For Republicans to support this blatant assault on workers' rights is outrageous. But the fact is that they passed it through a procedural loophole without Senate Democrats present is unconscionable.
Late Wednesday night, Republicans in Wisconsin's State Senate used the nuclear option to ram through a controversial bill attacking working families. This nuclear option detonated with a resounding thud - you could actually here the air release from progressives lungs when the news spewed forth regarding the latest choke and puke politics of Wisconsin's radical tea.
Republicans gamed the rules and did this under the cover of night.
Scott Walker and the Republicans’ ideological war on the middle class and working families is now indisputable, and their willingness to shred 50 years of labor peace, bipartisanship, and Wisconsin’s democratic process to pass a bill that 74% of Wisconsinites oppose is beyond reprehensible and possibly illegal.
Walker and the GOP were lying this whole time - this attack on workers’ rights never had anything to do with fixing the state’s budget.
Working families in Wisconsin are fighting back by mounting recall campaigns against Republican State Senators who just took an axe to the middle class.
Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans have been trying to take away workers’ rights for almost a month. They would have succeeded sooner were it not for the courageous actions of workers in the streets of Wisconsin...and Senate Democrats, who left the state to prevent any vote.
Wisconsin law requires all government meetings to be conducted publicly and with advance notice except under very limited circumstances. According to a guide to Wisconsin’s open meetings law prepared by the state’s Republican attorney general:
The provision in Wis. Stat. § 19.84(3) requires that every public notice of a meeting be given at least twenty-four hours in advance of the meeting, unless “for good cause” such notice is “impossible or impractical.” If “good cause” exists, the notice should be given as soon as possible and must be given at least two hours in advance of the meeting. … If there is any doubt whether “good cause” exists, the governmental body should provide the full twenty-four-hour notice. [...]Yet, when state Rep. Peter Barca (D) informed his colleagues of this legal requirement during tonight’s conference committee, the committee’s Republican majority ignored his protests and voted to approve the bill while Barca was still explaining why their actions were illegal. Watch it here at NFTOS:
Wis. Stat. § 19.97(3) provides that a court may void any action taken at a meeting held in violation of the open meetings law if the court finds that the interest in enforcing the law outweighs any interest in maintaining the validity of the action.
A few GOP-aligned outlets are now trying to claim that the law was not violated because the conference committee was announced two hours in advance. Yet there is no evidence whatsoever that it would have been “impossible or impractical” to give the full day’s notice required by law. In other words, Barca’s arguments are clearly consistent with the attorney general’s understanding of the law, and the most important open question is whether the courts will exercise their authority to “void any action taken at a meeting held in violation of the open meetings law” and invalidate this bill.
Republicans have no shame even if it means political suicide. This set of republicans have no scruples or morals. It was never about the budget.
If it wasn’t clear before, it should be by now that this was never about a budget gap. It should be fairly obvious that it was about union busting, but at this point, it seems that there’s likely even more to it. We have too realize that Walker and Wisconsin are not the whole story, but instead just a part of the big picture.
The tea bags are hoping that other swing states like OH, FL, VA, NC, IN, and CO, follow Walkers plan, especially because these states have very few unionized workers, if any. By the time the 2012 elections come around, Scott Walker will be pretty much irrelevant. He’ll probably be a hero at the Republican convention, but he’ll have no national prospective. Walkers visions of being bonzo jr ( Pres Ronald Reagan) where probably lost many weeks ago. Here is proof:
For weeks, Wisconsin Republicans have been insisting that the anti-union bill they abruptly passed through the state Senate last night has nothing to do with busting unions or politics, but is all about doing what is necessary to balance the state’s budget. But as we have reported, Wisconsin state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) admitted yesterday that he sees an electoral payoff, telling Fox News that by breaking the state’s public employee unions, the GOP can make it “much more difficult” for President Obama to win Wisconsin in 2012. On Fox & Friends this morning, his fellow Republican state Sen. Randy Hopper also tipped his hand a bit, saying the White House must be behind in the pro-union protests because everyone knows this is about 2012:
Quoting Michael Moore on Rachael Maddow:
"Wisconsin's not broke," he said. "America isn't broke. The money's just not in the people's hands. It's in the hands of the rich, the people who committed these crimes and got away with it." He held up a pair of handcuffs and looked at the camera.Quoting NFTOS Editor-in Chief Roger West:
"I'd like anybody who works on Wall Street, anybody who works for the banks, just take a look at this," he said. "This is what's coming. This is what's coming for you. Because the people are going to demand justice, they're going to demand that your ass is in jail."
"the right has several fronts going at once and the Left simply reacts to each firefight as they erupt. There are the culture wars (predominantly against women and gays), the corporate antagonists, the unions, and the entitlement forays. They manufacture tales about our founding fathers and they push the myths and superstitions that cradle modern religions and they lie, openly and boldly, about what constitutes a patriot.Let’s stand with the middle class readers and send a strong message - not one of us can back down in the face of Republican attacks, period!
The math is incredibly slippery in the hands of radical republicans. The fact that Obama is so terminally prone to ‘compromise’ weakens us all. In the same way that teachers in this country have been so demoralized by critics, progressives have been punked by a president and a good portion of the democratic party, leaving them stunned and gunning for retribution but on the defensive.
The plutocracy has established a beach head. Soon they will be at our doors and we will be the new slumdogs."
NFTOS
