So Festive!

Happy holidays from Scott Walker’s Wisconsin:

Picture this: Four prisoners standing on scaffolding placing thousands of ornaments made by school children on a thirty-two foot tall Christmas tree at the center of the Wisconsin capitol rotunda. Every few minutes prison guards push the wheeled scaffolding units around the tree so the prisoners have full access to every branch.

There’s something a bit off about using prison labor to put up your state Christmas tree. I’m not thinking it saves much money, but I suppose having possible union workers putting up Christmas decorations would be, in Scott Walker’s mind, an unbearable sight to see. So prison labor it is.

It could always be worse, I suppose. If Newt Gingrich had his way, we wouldn’t be relying on prison labor for that job, we’d be making eight-year-old kids do it. It wouldn’t be without problems, of course: their little arms can’t reach as far, so you’d probably have to hoist them up there like little pinatas so they could reach each branch.

Hell, why even let them down again? Just leave them up there on the tree. It’d be cheaper than ornaments, and you could have them sing carols or something. Very festive.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/01/1041558/-Open-thread-for-night-owls:-Have-a-prison-labor-Christmas-in-Wisconsin-this year!?detail=hide&via=blog_1

Prison labor has always been a Republican dream but Newt’s talk about rolling back the child labor laws is even more scary!