More slime from WI GOP: Call for "extraordinary session"

For only the tenth time (and the first since 1993), Wisconsin's Legislature will be meeting in "extraordinary session," this time to pass Walker's state budget.  Extraordinary session, according to the State Legislative Reference Bureau can be called by the Legislature to "focus its attention on specific legisltion it wants to expedite." 

And there's nothing the Republicans would love to do more than get this business-loving, people-hating budget passed (including, it now looks like, Walker's stripping of collective bargaining) before they could lose the Senate majority following this summer's recall elections.  In extraordinary session, regular rules can be suspended, and according to Rep. Mark Pocan (see Pocan's YouTube explanation in yesterday's post), debate and amendments can be limited, and Democracy, really, is stomped on.  Senate Chief Clerk Rob Marchant, however, says it would neither limit amendments or debate, but would allow quick preliminary approval from each house on the same day, and then only require a simple majority, instead of two-thirds, to advance the bill.  Regardless, this budget does not seem to require emergency-type passage.

 Assistant Assembly Minority Leader Donna Seidel (D-Wausau) said she was concerned about the use of the extraordinary session to pass the budget. “It appears to be part of their strategy that anything can happen and anything can be rushed through with little or no scrutiny,” she said (JS Online).

Yeah, it sure does look like that, doesn't it?

You can read a great summary of the "Budget Basics" from DefendWisconisn.org (thanks to Solidarity Wisconsin). Or, if you're well-versed in politispeak, you can review the entire budget here (thanks to Steve Hanson at Uppity Wisconsin).

Protestors will be out in force.  My union, WEAC, is calling for membership to join protests  (11AM on the Capitol Square and 5:30 PM at State Street corner) of a budget that includes severe cuts to education, local government, the environment, and the poor.

Oh, yeah, and collective bargaining.

Extraordinarily power-hungry, greedy, and compliant Republican legislators call for an extraodinary session.  Come to think of it, I guess that's not so extraordinary at all.

For an extraordinarily detailed and informative site about all things budgetary, check out the Wisconsin Budget Project (thanks to Becky and Mark for the link)

A different take on Walker's GOP

Introducing a new page here at MisLeading Wisconsin: Not Necessarily the Blog, a satirical, “Onion”-like feature about our friends in Madison.  The page tagline is “The first paragraph is actual news, the rest…not so much.”  Page author jh’s self-description: “I’m part Tina Fey, part Jon Stewart, part Irish, and a tiny part Dutch, from my mother’s side.”   Seeing as it’s running on this blog, I realize that any recommendation is self-serving, but I think it’s pretty funny.  Hopefully, you might, too.  Thanks for checking it out.

Sure, it's illegal, but we're WI Republicans!

Another week, another likely illegal proposal from the Republicans.  Now, to add to the indignity of not being able to find work, the Joint Finance Committee endorsed a proposal (in the budget, mind you) to require the unemployed to pee into a cup, so to speak.  If a drug test is failed, or if the individual even refuses to submit to this affront, unemployment benefits could be suspended for a year (JS Online).  A spokesman for the US Labor Department said, "Requiring a person to take a drug test as a condition of eligibility is not related to the 'fact or cause' of a person's unemployment and would raise an issue under federal law."   And, in the same article, the ACLU rep says such testing should only be related to business or health or safety-related issues.

And this is in the same week in which running fake candidates in recall elections may not be illegal, nor are once-GOP-criticized late night meetings  to approve things such as vouchers in Green Bay, and in the week the lock-step conservative Supreme Court may not find open meetings violations illegal. 

Whew!  That's a busy week.  Even for Republicans.

And it's only Tuesday.

Sen. Taylor's incredible speech on WI's voter ID/suppression bill

Senator Lena Taylor (D-Milw) gave a speech for the ages on the Senate floor today regarding that which the Republicans passed as Voter ID.  Taylor hearkened back to Wisconsin laws barring voting supression as far back as 1849, and her very emphatic points include a passion and a real grasp for the truth behind this heinous Republican bill: to disinfranchise voters, especially minorities and the poor  (read an earlier post here). 

Republicans set an unbelievable and unconscionable one-hour limit for debate on the issue.   They were also met with cries from the public of "Shame! Shame! Shame!" as they left the chamber, something, quite sadly,  they must be getting incredibly used to by now.  Eight Democrats refused to vote, and that bastion of democracy, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), reassured the people of Wisconsin that he was "confident the photo ID requirement was constitutional," something he, too, has gotten incredibly used to saying as of late in defending the underhanded politcs of his party (check out today's proceedings in the full  JS Online article by Patrick Marley).

And many thanks to Stacy B. who tipped me off on "another mind-blowing speech by Lena Taylor."

Lies and more lies: Recall Petitions against Dems fraudulently obtained?

Democrats have challenged recall petitions filed against three Democratic State Senators due to widespread allegations of fraud.  Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D-Monona), in a press release today (and reported by Tim Tolan in JS Online), said that the collection of signatures to recall Sens. Dave Hansen of Green Bay, Robert Wirch of Pleasant Prairie and Jim Holperin of Conover, "shows a pervasive pattern of election fraud committed by the shady out-of-state organization hired by Republicans to collect recall petitions."

CLICK HERE TO WATCH SEN. MILLER'S PRESS CONFERENCE

Republicans farmed out signature collection to Kennedy Enterprises of Colorado, some of whose employees reportedly used measures to collect signatures that included hiding the true purpose of the petition, and even spouted outright lies (according to the Daily Kos, lies such as circulating petitions among Indian peoples claiming they were for "tribal rights").   Some signers that had been named outright denied ever even signing such a petition (Wisconsin State Journal).

And this isn't just a couple of signatures, or the deceased father of a Democratic Representative (as was found to be the case on a Wirch recall petition earlier this week), reportedly thousands of signatures appear to have been obtained in this manner.  The Daily Kos has specifics of many of the charges, which, to be honest, are numerous and, in some cases, astounding.

Get ready for the desperate spin from the right that Democrats signed the petitions fraudulently to discredit the recall efforts.  But what makes more sense--that a mercenary company whose employees reportedly got paid per signature did whatever it could to obtain as many signatures as possible (with no real concern or connection to the voters or issues in this state) or that the Democrats flew way below the radar, filing incredible numbers of false signatures without allowing enough true signatures to be collected alongside them?

Let's just say, based on their recent track record regarding lies and deception within our state, I'm not betting on the Republicans to come out on top.