Wisconsin governor: balance budget by breaking unions

[bobalot]

Their current tactics seem to be working fine. National media attention out the wazzo, the State Senate deadlocked without the 14 Dems there for a quorum, and this legislation is stalled. The possibility of a recall on a lot of politicians and notice to other GOPer Governors who might want to try this same shit. Hell, the longer it goes on, the more the media picks apart why Walker is doing this. yeah, t hey fucked up, the GOPers that is. They even make themselves look like third world dictators with large portions of their populations protesting the very same time protests are going off around the world in actual third world countries for democracy.

What's the situation now? Is it still stalled? I have been following by reading articles on internet, but I'm not very familiar with American state politics.

[Maj]

The Democrats in the state Assembly are filibustering, and those in the Senate are still in Illinois. The unions have agreed to the proposed economic cuts, but don't want to lose their bargaining rights - Walker said no. Wisconsin is trying to refinance its debt and must pass a budget by this Saturday or else they won't be able to do so. If they don't refinance, they will have to cut an additional $165 million. Walker has already threatened to cut somewhere around 7,000 jobs if the Democrats and unions don't relent.

[Zaune]

The Democrats in the state Assembly are filibustering, and those in the Senate are still in Illinois. The unions have agreed to the proposed economic cuts, but don't want to lose their bargaining rights - Walker said no. Wisconsin is trying to refinance its debt and must pass a budget by this Saturday or else they won't be able to do so. If they don't refinance, they will have to cut an additional $165 million. Walker has already threatened to cut somewhere around 7,000 jobs if the Democrats and unions don't relent.

Can he actually do that unilaterally? If he can then it's lose-lose.; either the Democrats and the unions cave, or he performs the seven thousand layoffs, probably with a distinct bias towards union members.

[Knife]

If they do that, massive recalls will go into effect and the GOP controlled State Legislature will crumble. So far, the protests are there, in numbers, not violent, and have stopped this madness.

[Broken]

Apparently Walker is even more bought and paid for then previously suspected. Part of the budget bill seems to give him the ability to no-bid sell off the state's power plants. Don't look now, but it appears the Koch Brothers or someone else may already looking to hire new plant managers.

Energy client is looking for experienced Plant Managers for multiple power plants located in Wisconsin.

Multiple new plant managers, but to the best of my limited knowledge (and a quick google before I run out the door) there is no major gut of new power plants coming online in Wisconsin. Hell, if the state owns power plants, are they run by public sector unions themselves which the new owners intend to dump since the power plants will now be privately owned?

Perhaps this is routine and these types of job postings go on all the time and myself and others are just being overly paranoid due to the situation. Given the overall economy I can't see multiple power plant mangers all seeing new, golden opportunities worth giving up their current job for all at the same time. But given how blatant Governor Walker's attempts to strip Unions of their collective bargaining rights for ideological reasons and the Koch Brothers shameless behavior using their wealth and power (including funding Walker's campaign directly via a PAC) to craft an environment suited to them grabbing even more wealth and power I'm not inclined to give either of them the benefit of the doubt.

Edit: I'll try to look up new power plant construction and the union status of the current plants when I get home tonight.

[Edi]

Fake "Koch brother" calls up Wisconsin governor
By Alex Pareene
Wednesday, Feb 23, 2011 11:10 ET

Ian Murphy, editor of the Buffalo Beast, just did something wonderful. Murphy, pretending to be billionaire industrialist and secretive conservative political activist David Koch, called Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, currently in the midst of attempting to crush the public employees' unions. "Koch" got through to Walker (who hasn't been taking calls from the Democratic state Senate minority leader). He taped the call and put it online.

So Walker will happily take a call from a Koch brother. He says that he considered "planting some troublemakers" among the protesters. He is convinced that everyone is on his side. Like most people who only watch Fox, he has a skewed impression of the popularity of his union-crushing proposals. (His plan is, nationally, roundly unpopular. Except on Fox.)

When "Koch" calls Mika Brzezinski "a real piece of ass," Walker does not respond by saying something awful, which is a bit of a disappointment.

Walker does reveal that he is planning to trick the Democrats into coming back into town for a "talk," despite his lack of interest in compromising anything. He will ask them to open a session in the Assembly, and then take a recess for this talk. At that point, the Senate Republicans would hold the vote on the bill while Walker distracts them Democrats with this entirely pointless discussion:

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.

Walker also thinks that Reagan crushing the air-traffic controllers' union was "the first crack in the Berlin wall," because he's been stewing in the propaganda of conservative mythology for years.

And finally:

Koch: [Laughs] Well, I tell you what, Scott: once you crush these bastards I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time.

Walker: All right, that would be outstanding.

So! A Koch brother can call up a nationally prominent Republican elected official and get an audience whenever he likes, basically. That is not particularly surprising, I guess.

The phone call audio links are at the originating article. Governor Walker is going to have a hard time explaining that one away...

[Serafina]

He is obviously just listening to the industrial leaders of the greatest nation ever! Surely that can't be a bad thing?
/sarcasm

[Uraniun235]

This could make things more interesting. It shows that Walker absolutely cannot be trusted, because he has no intention of negotiating anything - he's admitted that he will just ignore the opposition until he gets his way.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I think the biggest aspect that this shows us is exactly how deluded people on the far right are. Naturally I have always thought that the 'peons' of far right were deluded and out of touch, but I thought, on some level, the actual people "in power" had some idea of what was too far. To hear the governor go on about how "The People" are all on his side and totally support him while there are 40,000 people shouting outside for his head puts a whole new state on his delusions. Also the way he gleefully goes on about 'stiring up trouble' as well as crushing the unions, I hope it shows exactly what the GOP stands for.

Also, as much as I wish to enjoy the misery of a total asshole.... Ins't this essentially a form of "wiretapping" ?
I mean calling up a federal Employee and posing as someone else.... Isn't that a crime of some sorts?

[Uraniun235]

It depends on the state law. Some states require "two-party consent" where both parties must consent to recording. Others only require that one party consents to it; Wisconsin is one such state.

State governors are not federal employees.

[Elfdart]

This is nice:

Deputy AG loses job after tweet drama
Updated: Wednesday, 23 Feb 2011, 2:43 PM EST
Published : Wednesday, 23 Feb 2011, 12:20 PM EST

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - The Indiana Attorney General’s office announced Wednesday afternoon its deputy attorney general is no longer employed by the agency, after reviewing political website Mother Jones' published allegations that he advocated the use of force against protesters in Wisconsin.

According to the online article , Jeff Cox tweeted “Use Live Ammunition” in response to a Mother Jones tweet reporting riot police had been called into the state capital to remove protesters.

Mother Jones later learned Jeff Cox held a post as an Indiana official.

In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, the Attorney General office said, "Civility and courtesy toward all members of the public are very important to the Indiana Attorney General’s Office. We respect individuals’ First Amendment right to express their personal views on private online forums, but as public servants we are held by the public to a higher standard, and we should strive for civility."

In an earlier statement released Wednesday, the agency said, “The Indiana Attorney General’s Office does not condone the inflammatory statements asserted in the “Mother Jones” article and we do not condone any comments that would threaten or imply violence or intimidation toward anyone."

The reporter who wrote the “Mother Jones” article informs us that the offensive postings over the weekend were made using a personal Twitter account and personal email, not a state government email account.

According to The Village, this is no big deal because Dirty Fucking Hippies called Bush a moron, so it's even.

[Elfdart]

On a lighter note:

[Broomstick]

Just to clarify - Jeff Cox was a deputy attorney general in Indiana.

Here's a link to the Indianapolis Star:

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller has dismissed a deputy, Jeff Cox, for posting inappropriate comments online critical of the labor union protesters in Wisconsin.

Cox sent out a message on his Twitter account saying that police should "use live ammunition" against the protesters.

A staffer for the political news site Mother Jones sent a message back to the person, who was then only known by his online account name. Cox messaged back that the demonstrators were "political enemies" and "thugs."

"You're darned right I advocate deadly force," Cox wrote to the Mother Jones staffer.

Earlier today, the attorney general's office said it was investigating whether Cox had sent the tweet and said it was a serious matter.

This afternoon, the office issued a statement saying Cox was no longer employed there. The office said it had conducted "a thorough and expeditious review" after it learned of the Mother Jones article.

"Civility and courtesy toward all members of the public are very important to the Indiana Attorney General's office. We respect individual's First Amendment right to express their personal views on private online forums, but as public servants we are held by the public to a higher standard, and we should strive for civility," the office said in a statement.

Just a note - my own state government is having a similar showdown as Wisonsin, with our democrats having absconded to Urbana, Illinois to block a vote. However our governor is a bit more mellow than Walker. I'll link to a pertinent article for those who are interested, but will only quote the relevant bit on our governor's opinion for the sake of brevity:

First, this particular piece of legislation -- which would prohibit workers who don't join unions from being forced to pay dues -- is not on his legislative agenda.

Not that he doesn't support it. But he made clear last fall, after Republicans won control of the Statehouse, that he didn't think this battle was worth the carnage it would cause. Knowing that Democrats would do just about anything to kill the bill, Daniels reiterated Tuesday, "I thought there was a better time and place to have this very important and legitimate issue raised."

House Republicans have thus far disagreed, sparking another Democratic walkout in another session.

In my state it's not the governor driving it, it's the legislative republicans, and the level of debate is much less vitriolic. That, and those wanting to ramp it up are subject to penalties, as Mr. Cox losing his job demonstrates. This gives me some hope that it won't turn into as much of a mess as Wisconsin.

[erik_t]

Well, thank God Daniels has presidential aspirations. I have no doubt he'd be ramming this through otherwise.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't know much about Indiana, but... maybe Governor Daniels is just less of a corrupt ass than Governor Walker?

[Broomstick]

He's a more moderate Republican than Walker.

Daniels is also more about practicality than ideology. At one point he outsourced Public Aid to IBM under the usual right-wing theory that private industry always does a better job than government. When it turned into a complete clusterfuck he canceled the contract and reinstated Public Aid (actually "FSSA" in this state) as a government function. So while ideology steers some decisions if it turns out to be a mistake he will do a 180 and bow to reality.

Doesn't mean his hands are entirely clean, of course, just that he isn't slammed all the way over into hard right.

[Keevan_Colton]

Astoundingly apparently the story isnt his thoughts on withholding pay from senators, planting agent provocateurs or even attempting to nail his opponents on ethics violations if they accept food or lodging from union supporters (while also saying he'd gladly take "Koch" up on the same) but rather that he compared himself to Regan.

[Broken]

I have not been able to quickly find anything revealing on new power planet construction or the union status of the current state-owned plants. There has been construction/upgrading going on but the only interesting thing I stumbled across was a post that claimed that Plant Manager is an OSHA defined title for publicly owned power plants and that only one in Wisconsin currently rates that title, located at a university, the others being run by Plant Supervisors or some such. Privately owned power plants, on the other hand, are free to use whatever titles they wish.

While it seems the police and firefighters, who are conveniently not going to be stripped of their collective bargaining rights, are overall supportive of the protesters, its not assuredly so.

And according to a Wisconsin police union president, whether the police agree or disagree with their governor's politics, they would "absolutely" carry out any order given to them ... even if that order included using force against their fellow Americans gathered in peaceful protest.

That phrase is making the rounds of all the blogs and such, but I have not seen it come up on the major sites yet.

[erik_t]

I don't see why that's worthy of note. People separate professional conduct from personal interests, film at 11.

[Keevan_Colton]

I don't see why that's worthy of note. People separate professional conduct from personal interests, film at 11.

Perhaps you missed the part about being willing to carry out any order given, including the use of force against peaceful protesters.

[erik_t]

It's called physically moving someone blocking a right of way, dumbass. What, you think they mean they'll happily shoot them? Christ.

[Keevan_Colton]

It's called physically moving someone blocking a right of way, dumbass. What, you think they mean they'll happily shoot them? Christ.

Given the level of bullshit in the US and the violent rhetoric being employed, are you so certain they wont? We've got more than a few right wing nutjobs around here that are more than happy to promote using white phosphorous on protesters. They dont say it here, but they're more than happy to jump with glee at the idea on other boards.

[Broomstick]

There are historical examples of that, you know. Authorities shooting peaceful, unarmed citizens in the US. That's why the phrase is so ominous, you don't know if he means shoving someone aside or pointing a loaded gun at them or using dogs and firehoses or what. I'm old enough to remember when the National Guard shot four peaceful, unarmed protesters dead at Kent State University and wounded nine others, it can and it has happened here. I sincerely hope that the Wisconsin protests never get anywhere near that bad, but don't say it can never happen here.

[erik_t]

It's called physically moving someone blocking a right of way, dumbass. What, you think they mean they'll happily shoot them? Christ.

Given the level of bullshit in the US and the violent rhetoric being employed, are you so certain they wont? We've got more than a few right wing nutjobs around here that are more than happy to promote using white phosphorous on protesters. They dont say it here, but they're more than happy to jump with glee at the idea on other boards.

Yes, given the level of bullshit and violent rhetoric, I am reasonably certain that law enforcement officers will not start shooting civilians. It could happen and has happened before, but such occurrences are so fucking rare that I am not going to go froth at the mouth at the possible phrasing connotations when a policeman says that he will use force when ordered.

[Broomstick]

Teargas and a nightstick upside the head, or a taser, aren't very pleasant, either. Less than lethal force can be pretty damn uncomfortable.