What real risk? When the dust settles, any prosecutions and such will silently disappear under the guise of amnesty, bipartisanship, or other nonsense. The Democrats could have been just as effective just doing their jobs instead of playing hide and seek.

Maybe you missed the video of Wisconsin state senator Nick Milroy being tackled by the police for trying to enter the state Capitol? This situation is spinning out of control, and the Wisconsin state senators are doing the only thing they can to protect collective bargaining for Wisconsin state workers. The absolute last thing they are is cowards.

Palm trees are sprouting up here & there in Madison:
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...stpalmtree.jpg

There are plans to occupy the capitol building tonight.

My cousin is setting aside his agoraphobia
and bravely hitchhiking into the city this afternoon.

Go Vaughnie!

Oh, and @ Will. Nick Milroy said he and the cops both acted a little aggressively.
A "No harm no foul" kinda thing. Emotions were running high & all.

Things are getting more interesting by the hour here.

The economy benefits on both sides of public sector pension funds.

Not only are the funds invested in the national economy on the front end, there is also a huge local pay-off on the back end - when retirees spend their pension funds....spending those funds primarily in their community and state.

In Wisconsin:
Take away their pensions....and you take away the positive economic impact. The result? Jobs in the state are lost, tax revenues decline...

So the Republicans in charge of WI cut taxes for a select group of wealthy folks, and in order to pay for it, they cut wages and killed jobs for members of the middle class. Interesting. Kind of a reverse-Robin Hood thing going on.

This is the best description I've come across for the modern GOP.

Shall we call it "Hood Robin"?

I started to get a sense of this a few days ago, but here's an article on CNNMoney that takes a look at the irony behind the move to shut unions down: it mobilizes people to support the workers movement.

(Emphasis mine.)
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker energizes the labor movement - Mar. 11, 2011

Yes, this is what the GOP does best - gain support from the very people they care nothing about. They use the Bible and the 2nd amendment as giant nets to scoop up anyone not really paying attention.

To the people of Wisconsin (and America after the 2010 elections) I would say - You have my sympathy, but what did you expect after electing Republicans? If you learn only one thing about politics, learn this: The Republicans are the party of Big Business. They care nothing about the daily struggles of the 98% of us making less than $500K per year.

I wish them the best of luck with the forthcoming recall petitions. I hope that movement continues to gain momentum.

And I hope the rest of America is paying attention.

The "Wisconsin 14" Return Home:


Some of the response on Saturday, built around a farmers' tractorcade:

So, a pro-union rally in Madison, WI, over the weekend ends up being substantially bigger than any Tea Party rally---ever.

Is this getting proportionate news coverage to reflect that?

Anyone?

ThinkProgress Madison Rally Bigger Than Biggest Tea Party Rally

Wow. That didn't make it to the International press in the way the Tea Party protests did.

Then again, the press is a little occupied with covering Japan and Libya right now.

The GOP just can't handle winning, they are much like my favorite band the KINKS. Just when things seem to be looking up they shoot themselves in the foot and self destruct.

However, the Dems running and crossing state lines was extremely cowardly. Above someone stated that was all they could do to protect the people. I call BS on that. They have voices and know people at radio and television studios, they could have debated on those. I'm sure any station (except Clear Channel owned stations) would have been glad to have had a televised debate.

I have a GOP City councilman as a great friend here and he thinks that SB5 in Ohio which is similar to the Wisconsin bill, lays more problems on cities that are going bankrupt and is speaking out against his own party. As many here have.

Making it illegal to strike I understand for emergency services that being ok. For teachers and other employees, They should have the right to strike. It's becoming obvious everywhere that those who are ultra rich and own everything are trying to bust the unions. Because as the states take away the rights to strike, so to will all companies. Granted the unions served a purpose at one time to get better wages and benefits, they then became gluttonous and pac's for the Dems.

The right sells the BS through people who want their audience to believe they are just humble working men/women like them. Yet, Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, O'Reilly all have mansions and make millions (so someone explain to me, how any of these guys are suffering like the rest of middle class) I just don't get it. Just like I don't get why people buy what they say.It's obvious to anyone with half a brain they are selling nothing, snake oil maybe.

I'm not so sure about this. When you have the GOP strongarming and ramming this through the process, there isn't much time to go courting a media that may or may not be willing to give a platform of debate or protest. The process itself came undone, and so leaving the state became a last-ditch effort to create a stall to what they viewed as an undemocratic process.

Is this really the case? Is there evidence of this or a precedent?

Would you say unions have become more gluttonous or less gluttonous than corporate management? Public management?

There is a new GOP sponsored House Bill that says (in part) that if an able-bodied worker goes on strike, that worker's family members (spouse, kids, dependents) would be ineligible for food stamps.

Why do working class people vote for a party that openly hates them?

Unlike the federal Congress where the minority party can filibuster or use other rules to require super-majorities for passage of legislation, most state legislatures provide little in the way of rights for the minority party.

And, Lincoln, when he was a state senator, reportedly was one of the first to use the tactic the Democrats used in Wisconsin to prevent the legislature from voting on a particular bill.

In Wisconsin, a state judge has issued a temporary hold on the legislation that effectively busts the public sector unions, alleging that the Republicans may have acted illegally in passing the law by violating the state open meeting law.

The recent trend by Republican governors and legislators to bust the public sector unions wont carry over to the private sector. Federal law protects the rights of workers in private companies to unionize.

As to unions being PACs for the Democrats, perhaps that is because the Democrats are generally more representative of the rights of the working class.

And, still corporate PACs outspend union PACs by about 3:1.

---------- Post added at 11:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:03 PM ----------

Since the Republicans in Congress cant directly bust private sector unions, they found another cheap tactic.

It wont see the light of day, but it still says alot about their priorities.

if PAC's are protected under the First Amendment, conservatives can't bitch about union donations.

I mean, they WILL bitch, but they shouldn't

They not only bitch, they spread misinformation (outright lies) on a regular basis spreading bullshit that Union members are forced to contribute to their union PAC, despite the fact that the law says union PAC contributions are voluntary.

Or the implication that every union contributes millions to campaigns. There may be millions donated in total, but the breakdown of contributions per union is a pittance compared to corporate donations

Not satisfied with taking away the collective bargaining rights from public workers, the republicans now want to make public the emails of state employees who spoke out publicly against the law:

My Worlds Collide | Talking Points Memo

dippin,

Were the emails sent from publicly owned email accounts?

In this case, yes (university of wisconsin emails). Of course, whether the Republican party will be able to obtain these emails is a legal matter and by itself constitute no wrong doing. On the balance will be whether public records laws trump FERPA, academic freedom and other laws (since his email likely contains communications with students, communications about hiring decisions and so on). But that is beside the point (and the professor himself has already stated that he has long used a private email account in order to abide by the University of Wisconsin's own policies). That is, the issue is less whether the Republican party CAN do this, but more that it is willing to do so.

The fact that the Republican party's legal team has decided to do this over a blog post is a clear indication that it will try any possible legal maneuvers to intimidate any potential opposition.

I would mention wikileaks, but I won't.

Well, Mr. Ironic, I'm not sure you'd want to compare Wikileaks to the Republicans.

Just like how I would mention Joseph McCarthy but probably shouldn't.

I wouldn't be comparing Wikileaks to the Republicans. I would be comparing your kinsmen's impending righteous indignation over this with their Wikileaks soliloquies on "the people have a right to know what their public officials are doing."

But I won't.

Oh, I get that. But why make this about them when the issue is about the Republicans and members of public unions? The motives of Wikileaks vs. the motives of the Republicans require two different sets of considerations and have two different sets of implications and consequences.

Or is this just about my "kinsmen" (whatever that means)?

What is the relationship between someone publishing leaked emails about public policy where the "leaker" has been arrested and requesting the emails of a professor who is not otherwise related to policy making in an attempt to intimidate opposition?

How is the wikileaks in any way related to this?

Was wikileaks created in order to intimidate opposition to a certain policy?

Wikileaks has nothing to do with the use of FOIA and related laws, and the person who leaked those documents is arrested under pretty severe conditions. In fact, FOIA and related laws pretty explicitly require that public interest be greater than privacy and confidentiality concerns. The worst that the professor may have committed here is violating University of Wisconsin terms of use for their email system, so it is not a legitimate concern with public interest that motivates this. It is about maybe finding some embarrassing email in this fishing expedition and using it as a way to intimidate other people who might use that radical tool of writing blog posts.

This was a very weak attempt at a to quoque fallacy. There is no contradiction between supporting FOIA and related "right to know" laws (such as defending the publishing of now publicly available information without endorsing the leakers themselves) or demanding more government transparency and recognizing when these laws are being abused in an attempt to silence opposition. There is no real public interest in reading these professor's emails.

The professor in question has a pretty thorough explanation of why he thinks the request is problematic (Abusing Open Records to Attack Academic Freedom | Scholar as Citizen). He seems reasonable to me and it seems like the decision to comply is out of his hands. The Wisconsin Republican Party's response is classic: they accused him of attempting to intimidate them. Apparently, the big old meany history professor wrote a big old mean blog full of mean old context and the Republican Party got intimidated.

Though I guess I'm not surprised that a hyperpartisan political organization would be intimidated by the prospect of the rational weighing of facts.

Yeah, I know. It's never the same.

Maybe because they aren't, and no sarcastic one liners will make them the same?

Of course, if this is what passes for an attempt to discuss an issue, might as well limit yourself to sarcastic one liners and save us time.

Repeating, again, that the issue is not the request itself, but the intention behind it. McCarthy also used a perfectly legal tool, the subpoena, in his witch hunts.

Will do. Have a lovely weekend.

There were requests to the governor to release the contents of his emails related to this issue. This professor works for the taxpayers and used his employer's email system to send these emails so he has little or no expectation of privacy with them. If there's issues of student privacy, etc, then let the court resolve the conflicts with those laws and exclude what isn't required to be released.

Bottom line, by refusing to release the emails, he's raising the question of what he's trying to hide.

Why do you think he's refused to turn them over? I'm pretty sure he hasn't refused to turn them over.

If he has turned the emails over then the issue is closed, but my understanding of what I've read is that they were not turned over yet.

Perhaps it's not his decision?

First of all, I would imagine that the difference between the governor and a university professor who happens to be employed at a public university would be self evident.

Second, of course, is that the fact that the Republican party CAN request this is not in dispute. Such thing is so trivial as to be beyond dispute.

Third, this whole "what he is trying to hide" is such bullshit that it is hard to take seriously. It is ironic that such a point was raised in an anonymous internet forum. But in any case, it is not his place to disclose those emails, for reasons that I have already mentioned here. Only the legal department of the university can do so, as his emails likely involve communications with students and about students (and as such are confidential per FERPA), communications about tenure, hiring and promotion decisions within the university (and as such are protected by numerous other privacy laws) and a whole sort of other university business that may or may not be protected by corresponding privacy laws.


Finally, I think it is funny how the issue that this is clearly an intimidation attempt by the republican party is completely ignored. If people had bothered to read what has actually been posted here, they would have found out that the professor has long kept a separate email for personal business, and as such it is highly unlikely that there would be anything "embarrassing" to reveal (and if there was, the worst they would be able to find is a breach of the terms of use of University of Wisconsin emails). Of course, that is his word that it is so, but my experience in most universities is that most professors keep personal emails for anything more contentious, not because of fear of FOIA and so on action, but because IT departments are generally staffed by students and so on, with full access to databases and the like. The principle of the thing is the abhorrent part. That the publishing of a blog post about the situation would lead to something like this is ridiculous. That the usual partisans have to resort to the whole "if he is innocent he should make his emails public" is unsurprising.

It's the equivalent of "if you have nothing to hide at the airport, you should be happy to have a full body search," yet the conservatives on this board find that to be a huge viation of privacy

there's a new and improved little dust-up undertaken by those stalwarts of the wisconsin gop against william cronon. dippin alluded to it above. but i just saw cronon's blog entry from 15 march---which is what sent the wisconsin gop into a snit---and it's really quite interesting. the premise is that as much as the prank call to walker of a few weeks ago revealed about the role of those billionaire reactionary oligarchs the koch brothers, cronon just couldn't quite believe that all this legislative activity was organized by them alone. so he began to dig around and produced this interesting little x-ray of the contemporary rightwing landscape.

Who’s Really Behind Recent Republican Legislation in Wisconsin and Elsewhere? (Hint: It Didn’t Start Here) | Scholar as Citizen

i'll simply post the link because the entry is sourced extensively with hotlinks and is well worth the time to read and expand that way.

the central semi-visible institutional player in this that's not been public to now really is the American Legislative Exchange Council. reading about these reactionary assholes is a salutary exercise. enjoy.

now, as i think has been discussed in passing above already, the wisconsin gop wants to foia cronon's emails:

Wis. GOP FOIAs Emails of State University Prof Critical Of Gov. Walker | TPMDC

here's cronon's response:

Abusing Open Records to Attack Academic Freedom | Scholar as Citizen

i continue to think that the republicans have significantly overplayed their hand in these efforts to indulge good old fashioned right-wing style union busting and have galvanized a quite significant population against them and in all likelihood have done themselves more damage than they know.

i think there was a discussion about this earlier in the thread, now that i think about it---but the links here are interesting. cronon's response is from thursday (the 24th).

It's a vast right-wing conspiracy. :)

Actually, I just watched Micheal Moore's speech, and agree with him that "America Is Not Broke". They just want to make you think it is to get the workers to fight among themselves and try to cut things.

Where if we had just repealed the Bush tax cuts, and raised investment gains, brought back the estate tax, and reduced the military by 25% we wouldn't have a problem.

krugman's editorial on the mc-carthyite sleaze machine that the republican party has become:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/op...28krugman.html