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Paul Ryan running for president?
Because, you know, there are no “anti-government” white dudes vying for the GOP nomination yet.
At this point, we’d rank Paul Ryan fourth on the anti-government white guys list. If only because his hair isn’t as good as Romney’s, Huntsman’s, Perry’s, but better than Ron Paul’s.
Pema Levy spoke with EMILY’s List president Stephanie Schriock to get the inside scoop on the role of women in today’s recall elections. An excerpt:
How did we end up in a situation in which five of six candidates in Wisconsin are women?
The fact that five of six are Democratic women, we haven’t seen that in, well, have we ever seen that? I mean, women are only 17 percent of Congress right now. This is huge.
What I think we’re already seeing this year in 2011, and we’re going to see a lot more of in 2012, is that the entire debate going on in Congress, in state legislatures, and all around the country is really being driven by Republicans’ war on women. Republicans want to dismantle our education system, tear apart our health-care system, change Medicare, knock out Social Security, and, of course, defund Planned Parenthood. They are attacking programs that have been set up to ensure the economic security and provide opportunities for women and children in this country. Women are just fed up. Enough’s enough.
Wisconsinites head to the polls tomorrow for recall elections in six state senate districts. These elections (and two next week) will determine whether Governor Scott Walker will retain a Republican state senate majority, and will also gauge the likelihood that he’ll face his own ouster in January. They’ll also provide a rare test case for a brand of populist, anti-corporate campaigning that activists often call for but many Democrats shy away from. These Democrats are using a class-based message in six districts red enough to have elected Republican state senators on the same day Barack Obama was elected president.
Will it work in Wisconsin? Josh Eidelson explores the recall elections.
Monday night in Madison, Wisconsin, Sheila Ellis, a union member who works as an office assistant for the state, went knocking on her co-workers’ doors. During each visit, Ellis holds up a copy of their union contract. “This no longer exists,” she says before asking the worker to “recommit to the union.”
But given Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-union law, which went into effect last month, it’s not entirely clear what recommitting to the union means. Under the new law, unions can bargain, but only over wages—and with the precondition that wages rise no faster than the Consumer Price Index. They have no legal standing to negotiate anything else, and they must re-certify the union in a vote every year. But unlike in a political election or in a typical union election, the union would lose this vote unless a majority of all eligible voters showed up to vote “yes” (by this standard, we would have been unable to elect a president in 13 of the last 25 elections, and that’s only if everyone voted for the same guy).
Instead of operating under the stifling new rules, leaders of the Wisconsin State Employees Union (WSEU)—the largest district council of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in the state—came up with an alternative: forego legal recognition in Wisconsin altogether. Instead, they’ll act as an unrecognized union, fighting for political transformation while working to defend members’ rights in the absence of a union-negotiated contract.
How workers in Wisconsin are getting around the new restrictions on unions.
(AP Photo/Wisconsin State Journal, M.P. King)
