joeklein

The vast political fissure that threatens the very soul of the American Experiment, widened a bit with the reaffirmation of Scott Walker 's governorship through the unsuccessful recall. Now I personally believe that Tom Barrett is an honorable man but I think his soft demeanor and non-confrontational style were overwhelmed by the ideological enthusiasm of Walker's adherents.  I honestly think in terms of Neville Chamberlain at Munich with bratwurst and beer  served at the Governor's Mansion to the tune of " Peace in our time. " Then perhaps this argument is just an inevitable  ignoratio elenchi  via reductio ad hitlerum   ... Yes this is a mea culpa to Godwin's Law . The most disastrous of United States Supreme Court decisions are  arguable ,  Scott v. Sandford , Pleassy v. Phergusson , and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission . ...

First of all a number of founding documents of the European Union and the Canadian Constitution recognize both the right to establish unions and the right to collective bargaining. What other civilized nations think and do when they express moral values superior to our own, establishes the inferiority of our values. The United States' history regarding the civil rights of non-whites, underscores that just because we do not now see a right as a part of the law, does not make our action morally correct nor our morality superior. In terms of domestic law, Congress has sighed on to some of the international agreements regarding labor rights, and as such these have, all be it limited, legal standing. http://law.onecle.com/constitution/article-2/25-domestic-obligations-of-executive-agreements.html On 19 June 1934, the US Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing the President to join ILO. On 20 August 1934, the US government and took its seat at the ILO. A number of ratified tr...

Is what the right posits about low taxes just B.S.? Evidence this: In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

The suppression of rights is tyranny. The stability of democracy is in its capacity to give voice to aspirations of the people. If the voices are in conflict, then open debate and reasonable compromise is in order. Politics *is* the art of compromise. What is happening in Madison Wisconsin is symptomatic of tyrannical usurpation of power, not an effort to resolve the structural financial problems of a state. The structural financial problems can be resolved without specialized tax codes written by the business magnet contributors to the governor's campaign coffer. The structural financial problems can be resolved without usurping the rights of workers. The whole apparatus of the state government is being pivoted in support of a radical business magnet agenda, funneling power and money into the hands of a corporate oligarchy. The agenda cripples the power of people to build new businesses and ossified the existing corporate oligarchy. Our future is in public education and a...

Forward is the motto emblazoned on the Wisconsin flag. America and Wisconsin share the belief that *we* are a light to the world, the *we* hold the torch of liberty high, the *we* stride before the huddled masses, *forward* into a future that assures justice, *forward* into a world of limitless opportunity. It is the America that believes in that commitment to *forward* progress that I write this for. Eleanor Roosevelt, the widow of President Franklin D. Roosevelt was appointed as a delegate to the United Nations by President Harry S Truman. On December 10, 1948 she presented to the world, a gift of liberty drafted from the poetic heart of the America dedicated to *forward* progress; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In her address to the UN General Assembly introducing the declaration she said: "We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind. This declaration may well become the international Magna Cart...

Note from editor: Please revise the following political cartoon. Replace Rail-Road President with Koch Brothers. Put two "pet dogs" next to Rail-Road President/Koch Brothers. Label pet dogs "Cato Institute" and "Americans for Prosperity." Give the "Americans for Prosperity" pet a small monkey on a chain labeled "Tea Party." Raise the amounts to reflect real campaign contributions.

Wisconsin's suicidal drive to consolidate the rule of the corporate oligarchy has moved forward under the command and control the the  lumpenproletariat  leader, Governor and  Principate , Scott Walker. Any act which furthers the decline of workers rights, eliminates the cumbersome instruments of democracy, or moves our economy into dependency on monopolies, trusts, cartels, or oligopolies, is OK with Scott. Any ecological concern about the transformation of the global environment by carbon emissions, make no difference this rainy Wisconsin day in February. As any youthful Tea Party young pioneer knows, the scientists at the Cato Institute (funded through the magnificent benevolence of the Koch Brothers  and Exxon) have disproven the negative effects of  anthropomorphic induced climate change , discredited renewable energy, and shown the economic futility of any...

At one time the United States had two political parties, both with a left, a middle, and a right. Richard Nixon managed to lop off most of the right wing of the Democratic Party, the so called " dixiecrats ," and put them solidly in the Republican camp. The Republican liberals and moderates have been slowly boiling away from that party, since any moderate actions by a Republican now days gets him or her labeled as a RINO . The new symbol of the Republic Party should be The Reactionary Ostrich. The Republican solution to anthropogenic climate change , peak oil , and the contribution of tax cuts to the federal deficit is denial and sticking their collective heads in the sand. The GOP of late has become ideologically apposed to truth. What is currently more disturbing is the tendency of GOP candidates to shuffle further to the right and to put themselves at the podium in front of the Tea Party . The Tea Party is essentially a modernized retread of the John Birch Society ba...

The Wisconsin right-wing nuts are insistent on our state Mississippi-fying itself by lowering taxes. They like to spend money on prisons and highways, so the cuts to balance out their proposed corporate tax cuts must come out of education, public assistance, mass-transit and parks. I can be for lower taxes, but fix the budget hole made by truth in sentencing, and the urge, started by Thompson and sustained by the highway lobby, to build highways until you have eight lanes to Crivitz. We spend far to much of our state dollars on prisons and highways. The voters should ask, is the concept that "low taxes and low regulation are the key to more business," valid? What if the tax and regulation cutting saga is nothing but Baloney Stock? If our model is Texas and Mississippi, then they should be the states with the most per capita start ups! BUZZZ! Wrong answer! Crunch Trends came up with this map: Interesting article and hypothesis: http://trends.techcrunch.com/2009/09/11/state-sta...

The real issue in running for government is, do you have the guts to put yourself out for public ridicule? If you desire a change for the better, what better place to put ideas to the test, but in the public forum? So let's not ridicule, but respect people who seek public office, especially if their sole motivation is to further the public good. Attack policies, not people. ... and yes I should endeavor to do the same. I honestly believe that I would have done better things for our community than the current County Executive. That I am guilty of not being a professional politician, I confess, this is true. I would like to think that for the most part the good people at Urban Milwaukee, and those within the progressive, trade unionist, and urbanist circles of Milwaukee County would see me as a friend. Is it then a proper thing to call your friends 'silly' for desiring to do right? Doyle’s Decision Could Send Ripples Through Milwaukee’s Political Landscape

"With cars, you can go where you want to go when you want to go. But they also have the most environmental impacts, the most social impacts and the greatest cost to our system - to park it, to enforce it, to run it, to import the oil. All of these things have severe impacts that we really just can't sustain anymore. The other modes have their limitations, too. As a pedestrian, you can only go so far. As a bicyclist you can go a little bit further, as a transit rider you can go furthest, but you can't go where you want to go all the time. There's got to be a way to link all these modes. When you add in car-sharing, bike-sharing and taxis, all of a sudden you have this menu of options that you can use, just like you would a car, without all the impacts." -- Timothy Papandreou "In the early 1920s when every US city of more than 5,000 residents had at least one streetcar line, households spent an average of just 3 percent of household income on transportation. To...

The Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation are the sources and for many of the rail v. bus "studies" cited by Sykes, Belling and Walker. They have an agenda. Take a look at who is connected. The Kock Family lies at the center of the web. They use libertarian doublespeak to argue for disemboweling government regulation so that they can gain special financial advantage by keeping America addicted to oil and automobiles. The people most victimized by the intellectual dishonesty of these organizations are disenfranchised white middle class males who have been brainwashed into supporting political movements that give power and money to these big oil industrialists. David and Charles Koch own virtually all of Koch Industries, an oil, natural gas, and land management firm and the second largest privately owned company in America. based on an annual ranking of the world's wealthiest people compiled and published by Forbes magazine on March 11, 2009, David and Charles Koch ar...

Walker is blind to the future, perhaps that is why he stand in front of a 48 star flag on the Milwaukee County web site. Apparently he thinks he is living before August 21st, 1959 . The County Executive reveals his inability to be either pragmatic or capable of empirical thought through his transit policy. Perhaps this is the product of believing at face value reports produced by the big oil funded Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation . The public should be suspect of these "Libertarian" organizations funded by people seeking their own advantage regardless of the impact on the health and welfare of our society. After all, the Laissez-faire society these "think tanks" advocate is the perfect place for keeping the lower and middle classes under the thumb of big oil. Walker's ideological posturing has been an impediment to the progress of Milwaukee County. He is a roadblock to fixing the problems at Milwaukee County. This is why the Milwaukee County continues...

If it works in a car centric place like Charlotte, NC; it can work in Milwaukee. Reconnecting America's Jeff Wood presents a slide show about Charlotte's transit system Slideshow

One of the problems that contributed to the Great Depression was a breakdown in international trade. One boost to international trade, as shown in the Euro zone, is a shared currency and the elimination of exchange rates. One achievable possibility would be to synchronize monetary policy between the Euro, Canadian Dollar, US Dollar and the Yen. I.E. 1 Greenback = 1 Loony = 1 Euro = 100 Yen. This would increase trade between the participants and build a exchange rate free trade zone among relative equal nations. Recent world events have shown us that our economies are truly closely linked. The myth of separateness is refuted by the daily interactions between our stock markets, exchange rates, and banks.

Bruce Murphy throws rhetorical punches at Sykes in his recent posting on MilwaukeeMagazine.com . Sykes doesn’t directly address or deny that conservative talk radio hosts (1) perpetuate the notion that listeners are victims and the host is the vehicle by which they are empowered; (2) use an us-versus-them approach that regularly targets Democrats, “Republicans in Name Only” and the mainstream media; (3) refuse to do an even-handed discussion of issues; (4) belittle callers when the argument can’t be won on the merits; (5) strategically find occasions to disagree with the Republican leaders or conservative doctrine to give the impression of being an independent thinker; (6) won’t risk their credibility by backing a Republican candidate who has no chance of winning; (7) rely on the “you know what would happen if this was a liberal” line of attack; (8) use the “pre-emptive strike” to immediately accuse the media of overplaying a budding news story that might make conservatives look bad; (...

This You-Tube video was posted to The Overhead Wire .