When Texas House Democrats went on the lam to try to stop Tom DeLay’s redistricting grab, Willie Nelson sent them a case of whiskey with a note that said “Stand your ground”.
Likewise, Atrios has an ActBlue page for Wisconsin Senate Democrats up, if you’ve got a few ameros to spare.
JCT
What I’m looking forward to are the petitions to recall some of those Republican senators….
Sloegin
Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan is pretty much nigh-unreadable again. Bitching about one sign at the protest out of literally thousands, calling Walker’s action to ban the unions as “negotiating with them”, linking Joke Line, McArglebargle etc.
Once a Tory, always a Tory I guess.
pragmatism
its the least i can do for the state that taught me that the first step of cooking anything is at least a stick of butter; to use brown sugar on bacon; and the joy of a squeaky cheese curd.
Cat Lady
What’s the money for? I imagine them all crowded into a double queen room at a Holiday Inn Express ordering in pizzas and watching porn.
freelancer
After watching Maddow last night, she handed it off to Ed, and gave him high praise for his reporting from Madison. I just finished listening to last night’s Ed Show. I despise that man. It’s liberalism, but it’s JINGOISTIC liberalism, and it’s nauseating how much he conflates his POV with “This is what America is about. This are Americans, and Americans are tired of this.” Stop speaking for the country, Ed, there are 330 million people out there, it’s a bit more diverse in opinion than that. Screw you.
And Screw Sully while I’m at it. His excuse making this last week has been beyond the pale.
Loneoak
@Cat Lady:
Have you ever gotten pizza and porn at a hotel? That’s an expensive habit, sister.
batgirl
@freelancer: Sullivan can DIAF.
/Can I haz Moore award?
Cat Lady
@Loneoak:
Well, they’re Dems so at least you know you’re not gonna be buying ’em wetsuits and diapers also too.
geg6
@Sloegin:
And saying that there is just too much going on in the ME to pay attention to what is happening in the Midwest in one little teeny tiny state. His beautiful mind just can’t be wasted on that. And all this while practically slobbering at the notion that SS will be killed. For someone who is always claiming that he grew up lower middle class (and can anyone verify that?), he sure has an aristocratic way of looking upon those who are in the same boat he was in as a youngster. As a matter of fact, he was in better shape than our lower middle class in that at least British working poor get health care. What a disgusting creature.
piratedan
well the next time Dems get in charge…. you might see a 90% tax rate on the rich and corporate tax rates rise because the shit that keeps happening is damn near unbelievable. unions, abortion, corporate cash, racism, bigotry, plutocracy, theorcracy you name it, we’re seeing it. Everytime you think you’ve seen a new low the bar keeps getting set lower. Before the end of the year, we may be reduced to watching palanquins toting our corporate masters thru the decaying streets while we all have to hope for a chance to touch the purple ermine of their robes as they pass by the preachers spewing hatred about other religions and indicating that women are nothing more than temporary incubators for fetuses who can be disposed of as soon as their purpose has been fulfilled.
Maybe it’ll happen right after the finale of this year American Idol.
geg6
@Cat Lady:
From what I read earlier today, they were all in some “resort” in IL (which, based on the pic that TPM had, is really stretching the meaning of “resort”), but the press tracked them down and they scattered.
General Stuck
This is all warmup for the main show in a couple of weeks when the House wingnuts stop funding the government unless liberalism and it’s namby pamby pograms are shoveled onto the shitpile of history. Now it’s Planned Parenthood, a little later SS and medicare. Tail end of a dying comet.
Now, if Obama would only fight.
pragmatism
@geg6:
they are in rockford, where cheap trick are from! its their very own budokan.
Reks
I live in Wisconsin and went to school in Madison. It’s good to see folks fighting for their rights, but I feel it’s a lost cause. The politics of resentment seems to be so effective in killing the ability of people to see reason.
I’m not sure the Democrats can win enough seats in this state to roll back the eventual damage.
It would be nice if the Democrats could try to repeal Taft-Hartley the next time they have control over all three branches. Or, at the very least pass EFCA.
geg6
@piratedan:
I am reading The Hunger Games and the parallels to where they seem to want to take us are frightening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games_trilogy
JCJ
Yesterday my daughter (student at UW) went to the capitol and today my wife is joining her! I agree with @freelancer above – I am not a fan of The Ed Show or whatever it is called, but I watched last night. I live and work in a very conservative part of the state (Waukesha County) but someone I work with who is quite liberal told me even some of her and her husband’s friends and coworkers are miffed about this. I told her the best response is to simply say, “Yes, but these are Republicans. This is who they are.”
GOP = FTP
agrippa
They need to stand their ground. If they do, this may amount to something. Too many people have been far too complacent for far too long.
General Stuck
What is happening in WI, is but a proxy war between the power of government and the power of business. The long standing center piece of neverending conflict between left and right world views. Of course, this particular battle will be lost as far as eventually those with the most votes winning in WI, this particular battle.
But wingnuts around the country, may be surprised to learn, when they extend this offensive against liberal belief and long standing policy and program, that the general public is not necessarily on their side. Because the wingers in WI ARE both sides. They are GOVERNMENT right now, in that state, and a government that is waging a thinly disguised war on working people, albeit state workers. Saw a poll this morning that had more people supporting the state workers, even more than they would support private workers protesting unfair labor disputes,
bottyguy
Shouldn’t Sullivan have changed his text color to Badger red by now?
RalfW
@General Stuck: I thing the general is right that this particular battle will be lost, but it may well be the sort of thing needed to mobilize folks for the bigger war.
Add together the proposed repeal of child labor laws in MO, proposed sanctioning of killing abortion doctors in S.D, the Gov of Florida handing back billions (and wasting $66 million) on fast rail, etc, and you have a total package that 1) far more totally misreads the electorates demand for Jobs! Now! than HCR ever was a mis-read and 2) gets us closer to peak wingnut (yes, I know, it’s a lie).
Its a massive combo-platter of unappealing policies that do nothing for jobs. The GOP will pay for their overreach, I think.
FormerSwingVoter
Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom MUSHROOM!
Wile E. Quixote
@RalfW:
Here’s something I’d like to push for, passing the Child Labor Amendment. It’s still pending ratification because, like the Twenty-Seventh Amendment no expiration date for its ratification was ever set. It would probably be a symbolic victory, but it would be fun to make conservatives argue that the government shouldn’t have the power to regulate child labor. Sure, they’d do so, and without any shame, but in doing so they would chip away at their support outside the Wingnut-O-Sphere.
John Emerson
Breaking the Union is the Governor’s goal. MN, IA, and WS have strong teachers unions (~98% unionized) and compete to have the best public school systems in the nation. South Carolina doesn’t have a single unionized teacher. Anyone know how good their schools are?
Here’s some info from an anti-union site. For them, firing teachers is the key to improving education. http://teachersunionexposed.com/state.cfm
Spaghetti Lee
@freelancer:
Sometimes you need folks who take it a little too far if you want to drag the conversation back to the realm of sanity. I love what Schultz is doing. And yes, getting out in the streets to fight for your rights is exactly what America is all about.
NorthernMNer
Yes, I agree with the rest of you; Sully’s pricky attitude, coupled with his complete buy-in of the GOP’s line about how WI is amazing. I’m sure he just considers it his being cosmopolitan, but with a line like:
not a newly elected governor trying to curtail government spending, especially on healthcare for public sector unions.
I’m done giving him pageviews. Oh, and somebody might want to point out to dear Sully, Obama’s not a Tory–he’s an American Democrat. Learn the difference.
John Emerson
Screw freelancer. Ed Schultz is able to talk to people Maddow (for example) can’t. If every weenie liberal in the US had a veto power on who puts out the liberal message, we’d be in worse shape than we are.
freelancer
@Spaghetti Lee:
@John Emerson:
The embrace of their message isn’t my objection. I just can’t take him seriously because he’s a partisan hack for the left the same way that Sean Hannity is for the right. They operate the same exact way.
ETA: Oh and this:
Is just crap. It’s not true, and its impossible to falsify or verify. I don’t even know what you mean by it.
John Emerson
Yeah, and one’s right and the other’s wrong, and one tells the truth and the other lies all the time. But those are unimportant, because Schultz offends your sense of style.
Spaghetti Lee
@freelancer:
Well, then I don’t know what you’re suggesting. That the cause of liberalism won’t suffer if liberal pundits don’t embrace it enthusiastically? If they’re just nice and polite? Folks in Wisconsin are done with nice and polite. Nice and polite gets you stepped on.
And please don’t compare him to Sean Hannity, good God. Like John Emerson said, one’s right and the other’s wrong.
DougJ®
@freelancer:
I am not a big fan of Ed Schulz, but I think the Hannity comparison is unfair. At least compare him to one of the more thoughtful right-leaning radio hosts, such as Dennis Prager.
freelancer
@Spaghetti Lee:
Okay, he’s not Hannity, that was a bad comparison, he’s the James McCarville of the progressive wing of the Party. Even when I agree with him, I’m cringing because he resorts to bumpersticker politics and jingoistic pablum. In that respect alone, he very much resembles/recycles the tactics of Fox News. He belongs in talk radio, not any venue for “news”. I learn nothing from Ed that I didn’t already know before watching his program, which isn’t something I can say about Maddow’s show. I only tuned into his show because she gave it high praise.
John Emerson
I don’t even know what you mean by it.
You’re a moron is why. It’s a perfectly clear statement. You don’t understand it? Everyone else does.
For Christ’s sake. Assholes like you have done their best to ruin the Democratic Party.
John Emerson
Freelancer, has it ever occurred to you that you’re in Maddow’s target audience and not Schultz’s, but that there might be some other audience that Schultz appeals to? Because the people at MSNBC have gambled a lot of money that he does have an audience, and it seems to be going OK.
Everything isn’t about you, you know.
John Emerson
Here are results data. At the 8th grade level, totally non-union South Carolina is consistentl;y below average, and ~98% Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa are consistently above average.
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/
freelancer
Wow, looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines, to go and find out a thing like that.
John Emerson
Basically, the non-union states are struggling to be average, and a few of them succeed.
John Emerson
Yeah, I’d say you’re one of those people who can’t handle sobriety.
gbear
Walker and the republicans are receiving letters from colleges and municipalities about how this bill is going to fuck them over.
I watched Ed last night for the first time and was appalled at how he kept putting sentences into the mouths of the people he ‘interviewed’. The people in the crowd were more than capable of speaking for themselves, but he’d always make a leading statement after asking a question.
That said, his presense is needed. No one besides Rachel is on top of this story at all. Most news sources are framing this event using the lie that this is about budget cuts.
C.S.
Does Wisconsin have anyone approaching Willie’s iconic status?
Mnemosyne
@gbear:
Someone else posted a link saying that Wisconsin’s bus lines will lose a $45 million grant from the federal government if their employees lose the right to collectively bargain.
Walker sure knows how to lose money for his state, doesn’t he?
asiangrrlMN
Done. Any Wisc. Dems out there reading this, there’s room for you in my house.