In a shocking display of police power, Republican Gov. Scott Walker sent state troopers to the homes of absent Democratic State Senators in an effort to make a quorum show up to vote on a key piece legislation.If only one Senator could be apprehended and brought back to Madison in police custody, the upper chamber could vote on a budget repair bill that includes selling “dirty” coal-fired heating and electrical generation plants to a billionaire who has nearly single-handedly funded the Tea Party and the Libertarian lobbying organization, Americans For Prosperity. The Democrats have been hiding out across the Illinois border to stymie the legislation.
In the State Assembly, Democrats introduced a flurry of amendments to the bill – literally hundreds of them, many frivolous – that had to be cleared before that chamber may vote.
Democrats do not have the votes needed to block the legislation once it comes up for a vote. They delayed the actions of the Assembly two nights in a row into the wee hours of the morning, sometimes shouting their displeasure with Republican tactics.
The marathon session in the Assembly was grand political theater, with exhausted lawmakers limping around the chamber, rubbing their eyes and yawning as Wednesday night dragged into Thursday.
A record number of protesters - mostly school teachers, but including other public employees such as firefighters and police officers - gathered outside the state capitol today, loudly expressing their disapproval. If the bill passes, they will lose their automatic privilege of collective bargaining as organized labor organizations and the state will become a "right to work" state under the terms of Section 14(b) of the federal Taft-Hartley Act.
Around midnight, Rep. Dean Kaufert, a Republican from Neenah, accused Democrats of putting on a show for the protesters. Democrats leapt up and started shouting.
"I'm sorry if democracy is a little inconvenient, and you had to stay up two nights in a row," Pocan said. "Is this inconvenient? Hell, yeah, it's inconvenient! But we're going to be heard!"
Democratic state Rep. Mark Pocan of Madison declared, "You can't dictate democracy. You are limiting the people's voice with this agreement this morning."
It's interesting that some of the union firebrands in Wisconsin are also involved participants with socialists such as the International Socialist Organization. Check out Mike Imbrogno, an executive board member of the Associated Federation of State,County, and Municipal Employees. That's the beauty of a public sector union. You get to bargain with administrators who give you what you want because everyone lives off the taxpayer. And unlike a private sector union-management dispute, the administrators can yield to the union because its tax-payer money they are settling with, not their own. Even FDR recognized this and was against them. But it's not going to change much until we see state and municipal governments go burning and crashing around us. Heck, that's why government employees love socialism. They are already living off the state with the private citizen sharing their wealth with them. Any giveback of course is a "reversal of progress." After all tax money is their money and the rest of us are just cows to milk it from. No, I am not angry. I just recognize that many of our public servants think in fact that they are our lords and to them, we are no more than serfs to work to satisfy their needs. Government has become parasitic, staffed by parasites, and like pulling off leeches with cigarettes, we gotta do it even if it is painful to all.
ReplyDeleteRoger removing the leeches with cigarettes. Pull it without burning the critter with the cigarette and he leaves his head below he surface. You keep on bleeding, get infected, itch like fire - ugh.
ReplyDeleteBurn his little patootie and he lets go. You are uncomfortable, but not as long as you would be bleeding, infected, suffering from blood poisoning and halfway around the world from home. Ugh.
This stuff makes me talk like Big Chief Thunderthud.
Ugh.
- The Legendary
p.s. Open the door. Close the box. Don' stare at me. I am not afredd. No. Not afredd.
J.