From the floor of the U.S. Senate:
I look back in history, in some of the worst governments that we had, you know the first thing they did, go after unions, Hitler didn’t want unions, Stalin didn’t want unions, Mubarak didn’t want unions, these autocrats don’t want independent unions.
— Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Update: You knew this was coming….
He’s Back! This photo is from last Thursday.
A couple of week ago I posted a picture of this guy at the same spot on the UW quad holding a sign saying, “Don’t Think”. I asked if anyone had a clue as to the purpose.
Well, meet Kevin Smith. He came to the comment thread and provided a few clues, and linked to his blog, Signs On the Quad.
So, now what do you think this is all about?
(And this does qualify as an Open Thread.)
And after years of chronic unemployment impoverished activism, Goldy really earns his paycheck. And man, when he gets a fire under his ass, he can perform!
Check out this outstanding feature for the current issue of The Stranger.
Goldy takes an in-depth look at a Governor Rob McKenna, and what McKenna’s own words and actions suggest would happen during his stay in the Governor’s mansion.
I won’t even offer a blockquote-bite here, but let me just tease you with, Hello…Wisconsin! For the full skinny on McKenna, head over to The Stranger, right now. There you will learn the nightmare-provoking truth about the many faces of Rob McKenna.
If, by chance, McKenna doesn’t capture the Governor’s mansion in 2012, Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) will deserve most of the credit. Goldy’s piece gets most of the rest.
(Full disclosure: Goldy is an occasional contributer to this blog.)
Yesterday there was this NY Times poll, of 984 adults, taken 24 to 27 Feb (3% margin of error):
Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employee unions by a margin of nearly two to one: 60 percent to 33 percent. While a slim majority of Republicans favored taking away some bargaining rights, they were outnumbered by large majorities of Democrats and independents who said they opposed weakening them.
[…]The poll found that an overwhelming 71 percent of Democrats opposed weakening collective bargaining rights. But there was also strong opposition from independents: 62 percent of them said they opposed taking bargaining rights away from public employee unions.
[…]The one group that favors weakening those rights, by a slim majority, was Republicans.
And today, a similar poll from the Wall Street Journal and NBC is about to be released. This poll sampled 1,000 adults (3.1% margin of error). From the preliminary WSJ write-up:
Eliminating collective bargaining rights for public-sector workers over health care, pensions or other benefits would be either “mostly unacceptable” or “totally unacceptable,” 62% of those surveyed said. Only 33% support such limits.
The results don’t bode well for Wisconsin’s newly elected Republican governor, Scott Walker, who is locked in a standoff with statehouse Democrats and unionized state workers over these rights.
[…]Similarly, 77%…think unionized state and municipal employees should have the same rights as those union members who work for private companies.
You know, I seriously doubt the same poll taken six months ago would have come out anywhere near this pro-Labor. Gov. Walker’s extreme, and ham-handed politics, with a helping hand from New Jersey, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, etc. has been a big awakening for America’s inner progressive.
The question is does Walker do more damage by compromise, or by standing firm on stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights?
Either way…Walker’s and the right wing extremist’s War on Workers has sustained a huge blow.
Upwards of 200 people, a hand full of police officers, a few different media organizations, and one bloodmobile braved gusty winds and rain this morning to gather by George on the University of Washington campus as part of a United Students Against Sweatshops national day of action.
The protests are in response to draconian budget cuts and anti-collective bargaining legislation proposed by governor Scott Walker (R-WI).
Here are some scenes from the demonstration taken from my cell phone:
I’m sure someone’s gonna claim the bloodmobile was used to bring in out-of-state protesters….
Please join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. We start at 8:00 pm, but feel free to show up even earlier for dinner.
Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 214 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10:30am, UW (Seattle) students will meet by the Statute of George Washington and protest in solidarity with UW–Madison students.
The United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and members of the UW American Association of University Professors (AAUP) will demonstrate in support of
Wisconsin unions and workers. The rally is part of a USAS national day of action called by students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who are currently fighting draconian cuts proposed by governor Scott Walker (R-WI).
The full press release is posted at The Ave.
Remember that 2008 Republican primary candidate named Tommy Thompson? You know, that guy who demonstrated all the charisma of soiled laundry? Tommy was elected Governor of Wisconsin in the late 1980s. When elected, Illinois had had a Governor Jim Thompson in office for a decade. Big Jim was a Republican as well.
I don’t remember why, exactly—perhaps it was just a pissing contest over who the real Gov. Thompson was—but economic warfare ensued between the two neighboring states.
Gov. Jim struck first when a billboard appeared just over the Wisconsin border saying, “Gov. Thompson wants you to move your business to Illinois.” Cute. Gov. Tommy responded in kind, though I don’t remember the details. I moved out of Wisconsin as the battles raged. Not even sure who (if anyone) won the war.
Cut to 2011 :
After Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law a state income tax hike…New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels–all Republicans–pitched Illinois business to move to their states. Christie was the most aggressive, running newspaper and radio ads in Illinois and stopping earlier this month at the Union League Club in Chicago.
What is it with these Republicans and their desperate opportunism. You have to believe they’d sell the flesh of their own mothers if it might lure a business to their state. And they might not wait for death.
“What…you have a headache, Mom?”
“Well then perhaps you would you consider contributing some bits to my campaign to land our state a new Kibbles factory…MY PRETTY!”
Let’s examine a Democratic and Republican response to this gubernatorial scavenging. First, the Democrat (my emphasis):
At the opening session press conference on Saturday, I asked Washington State Gov. Christine Gregoire, a Democrat and the NGA chair, what she thought of governors coming to Illinois to steal jobs.
“Going over and stealing from someplace else really isn’t the future for them,” Gregoire said. “Their future is building their own economic stability inside their state…my policy as governor is anybody who wants to come to Washington State is welcome. I am not out trying to steal a company from my colleagues.”
And now, the Republican:
NGA co-chair, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman responded that it is okay to poach “I believe in competition among the states and among the countries.” He then gave out his phone number.
See any difference?
And hear that, Boeing? Gov. Heineman wants poached Boeing. For a good time, call Gov. Dave Heineman at 402-471-2244…and re-relocate your headquarters to fricken Nebraskghanistan.
Q: Who is winning the hearts and minds of Wisconsin voters?
A: Not Governor Scott Walker.
Public Policy Polling (PPP) has released a new opinion poll today, taken from 24-27 of February on 768 Wisconsin voters. From PPP’s write-up:
…if voters in the state could do it over today they’d support defeated Democratic nominee Tom Barrett over Scott Walker by a a 52-45 margin.
The difference between how folks would vote now and how they voted in November can almost all be attributed to shifts within union households. Voters who are not part of union households have barely shifted at all- they report having voted for Walker by 7 points last fall and they still say they would vote for Walker by a 4 point margin. But in households where there is a union member voters now say they’d go for Barrett by a 31 point margin, up quite a bit from the 14 point advantage they report having given him in November.
It’s actually Republicans, more so than Democrats or independents, whose shifting away from Walker would allow Barrett to win a rematch if there was one today.
The poll details are here.
Keep this in mind when Gov. Walker starts “ratcheting it up” with claims of irreversible damage Democratic senators are doing to the state by preventing a quorum, or about how the people of Wisconsin are tired of the Senators’ “stunt.” More likely than not…he’s bullshitting.
The major damage the Democrats are causing is to Walker’s future in elective office.
Today is the 10 anniversary of the Nisqually earthquake that shook the Seattle region and almost brought down the Alaska Way viaduct.
I celebrated the day by driving the viaduct…for the first time in my life. I took it southbound…you know, the direction that would get me pancaked in a collapse.
I was on my way to West Seattle to get a root canal.
You might say I was wishing for The Big One.
No such luck, as I’m writing this from my phone while waiting in The Chair for the Novocaine to kick in.
Update: Well, that wasn’t so bad. Root canals have a bad rep. I hereby apologize to the residents of the Puget Sound region for wishing mayhem, death and destruction upon them over my endodontic anxiety.
The 4:00 pm closing deadline is here, and the bottom two floors of the capitol building in Madison is still filled with protesters. Will the police take action to clear the building? If so, some resistance is expected. Watch it live…
Update: The world is watching! At 4:30 pm CDT (2:30 pm here on the left coast), there are over 10,000 people watching this live stream.
Update: The feed went dead around 4:32 CDT/2:32 PDT. Huh…imagine that.
Update: Mother Jones reports via Twitter that the internet has been cut off. Nobody is sure why.
Update (2:50 PDT): For now, you can follow the live stream at FOX News. Hold you nose, if you must, but it is just a feed…no commentary from the FAUX News entertainment gallery.
Update (3:15 pm): FOX News pulls the plug on their live stream.
Update (3:55 pm): Eric Kleefeld files this report from inside the capitol building.
Update (4:10 pm): Back to live (not–see below)…found a new video feed. (This one contains commentary.)
Update (4:18 pm): Fugitive Senators in Illinois have no plans to return to Wisconsin.
Update (4:30 pm): Okay…so the embedded “live stream” is not live. Here is a stream from someone’s iPhone that is, supposedly, live.
Update (4:59 pm): There are unconfirmed reports flying around the Tweetosphere that “Republican Sen. Dale Schultz will vote no on Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill”. This was just mentioned on the iPhone live feed too. “This is the crack in the armor!”
Update (5:00 pm): Apparently…capitol police are allowing protesters to spend the night. This is an impressive symbolic victory for the protesters.
Update (5:15 pm): Yep…the announcement has come that the protesters can stay for the night. And pizza will be delivered.
Update (5:32 pm): Ok…the current iPhone live feed from brandzel here.
Update (5:38 pm): Just heard on NPR bottom-o-the-hour newscast that Walker was “clearing the Wisconsin capitol building.” Someone needs to have a little talk with NPR’s news department about Twitter….
Update (6:01 pm): Rachael Maddow looks into Scott Walker’s disastrous attempt at busting unions while Milwaukee County Executive:
Finale (7:47 pm): Well…that was exciting.
Here is, I think, the take-home from this little episode of Walker’s War on Workers. First, tonight could have been just another evening of protesters in the Wisconsin capitol…a protest sleep-over like those of the preceding fortnight. But with the announcement that the protesters would be evicted from the capitol building on Sunday at 4:00 pm, the State Department of Administration created a huge confrontation. And both the old media and new media took a keen interest in the outcome. I didn’t really plan to live-blog this event. But with the live video feeds and instant reporting available through Twitter, the confrontation came alive–an epic battle was about to unfold between Walker and the protesters.
And the protesters won–big time. Tonight was a PR disaster for Walker.
The protesters won because the Administration had no choice but to back down. With a heavy media (old and new) presence, images of handcuffed teachers, students, firefighters, construction workers, etc. being dragged from the building would have been a disaster an order of magnitude larger that what we saw.
The protesters won because Walker’s cocksure posture has now been shown to be a façade, and one that is cracked. Walker is vulnerable.
The protesters won because the media saw police and firefighters, uniformed and off duty, stand with and even join in with the protesters. It does raise the question of whether the State Department of Administration made the decision to back down or whether the capitol police simply refused to clear the protesters out of the capitol.
The protesters won because, apparently, Republican Sen. Dale Schultz has decided to vote “no” on the bill. Yeah…it could be a trick. And, yeah, the Democrats need at least two more Republicans to kill the bill. But a Republican Senator rejecting the bill is huge (if actually true—I remain cautious). A week ago, I did not expect anything but the usual monolithic Republican support for the bill. If one Senator can bail, so can others. And now that the people of Wisconsin see that they can have a voice in the process, many more citizens will feel it worthwhile to write or call their elected leaders.
The protesters won through their longevity. A week ago, I could not imagine that the protests would be sustained through the week. Hell…a week ago I though it was unlikely that the bill would be killed. Now I’m not so sure. Tonight may be a defining moment—a turnaround—in Gov. Walker’s War on Workers.
Stay tuned!
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) has made the claim that dismantling collective bargaining rights for most state workers is necessary to balance the budget:
“The bottom line is we are trying to balance our budget and there really is no room to negotiate on that because we’re broke,” the Republican governor said.
This is a lie. In fact, the public employee unions have offered fiscal concessions close to those imposed by the controversial legislation:
Top leaders of two of Wisconsin’s largest public employee unions announced they are willing to accept the financial concessions called for in Walker’s plan, but will not accept the loss of collective bargaining rights.
This isn’t enough for Walker, whose real motive is to destroy most public employee unions. (The exceptions found in his legislation are the unions that supported his election campaign.)
Even today Walker continues his lie on the Sunday morning talk show circuit:
“If we do not get these changes, and the (state) Senate Democrats don’t come back, we’re going to be forced to make up the savings in layoffs, and that to me is just unacceptable.”
In fact, Walker could have had all the budget savings necessary simply by negotiating compensation adjustments with the unions.
You know…like Gov. Christine Gregoire (D-WA) did!
This morning on NPR’s Weekend Edition, host Liane Hansen spoke with Gregoire (who is suffering laryngitis) about public employee unions and the Washington state solution:
Last fall, Gregoire was elected Chair of the National Governors Association, establishing that she has the trust and respect of her peers.
So in this forth year of the Bush Recession, when almost every state is struggling with budget issues, maybe newly elected gubernatorial nut cases like Scott Walker should study and emulate the successes of the more experienced and respected Governors in the nation.
Pro-democracy, pro-worker rallies were held in all 50 states on Saturday. People were protesting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s move to take away collective bargaining rights from public employees (at least those in unions that did not support Walker’s election campaign). More generally, people were protesting the Republican War on Workers.
Here in Washington a rally was held in Olympia where
…several thousand union workers faced off with hundreds of tea party enthusiasts in competing rallies.
King 5 has a gallery of photos of today’s event in Olympia.
The main even in Madison, Wisconsin drew, perhaps, 125,000 people—seemingly the largest protest ever in a city known for big protests. (FWIW, the Madison police provide an estimate of from 70,000 to 100,000 protesters.)
Even police officers joined the protesters in a remarkable show of solidarity:
“Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside.”
[…]“Police […] announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!’
Here is the video:
And even though the right wing lunatics will claim that all those protesters in Wisconsin were bussed in by George Soros with help from ACORN and Van Jones, there were, apparently, enough people left behind to put together an impressive number of rallies all over the U.S.
Here are some estimates from the numerous other locations that I was able to find Saturday evening using The Google:
…forced a Beacon Street shutdown, amassing in front of an empty Massachusetts State House to denounce an attempt by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to nix most collective bargaining power for public sector unions.
Here is a nice collection of photos from protests around the country.
As I mentioned previously, Walker may well get his way in Wisconsin. But he will pay dearly for it in Wisconsin.
A recent USA Today/Gallup poll shows that “61% would oppose a law in their state similar to such a proposal in Wisconsin, compared with 33% who would favor such a law.” If Republicans in other states join in on Walker’s War on Workers, the damage will certainly spread to them.
Update: As Dave points out, I missed Spokane. I’ll include an addenda. Leave a comment if you find news of another demonstration from the weekend:
Update: Fifty more photos.
Man…since moving to The Stranger, Goldy has undergone some changes:
“Perhaps if I advertised that I was looking to have sex with a dishwasher, I’d have more luck?”
And we were led to believe that the Maytag repairman was “lonely.”
In any case, drop Goldy a line if you have a portable dishwasher in “decent working condition” that you no longer need.
Newsy: Texas bill aims for guns on college campuses.
Young Turks: Nutcase Republican proposes to outlaw miscarriages. Punishable by death penalty:
Liberal Viewer: FAUX News hates trains?
Cenk: Town hall death threat against Obama.
Revolution in the Mideast:
Rahm wins.
Glenn Beck’s insane rant: Wisconsin Unions, Muslim Brotherhood, Google, all part of New World Order (via TalkingPointsMemo).
Maddow: The Kansas terrorists known as Operation Rescue.
Newsy: Justice Thomas goes silent for five years.
Greenman: What the ice cores tell us, and how deniers distort it:
Anderson Cooper advises Christine O’Donnell on Dancing With The Stars.
Young Turks: Defending the crusades, Santorum style.
The Big Week in Gay Issues:
Ann Telnaes: House GOP cuts 61 billion from discretionary spending.
Pap: Democrats should abandon the South.
O’Donnell: Glenn Beck apologizes to Jews.
ONN: Obama denies accusations he does not love his dog.
Revoltion in the Midwest:
ONN Radio News: KKK member struggles to blame blacks for his hangover.
Young Turks: Newt gets called out by student over his hypocrisy.
The White House: West Wing Week.
Sam Seder: Stupid states do stupid things.
Rep. Pelosi goes after Republicans over health care repeal for special interests. (via TalkingPointsMemo).
Cenk: Gov. Mitch Daniels’ (R-IN) double standards.
Anderson Cooper advises Christine O’Donnell on Dancing With The Stars.
ONN: al Qaeda attacks internet with photo of adorable piglet:
Maddow: Wall Street says G.O.P. budget is disastrous.
Thom with The Good, The Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!