Thousands fill the Capitol rotunda in Madison, Wis.

[seemslikeadream]

In Wisconsin standoff, a test: Has governor gone overboard to trim deficit?

[anothershamus]

The first test of the Egyptian gambit in the USA? Perhaps.....

[23]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/ ... dison.html
Rep. Paul Ryan On Wisconsin Protests: "Like Cairo Moved To Madison"

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) talks about Wisconsin public workers protesting against a bill that has them make a contribution to their pension and health care benefits. It also eliminates collective bargaining.

"It's not asking a lot, it's still about half of what private sector pensions do and health care packages do. So he's [the Governor is] basically saying, I want you public workers to pay half of what our private sector counterparts and he's getting riots -- it's like Cairo has moved to Madison these days," Rep. Ryan told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

[anothershamus]

Big bit on today's show of Democracy Now (http://www.democracynow.org/) with Chomsky talking about Wisconsin and how the bankers stole the money and the people are paying by losing their pensions and cuts in pay. Feb 12 issue of NYT is referenced by Chomsky, a story about the WI governor and he goes on to talk about campaign finance reform and union busting and the only strong unions left are the state unions, teachers and police etc. and this financial crisis finally gives the 'capitalist' state a reason and a window to install 'austerity' measures and raid the unions and take back all the gains in wages and send it back to minimum wages for all state workers.

So that is why 10's of thousands of people showed up at the capital to protest. This could be the Yemen to our Egyptian revolution.

[23]

A protest is impotent, unless is disrupts business as usual.

Think of all the pissed off parents who were unable to go to work, because schools were closed and they had to stay home to take care of their kiddies.

The power of the domino effect.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/ ... 002e0.html
Madison schools, others closed amid call for demonstrations

The state's largest teachers union Wednesday night called on all 98,000 of its members to attend rallies in Madison on Thursday and Friday, which led school districts — including Madison — to cancel classes for Thursday.

"This is not about protecting our pay and our benefits," Wisconsin Education Association Council President Mary Bell said at a press conference on the Capitol Square. "It is about protecting our right to collectively bargain."

In an interview, Bell said her message stopped short of endorsing the kind of coordinated action that closed Madison schools Wednesday. She asked teachers who "could" come to the rally to come.

As of press deadline, several Madison-area districts had canceled Thursday's classes. Middleton-Cross Plains union president Chris Bauman said she was encouraging all members to come to the Capitol at 8 a.m. Thursday.

Schools and teachers were a central focus at a third day of protests at the Capitol on Wednesday as Madison teachers and students joined thousands of public union workers to blast a plan to strip them of collective bargaining rights. Madison canceled school Wednesday after about 1,100 union teachers — almost half of its staff — called in sick by late Tuesday.

"This is the scariest thing I've ever seen," Betsy Barnard, a physics teacher at West High School, said of the Walker proposal. "This is going to change Wisconsin forever."

Barnard and other teachers at the rally said they are willing to make wage and benefit concessions to help fix the state budget, but Walker's plan to effectively dismantle the 50-year-old collective bargaining process for public employee unions goes too far.

She said it was harder to make the decision to call in sick Wednesday than it was in 1995, when nearly 2,000 teachers didn't go to work to protest contract negotiations.

"We risk our public image," Barnard said. Unlike 1995, however, the response from parents has been far more positive, she added.

Officials disputed the number of people at a noon rally, but it appeared the presence of Madison teachers — many with their own children — and students swelled the numbers beyond Tuesday's gathering, when 10,000 rallied outside of the Capitol and 3,000 more showed up inside to attend a budget hearing.

The state Department of Administration estimated 10,000 people attended the Wednesday rally. Madison police estimated the crowd at 20,000, spokesman Joel DeSpain said. The entire inner loop of the Square was closed to vehicle traffic, which wasn't the case Tuesday.

At the rally, parents carried infants and signs stating, "At our school we call this bullying" and "Will the National Guard teach my class?" Preschoolers repeated the popular slogan "kill this bill." Teachers young and old came ready to forfeit a day's pay to make their voices heard. DeSpain described demonstrators as "angry," "spirited" and "cordial."

West High School Senior Jacob Fiksel, who helped organize a march of about 600 students from Hilldale Shopping Center to the Capitol, said he read about Walker's proposal Sunday, but didn't realize the implications until a teacher Monday told him it would cause financial hardship. After 800 East High School students walked out Tuesday, Fiksel began planning Wednesday's march along with Memorial High School students.

"Everyone was ready to go out there and fight for the teachers," Fiksel said.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, speaking Wednesday at a labor-management collaboration conference in Denver, said Walker's proposal worries him, according to the Associated Press. Duncan's office said he has a phone call scheduled for Thursday with Walker but wouldn't elaborate on his reported comments.

The Wisconsin Association of School Boards also said this week it has concerns with Walker's proposal, saying it asked Walker and the Legislature to limit certain bargaining subjects, "but not everything."

The school boards association supports allowing districts to take several actions without bargaining, such as picking health insurance companies, contracting-out services, setting school year dates, ordering furloughs and basing layoffs on qualifications rather than seniority, executive director John Ashley wrote to the Joint Finance Committee.

[anothershamus]

Here is the segment of Noam on Democracy Now, it's worth the watch!

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/17/d ... e_usa_noam

Here is the interview continued after the show:

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/2/17/noam_chomsky_on_civil_rights_obama_latin_america_and_the_history_of_the_us_in_the_middle_east

[seemslikeadream]

Wisconsin Fight Heats Up as Democrats Skip Vote

[23]

Wisconsin Fight Heats Up as Democrats Skip Vote

Wusses. Pure, unadulterated wusses.

Elected by an electorate of wusses no less.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/ ... 002e0.html
Senate Dems leaving city to avoid participating in budget vote

Senate Democrats were leaving Madison to avoid participating in the vote on Gov. Scott Walker's controversial budget repair bill, which has sparked four days of protests at the Capitol, an aide confirmed Thursday morning.

The aide spoke on condition of anonymity, because she was not authorized to speak on behalf of her boss. Legislative assistants answering the phones at the offices of Sen. Jon Erpenbach of Middleton, Sen. Mark Miller of Monona and Sen. Fred Risser of Madison all insisted they knew nothing about the walkout.

However, at 11:30 a.m., when the session began — 30 minutes late — a roll call revealed that most if not all 14 Senate Democrats were absent. At 11:35, Republican Senate President Mike Ellis announced a "call of the house" to send police to force errant Democrats to return to the chamber.

"The Senate is now under a call of the house, and we will try to find the members who decided not to come to work today," Ellis said as loud protesters sought to disrupt the session.

The Senate then adjourned, lacking enough of its 33 senators to act. Twenty are required and there are just 19 Republican Senators.

The Capitol was crowded shoulder to shoulder with protesters late Thursday morning especially near the Senate chambers chanting "Kill this bill," and "Walker must go."

The governor's proposed budget repair bill seeks to strip thousands of public-sector workers of most of their collective bargaining rights. The Republican governor has said Wisconsin is in a budget crisis and must take action to close a looming deficit.

[seemslikeadream]

^^^^^^

to send police to force errant Democrats to return to the chamber.



they can't pass without dems there

they did the only thing they could do to stop this

[seemslikeadream]

2 Rebups are AWOL and are out of state

dems are out of state also and can't be touched

[23]

they can't pass without dems there... they did the only thing they could do to stop this

You are correct. I forgot that there is a significant Republican majority in their chamber. My apologies for remaining in the past.

[Joe Hillshoist]

So a bunch of politicians pissed off so the bill couldn't be passed?

Is that right?

[Laodicean]

[Simulist]

Thank you, Laodicean. It's always refreshing to hear the truth, and on this subject Noam Chomsky speaks it better than almost anyone else.

"The reason why you can't get Democratic [Party] leaders to join is because they agree: they are also trying to destroy the unions," Prof. Chomsky said.

When I remember those individuals who lectured me on and on about how "important" it was to support Obama and the Democratic Party back in 2008 ("The most important election in our lifetimes!"), I want to spit in their faces.

(And to the degree that I encouraged anyone to give these political liars even the benefit of the doubt, I've regretted it ever since.)

[seemslikeadream]

This is about 30,000 folks at the state capitol. It is not about dems and repugs. Although Wisconsin state reps should NOT be lumped in with the crap in Washington. There is a big difference