Wisconsin update: Rethugs strip fiscal dimensions, pass union-busting bill

... so they could do an end run around the procedural rules requiring quorum for the enactment of fiscal legislation.

From Ezra Klein:

In a surprise move earlier today, Wisconsin's Senate Republicans rewrote the bill and left out all the parts that spent money. Then they quickly convened and passed the new law, which included the provisions stripping most public-employee unions of their collective bargaining rights but excluding everything in the law that spent money.

Not that most Democrats are much better, but clearly, this was never about money. It's about breaking one of the few loci of power still available to the working class.

Earlier this week, Michael Moore nailed it ...



A sample:

The truth is, there's lots of money to go around. LOTS. It's just that those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make this happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that money that used to be yours.

There's lots more in the address. Particularly trenchant is Moore's observation that the wealthy bastards have also bought themselves control of the message, so there's only one narrative we're going to get from their media lickspittles. And if we ever start to see that narrative for the manufactured horseshit that it is, there are plenty of shiny things to keep us distracted until it's too late and we're back to the feudal system.

We're in a class war, folks. We didn't start it, but we can at least call it what it is.

(H/t DownWithTyranny.)