Andre's Executive Order

In today's world, we've lost the ability to be meaningfully critical about our politicians. I don’t mean that we've lost our ability to CRITICIZE them – far from it; We make a celebration out of criticizing political officials and our government. What I mean is that we have lost the ability to look at the actions of a politician and to compare those results to what we voted for and what we were promised. We have a hard time holding the specific person we put into office accountable for their decisions and policies. The tendency, today, is to line up on party or candidate lines and to do everything and anything we can do defend or attack a specific politician no matter what they do. Critically evaluating patterns in politics is how one achieves clarity. As officials make choices, you look at the information you have like jigsaw puzzle pieces handed to you day by day. You then look at the explanations provided by those political leaders as an assertion of the puzzle will look...

Today I'm going to walk you through an analysis of the logic behind protesting the Budget Repair bill that I think anyone regardless of political orientation can follow. First, some facts taken from Scott Walker and his Administration. I've placed some citation sources in the margin for areas I thought might be helpful. Campaign Promises The cornerstone of Scott Walker's campaign promises were on numerous items including stopping the train, cutting taxes, cutting spending, and creating 250,000 jobs. He also made numerous smaller promises none of which are relevant to this discussion one way or another. These promises are pretty standard Republican election points, the only thing particularly interesting is that the number of jobs promised is very ambitious – but good for him. Set your sights high. We need jobs. State of the Budget In Scott Walker's State of the State address, he referred to the budget in dire terms: “First, let me be clear: we have an economic and fisca...

The hardest thing to explain to folks who are not part of the Wisconsin protests now in their second week is that this isn't about money. The spin placed on it by the far right and even Walker wants to portray this fight as being about greedy unions refusing to make concessions to a tight budget during tight times. That's a load of crap. The unions have been willing to talk concessions in order to help with budget shortfalls since the beginning. In addition, the state was on track for a 121 million dollar surplus when governor Walker took the job. So it's hard to understand how a 121 million dollar surplus turns into a 137 million dollar shortfall in one month that is so much an emergency that it requires a budget repair bill passed in 5 days or Armageddon is upon us. Well no matter what you think about this, the whole process of how it's happening feels wrong. Even if you don't want to question why a surplus budget became a dangerous deficit in one month requiring ...

Before we get started today, I found it amazing that Rachel Maddow's segment 'The GoP: Bakes sales v. Billionaires' mirrored my connect the dots article in a surprisingly tight fashion. It was reassuring to find that I wasn't the only one who saw the connection between Citizens United and the moves by Governor Walker to crush Wisconsin public labor. I've linked that show segment in the margin if you want to see her take on the idea that what's happening here in Wisconsin is really an effort to let Republican sweep the table in upcoming elections. Whether your conservative or liberal, I'd give it a look. I was at the protests on the capital last night and again was amazed at the determined front presented by public servants. Fire fighters, already exempt from the bill's dismantling of negotiation rights, stood in full uniform with us and marched together through the capital. But it wasn't just unions that showed up. Signs hung from the central banist...