Wisconsin Governor Seizes Chance To Take On Unions

Scott Walker has unleashed a storm of controversy just weeks into his term as Wisconsin’s governor.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — It took Scott Walker only a few weeks to push the Capitol into political chaos.

The newly elected Republican governor of Wisconsin has set his sights on forcing public workers to pay more for benefits as he looks to balance the state’s budget — savings he needs to help cover the cost of tax cuts he demanded the day he took office.

Democrats, who are no longer in power, have likened Walker to a dictator, and demonstrators protesting a contentious Walker-backed labor bill have waived signs comparing him to ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. Even President Barack Obama has weighed in, calling the bill “an assault on unions.”

Read more here.

Michele Bachmann Re-writes American History

Tea Party favorite Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is either trying to re-write American history on slavery or she’s extremely ignorant on the topic. Speaking in front of an audience of Iowans for Tax Relief (ITR) Bachmann said, “the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States….Men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country.” She then went on to cite the sixth president, John Quincy Adams, as one of the founding fathers. Actually he wasn’t. He was the son of John Adams, the second president and one of the founding fathers.

It was established in the Constitution, that Bachmann pretends to know so much about, that a slave counted only as three fifths of a human being. Even though Thomas Jefferson did write “all men were created equal” it’s known that he owned slaves, and most likely fathered several of the children from one of his slaves. Slavery didn’t end until after the Civil War, and the passage of the 13th Amendent in 1865, well after the deaths of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and all of our other founding fathers. In fact, John Quincy Adams had also been dead, for decades, by then.

How do these people get elected?

Here’ what Anderson Cooper had to say about her comment (includes a video of Bachmann making the comment and more).

Opinion: State of the Union Address

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama talked about jobs and investing in education. He talked about “winning the future.” At times, speaking in a supportive manner towards corporate America, he came across as a moderate Republican. Still the right had to bash him. The Republicans absolutely refuse to work with President Obama.

Many Republicans use an argument that President Obama should have accomplished more in his 24 months of being in office. At the same time the Republicans in Congress admit that their prime priority is to try and make the President fail. They won’t give him an inch. We witnessed a record number filibusters over the past two years in their attempt to accomplish their goal. Still the Democrats created one of the best lame duck sessions in history, if not the best lame duck session in history.

Corporations had a record year in profits in 2010. The stock market is now thriving, the Dow-Jones hovering around 12,000 points. There’s been 12 months of job growth in the private sector. Payrolls are up 1.8%. This president reached out to Republicans time and time again, even compromising with them by extending tax cuts for all Americans, including the top 2% income earners in America. He also compromised with Republicans on the health-care bill. The Republicans made more than 165 amendments to the healthcare bill and still not one of them voted for it. President Obama deserves a lot of credit for preventing an economic depression after inheriting a recession where we were losing tens of thousands of jobs month after month.

Assassination Attempt Has Sarah Palin’s Fingerprints On It

Rep. Giffords (D-AZ)

There was an assassination attempt today on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) that left her and 12 others injured and killed 6 people including an aide, a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. Jared Loughner, a 22 year old military reject, has been arrested and will surely be charged with murder, attempted murder and a variety of other charges. It appears that he acted alone, according to investigators. There’s no evidence at this time that this attack was political, but let’s not kid ourselves here. Like many other Democrats, Giffords was threatened when health-care reform was passed in March 2010. When asked if she had any enemies, Giffords’ father said “Yeah, the whole Tea Party.”

This attack does have the marks of Sarah Palin written all over it. Sarah Palin literally targeted Rep. Giffords on her SARAHPAC web site, showing a map of the United States with gun sights locating 20 districts where Democrats held congressional offices. After the assassination attempt, the site was taken down. Palin is well known for her irresponsible and reckless statements. All she needed was for some unstable lunatic with a gun to read into her rhetoric. It happened today in Arizona.

INCITING VIOLENCE
We can’t blame anybody but the shooter for the attack in Tucson. He was the one with the gun and mindset. Full responsibility belongs to him.

But, our politicians must stop the hate mongering on anybody that disagrees with them. Nothing good can come from it. It can only add fuel to the fire burning inside some unstable lunatic with a gun. Some of the comments we’ve heard from our elected leaders have been uncalled for. For instance….

Sarah Palin: “Shoot with accuracy. Aim high and remember it takes blood, sweat and tears to win.”

Sarah Palin: “Don’t retreat… Instead reload.”

Sharron Angle: “I hope that’s not where we’re going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”

Michele Bachmann: “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue.”

Michele Bachmann: “Thomas Jefferson told us, ‘Having a revolution every now and then is a good thing’ and the people, We the People are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country.”

We deserve to have honest, mature, discussions and debates over the issues. The angry political rhetoric must cease, starting now.

When Rep. Giffords learned about the gun sight map targeting her district, this is what she said:

“Sarah Palin has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district and when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there are consequences to that action.”

How can we not be haunted by this?

Update (1/9/2011 at 11:00am EST): Law enforcement in Tucson has increased the number of those shot to 20.

The Fraudster Is Now Florida’s Governor

Rick Scott (R-FL) has been sworn in as Governor of Florida. He won the Governor’s race by the closest margin in more than 130 years of the Florida Governor’s race. Scott is perhaps the shadiest Governor ever to be elected in Florida. He’s best known as the CEO in charge of Columbia/Hospital Corporation of America that pled guilty to the largest Medicare fraud rip-off in the history of the United States. Rick Scott invoked the 5th Amendent 75 times while under oath during the Medicare fraud investigation. The company was fined $1.7 billion. Scott received about $300 million when he left Columbia/HCA in 1997. He spent $50.2 million during the primary for the Republican nomination for Governor of Florida.

Read more at the Huffington Post

Gov. Christie Enjoys Florida While His State Is Snowed Under

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) is in damage contol mode today as he continues to defend his decision to remain in Florida as a blizzard covered New Jersey. Many political pundits have criticized the Governor’s decision to stay in Florida.

“I was in charge from Florida,” Christie said. “My decision was that we had a good plan in place and we could execute that plan from a telephone. The rest of it is the criticism that just has to roll off your back.”

Christie took to the airwaves today. At each stop on the radio tour, he defended his decision to remain in Disney World on a family vacation during last week’s blizzard that blanketed his state. Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney took charge as acting governor because Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno was also out of state vacationing with her ailing father.

“It’s not something that I think will happen again because we’re both aware of having to coordinate our schedules,” Christie said on Gearhart’s show.

On Hannity’s radio show, broadcast on New York’s WABC, Christie said other states should follow New Jersey’s lead and reexamine their obligations to public employees. Politicians who refuse to do so, he said, are “just political cowards.”

9/11 First Responders Health Bill

Do you remember the “we’ll never forget” slogans and bumper stickers after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and downing of United Airlines Flight 93 over Somerset County, Pennsylvania? Well it appears some elected politicians have already forgotten. About 40,000 first responders came to Ground Zero to help save lives and recover bodies from the attacks. Many of these heroes are coming up ill, some have died, from breathing in contaminants from the debris of the wreckage. Because of this a Bill was proposed and eventually passed, but is must be noted that it wasn’t a unanimous vote as you may have expected it would be. Below is a list of those that don’t think the First Responders deserve public healthcare for their efforts.

9/11 First Responders Health Bill – HR847

To amend the Public Health Service Act to extend and improve protections and services to first responders directly impacted by the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001.

Party	Aye	Nay	Abstain
Democrats	175	1	79
Republicans	31	59	89

These are the NO VOTES:

Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO)
Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD)
Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL)
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT)
Rep. John Boozman [R, AR-3]
Rep. Kevin Brady [R, TX-8]
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)
Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO)
Rep. Michael Conaway (R-TX)
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)
Rep. John Fleming (R-LA)
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ)
Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-VA)
Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA)
Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX)
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
Rep. Walter Herger (R-CA)
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI)
Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC)
Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-KS)
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)
Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA)
Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH)
Rep. Robert Latta (R-OH)
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-IL)
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA)
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI)
Rep. John Mica (R-FL)
Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL)
Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC)
Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX)
Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-MN)
Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL)
Rep. Dennis Rehberg (R-MT)
Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY)
Rep. Edward Royce (R-CA)
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA)
Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH)
Rep. Peter Sessions (R-TX)
Rep. William Shuster (R-PA)
Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE)
Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN)
Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS)
Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE)
Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS)
Rep. Frederick Upton (R-MI)
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR)
Rep. Edward Whitfield (R-KY)
Rep. Addison Wilson (R-SC)
Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA)