"J-type" in-the-box-thinkers flock together when they feel threatened. FOX makes sure they remain insecure by change or anything that resides outside of their comfort zone. F.U.D. tactics work like a charm on them, unfortunately - and they find security in group-grok.

Obamacare, epa carbon rules, 5 trillion in debt in just 3 years, worst long term unemployment since the depression, black net worth cut in half, billions to solar companies that go bankrupt, blocking of drilling for domestic sources of oil, weak border security, states going bankrupt due to public employee pensions and retirement health care benefits, liberal policies bankrupting parts of Europe, Liberal policies in NY, California, Michigan, Illinois making them the worst fiscally sound states etc.

This is why the average American is still voting Republican.

Contessa61 I voted FOR Obamacare, and anyone who blames Obama for anything else you state in your post lacks the capability of critical thought and common sense. I also live in a very GOPTP state and our proud TP Gov has the lowest approval numbers of any Gov we have had. In fact, there were more voters who stopped his union busting laws than who voted for him in the first place.

Not blame Obama for Solyndra?? ahahhaha who can take you seriously

5 trillion debt in 3 years??? who else do we blame?

epa with the authority over CO2...no one but Obama on that!!!

Unemployment....Obama owns that too.

Liberal policies got us into a housing bubble, got Europe into their fiscal mess and got the states into their fiscal messes...and that's why people vote for Republicans.

These are the same legislators because the Indiana Representatives are elected for two years. This is year two of their term. And just like in Wisconsin, none of these people campaigned on passing a Right to Work law. In fact, it is considered political poison in Indiana since it was implemented about 15 years ago and most of the Republicans that brought it in then were voted out. I can guarantee that a majority of these state representatives will not be re-elected, many many Hoosiers are very pissed off!

If you are really disgusted get out an Occupy Indiana group of 35 or 40,000. It doesn't have to be in the capitol to get attention. The very fact that they have created an "exception" in the capitol makes their law discriminatory. Have a 2,000 people prayer movement outside the capitol praying for failure of the law. Overwhelm them with numbers.

Further how many are calling their "representatives" to let them know that this will be their last term if they vote for this law. Not that they will listen (Republicans have very selective ears) but you will be giving them notice. Further check out the recall possibilities. Learn from Wisconsin and ease the money block being sent in there. If the Koch Brothers have to start paying in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota and heaven knows where else the Republicans are pushing their ALEC reforms, we may be able to bankrupt them. Now there's a worthy thought!

Don't feel sorry for them. Most of them are just plain stupid and happily swallow whatever the nearest Republican is sticking in front of them. Funny how Republicans don't believe you have a right to clean water or clean air, or a right to end a life- threatening pregnancy. There is apparently no right to know who will be counting the votes in Iowa, today, either. Or where. Or how accurately. In Indiana, the state supreme court ruled recently that you have no right to resist or defend yourself against a police officer who is breaking the law. They can't find a right to privacy or a right to not have your web surfing, tweeting or library reading habits examined by government officials either, but by God they sure had no problem finding a right to work for a lower wage, did they? Conservatives have actually discovered a right that doesn't have anything to do with guns and they are kinda excited about it. They're falling all over themselves to enshrine that badboy, the newly discovered Right To Poverty, into law in a hurry, aren't they?

I have to admit that I have a bit of Shadenfreude when I see these things happen. The people who voted these Republicans in thought they were really getting it over on the blacks, immigrants, gays, and other minorities. "We're going to take our country back!!!" Well they got their country, but instead of getting it back, they got it in the back. Learn your lesson people -- after they come for all the minorities I just mentioned, they're coming for you.

Chris Helms-3040482 -
I understand your frustration, but Americans have had 30+ years of "dumbing down" rhetoric, xenophobia (when conveniently necessary), mendacity and distortions (committed by both parties) - throw into this mix there is now an African-American in the "White House"! Americans (not all, but many) have forgotten what "civic duty" is, have NO understanding of "how government works", nor is there any real understanding of the policies that have been implemented that have had a devastating affect on the "middle class"! While I'm not making excuses for them, I think that WE ALL must take some responsibility for the way our politics has gone down the drain over the last several decades!! And the fact that there is a dearth of truly qualified candidates that are really willing to WORK for the voters that put them into office!!

I do not think people who voted these guys in 2010 did so for any educated reason and I think you're overselling it to state that they voted overwhelmingly Republican because of hatred of minorities (although I am sure there are those that did). During my very short lifetime I have seen the electorate grow more and more small "r" reactionary. People vote based not on logic, not on record, not on policy, but based on emotions. Pure emotion. 2010 was a referendum on Obama and the US Congress. People were pissed off that Democrats hadn't made things better magically in 2 years and so they put Republicans in power in an attempt to say "wake up Democrats- you did bad so now we're giving the other guys a chance." The other guys, of course, were the ones who caused the 2 year stagnation in the first damn place, but that was never considered. Nor was it considered that people voted in Barack Obama in 2008 and that people gave Democrats overwhelming majorities in 2006 because they were sick of "the other guys." This is how our electorate thinks: short term and ignorant of consequences. Remember when the 2010 elections were coming up on this very blog? Poster after poster kept coming on talking about how they were going to vote out the corrupt Democrats and Republicans and how freshmen were going to be put in to take over and change our government. Vote 'em all out! was the slogan. Remember that? And then you pointed to the fact that they were voting for Mark Kirk (who had previously been voted out due to ethics violations) and the other guy in the Jack Abramoff scandal and on and on. What about FL's new governor? People voted for him despite his corruption history. This is because the electorate wasn't thinking logically, they were thinking emotionally, impulsively. They just wanted the incumbent out and didn't care who the hell was put in his/her place. And by doing so they put people in who were doubly corrupt and whose record by and large indicated as much.

My represnetative in the Indiana State House was elected because she's a stay at home Mom who knows how to run her household on a budget.

Her Hubby, the Bank President, make a tad more than $700,000.00 a year.

The Mouzer -

So basically the dumbed down sheeple have forgotten critical thinking skills, civic duty left the building, and there is NO COMPREHENSION of politics besides "who you think you can have a beer with"?!?!

Gee, I need to move to another country, where the sheeple are a minority.......Thank you Mouzer......

Kevin Cloyd -

And there wasn't a "single Mom" that you could find to run on the opposing ticket.....yeah, I need to move to another country.......

I guess you can look at it that way Zora....in which case I am sorry to sour your mood so. The way I look at it is that it's a reversible problem. For instance you could fix this simply by retooling education and taking an aggressive campaign to lower the drop out rate in this country. That is actually something you and I as citizens could do and have power over.

But wages are still an issue. The corporations are working very hard to bring the American workforce down to the level of other third world country wages with no benefits and no matter what the issue, we need to fight like the "land of the brave" to defeat their intent.

When I really think of it, the real intent is to create a world of the aristocratic (wealthy) few oppressing the lower class (serf) many. What happens here will ultimately be transferred world wide and we have to stop it, not only for the American people, but for the world as well. The farther they drag us down, the farther they can drag other countries back down.

They have been working at this for 30 years. But what they have built in time, we can build in numbers.

Even if 30% of our country are registered Republicans, that leave 60% that can overcome, if we stand together. Americans can do that.

Wages have been flat for a long time and the business community knows that fact. Business will continue to ship jobs overseas for lower wages. They are also aware that the number of union members continue to go down except public employees. It is the unions power that is the target.

Which is exactly why the 99% of working Americans Union members or not - have to fight like HELL to beat these barbarians back behind the gates where they belong!!

er....you are aware that the majority of companies existed in those states before they were RTW? And that only a handful of those states have opened new factories in the past 5 years and those factories were opened using government subsidies from the stimulus package, correct?

@The Mouzer: Do you have some links to source your claims? Those are all great points and I would like some linkage to bring to the table myself. :)

First I should have caught my own error. I meant to say from government subsidies AND from the stimulus package. The two are separate as I will explain in a moment. Apologies for not catching that.

In part I am making a common knowledge claim. Most of the companies to which the article contessa linked refers to are companies like Hyundai which has been operating in states like AL for more than 25 years (since the late 80's). The claim in the article is that Hyundai opened new factories in Alabama because it had an established right-to-work clause in the state's constitution, but this is not true according to Hyundai's own website. The newest expanded site for Hyundai in AL opened in 2005 as part of Hyundai's better image campaign- Hyundai also opened up 2 new plants in my home state of Michigan and nationwide went on to employ more than 5,000 workers as part of this campaign. It was an effort to increase the reliability of their product which had slipped so bad that, according to Wikipedia, David Letterman once had Hyundai on his Top 10 list as the worst car company in the world. The campaign had nothing to do w/ unionization nor were the factories established in MI and AL respectively (and CA as well) ever done so because of RTW or unionization. They were opened there because there was an already established industry for car manufacturing and specifically because of state and federal subsidies. AL, as an example, is a HUGE contractor state that gets billions every year in subsidies from the federal government to maintain the contractors who operate out of that state. Companies like Hyundai get a portion of that income. The same goes w/ MI and CA. Hyundai currently employs more people in union states (MI and CA) than it does in AL (a RTW state).

Boeing is another good example. They have been established in Alabama pretty much ever since the company started and it by and large has to do w/ 3 elements: 1) because AL state has one of the best technical universities in the country 2) because there is a huge multi-branch military base in AL and 3) because a division of NASA runs in AL (in Huntsville). Boeing also operates in RTW states and has also hired new workers in those states- the hiring in AL, just as in the other states, is due to government sponsored subsidies.

http://stimulus.alabama.gov/faqs.aspx

Many other factories to which the article falsely claims started due to RTW actually started because of new funding, a lot of which comes from the stimulus. For example AL dumped several billion into rebuilding their infrastructure which meant that 2 of the state's largest contractors went on a hiring surge in order to do the work. Another example: several new green energy factories opened in the state of AL thanks to the stimulus package and are accredited for hiring something like 600 workers (give or take).

http://recovery.alabama.gov/news.aspx

http://www.forestry.state.al.us/ARRADetailReport.aspx

http://projects.propublica.org/recovery/locale/alabama/geneva

Some general links on jobs created in AL due to stimulus and in what sectors and at what cost

General information on RTW

http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/04/voices-right-to-work-law-brings-falling-wages-80-hour-weeks.html

http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2011/nov/21/maurice-thompson/ohio-unemployment-significantly-higher-right-work-/

www.peri.umass.edu/.../PERI_Unions_DecentJobs_August09.pdf

I should also point out that if unions only represent 12% of the nation and the highest unionized state- New York- has still approximately 25% union participation that it becomes a silly argument to say that unions are destroying jobs.

http://www.epi.org/publication/datazone_rtw_index/

irlee.umich.edu/.../RightToWorkLawsAndFatalitiesInConstruction.pdf

http://mediamatters.org/mobile/research/201105190026

umaine.edu/ble/files/2011/01/RighttoWork_Laws.pdf

Did that help any DJ?

this is both an ad populum and an appeal to emotion. Nice. Because the majority of people say puppies are good, you should not hurt the puppies. Very classy

yawn

Nope. In communists states, it is the unions that are in charge.

....... name one country that is communist that also has a union contessa. Unions by and large don't exist anywhere else but in the United States.

http://townhall.com/columnists/mattpatterson/2011/12/12/labor_unions_and_communism_a_love_story/page/full/

"trade unions are a school of communism..." V Lenin

http://bearwitness.info/SEIUGOESFULLCOMMIE.aspx

workers of the world unite

russia, cuba, china....

....cuba does not have active unions...china is a communist-capitalist society, which doesn't work to prove your point and additionally has almost no union representation...russia is about the only solid argument you can make and that only applies to the USSR. Russia is no longer a communist state and what unions do work there are minimalistic. By and large unions only exist in the United States and even that, by your own argument, is minimalistic. You haven't proven how unions are "in charge" or even that there is a link between communism and unions. Le sigh. Also I would widely suggest not using townhall as your resource: the partisanship is so thick you can't discern what is true and what is not true. For instance they quote a capitalist's complaint about unions as Marxist advocacy.

Also you are aware the first photo is photoshopped, right? Seriously?

Additionally I should point out that stating that at a rally of the SEIU where communist and socialist parties show up: if that is a statement of endorsement, then you must concede that every Tea Party rally was an endorsement of racists and Neo-Nazi groups. This is why we avoid logical fallacies. Remember- it makes your argument weaker, not the lefties you're attacking.

http://freetradeunionism.org/2010/11/raul-castro-tells-cuban-labor-union-to-accept-layoffs-for-revolutions-survival/

There were no groups of racists and neo-nazis at tea parties. You got a link?

If Republicans had to tell the truth, they'd have to take a vow of silence.

Then you should have taught in Wisconsin. Not only would you retire with cadillac health care, you also would have a pension paid 100% by taxpayers. And if you worked in Green Bay, you could substitute teach for 2 weeks of the year and get paid 1/3 your yearly salary or if you worked in Oshkosh,you would get 90 days of accumulated sick leave per year. And if you worked in Milwaukee, you would be applicable to have 3 pensions. Abuses of collective bargainin??? you bet.