Mike Ellis to Democratic State Senators: sit down and shut up!

Earlier today Republicans in the State Senate, as part of their continuing efforts to “focus like a laser” on creating jobs here in Wisconsin (we’re now 49th in job creation, by the way), passed a bill requiring women to undergo an ultrasound procedure before being able to receive an abortion.

While that news in an of itself isn’t terribly shocking, given how difficult it seems to be for Wisconsin’s Republican lawmakers to actually focus on job creation and improving our state’s economic situation, what is shocking is the behavior of State Sen. Mary Lazich and Senate President Mike Ellis.

During debate on the bill, Democratic State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout began by reading letters from constituents who were opposed to the bill, before she shared her own story of sexual abuse. After Sen. Vinehout’s remarks, Republican State Sen. Mary Lazich encouraged her fellow lawmakers to ignore “the theatrics surrounding” Vinehout’s presentation, as if an individual sharing a deeply personal and traumatic experience was nothing more than theatrics.

Following Sen. Lazich’s idiotic and bizarre remarks, Sen. Ellis came absolutely unglued when Senate Democrats dared to attempt to continue debate after Republicans called for an immediate vote on the bill. Here’s the video, courtesy of RawStory.com.

While there’s a lot to hate about the vaginal ultrasound bill Republicans in the State Senate passed earlier today, I’m struck by the fact that once again Wisconsin’s Republican lawmakers have shown unambiguously that they’re absolutely uninterested in being the party of smaller, less intrusive government when it suits their needs.

That’s called hypocrisy, and Mike Ellis and the rest of his Republican colleagues in the State Senate are Grade-A certified hypocrites.

Worley Dervish has her own take on this that’s most definitely worth a read.

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8 thoughts on “Mike Ellis to Democratic State Senators: sit down and shut up!

  1. Unfortunately, Wisconsin’s fanatically unconscionable GOP made national news again with these desperate efforts to demolish democracy in Wisconsin.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/scott-walker-ultrasound_n_3428077.html

    http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/06/13/18934900-wisconsins-walker-i-dont-have-any-problem-with-ultrasound

    Benen calls attention to Walker’s syntax, “I don’t have any problem with ultrasound,” likening it to “I love lamp,” but what Benen really misses here is Walker’s construction of multiple propaganda techniques – a fused discourse in which Walker is especially skilled. Of more interest is this from Walker: “I think most people think ultrasounds are just fine.” Rather than a thorough rhetorical analysis, I’ll draw attention to the most horrid of propaganda techniques employed here -a favorite of Goebbels and a favorite of Walker – the trope of assertion.

    This technique is singularly noxious, and among the most dangerous forms of propaganda. Hitler and Goebbels used assertion to great effect in justifying, promoting, and ultimately gaining popular support for heinous and unconscionable policies; for what this technique does, as today’s modern GOP continually demonstrates, is it desensitizes the mind and thoroughly eliminates empathy resulting in a sociopathic indifference to the suffering of others. It has a peculiar dual impact on the psyche: passive – in a tacit acceptance of the cruel and unconscionable treatment of fellow human beings; but also passion – in the energetic and irrational defense of that treatment.

    I’ve long pondered this passive-passion that Walker displays time and time and time again on nearly every topic he addresses. Really, how Walker conducts himself and promotes his agenda is far more insidious than even Goebbels and Hitler. The two of them inspired via energetic vibrancy, but Walker inspires via undisguised cold indifference. That cold indifference endemic to the GOP can be fully recognized in the rank and file. That cold indifference has been particularly prominent among the Conservative commenters at Blogging Blue. The fish rots from the head down. Mike Ellis, on the other hand, raises that passive-passion to incomprehensible dimensions. He and his GOP cabal are unfit to govern. They are, in fact, not governing. But, they are inflicting extraordinary amounts of damage to republican democracy – they are, in fact, undermining it before our very eyes.

  2. Nothing but class mr ellis Nothing but class. You will soon be on the unemployment line. Sit down and shut up mr ellis

  3. “Less intrusive” in the case of terminating lives means more cases of Kermit Gosnell, which judging by your silence and lack of outrage, are completely content to let continue.

      1. If you’re ready to have a serious discussion, let me know. If someone is beating their spouse or child, then yeah I am a supporter of government stepping in. If you label that as big, intrusive government so be it. If someone is driving drunk on the road, government must step in to stop and punish the behavior. If that is big and intrusive, so be it.

        If you are a defender of the right of women to kill their unborn children under any circumstance, then stand up against Gosnell. It must be regulated. If that is intrusive government, so be it. PP says they want women to have informed choices. If that information shows the reality of science and gives pause to what’s about to be done, all the better. Or isn’t that the kind of information PP is talking about?

  4. FMSN,

    From the looks of it, it is you who are unready for a serious discussion. The entire Pro-Choice community stood up against Gosnell and identified him for what he was – an exploiter of poor and desperate women. What you fail to grasp is that limiting abortion access in the myriad ways that the Anti-Choice movement does CREATED the deregulated, privateering free market that allowed Gosnell’s practice to emerge and survive – in the same way that the Gosnells survived prior to Roe v. Wade. Planned Parenthood and the established medical community of which it is a part DOES provide women with scientifically based information. “Abortion trauma” isn’t recognized by the medical establishment – it is a political tool – not a scientifically established principle. State-raping a woman by forcing her to undergo an unnecessary medical procedure is invasive and immoral. Suggesting that the medical community should attempt to dissuade a woman from her own decision – that the medical community should serve as the manipulative proxy of the Anti-intellectual, Anti-Scientific, Anti-abortion movement is so vilely twisted it is nearly unbelievable. That anyone would prefer the subversion of the medical profession and the undermining of medical care in this country in order to see their extremist agenda realized is flat out tyrannical, dictatorial, and totalitarian.

  5. I have work in for the NYC Dept of Health and Wisconsin id going down a bad path, you will see the error of your ways in a few years and the cost will be dear. These conservatives you have elected will bankrupt you like they have bankrupted many other states and it will be a hole you will not be able to climb out of. NJ owes 2 times its budget in debt. Puerto Rico has the 4th largest public debt after just 4 years with republicans running things.
    Mike Ellis has got a screw loose and it will come loose at the most inopportune time and Karma is big on payback.
    You may have gotten away with this one but the universe it weird about getting people who intentionally try to hurt others. I will be sending money to have an investigation and making sure you are never allowed to serve the Koch brothers. you are crazy.

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