The Little Dictators have changed costumes: now they're Little Weasels.
Republicans running the WI Legislature on behalf of Scott Walker and his donors spent years stripping municipalities of local controls as they slashed funding and consolidated power, particularly over cities, to lay right-wing, anti-union and environmentally-damaging damage on the public sector:
Leaving the state without a coherent coordinated strategy so the virus can have an easier time moving from community to community.
It was a load of crap. They just walked away from the table and told other government officials in hundreds of cities, villages, towns and counties to go figure it out for themselves.
So they monkey-wrenched Evers' leadership with the assistance of the right-wing State Supreme Court, washed their hands of any planning, and can point fingers at local officialsif when the virus runs wild, local budgets collapse, and municipal layoffs explode.
In other words, the legislators just unloaded responsibility on to the locals - an unprecedented unfunded mandate with service obligations and lives in the balance.
Does Vos get to get away with saying this?
Republicans running the WI Legislature on behalf of Scott Walker and his donors spent years stripping municipalities of local controls as they slashed funding and consolidated power, particularly over cities, to lay right-wing, anti-union and environmentally-damaging damage on the public sector:
For nearly a decade, the Legislature rocketed through one far-right piece of legislation after another. Those bills then hit the desk of Gov. Scott Walker, who happily signed almost every bill into law....
From 2011 to April 2018, Republicans passed 180 different measures that either limited local control or acted as an unfunded mandate on local governments.But now that the state is facing an unprecedented public health and fiscal emergency with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, these same GOP legislators have decided this is precisely the best time to cut Democratic Gov. Evers and the state resources he manages out of the logical and statutory role he was playing and let all the local governments do their own thing.
Leaving the state without a coherent coordinated strategy so the virus can have an easier time moving from community to community.
Top GOP lawmakers now want to leave virus plan in the hands of local officialsRemember that the GOP legislators kept telling everyone and their pawns at the State Supreme Court all these deeply-concerned GOP legislators wanted was a planning seat at the table.
It was a load of crap. They just walked away from the table and told other government officials in hundreds of cities, villages, towns and counties to go figure it out for themselves.
So they monkey-wrenched Evers' leadership with the assistance of the right-wing State Supreme Court, washed their hands of any planning, and can point fingers at local officials
In other words, the legislators just unloaded responsibility on to the locals - an unprecedented unfunded mandate with service obligations and lives in the balance.
Does Vos get to get away with saying this?
"As a Republican, I believe in local control," he said Thursday.
I agree, and add that the law suit that Fitzgerald and Voss manipulated to be brought under the name of our Legislature as plaintiffs was without any prior vote of our Legislature or even of one of its Committees. We taxpayers have to pay for the private lawyers who represented the plaintiffs (really Fitzgerald and Voss), probably at excessive salaries. Our 3 dissenting, more learned, justices found that the plaintiffs had no standing because they were not hurt nor damaged by Order 28. And the plaintiffs did not get what they asked for (a stay so they could negotiate on statewide rule as legislators with the Governor). But they seem totally content with no statewide rule. They will likely avoid any state wide rule for the future. Interestingly, the plaintiff's lawyer in oral argument conceded that the Secretary of Health Services can issue an order for any individual county. That may have to be what happens where counties do not act for the safety of their residents and visitors. And all this mess will be paid for by us taxpayers in dollars and in damage to our health. Shame on Vos and Fitzgerald!
ReplyDeletePossible bad news on the county health orders front: the legal folks are starting to wonder if the counties can impose their own Safer At Home orders or not, since their power to do so derives from the same statute, Wis. stat. 252, that the Pro-Pandemic Four randomly decided did *not* allow WI DHS the power to issue and enforce Emergency Order #28. Because, Freedumb!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thewheelerreport.com/blog/2020/05/15/supreme-court-decision-leaves-uncertainty-for-local-health-orders/
https://www.channel3000.com/attorneys-wisconsin-counties-stay-at-home-orders-on-shaky-legal-ground/
On the plus side, after watching all those videos of maskless patrons happily mingling in crowded bars I'm expecting the idiot wing of the Republican Party of Wisconsin to experience a severe drop in membership starting in about 14 days. That should make putting reasonable precautions in place a lot easier. Maybe daily postcards to Vos and Fitzgerald reminding them of their declining (plummeting?) support would help, too.. hmmm...
Also, please quit insulting weasels by suggesting they are in any way like the slimy, spineless WIGOP leaders, donors, "activists," and assorted ideological apologists. Toadstools might be more appropriate, especially since they are poisonous and often appear in clumps.
ReplyDeleteJust sayin'.
If Trump had run the Manhattan Project, we'd all be speaking Japanese today. -Dana Milbank
ReplyDelete