After getting embarrassed in Wisconsin, Rachel Maddow and the organized Left has turned its attention on Michigan.  The focus of their new Chicken Little campaign is the decades-old Emergency Financial Manager statute, mostly used by outdoing Democrat Governor Jennifer Granholm and recently strengthened by new Republican Governor Rick Snyder—because, oh, right the old law wasn’t working very well.

“Tiny Benton Harbor on the shores of Lake Michigan” is Rachel’s new victim célèbre.  This “mostly African-American” city is a financial shambles.  The True Twit and her echo chamber have acted as though Snyder’s actions are the new invasion of the Sudetenland, a co-opting by force of a “democratically elected local government.”

As though Snyder and the state legislators responsible were not elected?

One big problem for their narrative:  a new poll shows that by a margin of 2 to 1, residents of Benton Harbor want the Emergency Financial Manager to knock their elected officials heads together.

HEARALD-PALLADIUM NEWSPAPER: The survey results showed that 51.6 percent of Benton Harbor respondents support the nullification of Benton Harbor’s labor agreements if it would help decrease the city’s deficit, while 27.4 percent don’t support it.

The story also shows that every aspect of Maddow’s rant from the role of Whirlpool Corporation in the city, to the golf course conspiracy she “discovered” is rejected by people who live there by huge numbers.

Oops!

Not only that, every bit of local reporting on the story from Crain’s Detroit Business to—of all places—the website Michigan Liberal have been tearing down Rachel’s narrative—and often not in very respectful disagreement.

You just can’t make this stuff up.  No, I mean it, Rachel, stop making this stuff up.

Maddow was first taken apart in the Kalamzoon Gazette, in a terrific column by Julie Mack.  It was devastating enough that Maddow had to acknowledge it—but ignored EVERY matter of fact that was raised an focused only on the democracy vs. “dictatorship” canard.

This was too much for “Eric B” on the very smart site, Michigan Liberal—which every Michigan Republican should bookmark, especially since it often runs polls and columns by the best political demographer in the state, Mark Grebner.  (bold emphasis mine)

ERIC B, MICHGIANLIBERAL>COM The Maddow show clip progresses as follows: She leads in by revisiting Benton Harbor, and then moving across the state to the Detroit Public Schools, which as we all know are currently under the emergency management of someone who really wants to run things like his own personal fiefdom (at least until he gets fired later this year). She highlights one of the schools that’s on the closure list … and then descends into hyperbole after declaring that the facts of both cases are not relevant. What is relevant, she says, is that benevolent overlord Rick Michigan has declared democracy irrelevant in Michigan. Face, meet palm.

Again, you can’t get the story correct if you get the facts wrong. Facts are important and stubborn things. For instance, turning a public school into a charter is not privatizing it. Most of the state’s charter schools are administered by universities and missing from the list of authorizers is any private company. The school in Detroit that Maddow focuses on could, in fact, be run as a public school academy by the Detroit Public Schools are even the Wayne County RESD (in fact, it sounds like that school in particular already functions as a de facto charter school). That is, while she reports that options have been taken away, they in fact exist (I make no qualatative judgment on those options, however).

What is happening here in Michigan defies a simple narrative, especially if you boil it down to a question of dysfunctional local government vs. a state-appointed dictator. The answer might appear to be easy for Rachel Maddow, who doesn’t live in the state of Michigan, but those of us who do expect a fire truck to show up when we call 911 and want to trust that the local school district is not only educating our kids but is keeping them safe.

Even the mostly staid Crain’s Detroit Business Weekly got into the act, with a column entitled, “Why Rachel Maddow (and Jesse Jackson) got it wrong” by Nancy Kaffer

NANCY CAFFER: CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS:  Jackson, whose comments come after Benton Harbor financial manager Joe Harris suspended the city’s elected officials, says Benton Harborites have been stripped of their voting rights and that collective bargaining should be reinstated. The new law broadens an emergency financial manager’s powers to include the ability to break union contracts and to effectively dismiss local elected officials. He made some comparisons to Rosa Parks, and said Detroit is on the same path as Benton Harbor.

Maddow has hatched a complicated theory-web that tie-bars Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his heavy-handed union busting efforts, part of a far-reaching Republican conspiracy to erode the social safety network and union power with the end result of placing power in the hands of corporations, not people. As evidence, she cites PA 4.

But the capper is the recent poll that shows the people of Benton Harbor by a 2 to 1 margin support the Emergency Financial Manager.  Apparently, they care more about whether a fire truck will show up at their house, or a cop will respond to an armed robbery than whether the city council’s feathers are ruffled—or whether the city’s garbage collectors will continue to make about 4 times the average income (plus benefits) of the people who pay their wages.

Recently AFL-CIO protests have involved marchers yelling “This is what Democracy looks like!”  I recently witnessed students with By Any Means Necessary drowning out the capitol tour guide while 3^rd graders were supposed to be learning about the design of the capitol dome.   Actually, for people who like to throw Nazi allegations around, this seemed a bit brownshirt-ish…

No, THIS is what Democracy looks like…

And this is where Rachel and the other twits have been having their lunch handed to them.

Rachel loves to twitter that every dip in governors Scott Walker or Rick Snyder’s polls as they struggle to make tough decisions as “buyers’ remorse.” (An argument she never made about a certain president during the health care debate…)

But in the case of Benton Harbor, they never bought Rachel’s line in the first place.

Time to free this man.

This post was first published here on April 24, 2010.

Editor’s Note: In light of the current events, this story reminds us of what our service men and women are dealing with, both at home and abroad in defense of our country.

In a story you won’t see on MSNBC, for the second time in 2 days, a Navy SEAL was acquitted of charges in the infamous terrorist-with-a-fat-lip case.

After a day-long trial, a Navy judge took 2 hours to come back with a verdict of not guilty of dereliction of duty for Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe of Yorktown, Va.

No word on what the judge did for the other hour and 58 minutes he spent in chambers after giving the evidence the consideration it deserved.  The judge, a model of decorum, managed not to use the words “insane,” “bulls**t,” or ask the prosecutor “What the **** did you waste all this time and money for?” when announcing the acquittal.

The prosecutor had the nerve to tell the Navy panel to convict Keefe in order to show “we are better than the terrorists.”

Umm, I’m thinking you should save that argument for when Navy SEALs ambush Iraqi citizens, drag them through the streets, hang their bodies from a bridge, and then do a happy dance.

Thursday, another judge cleared Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas not guilty of dereliction of duty and impeding the investigation.  But the prosecution is as yet still pressing forward with the May 3^rd court martial of Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe, who is accused of actually delivering the fat lip to the man responsible for the above atrocity.

It’s worth remembering that the SEALs are going through a full-fledged court martial because they refused to take the slap on the wrist known as “a Captain’s Mast” that would have seriously impeded their promising careers.  This kind of discipline has been on the increase since the election of Barack Obama as the command structure tries to show the Commander-in-Chief just how nice they are.

In November, I praised the SEALs for standing up to this insidious practice predicting “I’m confident that no court-martial panel made up of warriors will convict these heroes.  And they are certainly better off facing “military tribunal” of sorts than in falling into the hands of the Obama/Holder Justice Department…”

So far, so good.

Hoo-ahh!

At least when he lost, Alan Grayson basically slunk away.  Now, Rachel Maddow is trying to make Lansing Mayor– and soundly thrashed gubernatorial Democrat candidate– Virg Bernero into Michigan’s Alan Grayson, someone who can be counted on to come on MSNBC and say anything.

Together, they have created a myth that is permeating the left-fringe blogosphere and now has made it to the New York Times.  Remember the good old days when it was the other way around?

So while Rachel continues to throw out the racially charged term “overseer” toward black financial managers who are trying their damnedest to offer hope and change to black-run cities and school districts that have squandered taxpayers’ money to the point where they cannot come close to keeping their citizens safe or educating them she finds Virg Bernero to spin even wilder conspiracy theories,though couched in unusually weasely language:

I‘m afraid we‘re turning to what can Wall Street take out of main street, out of our school system.  And I‘m not sure, I‘m not convinced that they care that much about the educational process because most of the jobs that Wall Street is creating is overseas in Asia anyway.  So, if they can pull money out of the school systems, so much the better for them.  (Well, the people of Michigan have been getting bored with Michael Moore for some time, so submitted for your wild-conspiracy-without-a-shred-of-proof entertainment—Virg Bernero, ladies and gentlemen!)

Do tinfoil hats come in His and Hers sets?

You say Obama, I say Osama.  I say Obama, you say Osama.  Obama Osama, Obama Osama—let’s call the whole thing off.

Since he became a major contender for the Democrat nomination, slips of the tongue mixing up Obama and Osama have been common—and even the current president’s first big endorser, Ted Kennedy, was not immune.

But Keith Olbermann tried to make this into a new Fox News conspiracy because of a mixup at a LOCAL Fox affiliate, assuming that his audience is too stupid to know the difference—

Fox 40 SACRAMENTO ANCHOR: “President Obama, speaking from the East Room of the White House, telling the nation and the world: President Obama is in fact dead.  I’m sorry. Osama Bin Laden is dead.”

Even better, Olbermann had earlier dusted off a standard hoary liberal myth and tweeted that:

OLBERMANN: “Mr. Bush had personally de-prioritized the hunt for Obama…”

Gee, Keith, if you are going to lie from that glass house…

Mediaite has a great rundown on this story, including this telling graphic:

This is, of course, an utterly natural and probably inevitable gaffe.  Here is the first known example:

Last night, Jimmy Kimmel provided this hilarious montage:

Of course, Keith found nothing suspicious in an ACTUAL MSNBC reporter making the mistake.

Then there is this guy, whose leg “thrill” was momentarily interrupted.

And administration shill Nora O’Donnell also twittered:

Nice try, Keith, but you are still irrelevant.

Rachel Maddow has been hinting around the race issue in Michigan with the Emergency Financial Manager issue for communities bankrupted by irresponsible leftist politicians and unsustainable union contracts.

One of her sleazy innuendoes has been to sneak in the word “overseer” instead of manager.  There is no way in which this term is more accurate, as the EMF is very hands on, not just overseeing anything.

But of course, when Jesse Jackson comes to town, it removes any need for subtlety or hinting around.  It’s time to say “black” and “African-American” a lot.

Now just imagine in a Republican were to point out how many of the bankrupt schools and cities were run by black overseers…

Once again, here is the True Twit’s commentary and guests, with the uninvited guest of yours truly adding context and a stray fact or two into the surreal discussion.

MADDOW:  We have been reporting about some extraordinary things being done by the government of the state of Michigan to the people of the state of Michigan.  (DF—No, you haven’t.  You haven’t said one word about what has been done to the taxpayers of the state of Michigan who have been bailing out Detroit with a huge amount of their tax dollars for years while their schools pay millions for teachers they have removed from the classroom and the City Council live like feudal lords.  You have cried about Benton Harbor, but haven’t mentioned they do the same thing on a much smaller scale.  THAT is what is being done to all the OTHER “people of the state of Michigan.”)

…

The new law that makes this possible, Michigan‘s Emergency Financial Manager Law, was the subject of a press conference today in the tiny town of Benton Harbor, with the Reverend Jesse Jackson there and John Conyers there, and the state‘s Legislative Black Caucus all spending time in this tiny African-American town on the shores of Lake Michigan. (Play that card, it shows your desperation) You‘ll remember that Benton Harbor is the first town in Michigan to have its entire elected government essentially put on ice by this emergency law.  (This is baloney.  Under the EMF law under Granholm in Flint, Pontiac, and other cities, the City Councils were stripped of all power to do anything but meet and gripe about the EMF.  The difference is the increase power to deal with the union contracts that are strangling the city budgets.  That’s why you largely see AFSME press releases on this—which Rachel is reading nearly verbatim as commentary.) This emergency manager was appointed by the former Democratic governor, Jennifer Granholm, but the new emergency law gives the old state-appointed overseer (Okay, I’m getting REALLY sick of this loaded term, and don’t act like it’s not a reference to slavery) sweeping new power—sweeping new power to break a town‘s union contracts, to sell off community assets, even to hire and fire the officials elected by that town. (Well, no, he can’t appoint a new city council…)

Unilaterally, one person gets to decide, no appeal, no process, no local decision making whatsoever. (This is also unadulterated bull.  The town still has a State Representative and a State Senator who are directly responsible to the voters and for the EMF.  Nobody wants to do this and be called a racist dictator.  But the state is no longer going to bail out these egregious contracts.  If these communities would foreswear all state funds…)

In Benton Harbor, the overseer (that’s twice, Twit) has now stripped the mayor and the city commission of all of their duties, and you can see how happy some of the people in Benton Harbor are about their new state-appointed boss.

Benton Harbor and the Detroit public schools are both flat broke.  The state‘s position seems to be that they are broken and that for them, democracy itself is part of the problem.  (Who they elected is damn near ALL of the problem.  Here are a couple examples.

As was reported in an excellent column by Julie Mack in the Kalamazoo Gazette, which destroyed a previous Maddow rant about Benton Harbor:

That occurred, incidentally, after a state review found the city’s pension system was underfunded by $4 million, its cash reserves dwindled from $1.7 million to $300,000 in three years and the city was spending between $80,000 to $100,000 annually in overdraft fees. The same week that Benton Harbor officials forcefully told state officials at a hearing that they didn’t need an emergency financial manager, they had to ask the state treasury for an advance on funds to make their payroll.

And here is how the clowns on the Benton Harbor city council exercises the one power it has left—to have meetings and pass nonbinding resolutions according to station WNDU:

The saga continues in Benton Harbor over the city’s emergency financial managerbut this time, Joseph Harris is getting the last laugh.

Our reporting partners at the Herald Palladium report that city commissioners were trying to pass a motion that would require Harris to attend an upcoming training program for emergency financial managers.

The motion failed, however, once commissioners learned Harris would already be there as an instructor.

Okay enough reality, back to Rachel.

MADDOW: With this emergency law in Michigan, the state says that these places can‘t be fixed with their democracy in place and functioning, that the solution for them depends on doing away with that democracy, doing away with representative government, doing away with their elected officials.  (Did they take them out and shoot them?  Calm down.  And as I pointed out, they still have elected state representatives.) The repair for their brokenness begins with ending their democratic decision making and imposing something shocking name to it but is the only way to describe this—imposing a kind of dictatorship, with the dictator being a person of the state‘s choosing.

If that sounds off to you, consider the news today from Benton Harbor.

Reverend Jackson and the state‘s black lawmakers preparing to challenge Michigan‘s new approach to democracy for hard times.  The message from Mr. Jackson and from others today: organize and sue. (Why would Jesse Jackson saying to sue make me “consider the news” and apply the word “dictator.”  Jesse Jackson doesn’t apply those words to the Assads or Khadaffy.  The fact that he was joined by John Conyers, husband of Monica Conyers who is about to do time for being too corrupt for even the Detroit City Council is just too rich.  I mean, really?)

Joining us now is Democratic State Representative Fred Durhal.  He is chairman of the Michigan Legislative Black Caucus.  He was at the press conference today in Benton Harbor.

Thank you for being here with us tonight, sir.  Appreciate your time.

STATE REP. FRED DURHAL (D), MICHIGAN:  Rachel, thank you very much for allowing us to come and talk with you today.

MADDOW:  Clearly, you consider this emergency manager law to have constitutional problems, enough that you are getting ready to sue over it.  Can you describe for us the basis of this legal challenge? (Yes, Jesse Jackson would never back a lawsuit on shaky Constitutional grounds!)

DURHAL:  Yes.  We are looking at the U.S. Constitution, in Article 1, Section 10-1, which talks about contracts.  It talks about the ability of the federal government to stop any state from being able to squash contracts.  And that is important for this struggle, because what is going on is that you have an emergency financial manager and a new law, which allows him to unilaterally come in and just take contracts and tear them up. (That’s right, we reserve that treatment for UAW members who actually PAY for the mistakes and bad management like the idiots on the Benton Harbor City Council.)

MADDOW:  If this emergency manager –

DURHAL:  So we believe –

MADDOW:  I‘m sorry, sir, go ahead.

DURHAL:  Yes, we believe that it is unconstitutional to do that.  We also have in Michigan a Home Rule Act, and we‘re going to also challenge the violation of the Home Rule Act, which allows cities, villages and townships to be able to function and make their own laws. (… and to be bailed out and spend the rest of the state’s money in perpetuity?)

MADDOW:  If this emergency manager law is allowed to stay on the books, how many Benton Harbors and Katherine Ferguson academies do you think we are looking at?  How many places get assigned this sort of emergency unilateral overseer? (That’s three.)

DURHAL:  Well, let me tell you, in Michigan, we know right now that there are about 120 school districts that are ready to go bankrupt or have some level of financial trouble and that gets them to a point where an emergency manager can be appointed.  We also know that there are approximately 100 cities, villages and townships in Michigan that are in the same state of trouble. (Bankrupt?  The way Rachel and Virg Bernero tell it, all it takes is a sneeze… Bankrupt?  Let’s see, what happens in bankruptcy court.  Oh, right, a judge assumes dictatorial powers and voids all contracts…)

MADDOW:  Why do you think the state wants to try to fix problems in this particular way?  Why would the democratically-elected government of a place like Benton Harbor or the dually elected school board of a place like Detroit be an obstacle toward—an obstacle in those places, getting themselves back on track?  An obstacle rather than the means by which you‘d do it?  (See above and about 114,634,346,657 other examples in these cities.  And who got them in this mess?  Oh, right, George W. Bush!)

DURHALL:  I really don‘t know the answer to that, (because you are just as incompetent?) except to say that it seems to us to be part of a national agenda.  And the national agenda has to do with breaking contracts of the unions, interfering with the ability (“ability?”  If they had “ability” they wouldn’t be “bankrupt.”  If you think they have that “ability” I am sure you won’t mind if they do without aid from the State of Michigan…) of cities to be able to function and solve their own problems.  All of this sounds very anti-democratic to me, and we intend to fight it all the way through if we have to go to the Supreme Court.

MADDOW:  Do you think the people of Michigan are surprised that this is what they got from Rick Snyder as governor?  Was there any indication during the election season that this is what people would be voting for if they voted the Republicans in and this Republican governor in?

DURHAL:  No, I don‘t think so.  I think that during the campaign, Governor Snyder was not very open about what he was going to do and how he was going to fix the problems.  I think that people upon his election began to se the real Rick Snyder.  And I don‘t think that they like it.

Here is a man who talks about taxing seniors‘ pensions, eliminating the earned income tax credit, which is federal in nature and also allows poor people to be able to receive some benefit.  There have been taxes upon education, reducing the pupil allowance by $470.  (Say what?  Reducing aid is a “tax?”  But according to Obama, taking less is an expenditure… my head hurts!) He has also gone and eliminated statutorily revenue sharing, which in the case of the city of Detroit will cost it $179 million.  And when you ad that to its present $150 million deficit, you get $320 million, which sets it up for the emergency financial manager. (And this governor, whose state is sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Detroit every year thinks the state should have a say in whether or not it’s going down a rathole?  The NERVE!)

MADDOW:  Fred Durhal, Democratic state representative and chairman of Michigan‘s Legislative Black Caucus—thank for your time tonight, sir.  It‘s good to have you help us understand this story.  Really appreciate it.

DURHAL:  Thank you so much, we appreciate you.  Keep fighting.

MADDOW:  I‘m trying.  Thank you, sir.

As a postscript, Governor Rick Snyder is going to be on his own trip to Benton Harbor next week.  He will be the grand marshal in the Annual Blossomtime Grand Floral Parade.  He‘ll be the first governor to do that since 1984.  Seriously.  Rick Snyder, Benton Harbor, next week. (Well, he’s got more business to be there than… oh, Jesse Jackson!  Or Mr. Monica John Conyers)

With the use of the word “overseer” the True Twit is trying to conjure images of this:

So, here is Benton Harbor’s “overseer” Joseph Harris:

Here is the Detroit Public Schools “overseer” Robert Bobb:

And here is Detroit Mayor and former Pistons star Dave Bing, who is calling for an EMF for his city:

’nuff said?

Check out NewsReal Blog’s new series exposing The Rachel Maddow Show.

Displaying the dazzling rhetorical shrills that earned him less than 40% of the vote for governor in a state that had been run by Democrats for 2 terms, Michigan Democrat Virg Bernero appeared on the Rachel Maddow show to scream at the nation  that his state was turning into “Soviet Russia.”

VIRG BERNERO, MAYOR OF LANSING, MICHIGAN, RECENTLY SLAUGHTERED GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE:  You know, this is the kind of thing in Russia, in Soviet Russia, what is becoming increasingly Soviet Russia again!

Then in the next breath…

BERNERO:  And not only that, Rachel, but they‘ve cut revenue sharing for cities.  So they‘re really cutting support for cities.

So, Michigan is turning into Soviet Russia because it is curtailing a tax policy toward cities that is no longer “From each according to its ability, to each according to its need?”

Do you people listen to yourselves?  Luckily, not many are listening to you…

I decided to drop in as an uninvited guest to this paranoia-fest (commentary in bold):

RACHEL MADDOW, HOST:  We begin tonight with a story that is not happening in Washington, D.C., so most of the beltway press will not tell you that it‘s happening at all.  (Yeah, they so neglected Arizona… ) But it is the story that I think is the single-most telling thing in American politics right now (Because you are clueless) about the difference between the two parties, about the choice in basic philosophy that we‘ve got to make about how we shall be governed as Americans.  (Actually, it may BE telling that Democrats are frantic about the idea that local public employee unions will no longer be able to extort money from poor taxpayers and cities that have met the definition of bankruptcy for years.)

Despite what you will hear day in, day out from Washington, the difference between the two parties right now is not about President Obama versus House Speaker John Boehner, or even if you want to get really geeky between Senator Harry Reid and Congressman Paul Ryan.  (Sure, a trillion here, a trillion there, who cares?) We tend to talk about politics in those terms, in terms of personalities, obviously, or the radical budget proposal of the week that‘s never going anywhere, but will drag the whole country to the right in policy terms anyway while it‘s trying.  We tend to talk act politics in America like that.

But, frankly, those are stand-ins for the real debate between the two parties‘ visions of what government ought to do, of what politics are for, not about what people say they‘re for, but how they will act if they are in office.

And if you want to know about that, you have to go here, to Michigan‘s great southwest, to the little twin cities on the shore of Lake Michigan.  (Which you have read about online.)

Last night, we talked about how one of these twin cities, St. Joseph, population: 8,500, is nearly 90 percent white, has a per capita income of about $33,000.

The other twin city, right across there, is Benton Harbor.  Benton Harbor, population: 10,000 plus.  It is nearly 90 percent black.  Benton Harbor has a per-capita income of about $10,000 — a third of what its twin city enjoys. (Say what?  They “enjoy” it?  It was what, just given to them for being white?  What is your point here, Rache?  It’s possible, just possible that they WORK for it.)

Michigan‘s new Republican governor is a man named Rick Snyder.  Governor Snyder has spent his first few months in office engaged in an aggressive campaign to strip Michiganders’ union rights and pass big new taxes on the poor and the elderly, (Cutting back the so-called Earning Income Tax credit, a backdoor welfare payment that results in people getting back 3 times what they PAID in taxes, is not a tax increase!) using the revenue not to plug the state‘s budget deficit but rather to give it away to corporations (Cutting the nation’s highest business tax in a state with an effective 20% unemployment tax—and once again, taking less is not “giving!”) and to the already well-off.  (Not true, there are no tax cuts in the Snyder budget outside of the business tax, the income and sales taxes will not change.) That platform has not been kind to Governor Snyder‘s popularity.  (MSNBC has been pushing this “buyers’ remorse” line on all its shows with micropolling on Republican governors… Hmmmm, checked Obama’s poll numbers lately?  How did Obamacare effect those numbers?  How about the 10% drop in Obama’s numbers after his response to Paul Ryan’s budget—you know, the one you wanted replayed in every “stadium” in America?)

But the one thing in Mr. Snyder‘s approach to governing that brought out the biggest protests in the capital, reportedly the biggest protest that Lansing, Michigan, had ever seen, the catalyst for those huge crowds, those thousands of people was in part a Rick Snyder law that take ace way–people‘s right to choose their local elected officials, a law that allows the state to declare your town a failure and to appoint an emergency financial person to be the new boss over the elected officials in your town someone who can order them to do things, who can undo what they have done as elected officials, who can fire them if she or he so decides.  (First, Rachel, take a breath!  My English teacher mother couldn’t diagram THAT sentence…  Second, what brought out the protests was the fact that the Detroit public schools and Detroit employee unions have about twice as many people as they need and their pay and benefits are crippling a city that has lost 25% of its population in the last 10 years.  The other unions brought out the Astroturf to support their most craven and corrupt “brothers and sisters” in no small part because they know as long as Detroit exists in its current form, then no one is going to bother them.  Most of them only really cared about the fact that they pay an average of about 5% of their benefit costs and don’t want to pay more like 20%, which is still less than most of the people who pay their salary.)

The state is not only coming in and saying we don‘t care who we elected to represent you, we‘re firing them and taking over ourselves, and state is also claiming the power to just abolish your town.

When was your town founded?  Who are your town founding fathers or founding mothers?

The state says we can dissolve your town now.  We can wipe you off the map, give your land and assets to the next town over if we want to, just roll up the whole deal and deed it over.  Your town doesn‘t get a say in the matter.  (Only if your town is spending a lot more than it takes in in taxes, and has outstanding pension debts roughly equivalent to the value of the town, itself.)

The first town to feel the tender ministrations of Governor Snyder‘s new law is little Benton Harbor, one of the poorest towns in the state.  And yes, despite the Rust Belt decline that has defined life in Benton Harbor for decades, Benton Harbor is also home to the global headquarters for Whirlpool appliances. (Conspiracy theory alert)

Among the heirs to the Whirlpool appliances fortune is Benton Harbor‘s Republican congressman, Fred Upton.  A former Fred Upton staffer, Republican state rep Al Pscholka, he represents Benton Harbor in the statehouse.  He‘s the person who introduced emergency state takeover bill that Governor Rick Snyder signed.  This is their ceremonial re-enacting of the signing there.

Until last year, Mr. Pscholka served on the board of directors for a nonprofit that wants to build a half billion-dollar, 530-acre lake-front Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course and luxury real estate development that would span both relatively wealthy St. Joseph and poor little Benton Harbor.  A development that eats the one collective asset that Benton Harbor had, Benton Harbor‘s beautiful beach-front park.  It would turn it into a place where caddies carry bags for Whirlpool executives and for rich folk who is drive in from Chicago for a weekend at their new luxury signature home.  (You mean something that might generate revenue and provide jobs?  Horrors!  It would be the “small government” thing to do to just tax those rich folks instead.)

I don‘t know what a signature home is, but they‘re very expensive and they‘re part of the whole golf course deal.  (It probably costs less than yours, Rachel.)

Benton Harbor‘s park, Jean Klock Park, was deed as a gift to the town, one of the poorest towns in Michigan.  It was deeded to the town in perpetuity in 1917.  Perpetuity I guess is not as long as it used to be, because now, Benton Harbor residents are looking at a golf course where the cost of an annual pass for a family to play there is $5,000 — $5,000 is half the average annual income of actual families living in Benton Harbor.  This golf course development thing is not for them.

And neither, apparently, is Democratic local government.  On Friday, Benton Harbor‘s new state-appointed energy overseer Joe Harris, issued an executive order that restricted the mayor and the city commissioners to three duties: they can call a meeting, they can approve meeting minute, and they can adjourn the meeting.  Three things that elected officials of Benton Harbor are now allowed to do.  That‘s it. (This is also exactly what the Flint City Council could do when Democrat governor Jennifer Granholm appointed an EFM about 8 YEARS AGO… That’s what happened with all the financial managers Granholm appointed, without cries of fascism from the Left.)

That story broke in the “Michigan Messenger,” which is one of the few media outlets that has been covering this story with diligence.  Last night, as we were covering the story of Benton Harbor, the Benton Harbor City Commission met for the first time since the emergency manager guy there told them that they, you know, had been turned into pillars of salt, more or less.

The manager knew this meeting apparently might get a little hot.  He set up a two-minute timer for anyone who wanted to speak up at this meeting.  And this is what he got from local residents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Somebody about to go, and I think it‘s going to have to be Joe. (Gee, I think THIS genius should be in charge…)

(BUZZER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  He‘s not even an elected official!  He‘s going to fire me?  Why you going to fire me?

(BUZZER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Adolf Hitler was a dictator.  Now we have a dictator in Joseph Harris.  We have allowed this man to be too comfortable in our homes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  We‘re not going to let it start at the foot of a so-called giant who‘s really a grasshopper.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Nobody going to take this from me or my voice because (INAUDIBLE) and I have a voice.  And ain‘t no piece of paper going to take that from me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)  (Are you trying to prove that democracy might be over rated, Rache?)

MADDOW:  Goodwin‘s law notwithstanding, that‘s how it went last night in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

…This is really, really, really big intrusive government.  This is “sit down, shut up, your elections don‘t matter, we‘re in charge now” authoritarian giant government.  (No, this is the “State of Michigan is not going to bail out your bankrupt town and its pension funds anymore as long as you refuse to correct the problem.  These people—and Rachel’s next guest — cry big tears about cuts in state funding to cities, and cry that it’s fascism for them not to be able to take the aid and flush it down the nearest toilet.) And this ought to be the debate about what‘s on offer right now from American politics.  This ought to be the debate about the two major parties right now, about whether we are OK as Americans with really big “takeover your town,” intrusive government, because that is what is on offer.

I realize that the debate in D.C. is going to be about the “gang of six,” whether the Democrats are really going to let them change the Social Security retirement age.  And that is fine.  That is a real debate.  It is important.

But on real policy, real implications, real governing, not what people are saying they‘re going to do but what they‘re actually doing, there is a stark choice to notice and debate out in the states.  Florida, Texas, Arkansas, North and South Carolina, now moving to require you to take a drug test, forced drug testing as part of getting the unemployment benefits that you paid for when you were working.  Arizona and Georgia passing laws that force anyone to prove they‘re in the country legally whenever a police officer wants to know—papers, please. (Heavens to Betsy!) States across the country saying they will decide whether or not you can get an abortion and what your doctor is allowed to say to you about abortions in your doctor‘s appointment.  The government will give you a script.  The government will decide what your doctor says and what you are allowed to do.  The government decides now, not you.

State governments in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, are acting people to strip people of their union rights.  You might have heard something about that.  (You also may have heard that taxpayers voted in governors to try to fix the private economy, after Obama’s bailout of states and localities that overspent somehow failed to “stimulate” anything…)

This is big, intrusive activist government put into motion and law at statehouses around the country.  Republican-controlled legislatures right now are filled with politicians who campaigned on small government and respecting the will of the voter trademark.  And then they got into office and they really started doing quite radically the opposite.  (Yes, it would be small government to just keep extracting money from taxpayers in one of the nation’s 5 worst economies and transferring that wealth to the public sector…)

In Montana this month, Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer, remember he heated up his veto brand far long string of bills that had been passed by the new legislature in Montana?  One of those bills, a bill to recriminalize medical marijuana.  The Republicans‘ bill would overturn a law passed by the people of Montana in a referendum in 2004.  Another one of those Republican passed laws would have allowed the return of cyanide leaching in mines.  Voters had outlawed that through a referendum not once but twice in Montana.  But the Republican bill would have overturned what the voters said they wanted.

In Wisconsin, the Republican legislature overturned a Milwaukee referendum that mandated that companies give their workers sick leave.  When that got up for the vote in Milwaukee, it got 69 percent of the vote.

The people in Milwaukee want that.  (… and screw the Constitution… wait, did somebody mention Soviet Russia?  Who yells “communism!” then argues for the next 20 minutes for socialism?  The True Twit, that’s who.  Then she calls it “small government.”  Letting local officials do whatever they want with state money.  That is “small government.”)

…This is the vision of governance in America we ought to be debating, because regardless of what people say they‘re going do when they get in office, this is what‘s on offer now that they‘ve got there.

Joining us now is the Democratic mayor of Lansing, Michigan, Virg Bernero.  Mayor Bernero ran in the 2010 gubernatorial race against the current governor of Michigan, Republican Rick Snyder. (and played the union card harder than any candidate in my memory… and got royally waxed in November.)

Mr. Mayor, thank you very much for being with us tonight.

MAYOR VIRG BERNERO (D), LANSING, MICHIGAN:  Rachel, thank you for being such a patriot and a believer in democracy for bringing this to the fore.

Our Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves at what‘s happening in Michigan.  It is dire, and it is sad—a sad day for democracy.  It‘s really everything you said.  It is taxation without representation.  (Only if Benton Harbor wants to forgo all state funds, you constitutional scholar and historian, you…) You know, it is the corporatization.  We‘re seeing the corporatization of our Democratic process.

Today, in Michigan, they trained something—the government is training 200 EFMs, emergency financial managers.  This is an industry now that the administration is going to be in.  They have lowered the bar for taking over cities.

It used to be—EFMs were very rarely used.  (Uh, Virg, this guy was APPOINTED BY GRANHOLM A YEAR AGO.  Snyder has yet to appoint one in his supposed Operation Barbarossa to invade Michigan…) Their powers were circumscribed. (Read the law, it’s all circumscribed, by definition.) They were to go in and deal with the finances and work with the powers that be. (Only if the powers that be worked with them, ask the Flint City Council)

Now, they are in charge.  Now they can fire elected officials.  (No, they can just take away their power to do anything that costs the city money.) It is unprecedented in Michigan and I think in America and it‘s dangerous.

MADDOW:  I saw a Bloomberg News report about those trainings for the emergency financial managers, and one of the things that lucked out for me was—as you were saying, this is something that used to exist in a very small scale, reserved for real emergencies.  (And it still is.  But all the communities that had one, are back where they started, so it has been given more teeth.  If the past method worked so well, why aren’t those cities back on track, Virg?) They‘re talking about broadly expanding this and using this with something—more than a dozen different triggers that can start a process like this where a town just gets taken over.

And what Bloomberg pointed out was that it is investment banks and law firms and other people who have been involved in sort of corporate takeovers, doing this stuff in the private sector, who are now hoping to get in on this as a hot industry in the public sector.

Do you see this as a privatization of democracy, of public processes?  (He just said that, Rache.)

BERNERO:  Exactly, and this is why I say corporatization—profitization of local government.  It is unprecedented!  It‘s dangerous!  It‘s incredible that it‘s come to this.

You know, I‘m a believer in democracy.  This is autocracy.  I think the governor must have asked himself WWPD, what would Putin do?

You know, this is the kind of thing in Russia, in Soviet Russia, what is becoming increasingly Soviet Russia again.  They appoint the governors and the mayors.  And that‘s basically what we‘re headed for.  And they‘ve lowered the bar.   So, it‘s very easily to fall into this.

And not only that, Rachel, but they‘ve cut revenue sharing for cities.  So they‘re really cutting support for cities.  In essence, shoot you in the foot and blaming you for limping.

We‘re struggling to survive in this economy, and the state is doing nothing to help us.  In fact, they‘re hindering us.  And the only thing they‘re doing then is threatening us with this privatization, this corporatization with a czar who‘s going to be appointed who is not going to work with the local authorities.

You know, never mind—what happened to local control?  I thought the Republican Party was the party of less control, less government, and local control.

They have thrown local control out the window.  This is a return to King George.  You know, this is what the American Revolution was about. (The American Revolution was about having city governments get bullied into union contracts that cost more than they can possibly generate in tax revenue?  The American Revolution was about having city workers make 4-6 times what the average city resident WHO PAYS THEIR SALARY makes?  Is that what George Washington froze his… toes off at Valley Forge for?  Thanks for clarifying, Virg!)

MADDOW:  Is this what the 2010 campaign was for there?  When you were running against Rick Snyder and Michigan voters were give an choice about who they want for governor, is this what the campaign was about?  Is this what Republicans, including Rick Snyder, said they were going to do to Michigan if they got into power?

BERNERO:  Well, absolutely not.  And, I mean, we tried to get out of him what he would do.  There wasn‘t a lot—there was one debate, exactly one.  He said very little.

I think a lot of the Republican candidates for governor said very little.  They had a script.  They stuck to it.

And certainly, there was nothing like this talked about.  In fact, there was talk about helping cities.  You know, I‘m a mayor, I was running for governor.  I know our cities need to be the hub of the wheel instead of the hole in the donut.  (Right now, they are a black hole that sucks in resources from every community around them.)

There was a lot of talk about how to help cities.  And I haven‘t seen any of it.  We‘re not getting any help.  (Yeah, how is making the state attractive to employers again going to help cities?  What’s that got to do with anything?  What employers are looking for are cities run by public employee unions with big fat pension liabilities and high property taxes to pay for them, right?  Right?) What we‘re doing is getting the rug pulled out from underneath us and then these incredible, unprecedented powers, this power grab coming from the executive office is unprecedented and they‘ve lowered the bar so much.

You know, the governor‘s office is right across the street from me.  I‘m afraid if I sneeze loud enough that could be grounds for an EFM.  (How would they know you weren’t just making a speech, Virg?) They have really made it easy to take over a city, and you‘d think that normally, the state government wouldn‘t want to do that.  (The last thing the state “wants” to be in control of is a complete loser of a proposition like Benton Harbor.  It’s a great job, because people LOVE to be forced to face reality after years of the gravy train, and you get to be pilloried nationwide by populist morons.) Normally, the state government would be assisting and trying to help you on your own, maybe move you back. (So you would go bankrupt more slowly.)

Like I say, if there was an EFM, he would be in and out quickly.  He would make adjustments.  He would work with the locals, try to build an empowered local control. (…and as soon as they were gone the public employee unions who funded Virg Bernero were back in charge and every city is back in the same shape they were in before they got there.  What’s the problem?)

They‘re doing just the opposite.  (Hopefully!) They‘re coming in and wiping out the local boards and the local institutions.  It‘s incredible.  (They who, paleface?  The only new EFM under Snyder is in Benton Harbor—ALL THE REST WERE APPOINTED BY GRANHOLM.)

And so, what are you going to be left with?  At the end of the day, what are these EFMs going to have accomplished?  They‘re going to wipe out a lot of city services. (…That the city can’t afford.  Oh, right they are going to balance the budget…)

Where is the economy going to be of the region?  How are we going to grow as a state if we‘re not enabling local control, if we‘re not building up our cities and helping our cities to become strong?  (For the last 8 years, the only thing that has grown in Michigan is PUBLIC EMPLOYEMENT.  In the home of Henry Ford, there are more government jobs than manufacturing jobs, approximately 500,o0o compared to 600,000.  How’s that been working out, Virg?  Seen lots of economic growth?)

MADDOW:  Well, in Benton Harbor there will be three holes of that golf course, I‘m told, which will have a beautiful view of Lake Michigan.  That‘s apparently what they will be presiding over there.  (And what do they have now?)

BERNERO:  That belongs to the people.  (Gee, that doesn’t sound like something they would EVER say in “Soviet Russia…”)

MADDOW:  That‘s exactly right.

What’s exactly right, is that Rachel Maddow has taken a city whose government makes Detroit look functonal and made it the poster child for “local control,” a phrase that has never crossed her central planning loving lips before a Republican governor had to limit it in order to protect the taxpayers.

In fact, we interrupt this fact-free zone for some actually on-the-ground reporting from Julie Mack of the Kalamazoo Gazzette, a dependably liberal newspaper in West Michigan:

There’s much that Maddow didn’t mention, beginning with the fact that Harris was appointed not by Pscholka or Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, but by former Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat.

That occurred, incidentally, after a state review found the city’s pension system was underfunded by $4 million, its cash reserves dwindled from $1.7 million to $300,000 in three years and the city was spending between $80,000 to $100,000 annually in overdraft fees. The same week that Benton Harbor officials forcefully told state officials at a hearing that they didn’t need an emergency financial manager, they had to ask the state treasury for an advance on funds to make their payroll.

What happened last week: Harris notified the Benton Harbor City Commission and other city boards that he’s using the revamped law to assume dictatorial powers over city operations.

That certainly is causing a stir. But it’s a separate issue from the controversy involving Jean Klock Park.

And here’s where Maddow’s narrative really falls apart. Despite her implication that Benton Harbor city officials have been holding the fort against the park’s potential development, the exact opposite is true.

In fact, the development already has happened — thanks to the Benton Harbor City Commission, which is leasing 22 acres of the 90-acre park for three holes of the 18-hole Golf Club at Harbor Shores, most of which is on an adjacent site. In fact, the city is a co-defendant in lawsuits filed by park advocates.

There’s also a counter-narrative on Whirlpool’s role. Here’s the other perspective: After the 2003 riot in Benton Harbor, Whirlpool tried to be a good corporate citizen by donating land and lending money for a $500 million upscale housing and golf course development that many said would create jobs, raise real estate values and generate some economic activity in a stricken community.

In fact, the PGA Senior Championship is coming to the Golf Club at Harbor Shores in 2012 and 2014, a nice boost for Benton Harbor.

Moreover, even if one buys the idea that Pscholka, Upton, Snyder and Whirlpool are plotting a takeover of Jean Klock Park, it’s unclear how Harris, a former chief financial officer for the city of Detroit, fits into that picture — and it’s Harris who is calling the shots in Benton Harbor right now.

Of course, the difference is that Julie Mack can find Benton Harbor without a map, and didn’t first learn of the situation from an AFSME talking points memo.

Hailing Obama’s budget address this week as “a victory for math” Rachel Maddow proclaimed that Obama had brought needed arguments to the table that were “sorely lacking.”  Maybe she meant clarity of language like this, which would have George Orwell scratching his head:

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA  “… It calls for tax reform to cut about $1 trillion dollars in tax expenditures—spending in the tax code.”

Guess what that means.  Think it through.  Give up?  Maybe that’s because you don’t think every dime you have is at the good graces of government which “spends” it by letting you keep it.

Tax reform usually means lowering rates and closing specific breaks… now think exactly the opposite.

Yep, that’s how Barack Obama describes a $1 trillion tax increase!  And you thought Clinton’s “contributions” phraseology was Orwellian.

But Obama’s view of the world is forever informed by his days as a Chicago community organizer.  ACORN’s view of the world is that people are poor because the rich have taken too big a slice of the pie and left nothing for the proletariat.

That is precisely the point of Barack Obama’s budget speech—perhaps the most class war-driven speech any President has ever given– and the reason for the ecstatic reaction from MSNBC socialists Rachel, Ed, and Lawrence.

Here is Rachel’s complete True Twit Two-Step happy dance after the speech.  It’s long, but informative as to how these people view the world, the economy and just how little regard they have for the idea that Americans can make any economic decisions for themselves.

Rachel started off with a weird stretch of an analogy that made Chris Matthews strangest movie clip seem apropos…

MADDOW”  There are a few problems in American public policy that cannot be explained a little better with help from the great allegory that is “Three‘s Company.”(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

MADDOW:  Sorry. Imagine if you will that our roommates in this allegorical case are Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Barack Obama, and your adorable but unemployed and desperately broke cousin, who in this case looks a little bit like Suzanne Somers.

OK.  So, technically it is four‘s a company, not three‘s company.

Maybe Mrs. Roper lives them or something, whatever.  We give a break.

In any case, these are the roommates, and the roommates‘ problem is that their rent is too high.  They can no longer afford the place that they are all staying in.  It was all right when they moved in, but the rent has been going up and up and up.  And now, it‘s just too darn high.  They cannot afford the rent anymore.

So, roommates John Boehner and Paul Ryan go away together and come up with a plan for dealing with the too darn high rent.  They say their plan is that roommate Paul Ryan, roommate Barack Obama and roommate John Boehner should pay less rent than what they are paying now, and the difference should be paid by your cousin.  They say that‘s their plan for making the rent cheaper.

Does that actually make the rent cheaper?  No, no, it does not.  But as far as they‘re concerned, it does.  If nobody is really looking out for your cousin‘s interests, then you‘re sort of getting away with saying that it did.  Thank you “Three‘s Company.”

But that is what the Republican budget does about health care.  It doesn‘t reduce health care costs at all.  It just makes cuz pay for more of those costs and thereby calls it cheaper for everybody else.  It looks at the problem of rising health care costs over time and says the government should stop paying its share of those costs, and let poor people and old people and disabled people—let them just pay more for it on their own.  Sorry, cuz. (Ummm, Rachel, since it’s the people using Medicare that you claim are going to have to pay so much more, this is an inane analogy.  In reality, Cuz has been living there for less than his quarter share, because Cuz doesn’t make as much.  Cuz is the one using all the hot water, has the TV on all day running up the electric bill and eats twice as much as everyone else.  Now that the rent is going up, you think the three roommates who work should continue to pay more… because they can.)

That‘s how Republicans deal with health costs—or rather how they do not deal with health costs at all.  And that rather brutal but true point was one of the many brutal points made today by President Obama in his big, perhaps unexpectedly satisfying speech on the budget and spending, and what is the difference between a Republican and a Democrat in America today?

Now, as I say, I think this point about Republicans and health care was a brutal point.  I demonstrated this brutality by putting in the context of “Three‘s Company.”  Listen to how the president did it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:  The third step in our approach is to further reduce health care spending in our budget.  Now, here the difference with the House Republican plan could not be clear.  Their plan essentially lowers the government‘s health care bills by asking seniors and poor families to pay them instead.  Our approach lowers the government‘s health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself.  (END VIDEO CLIP)

 

MADDOW:  He could not have sounded more genial and professorial when he said it.  (Yes, Rachel, we can see where you would call a smug lecture “congenial.”  That would make you Miss Congeniality) It could not have sounded any less blunt.  But the point he was making there was both blunt and confrontational and important, and it needed to be said.  And that‘s what the speech was like today.

Whether or not you saw the president‘s speech, my advice to you is to read it at some point.  It‘s not very long, it only prints out to eight or nine pages long.  But you can actually print it out from our Web site tonight, we posted it at MaddowBlog.MSNBC.com.  We got the full text of it there.  (But somehow you haven’t included the Orwellian way of discussing tax increases above in your long discussion here…)

If you did not see the speech and your first contact with it is going to be reading it.  You will think when you‘re reading it that when he gave the speech, he must have been breathing fire and pounding the podium.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  He was utterly sedate.  It look like a Rotary luncheon address.

But the message was less rotary and more roundhouse.  That point about the Republican‘s plan for making health care cheaper by making old people and poor people and disabled people just pay more for it, that is a blunt confrontational point and it is a good point.  (Yes, he bluntly called Paul Ryan “un-American.”  For trying to enforce some minor budget discipline.  Remember the outcry when people hinted that openly rooting for the other side in a war was un-American? )

The president‘s next point on that was that the whole point of health reform is to bring down the cost of health care.  (No, the whole point is to take it over and make in an entitlement.  No one still believes it will cut costs, unless there are wholesale death panels…) Republicans are still attacking that, even as they have no plan of their own on health care costs.  (The fact that you don’t like their plans, that trial lawyers who fund the Democratic Party especially don’t like their plans, that their plans are market based and won’t socialize medicine does not mean they don’t exist.) That is a good point that is both true and has been sorely missing from all the political complaints about health reform. 

The president made the point today that the Paul Ryan proposal to privatize Medicare kills Medicare.  That intrinsic to the whole idea of Medicare is that it is an entitlement, that is it exists as a safety net that everybody can defend on it.  Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid are entitlements for a reason, and by the way, they work.  That was a good point  from the president today and one that has been missing from the debate over budgets and deficits.  (Actually, it hasn’t been missing, this lie is as everpresent as oxygen, it has been screamed from the rooftops by such geniuses as Elijah Cummings ad nauseum, and repeated in every MSM news show on the planet.)

Amid the nonsense arithmetic-free rhetoric about deficits and debt, the president made the point today that historically, you know, it makes sense to run deficits when the country is at war or when the country is in a recession.  But that when you are not at war or in a recession, you should aim to get back in balance.  In other words, deficits themselves are not evil.  They have a purpose.  They should be used strategically.  (That was an arithmetic free argument… it was also economics free, but not intentionally.  There is no evidence that government spending brings anyone out of a recession—unless you count tax cuts as spending, oh, right.  I forgot, you don’t know the difference.)

That, again, is a good point and one that has been sorely missing from the debate about deficits and debt and the budget.  The president made the point today that after the huge Reagan deficits for the 1980s, we actually did get back to balance in the 1990s.  We even got back into surplus.  (Wait, the Reagan tax cuts worked?  Uh, wasn’t that “supply side?”  Yikes!)

He made the point that America‘s finances were in great shape by the year 2000.  Quote, “We went from deficit to surplus.  America was actually on track,” he said, to becoming completely debt-free.  (Yes, and here is the point that Democrats love to forget about.  Clinton did raise income taxes slightly, but he also made trade deals and brought down tariffs faster than any president in recent memory—which were all effectively tax CUTS.)

And we were prepared for the retirement of the baby boomers, (No, we weren’t.  This ticking time bomb has been there ever since birth rates dropped to replacement rates, and probably before then.  It just depends on what accounting trick is being used in what year to put the date Social Security goes broke wherever somebody wants it to be.) but then what happened?  After Democrats and Republicans committed to fiscal discipline during the 1990s, he lost, we lost our way in the decade that followed.  Yes, bingo!

Mr. Obama continued, “We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program. (Which was about HALF THE COST OF THE DEMOCRAT PROGRAM) But we didn‘t pay for any of this new spending.  Instead, we made the problems worse with trillions of dollars in tax cuts—tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country, (and everybody who pays taxes.  Ummm, gee Barack, remember when you said if you didn’t extend the Bush tax cuts, it would be a big tax increase for the middle class, so big that you had to renew them, even if it would help the hated rich?) tax cuts that will force us to borrow $500 million every year over the next decade.”

“By the time I took office,” Mr. Obama said, “We once again found ourselves deeply in debt and unprepared for a baby boom retirement that is now starting to take place.  When I took office,” he said, “our projective deficit annually was more than $1 trillion.  And on top of that, we faced a terrible financial crisis and a recession.”  (and when Nancy Pelosi took the office of Speaker, it was about $150 billion and shrinking…)

And what do you have to do in a recession?  Like he said, before, right, earlier in the speech, in a recession, you are supposed to be able to run a temporary deficit in order to keep the economy ticking.  (By cutting taxes and boosting the private economy, not by growing government and making the overhead and expense to the economy heavier and permanent!) Having to do that itself makes sense, he made the case for that today.

But having to do that while starting from an already catastrophic fiscal position that George W. Bush left the country in, that‘s what does not make sense.  That is the disaster.  That is true.  And that‘s a good point.

And that has been missing from the debate about deficits and budget.  Just naming that the Bush tax cuts were unpaid for, that the Bush tax cuts exploded the deficit—just naming that, frankly, is a hallelujah moment.  That is a victory for math.  Cutting tax revenue reduces tax revenue.  I know, I know, it‘s barely even math.  It‘s almost an axiom.  (Here’s some math, if you taxed millionaires at 100% it wouldn’t take care of this year’s deficit.  Forget about the fact that they would stop working, so you’d only get it for this year…)

But at this point, it is a point that has been almost from the debate.  And the president saying it today is a good point, and one that really should re-center the way that people talk about this stuff.

Mr. Obama today confessed to signing an extension of those tax cuts this past December.  But he again said that he didn‘t think it was a good idea.  He only did it under duress in order to stop something worse from happening that the Republicans were going to force.  (Again, what consequences.  Oh, right, the BUSH MIDDLE CLASS TAX CUTS WOULD HAVE BEEN REPEALED.)

Will he let those tax cuts get renewed again?  Mr. President?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)OBAMA:  We can‘t afford it.  And I refuse to renew them again.  (END VIDEO CLIP)  (Just for clarity’s sake, do you refuse again to renew them, or refuse to renew them again?  You said you wouldn’t once before, and you did…)

MADDOW:  I refuse to renew them again, cut that out and stick it to the fridge.  (That’s right, middle class, you have a date certain for a tax increase if you re-elect the economist from ACORN) Beyond nailing the last Republican president, though, for the disastrous impact of his unpaid for tax cuts, President Obama today nailed the Republican Party for proposing even more of the same, fiscally irresponsible, arithmetically challenge tax cut nonsense.

“House Republicans,” he said, “are calling for $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy.”  “Think about that,” he said, “in the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90 percent of all working Americans actually declined.  Meanwhile, the top 1 percent saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each.  And that‘s who needs to pay less taxes?” (Note, he didn’t say their taxes went down, just that their income went up.  This is pertinent to the discussion HOW?  There income didn’t go up the mere 3% that their taxes went down, so therefore, the tax cuts stimulated economic activity… ooops.)

Again, when you read this speech, you would think he would be fire-breathing here, right?  I mean, he‘s making fire-breathing points.  He was not fire-breathing.  He could not have been more calm, cool and collected.

He was doing math out loud—math out loud.  But it is devastating math.  Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)  OBAMA:  That‘s who needs to pay less taxes?  They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that‘s paid for by asking 33 seniors each to pay $6,000 more in health costs.  That‘s not right, and it‘s not going to happen as long as I‘m president.  (APPLAUSE) (END VIDEO CLIP)  (Now the LAST part of that is a promise I can live with!)

MADDOW:  And that was as wild as the crowd went during the whole speech.  (Maybe they liked the talk of the end point to this disaster too?)

Again, this does not sound like barn burning stuff.  But the point President Obama is making here, is exactly the point that the president‘s supporters have been waiting for him to make.  You almost have to telestrate the arithmetic while he does this.  But if you are willing to do it, the impact of what he‘s saying really can hit you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA:  They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut.

MADDOW:  OK, stop.  So, a $200,000 tax cut.  OK, keep going.

(BEGIN VDIEO CLIP) OBAMA:  That‘s paid for by asking, 33 seniors – (END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW:  OK, wait, wait.  Thirty-three seniors—do we have an icon for seniors or something?  Yes!  OK, 33 seniors.  OK, keep going.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA:  That‘s paid for by asking 33 seniors each to pay $6,000 more in health costs.  (END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW:  Freeze.  Stop it.  Thirty-three seniors pay $6,000 each.  The math—(Really, are you afraid that none of your viewers have finished 3^rd grade?  That simple division is a new concept to them?) OK, finish it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA:  That‘s not right, and it‘s not going to happen as long as I‘m president.(APPLAUSE)  (END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW:  What he‘s saying is that in order to get his $200,000 tax cut as one of the richest people in the country, right, the way Republicans want to finance that is by extracting 6 grand from 33 different old people.  (How about this, the failed stimulus plan that went to bail out public employee unions and push the problem down the road to the current crop of governors was like having around 162,000,000 – for those of you in Rachel’s audience, that’s 162 million—seniors pay $6000 more for their health care.  That did happen, and it happened while Barack Obama was president.  Rather because Barack Obama was President.)

He is right about that.  That is a good point.  That is exactly what the Republicans are trying to do.

They are claiming to reduce the deficit enough to afford this kind of thing for rich people by squeezing that money out of old people (Are Warren Buffet, Ross Perot and George Soros YOUNG people),and disabled people and other people (who are you callin’ “Other people?”) who this country has historically made a commitment to take care of.

Now, whether or not you can tell us straight out in your head while he‘s saying it, it may not have hit like a ton of bricks when he said it, but the president here is making the case that the Republicans‘ proposal for America is transferring resources and money from people who really do not have it to spare in order to give a ton of those resources and money to people who are already rich.  Good point.  (No, not taking something from Person A and giving it to Person B, is most assuredly NOT the freaking same as taking it from Person B and giving it to Person A, it just isn’t.)

And because that is a transfer of resources, and not a saving of resources, it not only isn‘t courageous or brave or serious, or any of the other things that the Republicans are getting called right now on the Beltway media.  It‘s not brave or courageous.  It‘s not even those things.  It‘s not even a real plan to reduce the deficit.

Oh, and the president said that, too.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA:  There‘s othing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending $1 trillion on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.  And I don‘t think there‘s anything courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don‘t have any clout on Capitol Hill.  (Old people don’t have clout on Capitol Hill?  Ask Dan Rostenkowski, ask every congressman who spends half his campaign budget on absentee voter programs, as the Republicans who joined George W. Bush in promoting even the tiniest privatization of Social Security for those who volunteered to participate— and boy, that would be a LOT of wasted AARP contributions. That‘s not a vision of the America I know.  (END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW:  It is about transferring money from politically powerless people, who don‘t have much, to rich people, and claiming that‘s about the deficit when it is plainly not.  (It’s about NOT  taking from those who have and giving it to those who don’t, so they can afford to employ those who don’t, and oh, because they EARNED IT.) That is not serious or courageous.  In fact, it is radical and it is something that does not resonate with American values—so said President Obama today.  (It doesn’t resonate with Swedish values or French values anyway.)

Whatever you heard about this speech, whether or not you believe the way that I am describing it, whether or not you watched it today, I never say on this show—print out and read this thing, or very rarely say it.  In this case, if you have a second, print it out and read it.  Print it out and keep it around, so if you have minute, spend a few minutes reading it.

If you are a liberal or if you are a centrist, if you are a person who voted for President Obama, if you were worried that President Obama would not confront the Republicans on what they are trying to do with the economy and instead would triangulate against it—Mr. Obama did not do that. (Really, that’s what CENTRISTS were worried about?  Center of WHAT?)

If you were worried the President Obama would sell out Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and say we can‘t forward them any more, like the Republicans wanted him to say—Mr. Obama did not do that.  (If you were worried about that, you haven’t been paying attention.)

If you were worried he would let the Republicans and the Beltway media get away with this bogus assertion that they make constantly that Social Security is causing the deficit, when it is not—he did do not.  He, in fact, called that out as bogus today.  (No, he pretended that the tax cut to the rich was bigger than the looming payouts to Baby Boomers in Social Security demagoguery of the worst order and not even in the same classroom with Math.  Maybe a Philosophy Course at Berkely…)

If you were worried that Mr. Obama would follow the Republican line that deficits themselves are always evil, that he would ignore the fact that Republicans are the ones who create the worst ones and at the worst times, Mr. Obama emphatically did not do that.

I am a liberal.  I am a liberal, and, therefore, I am a professional worrier about Democrats talking smack about what liberals value, and about Democrats trying to sound like Republicans, and about Democrats who are afraid to confront Republicans and who instead eat Republicans‘ framing about what‘s wrong with the country, in particular what‘s wrong about the economy and what are available options are.

You know, coming out of this last deal on the budget that President Obama made with the Republicans on Friday night, frankly this president gave liberals reason to worry all over again.

But today, if this is the start of 2012, if this is how the rest of this term is going to go, leading up to his re-election effort, if this is how President Obama is going to run for re-election, if this is the way he‘s going to call Republicans out for what they‘re for and explain what‘s really going on in the economy and speak up for his own values and explain to the country why he believes Democrats values are the right ones on this stuff—then as a liberal, I am less worried than I was.

My only worry really at this point is why did he give this speech at 1:30 on a Wednesday and sort of whisper it.  (It was because this kind of blatant class warfare doesn’t work with the majority of the American people who, despite a generation of neglecting economic education, still don’t believe the government can spend us into prosperity.  But Obama knew that no matter when he “whispered” it, you would be listening Rachel, you and the rest of the restless twit base, and that you would make sure all of you got the word. With a little fine-tuning, I think this could be a barn burner.  I could imagine this one in a stadium over and over and over again!  (See it worked, now you will quit badgering the guy for a while– until the next time he stumbles into doing something right, or is forced to by reality.)

We‘ll be right back.

VIDEO CLIP, BARACK OBAMA:These aren‘t the kinds of cuts you make when you‘re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings in the budget.  These are the kinds of cuts that tell us we can‘t afford the America that I believe in, and I think you believe in.  I believe it paints a vision of our future that is deeply pessimistic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW:  “These are not the cuts you make when you‘re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings in the budget,” he said.  So why would you find them then?  Implying these are the kinds of things you do when you‘re trying to fundamentally change the country.  (Wait a minute, “fundamental change” was what Obama promised and that’s a promise he is doing his damndest to keep.) In other words, it‘s not about the budget.  (That’s right Obama could give a rip about the budget.  Fundamental change from a private sector economy to public sector-driven economy is the goal.)

The president also today called out the Republican‘s plan for claiming to reduce the deficit while also giving away another $1 trillion tax cut to rich people, which means that the president committed math live on television—very dangerous.  (What the President committed was Mathicide.  His cuts are fictional and happen after he leaves office– long after.  Therefore the savings on the debt are fictional too– especially since they assume ludicrous “savings” from Obamacare’s implementation.  The “tax reform” i.e. tax increases, however are real.  You can take it to the bank.  Whenever Barack Obama says he will raise taxes, he means it– even if he can’t quite bring himself to actually SAY it.

The president‘s brushback in criticism of the Republicans today was, I think, stronger than most people expected.  Does that buy him from his own party, his supporters, more faith that his assurances that he will defend and protect Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security even as he said today that they need reform?  (Of course it does, check out all your rave reviews above.  You were the audience he had to fool.  And fool you he did.)

Chagrined at her premature happy Twit Two-Step, Rachel Maddow tried to salvage something out of the unexpected disaster that Big Labor and the organized Left suffered in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race when it was discovered that conservative Justice David Prosser survived their savage assault.

As usual, it wasn’t so much what she said, but how she said it, with smug intonations and feigned surprise that defy refutation in short, so later in the column, I will fisk her and her guest’s commentary to show you just how their assertions were either sleazy or stupid.

But here’s an example of the attempt to rile up the MSNBC faithful over nothing:

MADDOW:  The county clerk in this case, you can see on the screen here right now, is both elected and it is a partisan position?

LEE:  Unbelievably!

Yeah, just like it is in all 72 counties in Wisconsin (including Democrat Milwaukee where there really has been fraud), just like it is in all 83 counties in Michigan, all 254 counties in Texas, and oh, right the REST of the United States!  Shocking!

I mean isn’t it an abuse of democracy to have people who are accountable to the voters in charge of our elections?

But that’s only the tip of the twittery iceberg.

Just for fun, here was Rache on Wednesday night:

MADDOW:  Thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour as well.

Do you remember in the middle of the fight to stop the big union-stripping bill in Wisconsin, right in the middle of that fight I got on the air in this show and said, “Wisconsin, you won”?  Here‘s what I meant when I said that.

A state Supreme Court election that nobody outside of the candidates and their families really cared about two months ago has just signaled a 180-degree shift in the political winds in the American Midwest!

OOPS!

Here she was last night, trying to hint that something was fishy about the total refutation of her allies; but not quite having the guts to come out and say something inherently dishonest like Olbermann would have or Michael Moore has done.

MADDOW:  There is breaking news out of Wisconsin tonight where what had been an extremely close race for Supreme Court between conservative incumbent Justice David Prosser and the challenger, JoAnne Kloppenburg, is now less close  (DF: No, it was never close, just the badly reported COUNT was close.) after an entire town‘s votes were reportedly (not just reportedly) not included in the initial tally, but then they were mysteriously (things that have already been explained are only mysterious to the stupid) found today.  It happened in Waukesha County, the most conservative large county in Wisconsin by a mile. (S0unds sinister, until you realize that’s why the vote count is actually logical.)

The county clerk in Waukesha County says she did not put the vote totals from one whole city in that county into the final total she reported to the media.  The town is called Brookfield, Wisconsin, population 39,000.  Its votes reportedly went quite dramatically for the conservative David Prosser.  And that means that even though “The Associated Press” had JoAnne Kloppenburg in the lead in this race by a couple of hundred votes last night, right now, she appears to be unexpectedly over 7,000 votes behind.  Yes, that is still an unofficial count.

How did such a massive mistake happen and how should we understand it?  Well, according to the county clerk, she says she forgot to hit the save button on the relevant file.  Here‘s her explanation tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)KATHY NICKOLAUS, WAUKESHA COUNTY CLERK:  I discovered that the data that was sent to me from the city of Brookfield was not transferred to the final report that was given to the media on Tuesday night.  The city of Brookfield cast 14,315 votes on April 5^th, 10,859 votes went for Justice David Prosser.  And 3,456 went for JoAnne Kloppenburg.  These numbers will be reflected in my official results.

It is important to stress that this is not a case of extra votes or extra ballots being found.  This is human error which I apologize for.  This was an access database file that was on our regular system, and it was just a matter of the save.  It was just a matter of human error.  Again, I apologize.

REPORTER:  Has there been any error like this, this large ever before in Waukesha County?

NICKOLAUS:  Not that I’m aware of.(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW(sarcastically):  Not that I‘m aware of.

Joining us now is Mordecai Lee, professor of government affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  Professor Lee is a former member of the Wisconsin state assembly and the state Senate.

Professor, thanks very much for your time tonight.

MORDECAI LEE, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN:  Thanks for inviting me.

MADDOW:  What do you make of the explanation for these missing votes reappearing today?  Does this seem to make sense to you?

LEE:  Not really.  It‘s awfully bizarre. (Yes, if you have never been involved in an election with an unexpectedly high turnout.  I have seen ballots in cities have the Republican and Democrat votes counted in reverse, townships left out of a “final” reported count on Election Night because turnout was so high they ran out of ballots and had to count their improvised ballots by hand, etc.  And I’m not nearly as old as this guy, nor called to be an “expert witness” in a “national” show  – well MNSBC, anyway.) In a clip that wasn‘t part of what you showed, she claimed that they didn‘t use the form she sent them, that they amended her template.  I don‘t understand how she can hand out a template that other people can play with.  This really raises basic questions about the professionalism there.  It just struck me as amateur hour.  (Admittedly, it wasn’t a great performance, but it was caught by a county clerk BEFORE the recount, which is something.  This poor lady is paying the price for the Left’s premature celebration.)

MADDOW:  Is Waukesha County in particular or Wisconsin broadly speaking, does it have a history of shenanigans about voting or incompetence about voting or other things that should help the national audience understand whether or not this late announcement today is something to worry about or just something to wonder about?  (No, but questions like that are what led to the Twit moniker…)

LEE:  This is something to wonder and worry about.  I mean, we‘re not Chicago in 1960 or Texas in 1948 when they stole elections.  (Wait, did this dufus just admit Kennedy stole the election?) But 7,500 votes, that‘s a ton.  I have been involved in Wisconsin politics since the late 1960s, and I have never seen an election that had such a major mistake. (Numerically, perhaps, but this was really a matter of one keystroke, and the mistake was discovered through oversight as it was supposed to be.  Sorry about your wasted champagne, guys.)

You know, she was questioned by an audit about her I.T. system last year by the county government, and she claimed that she could just have a free standing P.C.  I think this is an indication of incompetence.  And I don‘t even understand why we elect partisan county clerks.  Isn‘t it time for civil service and public administration to run our elections?  (Isn’t it time for Rachel to get some guests with professionalism?  Large and medium sized counties do have their elections “run” by civil service employees.  The elected clerk is there to be a public administrator who sets policy and the budget like every other elected executive.  And, oh, yeah, clerks do a lot more than just administer elections a few times a year, they oversee pistol permits, birth, death, and marriage records, just to scratch the surface.)

MADDOW:  The county clerk in this case, you can see on the screen here right now, is both elected and it is a partisan position?

LEE:  Unbelievably.  I mean, how can there be a supposedly Republican way to run elections or Democratic way?  That‘s such 19^th century America.  We really need to professionalize those offices.  (Well, this genius did list the Democrat way of counting votes earlier in the conversation…)

And elections are the basis of democracy.  And here in Wisconsin, we like to think of ourselves as dull and staid and straightforward.  And for the last 60 days, every day, we have woken up to another jaw dropping story.  But this takes the cake.  I just can‘t believe it. (OMG! A computer error was discovered by a clerk who double checked the process!  Will the madness never cease!)

MADDOW:  There has been a lot of national attention on this local election.  I mean, here we are in prime time national cable news (well talk about overstatement!) talking about a dramatic turn in the state Supreme Court election in Wisconsin.  But that‘s because this has been seen (by MSNBC leftist shills) as essentially a proxy vote on the union-stripping measures and the tactics of the Republican Party in Wisconsin, which have been so dramatic this year, substantively.  (Which was why I was so ecstatic last night…)

Does the winner of this race have a substantive effect on the fate of Governor Walker‘s union-stripping law? (Are union members now naked in Wisconsin?  And can somebody please start saying “PUBLIC EMPLOYEES union” at the very least?  But of course, the whole point is to blur the distinction.)

LEE:  The answer is yes.  This was not a symbolic election. (Okay, just what the… future… is a “symbolic election?”  I’ve never been involved in one of those, but then I guess I haven’t been around as much as this expert.) This was an election for the swing vote on our seven-member state Supreme Court.  Right now, with Justice Prosser there, there‘s an ideological majority of four conservatives.  If he were to be replaced, there will be an ideological majority of I guess you‘d say left of center progressives.

So, this was really a vote about whether the collective bargaining bill, if it reaches the state Supreme Court, is going to be upheld or rejected.  (Uh, no, it was a vote for a Supreme Court justice.  For a guy who just said it wasn’t a symbolic vote, you just told us what it symbolized… oh, never mind.)

MADDOW:  Former Wisconsin State Senator Mordecai Lee, who is now professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, thank you very much for helping us sort through this.  We know it‘s not over.  (Oh, yes it is!) We may be talking to you again, sir.  (That I don’t doubt, you twits are made for each other.)

Oops, NOT the Winner!

Chagrined at her premature happy Twit Two-Step, Rachel Maddow tried to salvage something out of the unexpected disaster that Big Labor and the organized Left suffered in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race when it was discovered that conservative Justice David Prosser survived their savage assault.

As usual, it wasn’t so much what she said, but how she said it, with smug intonations and feigned surprise that defy refutation in short, so later in the column, I will fisk her and her guest’s commentary to show you just how their assertions were either sleazy or stupid.

But here’s an example of the attempt to rile up the MSNBC faithful over nothing:

MADDOW:  The county clerk in this case, you can see on the screen here right now, is both elected and it is a partisan position?

LEE:  Unbelievably!

Yeah, just like it is in all 72 counties in Wisconsin (including Democrat Milwaukee where there really has been fraud), just like it is in all 83 counties in Michigan, all 254 counties in Texas, and oh, right the REST of the United States!  Shocking!

I mean isn’t it an abuse of democracy to have people who are accountable to the voters in charge of our elections?

But that’s only the tip of the twittery iceberg.

Just for fun, here was Rache on Wednesday night:

MADDOW:  Thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour as well.

Do you remember in the middle of the fight to stop the big union-stripping bill in Wisconsin, right in the middle of that fight I got on the air in this show and said, “Wisconsin, you won”?  Here‘s what I meant when I said that.

A state Supreme Court election that nobody outside of the candidates and their families really cared about two months ago has just signaled a 180-degree shift in the political winds in the American Midwest!

OOPS!

Here she was last night, trying to hint that something was fishy about the total refutation of her allies; but not quite having the guts to come out and say something inherently dishonest like Olbermann would have or Michael Moore has done.

MADDOW:  There is breaking news out of Wisconsin tonight where what had been an extremely close race for Supreme Court between conservative incumbent Justice David Prosser and the challenger, JoAnne Kloppenburg, is now less close  (DF: No, it was never close, just the badly reported COUNT was close.) after an entire town‘s votes were reportedly (not just reportedly) not included in the initial tally, but then they were mysteriously (things that have already been explained are only mysterious to the stupid) found today.  It happened in Waukesha County, the most conservative large county in Wisconsin by a mile. (S0unds sinister, until you realize that’s why the vote count is actually logical.)

The county clerk in Waukesha County says she did not put the vote totals from one whole city in that county into the final total she reported to the media.  The town is called Brookfield, Wisconsin, population 39,000.  Its votes reportedly went quite dramatically for the conservative David Prosser.  And that means that even though “The Associated Press” had JoAnne Kloppenburg in the lead in this race by a couple of hundred votes last night, right now, she appears to be unexpectedly over 7,000 votes behind.  Yes, that is still an unofficial count.

How did such a massive mistake happen and how should we understand it?  Well, according to the county clerk, she says she forgot to hit the save button on the relevant file.  Here‘s her explanation tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)KATHY NICKOLAUS, WAUKESHA COUNTY CLERK:  I discovered that the data that was sent to me from the city of Brookfield was not transferred to the final report that was given to the media on Tuesday night.  The city of Brookfield cast 14,315 votes on April 5^th, 10,859 votes went for Justice David Prosser.  And 3,456 went for JoAnne Kloppenburg.  These numbers will be reflected in my official results.

It is important to stress that this is not a case of extra votes or extra ballots being found.  This is human error which I apologize for.  This was an access database file that was on our regular system, and it was just a matter of the save.  It was just a matter of human error.  Again, I apologize.

REPORTER:  Has there been any error like this, this large ever before in Waukesha County?

NICKOLAUS:  Not that I’m aware of.(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW(sarcastically):  Not that I‘m aware of.

Joining us now is Mordecai Lee, professor of government affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  Professor Lee is a former member of the Wisconsin state assembly and the state Senate.

Professor, thanks very much for your time tonight.

MORDECAI LEE, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN:  Thanks for inviting me.

MADDOW:  What do you make of the explanation for these missing votes reappearing today?  Does this seem to make sense to you?

LEE:  Not really.  It‘s awfully bizarre. (Yes, if you have never been involved in an election with an unexpectedly high turnout.  I have seen ballots in cities have the Republican and Democrat votes counted in reverse, townships left out of a “final” reported count on Election Night because turnout was so high they ran out of ballots and had to count their improvised ballots by hand, etc.  And I’m not nearly as old as this guy, nor called to be an “expert witness” in a “national” show  – well MNSBC, anyway.) In a clip that wasn‘t part of what you showed, she claimed that they didn‘t use the form she sent them, that they amended her template.  I don‘t understand how she can hand out a template that other people can play with.  This really raises basic questions about the professionalism there.  It just struck me as amateur hour.  (Admittedly, it wasn’t a great performance, but it was caught by a county clerk BEFORE the recount, which is something.  This poor lady is paying the price for the Left’s premature celebration.)

MADDOW:  Is Waukesha County in particular or Wisconsin broadly speaking, does it have a history of shenanigans about voting or incompetence about voting or other things that should help the national audience understand whether or not this late announcement today is something to worry about or just something to wonder about?  (No, but questions like that are what led to the Twit moniker…)

LEE:  This is something to wonder and worry about.  I mean, we‘re not Chicago in 1960 or Texas in 1948 when they stole elections.  (Wait, did this dufus just admit Kennedy stole the election?) But 7,500 votes, that‘s a ton.  I have been involved in Wisconsin politics since the late 1960s, and I have never seen an election that had such a major mistake. (Numerically, perhaps, but this was really a matter of one keystroke, and the mistake was discovered through oversight as it was supposed to be.  Sorry about your wasted champagne, guys.)

You know, she was questioned by an audit about her I.T. system last year by the county government, and she claimed that she could just have a free standing P.C.  I think this is an indication of incompetence.  And I don‘t even understand why we elect partisan county clerks.  Isn‘t it time for civil service and public administration to run our elections?  (Isn’t it time for Rachel to get some guests with professionalism?  Large and medium sized counties do have their elections “run” by civil service employees.  The elected clerk is there to be a public administrator who sets policy and the budget like every other elected executive.  And, oh, yeah, clerks do a lot more than just administer elections a few times a year, they oversee pistol permits, birth, death, and marriage records, just to scratch the surface.)

MADDOW:  The county clerk in this case, you can see on the screen here right now, is both elected and it is a partisan position?

LEE:  Unbelievably.  I mean, how can there be a supposedly Republican way to run elections or Democratic way?  That‘s such 19^th century America.  We really need to professionalize those offices.  (Well, this genius did list the Democrat way of counting votes earlier in the conversation…)

And elections are the basis of democracy.  And here in Wisconsin, we like to think of ourselves as dull and staid and straightforward.  And for the last 60 days, every day, we have woken up to another jaw dropping story.  But this takes the cake.  I just can‘t believe it. (OMG! A computer error was discovered by a clerk who double checked the process!  Will the madness never cease!)

MADDOW:  There has been a lot of national attention on this local election.  I mean, here we are in prime time national cable news (well talk about overstatement!) talking about a dramatic turn in the state Supreme Court election in Wisconsin.  But that‘s because this has been seen (by MSNBC leftist shills) as essentially a proxy vote on the union-stripping measures and the tactics of the Republican Party in Wisconsin, which have been so dramatic this year, substantively.  (Which was why I was so ecstatic last night…)

Does the winner of this race have a substantive effect on the fate of Governor Walker‘s union-stripping law? (Are union members now naked in Wisconsin?  And can somebody please start saying “PUBLIC EMPLOYEES union” at the very least?  But of course, the whole point is to blur the distinction.)

LEE:  The answer is yes.  This was not a symbolic election. (Okay, just what the… future… is a “symbolic election?”  I’ve never been involved in one of those, but then I guess I haven’t been around as much as this expert.) This was an election for the swing vote on our seven-member state Supreme Court.  Right now, with Justice Prosser there, there‘s an ideological majority of four conservatives.  If he were to be replaced, there will be an ideological majority of I guess you‘d say left of center progressives.

So, this was really a vote about whether the collective bargaining bill, if it reaches the state Supreme Court, is going to be upheld or rejected.  (Uh, no, it was a vote for a Supreme Court justice.  For a guy who just said it wasn’t a symbolic vote, you just told us what it symbolized… oh, never mind.)

MADDOW:  Former Wisconsin State Senator Mordecai Lee, who is now professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, thank you very much for helping us sort through this.  We know it‘s not over.  (Oh, yes it is!) We may be talking to you again, sir.  (That I don’t doubt, you twits are made for each other.)

Rachel Maddow probably puts on more pseudo-intellectual airs than any show on cable news.  Her promos proclaim her “geeky” supposed attention to detail and show her researching her specs off to bring the story “nobody else is talking about.”

Well, there may be a good reason nobody else bothers.

Wednesday night, she brought Denver Post (and sometime Nation) columnist David Sirota to talk about his book, Back to our Future: How the 1980s Explained the World We Live in Now, Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything.

And we “learn” that America is in 3 wars now because of … Mr. T?

SIROTA: … We learn from movies like “Iron Eagle,” from “Top Gun,” from TV shows like the “A-Team,” like “The Dukes of Hazard,” that the government can‘t do anything right, that the military is the ultimate institution in society, and we have created this monumental idea that everything we did in the 1980s was good and everything that we did in the 1980s we should keep doing.

MADDOW:  One—on that one reference you just made to the “A-Team,” I have to tell you, I was born in 1973.  I know you‘re a little younger than me.  But every reference in the book is something that I emotionally get.

And I have to tell you, I watched every single second of the “A-Team” that was ever put on television.  I was absolutely obsessed with the “A-Team.”  Can you explain to me how that warped my mind?

SIROTA:  Yes.  Well, you were like many young people.  The “A-Team” was one of the top-rated shows among preteens in the mid-1980s.  It had a big effect on people.

Yes, Rachel, that’s probably where you got the idea that if wars are not bungling quagmires, they will be over in 45 minutes and no one will die.

And in case you think I took it out of context…

MADDOW:  One—on that one reference you just made to the “A-Team,” I have to tell you, I was born in 1973.  I know you‘re a little younger than me.  But every reference in the book is something that I emotionally get.

And I have to tell you, I watched every single second of the “A-Team” that was ever put on television.  I was absolutely obsessed with the “A-Team.”  Can you explain to me how that warped my mind?

SIROTA:  Yes.  Well, you were like many young people.  The “A-Team” was one of the top-rated shows among preteens in the mid-1980s.  It had a big effect on people

SIROTA:  Yes.  Well, you were like many young people.  The “A-Team” was one of the top-rated shows among preteens in the mid-1980s.  It had a big effect on people.  And think about the story of the “A-Team,” right?  The government unduly incarcerates our heroes, they escape because the government can‘t even keep them incarcerated, and they solve the problems that the government refuses to solve.  In fact, they are solving problems while the government is trying to apprehend them for solving society‘s problems.

Obviously, we can see the analog now.  This is how political culture talks about government, that you can‘t rely on the government, you have to rely on outsiders.  You have to rely on the outsiders.  You have to rely on the private contractors, the Blackwaters, the Hallburtons, to solve our society‘s problems.

I‘m not making a direct link between Blackwater and the “A-Team,” but what I‘m saying is, is when kids, when you and I as kids and 7 million other preteens are taught that government can‘t do anything and that we have to hire the outsider, that becomes the way in which our government now speaks to us, our politics now speak to us.

MADDOW:  And it makes—it makes those arguments now resonate in a way that is emotionally satisfying and that we can‘t necessarily explain because it sort of shaped our subconscious.  It is a deeply conspiratorial book that you have written, David Sirota, but it is also one that I have to say rang as true to me on just about every single page.  I think it‘s a real achievement.  And I‘m really happy you had so much success with it.  Thanks, David.

SIROTA:  Well, thanks, Rachel.

MADDOW:  The book is called “Back to our Future: How the 1980s Explained the World We Live in Now, Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything.”  I will tell you, this book made me remember the muscle memory of how to win the Atari games that I was good at.  I was really good at Kaboom.

That last kaboom you heard may have been your credibility…

But this was satire, right?  Everybody was smirking… yes, but no more than usual for the True Twit Variety Hour.

Nope, Sirota thinks people “learn lessons” from The A-Team, The Dukes of Hazzard, and Iron Eagle.  Of course on the Amazon page for his new book, he also thinks Blackwater came out of attitudes created by Ghostbusters, blames Rambo for Americans thinking we can beat terrorists, and says Rocky is one big racist fantasy.

Well Rache, if the A Team was really that influential for you, maybe you can take some good advice from Mr. T:

The protesters in Michigan and Wisconsin that Rachel Maddow has been giving the True Twit Thumbs Up to lately on her TV show like to carry signs that call governors Rick Snyder and Scott Walker fascists, put Hitler mustaches on them, and give interviews that say “This is how Nazi Germany started.”

Hopefully, those aren’t history teachers…

While it might not be particular to fascism to say so, Rachel’s constant harping that tax cuts to business is the same as “spending” on them, certainly displays a totalitarian impulse when it comes to your money—and one that is certainly consistent with fascism.  It assumes that whatever income you get to keep is at the good graces of Big Government.

MADDOW: He is giving it away in the form of $1.8 billion in corporate tax cuts.  He is taking in $1.7 billion in higher taxes from poor people an old people and giving it away, $1.8 billion to businesses!

Giving… not taking.. tomato tomahtoe…

But Rachel keeps sniping that Governor Snyder is giving “tax breaks” to business (as if any sane person had any choice besides lowering the nation’s most repressive business tax rate in a state with the highest unemployment) while “taxing the old and the poor.”

But it’s also true that Rick Snyder wants to spend money on business, and in a way that meets a purely economic definition of fascism—but the primary example is on a project Detroit Democrats are desperate to promote.

First, let’s get this out of the way.  Taking less is not spending.  Taking less is not fascism, either.  The reason the most famous fascist party was called the National Socialist Party is not because it took less money from anyone, or exercised less control on anything.

However, unlike total Marxist socialism, fascism can be content with merely controlling the means of production, sometimes by an amalgam of government and big business.  Today, we give them the sunny name of “public-private partnerships.”  Sometimes it’s called crony capitalism.  I prefer corporate welfare.

A governor who is from the business community, before he makes cuts to education, needs to be able to say, “Look I cut the freebies for my crowd first.”  But Snyder, who originally said in his budget that he was going to “cut” the state’s slush fund for picking winners and losers in the business world to $50 million from the $200 million Jennifer Granholm routinely spent for no results, now tells the Detroit news he may need more.

But perhaps the most controversial—and head scratching—example of this, is the Detroit River International Crossing, or DRIC.  The DRIC is a $5 billion bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Canada, to compete with the privately owned Ambassador Bridge.  (And judging by the new census numbers, Canadians should start calling this the “bridge to nowhere.”)

It is true that the crossing needs an upgrade, but the owner of the Ambassador Bridge wants to build a new span privately. But the governor, egged on by Detroit business roundtable types, is determined to have taxpayers foot the bill.

Partly because the Michigan Department of Transportation wants the $500 million the Canadians have offered to put up– and because of the perverse incentives of government, that money can be used for federal matching grants, which also makes them drool– and because of the usual inflated jobs creation numbers every big government construction project promises, a Republican governor is competing with a private company.  It probably doesn’t hurt that one of the biggest Republican consultants and lobbying firms is advocating for DRIC, either.

Last year, Detroit Democrats loaded up the DRIC legislation with tons of local pork development projects and it was killed in the Republican Senate.  But now, with our “businessman” governor, it’s back.

Obamacare with its mandates to use private insurance and myriad regulatory controls is really more akin to fascism than socialism.  The GM and Chrysler takeovers and screwing over the bondholders by fiat of the Executive smacks of fascism; while things like subsidizing wind farms and electric cars over their competitors are merely flirting with it.

The protesters, however, are not out yelling about anything that meets the real definition of fascism.  I bet most of them LOVE forcing people to pay for wind farms.

Whether cutting education funding is wise or not, it meets no logical definition of fascism.  I’m pretty sure the first thing Hitler did was not decrease the German state’s investment in its schools.  I’m especially confident he did nothing that would make non-state schools increase their competitive advantage vs. the state-funded institutions.

And while a public school system is not fascism (though a national one would make me really uncomfortable, and increasing federal involvement gets us close to the definition) even Republicans seem to want to propose a “one size fits all” standard for kids, rather than increase the choices available to students within the publicly funded system.

Now if the protesters wanted to scream THAT was fascistic… well, they would be wrong, but at least in the ballpark.

So here’s what you can bank on.  Anything the protesters call fascism, isn’t.  Anything Rachel is campaigning for… much more likely to be.

Why is it that “progressives” who “Lean Forward,” as MSNBC puts it, always reach so far into the past to apply America’s sins to a current generation?

Recently Rachel Maddow had to hearken back to the era of Jim Crow to also bolster her strategy for Democrat victory in 2012– no, I’m not kidding.

Since the Republican shellacking of Democrats in 2010, Tingly and the Twit (Matthews and Maddow) have proclaimed every Republican victory to be pyrrhic.  ”NOWWWW you’ve gone too far!” they proclaim on a nightly basis.

MADDOW: Put Republican efforts to strip union rights on the ballot and get ready to meet every heroic public school teacher and every firefighter and everyone who ever learned math from that teacher or had their house saved by that firefighter, get ready for America to hoist main street heroes on to the crowd‘s shoulders.

And to prove her point– and to egg school teachers on to be the new cannon fodder for the Left– she points to the Ohio statewide campaigns of… 1958! (My comments in bold…)

MADDOW: The last time Republicans in Ohio mounted this sort of an attack on people who work for a living was back in 1958.  (Seriously?) Republicans wanted to outlaw union shops with a constitutional amendment that they put before the state‘s voters.  They were just going to roll back union rights. (Yes, it was Right to Work legislation at a time when about 35% of the work force was unionized– and the vast majority in the PRIVATE SECTOR!)

Guess what happened.  Ohio voters not only rejected the Republicans‘ big union-busting idea, they rejected it by a 2-1 margin.  They overwhelmingly opposed the Republican-led efforts to strip union rights.  They also replaced the Republican governor with a Democratic one.

And in that same election they gave Democrats both Houses of the state legislature and every statewide office outside of the courts and every single statewide office except for the secretary of state.  Good job, Republicans.

Not only did your union-busting referendum get absolutely trounced, you got trounced, too.  You got voted out of power for having tried it.  The anti-union measure that Ohio Republicans wanted back then is not exactly the same thing as what‘s being proposed now, but it is roughly the same size, same shaped punch aimed directly at the middle class.  (“Not exactly the same thing” is quite an understatement.  In Ohio in 1958, the manufacturing– particularly the auto –industry was dominant, wages were rising, corporate profits were going up, and about 1/3 of the people worked at an hourly union wage.  There was also one other difference– these weren’t just people who “worked for a living.”  They were people who PRODUCED for a living.  And while teachers are just about the only public employees who contribute to productivity, the rest of government is simply overhead– some of it necessary, but still overhead.  Which explains why the Left wants to push teachers, along with those who do risk life and limb, to the forefront of this fight.)

And the great majority of working people reacted to it back then as you might expect.  Democrats do not always remember that their base is people who have to work for a living.  Democrats do not always remember that the corporate interest party is the other guys and that they‘re supposed to represent people who corporate interests would prey on if they didn‘t have somebody defending them.  (Rachel doesn’t seem to remember that the “corporate interests” here would be Big Government.  You know, the compassionate entity that she trusts to deliver health care?

But ultimately, the bosses here, the people on the other side of the bargaining table are not “corporate interests,” or even The Government.  It’s the taxpayers.  And that’s what makes this a whole different ball game than 1958.  It’s about 10% of the population demanding more from the 90%– at the same time they are making more and have better benefits than, those 90%.  That makes for a whole different sympathy level than autoworkers wanting more money from the President of General Motors and ironworkers making demands of U.S. Steel. (of course, ultimately, those golden gooses were killed, too)

For Rachel, Wisconsin is front and center in this scenario– but Michigan, she is sure, is right behind, along with Ohio, and it’s governor who she calls “former Fox commentator John Kasich,” never “former Congressman John Kasich…”

MADDOW: Economic populism wins for Democrats every time.  If you want a Democrat to win an election put economic populism on the ballot.  Put something like a minimum wage initiative on the ballot.

To prove how the tide has turned already, Maddow reaches once again waaaaayyy back into the past– when newspapers mattered.  Yes, I said “newspapers…”

MADDOW: I want to show you the headlines that ran in newspapers around the state of Wisconsin on the day that Scott Walker signed the union-stripping bill there.

Now, this was the day that Walker held his big bill signing, right?  This is supposed to be his victory lap.  This is what local and regional papers looked like across Wisconsin on the day of Walker‘s would-be victory lap.  “The Reporter” newspaper of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, “Did GOP break the Law?”

“The Post Crescent” newspaper of Appleton, Wisconsin, “Bill Passes Amid Outcry.”  “The Daily Tribune” of Wisconsin Rapids, “Protesters Say Fight‘s Not Over.”  “The Wausau Daily Herald,” “More Protesters on the Way,” “Thousands from Local Union Expected to Join Group this Weekend.”

And then there was this one, this one from the “Oshkosh Northwestern.”

This one may be the single most significant headline of that entire day.  “Bargaining Battle Turns to Ballot Box.”  That was the headline the day after this big union-stripping bill passed in Wisconsin.

“Bargaining Battle Turns to Ballot Box.”  This is the key.  This is the most important thing to pay attention to in trying to determine whether or not Democrats are going to be able to turn the pyrrhic nature of this Republican victory in Wisconsin into something that both stops what the Republicans are doing here.

Not to sound like Jim Mora, but Newspaper headlines?  NEWSPAPER headlines?  Are you kidding me?

But wait, there’s more…

With a remarkable lack of self-awareness, in True Twit fashion, Rachel mocked Republicans for returning to… the 1990s!

Throughout the history of popular fiction, the New York Times Book Review and the literati have done their best to focus public attention on writers of the Left. Nevertheless, readers have confounded them by tending to choose heroes with a more traditional, pro-American outlook and a decidedly un-nuanced view of good guys and bad guys.

So while Fletcher Knebel was cranking out critically acclaimed hardcover political thrillers like Seven Days in May from the Left, he and his ilk were being vastly outsold by paperback writers such as Donald Hamilton, Mikey Spillane, and Edward S. Aarons. In other words, by authors whose books featured he-man heroes.

In a more modern era, Tom Clancy, Dean Koontz and Vince Flynn have all dominated the bestsellers list, leaving series like Sara Paretsky’s ultra-feminist private eye, and James Lee Burke’s (excellently written but decidedly left leaning) series in the dust.

So, here, in somewhat chronological order, is volume three of my series on 18 19 of the best heroes to star in their own series of mysteries, thrillers, and espionage novels.  Some are not overtly political, but none are politically correct—still others deserve mention because they swam upstream against the prevailing literary trend of the time.

To read volume 1 (heroes 1-6) click here.

To read volume 2 (heroes 7-12) click here.

Note: Such stellar authors who definitely lean to the right as Dean Koontz, Andrew Klavan, Ralph Peters, James W. Huston and Joseph Wambaugh, are not included because they primarily write stand alone novels, and their work is not primarily identified with a dominant hero.

Also, this series was originally subtitled 18 Heroes… but of course, while writing I found one more I just had to include.

This week: Warriors of the Cold War fight bad guys at home, and Islamists are challenged from a most unexpected hero.

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