I often wonder why her pieces are in the editorial section, instead of in the comics with all the other hackneyed shit that’s not funny.

With all the other states who are jumping on the union-busting bandwagon, it is becoming more obvious that Walker and all have been relying on outside input for intellectual and moral support as they have been planning these maneuvers for god knows how long.

That will be a good story for the progressives to break in order to counter the right’s talking point about out-of-state interference (which will probably be made in other states as well).

Maybe there is already a story out there on where these policy ideas are coming from? What kind of intellectual help was Walker getting even as he was strategizing during his campaign?

The fact is, Gov. Walker and the Republican State Senators ran for office on a platform of reforming public unions, and they won. They won because people are fed up with the unions colluding with public officials to extort money from taxpayers, and enough of the Democrat enablers got voted out.

And now the unions are protesting against the public and demanding the continuation of overly inflated compensation and benefits from a bankrupt state.

There are these absurdly distorted images of what unions are, what they’ve done, the depth of corruption within them, etc. that simply don’t line up with actual history.

Of course, Americans are incredibly bad at remembering and understanding history, even (or especially) their own.

At any rate, the statement I made that the poor rarely save or invest isn’t incorrect. Nor is it something I say out of animosity.

Seems like a great trick, but unfortunately basically nothing came of it then. No real dirt. No smoking gun.

- Koch gets to call governor: so what else is new, big-money backers get to call politicians all the time.

- Legislative tricks: so what else is new, that’s considered being smart when Democrats do it. If it’s playing by what’s in the rule book, it’s not particularly unethical. The Democrats are playing by the same rulebook when they’re out of state and preventing quorum.

- Agent provocateurs: Walker says that “they” considered it, but he was against it.

Though I wanted to, — I was hoping it would be the smoking gun that would take the bastid down — I failed to see any real dirt brought up by the call.

They won because people are fed up with the unions colluding with public officials to extort money from taxpayers…

Note unlike accusations against Walker, accusations against unions don’t need a smoking gun, because everyone knows they are pure evil created to plague the otherwise benevolent free market system.

Second, the part about “demanding the continuation of overly inflated compensation” is no more than a lie. The unions have already agreed to all of the give-backs that Walker has proposed, despite what he keeps saying. This is now purely about his attempt to remove their collective bargaining rights.

That whole conversation is in the context of a private back and forth with a billionaire tea partier that gives major contributions, so one can assume Walker (as a politician does and should) presented himself in a way that was truthful but appealing to a major supporter. “Koch” threw the fake protester idea out there and Walker said, “Yeah, we considered it but didn’t do it for all of the following reasons.” HOW IS THAT SUCH A BAD THING?

Walker is so stupid he actually thinks David Koch considers him “one of us”. There is a really big surprise in store for Walker.

Then on this call he talks about using dirty tricks, inciting the crowd with agitators and tricking the Dems into coming back. Then when Koch tells him he will fly Walker to California and show him a great time after this is done Walker responds that that sounds great.

And why do we need public unions at all? Public servants uniting against the public? That makes no sense. The public is broke and should be able to say no to the use of their funds. In fact, the public HAS said no by electing Gov. Walker and the new legislators ready to pass this bill.

“Second, the part about ‘demanding the continuation of overly inflated compensation’ is no more than a lie. The unions have already agreed to all of the give-backs that Walker has proposed, despite what he keeps saying. This is now purely about his attempt to remove their collective bargaining rights.”

No, collective bargaining rights have not been removed. The bill that would have already passed in the State legislature had their been a vote specifically still allows public unions to negotiate wages up to the level of inflation. The entire battle against this bill is simply to go beyond the level of inflation to demand the continuation of overly inflated compensation, as I stated earlier. The bill just prevents the public unions from holding the public hostage.

One size simply does not fit all.

Strategically, I think it would be a good idea for the left (in all the states where this is becoming an issue) to point out that this is an interstate effort by the right.

It seems likely the union-busting and other provisions were planned at meetings like this one back in November:

http://www.nbc15.com/state/headlines/Scott_Walker_Attending_Republican_Governors_Meeting_108183434.html

It seems likely the intellectual and moral support behind the bill has been developed by thinkers from several states.

The right will continue to try to keep the citizens separated by claiming that out-of-state citizens are mucking things up, but the citizens have a right to demonstrate solidarity across state lines, because this is a national issue.

Or he’s just dumb as a bag of hammers. That’s some convoluted logic there, Michelle. Or, as @MayorEmanuel put it on Twitter last night: “Just so we’re perfectly fucking clear here: You’re a crazy fucking shitwad. Enjoy your night.”

According to the Pew Center for the States, “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.”

So how does Walker’s plan save the state money when the pension fund is intact? There is no fiscal emergency which warrants the actions he is proposing.

Additionally, WI’s own annual report included the following:

The system had $69.1 billion in total assets at June 30, 2010, while paying out $3.7 billion in benefits over the course of the previous year. The value of those assets has since risen. According to Dave Stella, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds, the retirement system’s assets were worth $79.8 billion at the end of last month. The most recent solvency test for the fund was conducted for the fund’s operations at Dec. 31, 2009.

This entire event is political theater. They just want you to look at the little birdie over there while they strip rights from workers while breaking down public services.

How much more does the working class have to pay. We already gave 700 billion and we got nothing in return except the mantra “You have to sacrifice.” I don’t see too many politicians sacrificing their paychecks or giving up their free, full healthcare coverage or paying more into their pensions funds but why should they, we pay for that for them.

I do see every teacher getting pink slipped in Providence RI, community colleges closing all over the country, corporate charter school companies squeezing out neighborhood schools, entire police forces and fire departments being laid off and/or fired, low-cost affordable health care losing all federal funding.

But yeah, let’s cut the unions hard earned collective bargaining, that will save money.

We need collective bargaining now more than ever before if we want to save our public works and services from complete privatized corporate takeover because they did such a good job when they owned the deregulated electricity in California (Enron).

The public is broke because dickbags like Walker keep cutting taxes in order to please their wealthy benefactors — and then they turn around and say “oh, look at all this profligate spending, it’s time to cut back!”

MATT TAIBBI: Look, the Fed plays an enormous role. Alan Greenspan played a huge role in the bubbles that went on – the tech bubble in the 90s, the mortgage bubble that we just went through. Basically every time Wall Street screws up, they get to go back to the Fed and borrow a whole bunch of money for free and start the game all over again. These guys get to go to the Fed and borrow money at zero, and then they lend it out to us at five, ten – I mean how much are you paying for your credit card, twenty percent? And that’s free money. It’s essentially a giant subsidy system.

MAHER: And then, you know, they blame the teachers unions.

TAIBBI: Exactly.

MAHER: You know, it’s always a math teacher in Kenosha who’s making thirty-five grand a year. Why can’t people see through this? I know people are dumb, but there’s gotta be something more to it than that. I mean, it’s —

TAIBBI: In that particular instance, it’s unbelievable that people can’t connect the dots. You know, these pension funds that these state workers have – these were the people who were the victims of this mortgage-backed securities scheme. These were the places where the banks were selling these toxic sub-prime mortgages that eventually blew up. The pension funds lost all their money. Now the states have to pay these pensions and they’re broke, and they’re blaming the teachers, they’re blaming the firemen, they’re blaming the policemen, when in fact they were all defrauded by these banks on Wall Street. It’s an incredible situation.

thanks!

The two highlights Cory suggests are that Walker considered doing something wrong (fake protesters), but didn’t do it, and a procedural trick to get the Democrats back to work so the legislature can vote on the bill. Doesn’t seem bad to me at all. I assume he doesn’t need their votes, just their presence to pass the bill, which to me suggests that it’s actually the Democrats who are using a dirty trick in rejecting the democratic process.

I think that was a very positive video for Walker. “Koch” keeps trying to egg him on and sounds like a real asshole, but Walker continuously ignores his over-the-top remarks and brings the conversation back down to a rational level.

And because the tax cuts did not stimulate the economy, the only option Greenspan had was to lower interest rates to stimulate the housing industry.. -> which led to the housing bubble ->

the housing bubble, & deregulation of derivatives, credit default swaps (thanks to Phil (America is a nation of whiners) Gramm) and repeal of financial regulations & checks that had been put in place after the depression led to the financial meltdown. despite warnings – by respected economists like Stiglitz, Niall Ferguson.

and ironically turned ‘w’ (one of the most conservative administrations) in recent history into a communist when he bailed out AIG, and Bear Stearns earlier and a whole host of other wall street bailouts that would have had Hayek turning in his grave.

the funny thing is that instead of the public anger focusing on wall street and the rich who just received extended tax cuts- the elites have misdirected the public anger against the public sector unions – a divide and conquer strategy.

It’s a bad thing when the reasons are not: it’s unethical and illegal. His reasons are: it wouldn’t be constructive toward their goal. Can you not understand the difference? It’s not criminal, but it’s very informative of how his people are thinking. They’re willing to do illegal and unethical things if it will further their agenda.

I’m sorry, “once you crush these bastards I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time” doesn’t sound grifty and corrupt when it’s an exchange between an extremely rich donator and a member of the government. That’s just the faux-koch provoking, though. Oh wait, Walker’s response is,”All right, that would be outstanding”. Not unexpected, but again, I’m not yet so cynical that I’m A-OK with this close a link between a special interest and a governor.

Proeconomytip, Mister44, creating a business isn’t inherently good. Also, your argument about banks? Where do poor people keep their money? Oh wait, poor people have bank accounts too. I guess ‘poor’ people can’t invest money either. Oh wait, they can. You don’t really support your claim that giving money to wealthy ‘people’ is good. Other than that they have the monopoly on investing in business. Oh, that’s because we give them money. Fair enough. Kick-ass how that works.

Don’t misrepresent this. The unions are willing to negotiate. He’s not. His agenda is to remove their bargaining power. What happens then? They have no [legal] recourse to prevent the future budgets from completely removing health insurance, pensions, etc.. This is not about the budget. How many times does it need to be said? The unions are willing to negotiate. Walker is not. This confrontation is about union-busting.

Let’s review the facts once more: 1) Unions willing to negotiate. 2) Walker not. 3) Walker introduces bill that would remove almost all of the unions negotiating powers. 4) Unions protest 5) Faux News and the GOP try to represent the issue as budgetary.

OK? Can we understand this? The same exact thing is going on in several other states as well. It’s not a budgetary issue. The point is most probably the busting of unions, specifically those that tend toward the left.

Be a frikkin’ miracle if an anon post this long gets greenlighted.

Is the journalistic leeway derived from the context? In this case, because he was lying about his identity to a public official? If so, I could understand if the official or their office had no legal recourse, but does Koch? I’m not a journalism student, so I really don’t know the lines. I see the difference when a radio host does a prank call or w/e. But this went on, and as far as the clip on BB goes, the guy on the phone never says “GOTCHA” or admits to not being Koch.

From everything I’ve read about Koch, he seems like the sort who could slam a lawsuit on someone quickly, so I assume the journalist wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t think he was in the clear. Still, curious to know historically how things like this have gone down.