After Gutenberg

8 Comments

1. jcwinnie
   Posted 2011-2-25 at 9:36 am | Permalink

   A reddit commentator notes that “in the so-called ‘prank’ phone call, Gov. Walker actually admitted to three serious crimes: 1.) Firing state workers as political retaliation. 2.) Illegal campaign funding, and, most seriously, 3.) Plotting to place agent provocateurs on the streets of Madison to cause chaos.” C’mon, Scott, give us your best Nixon impression!

   

   On the other hand, he didn’t take the Indiana government official’s advice of using live ammunition on the protesters.

2. jcwinnie
   Posted 2011-3-2 at 4:00 pm | Permalink

   Governor Walker gave $140 million in tax breaks to corporations—right before he announced this fiscal year’s deficit of $137 million. Thus, some claim that he fabricated the budget crisis to push a certain agenda.

3. jcwinnie
   Posted 2011-3-2 at 4:50 pm | Permalink

   Bob Morris says, “It’s not like what the Koch Brothers and Scott Walker are attempting is something new.”

   Big money continually tries to subvert and influence politics. But usually it’s done more subtly and out of sight. The banksters do their influence-peddling behind closed doors so the public has much less idea what’s going on. But Scott Walker in particular has all the subtlety of an elephant with diarrhea. That’s why this is so public.

4. jcwinnie
   Posted 2011-3-2 at 5:40 pm | Permalink

   The budget bill calls for what Think Progress calls “a rapid no-bid “firesale” of all state-owned power plants.” With the Blogosphere replete with the observation by one progressive blogger that the proposed privatization of Wisconsin power plants is “a highlight reel of all of the tomahawk dunks of neo-Gilded Age corporatism: privatization, no-bid contracts, deregulation, and naked cronyism” Observers warn that “the provision will open the way for large, politically connected corporations to buy up the state’s power plants on the cheap.”

   Now who might that be? Got it in one, comment reader. Bully!

   While it’s unclear whether corporations would be interested in buying the plants, a similar proposal was vetoed six years ago by Gov. Jim Doyle (D), who called the plan fiscally and environmentally irresponsible. Many of Wisconsin’s power plants are in violation of federal clean air regulations and desperately need to be upgraded and cleaned up — not dumped into the private sector.

   Coincidentally (cough, cough), Charles Koch felt it necessary to write an op-ed piece for Wall Street Journal that speaks out against “crony capitalism,” which is when businesses successfully lobby “for special favors and treatment by seeking mandates for their products, subsidies (in the form of cash payments from the government), and regulations or tariffs to keep more efficient competitors at bay.”

   The CEO of Koch Industries felt it necessary to speak out against such cronyism because “it erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want.”

   So does that mean that the Koch brother, who have outspent Exxon Mobil on pro-pollution disinformation aimed at preventing action to preserving a livable climate, now will redirect their efforts and see to it that America gets more clean energy, something that a majority of Americans want? Just asking

5. jcwinnie
   Posted 2011-3-3 at 9:38 am | Permalink

   Well, it certainly would be a drastic shift in direction since, as Joe “Hell and High Water” Romm reminds us, the Koch political machine ensures “that Koch Industries never has to compensate the people and ecosystems damaged by Koch Industries pollution. Koch front groups — from Tea Party groups to think tanks — have diligently promoted Koch Industries’ bottom line by denying global warming, fighting regulations on Koch’s cancer-causing chemicals*, and snuffing out investigations into Koch’s environmental crimes.”

   * Romm Bit: The University of Masschusetts Amherst has scored Koch as among the top ten worst air polluters for its carcinogenic chemicals.

6. jcwinnie
   Posted 2011-3-3 at 12:35 pm | Permalink

   Speaking of attention to the bigger debacle than on corrupt new governor, I was glad to read a comment relayed by Gristz Christopher Mims:

   james_from_cambridge 03/02/11 

   Seriously, everybody needs to stop panicking over this ridiculous Republican bullsh*t about the deficit. They create this panic to fool y’all into cutting the New Deal programs we all know and love and that they’ve had a grudge against for the past 80 years (a-holes never forgive, nor forget and Republicans are the biggest a-holes that ever were.) Republicans themselves created these huge deficits, which started after their huge tax cuts for gazillionaires in the 80′s, and they never went away. They figured the tax cuts would force government to cut spending. Never happened, never will happen because the only way to make a dent in the deficit without raising taxes to the level they were at pre-Reagan, is to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, brutally. Again, NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN, because the Middle Classes love their Social Security and Medicare. But these deficits, and the massive debt, don’t matter anyway. 

   We will never go under as a country for two reasons. 1) We can print money. 2) We’re vampires. That’s right, we’re the Edward Cullen of planet Earth. When Reagan the infirm created those huge deficits and the dollar plunged, the Japanese started investing heavily in the U.S., buying property and our debt. We sucked them dry and when they collapsed, we then moved on to European and Asian investors in the 90′s. Now we have the Chinese, who think they’re being smart by not going on a buying spree of American infrastructure like the Japanese but instead buying up our good old Government bonds. They’re bigger idiots than the Japanese because we’re gonna inflate our way out of this particular debt, and they’ll get back half of what they invested. When we’re done with them and they collapse, which I promise you they will, we’ll move on to the next group of suckers. Probably the Indians (and after that, we’re coming for you South America [I'm looking at you Brazil!], probably around 2025, so get ready!) 

   We’re too big to fail folks, way too big to fail, ’cause if we do, we’ll take the entire world economy down with us and all other countries know it and will therefore prop us up indefinitely. So stop panicking like little schoolboys in a rectory. Pick up a friggin’ Economics book and stop swallowing Republican lies about what caused the deficit and how important it is anyway (Republican tax cuts that drove down the top marginal rate from 70% in the 1970′s to 35% now is the only cause. How the hell can the Federal govt. function when they’ve completely deprived it of oxygen?) 

   **Thank God I finally got to use my Economics degree!!**

   Phew! As @chrislike said:

   now, do I think this is true because it passes logic tests or because it lines up with what I want to be true?

7. jcwinnie
   Posted 2011-3-23 at 6:34 pm | Permalink

   More progress on the Death Star, 350.org reports, “Of the $32 million the U.S. Chamber spent on the 2010 midterm election, 94% went to candidates who are climate deniers.” Hopefully, their foreign financiers will grade on a curve, eh?

8. jcwinnie
   Posted 2011-4-15 at 5:58 am | Permalink

   Shortly after helping to elect Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), Koch Industries opened a new lobbying office in Madison near the state capitol. However, little has been disclosed about the Koch lobbying agenda in Madison. The New York Times reported that Koch political operatives privately pressured Walker to crush public employee unions. But Walker’s major payback to Koch relates to environmental deregulation.

   ThinkProgress has learned that the Walker administration, along with state Supreme Court judge David Prosser, has quietly worked to allow Koch’s many Georgia Pacific paper plants to pollute Wisconsin by pouring thousands of pounds of phosphorus into the water.

   Koch’s Georgia Pacific plants are well known for releasing large amounts of phosphorus into Wisconsin’s waterways. A report by the state government showed that Georgia Pacific is responsible for about 9% of total phosphorus pollution in the Lower Fox River near Green Bay.

   In 2005, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) issued a permit to Koch’s Georgia Pacific company to nearly double its phosphorus pollution in the Fox River. A group of Wisconsin citizens challenged the permit the following year, claiming the DNR’s permit violated the Clean Water Act. In 2010, the Wisconsin Third District Court of Appeals ruled that the public has a right to challenge the permit, and that the DNR did not appropriately hold public hearings. Around the same time, the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board adopted “sweeping regulations” to control phosphorus pollution to slow down “runaway algae growth.”

   To fight the challenge to the permit, as well as new regulations on phosphorus, Koch’s close allies in the Walker administration and the Wisconsin Supreme Court went into action:

   – Rewriting Environmental Regulations For Koch: Last year, the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board called for strict numeric limits on phosphorus pollution. The regulations, which were supposed to be implemented in January, were delayed by Walker’s administration. Hidden inside his infamous budget bill passed in March, Walker then inserted a provision to revise and reduce the phosphorus limits proposed by the Natural Resources Board. Walker’s budget bill was rushed through the legislative process without public hearings.

   – Ruling In Favor Of Koch And Other Polluters: In March, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, with Justice David Prosser voting with the majority, overturned the lower court decision allowing a public challenge to the permit giving Koch’s Georgia Pacific plants more leeway in dumping phosphorus into waterways.

   – Delaying Environmental Regulations For Koch: Earlier this month, the Walker administration announced a two year delay of all phosphorus regulations passed last year. Not only has Walker’s administration called for reduced phosphorus dumping rules, they now have made it clear that no rules will be implemented until 2013.

   During this three month period of Koch-enriching policy and legal action, the Koch political largesse has flowed to both Walker and Prosser. The Koch political machine spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in ads supporting Walker during the budget showdown, organized pro-Walker Tea Party rallies, and mobilized a pro-Walker bus tour. During his recent reelection campaign, Prosser too was boosted by two Koch-linked groups, Citizens for a Strong America and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which ran about $1 million in advertising. A top Georgia Pacific executive overseeing plants responsible for dumping phosphorus in the Fox River sits on the board of the pro-Posser group, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

   http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/13/walker-koch-phosphorus/