absolutely! they are both far more intent on damaging the other, thus securing power for themselves, while the country lurches along virtually rudderless. rome burning while the two neros fiddle.

:zz: No, it doesn't remain the same. The Democrats have won control of the Senate. John Lehman defeated Van Wanggaard in Van Wanggaard's recall election, giving Democrats control of the Wisconsin State Senate.

Walker can no longer push through legislation, unopposed, in the middle of the night. That's a great thing. The Senate has been swung from overwhelmingly Tea Party to Democratic control.

I think the only reason Walker won was this, from the exit polls:

27 percent of the voters judged recall elections appropriate for any reason
60 percent said they are appropriate only for official misconduct
10 percent said recalls are never appropriate

Walker is still under FBI investigation, and we'll just have to wait until he's indicted.

It's interesting that Romney has decided Wisconsin is "now in play" as a swing state? Because the exit polls showed the voters that voted yesterday would have him lose to Obama by 7 points this fall.

:tro::D

So you are saying that the democrats have lost touch with their voting base and should not have called for the recall?

BTW- interesting that you trust an exit poll on Obama/Romney when the same exit poll showed 50-50 which was obviously wrong.

Mitch McConnell said that his primary goal as leader of his party in the United States Senate was to ensure the President wasn't re-elected. Proof is in his actions - repeated obstruction of bills his party has formerly supported, just because they were introduced by Democrats.

No. That is not remotely close to what I said. BTW, the Democrats have retaken control of the state Senate through recall elections. I'm glad they held them. Recall elections are legal (that's how Scott Walker first got elected, in fact).

I am saying that most citizens don't believe in recall elections unless there is proven malfeasance. That means that, even though multiple felony charges and plea bargains have been filed against Scott Walker's aids and office workers from his immediate previous job, the public is holding to "innocent until proven guilty" as far as their governor is concerned.

The same thing happened to Blago in Illinois, who was re-elected twice. Maybe they can room together?

Exit polls are always questionable, and get adjusted as the real numbers come in, and are compared to the real numbers. So you "trust" exit polls to the extent that the polling data is verifiable.

Walker used a one-time new and entirely different methodology for figuring "job loss" than every other state in the country, including Wisconsin and Walker himself, has always used, just to make an ad for his re-election campaign.

Wisconsin is still last in the nation in job growth. Wisconsin has still followed the disastrous Koch Brothers - ALEC agenda, until it was stopped by the Democrats retaking the Senate, in spite of multiple corporations bailing out on ALEC.

The state budget is still a disaster, covered up by "funny math" spreading unsolved deficits out over future years.

Walker has simply papered over his disastrous term to hide his failure. The failure and poor governance of Wisconsin still exists. No train, no jobs, no balanced budget, a massive unsolved deficit. Plus Walker is still under FBI investigation, and has proven repeatedly to be a liar (it just came out he lied about inviting the FBI to start the investigation - he was really obstructing it)

This is no win for Wisconsin. But it's a partial good win, because Walker has been stopped from additional forcing through of the ALEC agenda his corporate owners have set for him. 64% of Walker's re-election money came from out-of-state billionaires. Walker is a wholly-owned corporate tool. That hasn't changed.

Oh, yeah: Did anybody notice that Friday, David Schuster broke a new story about Walker? That the FBI is investigating him outside of and in addition to the John Doe investigation?

And the President will say and do anything to get re-elected. Including demonizing one evil wall street capitalist while allowing others to host dinners for him.

All the Wall Street money has now gone to Romney this election cycle, according to election filings.;)

But that has nothing to do with the Senate Republicans record-setting and documented minority-filibustering and outright obstruction over the past three years.

Aside from the Bain folks donating to the President and of course the Lasry dinner at 40K per person.

It has to do with setting aside what is right in order to get elected. By BOTH parties as was stated earlier in the thread.

Unions are thugs for the most part.

Nonsense. Unions haven't bashed people over the heads with violence for decades.

You falsely characterizing the current crop of Wisconsin school teachers, firefighters and police as physically violent is purposely disingenuous and nasty on your part.

Or you just don't know what "thugs" really means when you use the term "union thugs"?

Rogue/Cheat=Thug

Perhaps definitions have evolved a bit. Thuggish behavior was exhibited in a useless recall election of a Governor that was silly enough to hold up the occasional campaign promise.
Chicago politics=thuggery.

No. The definition of a "thug" remains "a violent person, especially criminal."

I am not denying that unions used to use violence decades ago. It was ugly when unions first came about. The term "union thug" had a specific meaning, and it involved violence and terror and pain.

But you characterizing unions the same way today is simply wrong.

Words have meanings. You are calling union members - the schoolteachers, firefighters and policemen of Wisconsin, "union thugs".

That's nasty of you to call them that. And factually wrong.

:wf

Unions are bullies then. That the majority of their forced membership would opt out of given a choice.

Obama will say or do anything to get elected. Which was the original point of my statement. The thug comment was more about seeing them take a public beating.

You parrot and foment hate terms. You repeat the hate terms deliberately used by ALEC this past year to turn members of the public against Wisconsin public school teachers, firemen and policemen. Falsely accusing them of violence, calling them "union thugs", justified suddenly violating contracts, justified taking their pensions and cutting their pay by 1/3, removing all negotiated salary protections they used to have, in favor of giving tax cuts to the wealthy and using the money that used to go to school teachers, policemen and firemen to plug the gap.

These are not "union thugs". These are school teachers, policemen and firemen who have served your community for decades, who have accumulated savings and pensions, who thought they could retire after a lifetime of hard work.

That's nasty. Think before you speak. There is a deliberate reason you were taught to use that term out of meaning. There is a deliberate reason ALEC and the RGA has told people to start referring to neighbors as "union thugs". It was so certain political people could benefit themselves with tax breaks, and you'd go along with using the lifetime of hard work of your neighbors, of your schoolteachers, policemen and firemen, to pay for it.

Because suddenly you were taught to view these people, not as your neighbors or protectors or the teachers of your children, but as nasty violent "union thugs" who deserved to lose what they'd spent a lifetime working for. Hate them! Unions are thugs! Take away all they have! They are the cause of all your financial problems!

Because rich people want tax breaks, and the money has to come from somewhere.

It's just a shell game. Teaching you to call your neighbors "union thugs", and blame your neighbors, enables it.

They can just like everyone else. By contributing to their retirement like everyone else. Pensions are not reasonable for public companies and are definitely not reasonable for public employees. My father has been paid almost 2x what he made during his 25 years as a police officer since retiring. Pensions and UAW demands for the continuance of them are what killed the auto industry in Detroit. If you don't think something has to happen to the public version to continue the lifestyle you are a fool.

Too bad the legislature isn't scheduled to meet between now and the November elections.

Should your father's income be suddenly cut in half now, after he's retired? Should the contract he worked under be altered after the fact? After he's retired? Because that's what you are supporting. Not changing the contract for the future retirees - but changing it for people that have already retired.

And is your father a violent, evil union thug? Because that's what you call him.

Yes, a good thing! Walker had planned "special sessions", to try and push through a few more things, but now that's canceled due to the loss of GOP Senate control.

He and the other PBA members were known for their harsh negotiation tactics. If there is no money then there is no money. Most people understand that.
My parents taught me growing up that money didn't grow on trees. A good portion of the liberal population of this country never learned that lesson. Math is math and it cannot be changed.

But there is money. It's in your father's pension fund. It was contributed by him, and matched by the city, during his working life, it accumulated interest, and now it is to pay him what was promised him, for his lifetime of work.

I'll not allow someone to demonize your father, call him a freeloader and a union thug and a cheat living off the public teat, because some politician wants to steal his hard-earned pension to give tax cuts to his rich friends.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...-gain-support/

It just isn't feasible for the long term. Lets ask some other logical folks...

In Massachusetts last year, Gov. Deval Patrick has signed a pension bill that raised the minimum retirement age to 60, from 55. His newer effort aims to stop public workers from getting unemployment money while they’re getting pension payments.

In Rhode Island, Gov. Lincoln Chafee, who has already signed a pension reform bill into law, is seeking to let cities cut benefits to retired public workers. He’s drawn opposition from unions that have said they’d fight the proposal in court if necessary, while mayors have said the measure would alleviate budget pressures.

And in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has tried to cut budgets by raising the retirement age for most government workers to 65 from 62, and lower the amount of money given to workers after retirement to 50 percent of their salary, from 60 percent. The left-leaning minds on the New York Times editorial board wrote that “those changes make sense.”

Way to rent a seat for 6 months while the legislature doesn't meet again until Jan 2013. That win if it holds up means absolutely nothing, but again why worry about the facts.

BTW- did you see Barrett get slapped after he gave his concession speech?

Death threats, etc. Once again the liberals are showing there true colors. Check out what is on twitter.

One final thing "THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!!!!"

More than half of them did opt out in WI once they were given the choice

OOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! :tro:

not enough of a change in my opinion. those numbers ignore completely the fact that we live longer and longer....many pensions are still set at ages from decades ago, when most people didn't live to age 65. ss for instance. now, most people live to their 80's, and we've got more people attaining age 100 than ever.
it is unsustainable to have someone spend as much time in retirement as they did working.
it's not a matter of right and wrong, or fairness...it's simple math!

It depends upon who has been guarding the pension money. Has it been safely held, accumulating interest over time, the principle intact, as it should have been?

Or have politicians scavenged it? Are they trying to scavenge it now, to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy?

It's easy to cut budgets on the backs of your neighbors. Especially when you are taught to demonize them and call them "union thugs".

Because if you don't do that, if you are not set on to attack each other, those neighbors may get together and wonder why, if we are so "broke", the wealthy are getting more and more tax cuts, and they get insulted when we question why "the job creators" can't pay a penny more, but a retired teacher has to have their pension cut in half?

Yes, good point! :D The facts are that Walker was planning on calling a "special session" of the Senate this summer and pass the mining bill (a gift to his crony donor) and now, with the GOP having lost the Senate, he can't do that.

The facts are that Walker was also planning to call a "special session" of the Senate this summer, and make Wisconsin a "right to work for less" state - and he can't do that, either.

Yes, indeed. No more Scott Walker shoving ALEC agenda items through in the middle of the night :tro:

Walker is done. His power is gone, stripped by democracy: the successful Senate recalls. All Walker has left is waiting for the FBI indictments to come down on his head.

Don't mistake opting out of union membership with trying to increase the bottom line of one's paycheck after Walker has stripped your raises out of it.

Let's see ... that retirement money was always supposed to be in safe investments, untouchable.

Instead, politicians have taken money out of pension funds (against laws) to put against their budget deficits.

Politicians have stripped the "safe investments" from the pension funds and put it into private 401K's, etc, causing loss of funds.

And now, that the politicians have stolen from the pension funds, the politicians are blaming the pensioners for living too long, for getting "too good a deal", but being greedy about the agreement they worked their life under.

Yeah, blame the pensioners.

Funny thing: good pension funds, like those set up by my father for police/firemen/Illinois municipal employees in the 1960', 1970's - that have been managed correctly, and kept out of the hands of politicians - are flush and fully capable of paying their current and future obligations. How about that?

It's precisely like Social Security. We could dare to ask those well-off Americans that make over $250,000 a year to pay additional Social Security taxes on their income above $103,600, but only up to $250,000 (because everybody who makes less than $103,600 is already paying social security taxes on 100% of their income).

Or, we could scream that Social Security recipients are freeloaders off the government teat, and deserve - no, NEED - to have their benefits cut in half due to future program shortages, or they need to work years longer, how dare they retire at 65! We're broke, dammit! They all have to sacrifice and give up retirement benefits!

Because that's better than the wealthy being "forced" to "pay for the poor" by paying a couple thousand dollars more a year. It's so unfair to them! The poor are who need to pay more, or sacrifice more. Society isn't "equal". The rich don't have to pay equally as the little folk do.

This is America - if you are poor, you pay 100% for your retirement, and you suffer if there isn't enough money to go around. If you are rich, don't worry, the politicians you own have looked out for your interests: you only pay a little of your income towards a retirement you don't need financed by a safety net anyway, and you do not have to sacrifice if there is a shortage.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul has never worked either. Money is neither made nor lost it is just pushed from place to place.
Show me the bill proposing tax cuts for the wealthy where it is written that they will be paid for by pension funds. No such thing exists, sheep.

Not even close to enough, just pointing out that Democratic leaders are doing EXACTLY the same kinds of things in other states and not getting an ounce of flak here.

:zz: The Walker Budget. The Ryan Budget.

yeah, but they're democrats. of course they won't get flak.

quote the bill, not what the shepherds have fed you. ACTUAL quotes from either document.

Assertions with no proof are dismissed.

This is the part where you tell me to do my own homework to prove your point right?

Glad to see after 3 and a half years of Hope and Change this has been reversed...oh wai







































thud

Well, go ahead and name them. They should get flak, too.

No, this is the part where you were supposed to have paid attention during the Walker budget, during the past year, and notice that the tax cuts he gave were funded by cutting the pensions of the public unions. You know, the part that was all over the news and caused the recalls :zz:

"Quote the part" ?? - yeah - the whole budget. The parts that are all over the news.

Well, yes, let's look at who has voted for what in the past three and a half years :D







































thud

see above.

Quotes from the "news" will be fine too, I am sure they have direct quotes from the budgets for you to believe what they are feeding you as opposed to opinion and rhetoric.