And gets owned by Dennis Kucinich:
KUCINICH: Let me ask you about some of the specific provisions in your proposals to strip collective bargaining rights. First, your proposal would require unions to hold annual votes to continue representing their own members. Can you please explain to me and members of this committee how much money this provision saves for your state budget?
WALKER: That and a number of other provisions we put in because if you’re going to ask, if you’re going to put in place a change like that, we wanted to make sure we protected the workers of our state, so they got value out of that. […]
KUCINICH: Would you answer the question? How much money does it save, Governor?
WALKER: It doesn’t save any. […]
KUCINICH: I want to ask about another one of your proposals. Under your plan you would prohibit paying union member dues from their paychecks. How much money would this provision save your state budget?
WALKER: It would save employees a thousand dollars a year they could use to pay for their pensions and health care contributions.
KUCINICH: Governor, it wouldn’t save anything. [Goes on to present letter from LRF and is denied unanimous request for it to be placed in the public record by Issa]
Noticing a trend here? Ryan’s deficit reduction plan doesn’t really reduce the deficit, either. But it sure feels good, and it rewards the right people, and shits all over the right ones as well.
RosiesDad
No real surprises there, John. Stripping collective bargaining rights was never about reducing the budget deficit, it was all about empowering the state so they could fuck the state workers down the road.
Dr. Squid
How dumb do you have to be to get pwned by Kucinich?
Bob Loblaw
Something, something, Kucinich, useless, firebagger, something, something.
Whoever would have thought six months ago that the Wisconsin GOP would be the unifying force for Democratic revival?
joeyess
Apparently Walker’s trip to D.C. is for nothing less tawdry than fundraising for Wisconsin GOP Senators and inevitable recalls that they face.
kdaug
So – Kucinich using facts: Right or wrong strategy? Or do we need a countervailing narrative?
Just asking, ’cause the facts don’t always seem to work.
KG
@joeyess: It’s a shame we can’t have a campaign finance law that says, very simply: if you can’t vote in the election, you can’t donate to the candidates/nominees. This means no corporate money, no union money, no out of state money, no 16 year olds “making donations”, and all the other bullshit that goes into it. But I guess that would be too logical.
Radon Chong
Kucinich’s wife for First Lady!
joeyess
@KG: Well, you can’t. John Roberts and Sam Alito says so. So there.
Zifnab
Kuccinich 2012!
/looks around
2016, maybe?
Felonious Wench
@Radon Chong:
Yeah, this is one of the few times I understand how Dennis managed to land her.
Martin
Well, bottom line is that time was that public sector workers were considered part of government and could be called on to step up when government needed them. Now public sector workers are a cancer to be excised. Remember when government did things like establish the notion of civil service, to protect government and employees from politicization of the labor force. Well, once the unions are dealt with, expect that to go as well. President Ryan wants to be able to fire every mail carrier and replace them with loyal tea party supporters, because that’s responsible and meritorious.
Linda Featheringill
I realize that Dennis isn’t very popular among the Cool Kids but he is frequently on the morally correct side of issues.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Dr. Squid:
.
.
As dumb as President Obama, according to you.
.
.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Felonious Wench: Maybe she’s a super string butt kicking martial artist that fell in love with him because he was the geek who loved her for who she was.
Sorry, been reading a lot of Japanese Manga recently.
Martin
@Linda Featheringill: Oh, I think Kucinich is pretty broadly popular on the left and among people here. The problem is that he’s too often trotted out by his supporters as an example of the the line that Democrats should draw in the sand. They expect that Kucinich would put forward a budget that would be as realistic as Ryan’s. If he did, then independents and moderats would flee the Democratic party in droves as being ideological and loony, and if he didn’t then the base would erupt in open revolt that they were betrayed and the he was worse than Bush.
Jay in Oregon
@kdaug:
I think the countervailing narrative needs to be (and is) that Walker’s actions are not about being fiscally responsible, but about screwing over the people of Wisconsin for his gain and the gain of his backers.
gwangung
I think that’s more accurate.
joeyess
On a related GOP fuckstick note: Here’s Eric Cantor taking credit for nearly 1/2 million jobs in January.
Bob L
@Radon Chong: Dear god, I am jealous of Kucinich. He’s living every guys dream getting to slow dance with a hot red headed lady a full foot taller than themselves. lol
gwangung
@Linda Featheringill: For me, it’s that he’s not quite high enough on the wonk competence scale for my tastes.
But YMMV.
Spaghetti Lee
I don’t want to sound like I’m overcome with nostalgia, but I’d love to see the result of putting Walker in a room for five minutes and having him interrogated by Alan Grayson.
Napoleon
Dennis!
(lets see who gets that)
RosiesDad
@Spaghetti Lee:
For us, it might be a glorious moment. (Thinking back to Grayson’s interrogation of Ben Bernanke.) But I’m not sure that Scott Walker has sufficient contiguous functioning neurons to appreciate what Grayson had done.
burnspbesq
@Napoleon:
I don’t think Walker looks anything like Mr. Wilson. but he probably thinks Kucinich is a menace.
Dr. Squid
Well, he certainly ain’t dumber than Uncle Clarence Thomas up there, who would get pwned by Walker.
burnspbesq
As Brad DeLong titled a post on his blog today,
“Republicans Lie. All the Time. About Everything.”
FlipYrWhig
@RosiesDad:
Scott Walker has one of the most obviously stupid-looking faces I’ve seen from a politician. He just doesn’t seem to be all there.
kdaug
@Jay in Oregon: Agreed, but I’m not sure it’s pushing through the “he said-she said”.
WI was a start, but the money doesn’t want it broadcast.
How do we shoulder the zeitgeist into MSM?
From where I sit, the ground is rumbling, the proles are stoked. The last to know will be our media overlords.
Twitter, Facebook, blogs, blah blah blah. You’re talking a miniscule proportion. How do we get it in people’s faces?
‘Cause there’s a shitload of old folks who understand – and feel – what class war is.
what's left
Napoleon – 2 syllables – ! fail
Sorry…
FlipYrWhig
@kdaug: I’m still convinced that Wisconsin was only as big a story as it was because of Egypt. The media was primed to cover “people power.”
Uloborus
@Bob L:
I like ’em short and adorable.
@Linda Featheringill:
A good line is a good line. Heckling the GOP’s obvious bullshit and lies is a good thing. I’m cool with leaving it at that and letting other debates be other debates.
kdaug
@FlipYrWhig: Could be. Meme de jour and all that.
That’s the dynamic that has to break.
montana
That beat down must have Walker remembering all those wedgies the other boys and girls gave him in high school.
JCT
@FlipYrWhig:
No joke — he looks like it taxes him to button his shirt.
kdaug
And before any of you idiots goes off fibbling on your lips:
1) Protests don’t have to be covered by the news
2) Violence is self-evidently counter-productive
What I’m saying is that I’ve gotten six different variations of this post on my FB page in the last two days:
“Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?
__
Yeah, me neither.”
THAT’s what I’m talking about. What’s the secret viral sauce?
Like I said, people are coming around, at least in my circle.
FlipYrWhig
@JCT: Maybe that’s why he’s so anti-tax.
[ducks rotten fruit]
gnomedad
Walker is too modest. It’ll save tons of money once public workers’ wages a benefits are slashed. No idea why he didn’t point out the big picture.
wheaton pat
Who’s “LRF” that Dennis had in his letter and what a dick to “object’ to it being placed in the record.
Mandramas
The saves will be the wages of fired people, when the unions disappears.
Jay C
@FlipYrWhig:
Disagree: I’m not sure whatever had or hadn’t gone down in Egypt would have made much of a difference to our (lame, inadequate, incurious and biased) domestic media – I think that the Wisconsin protests got the shit-ton of coverage they did because:
A) These were Americans protesting an American State government’s policies
B) The protests were just too damn big, and too protracted to be ignored.
C) It went against the political “CW” the Mainstreamers love to lazily regurgitate (i.e. Republicans were awesomely unstoppable and unstoppably awesome, especially their Teabagger paladins)
D) The protestors looked like they had won something, which triggered the MSM’s idiotic “horserace” memes; which they just love.
Bob L
@montana: Walker does have that half stoned frat boy “wait, this little dork is kicking my ass” look in that picture.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay C: True, but they didn’t try very hard to cover antiwar protests or immigration protests. The Tea Party screaming was about the only protest they had ever taken the time to cover since, what, the Million Man March? Something about WI caught the zeitgeist. I think it was the “Cairo comes to America” angle.
eemom
I think it should be possible to say that Kucinich KICKED ASS today without pimping him as primary-bait.
He did kick ass, I heard it on C-Span. And Walker sounded every bit like the arrogant shitwad he is.
Also too, I fucking hate midwestern accents.
Elia Isquire
Apologies if y’all have already gone over this but:
Is it really that hard to just say “my b. on the twitter; but i don’t think you’re being fair” without the um butthurt?
demz taters
@joeyess: The retweets are priceless. some samples:
DonaldFagen @GOPLeader You want to cut 700k federal jobs, revise your tweet: “If you’d listened to us, over -222k jobs created since Jan!” #GOPMajority
SeanCamoni I thought government doesn’t create jobs, Mr. Cantor? RT @GOPLeader Over 478,000 Jobs Created Since January, #GOPMajority = #hypocrites
akpierce RT @pnuts_mama: ARE YOU SERIOUSLY TRYING TO TAKE CREDIT FOR THIS?!?! RT @GOPLeader: Over 478,000 Jobs Created Since January, #GOPMajority
MikeJ
@Elia Isquire: what is this I don’t even
slag
@Elia Isquire: I’m with MikeJ on this, but I will admit that Freddie’s opening salvo deserved to be followed up with some factual foundation. I kept expecting it and haven’t seen it so far. Even Cole would have gone with less bluster and more base after being addressed directly.
R-Jud
@eemom:
Having just got back from Chicago, I agree wholeheartedly. I don’t know how I missed it during the six years I lived there. The Black Country accents I’m surrounded by are like butterflies’ wings brushing gently past my ears compared to the buzzsaw that is a Midwestern short a.
Jim, Once
@kdaug: I totes stole that and put it on my FB page. Thanks!
Southern Beale
Hippie (and union) punching for fun and profit. It’s an old GOP ploy.
joe from Lowell
Dennis Kucinich in a Congressional hearing is like a fish in water.
Hats off. The man is a master.
Dennis SGMM
@eemom:
I agree. Kucinich Did Good today and it made me smile to see him slap Walker. OTOH, he was dealing with just one flagrant Republican asshole while the Prez has to deal with a few hundred of them with some Democratic assholes thrown in for good measure.
Also, too, I remember the 2004 and 2008 campaigns fairly well and the Kucinich campaign does not stand out in my recollection. I’m no fan of Bill Clinton but that man, and Obama, know how to campaign. If Gore and Kerry had possessed even a a good fraction of their skills then we might have been spared eight years of Bush.
Southern Beale
In other news, Montana governor Brian Schweitzer pulled out his cattle iron and burned a giant VETO on a pile of Tea Party bills.
And that’s not a metaphor. He really did it.
Elia Isquire
@slag: Yeah I agree with both of you. I think it’s pretty obvious, actually, that both are wrong but I don’t get why Yggy played to type so hard in that email…
JCT
@Southern Beale: Too bad he didn’t actually brand the asshole Teabaggers. Some of those bills were horrific.
Phil
Still bitter John? Don’t worry, when public union government employees fuck up (like the FAA Air Traffic Controllers who recently fell asleep on the job), your friends in the federal government have elected to hire new Air Traffic Controllers. You mean to replace the ones that fell asleep on the job putting people’s lives in the air in danger?
No silly! To work alongside the other ones and wake them up in case they fall asleep!
http://www.hipstertravelguide.com/archives/13176
Anyways, as to Kucinich, the dumbfuck who nearly bankrupted Cleveland when he was mayor there, here’s the fun part for us conservatives. Since we control redistricting in Ohio and the Cleveland area is shrinking because Democrats are incapable of running things, one of the two Cleveland area seats is going to be redistricted away.
We get to choose which seat we eliminate – it could be Dennis’ seat, it could be the adjacent one. If we want to force Dennis to run for the adjacent House seat in order to stay in office, we can. Just takes a snap of the fingers. Maybe we’ll do it for shits and giggles.
Here’s the best part: there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about that John Cole.
Jay C
@FlipYrWhig:
Well, when I used the tern “biased” in my comment #40, believe me, I wasn’t referring to its “left-wing” slant.
It’s been – in this Century, anyway – the media’s typical tack to ignore, dismiss or disparage virtually any mass demonstration – however large – which has even the remotest tinge of “liberalism”, or “leftism” about it.
Antiwar demonstrations? DFHs and dupes of Stalinist peacenik radicals! (in the millions, but never mind)
Immigration rallies? Grubby little foreigners waving foreign flags – feh!
Tea Party convocations? Real Americans! Really Real Americans really really concerned – seriously concerned – about “government spending” (which they’d heretofore ignored, but never mind) – and ticked off about Obama’s Evil Death Panels and government interfering with their Medicare and all…
The Wisconsin protests, I think, jarred the real (i.e., non-Fox) media out their complacent little bubble about what political/economic issues truly motivate people (and Ordinary Real Americans, at that!) to get out and monkeywrench a political system out to screw them. They’ve had to scramble to cobble up a new narrative and they’re still flailing a bit (e.g. Fox’s palm-trees-in Madison FAIL).
As the Bush clowns used to say, though: “making your own reality” CAN sometimes be rewarding.
FlipYrWhig
@Elia Isquire: I think Yglesias, like most philosophy majors (and/or Harvard grads), is convinced he’s a lot smarter than he really is. His blog is interesting in that he touches on so many topics, but he’s so arrogant and so little willing to reconsider things once he’s already thought them.
FlipYrWhig
@Phil: Is there anything that motivates the embrace of political conservatism _besides_ the desire to wallow in assholishness for its own sake?
Mnemosyne
@Phil:
Yeah, why should safety workers have any backup? What’s with the FAA requiring a co-pilot on airliners? If the pilot would just do his job, airlines wouldn’t need to waste money on a co-pilot!
And what’s with these firefighters needing a “crew”? Why can’t one guy fight the fire by himself? After all, those guys spend most of their time hanging around the stationhouse stuffing their faces on the taxpayer’s dime, so clearly there’s not enough work to keep all of them busy.
Shalimar
@Phil: “Sadism for shits and giggles” should be the conservative mantra. Do you have any other core values, or is inflicting pain on people you don’t like the only one that matters?
gwangung
That’s kinda standard safety procedure in a lot of industries. And the military. Redundancy, you know? Something engineers like to design in, but Republicans like to take out?
Dennis SGMM
@gwangung:
Only a Republican would bitch about ATCs sleeping on the job and then bitch about it when the gov comes up with a solution.
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
Nope. SATSQ.
Mnemosyne
@Dennis SGMM:
Hey, if benzedrine was good enough for the Air Force, it’s good enough for ATCs.
Dennis SGMM
@Mnemosyne:
Well, hell, let’s just give them some of that meth that the DEA is always confiscating. Then they could work 48 hour shifts and we could fire a bunch of them as surplus to need. Communications might get a bit garbled after a while but ya’ can’t make an omelet without breaking some heads.
Hal
@Phil
You forgot the evil cackle at the end of your post. hahahahahaha, no more Dennis Kucinich…hahahahaha…followed by dum dum dum
Splitting Image
@Phil:
Are you aware John doesn’t live in Ohio? The legislature there could issue free porn for everyone and there’s not a goddamn thing he could do about that either.
Dennis SGMM
@Splitting Image:
Not to be critical but you made your mistake at “Are you aware…”
WaterGirl
You guys are engaging with this Phil guy? Seriously? Digging a hole and then filling it again would be a better use of your time.
Turgidson
I love how these rightwing assfaces always say they’re protecting or saving the very thing they seek to destroy. Actually no, I don’t love it. I hate that they do that. Because they get away with it.
Spaghetti Lee
@Phil:
You’re right, not a damn thing! That’s why all those gerrymandered districts in Texas and Louisiana and Georgia from the last round are still around today.
agrippa
@Phil:
Phil:
There is an election in 2012.
You got work to do. And, that work will not be done here.
Nice rant though.
Jebediah
@Phil:
Either you forgot a comma, or you mean that there is nothing to be done about “that John Cole.” I’m going to go with that, since there really isn’t much an arrogant, ignorant conservatard fuckwit can do about our blog host.
mb
Kucinich aside, I do not ever remember a request to put something in the record being refused. Ive watched hours and hours (years?) of cspan. Never seen it before.
TooManyJens
@wheaton pat:
LRF = Wisconsin’s Legislative Reference Bureau. LRF is its library code, apparently.
Paul in KY
@Phil: Don’t you worry, Phil. You & your band of evil little grinches will get yours. Remember what I wrote & know I’ll be laughing my ass off.
wheaton pat
@TooManyJens: thanks
JustSue
Progressive 2012 ticket:
Anthony Weiner – Pres
Dennis Kucinich, VP.
Woohoo!