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PoliGAF 2011: Of Weiners, Boehners, Santorum, and Teabags
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drakesfortune
Directions: Pull String For Uninformed Rant
Averon said:
That'd be so awesome if they lost both. I'd be dancing in the streets. As is, I'm glad the taxpayers of this state have finally broken the back of the public unions and their corrupt relationship with the Democrats, having a seat on both sides of the bargaining table to negotiate contracts. I live in Wisconsin. I have kids in the school system. My school system went from MASSIVE deficits, to a million dollar surplus because of the budget repair bill. Overnight. All they did was switch from the corrupt WEAC insurance, which was FAR more costly than normal insurance, and now class sizes are going DOWN in my district.
So taxpayers saved money. We hired more teachers. Bad teachers can now be fired. Money is no longer flowing directly from the teachers paycheck into the union coffers and then on to elect Democrats to negotiate more bad deals with the unions.
It's truly a win, win, win. I simply can't understand why we would want bad teachers to be protected to the point that they can't be fired. I can't understand why we wouldn't want teachers contributing the same amount the private sector does to their lavish retirement and health benefits. I can't understand why we wouldn't want to reward good teachers with higher pay. None if makes sense when you think about it. Wisconsin voters have seen the light.
I'll end on this. I was driving down the street today and I saw a giant sign supporting one of the Republican Senators being recalled (who won) and it was on a farmer's private property. Last night someone spray painted over his private property "RECALL". I think it's that attitude from public sector unions that ultimately helped Republicans win the day. People are fed up with the way unions are behaving. From the fraudulent doctor notes, to schools having to cancel classes because the teachers cut class, to private property being vandalized, to seeing teachers behave like crazed lunatics at the capital, I think it was a real eye opener. In the end, I think this result proves just how bad things are for Obama. I don't think he can win this state in 2012, and he won this state BIG a few years ago. We would need unemployment down around 7 percent for him to have a shot at it, and that's all but an impossibility at this point. If he can't win Wisconsin, he sure can't win Ohio, and Michigan looks bad, and PA even looks bad. I think this spells the end of his presidency.
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
drakesfortune said:
YES you're back!!!
speculawyer
Member
drakesfortuneGonaria said:
Directions: Pull String For Uninformed Rant
(Today, 10:34 PM)
TacticalFox88
Banned
YES! OMG! I've prayed for this day!....drakesfortune said:
wait...
I'm an atheist....but yes! You're back!
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
Averon said:
I await his inevitable lesson on revenue vs profit margins. Hopefully he'll still be around when bigsicily returns.
RustyNails
Member
Drakesfortune returns! and his tag is apt as ever!
Don't pop the champagne yet. We're still waiting on kittonwy!leroidys said:
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
RustyNails said:
And bigsicilly's return.
TacticalFox88
Banned
I thought Kitton had a permaban?RustyNails said:
Barf_the_Mog
powerless or are they? o_O
Gonaria said:
Republicans lost two, but it was still a great victory tonight. Some of the local forums I lurk on were not expecting the Repubs to hold onto their majority. There is even a good possibility that we could pick up one seat during the next recall round.
Madison has been crazier than usual since Walker came into office, but hopefully things will finally settle down. With this finished, I honestly don't see the issue of public unions being THE important issue in the future.
RustyNails
Member
Averon said:edit: Kittonwy! been perm'd if I recall correctly. In fact, he was caught using a second acct not too long ago. He's not coming back, unfortunately
Dude was always a riot in PS3 threads. Sigh, I'm gonna miss that bastard.
Barf_the_Mog
powerless or are they? o_O
Gonaria said:
Two seats for now, by the way. It may change later.
The point being, Walker and the Republican congress caused a national, even worldwide stir. Good on the Democrats for picking up the two seats that they did, (again, this may change shortly. I believe that the GOP will pick up one next week.) but by popular vote in these districts the people of Wisconsin are not rejecting the current Republican agenda.
Edit:
Loudninja said:
If there was truly this groundswell support for the public unions in Wisconsin, there would have been 6 new democrats in office after tonight.
A slight change in policy. The U.S. has been alluding to regime change for a while. Moreover, additional sanctions were expected; Ambassador Ford's testimony last week essentially confirmed it. What is more intriguing is the correlation between these developments and the recent actions by our allies in the region. Turkey obviously acceded to our desire to increase pressure. Syria is practically isolated. Assad's regime will persist for a while. But the situation has finally entered a protracted end game.mckmas8808 said:
Nate Silver says Democrats would be stupid not to proceed with effort to recall Scott Walker based on tonight's results.
http://twitter.com/#!/fivethirtyeight
http://twitter.com/#!/fivethirtyeight
Barf_the_Mog said:
It wasn't completely unambigous, but, and correct if I am wrong, all of the Republican state senators up for recall won in 2008 during a historically democratic year. I would say that represents some shifting of the electorate towards the Democrats, although I can see why those expecting all six senators to be recalled, or even for the Democrats to retake the state senate, would interpret tonight as a defeat for the Democrats due to their high expectations of the democratic performance.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Well yeah. If Barrett and Feingold only lost in 2010 by the margins that Pasch and Clark did, in those districts, they probably would've won overall.Wall said:
Obviously I wish we could have won Darling and Olsen's seats but 5 out of the 6 were red districts anyway. I'm a little disappointed on that front but it's not like it was a slam dunk.
Dems will probably still attempt to recall Walker - if they do, it wouldn't hurt to try and recall some of the other state senators that were elected in 2010. Pick up two this year, two the next and we have the state senate again.
Bob Wirch I'm guessing is safe. Some people are worried about the other guy but I think he'll win.Averon said:
Bottom line. 17-16 minority is a lot better than 19-14. If this was the composition after 2010, the collective bargaining bill never would've been passed.
ed: Was there something about Kathy Nicklaus (sp? the county clerk for Waukesha) fucking up the numbers again for Darling? That wouldn't surprise me.
speculawyer said:
I've always wondered why we can't have the exact same economy, but just 9% bigger. 9% more of everything, across the board.
drakesfortune said:
Okay, here's the deal with that. All of us want to see waste and fraud eliminated. I don't think you'll find many people even on the left who don't think that unions have overreached at times and have done a lot of things that were a little on the corrupt side.
However, I want to take issue with this part:
SOME of us think that everyone should be getting the same kind of health benefits as public employees. Some of us would like to see that sector continue to receive good benefits as a means of checking the deterioration of benefits in the private sector that we've been seeing over the last few years. Some of us think that as private employers continue to slash benefits and wages, it doesn't behoove us to direct our anger against the public sector because of what they still have when we should be directing our anger against the employers who continue to take more and more from American people in the private sector.
There isn't any reason we can't. Right now consumers are paying off debt that they built up during the bubbles of the 90's and 2000's. Since that money is going towards debt repayment, it is not going towards spending on goods and services, thus causing a depressed economy and high unemployment. The fact that we stopped stimulating the economy and started making cuts only adds to the problem, since it causing further spending to be withdrawn from the economy.
If we were to stimulate the economy until we reached full employment, and kept that stimulus going until private sector debt was down to managable levels, there is no reason why we could not go forward with much less unemployment than we have now.
Incidently, there also is not any reason why we needed to build up that much debt in the private sector in the first place. The reason so much excess debt accumulated was because the economy became over-relient on the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates to spur growth, and later on the loosening of restrictions of the financial sector to enhance that growth. That, combined with a weakening of policies meant to support the middle class, thus requiring the middle class to take on ever increasing amounts of debt to support themselves, is what drove the bubbles and skyrocketing debt levels of the past two decades. Such was the result of a mistaken change in philosophies governing economic policy over the past 30 or so years. The experience of other countries shows that this state of affairs need not be the case.
Barf_the_Mog
powerless or are they? o_O
leroidys said:
The only point I've ever made is that there isn't any political resistance in how the Republicans have been and will be handling their agenda. We had the mass protests on the Capitol square, visits from Michael Moore and Jesse Jackson (among others), worldwide news coverage, proxy elections (Prosser vs Kloppenburg) in which the narrative was clearly linking Prosser with the Walker agenda, and these pathetic recalls. Yet nothing has changed. The Democrats and the union supporters are no closer now to reversing the legislation that caused this outcry in the first place.
I'm sorry, but this movement hasn't been about netting two additional seats (possibly less) for the still minority party. I was criticized for using the word 'victory' for the Republicans tonight. But this whole year has been one long political battle of attrition. The Repubs have not been ousted and have retained their seats in various elections. What can the Democrats do now except wait for the 2012 elections? They've done everything possible. Nothing has changed.
Barf_the_Mog said:
Huh? Gaining two seats through a recall election is certainly gaining in this battle of attrition.
How is none of the resistance political?
What?
Massive and enduring protest rallies, senators fleeing the state, recall elections? Nothing has changed? The HUGE momentum that swept the republicans into power in the state in 2010 has not only completely dissipated but largely swung the other way.
You are making no sense and only contradicting yourself. It's... disturbing that you feel the need to try spin the recalls into positive news for the Republicans. Cognitive dissonance ahoy!
Was 2010 a victory for Democrats because they managed to hold on to the senate?
Okay, Megyn Kelly's usually a dullard, but this was a really awesome segment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlzAbLC1Vj8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlzAbLC1Vj8
polyh3dron
Banned
I'm surprised "Tide goes in, tide goes out" wasn't one of the bullet points.Oblivion said:Well, to take away from the Wisconsin stuff for a bit...
polyh3dron
Banned
Talking about the US being in the dark ages for having less regulation on business than other advanced countries... She's sounding like a socialist to me. Ailes needs to give her a little talking to.Oblivion said:
Man, I was way off. I thought for sure the GOP would lose four. Hopper and Kapanke were givens, I thought the unions spent enough to win the seat for Pasch and I was hopeful that scumbag Olsen would lose.
That said...this is a huge win for Republicans. A massively motivated left with the ultimate action issue in teachers against a GOP playing defense and just trying to hold on. The governor has terrible approval ratings, the legislature has passed a number of controversial bills and out of the ordinary elections all should have come together to mean huge wins for the challengers. All they were able to do was win a seat in a democratic district and knock off the scum bag who is cheating on his wife and doesn't even really live in the district anymore.
The democrats are incredibly lucky that the GAB moved their two recall elections to next week. Holperin has absolutely zero chance of holding his seat if turnout is like it was last night (I don't think he has any chance anyway).
If Holperin loses the GOP will have taken the absolute best the Wisconsin progressive movement has and essentially held serve (losing one seat...pft). If the GOP wins both seats (I see no way that happens) I expect mass suicides in Madison.
Spin it all you want, but the GOP goal was to hold onto the senate and they did just that. It's a victory and another huge blow for big labor in the state.
Also for people calling it a referendum on Adolf Walker, it looks like the vote totals (last I had checked) were about what they were for the governors race in each district.
That said...this is a huge win for Republicans. A massively motivated left with the ultimate action issue in teachers against a GOP playing defense and just trying to hold on. The governor has terrible approval ratings, the legislature has passed a number of controversial bills and out of the ordinary elections all should have come together to mean huge wins for the challengers. All they were able to do was win a seat in a democratic district and knock off the scum bag who is cheating on his wife and doesn't even really live in the district anymore.
The democrats are incredibly lucky that the GAB moved their two recall elections to next week. Holperin has absolutely zero chance of holding his seat if turnout is like it was last night (I don't think he has any chance anyway).
If Holperin loses the GOP will have taken the absolute best the Wisconsin progressive movement has and essentially held serve (losing one seat...pft). If the GOP wins both seats (I see no way that happens) I expect mass suicides in Madison.
Spin it all you want, but the GOP goal was to hold onto the senate and they did just that. It's a victory and another huge blow for big labor in the state.
Also for people calling it a referendum on Adolf Walker, it looks like the vote totals (last I had checked) were about what they were for the governors race in each district.
It was a small victory in a blood bath of a night. The WI assembly didn't flip parties last night. Awful analogy.
polyh3dron said:
Yup, mentioned that on my blog. Breaking one of the cardinal sins of the teahadist movement: acknowledging the possibility that Amurrica is actually lacking in any possible area whatsoever. It's pretty much treason.
Barf_the_Mog
powerless or are they? o_O
leroidys said:
As I have stated, this past year has been one of political attrition and the Repubs have not lost their control of congress despite the massive recall effort. Indeed, wouldn't it be strange if a Democrat were to lose one of their seats come Tuesday? If that momentum had massively swung the other way, I'm not seeing it.
What else can the left do at this point? They've tried everything. They may try to recall Walker, but I doubt that will succeed. There's the 2012 elections. Meanwhile, the Budget Repair Bill passed like it should have earlier. Concealed carry passes and will come into effect shortly. Literally nothing has been done to curtail the Republican political outline.
After the media frenzy began I literally thought the Republicans were going to implode. I imagined HUGE voter backlash. With the supreme court election and this current (unfinished) recall election not tipping the balance I believe the Republicans have again found their footing.
Normally, any lost congressional seat is bad for the party, but considering the alternative. What many people thought WAS going to happen. I believe the Republicans are relatively unscathed. And considering the amount of emotion this year has brought out, that is a victory.
I'm sorry you find my view disturbing, though. That can't be helped.
Huntsmans Big Endorsement: Jeb Bush Jr.
Hahaha.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/huntsmans-big-endorsement-jeb-bush-jr.php?ref=fpblg
Hahaha.
A Human Becoming said:I remember eznark being confident Dems would take at least four of the seats. What a let down.
Sorry, I was pretty confident Olsen wouldn't get support from the GOP because of his disgusting ethanol deals and thought the Illinois union troops would get out the vote for Pasch.
The vote totals are really surprising. For LibGAF there is at least one huge benefit to this; Feingold will probably run for Kohl's seat instead of against Walker in a Quixotic recall attempt.
balladofwindfishes
Member
The Bush name is toxic... why would he do that :/Loudninja said:
balladofwindfishes
Member
he might be popular in Florida, but on a national level, being related at all to George W is not an advantage, it's a very large disadvantage.Clevinger said:
There's already a thread about it, but rumors are going around that Société Générale is going to declare bankruptcy today and default on its obligations. It is the 2nd largest bank in France and the 8th largest bank in the eurozone. Stock is down over 20% and the rumor is the cause of the 400+ point Dow drop today.
Jason's Ultimatum
Member
Taxes are way too low to be funding the social programs we have in this country. We need to get rid of the SS cap, add new tax brackets for millionaires, and raise the capital gains tax in order to fund SS, medicare/medicaid, and pensions.
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