[dgdhgjjgj]

Nope, and the teachers do not do legalized extortion.

Tell me, you always use such a broad brush when doing detail work?

[timmybrown]

Wisconsin judge halts state budget law curbing unions' power


By the CNN Wire Staff
March 18, 2011 2:28 p.m. EDT

CNN affiliate WKOW has more on the story.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker pushed for legislation curbing the collective bargaining rights of state employees in unions.

(CNN) -- A Wisconsin judge issued a temporary restraining order Friday halting the state's controversial budget repair law that curbs the union power of most public employees, the Dane County district attorney's office said.
Gov. Scott Walker, who championed the measure and signed it into law last week, said he was confident the initiative would eventually prevail in the court system, a spokeswoman said.
"This legislation is still working through the legal process. We are confident the provisions of the budget repair bill will become law in the near future," Cullen Werwie, the governor's press secretary, said in a statement.
Wisconsin Senate Democrats called the law, which reduces the collective bargaining rights of most state employees, an attack on workers and filed a complaint with the Dane County district attorney, claiming that the Senate's Republican-led vote violated Wisconsin's open meetings law.
The ruling by Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi came in response to a lawsuit filed by District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, charging such a violation of the law.
The judge's order enjoins Wisconsin Secretary of State Douglas La Follette from publishing the new law "until further order of the court," according to court documents.
Secretary-Treasurer Stephanie Bloomingdale of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO praised the ruling.
"In Wisconsin, we have a democracy, and rules need to be followed. No one is above the law, including Scott Walker," Bloomingdale said. "This is definitely a move in the right direction for working people in Wisconsin to uphold worker rights and also to uphold democracy in Wisconsin and America."
During the controversy over the governor's budget repair bill, Democratic state senators fled the state in protest. They returned Saturday to cheering crowds and vowed to continue the fight.
"People think that this is a picnic for us. They're wrong. But I'll tell you something, we did it for the right reasons," state Sen. Dave Hansen said Saturday. "And the fight will continue. It does not end with that vote."
The senators returned to Wisconsin just one day after Walker signed the bill into law.
Republicans cleared the final hurdle to the controversial proposal last week, passing the bill after the state's GOP-controlled Senate approved an amended version of the measure -- despite the absence of the 14 Democratic senators who fled the state to prevent a necessary quorum of 20 votes.
The amended bill stripped the spending components out of the original proposal, enabling lawmakers to pass the measure with fewer votes.
GOP lawmakers say the law will help Wisconsin close a $137 million budget shortfall with a plan that requires public workers, with the exception of police and firefighters, to cover more of their retirement plan contributions and health care premiums.
Raises will be tied to the rate of inflation, unless state voters approve an exception. The legislation also requires unions to hold a new certification vote every year, and unions will no longer be allowed to collect dues from workers' paychecks.
Unions mobilized their supporters to oppose the bill, drawing tens of thousands of people to rallies opposing Walker and supporting the fugitive Democrats.
CNN's Michael Martinez and Matt Cherry contributed to this report.

[bertanu]

Judge voids controversial Wisconsin union law



By Jeff Mayers
MADISON, Wisconsin | Thu May 26, 2011 11:30am EDT

(Reuters) - A Wisconsin judge on Thursday voided a controversial Republican-backed law restricting the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions.
Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi said Republican lawmakers violated the state's open meetings law in rushing the legislation through during massive protests at the state Capitol earlier this year.
The Wisconsin proposal, championed by Republican Governor Scott Walker, eliminates most collective bargaining rights for public sector unions and requires them to pay more for pensions and health coverage.
The law has been on hold pending the legal challenge.
Mike Tate, chairman of the state's Democratic Party which opposed the measure, hailed the ruling and said: "It should be looked at as an opportunity to work together to find common sense solutions to grow our economy and get our fiscal house in order, not to tear our state apart."
Sumi, who was appointed by former Republican Governor Tommy Thompson, ruled that the evidence was "clear and convincing" that Republicans failed to comply with the law in a hastily called meeting in March to push through legislation containing the collective bargaining changes.
"The legislators were understandably frustrated by the stalemate existing on March 9, but that does not justify jettisoning compliance with the open meetings law in an attempt to move the budget repair bill to final action," Sumi wrote.
"Moreover, if there is any doubt as to the committee's awareness of its violation, one need only read the short transcript of the committee's March 9 proceedings."
Sumi said the legislators had the opportunity to correct their violation without admitting error, but failed to do so.
(Reporting by Jeff Mayers, James B. Kelleher and David Bailey; Editing by Greg McCune and Peter Bohan)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...74P4PR20110526

[Blellurgews]

^
This got surprisingly little attention on line. There is a blurb on nytimes.com, but it is not very prominent considering how much press the bill received.

[911_993_911]

Because it is not exciting.

There were no rallies in support of the decision, and the decision itself is a technicality that did not make it seem like the judge went against party lines to stymie the whole shebang.

I am paraphrasing, of course!


It is oxymoronically surprising, but not unbelievable that there is not much attention on this..... It is just not as important as the results from American Idol!

[Vedun*]

It is just not as important as the results from American Idol! sooo sad, but probably true.

[Pataacculakp]

AI, the perfect distraction.

[DadaSeeva]

Unfortunately loft, running water would be enough for the majority that watch that stuff.

But, because of its popularity,we have so many versions of it and other "contests" that we are now living through the "reality show" era of the new millennia.

I still can't see how ANY government agency can make it illegal to negotiate as a group!

It is rather unfair that teachers cannot do things like strikes when they are not being taken seriously (and abominantions like a binding arbitration that is not forced to consider anything... kind of a do or... well...don't). The reasons always being skewed towards something that does not really apply "Well, we have to think of the CHILDREN! A strike would be bad for them!!"

So would paying a bunch of professionals that have more education, both before and during their career, than 95% of the others and compares to education levels present in much more advanced fields such as R+D.....

Anyway, what is important is that this was edged off the track. Lets see if it can stay there long enough to get something else in there that will actually do the state, and by almost direct relation and precedent, the country GOOD.

[dselectronics]

Scott Walker Accused of Seeking to Rig 2012 Election


27 July 2011 :: staff
Wisconsin’s governor Scott Walker has signed into a law a controversial requirement that voters present photo ID in order to exercise their right to vote. Now, he has announced plans to close as many as 16 motor vehicle offices, every one of them in districts that favor Democrats. What’s more, Walker’s plan includes expanding hours at facilities where Republicans are more likely to obtain their driver’s license or photo ID.

Democratic leaders say the move is clearly designed to deny photo ID to voters more likely to vote Democratic, and then deny them the right to vote. It is the latest in a series of policy changes, enacted by Gov. Walker and the brothers Fitzgerald, the Republicans who control the legislature, specifically designed to make it more difficult for Democrats to win elections, beginning with what many say was an illegal legislative maneuver to strip public servants of basic labor rights.

More than one top Wisconsin Republican openly stated in televised interviews that the collective bargaining ban was specifically designed to “break the unions” or to “crush the Democrats”. This latest move comes as Walker’s government is releasing a radical redistricting map, changing all of the borders of every district in the state, just before voters are scheduled to cast votes to recall six Republican state senators—an effort critics say is designed to confuse voters.

When asked by Current’s Keith Olbermann whether it was an exaggeration to classify Walker’s actions as “fixing an election”, John Nichols referred him to the history of the infamous Boss Tweed and 19th century New York City’s Tammany Hall, to this day viewed as possibly the most significant example of pervasive and outright public corruption in US history. Tweed’s methods were similar in many ways to Walker’s, nibbling around the edges to get the outcome he wanted.

Scott Walker’s term has been laced with one after another accusation of corruption and abuse of office. As protests mounted in Madison, against the bid to strip the state’s public servants of collective bargaining rights, Walker attempted to mobilize the National Guard against the demonstrators, attempted to have protesters arrested for free speech, illegally sealed the state Capitol building, and is accused of using state troopers to harass and intimidate the families of Democratic legislators who fled the state to deprive Walker’s Republicans of a legislative quorum in the Senate.

He named the father of the Fitzgerald brothers—who control both houses of the state legislature—to be head of the state police. And it was the father of the two men he was counting on to carry out illegal actions in the legislature to force through votes on a rights-stripping measure, designed to undermine unions and give Republicans and edge in elections, that he asked to send troopers to the homes of individuals he knew to be out of the state, to harass their families.

It was alleged in more than one report that Scott Walker was considering ordering the state police to attack demonstrators in order to disperse the crowds, with multiple top police commanders calling for restraint and saying they would not recognize such a scene as American democracy.

Some state police joined the protesters in denouncing Walker’s actions as corrupt and undemocratic. On February 25, 2011, FireDogLake published this report:Rainforest Action Network’s Jenn Breckenridge posted around 8:00 p.m. EST that the Wisconsin State Police had arrived at the capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, joining the protesters in solidarity against Gov. Scott Walker and his attack on state employees’ collective bargaining.
The move may have come in response to an apparent order by the state’s assembly to close the capitol building at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday. RAN’s Ryan Harvey said the state police are rejecting the order and are planning to sleep in the building along side the protesters.
The police officer says in this video, “Let me tell you Mr. Walker, this is not your house, this is all our house.”
When a critic staged a fake call from one of the Koch brothers, who were spending millions to help finance the Republican response to the massive Madison protests, Gov. Walker accepted a gift in kind, in the form of an expensive vacation, as a reward for his hard work. And allegations of corruption only mounted.
According to the watchdog site Scott Walker Watch:Thanks to the great work by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, it has become apparent that dozens of Walker supporters were illegally donating more that the $10,000 limit in campaign contributions during the 2010 election season.There is now an official complaint against Gov. Walker and his campaign, for seeking and accepting illegal contributions.

With mounting evidence that a significant portion of the Walker governing agenda is going toward rigging the 2012 election to favor Republicans, critics and election watchdogs are now calling for an investigation into election tampering and voter suppression.

A recall petition is almost certain to emerge after the one-year-in-office requirement is met. Already, there are petitions circulating calling for a bid to recall him. One accuses him of “economic treason” for what many view as a war against the middle class. Over 11,000 people have already joined a Facebook page devoted to removing Gov. Walker from office.

The pro-business lobbying organization ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) has actually gone as far as to pair corporate interests with Republican legislators interested in working with them, to essentially push legislation written by industry. John Nichols, reporting for the Nation, writes:“Never has the time been so right,” Louisiana State Representative Noble Ellington told conservative legislators gathered in Washington to plan the radical remaking of policies in the states. It was one month after the 2010 midterm elections. Republicans had grabbed 680 legislative seats and secured a power trifecta—control of both legislative chambers and the governorship—in twenty-one states. Ellington was speaking for hundreds of attendees at a “States and Nation Policy Summit,” featuring GOP stars like Texas Governor Rick Perry, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Convened by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)—“the nation’s largest, non-partisan, individual public-private membership association of state legislators,” as the spin-savvy group describes itself—the meeting did not intend to draw up an agenda for the upcoming legislative session. That had already been done by ALEC’s elite task forces of lawmakers and corporate representatives. The new legislators were there to grab their weapons: carefully crafted model bills seeking to impose a one-size-fits-all agenda on the states.
The radical Walker agenda has many of the hallmarks of such model bills, and his Republican majority has been accused of selling its role as legislative majority, in exchange for financial support from industry. There are calls for a comprehensive corruption investigation into the dealings of the Wisconsin Republican party, to look into illegal campaign fundraising activity, illegal legislative process, potential quid-pro-quo, abusive of power and extortion.

There is even an allegation that Mr. Walker had been illegally funneling low-interest government bonds to his employer—BP Rifinery, in Whatcom County—for as long as 10 years. While he was able to deliver $180 million in low-interest bonds to that one entity, all other businesses in the county received only $13 million of the same bonds.

It is alleged Walker routinely manipulated the process for debate and for public hearings, to obscure a decision-making process that was flagrantly corrupt and which would have raised opposition from the community, from businesses and from the federal government.

[ZAtlLVos]

Damn, the country is being overwhelmed by slugs. Is it the heat or the humidity that's encouraging these soft-brainers?

[Nigeopire]

Reiterating my post from 3/26, the attempt to bust the teachers union was nothing more than a direct assault on the democratic party in WI. This substantiates that.