Best government money can buy

Should any of this surprise us at this point? Unlimited donations flooded into the coffers of the Joint Finance Committee while they deliberated on the budget legislation. This was made possible by the recall campaigns. Talk about irony! 

Meanwhile, it appears that our fearless gov received contributions from 10 donors for his gubernatorial campaign that exceeded the legal limit of $10,000. Their names are listed in the JS today. One of them, Ted Nickel, was appointed by Walker to be state insurance commissioner.

Alberta Darling, co-chair of the committee - $30,000 from just one donor.

Well, money decides a lot of things in politics these days. Those of us who don't have much, or any, well, tough luck.  This is nothing new in U.S. politics, of course; but in recent decades, there have been attempts to pass laws to eliminate some of the most egregious imbalances. Our own former Sen. Russ Feingold was one of those stalwart backers of campaign finance reform (and got his reward from the corporate right in his last election campaign). But the Supreme Court has been shredding those laws, claiming that corporate money spent on election campaigns amounts to 'speech' under the Constitution.

That we have come to such a point, when a court of ideologues can say stuff like that with no popular rebellion, is a sad state of affairs indeed. It turns the original motivation of the original Boston Tea Party on its head. But then these guys have made off with that revolutionary brand as well.

Authoritarian takeover of local government - next on the docket?

"Walker’s plans give further credence to the notion that the efforts of the GOP governors with Republican majorities in their state legislative bodies are part of a coordinated plan to enforce a right-wing agenda designed to not only destroy state, county and municipal employee unions, but to take control of  local governments by replacing elected officials with appointees, both corporate and individual, of the state’s highest executive officer."

Does that paragraph get your attention? If it terrifies you, it should. I think it is time to stop being afraid to state clearly what is going on. This is more than some grassroots insurgency that came out of nowhere, more than a campaign of Tea Party crazies on the right who hate taxes, African-American presidents, immigrants living in our communities, and who managed to accidently get elected in last year's throw-the-bums-out electoral atmosphere.

It becomes more and more obvious that we are in the midst of a swift, pervasive power grab at the state level, a campaign paid for by anti-democratic corporate interests with the intention to gain control over state government and, while they're at it, municipal government as well, to get control of tax policies, the regulatory regimen, state and local budgets, how business operates and under what rules. It is also apparent that these folks mean to diminish or destroy the ability of the Democratic Party to compete against the Republican Party that now represents their interests (it's certainly not the old Repub party of my parents' generation). One party rule. Not a good thing, except for those who control that party.

So the opening paragraph comes from Rick Ungar at Forbes. Here's the whole article, and I urge you to read it. We need to know this stuff. Ungar reports that Gov Walker wants to follow in the steps of rightist Michigan governor, Rick Snyder, by granting himself power to take over municipal governments if they fail to meet certain financial management standards.

What?!?!?!  In the United States of America?!! 

Rachel Maddow scared me to death tonight as she outlined the full frontal assault on our democracy by way of state government brought to you by Koch brothers money, ALEC, the Heritage Foundation, and that whole family of authoritarians on the right who see their moment to assert power over our lives, our resources, our future. Her show is not up on her website yet, but I urge you to take time to watch the first half hour once it is. It is terrifying TV viewing as she lays out the extent to which an aggressive, deliberate strategy is being implemented at the level of state governments to change fundamentally the social contract, the political culture of democracy, the very way the nation functions.

All of it is connected - the union busting, voter suppression in the guise of voter ID laws, demolition of public services, including public schools, as in, free education by RIGHT for all our children, nullification or overturning of local laws by rightist governors, and more.

Ungar updates his story to tell us that Walker has denied that there is a 'financial marshall law' scheme underway. We'll see. If the scheme was in the works and the exposure puts a damper on it, this would be a good thing.

Something scary is going on in this country right now, and what I don't know is whether my people are up to this struggle. We are very complacent about our democracy (low voter turnouts being one manifestation of that), but we sure will miss it when it's gone. And this reminder: once it's gone, it's very hard to get it back.

Walker funded by Koch brothers

The Koch brothers are out to purchase government at all sorts of levels. They are out to bust unions all across the country, are major funders of Tea Party groups, even Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas hangs out with them. Remember the Supreme Court? the group that gutted campaign finance laws in a way that benefits the Kochs by allowing them to shield campaign contributions?

The Koch brothers were among the largest donors to Scott Walker's campaign. We need to know this in order to fully appreciate what he is trying to do now, and what he intends to do in the governor's office over the next four years.

Only the organized voice of the citizens of this state can counter the power of money at such a grand scale. Many people who voted for Walker and Tea Party Republicans did not know what the real agenda was.  It gets clearer by the day.

Read about the Koch brothers here and then here. Defend your democracy!