blindly chanting it.

Look, start with the dismantling of the Glass-Steagall act.

Shortly after George W. Bush was elected president, Congress and President Clinton were trying to pass a $384 billion omnibus spending bill, and while the debates swirled around the passage of this bill, Senator Phil Gramm clandestinely slipped a 262-page amendment into the omnibus appropriations bill titled: Commodity Futures Modernization Act. It is likely that few senators read this bill, if any. The essence of the act was the deregulation of derivatives trading (financial instruments whose value changes in response to the changes in underlying variables; the main use of derivatives is to reduce risk for one party). The legislation contained a provision -- lobbied for by Enron, a major campaign contributor to Gramm -- that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight. [/b]Basically, it gave way to the Enron debacle and ushered in the new era of unregulated securities. Interestingly enough, Gramm's wife, Wendy, had been part of the Enron board, and her salary and stock income brought in between $900,000 and $1.8 million to the Gramm household, prior to the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.

In 2003, Gramm left the Senate to join UBS, which had acquired investment house PaineWebber due to his deregulation bill. At UBS, Gramm lobbied Congress, the Fed and the Treasury Department. During Gramm's tenor at UBS and as a lobbyist, Congress passed the Responsible Lending Act, billed as an anti-predatory-lending measure, but was called the "Loan Shark Protection Act" by consumer advocates, as it was designed to preempt stronger state laws against anti-predatory lending. The Fed largely ignored the underlying and growing problems within the subprime mortgage/housing markets, as Bernanke famously acknowledged the housing market in April, 2007 as, "[showing] signs of softening," but said that a "sharp slowdown," is unlikely. Then, according to Mother Jones magazine, Henry Paulson became the Treasury Secretary in July, 2007, when, "In 2005, [at] Goldman [he] securitized $68 billion in residential mortgages and $23 billion in 'other assets' primarily related to CDOs," (Mother Jones, August, 2008). With such self-interest, and a lack of the nation's interest, we can see how this subprime mess was allowed to escalate to such great proportions.


Now this is just a peek at the machinations which led directly to the present still-unfolding catastrophe in the world economy. There's lots more clear and undisputed evidence. Desperately ignored, but not in any way disputed, much less refuted. Meanwhile your typical sputterings of "commie" are pathetically hollow and not even worthy of comment.


And SS, what is your cheap attempt at...whatever?..supposed to mean? Are you bunkered into the either/or fallacy--that is, if "democrats" voted for some totally fucked up neo-liberal bill then it's okay? Then the GOP neo-liberal ideologues are off the hook for their catastrophic agenda being made law? That's how your warped logic operates? Have another drink, you dumb drunk.

[Goober McTuber]

So the GOP talking point for extremist governors everywhere: "Look, at least I'm not AP that guy in Wisconsin."

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/m ... 002e0.html

[indyfrisco]

So the GOP talking point for extremist governors everywhere: "Look, at least I'm not AP that guy in Wisconsin."

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/m ... 002e0.html

And the very next sentence gets a "vapid" drop.

I'm bemused by vapid newspaper editorials endorsing a compromise proposal that would temporarily curtail employee bargaining rights.

What a hack.

[Goober McTuber]

So the GOP talking point for extremist governors everywhere: "Look, at least I'm not AP that guy in Wisconsin."

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/m ... 002e0.html

And the very next sentence gets a "vapid" drop.

I'm bemused by vapid newspaper editorials endorsing a compromise proposal that would temporarily curtail employee bargaining rights.

What a hack.

It's actually a fine word. It's just been beaten into the dirt by our own little hack.

[Goober McTuber]

Excellent local analysis on the Walker situation:

http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/art ... icle=32445

[LTS TRN 2]

Indeed, especially this observation..

The only sticking point is that this is still a democracy, meaning Walker and the GOP cannot implement their agenda and get away with it without a modicum of public support. And there's just one way they can get it: by focusing resentment on public employees, to encourage other workers to see them as conniving, capricious and in need of a sharp yank of the chain. That's exactly what Walker has set out to do, and it's why his war will devastate Wisconsin.

Now of course Koch brothers stooges like SS seem to think this a good and necessary direction of the demented GOP agenda.

[War Wagon]

Indeed, especially this observation..

The only sticking point is that this is still a democracy, meaning Walker and the GOP cannot implement their agenda and get away with it without a modicum of public support.

You mean, like the modicum of public support that got Walker and the GOP state senate majority elected in the first place?

That kind of democracy? Or the kind of democracy espoused by the lunatic fringe on the Daily Kos?

[Bizzarofelice]

the lunatic fringe on the Daily Kos?

What do you know about the Daily Kos? Let me answer that for you... nothing. The only info you have is from conservative media throwing tantrums about it.

Grow up.

[mvscal]

the lunatic fringe on the Daily Kos?

What do you know about the Daily Kos? Let me answer that for you... nothing. The only info you have is from conservative media throwing tantrums about it.

Grow up.

What do YOU know about them? Pull your head out of your ass, idiot.

[War Wagon]

What do you know about the Daily Kos? Let me answer that for you... nothing. The only info you have is from conservative media throwing tantrums about it.

Grow up.

Grow up?

I'd like to consider myself a grown-up, certainly not having anything figured out just yet, but as grown up as a man can be after paying bills for quite a few years with nary a handout or a tantrum.

What does being grown up mean from your enlightened perspective?

[poptart]

What does being grown up mean from your enlightened perspective?

It means mom and dad introduce him as, "Our boy Bace" instead of "Our boy Bacey."

[War Wagon]

Elections have consequences.

Worth repeating in case anyone missed it.

Voters (those people who actually decide elections) made their wishes clear last November.

Every 12 years or so they get tired of Republican bullshit and vote in some Democrats. Call it the mercy vote. After 2-4 years of Dem mismanagement, they remember why they voted them out half a generation ago and do so again... and they're pretty pissed off when casting those ballots because they are the ones actually paying the bills.

Lazy fucks don't vote.*

LTS doesn't vote. Bace doesn't vote. Screwey doesn't vote. Bitches are content to let others make decisions for them and then whine about the meager payback while they sit on their ass applying for foodstamps.

It took a perfect storm to get Obama elected and that's unlikely to happen twice.

*BSmack probably votes, and that scares me.

[BSmack]

*BSmack probably votes, and that scares me.

Damn straight I do. Somebody has to cancel out one of you dittotards.

[Screw_Michigan]

Screwey doesn't vote.

Speak for yourself. Bitch.

[Dr_Phibes]

They never had them prior to the 1950's. There is no historical event in our country's history when government artificially suppressed wages and working conditions of government employees. Public employee unions spend enormous sums to get members of one party elected to office, and then want to sit down at the bargaining table with the very people they got elected to office to bargain for money belonging to neither party. No one sees a conflict here? And every study shows that public employees are receiving benefits that are inordinately higher than their private sector counterparts, who are paying the bills. Why isn't this being discussed?

It was mentioned several times in this thread by Bace and Mac22, wages are traded for benefits. It's also part of every discussion I've heard on the subject, you just ignore points you don't like.

Not sure why you're romanticising the pre 50's, it was shit. Public labour made gains in the 1950's because the conditions were ripe and it led to the golden age of capitalism in the west, more for everybody.
Government never challenged public unions before because they didn't have to, now it seems they do. There's a politician trying to tear unions apart at the moment, I don't understand how you think public unions shouldn't be wary of politicians and feel a need to show solidarity, labour has a long memory.

Nobody wins in this situation. Wipe out collective bargaining, taxes won't be lowered - they'll keep going up, the models for this are endless. It's another blow to economy of scale when everything in the US is already ridiculously localised.
Finance capital took all the money and fucked off for greener pastures, just less people making less money getting lower quality education, lets make a bad situation worse. Hooray.

[Diego in Seattle]

Every 12 years or so they get tired of Republican bullshit and vote in some Democrats. Call it the mercy vote. After 2-4 years of Dem mismanagement, they remember why they voted them out half a generation ago and do so again

You can take it to the bank that Walker won't be serving a second term....hell, he'll be lucky if he isn't recalled.

It's funny that many of the tea baggers who cheered on Natalie Munroe after her blog became public, yet now say that teachers need to earn their pay.

[Dr_Phibes]

Phibes - Your take makes no sense, amigo.

Don't get me wrong, you're fucked - there's no way out of the situation, I understand that. I just think it's interesting the different ideas and routes people are willing to take to try and solve the situation.

Public and private education benefits are in no way comparable, public pension funds deal in scale and it's invested, passing the growth off as 'taxpayer money' is cute. It grows in the market and government borrows against it, labour made a deal with the devil, your public/private rant is apples and oranges. It's the same everywhere.

Government prints money to de-value the dollar and encourage manufacturing, but seeing as the American middle class want ten times the wage of a worker in Singapore and they don't produce ten times the work - you're fucked. I don't believe in Keynes, he had brilliant ideas, they just aren't relevant now.
A race to the bottom in terms of educators sounds interesting, if you think your countrymen are brainless now, just wait till Herb the janitor takes over the classroom. He works cheap, right?
Good luck with this 'global competition' thing.

[LTS TRN 2]

Look, if the prank call didnt alert you to the fact that Walker is a total fucking loon, you need to wipe your windshield. He's walking the plank as we speak.

Do you think the Koch brothers malignancy of unfettered "libertarianism" is somehow going to fly? Do you really believe people are going to continue in this bizarre and disastrous political ponzi scam?

WAKEY WAKE

[Tom In VA]

continue in this bizarre and disastrous political ponzi scam?

WAKEY WAKE

Social security ? I think that's the outrage. The country is purportedly being bankrupted, by Dem and Repub alike all on the payroll of the same old money hoarders. Getting new blood, constructionists, people who read, understand and seek to govern and be governed in accordance with the Constitution - as opposed to using the Constitution to wrestle more power away from "The People" - is what we hope will be done.

Money = power.

The less money the government takes - the more money The People have, the more Power the people have.


I don't care what idealogy you espouse, can we agree on that point ?

The less money the government takes - the more money The People have, the more Power the people have.

[LTS TRN 2]

So...who maintains the highways?...and who funds public education?...should it be the cheapest possible?...India doesn't think so, and they're walking away from us--and your inane childish gibberish....

The "government" IS US you stuttering dolt. Of course we want efficiency and the removal of pernicious corporate influence, but the POWER of pooling our simple tax dollars is immeasurably more potent than any selfish hording--as you suggest.

You have no actual philosophy here, only simplistic regurgitated jargon--from the fucking Koch brothers... :twisted:


Let's see..you've defaulted on our predatory loan--which I sold and shorted so I could make a few more billion on which I refuse on principle to pay any tax, and now get the fuck out and fuck you because all I care about is a few more billion--tax free....fuck you!

[Goober McTuber]

Notice in the entire article linked by Goobs and drooled on by LTS TRN 2, there is no single mention of the merits of the debate. Why do public employees need collective bargaining rights?

There's nothing wrong with having that debate. It just shouldn't have been jammed into the budget bill.

And Whitey, Walker won on one issue. High speed rail.

[Tom In VA]

f course we want efficiency and the removal of pernicious corporate influence, but the POWER of pooling our simple tax dollars is immeasurably more potent than any selfish hording--as you suggest.

Cool, so we agree. And I didn't mention hoarding. People should be able to invest in whatever they choose, savings, bonds, etc..

I don't agree with you but laud your effort to raise awareness to at least ONE side of the problem.

[Dinsdale]

Public and private education benefits are in no way comparable, public pension funds deal in scale and it's invested, passing the growth off as 'taxpayer money' is cute. It grows in the market and government borrows against it

False, at least here in Oregon.

First, public teachers (and every other public non-medical profession) make significantly more on the paycheck. And they get at least triple the benefits.

And as far as "invested" -- yes, it's invested... but in Oregon, PERS-suckers are guaranteed a high rate of return. And if market conditions aren't conducive to that high rate of return, who do you think foots the bill?


Our system here is going to go billions in the hole just in the next year.

Good luck with this 'global competition' thing.

We never had a chance from the get-go.

So, we passed laws encouraging outsourcing of jobs, and gave huge finacial rewards for doing so, and then had the brilliance to impose onerous "repatriation taxes" on any company that wishes to actually return any overseas profits to America.

This is the most backasswards financial policy that I've ever heard. It's led to the impending financial ruin of the USA. I fully blame the Democratic Party for this, but don't get me wrong -- I didn't hear the GOP screaming from the mountaintops about it, but rather they just hedged their bets and let their Chosen Few languish in the ill-gotten gains.


Until we get some politicians with some gonads to actually address the core issues, and repeal these stupid trade agreements, we're fucked.


Limited "free-trade" with canatucky and South Canada aren't such horrible plans, but FUCK China and India, et al.

[Derron]

It's funny that many of the tea baggers who cheered on Natalie Munroe after her blog became public, yet now say that teachers need to earn their pay.

Kind of like Bill Gates does..you know the guy who heads one of the largest education foundations in the US and a guy who apparently knows how to pay high quality people well to turn out a superior product ?? You know Micorsoft ??

Must make Gates Teabagger then..maybe applying his type of rationale might result in something positive in education ?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02876.html

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/colleg ... acher.html

[LTS TRN 2]

The notion of tying a teacher's pay to the success of his or her classroom's performance is unfortunately dead on arrival. Why? Because no matter how well a teacher prepares--or watches video to get better --the actual performance is up to the students, period. And as we all know, the average student these days is "dumbed down" by a variety of factors coming in--bad health, bad diet, much higher rates of ADD, etc, and infinitely more trivial distractions from Facebook, etc. In short, Gates' simplistic but earnest idea is very similar to Michele Rhee's completely failed (anti-union) policies in Washington D.C.'s school system.

The fact is we as a nation have plenty of money for public education and similar public institutions which are proudly union organized. The real--and obvious--problem is that we're pouring our national wealth into the heinous and utterly unwinnable permanent wars, as well as the advance of the rapacious Koch brothers agenda of eliminating corporate taxes.

Blaming union workers is cowardly and fake.