The House Rethuglicans march on -- and it's crunch time for pushback in Wisconsin

"This is supposed to be a hearing about state and municipal debt. I don't understand how repealing collective bargaining rights for public workers shows us anything about state debt."

-- Rep. Dennis Kucinich, to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker yesterday

by Ken

The House Rethuglican Mob continues to ride roughshod over decency and sense, this afternoon, this afternoon passing -- with four Republicans voting no and, thank goodness, no Democrats voting yes -- Paul Ryan's Path to Criminally Insane Thuggery. And even WaPo Fixman Chris Cillizza, fearless prophet of the conventional wisdom, is venturing: "Republicans go out on a political limb on budget," wondering if the included teardown of Medicare may not "come back to haunt some targeted Republicans in the 2012 elections." ("In a recent Gallup poll, just 13 percent of people favored a complete overhaul of Medicare. Just 18 percent said they supported major changes in the program.")

Of course it doesn't occur to our Chris to question anything else about the Rethuglican budget abomination, and by the end he's talking about the limb-climbing Republicans as having cast "principled votes," even astonishingly evoking the memory of Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (who in 1993 as a freshman congresswoman from Pennsylvania provided the margin of victory for Bill Clinton's budget and was successfully targeted for defeat in 1994). Still, when you've got Mr. Orthodox seeing storm clouds concerning both your policies and your politics, you may have something to worry about.

Meanwhile, we always expected that criminal sociopath Darrell Issa's Oversight and Government Reform Committee would be in the vanguard of the House Rethuglican assault, and yesterday's show hearing supposedly on state and municipal debt was a prime example.

So more power to the easily malignable Dennis Kucinich for causing this minor blip, in which he elicited what in a rational world would be a pretty damning admission, as reported by Madison's Capital Times:

Walker admits during testimony that collective bargaining law doesn't save money

JUDITH DAVIDOFF | The Capital Times | Posted: Thursday, April 14, 2011 3:15 pm

Like a dog going at a bone, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, didn't stop until he got the answer he was looking for from Gov. Scott Walker during the governor's testimony Thursday before the House Oversight and Goverment Reform Committee.

Kucinich said he could not understand how Walker's bill to strip most collective bargaining rights from nearly all public workers saved the state any money and therefore was relevant to the topic before the committee, which was state and municipal debt.

When Walker failed to address how repealing collective bargaining rights for state workers is related to state debt or how requiring unions to recertify annually saves money -- one of the provisions in Walker's amended budget repair bill -- Kucinich tried one more time.

"How much money does it save, Governor Walker?" Kucinich demanded. "Just answer the question."

"It doesn't save any," Walker said.

"That's right. It obviously had no effect on the state budget," Kucinich replied.

Kucinich said it was clear the attack on collective bargaining rights was a choice and not a fiscal issue. "It's a political issue," he said.

Of course this being about as far as you can get from a rational world, being in point of fact the Never Never Land of the House Rethugllicans, once Kucinich's five minutes were up, the thug governor could simply brush it off and get on with his thuggery.


MEANWHILE, A REMINDER THAT THE WISCONSIN
GOP SENATORS' RECALL DEADLINE IS MAY 2

PvtJarHead provides an urgent reminder on DailyKos which begins:

Wisconsin Recall Deadline Approaches

For those who haven't been paying attention for the last month and a half... There is an effort in Wisconsin to recall the 8 Republican State Senators who have been in office for over a year. Two of those recall efforts have so far been successful. State Senators Dan Kapanke (R-32nd Dist.) and Randy Hopper (R-18th Dist.) have to defend their seats in a pending election sometime this summer.

The deadline for ALL OF THE REMAINING petition efforts to recall the other 6 eligible Republican State Senators is fast approaching. That deadline is May 2, 2011... JUST 17 DAYS AWAY!!

That's it! After that, we're shit out of luck... If enough signatures aren't collected by May 2nd, then we're stuck with the remainder of these ghouls until someone comes up with some other plan to free us from their tyranny.

The campaigns need all the volunteers they can get to collect signatures this weekend and next. . . .

For breakdowns of the situations of the six other senators in need of recall, see the full post. "Okay, what more do you need to know?" PvtJarHead concludes. "Get the hell out there and get to work, people!!"

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