Democratic representatives shout at their Republican colleagues, after the assembly passed Governor Walker’s budget bill in a late night session on Thursday.
A buffalo journalist, pretending to be David Koch, the conservative billionaire who helped get Scott Walker elected, called Governor Walker and had a 20 minute phone conversation. Above is Part I, below is Part II
Some highlights:
WALKER: You’ve got a few of the radical ones — unfortunately, one of them’s the minority leader — but most of the rest of them are just looking for a way to get out of this. They’re scared out of their minds. They don’t know what it means. There’s a bunch of recalls up against them. They’d really like to just get back up here and get it over with. So the paycheck thing, some of the other things threatening them, I think collectively there’s enough going on, and as long as they don’t think I’m going to cave, which again we have no interest in. An interesting idea that was brought up to me by my chief of staff, we won’t do it until tomorrow, is putting out an appeal to the Democratic leader. I would be willing to sit down and talk to him, the assembly Democrat leader, plus the other two Republican leaders–talk, not negotiate and listen to what they have to say if they will in turn–but I’ll only do it if all 14 of them will come back and sit down in the state assembly. They can recess it… the reason for that, we’re verifying it this afternoon, legally, we believe, once they’ve gone into session, they don’t physically have to be there. If they’re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they’d have quorum because it’s turned out that way. So we’re double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that’s the only reason why. We’d only do it if they came back to the capitol with all 14 of them. My sense is, hell. I’ll talk. If they want to yell at me for an hour, I’m used to that. I can deal with that. But I’m not negotiating.
Protesters sing “We Shall Overcome, We Are not Afraid,” at a recent rally. Despite reports, protestors from all walks of life have been flocking to the Capitol in opposition to Governor Walker’s proposed budget bill.
NYTimes editorialist and Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman weighed in on the Wisconsin Protests yesterday, saying:
For what’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker’s pretense that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side…You don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years — which it has — that’s to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions.
Here’s an interesting story from Mike Elk. Yesterday, as many people have noted, you could not access the website defendwisconsin.org on the public Wifi network “guest,” which is maintained by the Capitol building. The website was created by the TAA to coordinate protest efforts and serve as a hub for the anti-Budget Repair Bill movement. Elk notes:
Administrators of the website were notified on Monday that the page is being blocked. Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate says that the site was put on a blacklist typically used to filter out pornography sites so that protestors inside the Capitol could not access this key site.
Yet, whoever made the decision to block access to defendwisconsin.org, also decided to block access to the internet for the TAA, which had their “headquarters” stationed on the 3rd floor of the Capitol building.
Likewise, the Teacher Assistants Associations (TAA), which has been coordinating the various cleaning and food operations of the protesters occupying it, has been allowed to occupy room 300NE in the Capitol as their headquarters or situation room. They have used this room to help coordinate protests within the Capitol. Up until today, they had been able to arrange a special high speed Wifi so they could work their coordinating.
Yesterday, however, the Wifi connection mysteriously ended and it’s not clear exactly why. Whatever the reason, the TAA Wifi connection ending has made it more difficult for TAA organizers to coordinate actions and movements throughout the Capitol.
Check for updates.
Rumors throughout the weekend had it that the Daily Show with Jon Stewart would be in Madison today. It turns out that the rumors were true. The interviews from today will be on tomorrow’s show. Here are some pictures of Oliver, a “news correspondent” for the show. Video of some of the interviews below.
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Oliver (at 36 seconds): “How many rocks have you thrown today?”
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Another interview
Rage Against the Machine guitarist and political activist Tom Morello will headline a concert today at the Capitol building starting at 12PM, followed by an encore at 5PM. Scheduled to preform with Wayne Kramer & The Street Dogs, Morello claimed:
“I really think that the future of the rights of working people in this country is not going to be decided in the courts,” he said. “It’s not going to be decided in Congress or radio talk shows. The future of rights of working people in this country will be the fight on the streets of Madison, Wis. “
(HP)
This sign is found at nearly every entrance to the Capitol. Just in case anyone was wondering, given Wisconsin’s open-carry law, firearms are not allowed inside the Capitol Building.
This past Saturday marked the first day that Tea Party groups came to Madison in support of Gov. Walker and his proposed bill. Many feared that the protests would get out of hand, and perhaps turn violent, as the the Bill’s union backed opponents came face to face with members of the Tea Party. To the contrary, the protests remained peaceful, as they have been all week, as the two groups interacted with each other over the course of the day. As Reuters noted,
the day was marked by a surprising civility when the shouting stopped and the one-on-one conversations began.
…But aside from a few outsiders…the people on hand were from Wisconsin itself and these neighbors were remarkably civil despite their sharp disagreements.
Wisconsonites are united, even in times like this, by many things, including a love of University of Wisconsin, Madison, athletics and the program’s strutting mascot Bucky the Badger; a devotion to the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers NFL football team; and, of course, a love of beer
Yes, Beer. A common unifier in Wisconsin, capable of bringing people together despite even the most extreme political differences.
So when the opposing rallies ended here on Saturday, many of the demonstrators retired to the numerous bars in the Capitol’s shadow, like The Old Fashioned Tavern & Restaurant, with its 50 beers on tap — all from Wisconsin — and another 100 in bottles, 99 of them from the Badger state. The one other, from neighboring Minnesota, is listed under imports.
Over pints of Evil Doppleganger Double Mai Bock and Lost Lake Pilsner, knots of demonstrators debated the questions that have galvanized union employees across the country and brought the business of the state legislature to a standstill.
…”Beer is something we can all agree on,” said Randy Otto, 59, from Lake Mills, one of the bill supporters who let Begolli squeeze in.
“I was outnumbered,” Begolli said. “But the conversation was civil.
The conversation yesterday remained civil throughout the day. The individuals in the video below are a good example of this civility.
