There are a couple of things happening this weekend that you might consider being part of.

• First, there will be a bunch of legislative town hall meetings in communities all over the state tomorrow. This is a chance to offer your state Senator or Representatives some advice, criticism, and feedback. The full schedule for tomorrow and other dates is here.
• National Radical Women invite you to celebrate 100 years of International Women’s Day and female-led uprisings, strikes and protests from 1911 to 2011. There will be a brunch at 1:30 and a main event at 3:00. (Door donation $2.00, Brunch donation $9.00). The event is at New Freeway Hall, 5018 Rainier Ave. S. Seattle. (More information.)
• There is a Project AWARE underwater clean-up of Golden Gardens Park and Shilshole Marina, Saturday, March 12, 2011, 8am – 2pm.

Are there others? Leave a comment.

The Wisconsin Republicans have rammed through a bill that strips collective bargaining rights from public employees. The new legislation only allows collective bargaining for wage increases up to the rate of inflation. In other words, public employees will only be allowed to bargain over how much of a pay cut they will take each year.

Isn’t that special.

There are questions about the legality of the conference committee meeting. The brief meeting itself is well worth watching:

A complaint has been filed, which would be unlikely to void the law, but give another cause, and one based on violations of the law, for the campaigns to recall G.O.P. Senators.

And there are also questions about the constitutionality of the legislation. Regardless of the legal challenges, the legislation will probably become, and stay, law. At least it will until Wisconsin no longer has a Teabagger for a Governor with a G.O.P. controlled Senate and Assembly.

Following the Senate vote last night, the cowardly Republicans were whisked away in a semi-commandeered Madison Metro bus, while protesters surrounding the bus screaming, “Shame!” and “Cowards!”:

Recall campaigns are underway for six the eight Republican Senators currently recallable. The first phase is a 60 day signature collection period that has been going remarkably well—roughly 15 percent of the needed signatures had been collected by last weekend.

Greg Sargent has an early release of polls conducted by SurveyUSA in the eight districts:

When asked if they would vote for Hopper or someone else if a recall election were held right now, 54 percent said they’d vote for someone else, versus only 43 percent they’d vote for Hopper.

In Kapanke’s district, the numbers were even worse: 57 percent said they’d vote for someone else, versus only 41 percent who said they’d vote for Kapanke.

It gets even more interesting. The poll was taken yesterday, before last night’s events, and fifty-six percent of voters in Kapanke’s district, and 54% of voters in Hopper’s district, said if their Senator voted for Walker’s plan, it would make them more likely to vote for someone else.

Finally, by all measures, the fundraising for the recall campaigns has been nothing short of astonishing:

As of this morning, according to Ben Smith, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America had raised $750,000. As of this afternoon, MoveOn’s ActBlue page for the recall reports around $860,000 of donations from around 27,000 people; the Daily Kos page reports around $340,000 from around 12,500.

As Goldy pointed out, all it takes is money.

At least I think this is live:

Rob McKenna
1125 Washington Street SE
PO Box 40100
Olympia, WA 98504-0100

Dear Rob,

You must be as excited as I am with Newt Gingrich’s conference call today.

Newt Gingrich told supporters on a conference call “we are leaning toward a yes” on a presidential run, CNN has learned.
[…]

Also interesting: Gingrich expects former Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA) to be a co-chair “once we put the campaign together.”

Brilliant…adding Zell Miller to the campaign is just the ticket to refocus the press on something besides Newt’s messy marriages and adultery in the service of his country. It’ll inject some crazy-ass excitement into Newt’s campaign.

Gingrich’s bold bipartisan move is a helpful precedence for your forthcoming gubernatorial campaign. You, too, can rise above partisanship while injecting some crazy-ass excitement into your own campaign.

May I suggest making Lou Guzzo your campaign chair?

Lou did it for Dixy Lee Ray; he can do it for you. He has lots of really good ideas.

Lou will know how to keep people from thinking too much about your anti-labor agenda and your lawsuit to strip affordable health insurance from millions.

And it’ll be just plain fun…so think about it.

Yours verily,

Darryl
Horsesass.org

Here is what we learn about today’s arrest of a suspect in the MLK-day bombing from the Seattle Times (my emphasis):

An FBI source in Washington, D.C., said one man was arrested east of Spokane. Agents, including a bomb expert from Quantico, Va., were preparing to search a house where others associated with the suspect were living, the source said.

The suspects are apparently affiliated with white supremacists.

Interesting…these two paragraphs imply that there was something about today’s arrest—perhaps a statement from that FBI source—that linked the suspect up with a white supremacist group.

I wanted to know more about the evidence for the connection besides simple geographic proximity. And what about the other of the “suspects.” Only one person was mentioned as being arrested.

So I searched other media sources for more details. Here is what I find in the AP account (my emphasis):

KHQ-TV of Spokane reported that federal and local law enforcement officers had surrounded a home near Colville, Wash., about 80 miles northwest of Spokane. Two T-shirts found inside the bomb were tied to that rural area.

Additional details were not immediately available.

The FBI has said nothing about possible suspects, but public opinion from the beginning focused on some of the white supremacist groups that have brought notoriety to the region in the past three decades. The area once served as headquarters for Richard Butler’s Aryan Nations, whose members were lured by the small number of minorities.

The AP piece implies that the affiliation with white supremacist is purely conjecture based on geographic proximity to such groups.

A few minutes after that the same Seattle Times article was edited and lengthened. Here is the revised version of the excerpt from above (my emphasis):

An FBI source in Washington, D.C., said one man was arrested Wednesday outside a home near Colville, Stevens County. Agents, including a bomb expert from Quantico, Va., were preparing to search a house where others associated with the suspect were living, the source said.

The suspect is believed to be affiliated with white supremacists, the source said.

Look at all that editing of the first paragraph. And now there is only one suspect believed affiliated with white supremacists and the FBI source in Washington made the claim about affiliation. (Here is a before and after image.)

Fascinating…I’ve not come across an article in the MSM being live edited to such an extent. But now I won’t feel quite so bad when I make small corrections to my posts on Horsesass. And maybe I don’t need to footnote my changes, strike-through my errors, or even fess up after making correctinos. Hell…I can just compose live.

The Seattle Times has set the new standard.

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.

President Obama is selecting current Commerce Secretary and former Washington state Governor Gary Locke to be the next Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China:

The official says that “as a Pacific Rim governor and Commerce Secretary he helped lead an historic increase in trade with China. As Commerce Secretary, Locke has delivered on the president’s goal of doubling U.S. exports in the next five years (up 17 percent in 2010), led the push for patent and export control reforms and presided over a Census count that came in 25 percent under budget – returning more than $2 billion to the Treasury.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is frustrated over the political standoff over his legislation to strip away collective bargaining from most public employees.

Walker’s frustration comes, in part, from recent polls showing the Wisconsin citizenry siding with public employees. The most recent poll comes from the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute:

Bargaining rights: […] Exactly half of the respondents (50 percent) say that public employees are willing to compromise on pensions and benefits but limiting bargaining rights does nothing to balance the state’s budget situation and is really just an attempt to get rid of public employee unions. Forty-three percent say the proposed changes are a necessary reform because they will give local governments greater flexibility to control their budgets over several years.
[…]

Walker: Slightly more than half (53 percent) of the respondents have a somewhat or strongly unfavorable opinion of Walker while 43 percent have a somewhat or strongly favorable opinion of him. In a November WPRI poll shortly after Walker was elected, a slightly higher percentage (45 percent) had a somewhat or strongly favorable opinion of him while 35 percent had a somewhat or strongly unfavorable opinion of him and 20 percent either didn’t know or had never heard of him.

Almost two-thirds of respondents (65 percent) say he should compromise with Democrats and public employee unions while one-third (33 percent) say he should stand strong no matter how long protests last.

Other bad news for Walker is the relatively pro-worker sentiment expressed by a majority of those polled:

Laying off State workers: Two thirds (66 percent) are somewhat or strongly opposed while 30 percent are somewhat or strongly in favor. […]

Public employee unions: In the most recent poll, almost six out of ten respondents (59 percent) had a somewhat or strongly favorable opinion of public employee unions. Thirty-four percent had a somewhat or strongly unfavorable opinion.

Little wonder that Walker is frustrated. He thought he could cram his extremist anti-worker legislation through the legislative process without anyone really noticing. Instead, his actions have placed him in the ideological spotlight. The recent polls tell us that Wisconsinites don’t like what they see.

Walker held a press conference today, and tried to take his frustration out on Mark Miller (D), the Senate Minority Leader and de facto leader of the self-exiled Senators:

[…] Walker wielded Sunday night’s report from the Wall Street Journal, which reported Miller as saying the Dems would come back — and which Miller and the Dems quickly distanced themselves from — as evidence that Miller had misled people.
[…]

On multiple occasions, Walker said that Miller was in effect following the word of labor union leaders — and he imagined that there might have been some sort of secret phone calls.

Later in the conference, Walker said that Miller “appears to be listening more to the labor union bosses in Washington than he does to members of his own caucus.” He again maintained that Miller had told the Wall Street Journal that he would come home, “and then after he got the phone call from labor unions in Washington or whatever it was,” had changed his tune.

Wait…he “imagines” a “secret phone call?” From out of state? Calling the shots?

That’s rich stuff, coming from a guy who actually took a phone call from out-of-state billionaire David Koch! At least, that’s who Walker thought he was talking to on the phone.

Yes…this is classic Wingnut projection: Whatever we actually do, we will accuse the Democrats of doing and hope nobody notices.

Walker also later said: “I’m not sure, I can only speculate. But I have to assume that some of those labor leaders who have invested millions and millions into this state got on the phone with Sen. Miller and told him, you cannot budge.”

See what I mean?

This is almost sad. Via The Guardian:

For America’s beleaguered liberals, Monday’s New York Times reports what sounds like a dream come true: Fox News is considering parting company with Glenn Beck, the rococo conspiracy theorist who inspires those on the swivel-eyed right and infuriates anyone to their left.

Wait a minute…Beck infuriates the left?!? While it may be true that some years ago Glenn Beck was a low-level chronic irritant who, on occasion, rose to the level of infuriating—like when he claimed with a straight fact that “Barack Obama has a deep-seated hatred of white people”—well…not so much lately. Seriously…has Glenn gotten under your skin lately? Or just made you snicker when you saw something about him on Comedy Central? These days Glenn Beck has taken on new importance as a crazy-rich vein of blogger’s gold.

Remember in late 2008 how many comedians lamented the departure of George W. Bush with no President McCain in the stars? Comedians saw a McCain/Palin administration as a mother lode of comic, freaking, gold, perhaps as rich as Bush/Cheney. Obama/Biden? Eh…not so much. A comic order of magnitude separates Biden shooting off his mouth from Dick Cheney shooting his friend in the face….

In the same way, all of us dirty hippie, commie-pinko, gun-fearin’, Bill Ayres-palling, tax-loving, abortion-eating, leftist bloggers now are alarmed by the demise of the wackiest clown in FAUX News’ impressive line-up of wacky clowns. You see, even on the slowest of news days, even on days when the pressures of blogging induced cognitive constipation, even when the day’s news was so terrible it killed the joy of writing, we could always look up the crazy things Glenn Beck did or said that day for a little blogging fodder with comic relief.

Alas, the comics’ fears in 2008 never materialized. The election of a black man with a funny sounding name catalyzed a modest-sized assemblage of right-wingers to jump off the deep end into a cesspool of insanity that keeps comedians well stocked with material.

So maybe my fears are unfounded; Glenn Beck will not abandon us left wing Bloggers. He’s wealthy. He’s driven. He has a deep-seated hatred of not being loved by white people. I think we can anticipate bigger and crazier crazy.

Cenk: Anti-gay pastor caught maturating near a playground.

Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.

Maddow: Anti-gay marriage language slipped into Ohio “budget” bill.

Pres. Obama toasts Gov. Gregoire and the whole pack of Gubernators:

Defense of Marriage Act: That’s gay.

Revolution in the MiddleEast:

• Ann Telnaes: Gaddafi says Libyans will die to protect him.
• Cenk and Anna: Sheen or Gaddafi
• AC: Gaddafi guns down unarmed protesters in the streets

Young Turks: Anti-Muslim bill in TN.

Drug Czar Kerlikowske on pot legalization and the Seattle Times (via Slog).

Jon: The Pardon of the Christ (via TalkingPointsMemo).

Thom: “How far will you birthers go to keep a black person from being president?”

FAUX News “facts”:

• Liberal Viewer: FAUX News wants examples of bias?!?
• Cenk: FAUX News lies.
• FAUX News survives a tour of duty in Wisconsin (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Tina DupeyFAUX News bias on WI protests.
• Young Turks: Rep. Weiner pwns FAUX News actress Megyn Kelly.
• FAUX News’ 32 second segment on Republican voter fraud (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Tweety: “You know who’s un-American! Huckabee & Newt & the rest of yhe (FAUX) goon squad.”

Young Turks: Huckabee’s anti-Obama quasi-Birfer comment.

Sam Seder: George Will takes the Crazy Train to Glenn Becksville.

Revolution in the Middle West:

• GritTV: Rep. Cory Mason: Beating Walker’s Budget.
• Thom: What Republicans have learned from Wisconsin.
• Prank call to Walker pisses off Hitler (via TalkingPointsMemo):
• Pap: Koch brothers’ fascism on the move.
• Sam Seder: The Koch brothers, Scott Walker and garlic covered freedom dildos.
• Thom: Latest from the trenches in Madison.
• Jon on The Crisis in Dairyland (via Slog).
• GritTV: Budgeting badly in Wisconsin.
• Young Turks: Bill-O, Beck, Rush love their union.
• Ed is fired up about Walker’s budget.
• Thom: Wisconsin Democrats are fighting back.
• Sam Seder: The plutocracy and what Scott Walker really wants from Wisconsin State workers
• Thom: New ad campaign for Wisconsin.
• Tina Dupey interviews Ian Murphy, AKA ‘David Koch’.
• Maddow: WI Representative Nick Milroy wrestled to ground by police trying to enter his office
• WI Dem: G.O.P. are creating a Police state in WI (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH): “Hitler didn’t want unions! Stalin didn’t want unions!”
• Democracy Now: The Indiana 35.

Stephen: New Country for Old Men (via OneGoodMove).

Young Turks: Sen. Hatch and the “Federal Government Dumbass Program”.

Rep: Jay Inslee (D-WA-01) on Boeing tanker deal:

White House: Behind the Scenes at “The Motown Sound”.

Federal Budget Battle:

• Maddow: G.O.P. votes for $40B in tax breaks for Big Oil.
• Newsy: Lawmakers kick the can 2 weeks down the road.
• GritTV: Fighting over crumbs left from military spending.
• Maddow: G.O.P. votes to cut IRS Collections from Rich .
• Cenk with Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA-07) on G.O.P. cut, cut, cut agenda.

Lawrence O’Donnell: How Mike Huckabee smears Mitt Romney.

Mark Fiore: Little Suzie Newsykins with “Cut and Run”.

Maddow: Newt’s fundraising scam.

EMILY’s List Senators fighting the G.O.P. war on women.

Young Turks: New Polls show U.S. liberal on taxes, budget cuts, bargaining rights.

Lawrence O’Donnell dismisses Huckabee’s ‘Boy Scout’ talk as culturally detached ‘lying’.

Ann Telnaes: Republican Trojan horse.

Young Turks: Strictest abortion law in U.S. coming to South “Coat Hanger” Dakota.

White House: West Wing Week.

Haters Have Free Speech Too:

• BBC: Supreme Court rules in favor of Westboro Baptist “Church.”
• Newsy: Hate speech is still free speech.
• Young Turks: Westboro Baptist “Church” Supreme Court decision.

Young Turks: 9-week year old fetus to testify.

Thom: Is there a civil war coming in the GOP?

The story of Citizens United v. FEC:

Maddow: Obama to G.O.P. governors, “Put-up or shut-up!

Cenk fires back at Rush.

Newsy’s hat trick in crazy: Teabagger compares Boehner to Charlie Sheen.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

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….