The Commentariat -- July 12, 2015

Internal links & defunct video removed.

Afternoon Update:

George Jahn & Matthew Lee of the AP: "Negotiators at the Iran nuclear talks plan to announce Monday that they've reached a historic deal capping nearly a decade of diplomacy that would curb the country's atomic program in return for sanctions relief, two diplomats told The Associated Press on Sunday."

Richard Cowan of Reuters: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, interviewed on the 'Fox News Sunday' television program, said the Senate is unlikely to confirm any U.S. ambassador to Havana nominated by [President] Obama. McConnell added, 'There are sanctions that were imposed by Congress. I think the administration will have a hard time getting those removed. This is a policy that there is substantial opposition to in Congress.'"

Mark Hensch of the Hill: "'Meet the Press' on Sunday aired a video documenting GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's various changes of heart on campaign issues. The clip -- titled 'Trump vs. Trump' -- shows the New York business mogul shifting his stances on abortion, ObamaCare and even Hillary Clinton, his potential Democratic rival in 2016. 'One of the reasons Trump is breaking through this year thought is because people feel they know where he stands,' says 'Meet the Press' host Chuck Todd in the video." CW: Which means that the Village People got together & sanctioned anti-Donald talk.

Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "Dealing with legislation at home was supposed to be the low-drama part of [Gov. Scott] Walker's year. Instead, things ... in Madison have been in turmoil for months -- a complication for a governor building his presidential candidacy around his ability to get things done. Walker has spent much of the year feuding not only with Democrats -- a fight he relishes -- but also with fellow Republicans over proposals such as the Bucks' arena.... [Walker] has pushed hard to use $250 million in taxpayer money to pay for a new professional basketball arena for the Milwaukee Bucks...."

*****

Sean McElwee of Salon: Studies show that the only people whose policy preferences matter are rich, white men. In fact, if you're a woman, there's a negative correlation between what you want & what you get. Researcher Nicholas Stephanopoulos: "As male support increases from 0 percent to 100 percent, the odds of policy enactment rise from about 0 percent to about 90 percent. But as female support varies over the same range, the likelihood of adoption falls from roughly 80 percent to roughly 10 percent. When men and women disagree, then, stronger female backing for a policy seems entirely futile." Even Democrats favor the preferences of whites.

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "A federal trial opening in Winston-Salem on Monday is meant to determine whether recent, sweeping changes in [North Carolina's] election laws discriminate against black voters. These changes were adopted by the Republican-dominated state legislature in 2013, immediately after the United States Supreme Court struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 when it ended a requirement that nine states with histories of discrimination, including North Carolina, get federal approval before altering their election laws. But the case, as well as one involving a Texas law requiring voters to show a photo ID, could have far wider repercussions, legal experts say -- helping to define the scope of voting rights protections across the country in the coming presidential election and beyond."

Propublica, republished in Salon, interviews Sonia "Sotomayor biographer Joan Biskupic on the long, tortured history of Fisher v. Texas, [the affirmative action case,] and why it's being reheard." CW: Has some interesting inside-the-Court back-and-forth. As many have said, the Court's agreement to rehear the case doesn't bode well for affirmative-action considerations.

God News

Jim Yardley & Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "Having returned to his native Latin America, [Pope] Francis has renewed his left-leaning critiques on the inequalities of capitalism, describing it as an underlying cause of global injustice, and a prime cause of climate change. Francis escalated that line last week when he made a historic apology for the crimes of the Roman Catholic Church during the period of Spanish colonialism -- even as he called for a global movement against a 'new colonialism' rooted in an inequitable economic order. The Argentine pope seemed to be asking for a social revolution." ...

... CW: I'll bet John Boehner is really, really glad he invited Francis to speak to a joint session of Congress this fall. Maybe Francis will endorse Bernie for president.

Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post: "Seventh-day Adventists voted Wednesday that individual regions of the 18 million-member Protestant denomination cannot choose to ordain female ministers." Via Steve Benen.

Jon Schuppe of MSNBC: "A group of more than 600 churches has joined a small but growing movement within the religious community to call for and end to the war on drugs through legalization. The New England Conference of The United Methodist Church, representing more than 600 congregations, voted last month to support efforts to address the nation's drug abuse problem through 'means other than prohibition.'" Via Benen.

Presidential Race

** Nate Cohn of the New York Times had a conversation with Bernie Sanders. Sanders "believes he can mobilize a working-class coalition spanning ideological divides.... Few, if any, recent Democratic candidates represented the economic, populist left. The anti-establishment candidate of the last four competitive primaries all featured challenges from intellectual, professional-class liberals. [Jerry] Brown, [Bill] Bradley, [John] Dean and [Barack] Obama -- each educated at some point at an Ivy League university -- all fared well in Marin County, Calif., and Greenwich, Conn.; none appealed much to voters in the Appalachians or along the Rio Grande. Even the candidate who came closest to running as a populist, John Edwards, fared best among voters in Iowa and South Carolina who made more than $100,000 per year.... But so far, Mr. Sanders's support looks a lot like the liberal coalitions assembled by those other candidates." ...

... Todd Gitlin, in a New York Times op-ed, on "the Bernie Sanders moment." CW: BTW, Todd, one need not have been a hippie to support Sanders' agenda. It's about fairness to the all Americans, which is good for the country.

Sanders-Lite. Michael Grunwald of Politico: "In a speech Monday at the famously progressive New School in lower Manhattan, [Hillary] Clinton will lay out her economic theory of the case, and her main theory is that the incomes of 'everyday Americans' have remained too low for too long. At a moment when the left wing of the Democratic Party is flexing its muscles -- and flocking to the rallies of her socialist challenger, Bernie Sanders -- she will stick with the liberal populism that has dominated the opening months of her campaign, contrasting the good times on Wall Street and corporate boardrooms with the wage stagnation of the middle class. But an outline of the speech provided by a campaign aide suggested that she will strike less of a rabble-rousing tone than Sanders, challenging 'top-down' Republican policies without suggesting that capitalism is inherently rigged against families on the bottom."

Paul Krugman: "Maybe we were unfair to Mitt Romney; Jeb 'people should work longer hours' Bush is making him look like a model of empathy for the less fortunate.... Partly it's Bush trying to defend his foolish 4 percent growth claim; but it's also, I'm almost certain, coming out of the 'nation of takers' dogma that completely dominates America's right wing." ...

... KISS. Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: Jeb! told the New Hampshire Union Leader that Obama's problem was that he used too many "big syllable" words & too much nuance, which together created "chaos" in the world. "Bush then advocated for more blunt and simple type of statesmanship -- reminiscent of the style of his brother, former President George W. Bush as well as Vice President Dick Cheney -- in dealing with world." CW: Yes, best to leave international policy to monosyllabic dimwits.

I think everybody knows that he's right. -- Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) on Donald Trump's remarks about Mexican immigrants

Everybody except those pesky people who care about facts. -- Constant Weader

... The Arizona Republic is so excited about Donald Trump's appearance in Phoenix (Saturday afternoon) that it's liveblogging his speech. A lady out in front of the arena has a professionally-made sign that reads "Trump/Arpaio/2016/Make American Narcissistic Again". ...

     ... CW: Apparently Trump missed his attendance estimates by a bit. His campaign had predicted 9,000 would attend the rally. Ben Schreckinger of Politico puts the number in attendance at 4,000. "[This crowd today blows away anything that Bernie Sanders has gotten,' Trump said (10,000 people recently came out to cheer Sanders in Madison, Wisconsin)." Schreckinger has expanded his story since first posting it. ...

I'm, like, a really smart person. -- Donald Trump, speaking in Phoenix

... Zeke Miller of Time has more stupid/inaccurate stuff Trump said at the rally. ...

... Rory Carroll of the Guardian has a comprehensive report. ...

... Maxwell Tani of Business Insider: Trump made two "surreal" speeches yesterday, the first in Las Vegas, Nevada. Oh, & the 4,000 at Phoenix; according to Trump's campaign it was actually 15,000. CW: Schreckinger wrote that the venue holds only about 2,100, but Trump claimed the fire marshalls allowed him to pack the room. If so, shame on the marshalls. ...

... Daniel Kreps of Rolling Stone: "David Letterman made a surprise visit to Martin Short and Steve Martin's A Very Stupid Conversation stage show Friday night in San Antonio, and the former Late Show host used the opportunity to gleefully mock beleaguered presidential hopeful Donald Trump."

Josh Voorhees of Slate: If Ohio Gov. John Kasich makes it to the GOP debate stage, he could pose more problems for the candidates than will Donald Trump. It's easy for candidates to separate themselves from Trump's outrageous rhetoric, but Kasich's more nuanced views on immigration reform might force other candidates to be specific about their proposals.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Daniel Politi of Slate: "During an event to mark the 75^th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the Duke of Edinburgh lost patience with a photographer: 'Just take the fucking picture!' TV cameras caught the moment that showed him looking 'visibly distressed' while 'grandson Prince William laughed at his outburst,' reports the Press Association. The photographer didn't seem very offended and seconds later can be heard saying, 'eyes on me.'" CW: Hey, if you're a 94-year-old guy married to the Queen of England, you can can whatever the fuck you want.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the infamous Mexican drug kingpin whose capture last year had been trumpeted by his country's government as a crucial victory in the bloody campaign against the narcotics trade, escaped from a maximum-security prison through a tunnel that led from a shower, Mexican security officials said on Sunday. The government detailed the escape in a news conference early Sunday. Mr. Guzmán, known by the nickname El Chapo, or Shorty, absconded through a passage tall enough for a person to stand upright and equipped with overhead lighting and a motorcycle on rails likely used to transport digging equipment and haul out dirt." ...

... Los Angeles Times: "It is the second time Guzman, head of the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's largest and most lucrative trafficker of heroin, cocaine and marijuana, has been able to flee jail. The first time was 2001, from a different prison, when he famously hid in a laundry cart, and he remained a fugitive -- albeit sometimes a public one -- until his arrest last year. Guzman's escape is a major embarrassment for the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, which has prided itself for having taken down a string of top cartel leaders."

New York Times: "With just hours left for a deal to keep Greece in Europe's common currency, European finance ministers resumed negotiations Sunday after a day of fruitless talks and indicated that a decision on whether to cut Greece adrift or open the way for a new bailout would be left to a meeting later in the day of the the leaders of the 19 countries that use the euro." ...

... Washington Post UPDATE: "Bitterly divided European financial officials failed to agree on a path forward to save Greece on Sunday afternoon, passing the baton to a higher-level summit this evening of the 19 leaders of the euro zone to decide the fate of a country on the brink of financial collapse.... It was now up to Europe's leaders -- chiefly, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Françios Hollande -- to attempt to forge a compromise on how and whether to push forward on what would be Greece's third bailout in five years."

The Commentariat -- July 11, 2015

Internal links removed.

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Dylann Roof, who is accused of killing nine people at a church in South Carolina three weeks ago, was only able to purchase the gun used in the attack because of breakdowns in the FBI's background-check system, FBI Director James B. Comey said Friday.... The lapse was the result of errors not only by the FBI but by the Lexington County prosecutors' office, and Comey said he has ordered a review of procedures that led to the failure. The errors came to light as investigators examined a gun purchase Roof made two months before the shooting in Charleston." ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic has more details on the screw-up. CW: It seems to me the wait period for purchasing a gun should be longer than three days, bureaucracies being what they are.

Lisa Rein & Joe Davidson of the Washington Post: "Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta resigned under pressure on Friday, a day after Obama administration officials announced that two major breaches last year of U.S. government databases holding personnel records and security-clearance files exposed sensitive information about at least 22.1 million people. Archuleta, who had been leading the personnel agency for just 17 months, had been under fire from Republicans and Democrats in Congress and federal employee unions in the five weeks since she disclosed a massive hack of the employment files of 4.2 million current and former federal employees. But calls for her resignation grew late Thursday after administration officials revealed the full scope of a second hack that compromised background investigation files of federal employees, contractors, applicants and their families."

** Dana Milbank: "Thursday's Confederate flag debacle [in the House of Representatives] is a direct consequence of House Speaker John Boehner's leadership strategy. Calculating that compromise with the Democratic minority will cause his conservative caucus to oust him from the speakership, Boehner has essentially chosen to pass a legislative agenda with only Republican votes. Because this leaves him a thin margin for error, it empowers the most extreme conservatives in the House, who have an incentive to withhold their votes if they don't get everything they want.... Boehner seemed not to know what to do about the mess his lowest-common-denominator leadership caused.... Here's one idea: Show some leadership." ...

... Cristina Marcos & Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "House Republicans are hitting the brakes on consideration of spending bills after leaders yanked a measure from the floor this week over the display of the Confederate flag. The House was originally slated to consider the 2016 spending bill for Financial Services next week, but the odds are now low for it hitting the floor. Republicans are worried that Democrats could try to offer more amendments related to the display of the Confederate flag that could again tie the GOP into knots." CW: Yup, it's all Democrats' fault.

Paul Ryan Really, Really Does Not Want You to Have Health Insurance. Sarah Ferris of the Hill: Paul Ryan, Chair of the House Ways & Means Committee (R-Wis.) "on Friday vowed to keep fighting to repeal ObamaCare through budget reconciliation even as the tactic is losing support from some within the GOP.... When asked if Ryan would want to repeal all of ObamaCare using the budget tactic, he said yes, but added that he is still figuring out what can be done 'given the restraints of reconciliation.'"

Jonathan Bernstein of Bloomberg: "President Barack Obama's grade as top manager of the executive branch continues to sink. At this point, a C- would be generous. Cases of mismanagement at the agency level include:

• The Office of Personnel Management computer hack;
• The Snowden theft from the National Security Agency;
• The Department of Veterans Affairs scheduling fiasco;
• The healthcare.gov rollout;
• Unending problems at the Secret Service.

     "... These aren't policy failures. They're just cases where the government bungles when carrying out policy.... The problem isn't a bunch of Obama-appointed crooks or incompetents. Instead, Obama just seems indifferent to executive branch performance. At least until there are problems that draw national press attention." CW: Let's add the federal/state background-check system to the list of SNAFUs. ...

... AND here's another. Danny Vinik in Politico: In 2008, in the wake of Hurricane Katrinia, "Congress created three new programs to get loans to small businesses quickly. Since the new emergency lending programs were born, American small businesses have been hit by Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Sandy, and other disasters. And here's how many loans the new programs have secured for small businesses in that time: Zero.... This week the Small Business Administration came under Congressional fire for what appears to be a total failure to execute the mission of issuing emergency loans. A long trail of GAO reports details this record of failure, and the SBA's perplexing inability to explain why businesses haven't received a dollar yet...." ...

... CW: President Obama came into office with no executive experience; that is, he didn't know how to run a huge organization. I don't think any POTUS should spend his nights reading GAO, Inspectors General, other watchdog & media reports. But s/he does have to have a top dog in the administration who spends her days doing that -- and then kicking ass when these reports cite problems or potential problems. Obviously, Obama neglected to do that. That error of omission can affect millions of Americans as deeply as do many of Congress's glaring failures to protect the public. I'm with Bernstein; this is a real failure of governance.

James Risen of the New York Times: "The Central Intelligence Agency's health professionals repeatedly criticized the agency's post-Sept. 11 interrogation program, but their protests were rebuffed by prominent outside psychologists who lent credibility to the program, according to a sweeping new report. The 542-page report, which examines the involvement of the nation's psychologists and their largest professional organization, the American Psychological Association, with the harsh interrogation programs of the Bush era, raises repeated questions about the collaboration between psychologists and officials at both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon. The report concludes that some of the association's top officials, including its ethics director, sought to curry favor with Pentagon officials by seeking to keep the association's ethics policies in line with the interrogation policies of the Defense Department, while several prominent outside psychologists took actions that aided the C.I.A.'s interrogation program and helped protect it from growing dissent inside the agency." ...

... Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The largest association of psychologists in the United States is on the brink of a crisis ... after an independent review revealed that medical professionals lied and covered up their extensive involvement in post-9/11 torture. The revelation, puncturing years of denials, has already led to at least one leadership firing and creates the potential for loss of licenses and even prosecutions."

Julia Preston of the New York Times: "Government lawyers labored on Friday to persuade federal appeals court judges [in New Orleans] to allow President Obama to move ahead with sweeping initiatives to protect immigrants in the country illegally. But the judges' questions seemed to make it ever more unlikely that the president's programs, which he has hoped would be a central piece of his legacy, would start any time before the last months of his term, if at all." ...

... Tom Dart of the Guardian: While a 3-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments inside the New Orleans federal courthouse about President Obama's Deferred Action for Parental Accountability -- against which a lower court imposed & injunction & another Fifth Circuit panel refused to lift the injunction --hundreds of demonstrators massed outside protesting the injunction.

Nina Totenberg of NPR: "Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Thursday provided an unusual peek behind the scenes at how the court did its work this term. It's true, she said, that the liberal justices tried to be disciplined about having their majority opinions, and even their dissents, speak with one voice in one opinion. 'The stimulus,' she said, 'actually began many, many years before ... when the court announced its decision in Bush v. Gore.'"

David Jackson of USA Today: "President Obama created three new national monuments via executive order Friday, setting aside more than 1 million acres of public land in three states":

Nick Gass of Politico: "President Barack Obama will become the first sitting chief executive to visit a federal prison when he goes to El Reno, Oklahoma, next week to meet with law enforcement officials and inmates as part of the administration's push for criminal-justice reform."

Angeliki Koutantou & Alastair Macdonald of Reuters: "Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras won backing from lawmakers on Saturday for painful reform proposals aimed at obtaining a new international bailout, but he faced a rebellion in his own party that could threaten his majority in parliament.The measures, which received an initial green light from the European Union and International Monetary Fund before a crucial meeting of the 19 euro zone finance ministers in Brussels, were passed with the support of pro-European opposition parties.With Greece's banks shut and completely dependent on a credit lifeline from the European Central Bank, the measures were seen as a last chance to avert financial collapse and prevent Greece from being pushed out of the euro." ...

... The Guardian is liveblogging developments.

Michael Gordon & David Sanger of the New York Times: "One of the last major obstacles to concluding a historic nuclear deal with Iran is a dispute over a set of United Nations sanctions that appeared to be resolved months ago and only peripherally has to do with nuclear weapons. The sanctions, passed in a series of resolutions by the United Nations Security Council beginning nine years ago, ban the shipment of conventional arms into and out of Iran."

Presidential Race

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "In her standard stump speech, Hillary Rodham Clinton talks about fighting income inequality, celebrating court rulings on gay marriage and health care, and, since the Emanuel AME Church massacre, toughening the nation's gun laws. That last component marks an important evolution in presidential politics. For at least the past several decades, Democrats seeking national office have often been timid on the issue of guns for fear of alienating firearms owners.... Gun control is one of the few issues on which Clinton has a more left-leaning record than [Sen. Bernie] Sanders, who represents a rural, pro-gun-rights state and has voted in the past for legislation to protect the firearms industry." ...

... Cameron Joseph of the New York Daily News: Bernie Sanders & Honora Laszlo, a local Virginia chairwoman of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, get into a row over Sanders' failure to support for some gun-control legislation.

Ed Kilgore: "... the sheer number of things a would-be GOP president is expected to promise to rescind, repeal, suspend, ignore, or defy is getting very, very long. It won't be easy for the eventual nominee to get through this vast list of reactionary commitments and then slide into a smooth rap that my campaign is about the future."

Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "No, Donald Trump isn't a frontrunner.... This new poll from The Economist (and the online polling firm YouGov, which does not meet the Post's standards for polling) does have Trump in first place, leading lots of people to declare him the frontrunner. That poll is iffy.... But even if the methodology were beyond question, Trump isn't the frontrunner for the same reason that there's been no clear frontrunner in any poll: margins of error.... What's a frontrunner look like? It looks like Hillary Clinton, who in most national polls could have a margin of error of 20 points and still have daylight between her and Bernie Sanders." CW: Oh noes! And I just got back from the hairdresser's sporting a celebratory comb-over.

Jeb! Talks the Talk; Walker Walks the Walk. Gillian White of the Atlantic: "This week..., Jeb Bush was harshly criticized for saying that the solution to some of America's economic woes could be solved if Americans worked more hours. Republican politicians in Wisconsin are trying to make this theory reality, with a proposal to allow seven-day workweeks.... Though Walker might not have a direct hand in the current seven-day workweek proposal, his [earlier] changes [gutting labor-friendly laws] have certainly helped set the stage for decreased opposition to such a bill."

The New York Times Can't Handle the Truth. Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's campaign is blasting The New York Times for not including the GOP presidential candidate's book on its influential bestseller list. It described the newspaper's initial explanations for not including the recently released A Time For Truth as 'cryptic' and 'false,' and suggested the Times 'does not want people to read the book.'" CW: Freedom of the press or something is at stake here, people. Coincidentally, what a fabulous fundraising tool for renowned author & political philosopher Ted Cruz. ...

... McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed: "Publishing giant HarperCollins is publicly pushing back against the New York Times' claim that Ted Cruz's new book, A Time For Truth, was disqualified from its bestseller list because sales were limited to 'strategic bulk purchases.' In a statement provided to BuzzFeed News, HarperCollins publicity director Tina Andreadis said the company looked into the matter and 'found no evidence of bulk orders or sales through any retailer or organization.'" ...

... BUT. Steve M. has more on how Ted (and maybe HarperCollins) tried to game the system. As for the Times' trying to suppress the work of a budding literary giant, "books by conservatives make the Times list on a regular basis." ...

... The Salon piece, by Scott Kaufman, which Steve cites, is here. Kaufman has more on confederate outrage. You never know if these people are ignoramuses or phonies. Maybe both.

Beyond the Beltway

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "A three-judge federal appeals court panel on Friday unanimously affirmed the public corruption convictions against former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, thoroughly rejecting each argument from the onetime Republican rising star and declaring that they had 'no cause to undo what has been done.'"

Kevin Miller of the Portland Press Herald: "Maine Attorney General Janet Mills [D] said Friday that 19 bills held by Gov. Paul LePage have become law, dismissing the LePage administration's contention that the Legislature had adjourned. In a four-page letter released late Friday afternoon, Mills said LePage missed the 10-day window allowed under the Maine Constitution to either sign or veto the bills. There are another 51 bills sitting on LePage's desk, and under Mills' opinion, those also would become law unless LePage vetoes them by midnight Saturday." ...

... AP: "Members of Maine's Franco-American community are frustrated by Republican Gov. Paul LePage's self-deprecating humor about his French heritage. LePage said this week that the veto process laid out in the state's Constitution is very clear. He added that 'even I can understand it and I'm French.' Last week, he told reporters they were misusing a word and said 'that's coming from a Frenchman.'... Former state senator and representative Judy Ayotte Paradis of Frenchville said LePage is 'reinforcing the stereotype of the dumb Frenchman.'" CW: Actually, Ms. Paradis; every time LePage opens his mouth, he's "reinforcing the stereotype of the dumb Frenchman."

News Ledes

AP: "Bailout discussions between the Greek finance minister and his skeptical counterparts in the 19-country eurozone will resume Sunday after breaking up following more than eight hours of talks without any apparent breakthrough that will secure the country's future in the euro." ...

... Reuters: "euro finance ministers demanded on Saturday that Greece go beyond painful austerity measures accepted by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras if he wants them to open negotiations on a third bailout for his bankrupt country to keep it in the euro."

Washington Post: "Serena Williams won her fourth consecutive Grand Slam title and 21st of her career on Saturday by beating Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain, 6-4, 6-4, at Wimbledon. It is her sixth Wimbledon championship."

GOP Economic Plan -- Explained

By Akhilleus:

Days of Future Past or How Scott Walker, Jeb! Bush and the GOP Prove That the Past is Our Future.

Jeb! wants us all to work longer so that he and his family can have more days off.

Scott Walker wants to banish days off completely including weekends for all working people, except, of course, for himself. He, after all, doesn't actually do any work. Besides, his masters, the Kochs, don't believe in weekends or days off.

Days of Sloth for the riff-raff do not contribute a dime to Koch bank accounts and do not promote the development of a thrifty working class populated by inferiors who will happily work as long as they are told for wages that wouldn't buy the Kochs a hard boiled egg.

I found a short clip that will demonstrate the future--or should I say past--of Wisconsin, and by extension, the rest of the country once Walker/Bush/GOP/Kochs get through with us.

"Turning back the clock" is Republican for "progress".

CW Note: See the commentary linked under Friday's Presidential Race news re: Jeb!'s prescription for national economic growth. It all backs up Akhilleus's thesis.