A left-wing ‘temper tantrum’ to short-circuit elections and their consequences
Three years ago, the combination of a $787 billion stimulus and multibillion-dollar bailouts sparked the first tea party rallies. The tea partyers protested, yes, but most importantly they pledged to “remember in November” — that is, November of the following year, when the next congressional elections would be held.
Liberals, confident the tea parties would fail, called it a “temper tantrum.” That “tantrum” wound up sweeping many a Democrat out of office. Now, liberals are throwing a fit of their own. But they aren’t waiting for the next elections. They want their way, now.
That’s the upshot of both the threatened boycotts of a conservative legislative group’s corporate sponsors and the attempted recall of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. The left, having lost last time, is too impatient to bide its time.
The conservative group in question, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), has been around since 1973. It has been quite active in Georgia since Republicans took the reins here a decade ago.
By ALEC’s count, each year one in five bills based on the group’s model texts becomes law. That rate hardly signals a rampant rubber-stamping of laws written in secret and railroaded through statehouses.
The two ALEC-approved laws at the heart of the boycott threats are one requiring voters to provide photo identification and the “stand your ground” self-defense law that gained national notoriety after the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.
But states began passing voter ID laws nearly a decade ago. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 upheld Indiana’s version, one of the strictest, noting plaintiffs presented no one denied the vote because of the law. “Stand your ground,” meanwhile, is a century-old legal concept long approved by courts. In recent years, it has been codified by a number of states — including eight with Democratic governors at the time.
Now, suddenly, these court-approved laws have made ALEC public enemy No. 1. Companies that donated to it are shrinking in the face of boycott threats. What changed? Why now?
Permit a theory: The urgency stems from the conservative wave that swept over numerous statehouses in 2010. Republicans now control 26 statehouses and 29 governor’s mansions. That’s a stark change from before the 2010 elections, which produced the largest loss of statehouse seats for one party in decades and the most GOP state legislators in 82 years. Suddenly, ALEC has a lot more influence. And the left doesn’t want to wait for the next elections — and to have to win a reversal at the polls — to stop it.
In Wisconsin, labor unions aghast at the changes Walker and GOP legislators enacted — including limiting collective bargaining rights for some public workers and requiring them to contribute more toward their health care and pensions — will try to recall him in an election next month.
Never mind that Walker campaigned on most of these changes, won the election and followed through. The unions want to remove him from office more than two years early. There’s talk Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder could face a recall as well due to his union-limiting law.
Fledgling democracies mark a significant milestone when they transfer power safely from one group to another. We haven’t fallen that far.
But it is disturbing to see some groups try to lessen the effect of their electoral losses by making threats and seeking to remove officers carrying out an electoral mandate. They tread on dangerous ground.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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327 comments Add your comment
Rafe Hollister
April 22nd, 2012
3:45 pm
I was talking about the 12 election where the voters marginalized you cons.
Is it over getaclue? Pray tell who won?
getalife
April 22nd, 2012
3:58 pm
“”People don’t know Mitt Romney very well,” he said on CNN. “They see a businessman. They hope he has new ideas. When they find out what his ideas are, slashing taxes at the top for the very wealthy … they’re going to think, ‘This is very familiar. We’ve tried this. This was a big failure.’”
Axelrod said Romney’s campaign for the Republican nomination had been a negative one, based on attacking his opponents rather than spelling out ideas.
“When he does, I think people are going to judge them for what they are, which is backward-looking and a repeat of what got us into this mess in the first place,” he added.” Aol.
Reality.
Our President will win silly.
getalife
April 22nd, 2012
4:00 pm
rafe,
The best you will get is another con VP that will lose like palin.
Piedmont South
April 22nd, 2012
4:02 pm
Our President will win silly.
_______
Mitt mightl bet you a friendly wager of pocket chagne on that, say $10,000..
Rafe Hollister
April 22nd, 2012
4:04 pm
which is backward-looking
And this is a bad thing? We are so far down the road to socialism with all the deficit spending, financial irresponsibility, socialized medicine, and the loss of freedom, backward is the only logical place to look. The future, under the current unmitigated disaster, is too frightening to anticipate.
Rafe Hollister
April 22nd, 2012
4:07 pm
I sure hope they asked Ax about John Corzine, stealing billions of dollars from honest folks and avoiding jail, by volunteering to bundle money for Barry Oblamer.
getalife
April 22nd, 2012
4:10 pm
rafe,
If you want to look back at the collapse to avoid another collapse, I am all for it.
You might want to look back at the nation building occupations costs too.
getalife
April 22nd, 2012
4:12 pm
Piedmont,
Never bet with cons.
They would welch on that 10 k.
Right Andy?
getalife
April 22nd, 2012
4:14 pm
“I sure hope they asked Ax about John Corzine, stealing billions of dollars from honest folks and avoiding jail, by volunteering to bundle money for Barry Oblamer.”
cons are for corruption like alec.
carlosgvv
April 22nd, 2012
4:29 pm
Rafe Hollister – 4:04
This comment suggests you got all your knowledge about Socialism from a dictionary. You will have to do much better than that to make any intelligent observations about America and Socialism.
md
April 22nd, 2012
4:37 pm
The US is a capitalistic society with a handful of socialistic programs……..easy enough concept. The talking points don’t allow for the distnction, as the two parties do all they can to paint each other as out of touch with reality.
In reality, most all folks believe society should help those that can’t help themselves……the difference arises when one side also believes society should also help those that won’t help themselves………usually as a way to buy votes. And that is where the greater socialistic tendencies arise……….which is why Greece is on fire.
Piedmont South
April 22nd, 2012
4:41 pm
…the difference arises when one side also believes society should also help those that won’t help themselves………
_________
You could say that. . . . or you could say the differences arises when one side believes soicety should not held anyone . ..
md
April 22nd, 2012
4:44 pm
“You could say that. . . . or you could say the differences arises when one side believes soicety should not held anyone . ..”
There’s that talking point I was referring to……..most on the right recognize the need to help the cant’s…………there is a difference.
As we choose everything we do, 1/3 of kids today are choosing to drop out of school (assistance program #1)………and where does that lead?? Are they cant’s or wont’s???
md
April 22nd, 2012
4:46 pm
According to a CBS report, dropouts cost society $300 billion per year………cant’s or wont’s???
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
April 22nd, 2012
4:49 pm
American Professors Gather in Tehran for Occupy Wall Street Conference
BY DANIEL HALPERS
An alarming news report from Iran’s Press TV, a propoganda arm of the Iranian government, showing American professors gathering in Tehran to discuss the Occupy Wall Street Movement
———–
I wonder why the headline describes the professors as “American”. I guess it refers to their citizenship rather than their beliefs. Just like Obozo.
tiberius your lightning rod of hate!
April 22nd, 2012
5:27 pm
In case you missed it getaclue,, the 2012 election hasn’t happened yet. And given your previous failures in predicting those outcomes, I wouldn’t count your chickens, son.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
April 22nd, 2012
5:51 pm
You are getting better with your tolerance of other American opinions problem but still have a long way to go in civil discourse.
Honestly, he followed that with this-
Lets face reality , the American voters marginalized you con kooks because you went hard right and became radical rw extremists. I tried to tell you.
Civil Discourse, according to a moonbat.
geez
Michael H. Smith
April 22nd, 2012
5:54 pm
In reality, most all folks believe society should help those that can’t help themselves
Exactly how many people in reality truly can’t help themselves? Is it the ones who pay no income tax or the ones receiving food stamps or perhaps those who get a government check simply because they didn’t have enough income vie the EIC?
Honest answer: A very small number in this country cannot help themselves and government confiscation and over regulation to redistribute the wealth of others to those inclined to receive assistance/dependence isn’t the solution.
Not buying this BS on Socialism in this country. It is far far FAR deeper and far far FAR greater than just a scant “few socialistic programs”. It began with Woodrow Wilson and hasn’t stop yet.
Oh and by the way, “Comrades”, why is it that before the advent of Woodrow Wilson’s covert Marxism the so-called Progressive era, very few if ANY politicians referred to this country as a Democracy but instead called it a Republic?
@@
April 22nd, 2012
5:54 pm
Obama is shameless.
He’s losing support among the college students so what does he do to regain their support? Creates a state of panic. Lies by omission.
Disgusting!
Subsidized Stafford loan only one facing rate hike
Repeated warnings that student loan rates will double in July unless Congress prevents it may be causing unwarranted fears for people with college debt.
College debt is a big election year issue and many news stories and press releases omit or downplay the fact that the impending rate increase – to 6.8 percent from 3.4 percent – will affect only one type of federal student loan: subsidized undergraduate Stafford loans.
Moreover, the increase will only affect loans taken out on or after July 1. Students typically take out new loans each academic year, and the rate increase will not apply to loans that have already been made. “It’s not retroactive,” says Rich Williams, a higher education advocate with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
While the increase will be a blow to the students who have been enjoying a lower rate on subsidized Stafford loans over the past four years, it won’t affect the vast majority of loans out there.
“It’s not surprising the 3.4 percent rate expired in an election year,” says Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Finaid.com. “Normally Congress passes legislation with a five- or 10-year window. The four-year window was timed perfectly for an election.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/21/BUL81O6Q7H.DTL
Andy:
…my privileges are switched on and off as though they are controlled by outbursts of hysteria.
Mine too.
One of the more recent removals was a slight directed at jay. I posted another one. It went something like this “Hey, jay! I thought the rule was we couldn’t attack others bloggers but that you were fair game.”
I included my signature SCHNIRT!
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
April 22nd, 2012
5:56 pm
Um, does anyone happen to know what religion Hairy Reed is a follower of?
Dat’s right, he’s a Mormon.
So the libs have had a kook right wing women hating racist corpse molesting polygamist in charge of their Senate majority, for what, 6 years now?
Didn’t seem to bother them much, did it?
Michael H. Smith
April 22nd, 2012
5:57 pm
cant’s or wont’s???
WONTS’!!!
Michael H. Smith
April 22nd, 2012
6:05 pm
@@ 5:54 pm
Why doesn’t Oblamer tell all those tenured Professors’ who are proud members of the infamous 1% that are making over $1 million dollars a year that they are earning too much money and under the newly invented “Occupy Rule” they will be taxed at a rate of no less than 90% to pay for the other newly created GUB’MENT program of “Redistributed Student Tuition Aid”?
Right Wing Love Fester
April 22nd, 2012
6:08 pm
Right wingers are prone to sudden and frequent emotional outbursts. It does make a good stress reliever. Group Hug!
Michael H. Smith
April 22nd, 2012
6:13 pm
When the leftwing Comrades have no sensible reply they just follow their dear leader comrade lil’ barry oblamer.
Michael H. Smith
April 22nd, 2012
6:18 pm
Time to go read Levin’s book.
Goodnight all.
@@
April 22nd, 2012
6:28 pm
There’s a basketball player named World Peace!!??!!
Metta World Peace…is that his given name?
RW-(the original)
April 22nd, 2012
6:35 pm
I wonder if My Little Stalker© would be able to comprehend that my first comment on this topic came after reading just the first page?
I doubt it…
Ah serendipity
RW-(the original)
April 22nd, 2012
6:37 pm
@@,
Not only is that not his given name it isn’t even the least bit descriptive.
md
April 22nd, 2012
6:37 pm
The decrease to 3.4 wasn’t retro either, so many were stuck with their 7.9……..what the kids don’t realize is the fed funds rate is still .25……which is the cost to borrow. The feds are skimming the kids to pay for other wants and the kids don’t seem bright enough to know it…….
@@
April 22nd, 2012
7:36 pm
Not only is that not his given name it isn’t even the least bit descriptive.
Getta Flagrant Foul would be a better fit.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
April 22nd, 2012
7:46 pm
At Red Sox game, President Obama comes on big screen to recognize Fenway’s 100th anniversary, followed by loud chorus of boos.
Aahhh, our little spender booed in Taxachussetts.
Right Wing Love Fester
April 22nd, 2012
8:28 pm
At Red Sox game, President Obama comes on big screen to recognize Fenway’s 100th anniversary, followed by loud chorus of boos.
Got video.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
April 22nd, 2012
8:29 pm
The administration and Media Matters are reviewing videotape of the event and anyone who booed the messiah and can be identified will be interviewed by the Secret Service.
Rafe Hollister
April 22nd, 2012
8:33 pm
Oblamer may have been even more unpopular in Boston than Bobby Valentine.
Right Wing Love Fester
April 22nd, 2012
8:42 pm
Right wingers should go with this “Obama got booed” thing. I see it carrying them far. Definitely the most substance of anything the right wingers have managed to come up to date against Obama. Good job!
Rafe Hollister
April 22nd, 2012
8:52 pm
Fester says
Definitely the most substance of anything the right wingers have managed to come up to date against Obama.
Right wingers do not come up with anything against Oblamer. He supplies plenty of Ammo. We just have to pick the most inane, corrupt, inefficient, or damaging policy or viewpoint to highlight that day. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
@@
April 22nd, 2012
9:05 pm
NEW YORK TIMES PUBLIC EDITOR: Yes, Our Paper Is Totally In The Tank For Obama
No chit!!!!!!
schnirt
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
April 22nd, 2012
9:11 pm
I’ve figured it out!
Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) (also called PMT or premenstrual tension) is a collection of physical and emotional symptoms related to a woman’s menstrual cycle. While most women of child-bearing age (up to 85%) report having experienced physical symptoms related to normal ovulatory function, such as bloating or breast tenderness, medical definitions of PMS are limited to a consistent pattern of emotional and physical symptoms occurring only during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle that are of “sufficient severity to interfere with some aspects of life”.[1] In particular, emotional symptoms must be present consistently to diagnose PMS. The specific emotional and physical symptoms attributable to PMS vary from woman to woman, but each individual woman’s pattern of symptoms is predictable, occurs consistently during the ten days prior to menses, and vanishes either shortly before or shortly after the start of menstrual flow.
I know what’s wrong with bookman!
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
April 22nd, 2012
9:27 pm
Did Obozo wear his mom-jeans to Fenway?
@@
April 22nd, 2012
9:39 pm
At Rancho Grande Supermarket in San Pablo, a package of 18 corn tortillas recently cost $7.80.
SAY WHAT!!??!!
Despite its name, Rancho Grande Supermarket is a small grocery store located in a strip mall on San Pablo Avenue. Less than a mile away at FoodMaxx, a megastore where WIC vouchers are also accepted, the same tortillas are sold for $1.44.
WIC shoppers have little incentive to seek lower-priced items for their WIC purchases, because the vouchers carry no dollar amount.
Yes they do. $94,000,000.00 a month for tax-paying Californians.
The California WIC program currently spends about $94 million a month on food, according to the California Department of Public Health.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/wic-caps-california-reimbursements-after-stores-raise-food-prices.html?ref=todayspaper
Mary Elizabeth
April 22nd, 2012
9:48 pm
I believe that ALEC has wielded much power in our nation for 40 years in, essentially, stealthy ways that are just now becoming known by most of the public. If ALEC had been so above board, then why was it so secretive in what it has been about for almost four decades? I believe that ALEC’s mission has been to enhance the interests of the few of wealth and power rather than the interests of the many – not a concept upon which America was founded.
Please read the below link which describes how ALEC is probably behind targeting teacher retirement pensions, now. If one cannot understand how this is simply wrong to do to those who are senior citizens now, and who spent their professional lives as public servants to others, words of mine will not be able to change one’s sensibilities, but I will reassert that what ALEC is attempting to do, in that regard, is morally wrong.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/13/bobby-jindal-recall-education-reform_n_1424351.html
From the link above:
“The two said the policies pushed by Jindal will be destructive to public schools, moving money toward private schools and relying on test scores to gauge teacher performance. Romero noted that the group also is looking at Jindal’s plans for the state’s retirement system and his efforts to privatize state prisons to galvanize support.
‘He waited until he was elected for a second term and then unleashed this entire change of the education system. Now he is going after the retirement system,’ Romero told HuffPost. ‘This is all very fascist to me.’
Romero suggested that Jindal is not working alone, saying that she believes the American Legislative Exchange Council is behind Jindal’s efforts.
‘The governor is doing the job of ALEC,’ she said. ‘They are doing an overhaul of the entire state. It is a scripted ALEC overhaul.’ “
@@
April 22nd, 2012
10:12 pm
Mary Elizabeth:
Everything I’ve read points to improvements within Louisiana’s schools.
Here’s one of many:
Louisiana’s high-school graduation rate improving faster
Good for the students.
Unions Are Ruining Our Country
April 22nd, 2012
10:31 pm
Hey marko…. Nobody fears you little man. Unions are for losers who need someone to protect their jobs. Real men don’t need them.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
April 22nd, 2012
11:07 pm
Public union pensions (especially teachers) are bankrupting state after state. Just like union pension plans are bankrupting manufacturing companies, especially automakers.
Scott Walker’s reforms are actually working (go figure), giving cities and counties flexibilities that are driving down property taxes and allowing government budgets to get under control.
Keep it up ALEC.
Mary Elizabeth
April 22nd, 2012
11:57 pm
It is morally reprehensible to attempt to change the “rules of the game” for those who have planned their lives, from their early years, based on retirement pensions into their old age, and who are now old in years.
In addition to that, in my opinion, ALEC has created much unnecessary division within our nation through its maligning of the public sector. ALEC has, also, contributed toward making Americans more cynical and mercenary through their intentions to restructure America, as well as through their means of achieving their stealthy goals. America has functioned best when there has been a balance between the public and the private sectors. That healthy balance has been offset because of ALEC’s stealthy impact upon our nation.
Mary Elizabeth
April 23rd, 2012
12:01 am
Questions to ponder:
Do we want to create an America in which the public sector is made more like the private sector, with its survival-of-the-fittest mentality, which fosters aggression and jealousies toward others, as well as divisions among people, or do we want to create an America in which the private sector is urged to incorporate many of the service values of the public sector so that care for the employee is genuinely provided by the employer, so that a perception that “we-are-all-in-this-together” is created among employer, employee, and customer alike, and so that the customer is viewed with respect and appreciation instead of simply seen as a commodity for profit?
I think we would be wiser, as a nation, to encourage the private sector to emulate many of the service values which are prevalent within the public sector than to have the public sector emulate the private sector’s “every-man-for-himself” values. If we, as a nation, were to understand the positive results of this shift of values, we would find ourselves caring that millions of Americans are provided with health insurance and healthcare who presently do not have it, caring that all old people are provided with Social Security in their old age, and caring that every child is provided with an excellent public school education by caring, service-oriented teachers, instead by private sector models in which our young may be used for profit by the shrewdly self-interested.
RAMZAD
April 23rd, 2012
12:09 am
td
No matter what truth there is we can always search to find the one or exceptions that contradict a million cases of affirmative proof. “No tired race card crap.” here. The Right Wing, of which you are a
staunch lemming, has you well schooled as a racist. Don’t you notice that you can’t seem to do anything to convince minorities that the Republican Party is a clean organization? Do you believe that is an accident?
member
Mary Elizabeth
April 23rd, 2012
12:25 am
It should be highlighted, for public knowledge, that the Teacher Retirement System funds in Georgia have come primarily (85% to 90%) from the retirement monies that the teachers, themselves, have contributed to their own pension funds over the years, and which have been invested for them by the TRS Board.
Today’s Rebellion News – April 22nd 2012 | Rebellion News
April 23rd, 2012
1:14 am
[...] A left-wing ‘temper tantrum’ to short-circuit elections and their consequences [...]
Sandy
April 23rd, 2012
8:26 am
Recalls are part of the legal process which include elections so what you’re complaining about is specious and has no validity.