A Political Movement Gone Mad

GOP Wave Reshapes Nation's Agenda State By State

The most effective means of gaining control when you are in the minority is to win as many local, county, and state offices as possible. Folks in these positions are often not rabid partisans or even professional politicians and are in the positions as legitimate community service. If a "movement" wants to gain control of the political landscape, scooping up all the small offices is pretty easy for a rabid partisan. Here we have example after example of state governments being taken over by the (I'm a little)Tea(Pot) Party. They might be doing us a favor though, because as their agenda now comes into the open, it suffers the fate of all radical ideas. Let the light shine....

Republican governors and state legislators are bringing abortion restrictions into effect from Virginia to Arizona, expanding gun rights north and south, pushing polling-station photo ID laws that are anathema to Democrats and taking on public sector unions anywhere they can.

Union crushing, abortion obsession, voter suppression, and Guns4Us is just for starters..

The realignment in Florida has produced a law imposing more accountability on teachers, along with 18 proposed abortion restrictions, some bound to become law. Immigration controls are motivating lawmakers far from borders, constitutional amendments against gay marriage are picking up steam, Michigan and Missouri shortened the period people can get jobless benefits and Indiana may soon have the broadest school voucher program in the U.S.

Then we move on to blaming teachers, more abortion obsession, xenophobia, homophobia, screwing the unemployed, and undermining public education.

In bellwether Ohio, new Republican Gov. John Kasich burst out of the gate with a plan, now law, to hand over job creation functions from the government to a nonprofit corporation whose board he chairs. Bills that would have met quick death under Democratic control have advanced under Republican majorities – none more apparent than the law to curtail the collective bargaining rights of more than 350,000 public workers.

And of course, we're running states now like corporations. The CEO gets to pick all the appointees and squash the competition. Public servants? Boo! Unproductive feather bedders... It's happening in Ohio as well as Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida. The Governors of these states are setting up little "caliphates" of their own, ignoring their own citizens and imposing Republican rule. Are they a little power mad? ANN SANNER and CALVIN WOODWARD think so. Remember this is the end game for the right wing. There isn't much farther right they can go. There are only so many times they can go to the well with "death panels" before folks catch on. How long will the "Guns4Us" crowd be able to cry, weep, and knash their teeth about being victimized by "do gooders"? Encouraging stupidity and ignorance, squashing other minorities (Republican-Americans aren't even a large minority these days...) bashing gays, white pride, rule by and for the rich.... a political movement gone mad....

More work to do...