[Updated - - 2:25 p.m.] They're not out to steal a mere State Supreme Court seat in 2020 by switching an election day and dinking at some rules, all of which they've done before.
This time they mean to steal the Wisconsin government, and put the single set of keys to the State Capitol in a Republican party safety deposit box.
To settle every vindictive score - - real, wrongly-imagined and some-day-theoretical - - by stashing state power in a Republican-controlled favor-dispensing machine, a self-kleptofying kleptocracy that will make special-interests even more influential and perpetually routes their money to GOP pols, their partisan PACs and privilege-protecting third-party pals.
Update: Some fresh details here, including proposed limitations on early voting days to tamp down turnout in Democratic-leaning large cities. Another hit to local controls.
Walker said he liked 'divide-and-conquer.' Now it's just the conquereing part, as Republicans get ready to scorch the earth so badly and so intentionally divisively here - - on top of their eight-year war on the environment, the poor, the cities, the unions, the public sector and local controls - - that bipartisanship will go from an endangered principle to a dead one.
And the change bills the Walkerits have been drafting in secret for weeks, just as they did with their Act 10 bomb and gerrymandering maps, will not be the "reasonable" nip and tick here and there as State Senate Majority Leader and proven authoritarian Scott Fitzgerald laughably claimed right after Walker and all GOP candidates for statewide office went down in the November 6th election.
(As predicted).
The word is out that the power Fitzgerald and his co-plotters plan to arrogate, and the 'reforms' they intend to ram through the Legislature they command through gerrmnandering are so detailed and lengthy that they may have to rush them through sham hearings in pieces because the swearing-in clock is ticking.
And because some of the changes will be so consequential that in a real democracy, the people would have the final say through the referendum process written into the State Constitution.
But that would be too drawn out and pesky-messy for this band of sore, self-entitled losers, and would too-ironically validate the same voting processes GOP leaders are shamelessly nullifying by grabbing power away from Democrats who won them fair and square from the voters.
Ballot boxes Republicans had already tried to block best as they could with obstructive voting ID laws, restricted absentee voting hours and scary billboards put up in minority or Democratic-leaning neighborhoods threatening jail time for cheaters whom the real cheaters presumed lived there.
The GOP goal is turn Democratic Gov. Tony Evers come January into a figurehead Chief Executive until the the next Republican can reclaim an office and lakefront mansion in Madison the GOP believes one of their bots should always occupy, and where Walker was supposed to enjoy his frozen custard, follow the Packers on TV, book the state plane and watch pretty sunsets - - all of which he kept us breathless apprised about on Twitter - - until he found on his own terms the private-sector job in which his wife just knew he could make the big bucks.
Walker tried once to trash the big vision and historic public service state definition known as The Wisconsin Idea, got caught, lied about it and had to drop what was a clumsy bid for more his own brand of one-person, public-be-damned state governance.
Now he and the little dictators caucus have an even darker goal.
Kill the whole idea of Wisconsin, and make Fitzwalkerstan, with Walker's already-proven-destructive 'chamber of commerce mentality' the permanent replacement.
This time they mean to steal the Wisconsin government, and put the single set of keys to the State Capitol in a Republican party safety deposit box.
To settle every vindictive score - - real, wrongly-imagined and some-day-theoretical - - by stashing state power in a Republican-controlled favor-dispensing machine, a self-kleptofying kleptocracy that will make special-interests even more influential and perpetually routes their money to GOP pols, their partisan PACs and privilege-protecting third-party pals.
Update: Some fresh details here, including proposed limitations on early voting days to tamp down turnout in Democratic-leaning large cities. Another hit to local controls.
Walker said he liked 'divide-and-conquer.' Now it's just the conquereing part, as Republicans get ready to scorch the earth so badly and so intentionally divisively here - - on top of their eight-year war on the environment, the poor, the cities, the unions, the public sector and local controls - - that bipartisanship will go from an endangered principle to a dead one.
And the change bills the Walkerits have been drafting in secret for weeks, just as they did with their Act 10 bomb and gerrymandering maps, will not be the "reasonable" nip and tick here and there as State Senate Majority Leader and proven authoritarian Scott Fitzgerald laughably claimed right after Walker and all GOP candidates for statewide office went down in the November 6th election.
(As predicted).
The word is out that the power Fitzgerald and his co-plotters plan to arrogate, and the 'reforms' they intend to ram through the Legislature they command through gerrmnandering are so detailed and lengthy that they may have to rush them through sham hearings in pieces because the swearing-in clock is ticking.
And because some of the changes will be so consequential that in a real democracy, the people would have the final say through the referendum process written into the State Constitution.
 |
| He lost on Nov. 6th, but he and the little GOP dictators who run the legislative chambers they grotesquely gerrymandered in 2012 and hope maintain in perpetuity are bent on assuming for themselves some of his office's powers until they can transfer them back to the next Republican the system they're rigging can install. Because to this group, Regular Order Means Republican Order. Kind of like the way the Old Soviet Central Committees worked until Vladimir Putin and Dimitry Medvedev played musical chairs during Putin's 'absence.' |
But that would be too drawn out and pesky-messy for this band of sore, self-entitled losers, and would too-ironically validate the same voting processes GOP leaders are shamelessly nullifying by grabbing power away from Democrats who won them fair and square from the voters.
Ballot boxes Republicans had already tried to block best as they could with obstructive voting ID laws, restricted absentee voting hours and scary billboards put up in minority or Democratic-leaning neighborhoods threatening jail time for cheaters whom the real cheaters presumed lived there.
The GOP goal is turn Democratic Gov. Tony Evers come January into a figurehead Chief Executive until the the next Republican can reclaim an office and lakefront mansion in Madison the GOP believes one of their bots should always occupy, and where Walker was supposed to enjoy his frozen custard, follow the Packers on TV, book the state plane and watch pretty sunsets - - all of which he kept us breathless apprised about on Twitter - - until he found on his own terms the private-sector job in which his wife just knew he could make the big bucks.
Walker tried once to trash the big vision and historic public service state definition known as The Wisconsin Idea, got caught, lied about it and had to drop what was a clumsy bid for more his own brand of one-person, public-be-damned state governance.
Now he and the little dictators caucus have an even darker goal.
Kill the whole idea of Wisconsin, and make Fitzwalkerstan, with Walker's already-proven-destructive 'chamber of commerce mentality' the permanent replacement.
Well said. They are power-drunk scum who vision of government is as an organized crime enterprise where tax dollars are handed out as favors.
ReplyDeleteThis is true in both Madison and DC. 2018 was only the first in a lot of steps that are needed.