DNR Selling LakeFront Property to Scott Walker Donor

We know Scott Walker is auctioning off state property to help close the massive deficit Walker bestowed upon Wisconsin.

Today, reports the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Walker's donors are buying.

There is no listing of this transaction or any other on the DNR's Real Estate sale site.

Reports Lee Bergquist:

A major donor to Gov. Scott Walker, has reached an agreement with the Department of Natural Resources to buy 1.75 acres of prime lakefront property in Vilas County — a deal that gives her direct lake access to another property she now owns.

The agreement calls for the DNR to sell Uihlein 765 feet of frontage on Rest Lake in the Town of Manitowish Waters for $275,000. She currently owns an adjacent 11-unit condominium complex without lake access.

[Elizabeth] Uihlein and her husband, Richard, have donated nearly $3 million to Walker in recent years. ...

The lakefront land is one of a series of large-scale property sales now underway by the DNR. They were prompted by the Republican-controlled Legislature, which in 2013 ordered the agency to put 10,000 acres up for sale by June 30, 2017. ...

The DNR has so far identified 118 properties totaling 8,300 acres for possible sale. As part of that process, field staff are called in to study the ecological significance of the land.

Last month, trout anglers criticized a DNR decision that identified more than 1,000 acres for potential sales in Langlade County that contained spring ponds with native brook trout populations.

Walker is selling out Wisconsin. If you want to reach him, Walker is likely in Iowa or South Carolina these days.

Scott Walker Auctioning off DNR Land to Cover His Fiscal Deficit

Scott Walker in 2011, pathological liar
then and now.

Wildlife refuges, protected river-front property, fisheries' land, forests, and on and on—come and get it, everything must go.

Notes Bernie Starzewski‎ from Manitowoc County, "A list of all the lands Walker and the Republicans are auctioning off to cover [Walker's budget] deficits" can be found at Land Sale listing of Wisconsin DNR, with more to come.

Scott Walker invented a fiscal crisis in 2011, and then made a real fiscal crisis through tax cuts for wealthy campaign contributors, while pushing for the power to sell off public land to foreign investors and his campaign donors.

The Wisconsin State Building Commission is chaired by Scott Walker though the website conceals the membership. Members can be found here at the Wisconsin DoA ['Department of All'], dominated by Republicans eager to please flush developers.

Walker selling off state assets to cover his corruption and fiscal incompetence is not breaking news, but bears noting repetitiously as Wisconsin might take a long time to recover from the corrupter and thief in the night (Wisconsin Public Radio, The Political Environment).

In Dane County, public lands on the auctioning block include sanctuaries and land described by the DoA as Token Creek Rearing Station, Scattered Wildlife and Extensive Wildlife Habitat. The DNR websites are broken and omit any more information about the lands.

The Token Creek Rearing Station is described by the Wisconsin State Historical Society as sited in the town of Burke.

Make the (Disfavored) Economies Scream

The 9/11, 1973 CIA-engineered coup (killing 1,000s) of Chilean President Salvador Allende rivals the vile attack of our 9/11.

One mentions the date because preceding Allende is the infamous determination of Pres. Richard Nixon to "make the [Chilean] economy scream," after Allende's 1970 election. (Goodman, Democracy Now) (Parry, ConsortiumNews)

Nixon's determination that countries are enemies is hardly unique in American international relations, millions were killed in the Southeast Asia invasions in the decade before the 1973 coup.

Nor is Nixon's decision to injure and brand domestically the popular Civil Rights and Peace Movements as terrorists and enemies unique. (Chomsky, Domestic Terrorism: Notes on the State System of Oppression)

COINTELPRO, McCarthyism, Jim Crow laws, Attorney General Mitchell Palmer's Raids, and the many massacres of pioneering American labor activists, for example, demonstrate the 20th century as often rivaling a third-world dictator in U.S. governmental regard for civil and human rights.

The Supreme Court protected many citizens groups in the 1960s and 70s, though many were terrorized.

See, for example, this opinion of the 1972 Supreme Court case that turned back Nixon and Rehnquist's attempt to unilaterally authorize electronic surveillance in internal security matters without prior judicial approval—United States v. United States District Court (No. 70-153).

Scott Walker

I mention this fleeting history of oppression in light of Scott Walker who has made public his disdain for those who don't vote or support him, and his equally fervent contempt for democracy.

Walker has demonstrated no understanding of the precepts of classical liberalism or social contract theory underpinning modern western democracies, and no will to learn.

Walker regards whole regions of the state as enemy territory, even infamously comparing the 100,000s of families assembling at the state capitol to register opposition to Walker's surprise policy "bomb" dropped by Walker as ISIS, revealing a mindset that ought disqualify this small-minded, incurious little man from any consideration for the presidency.

Said Walker, "We need a leader with that kind of confidence.  If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world." (Strauss, Washington Post)

A governor, and certainly not a president, does not "take on" those citizens who disagree with secretly-made policy by economic royalists feeding dark money into the polity; and disagreeing with civil rights and working family activists does not qualify one as commander-in-chief.

I mention this because decent people should consider what the power of all three branches of government in Wisconsin in GOP hands has brought to Wisconsin: Disaster and lies.

An effort to displace the world-class University System (pursued for years) is but one of many billionaire-ordered, radical injury by policy in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin ought to keep an eye on an apparent strike at the state capital city, proposed by Walker and Republicans in retaliation for voting against Walker. (DeFour, Wisconsin State Journal)

Dane County and Madison lead the state in private sector job creation and this makes Walker look foolish.

Walker is ignorant, and he is dangerous. He ought not try to make Madison and Dane County's economies scream, he should consider learning from these wonderful places that 100,000s call home.

Being a public servant means you serve. It does not mean you harm those with whom you may disagree. This is because in America being a citizen confers onto you the status of powerful rights.

At the least an elected representative begins by protecting these rights, not violating them.

GOP move does not enact law, say experts

Publication online is administrative step, not legally binding

Update IV: From WisPolitics:

Dane County District Attorney Ismael R. Ozanne knocks down GOP contention with statement:

I was surprised to learn shortly before 5 p.m. this afternoon that, despite Judge Maryann Sumi’s temporary restraining order, an effort was undertaken to try and make 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 (Governor Walker’s Budget Repair Bill) effective. I was even more surprised to learn that the impetus for an attempt at publication, contrary to Judge Sumi’s order, came from a named defendant in the lawsuit.

As Judge Sumi said in issuing the temporary restraining order enjoining publication of the bill on March 18, 2011:

Finally, the necessity to preserve the status quo. I think relief is essential to preserve the status quo, which is what exists here and now. The bill has passed. But it has not been published.

I believe that, pursuant to Judge Sumi’s order, the status quo is preserved. This case, including the legal significance of today’s actions, should be resolved in a court of law. I look forward to presenting our case on behalf of the People of the State of Wisconsin Tuesday morning, March 29, 2011, at 8:30 a.m.

Update III: I told my mother, we feel like we were just mugged, but we checked and we still have our wallets. This could have been a Friday night massacre of sorts, but instead the perp just committed suicide in the capitol.

Update II: Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) and "[LRB Director Steve Miller] met Friday. Miller said Fitzgerald asked him to publish the law and, after reading the statutes, Miller agreed that he could do so. He said he had never published a law without being given a date by the secretary of state during his 12 years of running the reference bureau." (Marley and Stein, MJS) Fitzgerald said, "It's law." [Note: Fitzgerald's status as a legislative expert is under some dispute.]

Update: Via Rep. Peter Barca comes this:

[LRB Director Steve Miller] ... indicated that the LRB published the Act in order to satisfy a statutory publication requirement that is separate from the publication duty of the Secretary of State, and that such separate and additional publication by the Secretary of State is required in order for Act 10 to take effect.

The "bomb" that Gov. Scott Walker bragged about dropping on Wisconsin was
followed by the latest bomb that has GOP leaders smiling.

Keep smiling. [The mad bombers—Scott Walker, the Fitzgeralds, and Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch—just blew themselves up with their home-made bombs. These guys are either very foolish, playing games with Wisconsin, or some combination of both.]

The bombers are known. And recall efforts of the GOP senators just got another great push, reminding citizens the GOP will do anything in pursuit of the goals of its far-right ideology.

The Wisconsin State Journal's report (Clay Barbour and Ed Treleven) includes experts' explaining why the GOP celebration of sticking it to working families is premature.

The legislative bomb, the anti-collective bargaining bill, had been pushed through the legislature without the necessary quorum and in violation of Wisconsin Open Meeting laws.

Now, the "drama over Gov. Scott Walker's controversial measure limiting public sector collective bargaining took a sharp turn Friday when the Legislative Reference Bureau published the law — normally the last step before legislation takes effect." (Barbour and Treleven)

But this act will not stand either inside a courtroom or in the homes of Wisconsin families.

From Barbour and Treleven:

But officials with the nonpartisan Reference Bureau (LRB) and the Legislative Council — the Legislature's drafting and research agency and its legal service, respectively — said publication of the act online was only an administrative step.

Reference Bureau Director Steve Miller and Legislative Council staff attorney Scott Grosz both said La Follette still needs to designate a date for publication and actually publish the act in the Wisconsin State Journal — something the court order bars the secretary of state from doing.

The WSJ report continues: "If the bureau's action did constitute publication, it could make moot the state's appeal of Sumi's order, now before the state Supreme Court."

And if Judge Sumi's order becomes moot, other remedies become available.

Madison attorney Lester Pines is quoted, saying: "I suspect that if Judge Sumi was willing to take up a (temporary restraining order) against publication I suspect she'd do the same thing on enforcement" of the new law. "This is going to unleash a tsunami of litigation." (Barbour and Treleven)

Tom Beebe: Scott Walker Threatens Wisconsin Public Education

Tom Beebe has a must-read in The Hill on Gov. Walker's educational budget.

There’s a battle going on in Wisconsin. Actually, there are many battles going on. Public labor unions are under assault, democracy is being attacked, and good government is at risk. Republican Governor Scott Walker and his allies in the Legislature are waging a scorched-earth campaign to lock down political power for years to come.

Yet, the most important story is going under-reported. If Gov. Walker wins the battle, the best days of the Badger State’s once proud public education system will definitely be in the rear view mirror.

There's something happening here ...

Millwright among crowd on the square

Madison, Wisconsin—The rally to protect working Wisconsin families surged to an estimated 100,000 people as the coalition opposing Gov. Scott Walker and his budget bill appears to have broadened into a movement that has the governor desperate and Republican legislators on the defensive.



One characteristic of the crowd and those from the preceding days is the relatively apolitical and casual attitude toward politics that those interviewed demonstrated.

One woman, interviewed as she warmed-up in a bus shelter on State Street near the Capitol square, drove down from Rhinelander and is typical of  rally attendees from small Wisconsin cities, towns, and villages.

"No, I'm not real political. But Walker is hurting a lot of people and I had to do something."



Looking down East Washington Ave from the Capitol

Make no mistake, this is a highly charged political battle and professional political operatives in Wisconsin are uniting to defeat a governor they view as having created a critical mass of opposition that will see his recall in 2012.

For Walker's part, the Walker-Koch tapes (audio and text) alone may have damaged the good faith and confidence of mainstream Wisconsin citizens.

Massive Madison Rally Saturday for Working Families

- Live video coverage of rally -

Update: The Walker-Koch tapes (audio and text), and Citizen's Criminal Complaint Against Gov. Scott Walker. 

There is a constant presence at the Capital, inside and out. Crowds could swell to over 100,000 people.

Labor tents are sprawled around the capital square.

Would-be attendees can come at any time during day and night.

Some highlights and happenings

10:30 am  Protest at Koch Bros. Lobby Office; 10 East Doty St.
11:00 am SEIU meet-up at the UW-Madison Memorial Union.
11:00 LGBTQA Rally and march in support of Wisconsin families
12:00 pm TAA Teach-in: The Politics of the Wisconsin Labor Struggle
1:00 pm NAACP Rally at the State Capitol-Hilton Morona Terrace Hotel
1:00 pm Concert at the Capitol – performances by Tom Morello, Bascom Hill, Michael O'Brien, UW Alumni Band, Sam Frederic, Peter Yarrow
1:30 pm SEIU march from the Inn on the Park on the Square (22 S Carroll Street in Madison) to the rally
3:00 pm Rally to Save The American Way – Master of Ceremonies Brad Whitford

Some Rally Info and News Resources

• United Wisconsin
• Dem Party of Wisconsin   
• AFSCME
• SEIU WI
• Labor Notes
• Defend Wisconsin
• AFL-CIO WI
• Mark Pocan
• Progressives United
• Tammy Baldwin Solidarity Site
• Solidarity Wisconsin
• The Political Environment
• One Wisconsin Now
• The Daily Page - Isthmus
• Dane 101
• Uppity Wisconsin
• Madison.com
• WisPolitics

The Wisconsin Lie Exposed – Taxpayers Actually Contribute Nothing to Public Employee Pensions

The foundation (such as it is) behind Gov. Scott Walker's 'budget repair bill' has just been demolished.

By Rick Ungar at Forbes Online Magazine

Pulitzer Prize winning tax reporter, David Cay Johnston, has written a brilliant piece for tax.com exposing the truth about who really pays for the pension and benefits for public employees in Wisconsin.

Gov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to “contribute more” to their pension and health insurance plans. Accepting Gov. Walker’ s assertions as fact, and failing to check, creates the impression that somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not. Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin’ s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.
- Via tax.com

How can this be possible?

Simple. The pension plan is the direct result of deferred compensation- money that employees would have been paid as cash salary but choose, instead, to have placed in the state operated pension fund where the money can be professionally invested (at a lower cost of management) for the future.

Many of us are familiar with the concept of deferred compensation from reading about the latest multi-million dollar deal with some professional athlete. As a means of allowing their ball club to have enough money to operate, lowering their own tax obligations and for other benefits, ball players often defer payment of money they are to be paid to a later date. In the meantime, that money is invested for the ball player’s benefit and then paid over at the time and in the manner agreed to in the contract between the parties.

Does anyone believe that, in the case of the ball player, the deferred money belongs to the club owner rather than the ball player? Is the owner simply providing this money to the athlete as some sort of gift? Of course not. The money is salary to be paid to the ball player, deferred for receipt at a later date.

Read the rest at Rick Ungar at Forbes Online Magazine

President Obama, Come to Madison

Historical crises require presidential leadership.  President Obama, protect the people of Wisconsin and the Union [capital U]. We need you here in person to speak truth to power and restore the promise of unity.

As the "budget repair bill" was passed early this morning by the Wisconsin Assembly (Cognitive Dissidence), and the billionaires' Americans for Prosperity take to the air to lie again, President Obama, you must live up to your promise to protect the rights of Americans; and certainly not frame issues in the disingeneous manner of Republicans.

Your presidential advocacy is required. All we need is the truth about the budget, and the Wisconsin and national GOP program to rip working families away from the American dream. But we need you here, speaking on the Capital steps in Madison without fear, with the hope that there is hope.

Fox and the Republicans won't like it. So what?

This is a political-economic crisis in Wisconsin caused directly by the lies and the colossal GOP con. And the crisis most certainly is not the state budget, but rather the future of the middle class.

The Wisconsin Republicans are using the old playbook of division, eloquently described by Isthmus editor, Bill Lueders.

Of course it is possible for Walker to survive. But the only way that can happen is if he succeeds in his vile politics of division, turning citizens against citizen, neighbor against neighbor, worker against worker. He must continue to encourage people to resent the teachers who teach their children, the nurses who care for their loved ones, the social workers who offer them help in times of need, the prosecutors who seek justice when they become victims of crime, the police who protect their communities and the firefighters who are prepared to die to save their lives.

Press Secretary Jay Carney on President Obama not coming to Wisconsin (February 24, 2011):

I think what we have made pretty clear is that the President thinks and we think, he’s stated this, that obviously a lot of states in the union are dealing with fiscal issues, big problems in their state budgets that need to be addressed. And they need to act responsibly, tighten their belts, live within their means, just as we in Washington, the executive branch and Congress need to do with our federal situation.

This is not about tightening belts, Mr. President. The budget problem is under control. The GOP lie has been debunked repeatedly.

You can handle the situation in D.C. from Madison for one day.

This is about preserving the American Dream and the right to organize and collectively bargain.

Then-Senator Obama during a campaign speech in Spartanburg, South Carolina (2007):

And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I’ll put on a put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I’ll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States. (Raw Story)

Mr. President, come to Madison. The time is now.

Watchdog calls for criminal probe of Gov Walker over 'Koch' tape

Protesters at Koch lobbying office in Madison

A national campaign finance watchdog, the Public Campaign Action Fund, sent a letter to the Dane County (WI) District Attorney and Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board (GAB) today urging that they open concurrent investigations into Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-Wisc.) possible double violations of state campaign finance and ethics statutes.

Washington, D.C.—National campaign finance watchdog Public Campaign Action Fund sent a letter to the Dane County (WI) District Attorney and Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board (GAB) today urging that they open concurrent investigations into Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-Wisc.) possible double violations of state campaign finance and ethics statutes. The letter is in response to yesterday’s release of a taped phone call between Gov. Walker and a person he thought was out-of-state, billionaire campaign donor David Koch.

The group asked the District Attorney and GAB to look at two questions:

1) Did Gov. Walker illegally solicit political expenditures for independent spending to benefit Republican Senators from swing districts?

2) Did Gov. Walker illegally solicit donations from the state capitol using state resources?

“Governor Walker, while on state grounds supposedly doing his job, thought he was speaking to out-of-state billionaire David Koch, and over the course of that conversation he asked Koch to spend money to help Republican Senators from electorally vulnerable districts,” said David Donnelly, national campaigns director for Public Campaign Action Fund. “The District Attorney of Dane County and the Government Accountability Board have concurrent jurisdiction over this matter, and both should immediately investigate whether Walker broke two state laws.”

The letters were faxed this afternoon to both offices. Download the letter to the District Attorney and the GAB [at Public Campaign Action Fund] .

The letter concludes:

“No one should be above the law. Governor Walker’s conduct in this reported conversation indicates he does not believe the Wisconsin campaign finance statutes or ethics rules apply to him. We strongly urge you to open an investigation into these violations to restore the confidence of Wisconsin’s citizens that theirs is a government of laws.”

“Of course, the bigger story here is the ease with which major donors can gain access to Gov. Walker,” said Donnelly. “While he can’t be bothered to talk to his political opponents, he found twenty minutes to spend with a wealthy oil tycoon. It’s a shameful statement on our broken political system.”

On Tuesday, blogger/reporter Ian Murphy released a recorded phone call between Gov. Walker and himself, pretending to be David Koch. During the discussion, Walker makes references to ways Koch could help state Republicans deal with the public opposition to Walker’s budget. Download the full transcript at Public Campaign Action Fund.

Scott Walker Is Attacking the Livelihood of Wisconsin Families

It is God-awful bad.

Now is the time for every elected federal, state, county and municipal official to get out in the street.

We have a governor who can blithely tell the state in prime time that he has no compunction about firing workers, destroying the very livelihood of Wisconsin families for his own political ends that he believes "eventually" will become the consensus, as he tells George Will [who can't help but take gratuitous shots at the civil rights and peace movement in Madison].

In the mean time, families will just have to do without their jobs, as Walker and GOP legislative aides from Sen. Randy Hopper's office (R-Fond du Lac) smirk at callers.

This 'budget repair" bill is so loaded with weapons against Wisconsin families; it's difficult to address all the harm. Women, seniors, minorities, workers, anyone who is not a demonstrated Republican or Tea Partier is in some peril.

Here's one huge problem: Walker's threat to begin lay-offs next week if he does not get his way is a direct attack on families

Never has a Wisconsin governor so explicitly demonstrated genuine malice towards the people whom he is supposed to serve.

The sense of entitlement that Walker displays: Now that he is governor he can act in any manner he chooses reveals the mind-set that Norman Cousins described as the "pathology of power."

Walker is King George W. cubed at the height of his delusions from which we are still recovering.

It's crisis time alright; we have a maddened tyrant wreaking havoc onto our families.

People have fought and literally died for the rights such as collective bargaining that we take for granted today, or at least we did until Scott Walker assumed office.

As the great labor historians, Sidney Lens and Howard Zinn, remind us in their work, labor rights were won with blood, cracked skulls and destroyed families.

A recall will happen next year for Walker; and now is the time for militant action and civil disobedience.

This fool, and that is what Scott Walker is, has no conception of what he is doing.

Local Officials Fight Back as Nation Joins the Battle

Update: Scott Walker admits objective on collective bargaining: Weakening unions

- Live Coverage from Madison and AFLCIO Coverage and Not My Wisconsin -

"Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and more than 160 local officials from La Crosse to Milwaukee on Tuesday sent a letter to the governor and Legislature arguing that severe restrictions on collective bargaining undercut local control and the ability to deliver cost-effective, quality services," reports Dean Mosiman.

Democratic state senators say they are not giving up on Wisconsin families. They demand Walker halts the anti-collective bargaining vote until Gov. Walker says he'll negotiate.

Supporters are still coming to Madison from across the United States to what Rev. Jesse Jackson calls the "epicenter of the battle for America's democracy, and it is as American as Lexington, Concord, Gettysburg, Montgomery and Selma."

As Walker stays on target on Wisconsin families, it's worth noting that Finance, Insurance and Real Estate is the number one sector which contributed to Walker's campaign, according to the site, Follow the Money.

Jack E. Lohman has a new piece out. Writes Lohman:

Like, how about giving the governor the authority to sell off state assets (power plants), without bids, at any price they choose, even for pennies on the dollar, to private interests, even to those that fund Walker’s campaign???

As in Senate Bill 11: ...

So a no-bid contract to sell off the state power plants to the (4th highest Walker contributor) oil-tycoon Koch Brothers (see also here) will very likely occur, and consumer energy rates and corporate product prices will increase.

There is no other reasonable scenario. The taxpayers have no say in it, and the unions don’t yet realize that this isn’t an issue about worker rights.

Remember when Walker also wanted to sell off the Milwaukee airport when he was county executive.

Fireside Crap

Madison, Wisconsin—Gov. Scott Walker's chat with Wisconsin last night has all the sincerity of the AIG derivatives executive's 2008 assurance to investors that their money is safely and productively at work months before the economic catastrophe hit.

But Walker goes in for reverse-Enron accounting, claiming a deficit crisis when no such crisis exists.

Unfortunately for Walker, that pesky non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) has debunked the budget crisis notion, as State Rep, Mark Pocan (D-Madison) points out, a fact Walker refuses to address.

Worse, Walker claims he will be forced to lay off workers if he doesn't get his way on the budget; saying he doesn't want to lay people off, even as he refuses to negotiate.

Here is a partial list of highlights and significant omissions from Walker's chat:

• No mention of the corporate give-aways and their clear relevancy to the budget, or his promises to the super-wealthy
• Claimed appreciation for working families whose members he is threatening to lay off
• Using the passive voice to absolve himself of responsibility for laying off workers and devastating families; it's an old politician's trick in the tradition of 'mistakes were made,' Walker said, "If there is no agreement by July 1st, another 5-6 thousand state workers -- as well as 5-6 thousand local government employees would be also laid off," in addition to those workers Walker promises to axe next week if Walker does not get his way on ending collective bargaining, animated by what Walker assures us "isn't a battle with unions," or he would" have gone after the private-sector unions," the Wagner Act notwithstanding in Walker's most bizarre statement of the evening
• Continued lying about the "budget deficit" as though Walker has no choice but to accept the 6.2 percent increase in state agencies that the LFB says would lead to a short-fall in the vanishingly unlikely event that the legislature adopts the estimate as a budget
• No mention of the fact that all of Wisconsin's school districts, counties, and municipalities have never asked of Walker to implement his scheme to forbid collective bargaining, and in fact are requesting that he not end collective bargaining (Mosiman). Walker's proposed end to collective bargaining "goes far beyond what we asked for. We were not expecting to abolish the collective bargaining process altogether," said Dan Thompson, executive director of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities. [See also Tarr.]
• Implying that "millions of taxpayers from across the state" do not include those working families who disagree with Walker
• Deriding workers demonstrating solidarity as an ominous occurrence as "more and more protesters come in from Nevada, Chicago and elsewhere" overwhelming the voices of the millions of taxpayers from across the state, save public workers who do not pay taxes apparently in Walker world
• Calling for pension contributions increases without mentioning the unions' offer to do just that as Wisconsin's pension fund remains among the nation's healthiest (Carter)
• Refusing to mention that public unions have made good-faith offers on pensions, health care, salaries; and that Walker refuses to negotiate

Many more lies are found in the brief address.

The rest is typical divide-and-conquer rhetoric, pitting the unemployed against the employed, the pubic versus the private sector, and demonizing Democratic state senators who are fighting for collective bargain for Wisconsin families.

"Do the job you were elected to do," Walker said. "You don't have to like the outcome, or even vote yes, but as part of the world's greatest democracy, you should be here, in Madison, at the Capitol."

Yes, but aren't Democratic state senators protecting Wisconsin families? Walker refuses to engage the question.

This is not a governor. This is a ruler who is willing to terrorize Wisconsin working families for his petty pursuit of power and narrow ideology. And Walker thinks he is untouchable.

To conclude on a positive note when Walker looks at the camera and lies, he presents a visage more appealing than Richard Nixon's, though a viewer is left with the impression of a well-concealed smirk of someone who just got away with cheating on an exam.

This will change. Walker is desperate as polls show most Americans and an increasing number of GOP governors reject the idea of demonizing public workers and outlawing collective bargaining.

As Alex Pareene writes in Salon of Walker's chat, "It was not a particularly inspiring or convincing performance, and I imagine a lot of Wisconsinites are still suffering from buyer's remorse tonight."

No doubt, but Walker has revitalized the progressive movement in Wisconsin to a degree that this writer has never seen. The world is watching and outside of Appalachia and the Old South, the world stands with Wisconsin workers.

Walker: No Collective Bargaining or Lose Your Job

Forward!

Update II: Live Coverage from Madison-

Update: See Robert Reich: "America is the richest nation in the world, and “we’ve” never been richer. There’s no reason for us to turn on our teachers, our unionized workers, our poor and needy, and our elderly." And ThinkProgress' The Truth Behind The Anti-Union Assault; and Paul Krugman:

Walker isn’t interested in making a deal. Partly that’s because he doesn’t want to share the sacrifice: even as he proclaims that Wisconsin faces a terrible fiscal crisis, he has been pushing through tax cuts that make the deficit worse. Mainly, however, he has made it clear that rather than bargaining with workers, he wants to end workers’ ability to bargain.

Gov. Walker is threatening 1,000s of Wisconsin families. Lose your rights or lose your job.

This is not governing; this is terrorism of Wisconsin families.

See Walker warns state workers layoff notices could come next week if bill isn't passed (Bauer)

Dan Balz: National GOP Rancid - Echoed in Wisconsin

On graphic display in the Wisconsin Assembly budget debate last week is the Republican demographic demise. GOP failings in Wisconsin echo those nationally.

Says Dan Balz today in his For Republicans, the Forces Aren't With Them in the Washington Post.

The American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution convened a stellar cast on Friday to review what has been learned since November. The panel included Robert Lang of Virginia Tech; Ruy Teixeira of the Center for American Progress; William Frey of the Brookings Institution; Bill Bishop, a Texas writer and author of ‘The Big Sort’; Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center; and Ronald Brownstein of Atlantic Media. They presented a wealth of data about what happened in 2008 and offered conclusions that would alarm any Republican hopeful of a quick turnaround in the party's fortunes.

Wisconsin mirrors the nation in setting off Republican political alarms.

Wisconsin is a political anthology of the demographic trend Balz discusses as the GOP problem with blacks and Latinos persists with the GOP still behaving in an overtly hostile manner towards these communities that comprise fast-growing segments of the electorate, with “black women [having] the highest voter turnout rate in November's election -- a first". [See Dissecting the 2008 Electorate: Most Diverse in U.S. History.]

Says Balz:

In the last election, there were more than 2 million additional African American voters, about 2 million more Hispanic voters and about a million more Asian American voters. All are groups in which Obama increased the Democratic share of the vote over 2004. Frey estimated that minority voters in nine states made the difference in Obama's victory margin.

Republicans can't reverse the demographic trends; their only solution is to increase their share of the minority vote. Opposing Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's Supreme Court nominee, because of her pride in being a Latina won't help solve that problem.

So what is the response of Wisconsin Republicans like Mike Nichols, Patrick McIlheran and other GOP talking heads?

Mocking and scapegoating, for example, obnoxious and unanimous Wisconsin GOP opposition to Democratic initiatives on immigrant driver licenses and collecting racial profiling data.

The GOP message to African American and Hispanic voters veers from we don’t like you to you don’t belong here to you’re on your own.

As Balz implies, this isn’t a winning political strategy anymore, never mind its fetid taste.

During the budget debate, Jim Doyle, Tamara Grigsby and Pedro Colón have been the collective punching bag of the GOP looking to stir up white resentment on the economy and to place the blame for the last eight years of national economic catastrophe on one Wisconsin governor and minority constituencies—this has been the GOP playbook since the Southern Strategy.

But Doyle, Grigsby and Colón appear quietly confident that this old divisive tactic is not working.

The future looks bright for a political message based on unity, civil rights and inclusion, geared especially to younger voters who are diverse demographically, less religious, culturally liberal, and less susceptible to GOP racist appeals.

Assembly Passes Budget; 5:07 A.M. GOP Says NO

Update V: Democratic sources say the members stood together in torpedoing the many GOP budget amendments.

Update IV: State Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison): "After months of public debate and scrutiny, during an incredibly difficult economic crisis, I am proud to say we passed a budget that holds true to our values. This budget makes tough spending cuts, protects working families from tax increases, and preserves our commitment to job growth, health care, education, and public safety." - via WisPolitics

Update III: WisPolitics: Assembly passes its version of the budget after all-nighter. All Republicans vote 'no,' see roll call vote at WisPolitics. On to the Senate where Democrats hold an 18-15 majority.

Update II: The three people cited in the Gallup poll on the leaders of the Republican Party: Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich top the list with 29%; 46% of Republicans say they can't name a leader or asserted there isn't one.

Remember Linda Blair’s reply to ‘who are you?’ in The Exorcist: "Eno-on-ma-I." Translation: I am no one.

Maybe we should get GOP star Bobby Jindal in Madison to perform an exorcism on these guys. Seems fitting for these nihilistic strangers possessed of strange personalities, mean-spirited inclinations and anti-social tendencies.

Update: 4:59 A.M. and the GOP says ... No.

From the Democratic Convention last night in Green Bay, Tom Kertscher of the Journal Sentinel reports:

‘I don't think anyone knows what (Republicans) are offering’ on issues such as education and health care, [Gov.] Doyle said. ‘All we have been getting from them is the same refusals and the tired political tactics that go nowhere.’ ... As for the budget cuts, 'Wisconsin Democrats know it takes hard work, not playing politics, to go forward,' Doyle said.

At the Capitol the GOP picks off a few Democrats and at 1:00 A.M. Saturday, one could watch Wisconsin Eye and the Grand Obstruction Party blocking the people's budget.

Maybe the budget should include less money for health care, less public education, and more government control over women's bodies. That might shut the Republicans up and get this thing passed.

The GOP is digging its hole deeper. Women, Latinos and working families will not forget.

Fraidy-Cat Wisconsin Dems

Update: It's 5:54 PM and State Rep Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon) is babbling about the lack of "olive branches." C'mon all Democrats, the GOP is just trying to make you look bad. Wake up.

Pick your favorite metaphor: Herding cats, convincing your girlfriend that falling asleep on the couch is healthy, or unifying quantum mechanics and general relativity.

Not easy.

The task of closing the deal with a simple majority of Democrats seeing the big picture and voting for the budget—while telling Milwaukee talk radio and assorted GOP critics to crawl back under their undisclosed rocks—seems impossible at times today, talk around the Capital campfire reveals.

You can bet the Republicans would not have too much trouble lining up their people were the legislative roles reversed.

Glenn Greenwald recently observed that eight years of fear mongering has traumatized "the American national character, turning much of the citizenry into a weak and easily frightened herd, where the mere mention of the word Terrorist -- or Muslim -- sends people into spasms of fear and blind submission."

The same can be said of a handful of Democrats in the legislature who recoil in fear at every angry grunt from the Wisconsin White Party and their shills.

Man-up dudes, there's a party this weekend. You don't pass a budget by 6:00 tonight, you don't even deserve a beer.

Rational Budget Talk from Jonathan Chait

Jonathan Chait injects some reality into the national budget debate—applicable to the Wisconsin budget debate.

Chait, one should note, famously wrote of the early Bush-Cheney budgetary statements: "He's [Bush] lying," and that deficits and mounting debt were sure to follow. Chait was right. And he's right again.

From The New Republic:

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column pointing out how strange it is that President Obama is being blamed for huge budget deficits, when the projected deficits we face are entirely due to policies he inherited. In my column, I cited this paper by the Center on Budget and Policy priorities, which found that Obama's budget would reduce the budget by $900 billion over ten years compared with keeping current policies in place.

Yesterday David Leonhardt of the New York Times took up a similar question. Leonhardt looked at the budget from 2009 through 2012, and tried to figure out what had changed in those years since 2001. He found that the business cycle accounted for 37% of the higher red ink. More than half came from legislation signed by President Bush. Seven percent came from Obama's stimulus bill, and only three percent from his regular budget.

It was an admirable and serious article. A good sense of how serious can be seen in the contrast to a Politico story that ran the same day. Politico concerned itself entirely with the perception that Obama is responsible for the new debt without bothering to explore the merits of the perception. It ran quotes alleging as much (GOP Sen. John Cornyn: 'This was not an inherited situation. This was a matter entirely of this administration’s and this Democratic leadership’s making') without pointing out that the allegation is demonstrably false.

This debate such as it is sounds familiar in Wisconsin political circles with the same malarkey emitting from the GOP and its shills.

GOP Lies and Lies

Update: See Bruce Murphy's piece that argues GOP is desperate against Doyle, mocking the silly notion that Doyle is doomed.

But lying is the Republican way.

Faced with the hollowed-out economy executed by the Bush-Cheney administration, 47 states this year face ballooning budget deficits, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

State legislatures and governors from California to Maine are fighting to clean up the fiscal carnage.

So the over-heated GOP shills in Wisconsin snipe and gripe, screaming about the state budget addressing the $6 billion deficit: The worst ever, sure to draw the wrath of the people.

Yes, the state budget not yet approved is the cause of economic misery and generates outrage across the state. Right.

And Jim Doyle is sure to feel this wrath and outrage. Milwaukee talk radio and GOP shills are never wrong.

Where were these fiscal Republican geniuses the last eights years that saw the Bush administration applaud and actually brag about economic progress as 1,000,000s of jobs were outsourced? Smirking no doubt.

Where were these geniuses the last eight years that saw in 2001 the projected elimination of all public debt [and states arguing about what to do with their surpluses] morph into Bush bequeathing $10 trillion debt to the new administration and the 50 states in fiscal crises? That's easy, they were applauding King George's leadership and courage.

Remember the "deficits don't matter" assurance infamously voiced by our intrepid former vice-president.

As the GOP scolds, do yourself a favor and don't buy their snake oil.

Their public record and commitment to honest commentary ain't the best as the omission of inconvenient facts make clear.

If we could get a honest policy discussion from Republicans, our country and our fellow states would not be in this mess.