Tag: statement

Katrina Shankland knows more about the NFL’s player salary structure than Scott Walker does

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The author of the blog post is a New England Patriots fan who lives in Illinois, and Wisconsin State Rep. Katrina Shankland (D-Stevens Point) is, like the vast majority of Wisconsinites, a Green Bay Packers fan. Anyways, the Chicago Bears are a bunch of losers.

At a recent private, invite-only “listening session”, Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, while claiming that the NFL’s free agency system should be a model for paying public school teachers, demonstrated that he has no knowledge of how the NFL’s player salary structure works. Here’s what Walker said:

If the Green Bay Packers pay people to perform and if they perform well on their team, (the Packers) pay them to do that…They don’t pay them for how many years they’ve been on the football team. They pay them whether or not they help (the Packers) win football games.

Wisconsin State Rep. Katrina Shankland (D-Stevens Point), the Assistant Minority Leader of the Wisconsin State Assembly, issued this brilliant response to Walker’s absurd claims about the NFL player salary structure and absurd comparison between NFL player salaries and Wisconsin public school teacher salaries. I encourage everyone who is reading this blog post to read Shankland’s statement in full, but I’ll summarize three points that Shankland made in her statement:

  • NFL teams often have a total player payroll that is well under the league’s salary cap, whereas public school districts in Wisconsin are barely able to make payroll thanks to Walker’s funding cuts to public K-12 schools in Wisconsin
  • NFL players have a strong labor union representing them, whereas Walker and his Republican allies severely weakened Wisconsin public school teachers’ unions by restricting collective bargaining rights.
  • For the third point, I’ll directly quote Shankland: “…the NFL does pay their athletes regardless of whether or not they win games. Ask the Chicago Bears about this.”

For those of you who are wondering, the Chicago Bears compiled a record of 6 wins and 10 losses, and failed to make the playoffs, in the 2015 NFL season. Oh, and NFL players do not lose a penny of their base salary if their team loses a game.

The salary and unionization structure of NFL players and that of public school teachers in Wisconsin are not identical by any rational person’s imagination. I applaud Katrina Shankland for having a far better knowledge of the NFL player salary structure than Scott Walker does.

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Black Lives Matter activist Ashley Williams EXPOSES Hillary donors as racist

Just a few days before South Carolina votes on a Democratic presidential nominee, a Black Lives Matter activist by the name of Ashley Williams interrupted a Hillary Clinton fundraiser in South Carolina to question Hillary over her past statements referring to black people as “super-predators”:

The predominantly-white group of Hillary donors booed Williams, and here’s how one of them responded on Twitter to Williams’s questioning of Hillary:

Hillary’s people think that Bernie Sanders is the most racist piece of trash on the planet (that award actually goes to Donald Trump), yet they’re the ones who are actually racist and act like they’re entitled. This is a textbook example of white privilege.

If you want a president who will fight for racial equality and not act like some privileged racist, vote for Bernie!

GOP Congressman Adam Kinzinger owes Planned Parenthood an apology

Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of the 16th Congressional District of Illinois (much of north-central and parts of east-central Illinois, stretching from South Beloit in Winnebago County to Sheldon in Iroquois County) falsely claimed that Planned Parenthood was wrong to claim that its Colorado Springs, Colorado office was the target of a terrorist attack that started earlier today:

The truth of the matter is that the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic was (apparently) the target of the Colorado Springs shooting (which is still an ongoing situation as I write this blog post), as ABC News is reporting that, according to law enforcement, the shooting began at the clinic. Planned Parenthood has every right to claim that they were the target of a terrorist attack, and Adam Kinzinger owes Planned Parenthood and the American people an apology.

Westville, Illinois Catholic parish “welcomes” LGBT people with bigotry

St. Mary’s Church, the local Catholic parish in my hometown of Westville, Illinois, is very desperate for membership these days. They’re now sending out postcards asking people from the LGBT community in Westville (which is a very small target audience, and possibly a non-existent one, since I don’t know of any LGBT people in my hometown), and welcoming LGBT people…with a ton of bigotry. I have received one of their postcards containing the statement in question, even though I am an atheist who does not attend any place of worship.

Here’s the full, unproofreaded (except for line spacing between the header and the body that doesn’t exist on the actual postcard), statement from St. Mary’s regarding the recent Obergefell v. Hodges U.S. Supreme Court decision, which made marriage equality the law of the land across the entire country:

A PUBLIC NOTICE

I am Fr. Sauppé, pastor of St Mary’s Catholic Church & the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!  The US Supreme Court has issued a new “civil right” recognizing same-sexed “marriages”.  However, Justice Kennedy, writing for the 5-4 majority, also states that citizens & institutions holding religious and/or philosophical beliefs do not have to condone this new “civil right”.  (It seems this is also a Constitutional civil right not to condone!) The Catholic Church does not condone for both religious & philosophical reasons.  The Biblical condemnations are too many to list, but Romans 1 is based on the Natural Law i.e. two men or two women cannot produce, naturally, any children.  We also hold that children have a natural right to a mother & a father at the same time (if at all possible) and are not to be used as pawns in the homosexual culture war.  While we are all affected by Original Sin, the Grace of Jesus Christ can help anyone and everyone to live a holy life–regardless of orientation!  I invite all to repent and to live a holy life and worship God on Sunday–either at St. Mary’s or at a church of your choice!  If you have no church or want to learn more about defending your children, your family, and your faith please call 267-3334 & may God Bless!

(In case you’re wondering, Westville is in the 217 area code, so the phone number for St. Mary’s Church is (217) 267-3334.)

I have a ton of issues with this postcard and the statement on it:

  • The heading of the statement stated that it was a “public notice” from the church. The only time an entity of any kind should be sending out anything with “public notice” on it is if said entity is a government agency or other type of government entity, which is not the case in this instance.
  • There are a ton of grammar errors in the body of the statement, most notably double spacing between most of the sentences, although there are quite a few other grammar errors.
  • The statement, while asking for LGBT people to attend their church, included a ton of LGBT bigotry. Examples of this include:
    • Putting “civil right” and “marriage” in quotation marks in a manner that would imply that the church thinks that civil rights for LGBT people and same-sex marriages are somehow fraudulent in their view, which, sadly, is in line with Catholic teachings and right-wing bigotry towards LGBT people.
    • While organizations of worship, such as the Catholic Church, don’t have to recognize marriages that violate their religious beliefs, the statement implied that individual people have a “civil right” to discriminate against LGBT people, which is in line with the right-wing mindset that has also produced religious discrimination laws in states like Indiana.
    • While it is scientific fact that two people of the same gender cannot conceive children through normal means, same-sex couples can have children though other means. Additionally, marriages are not only for those who want to have children, but for any two loving people.
    • The statement claims that children “are not to be used as pawns in the homosexual culture war” and asks people to “learn more about defending your children, your faith, and your family”, which are textbook talking points used by right-wing bigots opposing LGBT rights.
  • Amidst all of the bigotry that was directed towards LGBT people in that statement, St. Mary’s called for people, “regardless of orientation”, to attend their church. This amounts to trying to welcome LGBT people to their church while, at the same time, spewing a ton of hateful remarks towards them.

To their credit, St. Mary’s does some good in the Westville community, such as serving as a polling place for much of the Westville area (although elections are administered by local election officials, not by the church) and having a Red Cross-certified disaster shelter on-site. However, St. Mary’s, like a lot of Catholic parishes across the country and around the world, has repeatedly advocated for right-wing political views on social issues.

If you want to call St. Mary’s Church in order to tell them that you’d never attend their church and complain about their statement on the recent U.S. Supreme Court marriage equality case, call them at (217) 267-3334.

As he launches his presidential campaign, Scott Walker compares Wisconsinites to special interests

Approximately 19 seconds into Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s presidential campaign announcement video, an unnamed narrator for the Walker campaign said that Walker “beat the special interests” over a video clip of progressive protesters supporting the unsuccessful recall attempt against Walker in 2012. At around the 39-second mark of the video, Walker himself spoke in front of the camera and talked about taking “power out of the hands of big government special interests”.

In reality, Walker compared the people of his state to special interests, while allowing special interests like big business interests and the school voucher lobby to benefit from the very big government that Walker rails against.

For Walker to compare Wisconsinites to special interests is not only false, it’s also offensive. More specifically, Walker compared Wisconsin progressives to special interests, and, having followed many of them on blogs and social media for the past few years, I can certainly say that they are not special interests. They’re people who want to make their state and their country a better place to live. They care about their communities, and they support workers’ rights, women’s rights, the middle class, open government, equality, and other progressive ideals. As Meghan Blake-Horst, a co-founder and the market manager of the MadCity Bazaar flea market in Madison, Wisconsin, put it, “Yes, we have special interests in feeding, educating and providing our kids a healthy place to grow up. And running our small businesses.” Comparing people like Blake-Horst to special interests dehumanizes people.

The truth about Walker’s record is that he and his political allies in Wisconsin have given special interests, such as big business interests and the school voucher lobby, effective control over Wisconsin’s state government. Those special interests have, in turn, helped Wisconsin’s state government, among other things, hand out tax breaks to the wealthy, give out tons of corporate welfare to businesses, privatize and cut funding from public K-12 education, cut funding from higher education, strip tenure away from college professors, make it harder for Wisconsinites to vote, make it harder for Wisconsin women to get the reproductive health care they want, bust unions, drive down wages, hurt Wisconsin’s economy, run up massive state budget deficits, and destroyed Wisconsin’s reputation. Martha Laning, the Chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW), didn’t mince words one bit in her statement criticizing Walker as he launches his presidential campaign. Laning stated that Walker’s record “is one of unprecedented corruption, division, extremism and a failure to foster economic growth and opportunity”. Laning also took Walker to task over “stagnant” wages in Wisconsin, “job growth that’s dead last in the Midwest and trailing most of the nation”, a corporate welfare agency “that’s known more for scandal than economic development”, and a massive Wisconsin state budget deficit “created by his failed policies”.

While Scott Walker compares the people of his home state to special interests, the truth of the matter is that Walker is beholden to real special interests that own him and his political allies, and they’ve completely wrecked Wisconsin’s economy, reputation, and quality of life. If Walker is elected president, Walker, his political allies, and big-money special interests will turn America into a third-world country by enacting the same far-right political agenda they enacted in Wisconsin.

The Koch Brothers’ political organization thinks there’s more than two million people in Montana

Zach Lahn, the Montana state director for the Koch Brothers-funded political organization Americans for Prosperity, claimed that “millions of Montanans” oppose expanding Medicaid after the Republican-controlled Montana House of Representatives passed a Medicaid expansion bill:

The Montana chapter of Americans for Prosperity goofed when it was responding to the state’s House of Representatives approving legislation to expand Medicaid.

After the House passed the legislation on Thursday night, according to The Great Falls Tribune, Montana AFP state director Zach Lahn released a statement saying that his group was “deeply disappointed in the state legislature’s decision tonight to expand Medicaid. This decision stands directly against the voices of millions of Montanans who have made it clear that they do not want more Obamacare.”

There’s no way that millions of Montanans could possibly support or oppose anything, because there aren’t millions of people who live in Montana! In the most recent Census estimate last year, Montana was estimated to have 1,023,579 people living in the state. Since “millions of Montanans” implies at least two million Montanans, that means that it’s impossible for millions of Montanans to agree on any issue of any kind, since there are fewer than two million Montanans currently in existence.

Even though Montana’s Medicaid expansion plan isn’t perfect, it’s certainly a step in the right direction. While it would require beneficiaries of the Medicaid expansion to pay premiums and participate in programs designed to get them into jobs that pay enough to qualify for federal subsidies to buy private health insurance coverage off of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchange, Montana’s Medicaid expansion will provide tens of thousands of Montanans with affordable health care they otherwise wouldn’t have.

I’ve not seen any polling, but, given that the Republican-controlled Montana state house passed a Medicaid expansion bill, I’m guessing that there’s more people in Montana who support expanding Medicaid than oppose expanding Medicaid.

The progressive case against compulsory voting

President Barack Obama recently announced that he supports making voting in the United States compulsory for those who are legally eligible to vote.

I know that I’m going to get a lot of flack from my fellow progressives over this, but I’m opposed to the idea of compulsory voting, in which people who are eligible to vote are legally required to do so.

While Republicans and conservatives oppose compulsory voting because it would likely benefit Democrats electorally, my opposition is for a completely different reason: I believe that compulsory voting violates the civil liberties of the American people. Yes, I’m opposing compulsory voting for the same reason I oppose, among other things, spying on the American people without a warrant and laws that restrict a woman’s right to make reproductive health decisions for herself.

While I strongly support amending the U.S. Constitution to give all U.S. citizens who are at least 18 years of age a constitutionally-protected right to vote, I believe that, while it would probably not be necessary to explicitly state this in a constitutional amendment or other type of law (I’m not an attorney, and I don’t claim to be one, but I’m guessing that the U.S. Constitution would probably have to be amended in order to allow for compulsory voting), those who are legally eligible to vote in this country should have a right to not vote if, for whatever reason, they don’t want to vote. While I believe that voting is a very important civic duty, and I would never discourage anyone from voting, I oppose the idea of forcing people to vote, as doing so would violate the civil liberties of those who decide not to vote.

Make no mistake about it, I strongly support many other measures to provide the American people with increased access to voting and make their vote actually matter, such as replacing the Electoral College with national popular vote presidential elections, restoring and strengthening the Voting Rights Act, implementing automatic voter registration, allowing same-day voter registration, making redistricting non-partisan and completely independent of state legislatures and other legislative bodies, making Election Day a national holiday, repealing the odious Citizens United v. FEC U.S. Supreme Court decision via a federal constitutional amendment designed to get big money out of politics, having election authorities pay for postage on absentee ballots so that voters don’t have to pay for postage themselves, making it easier for candidates to get on the ballot, and requiring that elections be conducted in a fair, professional manner in order to allow those who are eligible and willing to vote to cast their ballots and to allow all votes to be properly counted. Additionally, I strongly oppose measures to suppress the vote and make America less democratic, such as voter ID laws and gerrymandering. However, I’m not going to support anything that violates the civil liberties of the American people.