Tag Archives: Wisconsin

~ my 2cents ..., ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

manic March Monday … madness


just another rant …

Phil's Burrow
Phil’s Burrow (Photo credit: Heather Culligan)

On a cold February day, people on the east coast put on top hats and tuxedos while Woodchuck weatherman Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early spring, but as the days passed record warmth as well as tornadoes rain and winter storms interrupted the living caused the deaths of many.

No one really had to tell us but as meteors flew by en masse, several trained meteorologists set out to dash our hopes for an early spring in strange and wonderful ways. I have to say it seemed as if most laughed it off at first but as we slid into the first day of spring those weather people confirmed that we will indeed have two more weeks of cold weather. In fact, just days from rain a snowstorm made itself known on the first day of spring. It was is sunny and or hot in parts of the country, mostly on the left coast while others are getting up to 30 inches of snow reminding us not only of that natural disaster Katrina but that climate change is no joke . The winter cold snap is still plaguing the Mid-West and East Coast while spring like weather tries to break out on the West Coast as cold morning’s move into afternoon warmth that dips into lower temperatures when the evening rolls back around. I will say it again, talk about some useless prairie dogs ok, they are from the woodchuck, whistle pig,  land and beaver family … whatever, Punxsutawney Phil was wrong !

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

What going on offense looks like



Watch Robert Reich explain why raising the minimum wage is one of the smartest things we can do for our economy:Click to see Robert Reich show why raising the minimum wage is a no-brainer.

Watch the video

Dear MoveOn member,

It was a big week—both good and bad—in the fight for a fair economy.

Here’s the bad stuff: President Obama again put devastating cuts to Social Security benefits on the negotiating table. Attorney General Eric Holder admitted that banks may be “too big to prosecute.” And Paul Ryan released his latest outlandish budget plan—full of giant tax breaks for corporations, a plan to voucherize Medicare, and attempts to slash millions from Medicaid.
But here’s the inspiring part. Nearly 8 million MoveOn members are doing really terrific work, together with our allies, to hold both Democrats and Republicans accountable and put an end to austerity economics.
Just in the past few days:
  • 250,000 MoveOn members joined with Reps. Grayson, Conyers, Ellison, and Grijalva and our friends at Social Security Works and The Other 98% to call for a one-sentence bill that would put an end to the sequester—and Rep. Grayson delivered the petition signatures directly to Speaker Boehner‘s office yesterday, with media watching closely.1
  • While Elizabeth Warren took bank regulators to the mat in Congress, 130,000 MoveOn members stood together with our allies at Campaign for a Fair Settlement to demand an end to “too big to jail” on Wall Street, and called for the Department of Justice to hold the banks that crashed the economy accountable.
And of course, day in and day out, MoveOn members are organizing in states around the country to push Republican governors to accept federal funding for Medicaid, challenge draconian local and state budget cuts, and stand up locally against the sequester.
So the fight for a fair economy has a lot of fronts. Right now, one simple thing you can do is to check out Robert Reich’s video and pass it along—to equip others with the information about how we can make our economy work better for working people, not just big banks and Republican lobbyists.
Please watch this video and share it with with friends and family and everyone you know.

Thanks for all you do.

–Anna, Manny, Jessica, David, and the rest of the team

Source:

1. “Sequestration 2013: Lawmakers, activists call for end of sequestration,” WJLA, March 14, 2013.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=288104&id=64304-17809870-nrLSqyx&t=7

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

State Legislation Gone Wild


ThinkProgress War Room

9 Terrible Proposed State Laws

If you think that irresponsible and outright ridiculous bills only come out of Washington, D.C., think again. Ever since the big GOP wave election in 2010, state legislatures across the country have been racing to pass offensive, unconstitutional, and just outright bizarre laws. Other states long controlled by Republicans are also rushing to pass unconstitutional and ridiculous laws just for good measure, it appears.

Here are 9 terrible proposed state laws:

  • NORTH DAKOTA: The state is getting in on the latest anti-abortion fad sweeping the nation: so-called “heartbeat bills” that ban abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected. North Dakota is set to pass a law that bans abortions (at its single remaining abortion clinic) after just six weeks. The law, the most stringent in the nation, is clearly unconstitutional.
  • TEXAS: An “avid proponent of tort reform” in the state legislature has proposed a law that will allow people to be served notice of a lawsuit through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
  • OKLAHOMA: The Sooner State is still fighting Obamacare and just this week the Oklahoma House passed an unconstitutional Obamacare “nullification” law.
  • INDIANA: Newly elected Gov. Mike Pence (R) is pushing for a 10 percent cut in the state’s income tax, something which could gut investments in education and infrastructure. Even Republican legislators are wary, but the Koch Brothers front group, Americans for Prosperity is pushing the proposal.
  • MISSISSIPPI: The Magnolia state, which has the highest obesity rate in the nation, passed a so-called “anti-Bloomberg” bill to prevent localities from “enacting rules that require calorie counts to be posted, that cap portion sizes, or that keep toys out of kids’ meals.”
  • SOUTH CAROLINA: The Palmetto State said no to expanding Medicaid under Obamacare, which sadly is hardly a novel feat. The South Carolina GOP’s innovation was to explain its motivation for doing so was because the president is black.
  • OHIO: Ohio’s radical anti-union law was overturned by a statewide referendum and its anti-voting law was headed for the same fate until the legislature preemptively repealed it on their own. Now Ohio legislators are trying to make it harder for voters to initiate referenda to overturn the radical laws passed by the GOP-controlled legislature.
  • NEW HAMPSHIRE: You might think that the 13th amendment to the Constitution is the one that banned slavery, but some Republican legislators in New Hampshire would like to tell you otherwise. They claim the “original 13th amendment” is one that banned people with titles of nobility from holding office and that it was deleted by some sort of conspiracy. They aren’t taking this lying down and have introduced a bill to restore the “original” version, in order “to end the infiltration of the Bar Association and the judicial branch into the executive and legislative branches of government and the unlawful usurpation of the people’s right.”
  • IOWA: An Iowa Republican wanted to ban no-fault divorces for couples with children, out of fears that easier divorces may make teenage girls “more promiscuous.” Fortunately, legislative leaders shut that whole thing down.

While some of these bills are laughable, it’s not very funny when they actually become law. In Arkansas, for instance, the legislature just overrode the governor’s veto (which, bizarrely, only requires a simple majority in Arkansas) of a measure banning abortion after 12 weeks. This was briefly the nation’s strictest abortion ban until it was outdone by the North Dakota law mentioned above.

Evening Brief: Important Stories That You Might’ve Missed

Medicare spending may fix itself even without more spending cuts.

CPAC attendees blast GOP senator who came out for marriage equality.

Low-income kids being kicked out of preschool thanks to the sequester.

Morning Joe blasts Tea Party darling Ted Cruz: ‘Willfully ignorant,’ ‘condescending,’ ‘playing to illiterates.’

Republican House Appropriations Committee chairman says GOP budget “cuts too much.”

The true cost of the Iraq War: $2.2 TRILLION, 200,000 lives.

Senate Democratic budget cuts same amount of spending, raises less revenue than tax plan often touted by the GOP.

GOP Senate candidate suggests all national non-discrimination laws are unconstitutional.

Maryland abolished the death penalty, becoming the 18th state to do so.

~ my 2cents ...

March madness -Monday


081205_rainier_cloud_03

photo from seattletimes

rain wind and more rain …

The 3-day CPAC summit should, if nothing else open up some minds to what Conservatives are all about and maybe hear what some believe is a misinterpretation of liberty, freedom and what  role our government plays in our society

Oh … get your cards out it’s time to fill in your brackets as 2013 NCAA Tournament play … March Madness begins on Tuesday without Kentucky! and Washington State is wishing Gonzaga the best as they receive first ever No. 1 seed

What worried me before the midterm and Election2012 was the possibility that people who have no experience, common sense or clarity may get on the floor of Congress and really ruin what use to be a great country if they “take back their country.”  I guess you can plug-in whatever that means for you though it sounds like an awful way to live if you are a minority on any level.  We all know folks who are suffering directly from votes Republican lawmakers made and are still making on the local state and federal level; to be sure, the midterm elections affected each state differently, in gross and horrific ways.

Election2012 resulted in a 2nd term for President Barack H Obama.

Now, maybe people understand and or know that all elections have consequences.  Then again, I could be wrong. The grim reality is that a vote for Republicans is a vote against your best interest – people.  If you live on the Gulf Coast or in Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan you have to ask yourself what have Republicans really done for you lately and do you have family friends co-workers who are Teachers, Cops, Emts, Firefighters …any type of Rescue worker … Why? Republican members of Congress have been voting against them on the floor of Congress since 2009 while Republican Governors are acting out the mission under the guise of “States Rights” , which is to restrict cut and abolish governmental workers. While making way for the privatization of social programs only our government should handle such as EPA, Dept. of Ed, Medicare let alone kill Medicaid, FEMA and more $$ for big corporations though government can be a force for good and if interpreted correctly …

“The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people,

whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or cannot, so

well do, for themselves — in their separate and individual capacities.” – Lincoln

Obviously, the conservative plan is evil in my opinion , without remorse or forethought of what our neighborhoods would look once they defund every social service and eliminate Working Families.

The results from election2014 could affect our children, our lives, and our future.