Fifth Wisconsin Republican Faces Recall

It is starting to look like there WILL be a price paid by the politicians who voted for the union-busting bill in Wisconsin:

Dems will file a massive amount of signatures tomorrow to trigger a recall election against a fifth Wisconsin GOP state senator, I’m told.

Graeme Zielinski, the spokesman for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, confirms to me that Democrats will submit approximately 30,000 signatures for the recall of Alberta Darling — nearly 150 percent of the 20,343 required.

This is the fifth time Dems have collected far more signatures than necessary for a recall — all but ensuring that all five recall elections will actually happen.

This comes as there are signs that Republicans may be able to trigger two recall elections against Dems, though in one case Republicans have apparently only collected a couple of thousand more signatures than required, which isn’t much of a cushion. Republicans have less than a week until their deadline, and they still haven’t filed anything, though that appears ready to change tomorrow.

Darling is in a district that gave Scott Walker 54% of the vote, but also gave Obama 51% in 2008, so while she is less vulnerable than the other Republicans facing recall, there might be a chance to oust her.

Given that Republicans plan to recall two Dems, I think it is important that EVERY Republican who voted for the Walker bill who CAN be recalled BE recalled.

Yes, ultimately this kind of politics of destruction is probably harmful to the union as a whole, but given that Republicans (and their corporate brothers in the Democratic Party Like Little Andy Cuomo, Michael Bennet, et al.) will continue to push this union-busting class warfare until they are MADE TO PAY A POLITICAL PRICE, I think it is important that we have this fight.

Republican Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Loses Seat In Walker Fall-Out

This was supposed to be a blowout for the Republican:

Madison — Unofficial results Wednesday showed Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg with a paper-thin lead over Justice David Prosser after a race marked by massive voter turnout, Gov. Scott Walker's union bargaining plan and record spending by outside interest groups.

As of 2:15 p.m., The Associated Press had tallied results for all of the state's 3,630 precincts and Kloppenburg had taken a 204-vote lead after Prosser had been ahead most of the night by less than 1,000 votes.

Kloppenburg declared victory based on the AP's results.

"Wisconsin voters have spoken and I am grateful for, and humbled by, their confidence and trust," she said in a statement.

...

Even with the precinct reported, the tally is not final. The Associated Press said that it was rechecking all of the totals in all 72 counties to make sure it has an accurate count in each county. The wire service said it anticipated getting the final numbers later Wednesday.

That close margin had political insiders from both sides talking about the possibility of the first statewide recount in more than two decades. Any recount could be followed by lawsuits - litigation that potentially would be decided by the high court.

...

he slim margin in the race was the latest twist in Wisconsin's ongoing political turmoil. The state has drawn the attention of the nation in recent weeks because of the fight over Walker's controversial law repealing most collective bargaining by public employees, which caused massive weeks-long protests in the Capitol, a boycott of the Senate by Democrats and attempts to recall senators from both parties.

Interest groups on both sides had portrayed the judicial election as a referendum on Walker and his collective bargaining law. Conservatives backed Prosser, and liberals supported Kloppenburg, even though the candidates themselves insisted they were politically neutral.

Legal challenges to the new law - which would eliminate most collective bargaining for most public employees - are expected to reach the high court, but it's not clear if the justices would take up the case before this race's winner is scheduled to be sworn in Aug. 1.

In the contest for a 10-year term, Kloppenburg is trying to accomplish the rare feat of unseating a sitting justice. Michael Gableman defeated then-Justice Louis Butler in 2008, but before that it had been 41 years since an incumbent lost a race for a high court seat. Unlike Butler, who was appointed to the post, Prosser was elected to his current term.

If these results hold up, this is a big help when the anti-union bill cases go before the highest court.

Judge Blocks Wisconsin Union-Busting Bill

A little good news for a change, at least temporarily:

CHICAGO — A judge issued a temporary restraining order on Friday that prevents Wisconsin’s new law cutting collective bargaining rights for public workers from taking effect, at least for now.

The decision, issued by Judge Maryann Sumi of the Dane County Circuit Court, temporarily bars Wisconsin’s secretary of state from publishing the controversial law, one of the procedural requirements for it to come into effect in the state. Publication had been expected late next week, but Judge Sumi’s ruling delays that until at least March 29, when she plans to hold a full hearing on a lawsuit that questions the validity of the collective bargaining law based on the speedy manner in which it was carried out earlier this month.

An appeal is possible even before then.

Opponents of the measure said they hoped the decision was but the first of many that would ultimately undo legislation that has split the state and drawn tens of thousands of demonstrators to the state capital over a matter of many weeks. Supporters of the measure, however, said the judge’s decision was merely a blip, certain to be overturned as various legal efforts make their way fully through the court system.

In the lawsuit before Judge Sumi, Ismael R. Ozanne, the Dane County district attorney and a Democrat, alleges that Republican legislators violated the state’s open meeting requirements — which require 24 hours notice or two hours in emergencies — when they pressed through the bill. Republican lawmakers dominate both chambers in Wisconsin, but had been blocked from passing the measure when Senate Democrats left the state in February, preventing a needed quorum. On March 9, the Republicans unexpectedly called a meeting of a conference committee, changed the law so it would not require a quorum, and hurried it through the Senate. A day later, it passed in the Assembly.

Judge Sumi was first appointed to the court in 1998 by Tommy Thompson, a Republican former governor, then elected in 1999 and 2005. Judicial elections are nonpartisan in Wisconsin.

FireDogLake has more:

Sumi stressed that she was not judging on the merits of the legislation, but on the specifics of the open meeting requirements. Wisconsin law requires that public meetings are announced with 24 hours notice, 2 hours if there’s some extenuating circumstance which prevents advanced planning. The meeting in question, the conference committee, actually had less than two hours notice. “I have been shown no rule that overrides the statutory requirement,” Judge Sumi said.

The legislature in Wisconsin could simply re-do the conference committee, under the rules, and pass the bill again. Since they believe it’s a “non-fiscal” bill, quorum requirements would not apply. Alternatively, with the Fab 14 Senators back in Madison, they could just pass the budget repair bill they wanted all along, and have the quorum to do so, unless the Democrats leave the state again.

But this temporary restraining order will stop the implementation scheduled for March 25. And it drags out the process once again, keeping it in the headlines. This is not at all what Scott Walker and the Republicans facing recall elections wanted to see.

In addition, it gives time for other legal cases to be brought. There could be municipal challenges that the law’s changes in pension contributions violates “home rule” provisions that allow the cities and towns to govern their own pensions for their workers.

So a temporary stop to the union-busting in Wisconsin.

Given all the union-busting happening in places like Ohio, Florida, Maine, New Jersey, New York and elsewhere, I'll take even a little (albeit temporary) good news.

100,000 Protesters In Madison

And they barely got coverage in the media.

Maybe if they had brought tea bags and powdered Founding Father wigs with them?

More protests tomorrow - including one in Union Square.

Remember When?

Robert Reich Has Some Words Of Wisdom For Protesters In Wisconsin

Watching the news of Scott Walker's union-busting success in the Wisconsin Senate last night made me very, very angry.

And of course anger can be power, as Joe Strummer used to say, if you know how to use it.

But Robert Reich says we must couple our anger with self-discipline in fighting back against the corporatists and oligarchs:

Governor Scott Walker and his Wisconsin senate Republicans have laid bare the motives for their coup d’etat. By severing the financial part of the bill (which couldn’t be passed without absent Democrats) from the part eliminating the collective bargaining rights of public employees (which could be), and then doing the latter, Wisconsin Republicans have made it crystal clear that their goal has had nothing whatever to do with the state budget. It’s been to bust the unions.

That’s no surprise to most people who have watched this conflict from the start, but like any coup its ultimate outcome will depend on the public. If most citizens of Wisconsin are now convinced that Walker and his cohorts are extremists willing to go to any lengths for their big-business patrons (including the billionaire Koch brothers), those citizens will recall enough Republican senators to right this wrong.

But it’s critically important at this stage that Walker’s opponents maintain the self-discipline they have shown until this critical point. Walker would like nothing better than disorder to break out in Madison. Like the leader of any coup d’etat, he wants to show the public his strong-arm methods are made necessary by adversaries whose behavior can be characterized on the media as even more extreme.

Be measured. Stay cool. Know that we are a nation of laws, and those laws will prevail. The People’s Party is growing across America — and the actions of Scott Walker and his Republican colleagues are giving it even greater momentum. So are the actions of congressional Republicans who are using the threat of a government shutdown to strong-arm their way in Washington.

The American public may be divided over many things but we stand united behind our democratic process and the rule of law. And we reject coups in whatever form they occur.

Nate Silver points out one way that this corporatist coup in Wisconsin could reverberate in the national body politic:

It is questionable how much voters outside the state will care about the Wisconsin debate a year from now, given other issues like the health of the national economy, the debate over the federal budget and the war in Afghanistan. Two groups that may have longer memories are two core constituencies in the Democratic base: union households and voters who describe themselves as liberal. A Pew poll conducted earlier this month found that while there was little overall change in opinion of unions — the public went from having a favorable view of them by a 45 to 41 plurality to a 47 to 39 plurality, not a statistically significant increase — there were exceptions among these groups.

In particular, the number of liberal Democrats who said they had a very favorable view of unions jumped to 32 percent from 14 percent. Meanwhile, the percentage of labor household voters who held a very favorable view increased to 45 percent from 27 percent. There was no comparable change among conservative voters; the number of people who said they had a very unfavorable view of unions was roughly unchanged, both among the country as a whole and among different subgroups.

Wisconsin, then, could motivate these groups to vote — something that they usually do fairly reliably, but did not in 2010. (The share of union household voters in the electorate dropped to 17 percent in 2010 from 21 percent in 2008, according to exit polls.) Although self-described liberals almost always vote Democratic, between 35 and 40 percent of labor households have voted Republican in recent elections. If that fraction decreases to something like 30 percent at the same time that union turnout increases, that would hurt Republicans by a couple of percentage points nationally.

And, if the Pew poll is right, Republicans will have no particular counterweight to this; the Wisconsin dispute has motivated the Democratic base more so than theirs.

That does not mean that the Republican base will not have other issues to motivate them in 2012 — they will almost certainly have plenty. But the likelihood of an “enthusiasm gap” of the sort that was present in 2010 has diminished.

What we must remember is that voting for Change We Can All Believe In does not necessarily bring about the diminishing of the corporatist/oligarchy agenda.

So while it is important to recall the Republicans who voted for this bill in Wisconsin, it is also important that we support progressive Democrats who SUPPORT unions and working and middle class people over Wall Street, the Too Big To Fail banks, and the Great Corporatocracy.

Alternatively, we can punish Dems who are beholden to the great moneyed interests and let them know that selling out unions and middle and working class Americans to Wall Street will hurt them come election time.

President Obama thinks union members will work for him simply because the alternative to him is unacceptable.

He MUST have the opinion changed.

He must be told by the union leadership that if he refuses to work for union interests, or worse, promotes policies that hurt unions (like with his education policy), then unions will not help his campaign with the GOTV operations.

Unions MUST instead focus their efforts on politicians who are helping in this class war, not politicians who TALK about helping, then do NOTHING.

Wisconsin can be a galvanizing point for both progressives and for unions.

We can see how the fight there has already begun to change some opinions in the general public about unions.

And this fight has also showed us (most recently in a Bloomberg poll) that the American public DOES support the right of public employees to collectively bargain.

These are important things.

But the most important is that this fight shows us which politicians are on the side of the unions and the working and middle classes and which ones talk a good game while taking in all that yummy, yummy Goldman Sachs money.

Are you listening, Hopey/Changey?

GOP Votes To Destroy Unions In Wisconsin

No other way to frame this:

CHICAGO — The bitter political standoff in Wisconsin over Gov. Scott Walker’s bid to sharply curtail collective bargaining for public-sector workers ended abruptly Wednesday night, as his Republican counterparts in the State Senate successfully maneuvered to adopt a bill doing just that.

After a three-week stalemate, Republican senators pushed the measure through in less than half an hour, as Democrats complained bitterly and protesters, who had spent many days at the Capitol, continued their chants and jeers.

The Republicans control the State Senate but had been blocked from voting on the issue after Senate Democrats left the state last month to prevent a quorum. Instead, they used a procedural maneuver to force the collective bargaining measure through: they removed elements of Governor Walker’s bill that were technically related to appropriating funds, thus removing a requirement that 20 senators be present for a vote. In the end, the Senate’s 19 Republicans approved the measure, 18-1, without any debate on the floor or a single Democrat in the room.

The remaining bill, which increases health care and pension costs and cuts collective bargaining rights for most public workers in the state, still needs approval from the State Assembly on Thursday morning, but that chamber has already once approved the measure, and most in Wisconsin now considered approval a foregone conclusion.

...

Democrats, meanwhile, condemned the move as an attack on working families, a violation of open-meetings requirements (most of them did not know there was to be a vote until not long before), and a virtual firebomb in state that already found itself politically polarized and consumed with recall efforts, large scale protests, and fury from public workers.

“In thirty minutes, 18 State Senators undid fifty years of civil rights in Wisconsin,” said Mark Miller, the leader of the Senate Democrats who had fled to Illinois on Feb. 17 in order to block just such a vote from occurring. “Their disrespect for the people of Wisconsin and their rights is an outrage that will never be forgotten.”

Mr. Miller continued: “Tonight, 18 Senate Republicans conspired to take government away from the people. Tomorrow we will join the people of Wisconsin in taking back their government.”

...

The bill makes significant changes to most public sector unions, limiting collective bargaining to matters of wages only and limiting raises to the Consumer Price Index unless the public approves higher raises in a referendum. It requires most unions to hold votes annually to determine whether most workers still wish to be members. And it ends the state’s collection of union dues from paychecks.

Recall efforts on the eight state senators eligible for recall right now have already begun.

The corporatists have won a battle, make no doubt about that.

Let's see how many of the Republicans who voted for this bill are still in office in a year or two and let's see what happens to "Scott "I'm Ronald Reagan" Walker at the end of this.

The blowback needs to be FIERCE.

Firedoglake lays out what may happen now:

• Legal challenges. There are going to be a number of legal challenges to this bill. It will not be implemented right away. There’s the near-term challenge of how the bill got passed tonight. It was done in a way that may have violated open meetings laws, by not allowing 24 hours notice for a public meeting of the conference committee. There are other statutes about collective bargaining that may be brought up in court and fought. And there’s the issue of the bill having a fiscal impact. Scott Walker spent three weeks claiming that collective bargaining was a fiscal issue, and then the legislature just passed the bill as “non-fiscal.” Courts will have to wade through a lot of this, and it’s sure to go up to the state Supreme Court. Which brings us to…

• Supreme Court fight. The matchup between David Prosser (R) and JoAnn Kloppenberg (D) for the state Supreme Court on April 5 just got very interesting. It’s a statewide vote, and the balance of power on the state Supreme Court is at stake. Right now there are 4 Republicans and 3 Democrats on the court, but one of those Republicans is Prosser. Expect lots of organizing and millions of dollars poured into this election, which is much like a political election, with debates and everything. If Democrats win, the legality of what took place tonight may be put in greater question.

• General strike. Union leaders are reportedly discussing a general strike, and the mood of the protesters, who stormed the Capitol upon word of the bill, echoes that. You could see some kind of near-term labor walkout, at least in Madison and possibly throughout the state.

• Recalls. This will only energize progressives and labor to get the required signatures for recalls. All 8 Republicans eligible for recall voted to strip public employee unions of their rights, despite clear public opposition. Many of these Republicans, frankly, are going to recall as early as this summer, and if just three of them lose, the balance of power will switch to Democrats in the state Senate. There are also races for three open seats in the state Assembly coming up in May, so even more movement could occur.

• Scott Walker. If his approval ratings were slipping before, they may fall off a cliff now. Walker cannot be recalled until January 2012, and that’s a long way off. But depending on the momentum from the state Supreme Court election, recall elections, Assembly open seats, and legal fights, there could easily be enough support to recall Walker by then.

A bad night for unions and workers, but as has been said before, this fight in Wisconsin has galvanized the labor movement and progressives and shown that we can NO LONGER allow the corporatists to frame the fights and have their way in the class war.

The fight continues from here.

Let's get those Republicans eligible to be recalled this summer recalled.

You can send money to the effort here.

How Goldman Sachs And Wall Street Caused The Wisconsin Mess

From the CBS Business Network:

Wisconsin state employees fighting for their jobs should ask Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO Lloyd Blankfein for their money back.

What’s the connection? During the dog days of the financial crisis in 2008, the investment bank advised clients to bet that Wisconsin and 10 other U.S. states would go broke by purchasing credit default swaps against their debt. For Goldman and other Wall Street firms that used this ploy, the beauty part was that they had also previously earned millions in fees by helping most of those states sell municipal bonds.

In other words, these banks made money by finding investors to buy state debt, then made more money by selling derivatives to other investors who wanted to short that debt. As Bloomberg reported at the time:

As part of a September presentation to institutional investors on “Best Long and Short Risk Strategies,” Goldman recommended buying credit-default swaps on “a basket of liquid State General Obligation credits with current and worsening fiscal outlooks,” including California, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan.

The firm also recommended the derivatives on states with “significant unfunded pension” and other retiree obligations, including Illinois, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Nevada.

2008: A very bad year for Wisconsin

For states, growing concerns about their credit raised their borrowing costs. Estimates suggest that a one percent interest rate hike on a $1 billion bond issue would cost taxpayers roughly $10 million a year. In 2008, rates in Wisconsin more than tripled, reaching 15 percent.

Wisconsin, other states, and scores of town and cities around the country also lost big after going to Wall Street to buy variable-rate auction securities and other types of structured financial products. The market for auction-rate securities collapsed in early 2008, leaving states and municipalities holding the bag. Goldman and other Wall Street banks agreed that year to pay a total of $160 million in fines over and repurchase $15 billion worth these securities to settle several state probes into the transactions.

In another case of speculation gone awry, some Wisconsin school districts lost millions after purchasing so-called synthetic collateralized debt obligations. Wall Street banks sold CDOs to bet on the value of housing in the years leading up the financial crisis.

How the housing bubble killed pensions

Ancient history, you say? Not at all. Because whatever Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker says about the state’s pension problems — which, incidentally, are far less severe than he claims — they’re not the result of employees contributing too little to their retirement. Rather, Wisconsin’s shortfall stems largely from the state getting killed in the stock market during the financial crisis.

As the housing bubble was inflating in 2003, for instance, Wisconsin issued $950 million in auction-rate bonds to fund its pension plan. The bonds did well until mid-2007, when souring subprime loans began rippling into the auction-rate and other bond markets. That turned into a full-blown crisis early the following year, when Goldman, Citigroup (C) and other large Wall Street firms stopped supporting auctions.

The bottom fell out. As the state’s auditor told lawmakers last fall in explaining the long-term impact of Wisconsin pension funds losing nearly $24 billion in 2008:

[T]he value of Wisconsin Retirement System assets has fluctuated significantly over the past ten years as financial markets have experienced their worst decline since the 1930s. For example, losses in 2008 totaled $23.6 billion. While these losses were partially offset by gains of $13.5 billion in 2009, the combined value of the two retirement funds on December 31, 2009, was 17.1 percent below its peak in 2007. The losses of 2008 will significantly affect Retirement System participants and employers for the next several years.

What if states had played it safe?

That’s the broader lesson here for Wisconsin and other states. Numerous state pension funds are hurting not because employee benefits are excessive, as Walker contends (As an aside, see here for a remarkable recording of the governor discussing his plans to, among other things, lay off state workers with someone he thinks is chemicals mogul and Tea Party activist David Koch.) It’s because the financial crisis — caused in part by Wall Street pushing risky products and worsened by banks betting against their own clients — crushed the stock market, which lowered the value of pension fund assets.

Economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research calculates that if after 2007 states had instead invested their retirement funds primarily in 30-year Treasury bonds, then state and local pension plans would be $850 billion richer (click on chart below to expand).

As for Blankfein, he should be able to spare a little change for Wisconsinites. His base salary recently tripled, to $2 million, even after he warned the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission last year that raising base pay on Wall Street causes bankers to take risks. No argument there.

Yeah, but this is all about greedy public employees who make too much money and receive too many benefits, you know.

Nothing to do with these crooks.

Many Pro-Union Demonstrators Outnumber Anti-Union Demonstrators

The wingers brought in Joe the Plumber and Andrew Breitbart to rally the corporatist forces in favor of the Walker plan to bust the unions - but they were outnumbered four-to-one:

MADISON, Wisconsin (Reuters) - Supporters of legislation to reduce public employee union bargaining power and benefits in Wisconsin were far outnumbered by opponents on Saturday, as the two sides shouted competing slogans but did not clash.

...

Tens of thousands have demonstrated throughout the week against Republican Governor Scott Walker's proposed legislation, which supporters say is needed to bring spending under control and opponents contend would break the back of state worker unions.

Wisconsin is the flashpoint for a U.S. struggle over efforts to roll back pay, benefits and bargaining rights of government workers. If the majority Republicans prevail, other states could be emboldened to take on the powerful unions.

Both sides drew thousands to the state capital Madison on Saturday -- unofficial estimates put the total near 40,000 -- but opponents appeared to have several times as many as those backed by Tea Party groups, the first appearance by members of the conservative, limited-government movement this week.

The bill's opponents marched counter-clockwise around the state Capitol, encircling the legislation's supporters and chanting "kill the bill."

The supporters countered with "Recall them all," referring to Democratic state senators who fled to Illinois to deny Republicans the quorum needed to consider the proposal.

If you're watching the TV news, you'd be under the impression that the Tea Party outnumbers the pro-union protesters and demonstrators by a lot.

You'd be wrong about that.

Breitbart and Joe the Plumber get the bigger press at FOX/Union-Busting News.

Maybe the next protests need to be at FOX/Union-Busting News.

Hard to ignore tens of thousands outside the Murdoch offices chanting "Kill The Bill! Kill The Bill!"

Unions Try And Snatch Defeat Before Battle Is Over

Read Ohio Gringo at Firedoglake.

I agree with him.

The fight in Wisconsin is not about Republican vs. Democrat.

It's about class warfare - the Ruling Class vs. the Rest of Us.

Period.

The Oligrachs think they're at the endgame.

They're putting the final clamps on the feudal chains.

Rachel Maddow of MSNBC can talk R vs. D shit all she wants.

It has NOTHING to do with that.

Hell, lots of Dems - Obama and Cuomo come to mind - are engaged in fights against the unions that are the same as Walker's in conception, if not in degree.

This is simply about class warfare.

Unfortunately the unions in Wisconsin HAVE ALREADY agreed to ALL of Waalker's concession calls on pay, health care, and pensions.

Talk about giving up the fight before the war is halfway over.

This is an egregious mistake, but not a surprise from this member of the UFT/AFT who watches his own union snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time after time in the battle against management.

The correct way to fight this was to say:

IF THE GOVERNMENT CAN BAIL OUT THE BANKS, THE CAR COMPANIES, THE MORTGAGE COMPANIES AND HOLD NOT ONE OF THE WALL STREET OR HEDGE FUND CRIMINAL CLASS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE 2008 FINANCIAL COLLAPSE, THEN THEY CAN NEGOTIATE IN FAIRNESS WITH MIDDLE AND WORKING CLASS PUBLIC WORKERS ON PAY, BENEFITS AND PENSIONS.

That's it - that's all you have to do to frame this fight.

People KNOW Wall Street got away with murder in 2008.

People KNOW, if the unions would bother reminding them, that the financial crises in the states were NOT caused by public employees but by the financial speculators and corporate criminals who nearly brought about financial collapse in 2007-2008.

Instead, the unions are saying, oh we'll give you everything you want EXCEPT for the right to collectively bargain.

Well, in effect you give away that right anyway by giving away all of these concessions BEFORE negotiations even start.

Yes, I understand, the union leadership thinks this will help win the P.R. war.

But the problem is that it concedes that the PROBLEM in Wisconsin is with the public employee pay and compensation when that is JUST NOT TRUE.

Wisconsin has a well-funded pension system, the state finances are in better shape then many states and the economy is okay given the horrors of 2008.

No, the problem in Wisconsin is that the 2008 financial collapse did to the state finances what it did to people and institutions all across the country - it decimated it.

And that is NOT the fault of public employees.

That is the fault of these criminals that Matt Taibbi writes about in his aptly titled "Why Isn't Wall Street In Jail" piece in the latest Rolling Stone.

That ought to be the message here going forward - not just for Wisconsin, but in Florida and Ohio and Tennessee and New York City.

Not only is that message the best one to send, it happens TO BE TRUE.

What Wisconsin Means For The Rest Of Us

The corporate scum at CNBC explain why the corporatists are cheering on Scott Walker and worried that the unions and union supporters will prevail in Wisconsin:

The mass protests from state workers in Wisconsin and the revolt by Democrats in the state Senate should set off alarm bells for investors in municipal bonds.

One of the strongest arguments against fears of a wave of muni bond defaults is that state governments will be able to reign in their need to accumulate debt before a crisis develops. That would require states to reign in spending—especially health care spending—and pension fund obligations.

...

Wisconsin is not in imminent danger of defaulting on its bonds. Although tax revenues dropped in the wake of the financial crisis, Wisconsin’s economy is healthier than many other states.

But a victory by the unions in Wisconsin could embolden state workers in states with far worse finances. Politicians worried about similar revolts might consider it better politics to force muni bond holders to accept haircuts. After all, hedge fund and mutual fund managers are not likely to fill the streets of the state capital or win the sympathy of members of the state legislatures.

Much of the bullish case for munis depends on the belief that states and localities will behave rationally and predictably when it comes to their debt payments. In Wisconsin, however, we’re seeing these assumptions fall apart. Political risk is alive and well.

As usual, this political fight pits Wall Street and hedge fund criminals on one side, working and middle class people on the other.

And the hedge fund managers and Wall Street criminal class are WORRIED that the union fight in Wisconsin will spread to other states and other municipalities.

Well, they ought to be worried.

Here in NYC, Mayor Moneybags has decided that even if the state gives more money to the city, he is STILL GOING TO LAY TEACHERS OFF.

Do you understand that logic?

$2.1 billion in extra tax revenue for 2011, NYC economy looking up, the city has over a $3 billion dollar surplus and the state may very well come around with more money for the city, but Bloomberg STILL INSISTS HE HAS TO LAY TEACHERS OFF NO MATTER WHAT.

Just as in Wisconsin, which actually doesn't have that bad a deficit problem (and a previous Democratic governor was able to handle a worse deficit problem without the harsh measures Walker is imposing), Bloomberg here in NYC is USING THE SUPPOSED FISCAL CRISIS TO WRANGLE POLITICAL CHANGES THAT ARE DESIGNED TO DESTROY THE MIDDLE AND WORKING CLASSES AND UNIONS.

That's it - that's what all this is about, whether you're talking Wisconsin, New York City, Tennessee, Florida - wherever.

It's about destroying the unions and subjugating the middle and working classes to an oppressive future where they will have to work longer and harder to make a lot less money, have worse health care and diminished expectations for retirement.

It's CLASS WARFARE.

So this fight in Wisconsin is REALLY, REALLY important.

It scares corporate scum because so far, they have gotten everything they wanted from people - concessions, economic exploitation - without a fight.

But now they're seeing some FIGHT coming from the other side and it worries them.

I have said before, I will say again, until the oligarchs and ruling classes FEAR for their wealth, their possessions, their livelihood, their institutions, their families and their lives, they WILL NOT STOP STEALING 85% OF THE WEALTH OF THIS COUNTRY OR EXPLOITING THE REST OF US.

Make no mistake - the obscenely wealthy oligarchs do not share pieces of the economic pie willingly.

They, like an unwatched dog, will gorge themselves on it and eat it all.

UNLESS WE MAKE THEM STOP.

And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: When property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: When a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: Repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. -- John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath

Let's stop them, Bloomberg, Walker all of the oligarchs -now.

Union Protests In Wisconsin Grow Larger

Union organizers, members and supporters seem to realize there can be no "collaboration" in Wisconsin - the corporate oligarchs are out for their destruction:

For four days, the protests against the Republican governor's proposal have grown and paralyzed parts of the state.

Many public schools were forced to close because so many teachers are taking part in the demonstrations.

The rebellious Wisconsin workers have been reinforced by union workers from other parts of the country, including New York.

They accuse Walker of using the state's fiscal troubles as an excuse to go after union workers. They say he is trying to balance the books on their backs while giving huge tax breaks to rich corporations.

And guess who is bankrolling the governor of Wisconsin:

The Wisconsin governor who sparked a massive uprising by going after public workers gobbled up big bucks from a Manhattan moneyman who got the Tea Party percolating.

Republican Gov. Scott Walker's campaign got a $43,000 campaign contribution last year from a political action committee controlled by brothers David and Charles Koch, several news outlets reported, citing Wisconsin campaign finance filings.

David Koch, who lives in New York City, supplanted Mayor Bloomberg at the city's richest man on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans.

The Koch brothers, whose oil and gas empire is based in Wichita, Kan., were unmasked in a New Yorker piece last year as Tea Party bankrollers. They deny being in the movement.

Revelations of the Koch Brothers' involvement in Walker's rise to power came as thousands of angry civil servants chanting "Kill the bill" invaded the Wisconsin state capitol to derail what they're calling a Republican-led drive to bust their unions.

At the same time, a furious Walker dispatched state troopers to round up the 14 Democratic state senators who fled from Madison a day earlier - denying the GOP majority a quorum need to vote on a bill that would end union workers' long-held collective bargaining rights.

"This is the ultimate showdown," said State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican.

Indeed it is.

Obama has showed half-hearted support for public employees but he's pretty much sat on his hands during this fight.

And why wouldn't he do just that?

He is in the middle of his own assault on federal workers and teachers all across this country.

Do NOT forget that while the Tea Party crazies and the Republican Party are promoting these virulent anti-union/anti-worker policies, corporate whore Democrats like Obama and Andrew Cuomo, themselves bankrolled by corporate interests and Wall Street (do NOT forget that Barack Obama's biggest 2008 campaign donor was Goldman Sachs) are engaged in their own assault on unions and public employees.

It may not be as virulent and destructive as the assaults launched by the Repubs.

But we MUST remember who has helped in this fight in Wisconsin and who hasn't.

And then we can reward the pols who have helped in this fight in 2012 and punish the ones who haven't.