Wing-Ding News from the States

To get a handle on the "ignoramitocracy" governing our states, I suggest reading Ross MacDonald's 1947 detective novel Blue City. The novel chronicles corruption in a small Midwest town and highlights the intersection of the business and crime communities. MacDonald writes an imitation of the local Chamber of Commerce's attack on trade unionists as communists, provocateurs and of course, thugs. Meanwhile the reformer Mayor as well as the initially good-intentioned are being blackmailed by the crime bosses.

I gave up waiting for Carl Hiaissen and so recommend Dailykos' poster "perplexed" for regular updates on Rick Scott's Florida. "perplexed" captures the mundane lunacy of the new governor such as deciding the Agriculture Department should take control of school lunches because the prohibition of chocolate milk might hurt Florida's dairy farmers. Or Rick Scott deciding to invest millions in enlarging the port of Miami to capture the traffic coming from the Panama Canal. But others have been capturing the highlights also. Besides gutting the school systems and giving amazing tax benefits to corporations--all in the name of cutting the deficit, Scott also wants to close all public hospitals. He also wants to privatize Medicaid for the poorer citizens. He also has announced random drug tests for public employees and welfare recipients. They don't call him Sick Rott for nothing.

Before we ascribe ideological motives to him, it's best to remember that Rick Scott is a bonafide criminal. His fortune was made by Medicare fraud and he paid the largest fine--$1.5 billion--in United States history for fraud. So it should not surprise us that the company that would conduct the random drug tests would be his wife's ,Solantic. Steve Benen of Washington Monthly caught this and noted that the same "Solantic" company would immediately reap the benefits of any privatization of Medicare. Apparently,this Rick Scott created company took advantage of the 2005 Medicare pilot project on privatization. So now they are all set up to reap the profits.

Rick Scott's Florida will also prohibit public employees from purchasing health insurance that could pay for abortions. Now there is a larger move in all of Florida to prohibit all citizens from buying health insurance to cover abortions. The war against the uteri continues.

Then we travel back to Wisconsin. A Wisconsin court had ordered a stay on the Attorney General from publishing the new union-busting law because of complaints it violated the open meeting law. Not to worry, Senate leader muscles the non-partisan Legislative Bureau to publish it. So Governor Walker proclaims its now officials even though it has not been officially published by the Attorney General as required by law. Forget the issue at stake, the thuggery by the state legislators and Walker during this whole process has been amazing. Now the Legislative Bureau claims the bill isn't official, the Fitzgerald brothers, who control the Senate and the Assembly, proclaim it is. And the Governor says he is going to enforce it immediately. I like the rule of law also.

The Associated Press finally got all the e-mails sent to Walker during this debate. Walker had claimed that the "vast majority" of them supported his position. An AP investigative report found that in fact the majority opposed him. But one of the e-mails was very interesting. A state prosecutor from Indiana urged him to fake an assassination attempt so as to smear the unions. Walker claims he never read this e-mail but the prosecutor was discretely told to resign.

A University of Wisconsin professor named William Cronon wrote a blog critical of Scott Walker's new bill but suggested a "moderate" alternative. The Republicans are demanded all of the professor's e-mails, claiming that he was tantamount to lobbying and that would violate the conditions of his employment since he is a state employee. Prof. Cronon sent a letter about this to Talking Points Memo , which kicked off a firestorm in the state. The Republicans claimed that such actions by the professor--mind you--had a "chilling effect" on legislators trying to get at the truth.

Wisconsin voters have passed the 50% mark for signatures to recall the 8 Republican Senators. Top of the list is our man Randy Hopper, whose mistress now works for the state and he no longer lives in his district. The story of the mistress has legs. Apparently she got a job and recieved a $12,000 increase over the previous person who held this. Not great advertisement for a budget cut debate. It gets worse. She never went through the state procedure to apply for a job. Poor Randy. Now everyone in his district knows all the dirty details.

The race for the Supreme Court position in Wisconsin has really heated up. The winner of the April 5th vote will be the deciding vote on the whole union-busting bill. Scott Walker's candidate is a sitting judge David Presser, who drew attention this week for screaming at the female Chief Justice "you're a bitch" and "I'm going to destroy you." Opponents of Presser unleashed a barrage of attack ads that made note of his failure to investigate the sexual molestation of two children by a Catholic priest. To avoid scandal for the Catholic Church,Presser went to the bishop, who quietly had the priest transferred within Wisconsin. And the priest continued his wanton ways.

Of course, the Senator who spearheaded the bill that killed the ability of children to seek redress from the Catholic Church was none other than our man Randy Hopper. With the Fitzgeralds in charge of the Senate and Assembly and the Fitzgerald brothers drafting their dad to get the top job of the State Police,you get the picture of corruption gone out of control.

Do the Koch Brothers bidding much, Scott? Remember Republicans everywhere are against regulation. But Scott Walker seems very concerned to tighten the regulations against wind energy. In essence, his new regulations--the toughest in America--cancel the wind development turbines planned by one of the largest wind turbine companies in the country--Invenery. Besides refusing the high-speed rail project, Walker's latest move kills another $1.5 billion in the state. Walker also wants to eliminate Wisconsin's state target of having 5% of the state's energy pprovided by alternative sources. But he can still sell off the state's power plants in non-competitive bidding.

New Hampshire is now debating a union-busting law, which exceeds the demonic dimensions of Wisconsin. Reading the law, I had to wonder whether these mental midgets really want a school system and government where employees can be fired at will? Can you imagine having to plan on a year to year basis never knowing who your employees are? Luckily, democratic Governor Lynch promises to veto this nonsense.

Meanwhile in the state of Maine,teabag Governor LePage wants to strip a labor mural from the Department of Labor because the state views business and labor equally. He also wants to rename the conference rooms in the building so they do not reflect a bias to labor. The mural was done by a Maine artist, who won a 2008 competition for the project. Since citizens always liked it,they have raised questions whether it is legal to move it.

There are two states where property taxes have been lingering political issues for years--Maine and New Jersey. With Teabag Le Page and Chris Chrissie promising to address this during their campaigns, we should note that in both states property taxes have increased.

For those of us planning on medical exiles because of the state of our national healthcare system, we welcome the new that Vermont's House passed a single-payer plan. The news that Vermont will adopt a single-payer healthcare system has caused 20,000 doctors to volunteer to move to Vermont to work. Perhaps, there is hope yet.

The hero of our detective novel falls in love with a local woman and must decide whether to move away for a fresh start. He decides to stay in the corrupt city to clean it up. But remember that was written before Ross MacDonald became realistic.