America is not broke...

[NinaBrooke]

Michael Moore is one of my favourite americans :-) love and adore him. :-) Thanks for posting this Bebe , great find!

[Bebe Le Strange]

Originally Posted by ninasastri

Michael Moore is one of my favourite americans :-) love and adore him. :-) Thanks for posting this Bebe , great find!

He is awesome. I love his award winning movies. He really fights for the poor and middle class here in America. His movies are real eye openers.

[NinaBrooke]

Originally Posted by Bebe Le Strange

He is awesome. I love his award winning movies. He really fights for the poor and middle class here in America. His movies are real eye openers.

i agree, so are his books. He used to be a very very angry libertarian...

[Valerie]

Originally Posted by Bebe Le Strange

He is awesome. I love his award winning movies. He really fights for the poor and middle class here in America. His movies are real eye openers.

I loved his documentary "Capitalism".....Bill Maher also has him as a guest on his show a lot...

[Bebe Le Strange]

Originally Posted by Valerie

I loved his documentary "Capitalism".....Bill Maher also has him as a guest on his show a lot...

I am a big fan of both. I love watching Bill Maher and his "new rules"!

[Valerie]

Originally Posted by Bebe Le Strange

I am a big fan of both. I love watching Bill Maher and his "new rules"!

I love everything Bill Maher, I'm a huge fan....it was too funny around election time when he carried on about Christine O'Donnell all the time lol!

[NinaBrooke]

I loved when he was making his second movie (don`t recall name) where he asked the politicians who wanted to recruit soldiers on why they don?t send their own sons to war? Splendid Splendid Splendid. It made me so angry to see that doublestandard and hypocrisy. The poor shall fight and spoiled brats sit at home. Congrats!!

[discreetgent]

So back to Wisconsin. Capitol police closed the building for a while when protesters refused to leave. In the process they locked out some legislators who needed to climb in through windows to be able to go and vote.

[TexTushHog]

Originally Posted by Bebe Le Strange

Well they just did what most are calling an illegal action by the republicans to push through a provision stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights through the state Senate Wednesday evening after finding a way to bypass the chamber's missing Democrats.

Total violation of the open meetings law.

It remains to be seen if the short notice for the Conference Committee violated Wisconsin's Open Meeting law. I understand that the Republicans claim that it only applies to regular sessions, not special sessions. I have no idea. But if the Republicans can get it through the courts, so be it. Both sides are engaged in brinkmanship and you do what you can with the hand you're dealt. And that includes the aggressive use of the rules to your benefit, just as the Democrats used the quorum rule. You can't play hardball with the rules and then complain when the other side does the same thing. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

The good thing for the Democrats in Wisconsin is that I think that they have come out of this unified and motivated. And Wisconsin has a recall statute. Expect to see some very hotly contested recall elections of elected officials from both parties in Wisconsin from both sides of the aisle this summer. And those races will draw boucoups of national money on both sides. Very interesting to watch. But I think that the Democrats have come out of this looking better than the Republicans and polls in Wisconsin show that to be true there, too.

[Mazomaniac]

Mazo checking in after a VERY long 36 hours down to the Capital.

The general mood on the street here can be summed up in one word: PISSED!

Us Cheeseheads are normally a level-headed crew. It normally takes both a lot of beer and a lot of obnoxiousness to start something up here. In this case the Republicans managed it without the beer.

One thing that the Republicans forgot is that there are a lot of single-issue voters in Wisconsin who hang with the right on abortion and gun control. We're basically a blue state filled with Catholics and gun nuts. The biggest debate in the state up to this point was whether people convicted of a domestic violence charge should be allowed to keep their hunting rifles during deer season. (BTW, they can.)

A huge number of those single issue voters who punched the Republican ticket last November are now flipping back to blue. I live in a district that went 60% McCain in 2008. Now there's Recall Walker signs all over the place. My next door neighbor is a big time Catholic pro-lifer and even he's got a sign in his yard. Everywhere you go you hear people talking about how they voted for Walker but didn't intend it to be like this.

I think the right seriously underestimated and over-stepped the line on this one. Admittedly, Madison is the liberal part of the state and I haven't been up north to see what the read is up there. It's also a long time to the recall date and some of the sentiment is sure to die out. If the amount of money poring into the recall effort is any indication, though, the Republicans have shot themselves in the foot on this one. It's going to be a very, very interesting year.

Oh, and BTW, the county attorney is probably going to file suit to nullify the surprise vote. Every legal scholar in the state - with the exception of the Republican's own lawyers - are saying that the bill was illegally passed. I think it's DOA in a courtroom unless the judge buys the Republican's argument that court should give deference to the legislature as a co-equal branch of government and not apply the same laws governing open meetings that hold for the rest of the state government. That's going to be a very interesting court case as well.

Anyway, gotta go get some sleep now. Mazo's been drafted to help brief the impending lawsuit. Need to hit the hay so I can start digging into the law library in the morning.

If nothing else this is just damn fun.

Cheers,
Mazo.

[charlestudor2005]

Thanks for the report Mazo.

I'm totally on the Dems' side in this one, but I think the lawsuit will fail for a number of reasons (I would be surprised if it succeeded, but happy):

1. Even if the open meeting law was violated, all the Pubs have to do is comply, and pass it again. It's not like finding a violation is going to change the outcome.
2. One of the standards for the granting of a TRO is that the plaintiffs will likely prevail at trial. That, and the irreparable harm. IDT they will prevail given the fact that any open meeting act deficiency is easily cured. And since the law didn't completely do away with collective bargaining, it would be hard to prove irreparable harm. In any event, any harm would not be quantifiable until the next round of bargaining, and even then it may be hard to quantify.
3. Courts are notoriously slow. Immediate relief is not going to happen.

IMHO, throwing all efforts into recall elections would be more lucrative, and after you have those ducks in a row, pass laws that repeal this POS.

[discreetgent]

A few more things.

Currently the Wisconsin Supreme Court - which is elected - has 4 Republicans and 3 Democrats. On April 5th there is a matchup between an incumbent Republican and a Democrat challenger for one seat. While we all know that judges never allow their party affiliation to have any impact on decisions they make (cough, cough) the result of this election could very well decide how the court rules on challenges to

1. The legality of how this law was passed which is presumably easily dealt with.
2. Whether it really has no fiscal impact. If the courts rule that it indeed does have a fiscal impact then we are back to the initial procedural problem that the necessary quorum to vote on the bill was not present.

Charles: I believe the law will be stayed by an injunction until the courts rule on it.

Governor Walker can be recalled in January 2012.

[Rudyard K]

Explain to me please, how all this posturing fixes the budget shortfall?

The only one who appears to be ringing the cash register is Mazo.

[Mazomaniac]

Originally Posted by Rudyard K

Explain to me please, how all this posturing fixes the budget shortfall?

Explain to me how a "non-fiscal" measure of killing the unions does so.

Originally Posted by Rudyard K

The only one who appears to be ringing the cash register is Mazo.

Sorry to disappoint ya Rud, but Mazo only takes cases pro bono. Even when the PD appoints me for an appeal I don't take any pay - only actual out of pocket costs. Mazo is more than wealthy enough from his business interests to happily give back a little to the society that he prospered in.

I know that not accumulating as much monetary wealth as you possibly can runs directly counter to your philosophy of life and the universe but, ya see, not everybody on the planet agrees with you that money is the greatest measure of success. Some of us actually spell "principles" with an "s" on the end instead of a dollar sign.

Frankly I'd gladly pay for the opportunity to whoop a little Walker ass on this one. I'll have a relatively minor role, but it's still awesome fun and a great honor to be part of the team. Mazo's damn excited that he gets to do the job for free!!!!

Cheers,
Mazo.

[Rudyard K]

Originally Posted by Mazomaniac

Sorry to disappoint ya Rud, but Mazo only takes cases pro bono. Even when the PD appoints me for an appeal I don't take any pay - only actual out of pocket costs. Mazo is more than wealthy enough from his business interests to happily give back a little to the society that he prospered in.

I know that not accumulating as much monetary wealth as you possibly can runs directly counter to your philosophy of life and the universe but, ya see, not everybody on the planet agrees with you that money is the greatest measure of success.

Frankly I'd gladly pay for the opportunity to whoop a little Walker ass on this one. Mazo's damn excited that he gets to do the job for free!!!!

Cheers,
Mazo.

Oh, don't hurt yourself patting yourself on the back. It looks awkward and it diminshes noblity (if that's what it really was).

We all play the games "pro bono" we choose to play. And like a round of golf with your sporting buddies?...Somebody likes every shot.

Some folks measure success based on each shot. Some folks on each round. Some on a season. Then there are those who play for a career. The career man tends to keep his game much more to himself...cause in the total scheme of things?...each shot, round or season is just the one. And the one shot, round or season wonders think they've figured out what makes the career man tick. Nevertheles,, its still fun to watch the players jump up and down on a good shot, or throw his clubs on a bad one. Thanks for the entertainment.