As much as the democrat absenteeism is hurting them, there is still the requirement to move forward. It does not take long before they are wasting time rather than working.

There comes a point when the republicans in the WI legislature just need to start making the public statement: “We are working to do exactly what we were elected to do. We are being obstructed by the Democrat’s refusal to show up and do the jobs for which the taxpayers are paying them. We welcome the Democrats to the table. We welcome any alternative solutions they can offer for our present problem. We desire their involvement in the lawmaking process, but in 48 hours, we will have to start doing what we can do for our state, even if the Democrats refuse to help.” Well, something to that effect.

Then, after the time is up, just start doing everything that doesn’t require 20 congressmen present. The fact that they are calling out for the Democrats to join the process rather than locking them out is the first and biggest important distinction between Republicans handling majority power and Democrats handling the same.

Side note: They should pass a law in WI allowing them to actually have the police ‘arrest’ the truant congressmen. Rather than taking them to jail, however, they are taken to the state capital (in cuffs is fine by me), then once enough are gathered for a quorum, lock them IN with guards on the doors. (I know of one state that does something like that. Truant congresspeople can be collected by the police to return to house and senate chambers, then locked in. It seemed to me to be a good idea.)

Well, since the 527 backdoor is a fairly recent invention, the numbers still tell an important tale. Besides, much can be known about many of the 501 and 527 groups. (Some of them have unions as their major contributors, even.) Not all of them have their contributors hidden as carefully as you suggest, though many do. Another important detail is that many of the unions’ political budgets have proven larger than many 527′s and 501′s entire operational budgets. (In the last election cyclle, all available numbers showed that SEIU spent more on advertisments than any 527.)

Either way, the numbers are not useless. They are not the whole/big picture, but they are an accurate representation of PART of the picture. So long as that is kept clearly in mind, they are extremely useful.

I agree with cleaning up the donation picture and reclaiming the election process, but it will be a failed effort so long as the fox is guarding the henhouse. (So long as most lawmakers are the ones writing the financing rules.)

I have seen, and reviewed, the political compass site enough times to know that for evaluation of the US political system, their evaluation is both fundametally flawed and fundamentally (though I do believe unintentionally) biased. I have read all they say about everyone on all sides thinking their questions are slanted. I have read everything about neo-liberalism vs classical liberalism, and how the US shift in ideology and labels makes the word ‘liberal’ mean something different to us than the rest of the world, or even our own history. Since the classical label does NOT apply in the US today, attempting to fit the US political map to the old spectrum is going to result in errors. Further, while I do not know the accurate plotting of ALL the figures that they mention, even using classical definitions, their placement of the people that I do know about is flawed on either the new or classical scale. In short, any scale that places President Obama center-right, when he has pandered more than once to some of the most extreme elements in his party, is flawed. (I don’t care if your scale puts neo-liberalism on the far right and classical conservatism on the far left, putting the President as center-right is STILL fundamentally flawed.) My determination that their scale is flawed, at least in the US, is based on more than just political figures. Every person that I know, that has taken their test, has been misplotted, even using the site’s own definitions for left/right/libertarian/authoritarian.

Yes, on any scale, the extreme right would call center-right leftists, and the extreme left would call center-left rightists. That does not, in itself, make this scale accurate, or the notion that most of the media is centrist viable.

Yes, we have moved the goal posts. At the same time, as is so often true in the US, we are playing a DIFFERENT game. Trying to apply that scale to the US political spectrum is like trying to judge and referee a football game to soccer rules…without telling the players, coaches, or fans.