Straight Rights Watch: Wisconsin

Dan Savage—author of the nationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column "Savage Love", founder of the "It Gets Better" project created in response to bullied LGBT youth committing suicide, architect of the Rick Santorum Google bomb "Spreading Santorum"(potentially NSFW) and all around good guy—reintroduces the "Straight Rights Watch" in his latest column.

Straight Rights Watch, you ask?

We used to have a regular feature at Savage Love called “Straight Rights Watch.” It lapsed when the Democrats took the House in 2006 and political attacks on the sexual freedoms of straight people decreased. But the GOP is back in charge of the House and state houses across the country, and attacks on the sexual freedoms of heterosexuals—attempts to ban abortion, restrict access to birth control, destroy Planned Parenthood (which doesn’t just serve straight people), even make it legal to kill abortion providers (!!!)—are back, and so, sadly, is Straight Rights Watch.

Governor Charlie Sheen

On 22 September, 2003, Two and a Half Men debuted on CBS.  The Chuck Lorre-created, Charlie Sheen-starring comedy pulled in over fifteen million viewers its first season and since has generated enough revenue to justify paying Emilio Estevez's brother $1.8 million per episode.  While I haven't the first clue how much china white one could snort up for that scratch, Two and a Half Men now finds itself on indefinite hiatus because Charlie Sheen does.

Cue Sinatra's rendition of "It Was a Very Good Year":

8 February 2010 -- Charged with felony menacing, third-degree assault and criminal mischief, stemming from a 25 December 2009 arrest for domestic assault upon his then wife, Brooke Mueller.  Charlie, per police documents, told his wife, "You better be in fear. If you tell anybody, I'll kill you.  I have ex-police I can hire who know how to get the job done and they won't leave any trace."  Happy Christmas!

On Wisconsin, part two.

Part one can be found here.

1904.  New York City.  A burgeoning metropolis beginning to stand upright and not just walk, but run.  To sprint.  Feeling lactic acid immigrating to its tissues.  On the twenty-second of April, a wealthy textile importer and his painter wife have their first child.  The boy is named Julius.

Julius grows up in circumstances approaching dreams: a house with three original paintings from Van Gogh sprinkled between pieces from Picasso and Vuillard, studying at the Ethical Culture Society School which remains to this day a bastion of progressive thought, a father with a keen interest in schools who serves also as a member of the Society of Ethical Culture, a mother openly encouraging Julius and his younger brother to be eager with their interests and to try new things and to be inquisitive.

Wormtongue is at it again.

The February wind bites the back of your neck like a feral beast scrounging on the carcass and bones of caught prey.  Upturning the collar of your jacket or the throwing on of your scarf only makes you all the more aware of the acute burning on your cheeks.  As sure as noon follows morning and midnight follows dusk, as sure as the motivated legion of protesters in Madison are to stay committed to a cause battling a totalitarian regime, as sure as the sun rising each day...

...so too is Cullen Werwie prone to talk out of his arse.

AP file photo of Cullen Werwie addressing Wisconsin citizens.

On Wisconsin, part one.

This week, Catalan at Heart presents 'On Wisconsin', a multi-part look at the budgetary imbroglio Wisconsin finds itself in.  By tracing the who, the how, the why and everything between, we will offer a seemingly tangential, always empirical and ultimately definitive look on the crisis.  With snark.

As far as Wisconsin political theatre goes, the drama from fourteen Senate Democrats refusing a call to quorum and escaping to Illinois to avoid a sure-to-lose vote on Governor Scott Walker's "budget repair bill" is without precedent.  While the resulting schism is not starved for analogues to earlier affairs -- race relations, the original turmoil over unions, Bush/Kerry, Laverne and Shirley ending -- the connectedness of today's society has artificially amplified the fervor to a new critical mass.

While feasible to have avoided or compartmentalized earlier affairs, one click of the mouse or opening of a vibrating phone or button press of a remote control assaults one with instant news and faster commentary.  With tweets and status alerts and wall postings now the stuff of nightmares, a relentless force hunting and chasing regardless of the speed undertaken to get away or the tactics performed to elude its clutches.

On progress, continued.

The Godwalker, from Thursday:

I'll always be willing to cooperate and communicate with the Democrats, but that has to happen at the state Capitol in Madison.

Today, by means of a voice vote, Senate Republicans summarily prevented any potential amendments to The Godwalker's bill from even being introduced, let alone voted on.  The same Senate Republicans who take their marching orders from The Godwalker.  It is with melancholy one observes 'always' apparently means 'one day' to The Godwalker.

On contempt for our intelligence.

The Godwalker's been unequivocally talking shit again making public statements today:

I'd do almost anything to avoid laying people off.  We need to avoid those layoffs for the good of those workers.

You see, The Godwalker is more than willing--and one might dare say benevolent--to do anything to avoid layoffs except for the small, "modest" matter of excising the collective bargaining language from the bill that's a self-admitted part of a nationwide plan to marginalize unions.  He'd do anything but accept the concessions he's asked for from the unions for the good of the unions.  After proposing a bill which removes collective bargaining and reduces benefits for those workers, The Godwalker wants to avoid these layoffs for the good of those workers.  That makes sense.

On outright disinformation.

The Godwalker's spokesman, Cullen Werwie, through a statement on that whole switchboard snafu:

Throughout this call the Governor maintained his appreciation for and commitment to civil discourse. The phone call shows that the governor says the same thing in private as he does in public and the lengths that others will go to disrupt the civil debate Wisconsin is having.

Let's go to the transcript: