Republicans Are Bad At Math: Mike Parry Edition

Hot on the heels of Linda Runbeck’s property-tax fantasies, we have Mike Parry’s double-talk, as documented by Sally Jo Sorensen of Bluestem Prairie:

Within a week of introducing a bill to cut the state’s contribution to public employees’ retirement benefit, Mike Parry told constituents at a Town Hall meeting in Owatonna that those who are public employees will be get bigger pensions under his plan.

Say what? Here comes Clare Kennedy of the Owatonna People’s Press to clarify:

This apparent contradiction [see below] ruffled many in the room who were already upset about two other forthcoming proposals: A 6 percent pay cut for public employees and a “shift” in pension plans that would cut 3 percent from the state’s contribution on the fund. The employees would be obliged to make up the difference.

At one point, Parry characterized the pension bill as an increase.

“Why wouldn’t you want an extra 3 percent in your pension for when you retire?” Parry said.

“I’m not getting an extra 3 percent. I’m getting to pay an extra 3 percent because you’re reducing my employer’s contribution to it,” Driskell said. “And you are cutting me, sir. You’re cutting 15 percent of my co-workers, which may well be me, and you’re cutting 6 percent of my salary. You are cutting me. Don’t tell me you’re not. I have a brain.”

Even better: As Sally Jo Sorensen points out, the “apparent contradiction” referenced by Clare Kennedy is that Parry criticized Governor Dayton’s plan to trim the state’s workforce by six percent, even as proposals coming from his caucus call for fifteen percent cuts!

Ms. Kennedy calls that a contradiction; I call that hypocrisy, double-talk, and horsepucky.

(Crossposted to Renaissance Post.)

OAS slams US over human rights

This comes via Avedon, Diane of Cabdrollery, and the Kirk Semple of the NY Times comes this report by the OAS’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights scalding the US for its treatment of immigrants:

The United States Supreme Court itself has upheld the constitutionality of mandatory detention in immigration cases that have not been decided, despite the fact that the violations alleged are civil in nature,
and despite the loss of liberty that detention presupposes.
…
The Inter‐American Commission finds that ICE has failed to develop an oversight and accountability system to ensure that these local partners do not enforce immigration law in a discriminatory manner by resorting to racial profiling and that their practices do not use the supposed investigation of crimes as a pretext to prosecute and detain undocumented migrants.
…
It must be reiterated that detention is a disproportionate measure in many if not the majority of cases, and that the programs that provide for alternatives to detention constitutes a more balanced way for the State to ensure compliance with immigration laws.
…
In this report the IACHR also stresses that even in those cases in which detention is strictly necessary, there is no genuinely civil system where the general conditions comply with standards of respect for human dignity and humane treatment; there is also a lack of the special conditions required for in cases of non‐punitive detention. As developed above, the IACHR is further troubled by the frequent outsourcing of the management and personal care of immigration detainees to private contractors.

Until recently, one would say that the US controls the OAS. Very clearly, the power of the ancien régime is declining. The first comment is the most damning. It says that our highest court is acting contrary to very fundamental precepts of law, allowing people to be deprived of liberty in civil cases. Another famous example of this sort of abuse is debtor’s prisons.

But, hey, laws are for the little guys to obey and for our Imperial Court to invent.

Cats, Humans of Japan’s “Cat Island” Survived Quake, Tsunami; Could Use Some Help

Because we all could use some good news:

Tashirojima, otherwise known as Japan’s “Cat Island” due to its numerous feline inhabitants, is intact after the recent devastating 9-magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami, according to Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support. However, like so many others devastated by the disaster, both the human and feline residents of the island need help.

Contact Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue for more information.