Another quick post about something that might get lost in the weekend news cycle: the Wisconsin radical Republicans of Scott Walker are in a panic over recall elections, and are in "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" mode according to an AP article by Scott Bauer.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker and GOP leaders have launched a push to ram several years' worth of conservative agenda items through the Legislature this spring before recall elections threaten to end the party's control of state government.
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Scott Walker and his crew of like-minded oligarchs know that no one wants their real agenda, so they're going to say the hell with democracy and ram it through ASAP before the voters can catch up with them. Again from the AP article by Bauer:
Republicans, in a rapid sequence of votes over the next eight weeks, plan to legalize concealed weapons, deregulate the telephone industry, require voters to show photo identification at the polls, expand school vouchers and undo an early release for prisoners.
Lawmakers may also act again on Walker's controversial plan stripping public employee unions of their collective bargaining rights. An earlier version, which led to massive protest demonstrations at the Capitol, has been left in limbo by legal challenges.
On top of all of the above,
At the same time lawmakers are pushing through conservative policies, they will be wrestling with Walker's budget proposal. Walker wants to cut roughly $1 billion from schools and local governments, split the Madison campus from the University of Wisconsin System and slow the growth of Medicaid by $500 million.
The Legislature also may try to quickly pass a redistricting plan, a politically charged process that would reshape congressional and legislative districts with new 2010 census data.
If this does nothing else, this should demonstrate that the Republican Party doesn't give a damn about governing, the middle class, the unemployed, etc. etc. - just looking out for its own interests at the expense of everyone else. It would be a darn good thing if Democrats everywhere would hold up Wisconsin to show the rest of the country how radical the GOP has become, and the dangers of letting them anywhere near government power again. You'd think 8 years of George W. Bush would have been enough, but apparently a further lesson has been needed.
Let's not waste it.