Good news for progressives: Kloppenburg win and Beck demise

In a preview of the 2012 election, JoAnne Kloppenburg was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday over the incumbent in a backlash to the union-busting attempt by teabagger Governor Scott Walker.

In a usually slow March election, voter turnout was very high, and Kloppenburg unseated incumbent David Prosser, a Walker pal who made it very clear how he will vote when the hastily passed union busting bill makes its way to the court.

The election was a clear referendum on the union busting efforts by Republicans in the Midwest states, and it was the first election since last November; allowing people to turn protest into action.

Going into the race after the primary election in February, incumbent David Prosser was the hands on favorite, having pulled in 55 percent of the vote over Kloppenburg, his second highest leading opponent, who received just 25 percent of the vote. After Walker’s union-busting legislation that would kill collective bargaining rights for state workers, the race became a focus for the energized Democratic base. However, A recount is expected.

The Wisconsin State Journal is reporting that the high voter turnout, double for a normal March election, has been a boon for the recall attempt of eight Republican Senators. The Journal is reporting that recall leaders got plenty of signatures outside of polling places on Tuesday, so much so that they have enough signatures to put them over the top for a second Republican recall.

The close vote indicates that not all eight will be successful, but it can change the makeup of the body, as well as keep the energy going until next year’s election. A recall of two Michigan Senators for a tax vote in 1983 gave Republicans control of the Senate they have never lost, despite more people voting for Democratic Senators in 2006 than Republicans.

I am not normally a fan of recalls for a single vote, but when that vote required you violate the law, sneak in and out of the Capitol under armed guard to make the vote and lock people out of their Capitol to do it then I would make an exception.

There is also recall attempt against a couple of the heroic Wisconsin 14 Democratic Senators who left the Capitol to deny a quorum, but it does not appear to be much of a threat. In fact, the recall against Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, has only two signatures so far; the organizer and his wife, and the 60-day window to gather signatures runs out April 25.

I can’t wait for next year’s election, and we only need to limit the damage Republicans can do in the next 16 months.

Yesterday saw even more good news. Faux “news” madman Glenn Beck announced he leaving his show; a victim of falling ratings and disgusted advertisers. It’s unclear if it is voluntary.

The ratings for the first quarter of 2011 showed Beck's show had lost close to a third of its audience, especially among advertiser-prized viewers ages 25 to 54, where he was down almost 40 percent. But, it was the advertisers that really did him in, and they were leaving in droves because they did not want to be associated with his crazy end-of-world conspiracy theories and racist rants.

I expect his ratings to make a surge for next couple of days and maybe weeks because people want to see what conspiracy theory he whips up and who he blames for this.

The right has to stoop to imposters to try and paint unions as violent

The right is spinning out of control trying to paint your neighbors, friends and relatives as “union thugs” simply because they are standing up for their civil right of collective bargaining.

The massive crowds protesting the right's assault on public sector unions have been peaceful, and it is driving the right crazy that no one is buying their lie that they are violent. The leading rightwing blog in Michigan is going berserk trying to portray firefighters, police officers and teachers as “animals. In fact, a few Michigan teabaggers have been at the protests trying to provoke a confrontation so they can get it on tap to try and make the claim that they are violent. Kind of like what went on from the regime in Egypt.

It has been driving them crazy that they have not been able to elicit a violent response, so now they are trying to plant imposters to incite a riot. Extremist Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin said he considered planting some “troublemakers” into the huge crowd of pro-worker protestors that have flooded into Madison. The only thing that stopped him was that he was afraid it might force him to bow to the majority of people who support collective bargaining rights, not that it would endanger people.

But Walker and teabagger Republican Grand Traverse County Commissioner Jason Gillman are not the only Republicans who feel that way.

Republican Johnson County, Indiana deputy prosecutor Carlos Lam resigned last week after the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism traced an e-mail he sent to Walker urging him to fake an attack to make it look like the pro-union protested had did it to in order for Walker to gain sympathy.

The e-mail was one of the tens of thousands of e-mails released in an open-records settlement the Walker administration reached with a local paper and the Associated Press after Walker lied and said he had thousands of emails supporting his union busting attempt.

“I've been involved in GOP politics here in Indiana for 18 years, and I think that the situation in WI presents a good opportunity for what's called a "false flag" operation,” Lam wrote. “ If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions' cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the public unions.”

When confronted with the evidence, Lam initially lied and said he had not sent the e-mail, claiming that he had been the victim of identity theft before he confessed.

This is not the first Indiana Republican thug to lose his job for advocating violence against peaceful, working class citizens. Indiana Deputy Attorney General Jeff Cox lost his job after tweeting that the protesters should be dealt with using “live ammunition,” following that up with “against thugs physically threatening legally-elected state legislators & governor? You’re damn right I advocate deadly force.”

Tell me again who the thugs are?

Some idiot over at the Detroit News even went so far as to compare working people that are our friends, neighbors and family with the murderous, Detroit prohibition-era Purple Gang because they support those who support them. If you want to know why newspapers are barely surviving, you just need to know that this guy is what passes as an editor today.

This idiot named Jeffrey Hadden is comparing a legal boycott with murder and vandalism.

Please.

Rightwing Republican think tank continues to use FOIA for intimidation

You have to wonder if it's a case of the chicken or the egg with the use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the rightwing Republican think tank “Mackinac Center for Public Policy to intimidate and to dig up dirt on opponents.

The partisan Republican think tank, financed by right-wingers like the rightwing billionaire Koch Brothers, submitted a FOIA request last week to the labor studies departments at Wayne State University, Michigan State University and the University of Michigan aimed to intimidate pro-labor dissenters and stifle academic freedom.

The FOIA request is seeking emails in which the terms "Scott Walker," "Wisconsin," "Madison" or "Maddow" are being used. This is very similar to the Howell Public Schools infamous E-mail case that began four years ago, and, in fact, it has some of the same players.

In May of 2007 anti-union activist Chet Zarko, who passed away last summer, filed a massive FOIA request with the help of teabagger and former Howell School Board member Wendy Day seeking union emails in a fishing expedition to embarrass the Howell Education Association that were in tough contract negotiations with the school district. It was never determined who was paying Zarko, and he denied anyone was. But it was the Mackinac Center that ended up bankrolling his long court fight.

The district released some emails, but an injunction was issued stopping Zarko from receive any more of the 5,500 emails. However, he published the ones that put the union president in a bad light.

In January of 2010 the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the emails sent and received on Howell Public School computers between union members were not public record, and they concluded that under the FOIA statute the individual teacher’s personal emails were not rendered public records solely because they were captured in the email system’s digital memory. The three-Judge panel said it was a question that must be resolved by the Legislature.

After the death of Zarko, the Mackinac Center continued with the case, but the Michigan Supreme Court has refused to take up the case.

It begs the question if Zarko was being paid by the Mackinac Center, or if the Mackinac Center copied Zarko to use the FOIA as an intimidation tactic against teachers with their bottomless money pit. There is no reason they should get any of the emails based on this case.

It’s ironic that MSNBC host and Rhodes Scholar Rachel Maddow is a target of the rightwing think tank. The Koch Brothers bankrolled the union busting attempt in Wisconsin, and Maddow exposed the fact that they are also bankrolling the stealth union busting attempts in Michigan.

The Koch brothers are financing the Mackinac Center, and it was the Mackinac Center that basically wrote the anti-democratic and anti-union emergency financial managers (EFM) package of bills pushed and signed into law earlier this month by Gov. Rick Snyder, also a former wealthy CEO.

It’s well past the time Mackinac Center loses its non-partisan and nonprofit status so we can see who is funding them. They are not nonpartisan.

Rightwing Koch brothers also bankrolling union busting crusade in Michigan

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s plan to bust public sector unions and replace local control with centralized power in Lansing with this army of unelected and all-powerful emergency financial managers (EFM) has ties to the same union busting effort in Wisconsin.

Mother Jones magazine did a piece on the EFM bills Snyder signed into law earlier this month that gives an EFM, after just two days of training, the power to void union contracts, run a school district, fire the elected boards and councils, call for millage elections, disincorporate or dissolve the municipal government and kill collective bargaining.

Last month Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was pranked when he thought he was talking to conservative billionaire David Koch, one of the Koch brothers who has bankrolled teabaggers and is financing the current union-busting movement, on the phone when he was really talking to a liberal blogger that showed Walker’s so-called “budget repair bill” was just a ploy to bust unions. The Mother Jones article shows that the Koch brothers are also behind the effort in Michigan. Like Walker, Snyder is creating budget deficits by taking away money from school districts and local governments with a $1.8 billion gift to businesses, allowing more EFMs to be needed.

The article says that since 2005, the rightwing Michigan think tank “Mackinac Center for Public Policy has urged reforms to Michigan law giving more power and protection to emergency financial managers.” “…In January, the free-market-loving center published four recommendations, including granting emergency managers the power to override elected officials (such as a mayor or school board member) and toss out union contracts. All four ended up in Snyder's legislation.”

The think tank has a history of union-busting and support for privatization, especially going after teacher unions. The article goes on to say that “the Mackinac Center does not disclose its donors. But a review of tax records shows that the group's funders include the charitable foundations of the nation's largest corporations and a host of wealthy conservative and libertarian benefactors. Between 2002 and 2009, the Mackinac Center's donors included the Charles G. Koch Foundation ($69,151), founded by the chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, who, with his brother, David, is a major backer of conservative causes,” including the union busting efforts in Wisconsin and funding teabaggers.

Wisconsin Governor plans to start killing hostages

Wisconsin Gov. Scooter Walker is going to start killing the hostages at 4 p.m. today, Friday, in his quest to kill the public sector unions in Wisconsin.

Walker created a financial emergency by giving away huge tax breaks to corporations that supported him in order to get concessions from the public sector unions that did not endorse him in the election, but he is going even farther and wants to steal their civil right of collective bargaining and kill the unions.

Walker has refused to negotiate and Senate Democrats left the Capitol to stop the Senate from getting a quorum and passing his union-busting, so-called “budget repair bill.” Now Walker is threatening to begin issuing layoff notices to 1,5000 workers within 24 hours unless his measure was passed, and Senate Republicans authorizing police to round up their missing colleagues.

According to the Associated Press, Walker said he will issue layoff notices to 1,500 state workers on Friday if at least one of the 14 Senate Democrats didn’t return from Illinois to give the Republican majority the quorum it needs to vote.

Walker has tried to trick Senate Democrats into returning by lying and saying he was going to negotiate in good faith, but that trick was exposed in a prank call where he thought he was talking to rightwing billionaire David Koch, who is funding the union-busting efforts across the country, as well as the teabggers.

Leaving the Capitol to deny a quorum is as old as the country, and the father of the Grand Oil Party, Abraham Lincoln, once tried the same tactic.

Senate Republicans may have trouble in their illegal move to go after Senate Democrats with arrest warrants. According to the AP, “The Wisconsin Professional Police Association, a union representing 11,000 law enforcement officials from across the state, released a statement from its director Jim Palmer slamming the Senate Republicans’ resolution to go after the Democrats.”

“The thought of using law enforcement officers to exercise force in order to achieve a political objective is insanely wrong and Wisconsin sorely needs reasonable solutions and not potentially dangerous political theatrics,” Palmer said.

Walker has taken the extraordinary step of locking taxpayers out of their Capitol. It’s no wonder the majority of Americans support the workers in Wisconsin in poll after poll.

Conspiracy to start a riot may land Wisconsin Governor in hot water

The prank call last week to extremist Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin not only exposed that that he was just trying to bust the public sector unions by trying to take away their collective bargaining rights by creating a financial emergency, but he may now be in some legal trouble.

Walker thought he was talking to sugar daddy David Koch, one of the Koch brothers who has bankrolled teabaggers and is financing the current union-busting movement, but he was actually talking to a liberal blogger posing as Koch. During the 20-lovefest Koch/blogger suggested “planting some troublemakers” into the huge crowd of pro-worker protestors that have flooded into Madison, and Walker said he thought about it but decided against it because it “ would scare the public into thinking maybe the governor has gotta settle to avoid all these problems.”

In other words, Walker planned to hire interstate criminals to use felony violence against his constituents and state employees.

The Madison Police said that he found those comments “very unsettling and troubling,” and he wants an explanation from the Governor. The Governor is the man responsible for public safety in the state, and he is trying to start a riot.

“I would like to hear more of an explanation from Governor Walker as to what exactly was being considered, and to what degree it was discussed by his cabinet members,” Police Chief Noble Wray said in the Milwaukee Journal.” I find it very unsettling and troubling that anyone would consider creating safety risks for our citizens and law enforcement officers.”

Even though Wisconsin has gotten most of the attention for its union-busting attempts, Ohio is also moving forward to take away civil rights. Rightwing extremist Republican Ohio Governor and former Faux News host John Kasich has been pushing to bust unions since he was elected.

On Wednesday the GOP-controlled Ohio Senate voted 17-16 to strip public workers of the civil right of collective bargaining, and it would also ban strikes and put the power of breaking labor impasses in the hands of local elected officials instead of impartial third party judges. Six Republicans had the good sense to vote against it, but it still squeaked by with just one vote.

The Republican controlled House is expected to approve it, but Democratic lawmakers said they would take it to a ballot referendum this fall.

The public does not support GOP union busting

Despite an all out war on collective bargaining and unions by Republicans like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the public is simply not buying it.

A CBS/NYT poll released today shows a majority of people have a favorable opinion of unions. Public employees and their unions have been the biggest target of Republicans since the November election, and they are being blamed for municipalities teetering on the brink of bankruptcy despite the fact that Wall Street helped create the deepest and longest recession since the Great Depression.

Like in Wisconsin ad Michigan, public employees have given back wages and benefits to help balance state budgets while Wall Street bankers get huge bonuses, but what Republicans really want to do is take away their civil right of collective bargaining. But, again, people are not buying into that myth that public employees are making too much money and getting too many benefits.

The poll found the majority, 36 percent, say their compensation is about right, and a majority opposes cutting their pay and benefits to balance state budgets. A majority also oppose what Walker is trying to do in Wisconsin, and 38 percent oppose limiting collective bargaining.

With the tide turning against him, Walker has taken more tyrannical measures, locking the public out of their state capitol.

Prank call shows Walker wants to bring union busting to Michigan

It was pretty clear to most people that extremist Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin was trying to bust the public sector unions by trying to take away their collective bargaining rights by creating a financial emergency, but he confirmed his goal was union busting on Tuesday after he was phone pranked by a liberal blogger.

Besides proving he wasn’t very smart and easily duped, the call proves this is just a union busting ploy because unions tend to support Democrats in elections. Walker thought he was talking to David Koch, one of the Koch brothers who has bankrolled teabaggers and is financing the current union-busting movement.

The transcript of the call is just hilarious and reveling, and Walker never knew he was being pranked. It did prove that this is not about balancing the budget but killing the unions. Walker tries to make the claim that the huge crowds that have jammed the capitol in Wisconsin in support of collective bargaining rights are paid, saying, “…they’re probably putting hobos in suits.”

Then they joked about trying to trick the Democratic Senators who left Madison so the Legislature does not have a quorum by tricking them into returning by thinking that Walker was actually going to negotiate in good faith, and Koch/blogger Ian Murphy joked Walker should bring a baseball bat to the meeting.

“I have one in my office; you’d be happy with that,” Walker said. “I got a Slugger with my name on it.”

Walker is obviously enjoying all the attention he is getting, and his ego is growing along with his infamy. He even compared himself to GOP saint Ronald Reagan, and he tried to equate union-busting with the fall of Communism. Someone should tell him about the Solidarity union movement and Lech Wałęsa.

"I pulled out a picture of Ronald Reagan, and I said, you know, this may seem a little melodramatic, but 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan, whose 100th birthday we just celebrated the day before, had one of the most defining moments of his political career, not just his presidency, when he fired the air-traffic controllers,” Walker said. “And, uh, I said, to me that moment was more important than just for labor relations or even the federal budget, that was the first crack in the Berlin Wall and the fall of Communism because from that point forward, the Soviets and the Communists knew that Ronald Reagan wasn’t a pushover"

Walker also made it clear that Wisconsin is ground zero for busting public sector unions, and he wants to import the union-busting to other states, including Michigan.

“I talk to Kasich every day; John’s gotta stand firm in Ohio,” he said. “I think we could do the same thing with Vic Scott in Florida. I think, uh, [Rick] Snyder-if he got a little more support-probably could do that in Michigan.”

The good news is that Snyder is saying, at least publicly, that he is not interested in union busting. But the Republican-controlled Legislature is another story, and they are doing nothing but union busting. I have no idea how this creates jobs.

Veteran Capitol correspondent Tim Skubick is reporting that Snyder went so far as to meet with Legislative Republicans on Tuesday to talk about their union-busting agenda over his agenda of reforming the tax system and the budget. Apparently, the Speaker of the House told him they were more interested in union busting than jobs.

Wisconsin workers react to having their rights stolen

Americans don’t like having their rights stolen, and public employees in Wisconsin are reacting to having their rights stolen by taking to the streets in masse in Madison.

Extremist Republican Gov. Scott Walker is trying to strip state workers of their collective bargaining rights, and more than 10,000 Wisconsin residents who love freedom marched on the state Capitol on Tuesday.

According to published reports, the protests are unprecedented in recent Wisconsin history, and the protests spread to the Milwaukee area, where hundreds of workers massed outside Walker's suburban home.

The city's schools are closing as teachers take sick days to join the protests and buses packed with public employees roll into the city. Students at the University of Wisconsin walked out of classes to protest the union-busting tactics.

Current and past members of the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers, a publicly-owned team, issued a statement in solidarity with Wisconsin workers seeking to retain their collective bargaining rights, as did the NFL Players Association.

“The NFL Players Association will always support efforts protecting a worker’s right to join a union and collectively bargain,” the association said. “Today, the NFLPA stands in solidarity with its organized labor brothers and sisters in Wisconsin.”

Walker’s effort is not about balancing the state budget because unions are more than willing to make concessions to help balance the budget like they have in local municipalities, it’s about busting the union.

This union-busting attempt is not unique to Wisconsin. Its part of a nationwide effort by Republicans to bust public sector unions and take away rights won with sweat and blood. With the Citizens United decision that has pumped millions of unregulated corporate and foreign cash into Republican coffers, killing unions will erase Democratic support.