Walker Exposed; Rejects Concessions, Demands No Collective Bargaining

Update: As the Tea Partiers rush to defend a desperate Gov. Scott Walker today, Forbes reports, Koch Brothers Behind Wisconsin Effort to Kill Public Unions.

In other news, Rush Limbaugh went a rant last night calling Wisconsin families "freeloaders."

Walker's Bluff Called

Wisconsin public unions have said all along they will compromise, negotiate and make concessions as they have for decades.

Wisconsin citizens have accused Gov. Walker as lying about his true motives in the so-called "budget repair" bill that contains language to bust unions and political opponents by outlawing collective bargaining for public unions.

Now, the unions have again called Walker's bluff.

"Mary Bell, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, and Marty Beil, executive director of AFSCME Council 24, said in a conference call with reporters [last night] that workers will do their fair share to narrow Wisconsin's budget gap." [Hall, Spicuzza, Barbour; WSJ)

All Bell demands is that Wisconsin working families be allowed to continue the right to collectively bargain and organize as before.

Walker refused the offer in a rambling response that personally I still cannot decipher.

The plain truth is Walker and the GOP want to destroy unions, they want to obstruct Democratically leaning voters ("Voter ID"), especially College students; gerrymander all voting districts (Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Madison) is high on their list); and a host of other anti-democratic measures.

It's been written here before: What Walker and the GOP fail to understand is that Wisconsin citizens do not owe the Republican Party political allegiance or face pay-back through the budget and other legislative measures. We can vote for and work for whomever we damn please. It's called: Democracy

Walker will continue his too-slick-by-half defence of the fiscal crisis. But his expressed concern for the budget is a sham. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) has the story.Funny, but I do not recall Gov. Walker mentioning the Koch Bros. Why the silence, Gov. Walker?

State Journal Buries GOP Senate Candidate Tax Scandal

Update: Rightwing radio pans Terrence Wall.

"Republican U.S. Senate candidate Terrence Wall has not paid personal state income taxes in nine of the last 10 years (because Wall had no tax liability), according to state Department of Revenue figures obtained from the liberal group One Wisconsin Now (OWN) (last week)." (Wisconsin State Journal, Jan 23, 2010; Mary Spicuzza)

But the editors of the State Journal placed the story on the bottom of page three of the Local section in the hard copy of this morning's (Saturday) newspaper. WisPolitics ran the story on Jan 16 and an online Politics Blog report by Spicuzza ran on Jan. 18, last Monday.

Let's hope for some more prominent campaign coverage in the State Journal even if the coverage puts leading GOP candidates in an unfavorable light.

OWN's campaign exclusive last week comes as the GOP aggressively tries to redefine Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Middleton) from maverick to publicity seeker and Democratic Party lackey.

Here are the pieces the State Journal editors front-page today instead of the politically damaging Wall scandal:

- L'Etoile restaurant will move and broaden its menu

- Middleton developer wants a 10-foot-high sculpture in corporate park, complete with two pictures, including an 8 1/2"- 5" shot, and some 129 words in three cutlines (picture captions)

- And a legit front-page story about a possible uptick in heroin use among Wisconsin youth