Wisconsin Recall Results
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-06-06/wisconsin-recall-results
Governor Scott Walker survived an attempt to oust him from office. Wisconsin voters also gave him a place in history: It was the first time a U.S. governor has won a recall election. The recall campaign came about after the Republican governor stripped away collective bargaining rights for public workers. Walker's win was a blow for Democrats and unions. Republicans say their victory shows voters want leaders who will make tough fiscal decisions. Whether the Wisconsin results are a bellwether for the 2012 presidential race remains to be seen.
Guests
Chris Cillizza
author of The Fix, a Washington Post politics blog, managing editor of PostPolitics.com and author of the book, "The Gospel According to The Fix."
Molly Ball
staff writer for The Atlantic.
Craig Gilbert
Washington bureau chief, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Douglas Belkin
reporter, The Wall Street Journal.
Comments
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From Rion/Patras, Greece
I miss listening to your program, Diane (home is Tucson, AZ) & feel fortunate that I can pick it up here in the midst of unparalleled upheaval. The whole world is holding it's breath till elections June 17th in Greece. Will level heads prevail to save the Euro, the Greek economy, and establish a stable ruling party?
Before leaving the states of great concern to me were the upcoming elections in Wisconsin. This American will be paying close attention to the election of June 6th and hoping that the union busting governor Scott is replaced. Again will level heads prevail in this case to save bargaining rights of hard working people of Wisconsin and set a precedent for the rest of the country?
Angel Voyatzis wrote: "This American will be paying close attention to the election of June 6th and hoping that the union busting governor Scott is replaced. Again will level heads prevail in this case to save bargaining rights of hard working people of Wisconsin and set a precedent for the rest of the country?'
Collective bargaining is not a "right" It's a power given to public sector unions by union bought, short sighted politicians desperate for votes and personal gain, it is a tool of brute force used by unions to impose their will in this case on school districts, home owners and the taxpayers in general. Bargaining is still an option on a case by case basis, each school district can bargain with teachers for the needs or problems faced that are unique to each school district. As far as union busting, that is nothing but empty rhetoric. In case you haven't noticed municipalities across the country are going broke because of unsustainable over promises in regards to impossible to maintain health care and pension programs to public sector union workers. The Unions are their own worst enemy, sooner or later recalcitrant public sector unions will yield to the reality that the money is not there and the tax payers are not going to take it anymore, middle class tax payers and businesses.
Private schools on average are 1/3 the cost with better results. Everyone knows teacher unions prevent any real structural change, collective bargaining is a major contributor to maintaining the status quo. Public teacher unions are all about the benefit to the unions first, forced dues paying teachers second and the student is an after thought. It ain't workin!
As a side note, federal government employees do not have collective bargaining powers!
.
F.D.R. on collective bargaining rights to the National Federation of Federal Employees in 1937.
"Meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the government. All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations … The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for … officials … to bind the employer … The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives …
“Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of government employees. Upon employees in the federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people … This obligation is paramount … A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent … to prevent or obstruct … Government … Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government … is unthinkable and intolerable..”
If you want to read the actual changes to collective bargaining in WI. look here, it is not what the shrill left would have you believe.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-03-12-wisconsin-law-analysis_N.htm
Arkus Duntov wrote:
Teece Bowman wrote: "Best state the Kochs could buy. Now we know who you work for monte...."
I gave you the minuscule $ amount donated by the Koch's to the walker campaign a while ago. These guys are patriots in every sense of the word and there is not one "shred" of evidence to indicate otherwise. I would be honored to call the Koch brothers my friends.
June 1, 2012 - 12:13 pm
Patriots! It’s their form of Liberty and Freedom that ain't cheap…. it takes 16 Teabag/Republican greedy old white billionaires to buy it. Trouble is monte, they ain't buying it for you!
Get used to disappointment and be careful what you wish for.
Arkus: Always remember that you claimed human rights are unnatural.
Are you proud to be a peon dominated and exploited by the wealthy?
Because that's what you argue for. (Winner take all)
Pancake Rankin wrote: "Arkus: Always remember that you claimed human rights are unnatural."
I did? when?
T.B.
The Koch brothers cannot force a single vote for Scott Walker, unlike the unions who do pressure their (previous to act 10) forced dues paying members to vote against Scott Walker and the democrat party with it's successful campaign against voter I.D. laws that insure voter fraud, so who is it that's trying to manipulate election results?
LET FREEDOM REIGN!
Union members don't like the union.
In Wisconsin, since Walker passed the legislation that limits union power, public union members have opted out of the union in big numbers. Membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the state’s second largest union, dropped to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March of 2011.
Under the new law, the state no longer collects union dues from members’ paychecks. So, the union employee can opt to send money to the union or stop. Seems like a large number have stopped paying dues. Guess they have decided the party is over. If the union can’t demand non-competitive wages and platinum benefits for members by owning politicians, what good are they?
"LET FREEDOM REIGN!"
Good lord….what a pathetic evangelist of corporate greed you are monte!
The United States of Corporations is the only Western Capitalist Democracy where workers get no paid days off. Without strong unions to set the workplace standards,none of the workers get squat.
monte being unemployable, respect and safety on the job, adequate benefits, right-to-work, fire at will and the minimum (lIving) wage are distant memories to him. I thank union campaigners who risked their lives so later workers could have human rights. They are more important to Freedom Reigning than all the war fodder ever thrown in the warmonger's breach. Workers' worst foes are Owners. (Not Iran) And their second worst foes are the loudmouth ignorant trying to impress the wealthy.
Angel Voyatzis wrote
"Before leaving the states of great concern to me were the upcoming elections in Wisconsin. This American will be paying close attention to the election of June 6th and hoping that the union busting governor Scott is replaced. Again will level heads prevail in this case to save bargaining rights of hard working people of Wisconsin and set a precedent for the rest of the country?"
That right, those hard working people in the Unions work 20 yrs, retire, get inflation adjusted pensions, and full benefits paid while many other middle class worker may never be able to retire. How absurd.
Walker survives ... does not bode well for the President.
Pancake Rankin wrote:
"being unemployable, respect and safety on the job, adequate benefits, right-to-work, fire at will and the minimum (lIving) wage are distant memories to him. I thank union campaigners who risked their lives so later workers could have human rights."
Workers need to be protected. We need NLRB and OSHA and I'll even give you the minimum wage. And before we had those, unions were a good thing. Now they are a cancer on the neck of business. You cannot name one business that unions have helped in the last 50 years. I can name at least three that they have killed or nearly killed; steel, auto, and airline. While private sector unions were being irradiated, that cancer metastasized to public sector unions. The result in WI shows us that the country is now ready to have that tumor surgically removed as well. This is a great day for America, freedom, and personal responsibility.
YES!
Yes, Charlie and Davey just bought themselves a state! Yeah greed! Yeah Money!
Goes without saying that they already purchased themselves a monte.
new
"Teece Bowman wrote:
Yes, Charlie and Davey just bought themselves a state! Yeah greed! Yeah Money!
Goes without saying that they already purchased themselves a monte"
Cheers To Monte.
The right to free assembly, which includes the right to speak to all those assembled, is every bit as much protected by our Constitution as our right to free speech in general. When free individuals join together to collectively sue for reparation of grievances and to insist on fair working conditions and pay, they are doing exactly what a "company" of people does. If companies can merge and use their collective power, individuals surely can. So your claim that collective bargaining is not a right must only be based on a very narrow literal definition. The Constitution demands that anything NOT spelled out as a power of either the Fed or the State is a power aka right of the People which surely means workers, not just companies.
Why would you or anyone be so eager to surrender your freedom to some corporate schlubs? Is it sycophancy based on greed? Dubai might be a better place to seek such gifts from the wealthy.
Huge win in Wisconsin for the United States of Corporations.
Just another victory for big business. Can fascism be very far in the future? It seems it is the wave of the future.
LibVet if you knew the facts or were at least willing to try and find them and were capable of independent thought instead of the heard mentality you would have come to a different conclusion. Are you for freedom or forced union thuggery?
Walker’s reforms that so enraged the militant left came from a simple principle: that no-one should be forced to join or pay for a labour union. There was no attempt to ban unions or otherwise undermine anyone’s right of free association. Government unions are still free to recruit members who value the benefits they provide
Walker’s reforms also limited collective bargaining to wages only. The result was that union monopolies on services such as teacher health insurance were now open to competition—this saved one school district $3.1 million without any cutbacks in benefits. The bill also moderately increased the amount government workers contribute to their retirement plans. And even then, it stretched credulity for Wisconsin government workers to plead poverty due to those changes—their pensions are still 4.5 times more valuable than those of the private sector workers who pay to support them, their health care is twice as valuable and their average take-home compensation is 22 percent greater.
What we have in Wisconsin is an example of the same kind of stupidity that is spreading nationwide. The right loves to use the term “class envy” and “class warfare” but in essence what we see in the election results last night are clearly a reverse version of this. People have been taught to hate unions because many people who are in them, have some financial advantages that are/were afforded to them by being part of that collective body. As you clearly state:
“And even then, it stretched credulity for Wisconsin government workers to plead poverty due to those changes—their pensions are still 4.5 times more valuable than those of the private sector workers who pay to support them, their health care is twice as valuable and their average take-home compensation is 22 percent greater.”
So the right has figured out how to make people hate and despise what they don’t have….and rather than form a union of their own in order to protect themselves from the ravages of unfair labor practices and unequal pay, they want to punish those who’ve had the sense to form a union.
As Johnandre pointed out earlier, unions once served a very important purpose and many folks who belong to them joined because they were foregoing the huge salaries and benefits that folks at the top enjoyed simply by being at the top. Pensions were means/gimmick, to reward workers in the long term rather than pay them huge salaries “up front”. But now that many of the folks who were not unionized have lost their jobs, they want to strike back at the workers who had the sense to band together and get the financial advantages that they themselves traded away by not being unionized.
I’m afraid that Americans are simply too stupid to understand the power that they have to work collectively. As long as the right can keep them addicted to this notion of “liberty and freedom” then there is little anyone can do to help them.
America is just plain stupid.
Teece Bowman wrote: "America is just plain stupid."
Are you saying that American workers should not be given a choice whether or not to join a union?
TB wrote:"rather than form a union of their own in order to protect themselves from the ravages of unfair labor practices and unequal pay"
Are you saying Wisconsin eliminated the ability for union teachers " protect themselves from the ravages of unfair labor practices and unequal pay" ?
If you did you are dead wrong, if you disagree prove it!
Please have someone from your show review this video -- the exit polls were probably correct:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7R1_ixtlyc&feature=share
It deals with "Computer Programmer Testimony He Was Requested to Write Code to Rig U.S. Elections"
"US elections, rigged and computer code..."
I trust the people demanding the recall of Scott Walker -- not the votes.
the DNC came into to lend their support in the Wisconsin race very late in the game. It is one thing if you try like hell and lose. It is quite another when you lend your support in a half ass way and lose. How do your guest think 2008 Obama supporters will see this half ass support by the DNC...they seemed to forget that old saying "the early billionaire gets the worm"
the DNC came into to lend their support in the Wisconsin race very late in the game. It is one thing if you try like hell and lose. It is quite another when you lend your support in a half ass way and lose. How do your guest think 2008 Obama supporters will see this half ass support by the DNC...they seem to have forgotten the old saying "the early billionaire gets the worm"
Teece, you are right on many levels, even though saying that America is just plain stupid seems very harsh. I agree with you that we citizens are not aware of our collective interests and power. We often view issues with a very minimal perspective rather than taking the more broad overview. It is much easier to be angry with your neighbor who receives some form of government assistance than to be aware of the corporate welfare. Easier to abhor labor unions than to try to understand the uniting of corporate organizations and lobbyists. It's too big to comprehend and it does not affect the individual personally. Most Americans are concerned about the state of our nation but they feel powerless and that their vote is meaningless without realizing their collective power.
Bottom line, IMHO, is that corporations should not be allowed to be a part of the political process by contributing to candidates or funding issue ads. They were formed for the sole purpose of making a profit. In the same vein, unions should not be allowed to be a part of the political process by contributing to candidates or funding issue ads. These organizations were formed for the purpose of protecting their members from unsafe, exploitative, policies and actions from employers in the work place. They need to focus on that not on the political process. Keep it in the workplace for both entities, the political process is for the individual citizen.
With that said, the individual citizen needs to get off their backs and start getting information about the candidates from somewhere other than between ads for Doritos and Viagra. If ads didn't work, and they do, then the amount of money spent of the campaigns would not be the most important factor in who wins.
Before it was sold Wisconsin was a relatively urbane and sophisticated state.
It's gonna look like Louisiana in two or three years, plenty of toothless wretches and ill-fitting dentures. No use to brush up on democracy: It's soaking in a cup of Polident on Walker's desk. I'll bet you can park on the border and witness the Exodus of dentists into Canada. The "montes" can stare hungrily at that cob corn and ribs all they want, but they'll need a blender to eat it. America: Home of the toothless working class, has to eat the slime dished out by the rich.
Walker campaign spends 30 million. Barrett campaign spends 4 million. whoa
Don't mourn, organize.