Mined Over Matter

Since my recent mining redux has generated more comments than any scribble in the nearly two-year-long tenure of this blog — even more than the name-calling, rotten produce throw, shit show that the “Unplanned Parenthood” piece inspired (feel free to seek it out if you’re feeling frisky for a cat fight) — what better idea could there be than continue yet anew with it.  Here’s the gist: Part 1 is about the money behind the mine.  Part 2 makes an argument to support Democratic state Senator Tim Cullen’s alternative mining bill.

Ready, set, Gogebic!

 

Undermining Credibility

With only three weeks to go til Valentine’s Day, the Republicans in the State Legislature of Wisconsin are doing what no men ever do: shopping for their beloved before the last minute.  Indeed, in what can only be called a sweetheart deal to both Gogebic Taconite and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation – the former an out-of-state mining company, the latter a much-flawed private entity (that used to be a public one before Scott Walker took over) – the Republican juggernaut essentially promises what any sugarcoated candy on February 14^th does: “be mine.”  Only in this sense it’s not just a command in the possessive sense; it’s also the Republican diktat that the Gogebic mine be.  Corporate profit and bought-off lawmakers, true love if there ever was.

 

Waiting for Goodell

Never before would I have thought that “boo hoo” and “hue and cry” would come together so seamlessly, much less over something in one sentence combining sea hawks, meat packers, and prayers interceding the virgin Mary that reads in perfect syntax to any American.  Or that two such otherwise diametrically opposed figures as Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin state Senator Jon Erpenbach — who almost ran against Walker in the recall election — would be on the same page about something that pertains to unions, workers, and contracts.  Then again, it’s not much like me to opine my two cents amongst the inflated currency of the vox populi over a topic in which none other than my own ignorance can rival my actual interest: football.  But the occasion is much too infrequent for when I can scribble about Samuel Beckett and the Green Bay Packers in one shot, so here goes…

 

We Are(n’t) Wisconsin

No, it wasn’t — stolen that is, the recall election, though the same may not be said about our hopes and faith in this state.  If prayer is the last refuge of a scoundrel (at least according to Lisa Simpson — who may or may not have been unwittingly subverting the famous quote by Samuel Johnson, for whom “patriotism” was the last refuge), then I would add that denial and conspiracy are the last bastions for liberals to talk amongst themselves, scuttling underground while licking their wounds after losing an election.

 

Russ and Them

Not to put too fine a point on it, but sometimes I swear that all there is to one politician’s attack on his or her rival is an extroverted confession of their own flaws and sins.  Take for example all the hoopla Wisconsin Republicans have made about “outside money” and “out-of-state union thugs” meddling in Madison and running the recalls.  Saying little of how next to nothing could be further from the truth, one needn’t do anything more than keep tabs on the company our politicians keep to understand whose pillow talk lies in bed with creeps. 

 

The ABCs of Asymmetry (ICYMI)

Today marks the last day of the (ir)regular session of the Wisconsin State Legislature; good riddance to bad rubbish indeed!  While halfway through lent, this lapse Catholic is glad the state is giving up Republican mandates for a short while at least.  Plus spring has sprung, and with it that irrepressibly burning eternal.  Keeping with the lenten theme, the days are longer (lengthened, you might even say), the sun brighter and warmer.  With recalls soon to be set, there is light for sure at the end of this tunnel that has been the yearlong winter of our discontent, and hope outshining the audacity of dopes.

 

Et Tu, Uterus?

If Caesar were alive today, he’d be stabbed to death with a speculum.  Three days shy the Ides of March, there is something disproportionately apropos for the Republicans in the State Assembly to make use of its limited time left in the current legislative session to vote on three bills that further the national war on women.

 

The Bastard & The Bachelor

In Scribbles‘ humble attempt to merge politics and pop culture (if only to point out the increasingly blurred line between the two), we would like to hightail the lowbrow with the following poll:

 

United We Stand, Divided We Falk

In a moment of post-ironic solidarity conservatives across Wisconsin came together in mass thanks of the gift they received yesterday over the state’s largest public sector union endorsing the most union-sympathetic candidate running against Governor Scott Walker in a recall election.  Following the endorsement of WEAC — Wisconsin Education Association Council — the state’s largest teachers union only twelve days before, the state division of AFSCME, representing some 60,000 public workers, giddily rallied behind candidate Kathleen Falk, former Dane County Executive and two-time loser for statewide office.  Conservatives did not respond to our requests for an interview, but in an email a spokesperson summed it up in bold italics: “Told You So!”

 

The Honorable Judge Activist

Not to sound like the beginning gag of a standup comedian or anything, but have you ever noticed that when conservatives drop the term “activist judge” it’s always in reference to a ruling they don’t like?  “Legislating from the bench” is another term of art they’re quick at the tongue to traduce, meaning a member of the judiciary creating laws rather than interpreting them.  You know, egregious overreaches by the courts such as Brown v. Board of Education or Loving v. Virginia.  But such selective slander seldom if ever seems to apply when a conservative judge or court calls the shots.  Who labeled Chief Justices Rehnquist or libeled Roberts as “activist” in Bush v. Gore or Citizens United, respectively?  Both were arguable breaches of judicial probity.  It seems only a conservative can accuse another — anyone — as activist, irrespective of supporting fact or substantive grounds.  For just as when Republicans ballyhoo a hue and cry about invasive government only when it comes to business regulations or environmental protections — and never about whom you are sleeping with, or how — their bete noir becomes their best friend when a conservative agenda is gaveled, no matter how abusive of power.  It’s heads I win, tails you lose.