Randi Rhodes: Shame! Shame! Shame!

Republicans in Wisconsin are forging ahead in their big push to move backwards. Last night Wisconsin Republicans passed the non-budget, union-busting parts of the union-busting budget bill. If that sounds complicated, hang on. We’re just getting started. The Wisconsin Senate Republicans used a twisted parliamentary maneuver to pass the bill. Of course, calling what the Wisconsin Senate Republicans did a “parliamentary maneuver” is like calling the act of hitting someone on the head with a folding chair a “wrestling move.” The Republican Senators created a bill with just the union-busting portions of the original bill and passed that in order to get around the quorum requirements for bills that have a fiscal impact. Of course, the same Republicans have been insisting all along that the only reason for the union-busting parts of the bill is their fiscal impact. So the only way Republicans could pass their bill was by denying that it did what they claim it was designed to do.

The bill that the Republicans passed obviously does have fiscal impact, and that means that its method of passage last night was not legal. But the Republicans were more concerned with making it law than they were with making it legal. Fugitive Democratic Senator Tim Cullen said “I think we all just need to press ‘pause.’” Pause? I think we need to press “stop,” then “rewind,” and then “erase.”

Then today, just as I was looking at what’s happening Wisconsin and wondering if it’s possible for Republicans to sink any lower, I realized that it’s time for Peter King’s Muslim witch-hunt hearings to start. That’s the thing about outrageous actions by the rightwing—before you can react to one, they’ve started on another. In his opening statements, Congressman King claimed that the hearings had to go on because “To back down would be a craven surrender to political correctness.” Peter, when people disagree with you, they’re not always just being politically correct. Sometimes they’re just being correct, period.

You know who I really feel badly for today? Muslim Americans who are members of public employee unions. But then it won’t be long until we’re all in the same boat that they’re in.

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MUST SEE: Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) broke into tears during the Muslim radicalization hearing this morning when describing a Muslim 9/11 first responder who was falsely accused of conspiring with the attackers until his remains were found at Ground Zero…