“I can just hear it now Wednesday, all those people poured all this money into Wisconsin. If you don’t show up and vote, they’ll say, ‘See, we’ve got it now. We’re finally going to break every union in America, we’re going to break every government in America, we’re going to stop worrying about the middle class. … We got our way now, we got it all. Divide and conquer works.’ ”
I'll definitely be watching Wisconsin tomorrow, because I know that this is not really about a state or even about that ass, Gov. Scott Walker (R), specifically, but rather about the plutocracy, as the 1 percent seeks to run the world their way, and the hell with the the lower classes. Where goes Wisconsin, goes the country.
Recently, the GOP has availed itself of FOIA laws to demand emails from academics they suspect of being involved in the Wisconsin and Michigan protests. While they are probably legally entitled to do so, why would they choose to go after academics, none of whom had any visible role in the protests?
Recently William Cronon, a historian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin, decided to weigh in on his state's political turmoil. He started a blog, ''Scholar as Citizen,'' devoting his first post to the role of the shadowy American Legislative Exchange Council [ALEC] in pushing hard-line conservative legislation at the state level. Then he published an opinion piece in The Times, suggesting that Wisconsin's Republican governor has turned his back on the state's long tradition of ''neighborliness, decency and mutual respect.''
So what was the G.O.P.'s response? A demand for copies of all e-mails sent to or from Mr. Cronon's university mail account containing any of a wide range of terms, including the word ''Republican'' and the names of a number of Republican politicians.
If this action strikes you as no big deal, you're missing the point. The hard right -- which these days is more or less synonymous with the Republican Party -- has a modus operandi when it comes to scholars expressing views it dislikes: never mind the substance, go for the smear. And that demand for copies of e-mails is obviously motivated by no more than a hope that it will provide something, anything, that can be used to subject Mr. Cronon to the usual treatment.
The Cronon affair, then, is one more indicator of just how reflexively vindictive, how un-American, one of our two great political parties has become.
The right wing think tank, Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which I talked about last week, and which is funded in part by the Koch brothers, has launched attacks on a professor of history in Wisconsin, and 3 professors in Michigan. From The Ed Show blog:
The right-wing Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan has submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act. They want the Labor Relations Departments of 3 Michigan universities to produce all e-mails relating to the Wisconsin labor situation--the one we've been featuring here on The Ed Show for weeks.
One professor who is subject to the FOIA request put it this way:
"[They're] going after folks they don't agree with."
Another professor said:
"I've been an educator since the early 1980s and I've never had a FOIA request."
It's far from an isolated incident. There's a pattern emerging. Last week, history professor at the University of Wisconsin William Cronon, was hit with a FOIA request from the Wisconsin Republican party. They want Cronon's emails relating to labor unions or labor leaders.
When they first went after Professor Cronon, he had just written a piece on his blog exposing ALEC, and criticizing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker [R], and Wisconsin Republicans. I believe that Professor Cronon was the first to expose this connection between ALEC and the recent anti-labor laws introduced in Michigan, Wisconsin, and other states. ALEC is a subsidiary of The Heritage Foundation, and is funded in part by the Koch brothers. The Heritage Foundation is one of the Koch brothers foundations.
These people are going after these professors for political reasons, nothing more. They are, it seems, attempting to frighten people in order to stop the free flow of information. This is fascism.
Let there now be no doubt that Wisconsin’s budget fight was not about the budget. Think Progress, emphasis mine:
State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) has already revealed that the true motivation behind the bill was to defund unions to make it “much more difficult” for Democrats, including President Obama, to get elected in Wisconsin. Now, attempting to fend off efforts to recall eight of his Senate colleagues, he’s mailed out a fundraising letter that removes any doubt about the GOP’s motive:
Fitzgerald in the fundraising letter:
(Unions have) ruined California and Illinois, but they’re not going to ruin Wisconsin. That is because Republicans faced down Big Labor’s bully tactics and a Democratic walk-out in the state Senate to break the power of unions like WEAC and AFSCME once and for all.
Well, hey, we knew that it was about union busting early on. But, it’s always nice to get it out in the open via the horses mouth. They now have no further ability to deny their real motivation.
Michael Moore in Madison, Wisconsin on March 5, 2011:
America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich ... The only thing that's broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on.
Those who know me know that I am a huge supporter of President Obama. That doesn’t mean that I never disagree with him.
The states need your help, Mr. President. The working people, the middle class in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and more, are in dire straits, and we are asking for your help.
The “Wisconsin Song”, as found on Tumblr via @WisconsinSong on Twitter, plugs that message.
This, despite the company’s history of environmental violations.
The state Public Service Commission is poised Friday to approve selection of a Louisiana corporation witha history of environmental violations to manage Wisconsin's popular Focus on Energy program.
Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure Inc., a subsidiary of the Baton Rouge-based Shaw Group, was selected by an evaluation committee that included four representatives of Wisconsin's investor-owned utilities.
And here it comes, the Koch brothers connection. Note that the sentence denying that “Koch Industries wouldn’t profit from this deal, is just utter bull poo-poo.
Shaw also has some ties to Koch Industries, the Wichita, Kan., firm that has been a big booster of embattled Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. But there is no indication that Koch Industries would profit from the deal.
Meanwhile, the non-profit Wisconsin group, Focus on Energy, will be out of a job.
Focus on Energy is a statewide energy efficiency and renewable program launched in 2001. Using money collected from a tax on utility ratepayers, Focus works with eligible Wisconsin residents and businesses to install energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.
And that’s only part of it, because there’s something you may not know, and that is that hidden in SENATE BILL 11, at the bottom of page 23, is a Trojan horse. A horse which will allow the Koch brothers to buy Wisconsin utilities at bargain prices. SECTION 44. 16.896 reads as follows, emphasis mine:
16.896 Sale or contractual operation of state−owned heating, cooling, and power plants. (1) Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state−owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).
According to PSC documents, Shaw was selected over two other competing bids, including the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corp., a non-profit based in Madison. Shaw scored highest in a presentation and follow-up interview.
Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corp. has been involved in the Focus on Energy program since it was launched. Founded in 1980, the group is headed by Mary Schlaefer, a top staffer in the administration of former Gov. Jim Doyle. Schlaefer did not return a phone call for comment Thursday about Shaw's selection.
The Wisconsin Gazette is not too happy with dear Gov. Scott, and gives a number of very valid reasons why Walker should resign:
Milwaukeeans knew Scott Walker would say or do anything to raise his political profile and promote the corporate-right agenda. His tenure as Milwaukee County executive was marred with such antics, which helps explain why he received only 38 percent of the county’s vote last November.
Thanks to a recorded conversation Walker had with a journalist pretending to be right-wing billionaire activist David Koch, now the whole world knows about Walker’s ruthless ambition, his unethical tactics and his sycophantic allegiance to the interests of the rich.
State Sen. Tim Carpenter was dead-on when he said the revelations Walker made during the conversation “would make Richard Nixon blush.” Walker bragged about his underhanded schemes to trick Democrats into thinking he would negotiate with them over his union-busting budget bill. He acknowledged that his administration had considered illegally positioning “troublemakers” among the tens of thousands of protesters who have swarmed the Capitol in recent weeks.
This is what‘s coming for you [referring to the protests in Wisconsin & elsewhere], because the people aren’t going to take it any more.
The people are going to demand justice. They‘re going to demand that your ass is in jail.
You have taken the money, we want the money back.
You have taken our jobs overseas, we want those jobs back. Those are a national resource. Those are not yours to do with as you please. They affect all of us as a society.
We have a right to those jobs. We have a right to that money that used to belong to the people of this country.
A million people evicted from homes, foreclosed this year. Another million expected this year. How many—I just wonder again, if I can, just address the Wall Streeters and banksters out there—how many more people do you think you can throw out of their homes before they do revolt? How long do you think this is going to go on?
Exactly how I feel about it. I’ve had enough, and I hope you have too.
While Wisconsin’s family farmers are not union members, they are members of the American middle class, and they recognize class warfare when they see it. This tractorcade in Madison today is in solidarity with all those fighting the corporate power represented by Corporate Shill, Gov. Scott Walker.
From Minnesota blogger, Mike McMahon, on why a Minnesota group is participating in the Wisconsin tractorcade today, emphasis mine:
The Land Stewardship Project is here today participating in the Farmer-Labor Tractorcade being led by Wisconsin farmers because of the actions taken by Gov. Scott Walker. Walker and his allies have enabled a power-grab by big corporations to the detriment of the land, and people, of Wisconsin.
We know what happens under unchecked corporate power – the people suffer. That’s why family farmers across the Midwest organized in the 1890s, and the 1910s, and the 1930s, and the 1980s – building farmer co-ops, passing public policy that reined in corporate power and assisted family farms, and establishing farm organizations to fight for the well-being of family farmers, rural communities, and the land.
Today is another such time, in which predatory corporations like Monsanto, Dean Foods, Smithfield, and the Koch Brothers, are grabbing control over our seeds, our milk, our livestock, our land, our public assets — even our democracy. And now their political allies in Madison are attempting to pass and implement extremist legislation that breaks the power of working people to organize on their own behalf. They believe it will greatly diminish the power of people to rein in corporate greed that knows no bounds. They further this attack on the middle class by attempting to divide portions of the middle class against one another, alleging that the fight is between a unionized worker and someone who is not in a union. All of this to advance a pro-corporate agenda of business tax cuts, public asset fire-sales, reduced corporate accountability, and increased profits for the biggest of the big.
The Firebagging opportunists spent two years shrieking endlessly, ostensibly because President Obama didn’t bend down and tie their shoelaces for them.
Then they told Democrats not to vote. Gotta make a point, they said.
In Michigan, which is now essentially a dictatorship, 2 million fewer Democrats voted in 2010 as opposed to 2008. 2 million. And now, we are in deep, deep trouble thanks to the teabagging Republicans that were voted in to office in 2010, and we owe that partially, maybe even primarily, to the Firebaggers.
Fellow Michigander, Eclectablog, rags on Ed Schultz, who makes a fine whipping boy for that group, emphasis mine:
Ed Schultz has been on fire on MSNBC these past three weeks, hasn't he? Nothing like pure, unadulterated union-busting by Republicans to get old Ed fired up and ready to go. A let's not pretend Ed didn't have a plan for this all along, right? Remember this from him last fall?
[ED SCHULTZ] And I’m announcing today, I’m not going to vote in the midterms. I’m not going to do it. You can say it’s un-American. No, it’s rather revolutionary is what it is. I’m at that point. I’m checking out. I’m checking out of the Democrats because they are proving to me that they don’t know how to handle these big babies over on the right that say no. You know what you do? You get in the driver’s seat, you hit the throttle, and you run over them.
Un-American? Hell no, Ed! That's as American as it gets. Hell, it's practically Republican, it's so American! Create a problem that you yourself can benefit from. Help make sure the GOP takes control by helping suppress the Democratic vote then watch your rating positively SOAR when you get to be on television almost non-stop when they start crushing unions like cockroaches.
Man, you sure showed them, Ed. Obama has really got to be feeling this now, what with all those union people getting crushed and taxes being cut on the backs of the poor and the elderly.
Happy NOW, Firebaggers? And yeah, I am talking to Hamsher, Greenwald, et al.
LAST NIGHT, MAR. 9: As you likely already know, last night Republicans illegally rammed through the portion of Walker’s budget that deals with collective bargaining, enacting, in effect, the end of collective bargaining for public workers in Wisconsin. Congrats, Koch Bastards.
After that happened, the Wisconsin state capitol was closed, and according to a metro bus driver, his bus was commandeered to take Republican legislator – fascists, out of the immediate area.
TODAY, MAR. 10: Today, the capitol was closed to everyone, with the remaining (unresisting) protesters being dragged out of the building, leading to thousands chanting “Let us in!”
The capitol police were replaced today by Wisconsin State Police troopers. The image below, via @ACLUMadison, is of riot gear being unloaded—wonder if the tear gas is even made in America?
Also today, Wisconsin firefighters went in to the Capitol Square/Madison branch of M&I bank as a group, and withdrew $190,000. M&I was the largest of the banks to back Gov. Scott Walker. That branch was closed for the day shortly thereafter Image below via @mariyastrauss
Additionally, there is a boycott of M&I planned if they don’t publicly oppose Walker’s efforts:
Teachers, firefighters and police officers said they would begin a boycott of M&I Bank if the bank does not begin publicly opposing Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to curtail collective bargaining for public workers.
Unions representing those groups said they would start other boycotts of businesses that backed Walker in his campaign.
The letter to M&I President Tom Ellis said the boycott would begin March 17 if the bank hasn't opposed Walker's efforts by then.
Stay tuned. I’ll be updating until sometime tonight.
5:07 PM Update: Wisconsin lawmakers voted to approve the measure to strip collective bargaining rights from public employees.
Police state (Wisconsin capitol building). Via @thinkprogress twitter stream.
5:45 PM Update: About an hour ago, Wisconsin Minority Assembly Minority Leader , Peter Barca (D), addressed the crown in Madison:
We think this vote will not stand. We believe it violates the law.
6:02 PM Update: We just learned that about 5 hours ago, hundreds of students at Madison West High School walked out of school and began marching to the capitol building, with a Madison police escort.
In the capitol building, Wisconsin state troopers deny media access to the Assembly.
8:00 PM Update: A general strike in Wisconsin? Not yet, it seems.
Calls for a general strike are growing among union members and supporters as the state Legislature advanced a law stripping public sector unions of almost all bargaining rights, but it remains unclear whether strikes or pickets will appear soon.
Union leaders say the Republicans' fast-track passage of the bill has fueled strike talk, but for now most are urging legal measures such as recall of Republican legislators as a way to repeal the law.
"A general strike would be playing the trump card, and you don't play the trump right away, you build up to that," said Jim Cavanaugh, president of the 45,000-member South Central Federal of Labor in Madison.
Still having never learned to be calm, retract their claws, and sit around and act rationally in a situation that calls for panic, Wisconsin’s Republicans and their Corporate Puppeteers tonight guaranteed themselves an unprecedented and disastrous recall next January.
More over, they also guaranteed themselves that any cloak of stealth under which they have operated in their attacks on teachers, firefighters, policemen, unions, and the settled law of collective bargaining, has been stripped away. If you pass a supposedly urgent “budget repair” bill with key budget components cut from it, you forfeit the fiction that you are doing anything remedial, anything essential, anything except a naked power grab on behalf of corporations who will get the money stolen from organized labor – civic or private.
And further, when you accomplish all this by parliamentary trick – after your national party has spent two years and more decrying Congressional reconciliation – when you deny the minority the right to participate in the outcome whether by compromise or protest, you cut through the cacophony of political-speak in this country and you transmit your sneering indifference towards democracy to ordinary citizens who do not normally pay attention.
Bastards. Hard to know how this will pan out. Keith Olbermann says that Republicans have committed suicide. We’ll see.
I will say that next up for reversal will be minimum wage laws, the 40 hour work week, and so on. This is what they’re working toward at the direction of their corporate masters.
Republicans in the Wisconsin state Senate passed the most controversial portions of Governor Scott Walker's budget repair bill late on Wednesday, stripping out the sections that required the presence of their 14 absent Democratic colleagues in the upper chamber.
In an 18-to-1 vote, the Senate approved the curbs on collective bargaining by public employees that Walker has insisted are needed to help the state's cash-strapped municipalities deal with a projected $1.27 billion drop in state aid over the next two years.
Adding….Twitter is going crazy over this news. The hacker group known as “anonymous” appears to have decided to stand with the workers. The link on that tweet is to a chat room, currently inundated with 7000+ people.
Personally, I never, ever, ever watch Fox News. Watching the clips of people such as Megan Kelly, Bill O"Reilly, et al, is more than enough for me. It makes me feel like I need brain bleach. Gah....
Jon Stewart compares teachers to Wall Street and highlights the utterly disgusting hypocrisy of Fox.
An ad which will speak to working people everywhere, created by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy For America.
Watch:
The GOP is out in the open now, playing only to their corporate sponsors, not just in Madison, but union-busting in other states, and forcing draconian cuts to the U.S. budget which will impact ONLY working people and the poor everywhere in this nation.
It is nothing less than a travesty that we’ve allowed it to get this far.
I'm going to get so killed for saying this ... I'm going to get killed for saying this. I don't understand. It seems -- I'm going to get so killed for this. I don't understand. I hate to say this, but the concept of telling people that they cannot come together to negotiate, with a government -- it just kind of seems un-American to me.
Watch:
Then of course, Scarbough goes on to improperly frame the whole issue, but still…..wingnuts should take note when even Scarborough thinks you’re whacked out, you are definitely out there.
On her show last night, Rachel Maddow talked directly to those fighting for their collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, telling them that they are now winning. And she’s right. But, I am seeing less vocal/open support for this battle, which is important to a vast majority of Americans, because when Wisconsin wins, all of the working people in America win.
SHOW your support, America! It is not time to stand down.
From @Triumph68 on Twitter, via Maddow, protesters in #Wisconsin refuse to give in, to give up, after Gov. Scott Walker locked them out of the people’s statehouse. Braving the extreme cold, the snow, they stayed.
Wisconsin, you are winning. I will say that again. Wisconsin, you are winning this fight.
There is a reason that after all of this time, your governor is not willing to negotiate. He is not willing to talk at all. But he is willing to kick you out of the Capitol.
A judge has now ordered that Walker re-open the capitol building. Whether or not he will comply, remains to be seen.
Krugman on the media blackout of the protests occurring in Wisconsin, and on Saturday, in 65 other cities all over the country:
I don’t watch cable news, or actually any kind of TV news. But I gather that there’s a virtual blackout on the huge demonstrations in Wisconsin, except on Fox, which portrays them as thuggish and violent.
What that makes me think of is January-February 2003, when anyone watching cable news would have believed that only a few kooks were opposed to the imminent invasion of Iraq. It was quite spooky, realizing that hundreds of thousands of people could march through New York, and by tacit agreement be ignored by news networks whose headquarters were just a few blocks away.
And it’s even more spooky to see it happening all over again.
Jason Easley, in an article berating the cable news networks for their almost complete lack of coverage of the protests in Madison, Wisconsin, and in 65 other cities in the U.S. on Saturday:
A protest was held today that was bigger than anything that the Tea Party has ever done, but you wouldn’t know it if you were watching TV. There is something seriously wrong with a news gathering and reporting apparatus that devotes more live coverage to the protests in Egypt than protests in Wisconsin. Egypt was a big story, but the a fight for the very survival of the middle class should not be ignored.
Just a quick reminder re the solidarity rallies being held in all fifty states tomorrow. You can find the schedule here.
Help us save what’s really at stake in Wisconsin and elsewhere, the American dream!!
Adding...you can also sign up to attend, or to volunteer, with MoveOn.org. All organizations promoting these events will be attending the same rally, so you do NOT have to sign up in order to attend any specific rally, just check with MoveOn or DefendWisconsin for the schedule in your state. All rallies are being held in each state's respective statehouse.
Former President Ronald Reagan, did not share his party's hatred of unions. From Think Progress, emphasis mine:
As the Main Street Movement of students, workers, and other middle class Americans erupts across America, many conservatives have invoked the legacy of former president Ronald Reagan to demand that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) not back down from his push to end collective bargaining for his state’s public employees. In a prank call with the Buffalo Beast’s Ian Murphy, where Murphy pretended to be right-wing billionare David Koch, Walker himself even fantasized about being just like Reagan.
Yet conservatives may be shocked to learn that their idol Reagan was once a union boss himself. Reagan was the only president in American history to have belonged to a union, the AFL-CIO affiliated Screen Actors Guild. And he even served six terms as president of the organized labor group. Additionally, Reagan was a staunch advocate for the collective bargaining rights of one of the world’s most famous and most influential trade unions, Poland’s Solidarity movement.
Founded in September 1980, Solidarity was formed in Soviet-occupied Poland as the USSR’s first free and independent trade union. By 1981, the union had grown to 10 million people and became a powerful force for demanding economic and political reforms within the Soviet Union. Solidarity began to use strikes to demand these reforms, and the Soviets responded by jailing their leaders and cracking down on their right to organize. During his Christmas address to the nation on December 23, 1981, President Reagan condemned the Soviet-backed Polish crackdowns on labor unions, promoting the “basic right of free trade unions and to strike”:
REAGAN: The Polish government has trampled underfoot to the UN Charter and Helsinki accords. It has even broken the Gdańsk Agreement of 1980 by which the Polish government recognized the basic right of free trade unions and to strike.
He promised to sign legislation if elected governor that prohibits the Legislature from voting after 10 p.m. or before 9 a.m.
Early this morning, the anti-union bill made it past Wisconsin’s Assembly, effectively stripping public sector workers of their collective bargaining rights. Think Progress, emphasis mine:.
Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly approved legislation stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights, in the face of ongoing protests that have gripped Madison for well over a week. The bill passed at 1:17 a.m., and Republicans only held the vote open for “seconds.” The vote was called while many Democrats were outside the Assembly chamber, preventing them from casting no votes. Only 13 of the Assembly’s 38 Democratic members got their votes in on time.Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) praised the Assembly’s action in a statement.
Gov. Walker, praised the Wisconsin lawmakers, never mentioning the trickery involved, nor the fact that Democrats were out of the Chamber when the vote was called:
Day after day Assembly Republicans and Assembly Democrats showed up and did the jobs they were elected to do. After an unprecedented amount of debate, they continued to do their jobs by casting their votes. Republicans should be commended for their willingness to cast a vote that will fix this budget and future budgets. Democrats should also be commended for coming to work every day and giving their constituents a voice at the State Capitol. Now all the attention is on the Senate. The fourteen Senate Democrats need to come home and do their jobs, just like the Assembly Democrats did
The bill still has to get through the Wisconsin Senate, and since the Democratic lawmakers remain out of state, they have no quorum for a vote.
Meanwhile, protests are planned throughout the country to fight the Republican goal of ending the middle class in America.
Shep Smith and Juan Williams discuss Wisconsin, and Smith tells enough truth to get himself in trouble with the oligarchs, including his acknowledgement that it isn’t about the damn budget:
Shepard Smith, on the real reason Walker and the GOP are union-busting:
This is why they are doing it, no doubt about it. In fact, the whole controversy about public employee unions is nothing more than one prong of their "defund the left" strategy. (If you wonder why the plutocrats are going along with efforts to cut Planned Parenthood and the like, that would be it. it's not like they care one way or the other --- rich women will always get abortions if they need them.)
Yesterday USA Today made a big splash when the paper released a Gallup poll finding that 61 percent of Americans nationwide oppose Governor Scott Walker's plan to roll back the bargaining rights of public employees. Today Gallup has released a partisan breakdown of those numbers, and it's striking..
Of course Republicans don’t favor collective bargaining rights. They are the party of the oligarchs.
> We already know that Walker was union-busting for political reasons, and at the Koch brothers bidding, but here’s what he could have done had he really been trying to deal with the budget: "The state's entire budget shortfall for this year -- the reason that Walker has said he must push through immediate cuts -- would be covered by the governor's relatively uncontroversial proposal to restructure the state's debt. By contrast, the proposals that have kicked up a firestorm, especially his call to curtail the collective-bargaining rights of the state's public-employees, wouldn't save any money this year." H/T Steve Benen
> Jeff Cox, the Deputy Attorney General in Indiana who said he wanted to see “live ammunition” used on the Wisconsin protesters was fired.
>Scott Walker lied about campaigning on the collective bargaining issue: “I campaigned on (the proposals in the budget repair bill for Wisconsin) all throughout the election. Anybody who says they are shocked on this has been asleep for the past two years."
> Calls to boycott Koch Industries (tea party sugar daddy/founder of fake grass roots movements tea party AND Wisconsin union busting ALSO sugar daddy to Justice Clarence Thomas) growing.
A New York-based alt-news editor says he got through to the embattled Wisconsin governor on the phone Tuesday by posing as right-wing financier David Koch...then had a far-ranging 20-minute conversation about the collective bargaining protests. According to the audio, Walker told him:
That statehouse GOPers were plotting to hold Democratic senators' pay until they returned to vote on the controversial union-busting bill.
That Walker was looking to nail Dems on ethics violations if they took meals or lodging from union supporters.
That he'd take "Koch" up on this offer: "[O]nce you crush these bastards I'll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time."
In Indiana, as state legislators debate “right-to-work” legislation that would destroy the ability of unions to organize, thousands protested at the Indiana state capitol, and Democratic legislators havewalked out in order to protect the right of workers to engage in collective bargaining.
In Ohio, thousands of public sector workers gathered at the state capitol today to protest legislation which would cost workers their right to collectively bargain.
In Wisconsin today, protests continued, and Democratic legislators remained absent, as Gov. Scott Walker threatened layoffs. Act Blue has raised $357,000 in support of Wisconsin’s stand-up Democratic lawmakers, and if you’d like to contribute, just click on the Act Blue link.
According to pro-labor protesters in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker (R) may be taking a page from former Egyptian Dictator Hosni Mubarak and cutting off internet access to key protest organizers within the state Capitol building.
If you are in the Capitol attempting to access the internet from a free wifi connection labeled “guest,” you cannot access the site defendwisconsin.org. The site has been used to provide updates on what is happening, where you can volunteer, and where supplies and goods are needed to support protesters. Administrators of the website were notified on Monday that the page is being blocked. Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate says that the site was put on a blacklist typically used to filter out pornography sites so that protestors inside the Capitol could not access this key site.
On Saturday, February 26, in solidarity with Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio, protests will be held in all fifty states at the respective state capitols. Go here to get the specifics for your states protest.
Now Walker is threatening to begin sending out lay-off notices to state employees if they don’t do what he wants. What an asshat.
MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker warned Tuesday that state employees could start receiving layoff notices as early as next week if a bill eliminating most collective bargaining rights isn't passed soon.
Walker said in a statement to The Associated Press that the layoffs wouldn't take effect immediately. He didn't say which workers would be targeted but he has repeatedly warned that up to 1,500 workers could lose their jobs by July if his proposal isn't passed.
Honestly, I think Walker needs to reassess because I do not think he is going to win this fight.
Some of you reading this quote will think it’s hyperbolic. Let me assure you it isn’t. Wisconsin is just the first step in a well thought out plan by Republicans to destroy the Democratic Party by destroying the unions. Is this possible? Could this really happen? Yes, it could. Rachel Maddow explains how.
No one was expecting this Battle of the Bulge for the Democratic party and our fading unions to come up in this way, or this suddenly. But here it is. And now, the big question is, will progressives finally fight hard, or just die quickly? If you can't see what the GOP is doing with this issue, you simply don't get anything that's happened to this tenation over the past 30 years in general, and certainly in the past five years since Fox News became the steering gear for the Republican Party's ship to nowhere. So just shut the [fck] up and get out of the way.
But if you do get it, then you realize that this can and should be a magic moment in our history. A moment where we can rise up and show this fetid teaparty army and their plutocratic puppet masters like David Koch and Sheldon Adelson that there is still a strong majority of sensible people in this country who know that a fair society is the only one that will ever survive long term. And this generation of wrecking crew Republicans won't just delay that fair and just society. They will crush out any possibility of there ever being one. At least in this country.
And that would be a sad fail of unparalleled dimension. An easy win will have passed us right by due to our own apathetic lethargy and a mass delusion that all the horrible things happening to us were never quite as bad as they seemed. Our collective will to resist an obvious insurrection of selfishness will have failed to come alive at the very moment that it must, and the American experiment will probably die right here in the lab.
Wisconsin poll finds strong support for public employees: With the standoff in Wisconsin intensifying, the well-respected Dem firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner has released a new polling memo -- bankrolled by unions -- finding strong opposition to Governor Scott Walker's proposal to roll back bargaining rights. Key finding: When read a very detailed explanation of Walker's proposal, 52 percent of Wisconsin voters oppose it, 42 percent strongly so. Meanwhile, 42 percent support it, only 24 percent strongly.
The poll finds that since the standoff began, "Walker has seen real erosion in his standing, with a majority expressing disapproval of his job performance and disagreement with his agenda."
And: "When asked more specifically, 58 percent oppose eliminating collective bargaining, 57 percent oppose reducing wages for public employees and 50 percent oppose reducing pension benefits for public employees." And 59 percent of independents oppose the collective bargaining piece, too.
Just so you know, Conservatives are making noise about Obama’s support for the protests, with some even talking impeachment, which is, of course, a reach. You can read a couple of these posts here and here. HT Balloon Juice
If you’d like to contribute to the effort to support Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin while they’re away from the capitol, go here.
If you break the public unions in Wisconsin you can break them everywhere.
And as Maddow points out in the video, the Democratic Party can not survive with out the unions. (thank you again, SCOTUS, for the Citizens United ruling).
One of the most underreported stories about the pro-democracy movement in Egypt was the role of labor unions in the demonstrations, many of which were protesting against neoliberal right-wing economic policies just as much as they were protesting against the Mubarak dictatorship. During the uprising in that country, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka praised the role of organized labor, saying, “The people’s movement for democracy in Egypt and the role unions are playing for freedom and worker rights inspires us and will not be forgotten.”
Now, as tens of thousands of union members and other Wisconsin residents are taking to the streets to protest against Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) attempt to abolish collective bargaining rights for most public workers, a leader of Egypt’s largest umbrella group of independent labor unions is praising the Wisconsin movement. In a videotaped statement, Kamal Abbas, the General Coordinator of the Centre for Trade Unions and Workers Services, tells the Wisconsin protesters, “We stand with you as you stood with us.” He says “no one believed” that the revolution against the Mubarak regime would succeed, yet they were able to bring the dictator down within 18 days. He encourages demonstrators to stay strong, saying, “Don’t give up on your rights. Victory always belongs to the people who stand firm and demand their just rights”:
Paul Krugman on the motives of Wisconsin’s Republican governor, Scott Walker:
For what’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker’s pretense that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.
Hear, hear.
More on the reasons for GOP intractability in Wisconsin in a Maddow piece.
First of all, just to ensure that we’re on the same page, when I say “paid” in this piece, I am referring to total compensation which includes not only salary, but health care plans, and so forth.
That said, a ubiquitous Republican meme is the one where in their world, public sector employees get paid wayyy more than than they’re worth in the real world, and wayyy more than their counterparts in the private sector are paid, which they also rant, is totally unfair and against all that is righteous. Sigh.
The chart depicts the results of a study by the Economic Policy Institute which should lay this stupid meme to rest, although of course it won’t, the right wing will keep spewing the lies, but at least you’ll know exactly how to respond.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the exact opposite is true; public sector workers in Wisconsin are compensated less than their counterparts in the private sector.
In Wisconsin, which has become a focal point in this debate, public servants already take a pretty hefty pay cut just for the opportunity to serve their communities (Keefe 2010). The figure below shows that when comparing the total compensation (which includes non-wage benefits such as health care and pensions) of workers with similar education, public-sector workers consistently make less than their private–sector peers. Workers with a bachelor’s degree or more—which constitute nearly 60% of the state and local workforce in Wisconsin—are compensated between $20,000 less (if they just have a bachelor’s degree) to over $82,000 a year less (if they have a professional degree, such as in law or medicine).
It is necessary for making true apples-to-apples comparisons to control for worker characteristics such as education in order to best measure a worker’s potential earnings in a different sector or industry. Controlling for a larger range of earnings predictors—including not just education but also age, experience, gender, race, etc., Wisconsin public-sector workers face an annual compensation penalty of 11%. Adjusting for the slightly fewer hours worked per week on average, these public workers still face a compensation penalty of 5% for choosing to work in the public sector.
For Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) to attempt to blame his budget woes on public sector workers, to force them not only to take pay cuts, but to give up their collective bargaining rights, is wrong. And if you know that this same Republican governor created his own budget crisis via tax cuts for corporations the minute he took office, you know he has no moral ground to stand on in this face-off.
Adding....According to Stark Reports, the cuts Walker is demanding amount to about $100 per week for public sector workers in Wisconsin. That is one hell of a lot to cut for someone earning $52k, which is what Stark says is the median teacher's salary in Wisconsin.
I mean, when all is said and done, the Governor is reaching into these workers’ pockets and taking out about $100 from every week’s paycheck.
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