Wisconsin protests: why 'week of rage' matters to

[queenb]

Re: Wisconsin protests: why 'week of rage' matters

Actually it's time people realize that the Constitution as it is written is an out-dated document; meaningless and contrary to the reality of life in the US today. We have tried, through some amendments to temper some current problems:
<ul style="list-style-type: disc">[*]<span style="font-weight: bold">1st Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.</span> This freedom of speech is limited by law; one cannot yell &quot;fire&quot; in a crowd unnecessarily causing a riot. They have tempered the right to assemble by charging fees for groups in order to assemble peaceably.[*]<span style="font-weight: bold">2nd Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.</span> This one was written in the days of the musket, not the assault rifle. Government-sponsored peace keepers are the only ones who need a gun; all others should be strenuously weeded out.
[*]<span style="font-weight: bold"> 4th Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.</span> How about these airport pat-downs? What probable cause is issued to me for the violation of my privacy when subjected to a full body scan or worse, a pat-down?
[*]<span style="font-weight: bold">6th Amendment: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.</span> Um, someone want to tell that to the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay? It does not stipulate that the accused have to be American citizens.[/list]

On top of that this Democracy needs to put the brakes to Wall Street, Big Corporations, and politicians in general. Any political donations should go into a general fund, to be used by any political party. Politicians should be paid a wage equal to their average constituent with a reasonable bonus for attending set meetings in D.C. Committee meetings could be skyped, and voting could be done at regular dates in D.C. That way, politicians could go about their regular professions, setting their working hours around their meeting times. Wars should be determined by plebicite; people should vote directly on military involvement.

[johnnycakes]

Re: Wisconsin protests: why 'week of rage' matters to

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BlackStar</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Check out my girl, Rachel Maddow.

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BlackStar,

I did watch the entire segment and thought Maddow quite an eloquent spokesperson for liberal Democrats.
My problem with her is that I don't support liberal Democrats or any Democrats or any Republicans because they are all part of the problem.
The problem is that the United States government; Democrats and Republicans are owned, lock stock and barrel by the corporations and do not represent the interests of the people.

She is recommending the fox over the wolf to the American people inhabiting the national chicken coop. ( Malcom X paraphrased)

She is glib, personable, knows her subject and is selling snake oil nonetheless.

Is she better than watching Fox news? Marginally and incrementally.
But marginally and incrementally has never done much to fix what has wrong with this country and the Democrats are only slightly less responsible than are the Republicans. They are what they are because they are in the pockets of the people who finance ALL their campaigns .

Obama , President Hope and Change's election campaign was also largely financed by the corporations. So Maddow can't tell me much that I find informative and too much that I find to be a parroting of the thought that somehow the Democrats are the good guys.

[Nanook]

Re: Wisconsin protests: why 'week of rage' matters

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BlackStar</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Nanook</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="font-style: italic">Thank you for posting this, Blackstar!</span> </div></div>
You're welcome.
How did this clown get elected in Wis., NanooK? </div></div>

Blackstar, I am clueless! I was never so surprised, but that is because I am waaaaaaaay up here in the far far north, where it is a different world from the rest of the state. Serious thing, they don't really even know we are up here. I kid you not! We are that separated from the lower part, and even only get Minnesota local TV stations.

It is a good thing I am otherwise engaged this weekend or I would be on my way to Madison too. I'd probably get arrested cause I don't know how peaceful I can be and I'd probably incite a riot. There are solidarity vigils across the US tomorrow....at every capital I thought I heard. I haven't heard of one here for tomorrow or Sunday. I haven't heard one piece of news today so far and I am almost thankful. The [censored] they are pulling is unreal and that first vote last night in the middle of the night was probably illegal the way they did it, last I heard.

Sometimes it is a good thing to be removed from the media and regroup, so I am thankful I had other non breakable commitments this weekend!. On Sunday, I imagine I will make my sign. It will probably be very simple, like maybe 3 little words. The first word will begin with an F, you figure the rest. The next two words will be you and walker. That's all I got!

[jah_yout]

Re: Wisconsin protests: why 'week of rage' matters

Good points


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: queenb</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Actually it's time people realize that the Constitution as it is written is an out-dated document; meaningless and contrary to the reality of life in the US today. We have tried, through some amendments to temper some current problems:
<ul style="list-style-type: disc">[*]<span style="font-weight: bold">1st Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.</span> This freedom of speech is limited by law; one cannot yell &quot;fire&quot; in a crowd unnecessarily causing a riot. They have tempered the right to assemble by charging fees for groups in order to assemble peaceably.[*]<span style="font-weight: bold">2nd Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.</span> This one was written in the days of the musket, not the assault rifle. Government-sponsored peace keepers are the only ones who need a gun; all others should be strenuously weeded out.
[*]<span style="font-weight: bold"> 4th Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.</span> How about these airport pat-downs? What probable cause is issued to me for the violation of my privacy when subjected to a full body scan or worse, a pat-down?
[*]<span style="font-weight: bold">6th Amendment: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.</span> Um, someone want to tell that to the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay? It does not stipulate that the accused have to be American citizens.[/list]

On top of that this Democracy needs to put the brakes to Wall Street, Big Corporations, and politicians in general. Any political donations should go into a general fund, to be used by any political party. Politicians should be paid a wage equal to their average constituent with a reasonable bonus for attending set meetings in D.C. Committee meetings could be skyped, and voting could be done at regular dates in D.C. That way, politicians could go about their regular professions, setting their working hours around their meeting times. Wars should be determined by plebicite; people should vote directly on military involvement. </div></div>

[johnnycakes]

Re: Wisconsin protests: why 'week of rage' matters

&quot;Wars should be determined by plebicite; people should vote directly on military involvement.&quot;

queenb,
The U.S.Constitution says &quot;Congress shall declare war&quot;.
They haven't done that since WWII after which the American Empire had its beginnings and having to get the people to go into wars that were difficult to justify would have been too difficult so the government just stopped doing that.

Nowadays the government and media propaganda machine have the American people so dumbed-down and accepting of arrant lies that not only to the American people not notice that all wars since WWII have been unconstitutional but have gone along with these wars gleefully.


I really liked everything in your post all of which stands ZERO chance of happening..

[Nanook]

Re: Wisconsin protests: why 'week of rage' matters

In Madison? Get to the Capitol before 9PM! Doors will be locked by then. Police have said they're sleeping in the capitol tonight to show solidarity with Wisconsin!

Posted on facebook by 540,000 To See Scott Walker out of WI, January 2012

Facebook page

Love it!

I also wish what queenb posted could happen, but long ago saw the writing on the wall that it will never ever happen. <span style="font-style: italic"> sigh... I have to go now because pretty much everything I have to say right now is censored here, lol. </span>

[j-kid]

Wisconsin Gov Scott Walker exposed in Prank Call

....&quot;He's not one of us.&quot;

That phrase, uttered in the fourth minute of what Scott Walker believed to be a private phone conversation, tells you everything you need to know about the rookie governor of Wisconsin.

Walker thought he was talking to a patron, conservative billionaire David Koch, but thanks to the amateurish management that seems to be a hallmark of his governorship, he was instead being punked by an impostor from a liberal Web site.......

<span style="font-weight: bold">To hear the rest of the AUDIO</span>

[Blackstar*]

Re: Wisconsin protests: why 'week of rage' matters to

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BlackStar</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="font-style: italic">Check out my girl, Rachel Maddow. </span> </div></div>
<span style="font-style: italic">BlackStar,

I did watch the entire segment and thought Maddow quite an eloquent spokesperson for liberal Democrats.</span> </div></div>
My intro to the video is misleading. The most important part of the video - to me - was about Walker's union-busting background which I summarized upthread. I'm not very interested in the Democrats.

[sistacaf]

Re: Wisconsin protests: why 'week of rage' matters to

Well, i'll be at our rally here in philly tomorrow, will be streaming live video and real-time pics to moveon.org as a volunteer, um, 'reporter'..... so we will see how it goes....

[Nanook]

Re: Wisconsin protests: why 'week of rage' matters to

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: sistacaf</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Well, i'll be at our rally here in philly tomorrow, will be streaming live video and real-time pics to moveon.org as a volunteer, um, 'reporter'..... so we will see how it goes.... </div></div>


thank you.

[Nanook]

Re: Wisconsin protests: why 'week of rage' matters to

In the Hands of the Wisconsin 14...

msnbc

NOW...the gov and his cronies are pushing to help make it hard to VOTE!

asshats.

[Nanook]

Re: Wisconsin protests: why 'week of rage' matters to

Pictures from today's rally in Madison. Photos and footage is starting to come in from many states!

[Nanook]

Re: Wisconsin protests: why 'week of rage' matters to

Oh I found live video and chat! One person said people in Phoenix were wearing cheese! Now that is funny. Is this the resurrection of the cheesehats? omg

ANyway, here is live video and chat watching.

here

[Blackstar*]

Wisconsin GOP Limits Collective Bargaining

March 9, 2011
<span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">Wisconsin Senate Limits Bargaining by Public Workers</span>
</span>By MONICA DAVEY
Source

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 Republican colleagues 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 even as the Senate’s Democrats remained many miles away, trying to block the vote. Democrats in the State Assembly complained bitterly, and protesters, who had spent many days at the Capitol, continued their chants and jeers.

The Republicans control the Senate but had been blocked from voting on the issue after Senate Democrats left the state last month to prevent a quorum. But the Republicans used a procedural maneuver Wednesday to force the collective bargaining measure through: they removed elements of Governor Walker’s bill that were technically related to appropriating funds, thus lifting a requirement that 20 senators be present for a vote. In the end, the Senate’s 19 Republicans approved the measure, 18 to 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 public workers in the state, still needs approval from the State Assembly on Thursday morning, but that chamber approved the measure once before, and many in Wisconsin’s Capitol now consider approval a foregone conclusion.

Mr. Walker, a Republican whose efforts to diminish collective bargaining rights have placed him firmly in the national spotlight during his less than three months in office, applauded the Senate’s move on Wednesday night, and said it brought the state a step closer to balancing its budget. “The action today will help ensure Wisconsin has a business climate that allows the private sector to create 250,000 new jobs,” Mr. Walker said, in a statement released minutes after the unexpected vote.

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 30 minutes, 18 state senators undid 50 years of civil rights in Wisconsin,” said Mark Miller, the leader of the Senate Democrats who fled to Illinois on Feb. 17 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.”

The 14 Democrats — many of whom watched a live stream of the vote on the Web from their undisclosed locations in Illinois — said they did not intend to return to Wisconsin on Thursday; some said that they suspected the Republicans might yet have additional voting maneuvers planned, and that they needed to assess all that had occurred.

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

The Democrats complained angrily that the manner of the move directly contradicted what the Republicans had contended all along: that collective bargaining rights had to be cut not for philosophical reasons but merely for financial ones, to fix the state’s budget gap.

“To pass this the way they did — without 20 senators — is to say that it has no fiscal effect,” said Timothy Cullen, another of the Democratic senators. “It’s admitting that this is simply to destroy public unions.”

The bill makes significant changes to most public-sector union rules, limiting collective bargaining to matters of wages and limiting raises to changes in 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.

Wisconsin’s battle has been the leading edge of a wider fight over public workers and collective bargaining across the country. Similar, if somewhat less dramatic, fights have played out in statehouses in places like Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Indiana, and more are expected.

In Wisconsin, Republicans and Democrats had been at an impasse over Mr. Walker’s bill for weeks. Because the bill was initially deemed a fiscal bill, it required 20 members — thus at least one of the Democrats’ 14 members — to be in the room.

On both sides, as the Democrats camped out in Illinois, there had been negotiations, angry news conferences, breakdowns in negotiations, and talk of more negotiations. Senate Republicans had voted to fine each of the missing Democrats $100 a day. The Senate Democrats had talked almost every day, sometimes disagreeing over whether it was time to give up and go home or to keep demanding that the Republicans lessen the cuts to collective bargaining rights.

As the impasse dragged on, senators from both parties found themselves the focus of recall efforts — efforts that all involved now said were certain to grow still more intense. Late Wednesday, hundreds of demonstrators crammed into the Capitol as news of the vote trickled out. And Mike Tate, the leader of the state’s Democratic Party, pledged to put “total focus” on “recalling the eligible Republican senators who voted for this heinous bill,” adding, “and we also begin counting the days remaining before Scott Walker is himself eligible for recall.&quot;

Even as recently as Sunday evening, a possible deal seemed in sight. In private e-mail exchanges with the Democrats, Mr. Walker’s representatives appeared willing to agree to some limited changes.

But by Wednesday afternoon, after talks had clearly broken apart, Republican senators met privately for hours, and eventually called a conference committee meeting of the leaders in the Senate and Assembly for 6 p.m. Peter Barca, a Democratic leader in the Assembly, protested vehemently as Scott Fitzgerald, the Senate Republicans’ leader, called the meeting to order, announced that a new bill — without specific mentions of appropriations — was being considered, and called for a vote.

“This is a violation of open meetings laws!” Mr. Barca cried out repeatedly, demanding to hear a summary of the bill and what had changed. Mr. Fitzgerald swiftly moved to the Senate chamber, calling his Republicans to order, and called for another vote in a matter of minutes.

“Enough is enough,” Mr. Fitzgerald said, in a statement he issued minutes later. “The people of Wisconsin elected us to do a job. They elected us to stand up to the broken status quo, stop the constant expansion of government, balance the budget, create jobs and improve the economy. The longer the Democrats keep up this childish stunt, the longer the majority can’t act on our agenda.”

[Skelly]

Re: Wisconsion GOP Limits Collective Bargaining

and so America goes to hell in a handbasket