(AP Photo/Michael P. King, Pool)UPDATE 3/31/11: Well, Judge Sumi finally scared the pants off of Walker and his minions such that they have tacitly admitted they will not begin implementing their ill-gotten law that they pretended was published legally and were going to start taking money out of paychecks for certain union workers. Guess who blinked first!
It's just unfortunate that in so many other states the Republican governors are doing the very same thing that Walker has done, and they are steamrolling this very wrong idea that somehow unions and their collective bargaining rights are what is problematic to the United States, and more importantly, the cause (now) of the bad economy. It sickens me to watch this continued assault on the middle class all the while the uber rich continue to amass their wealth.
I found this companion piece full of information concerning the "wealth" in this country. It is ironic that many Americans are so stupid that they believe big corporations pay "their fair share" of taxes on their earnings, when in fact, they don't. This piece up on Crooks and Liars, concerning the latest 60 Minutes interview done by Ms. Stahl shows one just how uncommitted these big corporations are to sharing the wealth, creating new jobs and opening up business in America. If they have to "pay" their fair share, they are more than willing to move their business out of the country, and deprive America of the taxes due, as well as deprive Americans of jobs, all so that corporate CEO's and the like can continue to make billions in profits.
Stahl was shown to a conference room they said Weatherford rents for board meetings, but Weatherford's Houston office told us they never go there. So are these big companies pulling a fast one? Apparently not: under both Zug and U.S. tax laws, it's perfectly legal to get the low tax rate even without a real presence in Zug. But Rep. Doggett wants to change that.
"You have a proposed legislation that a company will be taxed not based on where they file some pieces of paper, but where their decision makers and management actually resides and makes decisions," Stahl remarked.
"Let them pay the same way that other Houston-based companies pay. And so if they have their management and control are there, they ought to be paying here in the United States. I think it's fair," Doggett argued.
We found that faced with the mere threat of Doggett's legislation, Transocean and Weatherford both recently packed up their top brass and shipped them to Geneva.
We were told Transocean's top ten executives live in the Geneva area, and work on the top two floors of a Geneva office building - everyone from the CEO to the chief financial officer, to the vice president of taxes.
They wouldn't talk to us on camera, and neither would Weatherford. They also moved their CEO and CFO to Geneva. And so now we're beginning to see a jobs exodus from the U.S. of top management.
And people actually feel that this country is being threatened by terrorists from the Middle East which will destroy America? Rich Americans and their corporations are what is destroying America! This pernicious corporate greed has infiltrated every stratum of society, and thanks to Citizens United, only the rich and their corporate mouth pieces will be making the laws affecting the rest of the poor people in this country. A full frontal assault on our rights is being waged right in the open, and despite public opinion to the contrary, nothing really seems to be stopping it.
UPDATE: 3/30/11:
On Tuesday, Sumi reiterated that her order barring action by the secretary of state was still in effect, and she threatened to sanction anyone who disobeyed the order, saying she wanted to be “crystal clear” that no further action on its implementation should be taken.Of course, even that completely clear and explicit statement is being scoffed at by the Wisconsin Republicans!
Republican Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald went further, openly questioning the judge’s right to rule in the case, saying it “flies in the face of the separation of powers between the three branches of government.”
“It’s disappointing that a Dane County judge wants to keep interjecting herself into the legislative process with no regard to the state constitution,” Fitzgerald said in a statement.
Hello? Anyone at home?
“I cannot understand the legal rationale of attorneys who are apparently advising this administration to ignore this order for whatever reason,” Democratic Sheboygan County District Attorney Joe DeCecco said Wednesday. “The very fabric of a just society is based on the rule of law. We don’t have the option of which law we will obey and we don’t have the option of which court order we’ll ignore.”----------
It appears that despite a court ruling staying the implementation of that disaster of a bill by Governor Walker (not to mention the impropriety with regard to the method the Republicans used to even "vote" the bill in), the Republicans in Wisconsin feel they do not have to follow the law.
In my business, a stay is a stay. You disregard the stay, you are in contempt of court. Yet, now, Republicans don't even try to be sneaky about disobeying court orders -- they simply put their fingers in their ears and shout out loud "I don't have to pay attention, I don't have to pay attention, I don't have to pay attention."
With more than 60% of Wisconsin voters unsatisfied with the way Walker and his Republican cohorts have handled this situation, and fed up with the lies, recall efforts are clearly gaining serious momentum.
For more on my earlier posts on Wisconsin and solidarity, see here. If you want to help with the recall efforts, click here.
2 comments:
Thanks for making some sense of it.
Y/W. Sometimes, though, I feel that this stuff should be common knowledge. I sort of revert back to my memory of a Jay Leno spot that asked questions of people on the street, randomly. When I heard the question "how many moons orbit earth" and the answers were far from a unanimous "one," I realized these people, especially the young ones, are IDIOTS.
Lost faith seriously followed thereafter.
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