Politics

Wisconsin, Scott Walker, and Protesting Workers: The Story Continues

Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger

There have been some new developments in the Wisconsin story since my last post on the subject, Is the Scott Walker Story Just the Tip of the Koch Brothers Political Iceberg?. More than six hundred comments have been left at that post—and it takes a long time to load the page. I thought it best to write up a new post for people who would like to continue the discussion on the subject of Governor Scott Walker, the protesting workers in Wisconsin, Walker’s anti-union budget repair bill, the AWOL Democratic state senators, and various and sundry other things related to the subject.

Today, I’m just providing links to some news stories on the subject for you.

Wisconsinites were locked out of their capital building. WBAY (ABC)

Madison firefighters were denied access to one of the Capitol’s entrances when they were responding to an emergency. (Journal Sentinel)

A Democratic Wisconsin state representative who was tackled by police when he tried to enter the Capitol to get some of his clothes said that his Capitol card has been disabled. (TPMMucraker)

Some Democratic state legislators wanted to be accessible to their constituents so they moved their desks outside the Capitol to conduct business. (The Nation)

The Wisconsin Senate passed a resolution that called for police to take 14 state Democratic senators who fled to Illinois into custody for contempt. (Wisconsin State Journal)

Scott Walker’s budget defunds Planned Parenthood and targets contraception access. (Huffington Post)

A recent Rasmussen Poll shows that nearly 60% of Wisconsin voters disapprove of Governor Walker. (TPMDC)

AFL-CIO plans another big rally at the Wisconsin Capitol for this Saturday. (TPMDC)

573 thoughts on “Wisconsin, Scott Walker, and Protesting Workers: The Story Continues”

  2. Elaine M:

    I am all for unions and collective bargaining as long as it is done in the private sector.

    I used to be a big Reagan fan but the older I get and the more I learn, well he isnt exactly as freedom loving as I thought he was. Amiable and photogenic, certainly. Defender of individual liberty? Not that much.

    But he started out as a progressive, so I guess old habits are hard to break.

  3. Maury,

    I’m not the left–I’m one individual. BTW, what do you think about that Reagan quote? I happen to find it amusing that the right’s biggest political hero believed in collective bargaining–or said/showed he did when it was convenient for him politically.

  4. Will some one find some work for Pat Buchannan,this guy the more he talks the more he needs to shut up.

    “Governor Walker has won” Really ?

    He has won what Pat?

  5. Maury,

    There was more than one bubble!

    I read Matt Taibbi, Michael Lewis, Simon Johnson, and others. I’m not an ideologue.

  6. That is interesting that the left is using Reagan. Didnt he fire a bunch of federal workers? LOL

  7. First of all most Wall Street big wigs are liberal.
    Greenspan manipulated interest rates.
    Bush was responsible for an increase in social welfare spending.

    I am not a republican but like free markets (Austrian School). Both liberals and conservatives have never seen an entitlement program or spending increase they didnt like.

    The bubble was caused by the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates low and by banks and the federal government encouraging loans to people who could not afford them all in the name of fairness.

    If you would read more than just Paul Krugmans column you might have a little more understanding of what actually happened.

    I am not against private sector unions nor collective bargaining in the private sector and I doubt the Kochs are either, seeing as how they are libertarians. Unlike you people, they probably believe in freedom. The only freedom you want is for everyone to be able to have sex with mules. But economic freedom? No way you can allow that, dont want people to have too much freedom. They might realize they dont need the government to help them and then where would progressives/socialists be? No where, a few bitter clingers reliving their days of glory.

    I imagine none of you reads anything about economics but Paul Krugman. I know you dont like Thomas Sowell and you probably dont like Walter Williams. To help you out here is the link to one of his books “Liberty and The Tyranny of Socialism”

    http://www.hooverpress.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1334

    and a link to a book called “The Tyranny of Socialism” by Yves Guyot. It was written in 1893 and you peope are still doing the same things with the same results.

    http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=91&Itemid=28

  8. It is my best guess for now that what is happening in terms of politics and political policy in the United States of America may happen to be the civil rights movement which transcends all prior civil rights movements.

    I lived and worked in the inner city of Chicago during the early part of the civil rights movement during the 1960s. I had asked the minister of the West Side Christian Parish to go to Selma, if there was room on the bus. People of higher status, however, filled the bus, and I watched on TV.

    In the back of my mind, in commenting here, was the faint hint of a wisp of the possibility of solving a sequence of murders, murders committed as though in the name of the law, for there is more than one law.

    While I allow that a clear majority of those who proclaim their being “Christian” will likely deem me not at all “Christian” because I do not believe in Christianity, the murder which has intrigued me for most of my life is the murder by law of one purported “Jesus of Nazareth.”

    If that is too serious or fictional or ancient or irrelevant, the murder of Fred Hampton will do for me about as well.

    In the hope of solving a “murder by law mystery,” I began commenting here as it became clearer and clearer to me that the impending 2008 fall election(s) were intensely reminding me of my Chicago inner city years.

    I can no longer find that my research has not finally unriddled a long string of civil rights worker murders. How about James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner?

    Because my biophysics-grounded bioengineering research informs me that people are inescapably innocent, the enigma of my research has been focused on the possibility of to accurately identifying the murderer of Jesus of Nazareth, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Joan of Arc, Giles Corey, and a few billion more people.

    I have a hunch, next to be tested, that you kind folks have pointed out to me the real murderer.

    Matthew 18:14, KJV: “Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.”

    There is law such that no one and no thing is above the law.

    Such law is the law of death.

    There is Law such that everyone and everything is above the Law.

    Such Law is the Law of Life.

    Those who here have commented have been very helpful. Thanks.

    How many points can dance on the point of a pointless pin?

    There just may happen to be something more useful to do than the making of points and/or the scoring of points.

    My work is pointless. Thanks for telling me that!

    It has been my intended purpose to learn to do pointless work.

    La Kayim!

  9. As I recall from the civil rights struggles the President can send in the Federal Marshals and actual troops. I ‘spose that now an armed drone sent right up the Governor’s butt is technologically possible but low on the list of practical options.

    But seriously, You ask an interesting question. During the stand-off in Little Rock President Eisenhower Federalized the entire state National Guard and told them to sit on their hands while he sent in elements of the 101st Airborne to protect the students.

    Below is an interesting site and I followed most of the citations listed and I’m wondering if President Eisenhower overstepped his bounds or Congress declared an emergency in Arkansas’ refusal to honor Brown v Board of Education. The history of the National Guard in law is pretty consistent that while the President is the Commander in Chief it’s Congress that has to declare an emergency to federalize the NG.

    For a state government to say ‘No, we’re not going to comply with the law of the land and will use the militia at our disposal to resist implementing the law’ is pretty heavy, treasonous in fact. By the time it happened the NG had been made part of the U S Army but still acted under the ‘Congress declares’ requirement. I wonder what the story is, did Congress declare a national emergency in the face of Arkansas’ virtual treason?

    http://www.arng.army.mil/aboutus/history/Pages/ConstitutionalCharteroftheGuard.aspx

  10. Thanks Lottakatz. I figured that as a local attorney, Ben would know. I must admit I have not kept up with the requirements and limitations on mobilization of NG troops. However, it looks as if the point is moot. The troops in uniform that were spotted may have not been the point of the spear, but just some of the NG people stopping by and their purpose and intent misinterpreted.

    It looks as if Walker did not have to call the guard to do his dirty work–the state troopers forcibly removed the crowed. See the video I posted above showing troopers dragging [but not arresting] the protesters.

    I do think that although Walker has already far overreached, even he knows that if he mobilizes the Guard, it would escalate the situation far beyond anything he could manage. If you remember, Orval Faubus in Arkansas tried to use the NG to defy a Federal court order back in 1957. Keep in mind that in the current situation, Walker could be in the same position of trying to use the troops to defy the court order to keep the Capitol open to visitors. I do not know how that would play out. As a non-lawyer, I am wondering what are the options open to the President if a governor tried to use the NG to defy a Federal court order?

  11. Read a really good book tonight then decided to see how the Troll responded to truth:

    “no, my people did not bring the financial sector to it’s knees. you regulated market schmucks did that.” (Troll)

    … ah, poor baby can’t face the truth, can’t accept responsibility, can’t handle reality, can’t even the manage the job of being a Troll … gets another big fat “F” to add to his collection.

    By the way … there are many Unions established in companies owned by Koch Industries … interesting that the siblings have Unions in their own house.

  12. Otteray Scribe

    Ben Masel is a Wisconsin attorney and Democratic candidate for the Senate. Ben writes that the first few National Guard troops in uniform have arrived at the Capitol. … He observes that Obama can stop this in its tracks, because as Commander in Chief he can order them to return to their barracks with the stroke of his pen.

    If Ben Masel is right on the Guard being on scene, then the ball is in Obama’s court.

    ——-
    It’s not up to Obama. This conflict first arose regarding the National Guard in Louisiana during Karrina, Bush wanted to mobilize the Guard but Landrieu wouldn’t give the OK fearing that national and local goals regarding rescue and use would be at odds. Thereafter the law was changed to give the president the power to unilaterally mobilize and control the Guard. Governer’s didn’t like that and a year later it was changed again to limit the President’s control of the Guard.

    The state of the law now is that there must be a “Congressionally sanctioned national emergency or war” for the President or SecDef to come into the equasion. Until then (unless there are other laws or decisions that modify the meaning of the language) the Guard still belongs to the Governor regarding a declared state of emergency at the local(state) level.

    Please correct me if I’m wrong, I welcome additional info.

    From Wikipedia:

    The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 Pub.L. 109-364
    Federal law was changed in section 1076 so that the Governor of a state is no longer the sole commander in chief of their state’s National Guard during emergencies within the state. The President of the United States will now be able to take total control of a state’s National Guard units without the governor’s consent.[14] In a letter to Congress all 50 governors opposed the increase in power of the president over the National Guard.[15]

    The National Defense Authorization Act 2008 Pub.L. 110-181
    Repeals provisions in section 1076 in Pub.L. 109-364 but still enables the President to call up the National Guard of the United States for active federal military service during Congressionally sanctioned national emergency or war. Places the National Guard Bureau directly under the Department of Defense as a joint activity. Promoted the Chief of the National Guard Bureau from a three-star to a four-star general.

  15. From Think Progress (3/2/2011)
    FLASHBACK: Reagan Granted California’s Local Government Workers Collective Bargaining Rights
    http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/03/02/reagan-local-employ/

    Excerpt:
    Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) — who has fashioned himself as a kingmaker amogst Republicans — said during a radio interview yesterday that government workers should never be allowed to collectively bargain. “It’s a bigger issue than people think, and it’s something that I’m going to work a lot on, because I really don’t think that collective bargaining has any place in representative government,” DeMint said.

    DeMint has also opined that he is looking for someone who is “a combination of Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill” to be the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee. So it might surprise DeMint to know that it was his cherished Gipper who granted California’s municipal and county employees the right to collectively bargain in 1968 by signing the Meyers Milias Brown Act. In fact, former Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon, who wrote several books on Reagan, explained that Reagan’s approach to organized labor differed drastically from that of the current-day GOP:

    Cannon agreed that Reagan’s relationship with labor was complicated but noted it was very different than today’s Republican approach. “He didn’t like the fact that the unions always supported the Democrats, but it wasn’t a hostile relationship,” Cannon said. “I never heard Reagan, in all the interviews, say those ‘damn unions.’”

    In fact, Cannon notes that Reagan “was always very proud of the fact he got working class support,” estimating that Reagan garnered as much as one-third of union households.

  18. Raff, when you engage in dialogue with a crazy person, you tend to have some cognitive slippage, It sometimes is strangely contagious. I have a friend who is both a psychiatrist and lawyer. He says when he is interviewing a client and starts getting a headache, he realizes it is the word salad logic that he is trying to follow, unsuccessfully.

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