Wisconsin Reepo Power Grab Traced To Rural-Urban Divisions ("Milwaukee and Madison Voters Don't Count!")

"One of the increasingly defining features of our current politics is the growing evidence that  when it comes to democracy only one party fully embraces it when they win. Case in point, Wisconsin, and the Republicans there seeking to maintain their power even as they lost in the midterm."  - Joy Reed, on AM Joy

"The Republican Party has become less a political party than an insurgency, engaged in the pursuit and abuse of power as an end in itself, justifying almost any means. So we have to refuse power to someone who could enact policies none of us believe in."  - George Packer, writing in The Atlantic.

"The situation we are sitting in now, if we do not pass these proposals, is that we are going to have a very liberal governor."  Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, trying to justify the Reepo power grab after the midterms dethroned Rep. Scott Walker.

"What's going on now in Wisconsin is unconstitutional and un-American. The voters spoke on November 6th loudly and clearly they wanted change. There were six Democrats on the statewide ballot and all six won. Now these sore losers, led by Scott Walker, are going back in to try to undo the will of the people".  Scott Ross, Executive Director, One Wisconsin Now - on AM Joy.

"This really is the death of democracy. What we are seeing is the Republican Party rejecting everything our country is based on simply because they lose.  Some of the principles being attacked, such as the separation of powers, were written into the state constitution of Michigan as early as 1776.  And now under the guise of 'good governance' the Republicans are deciding the will of the people no longer matters."   - Michelle Bernard, Columnist, Roll Call on AM Joy last Sunday

Well  now we see Speaker Robin Vos and his Repuke  underlings in the Wisconsin Assembly have made their agenda abundantly clear: to act as the insurgency described by George Packer, to take power from the state's voters  - mainly in the cities.. And to ensure no "liberal" will ever be elected who can wield any degree of lawful authority.  As noted in a Sunday talk show (AM Joy), Vos and his degenerates actually proclaimed that only the votes of Wisconsin's rural voters ought to count, not those in the big cities of Madison or Milwaukee.

Recall in the Nov. 6th midterms, the Dems won the popular vote for the Wisconsin State Assembly by 53% to 45% and yet because of systemic gerrymandering the Reeps still kept 64 % of the seats in the Assembly to the Ds 36%.   Never mind, the Dems' Tony Evers took back the governorship from the odious scoundrel Scott Walker, while Dem Josh Kaul won attorney general.  But the Reeps couldn't handle the loss of power in those positions so conspired to pass lame duck legislation to  limit the power in those positions.

Drafted in secret, the  GOP Wisconsin legislation was rushed to the Joint Finance Committee on Monday, December 3rd for its only public hearing. Legislators and outraged citizens scrambled  to parse more than forty serious changes to state law embedded in the 141 pages of text, but the bill was signed into law last week by Walker.

Among the numerous provisions included in the legislation are ones that would limit early voting to two weeks; give Republicans more control of the state agency overseeing job creation; curtail the governor's ability to write state rules and adjust public benefits programs; and allow lawmakers to replace the attorney general with private attorneys at taxpayer expense.

As if one cue, the Michigan loser Reeps went to work on similar skullduggery to undermine Dem power, especially  after taking back the governorship from Rick Snyder.  In respect of the Reep mission in Michigan-  the state with the Flint  water poisoning compliments of Snyder  -   blogger Nicole Braun has pointed out analogous violations of the voters' will .  For example, pushing forward a bill to drastically slow down minimum wage increases approved by voters. 

Studies show that no one in America can afford a two-bedroom apartment anywhere working even full-time for minimum wage, but Republicans watered down the voter-approved increase anyway.

Outgoing Republican governor Rick Snyder signed those bills. Sadly, many folks I talked to weren’t surprised. Folks in Michigan have been suffering for years under GOP tyranny, e.g.  blatant power abuses, including the undemocratic recall of elected officials. Then add to that  rising inequality, a rampant opioid crisis, poverty, corruption, and egregious failures like the Flint water crisis.

“Our governor has a body count — the kids he killed in Flint,” said Will Gallivan, who lives outside Flint.  He added, as per Braun's blog post:

“Expecting him to all of a sudden gain some decency is just wishful thinking. We should all be wearing yellow vests at the Capitol, 100,000 people strong.  But who can afford to take time off their jobs to do that?”

What the hell gives?  Well the answers, some of them, were delivered last Sunday when the actual agenda of the Wisconsin Reep poltroons was revealed for all to behold.  Anchor Joy Reed then quoted from a Dec. 6th  NY Times piece ('Are Rural Voters The Real Voters?  Wisconsin Republicans Seem To Think So') : 

"Robin Vos, the Republican leader of the Wisconsin state house, drew this distinction even more explicitly after the midterm election: 'If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority. We would have all five constitutional offices and we would probably have many more seats in the legislature."

In other words, the twerp admits that not even the Reepo gerrymandering is enough to deliver popular supported state control. They need to tilt the electoral field even further in their favor by eliminating all the voters in the state's largest cities. No, folks, you cannot make this shit up. Asshole Vos actually stated it for the Times.  As Joy Reed put it after citing the piece, "the whole idea that only rural voters matter and 'we must rule' despite the election outcome strikes me as dramatically anti-democracy." 

Well yeah, but it isn't only in Wisconsin that the Reeptards believe their Rubes must rule over everyone else. Here in Colorado we have the same issue though the departing state house Republicans are unable to do what they did in Wisconsin and Michigan.  (No gerrymandering like in WI).  But to give an example of the sort of mind boggling idiocy at work, Sen. John Cooke *R-Greeley) quoted in The Denver Post (Nov. 25th) said he didn't support secession when first bandied about by his Reep cohort,   but "now that the state is moving toward Democratic leadership at the top level, Weld County would be better off joining its neighbor to the north, Wyoming."

Adding:

"I'm now thinking we ougtta join Wyoming instead of seceding. We have a lot more in common with Wyoming than Boulder"

Maybe, but that's a pretty big ask, and who says Wyoming would take you all in?  Plus, Cooke appears not to grasp that joining Wyoming would mean de facto secession.  I mean Weld would not be a part of Colorado if it joined Wyoming. In addition.the reality of a new 51st state - or a modified 50th - would take a lot of political maneuvering at the federal and state levels.

A much simpler solution to the disgust is for the Reep party to ask why so many are turning away. Might it not be the policies advanced, such as cutting essential social benefits? Or how about supporting a vile buffoon and authoritarian narcissist like Trump?   Truth be told, that is the real reason so many hundreds of thousands of Colorado's unaffiliated and Democratic voters went to the polls Nov. 6th to say "enough is enough".  Pandering to rural voters will not save the Republicans from becoming the new Whigs, but seriously re-examining their policies might at least re-establish them as a form of human.

See also:

Government | Republicans

Lame-Duck Republicans Are Waging War on Heartland Democracy

And:

Democrats

Taking Back the Country Starts With the States

by Bill Boyarsky | December 19, 2018 - 7:40am | permalink

Pro-Frack PR Letter Writer Joni Inman Tries To Twist Facts on Fracking And Fails

Woe betide any teacher (especially in Weld County) that enters into a fracking protest and also tries to educate her students on the dangers of this misshapen energy industry, including pollution of soil, air and water. She will likely pay dearly when a pro-fracking PR clown attacks her in the media. Apart from that, WHY is it the frackers need so many PR hacks & outfits to defend their abominable operations? Like those mentioned in the book 'Toxic Sludge Is Good For You'.

Such was the case yesterday when a fracker PR hack named Joni Inman tried to push her bafflegab on Denver Post readers in a letter dismissing a Weld Co. teacher's complaints and writings. First, WHO is this Joni Inman?  A cursory Google check reveals she's head of a Lakewood, CO PR firm, Joni Inman Consulting  - obviously helping the frackers to forge their absurd arguments in the media (including in letters to editors) to attempt to convince the gullible to accept fracking the state into oblivion.

In this sense, she and her outfit are no different from the legions of PR mavens already exposed who tried to push smoking on an unsuspecting public.  Thus her "consulting" firm joins the public relations liars from Hill and Knowlton which in the 1950s-60s (and later) was responsible for mounting the phony campaign that tobacco smoke doesn't cause cancer- sowing enough doubt to postpone regulation for decades. No surprise that America's Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) hired Hill and Knowlton in 2009 as their PR firm,

Most people, sadly, are unaware that much of the "news" today is not truly that, but carefully crafted PR designed to manipulate public opinion. That goes for letters to the editor like that of Inman, appearing in the Post's Op -Ed page yesterday. (Yes, it's on an "opinion page"  - but many hacks state opinions as facts and too many of the hoi polloi can't tell the difference.)

Inman writes, for example:

"The oil and gas industry paid $265 million in property taxes to Weld County in 2013. Schools are supported primarily by property taxes. This industry also supports the jobs of families in the district."

But no mention of the hundreds of millions of dollars lost to Weld home owners in terms of their diving property values - such that most couldn't sell a home now if their lives depended on it - and in many cases they do. Also, no mention of the exploding medical costs to Weld residents, what with respiratory diseases from polluted air on the rise, as well as cancers of lungs, kidneys, breast, and liver. The crock about jobs is also just that and as Bill Maher has often pointed out, what good are these jobs if for every buck earned two bucks are lost in medical treatment or PhrMA drug costs? Get other jobs for fuck's sake!

Another canard:

"Fracking is what makes oil and gas development financially feasible"

To which I say, bull pockey! Read any pages in recent issues of  the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times and see how banks are now calling in hundreds of millions of bucks in loans from the frackers because their exploits are no longer financially sound - given we are in the midst of an oil glut. As we know,  once the cost of oil falls below about $70 a barrel fracking is no longer financially rational since it costs more to extract the oil (actually kerogen) than the cost of the energy put into extraction - including transportation, well maintenance and cost of pumping etc.

Right now then, fracking is adding to the oil glut, driving oil costs down even lower, and making it necessary to lay thousands off, even as many well outlets are shut down. The cost of running them is simply not worth it given the pitiful remuneration.

Inman then minimizes the scale and effects of fractures, writing:

"Hydraulic fractures are half the size of a human hair and occur more than a mile underground."

But no mention of the leaks or well failures.

Tony Ingraffea, a Cornell Professor of geological engineering has shown (on Gasland II) how cement can fail and methane can migrate into ground water. Referencing one of the typical fracking pipes, Ingraffea sketched the interior cement annulus of 1 -inch which is the sole barrier between the fracking contaminants and the water supply, noting,  "what you don't want is for that cement to fail".

"Failure" includes: corrosion, crumbling, or disappearing entirely as a barrier over time. If that happens, then "what's down there" (i.e. the contaminants) can get into the annulus. He then adds:

"So now shallow gas goes into the open annulus, pressurizes the annulus, and the gas migrates into an underground source of drinking water."

Once this happens, other frack contaminants can also migrate into the water, such benzene, toluene and dozens of cancer causing chemicals.

Prof. Ingraffea notes that the cement failure phenomena he illustrates are "very well known and at least as long as we've been drilling wells and casing them".  He adds "there are only three things that are certain: death, taxes, and fracture".  In the latter case, he observes that among the thousands of gas wells including those offshore, there is a probability of 1 in 20  they will immediately show a failure (opening between the well casing and rock), and that means methane migration. It also means anything else stored in the rock, including salts, heavy metals, other deleterious things now have a pathway. This probability means even if a frack well is "only operating 30 days" as Inman cllaims, there is a good chance of immediate failure in one of every twenty wells. If Weld County then puts up 1,000 wells in the next year and runs them for 30 days each, we're looking at 50 "immediate" failures.

That is, 5 percent of all wells will be affected and woe betide any home owners in their vicinity. Ingraffea invoked the 100,000 odd wells in PA alone, noting that failure rate means 5,000 wells have immediately failed in Pennsylvania .  That translates to 5,000 methane migrations into the ground water and ruination of citizens' lives.

So much for Inman's soft soaping..

What about the ANGA PR  liars re: the extent of gas leaking? One document actually retrieved from the frackers,  'Leaking Through Casing' indicated "2,000 components" in the fracked liquid, and problems they've been trying to solve "for decades".  Worse, they conceded in the documents that there's no way of completely preventing or fixing the leakage problem.

In one document, from Southwestern Energy, the diagram clearly showed that the gas well had a cement barrier with a casing that prevented gases from migrating upwards. But this wasn't a Powerpoint about drilling wells but rather about how cement and casings failed  and allowed methane gas and other substances to migrate into aquifers.  Thus, we could see from the frackers' own documents how cement fails.

Thus, Inman's blabber about "hydraulic fractures occuring more than a mile underground." is mere misdirection from the real risks.

Another document from Schlumberger, showed that cement failure occured at alarming rates - as depicted in one of their graphs showing "f'raction of wells affected by cement failure' vs. the well age in years".  Their graphs showed a failure fraction of 40 percent after only 12 years, and a failure fraction of 50 percent after 30 years.  That means if 1.5 million new wells are added in the US of A, as projected, 750,000 will leak after thirty years. If 150,000 are added to CO, that means 75,000 will leak after 30 years.

Another document from Archer, a well servicing outfit, showed the existing percent of wells with "integrity issues" and in the Gulf of Mexico this is 45% of all 6, 650 wells (and according to news reports last night, one is already burning, reminiscent of the BP disaster) and 34% in the North Sea, out of some 1, 600 wells. Moreover, 40 percent are at high risk of "uncontrolled discharge".

Another power point slide is shown from the Society of Petroleum Engineers, showed that given an existing global well population of 1.8 million, and that 35% of them are leaking.  Despite this, the idiots plan to drill MORE wells in the next decade than have been drilled in the last 100 years.

Inman can complain all she wants about the "wasted space" of teachers (and others) attempting to educate the public, but the real wasted space belongs to her and her PR ilk.