We Can Stop Wisconsin Republicans' Destructive Mining Bill

Scott Fitzgerald put a big kink in passing a mining bill when he disbanded the mining bill committee Wednesday. The committee was debating a slightly better version of the Assembly bill. Disbanding the committee has shelved any hopes of a better bill than the Assembly's mining bill. However, shutting out debate on the bill will put some Republicans in a tough spot.

Some Republicans have resisted supporting the Assembly's mining bill. Even the Journal Sentinel is against the bill. In particular, Dale Schultz has publicly stated that he cannot vote for the Assembly's bill. That means, without any other Republican defectors, the vote would be 17-16 against the bill.

Any constituent of Dale Schultz should contact him and ask him to reject the Assembly's mining bill or any bill that doesn't receive appropriate public comment.

Scott Fitzgerald says he hasn't counted votes yet, which means he doesn't yet have enough. Disbanding the committee was a horrible strategic mistake without enough votes to pass on his own. You can bet the pressure will be on Schultz to cave into his demands. If Schultz sticks to facts and reason, it'll be a huge blow to Fitzgerald who is facing a recall election later this year.

Given that we won't get a better bill, and the Republicans hope to ram it through, our chance is now to stop the bill. Fitzgerald has cancelled the public hearings in Platteville set for Friday and Ashland, so few opportunities remain.

Jobs

The Republicans are using this bill as their one major jobs plan. Really?! Mining is the future of Wisconsin jobs? This is the best jobs plan they could come up with? You've got to be kidding. The future of Wisconsin jobs is in high-tech, biotech, and high-tech manufacturing, not mining.

We're screwed.

Scott Walker Supporters to March on Wisconsin GAB

Rachel Maddow broke the news that Scott Walker supporters are planning on protesting at the Government Accountability Board office this Friday. According to this note on Facebook, the group Let's march for Scott Walker is asking people to "March on the GAB! Protect your vote!" They say the recall process isn't fair, and their vote is "watered down" by the recall process. What they clearly don't understand is that they can simply vote again, that's fair.

Nearly as many people stood out in the cold to recall Walker as voted for him in a warm polling building, and until the Voter Suppression Bill goes into effect, voting for one candidate is easier than signing a recall petition. I'd say that's more than enough to suggest he should undergo another election and so does the Wisconsin Constitution.

Here are some choice statements from the note:

• The GAB and the system are failing to protect the citizens of Wisconsin who voted November 2010.
• Signatures on the recall petitions out weigh the voter
• GAB does not have the ability to verify over a million signatures!
• GAB Will you listen to the registered voter who voted Nov 2010?
• GAB does listen to signatures that cannot be truly verified!
• Tell the GAB we do not want our vote watered down.
• GAB, FORGET the lawyers. Use common sense. Our state and Country's future is at stake! You MUST do your mission. Protect the vote! Do NOT protect all the signatures!

These people are called uninformed voters, and they are the main reason people like Scott Walker get elected. Help everyone by doing your best to politely inform.

However, there's a very scary statement in there. "Do NOT protect all the signatures!" Republicans, in particular the Scotts (Walker and Fitzgerald), need to publicly denounce such notions and confirm the credibility of the recall process. You tried recalling Democrats, but just because you couldn't get enough signatures doesn't mean the process for which you sought is somehow now flawed.

Walker Skips Out on Event at Union Business

The President is coming to visit union shop Master Lock to tout the success of bringing jobs back to America, but Walker won't go with Obama on the planned trip. According to the Journal Sentinel, he'll meet Obama at the airport, but won't go to Master Lock, because he is recovering from a flu.

Update: I thought at first this might be Walker trying to get out, but he tweeted he was sick yesterday. So, unless they planned on sneaking out of the meeting in this fashion earlier than today, he is genuinely sick.

WisconsinEye Must Open Their Videos To All Wisconsinites

WisconsinEye is to Wisconsin politics what C-SPAN is to federal politics. They're a non-profit organization that provides video of all public events in the State Assembly and Senate as well as news conferences and other public policy events. WisconsinEye broadcasts these videos on Charter Cable Channel 995 and via streaming video on their website. WisconsinEye is an invaluable public resource, but they're not as open as they appear, nor as they should be.

As a non-profit resource for the citizens of Wisconsin, WisconsinEye must make their content easily accessible and available to all Wisconsinites. However, they currently lock down their video in proprietary Microsoft software. This makes it very difficult for Wisconsinites to view and share the pivotal events that take place in the people's house, and it unnecessarily increases WisconsinEye's expenses.

The videos are stored in the Windows Media format, which makes them very difficult to view unless you're running Windows. If you use a Mac, you have to install special Microsoft software called Silverlight, and even if you run Windows you may have to. In the days of YouTube, where special software is rarely required to view videos online, why does WisconsinEye make us install special software to view public content?

The level of difficulty that WisconsinEye users experience and the steps required to view a video is depicted in WisconsinEye's barely helpful help page.

I don't use Windows. I don't even use a Mac most of the time. I use a beautiful OS called Linux. So, since the videos are in Windows Media format, I have to violate a few questionable user agreements just to view the WisconsinEye videos. Why should it be potentially illegal for Wisconsinites to view videos of sessions of our Senate and Assembly? There's absolutely no good reason.

Linux isn't even the biggest WisconsinEye loser. No smartphone can view and access the WisconsinEye video archives. Not iPhone, and not Android. So, when you're not sitting in front of a computer, you can't view what's going on in the Capitol, but you can watch all the YouTube videos you want. We can do better, cheaper.

WisconsinEye should make it easy to embed videos in third-party websites as other video and news sites such as YouTube and MSNBC do. Wisconsin's other non-profit channel, Wisconsin Public Television allows embedding of videos. If WisconsinEye doesn't want to offer the bandwidth to embed their videos in other websites, they need to offer their videos for free download - not just streaming. Without that ability, we're left to chopping up the WisconsinEye videos and posting them on YouTube via the fair use doctrine. Not only that, but WisconsinEye wants you to think you're in violation of the law when doing so, by making you click through a user agreement.

This is absolutely unacceptable, and recently, WisconsinEye seems to have made sharing even more difficult. It should be clear that Wisconsinites have the right to share clips of WisconsinEye videos, and Wisconsinites should have the right to share full videos for non-commercial use.

This is not how a non-profit resource should be provided. It's like your local library saying you can read all the books you want in the library, but you can't make copies of any text or take any books out of the library to share with friends. That's just ridiculous.

There is free software that WisconsinEye could use instead of the proprietary Microsoft software to both save money and make it easier for Wisconsinites to view and share WisconsinEye videos. Switching from Windows Media to a format such as WebM would reduce the complexity of viewing files for the majority of WisconsinEye users. Most users won't have to install any additional software to view WebM videos. It would also immediately add support for Linux users (I realize we're few and far between, but we also tend to be informed and vocal). A different royalty-free video format, H.264, would allow iPhones and Android phones to view WisconsinEye videos, too.

All WisconsinEye videos of government proceedings should be licensed under a Creative Commons license. So that everyone knows that we can share the public resource, and so we have the unambiguous right to share full videos. WisconsinEye can still lock down their original content (which is quite good) and try to make money selling DVDs, but the videos of government proceedings must be open and freely available online. Making these changes probably won't reduce their revenue from DVD sales, they'll save money on Microsoft license fees, and they'll get more exposure and viewers.

I find it difficult to support WisconsinEye while they keep their videos of government proceedings locked down. It just doesn't make economic or ethical sense.

Time Warner Cable or AT&T U-Verse customer? You're missing out on WisconsinEye.

Late Night Destruction of Wisconsin - Wetland Destruction Bill Passed

Republicans in the State Senate rammed through another bill under cover of night, the Wetland Destruction Bill (SB 368), even though the Republicans campaigned against such tactics. Just like the collective bargaining rights-stripping bill (1 AM) and the voter suppression bill (11 PM), the vote took place late at night, just past midnight.

How do you know the bill is bad? Because the Republicans rammed it through as quickly as possible when the fewest people will notice. Many people, including environment and wildlife sporting groups, are very concerned the bill if enacted would result in substantial loss of Wisconsin wetlands and wildlife.

Earlier Tuesday, Scott Fitzgerald abruptly postponed debate on the bill after Democrat Senator Fred Risser moved to vote on a bill restoring collective bargaining rights for public workers that were taken away by the collective bargaining rights-stripping bill (Act 10).

Senator Dave Hansen gave a passionate speech for the rights of workers. Then, at his first chance, Fitzgerald jumped up and ripped into the microphone, "It is the anniversary, but I'm wondering what we're talking about. Are we talking about Kathleen Falk?"

Were you listening at all, Scott? We're talking about restoring rights you took away. What does Kathleen Falk have to do with the bill Risser tried to bring to a vote?

If it's about corruption, Fitzgerald said, "I'd love to talk about that all day if you want." Is it so wrong that a gubernatorial candidate said they support workers' rights? Is that corruption? An open statement in support of rights? And secret meetings at private law firms to gerrymander your district isn't corruption?

Fitzgerald ended his tirade by slamming Senator Hansen and then moving to adjourn until 12:01 AM, "Senator from the 30th, boy I wish Senator Nygren would have gotten enough signatures to get on the ballet, because you'd be gone too right now." It sounds like Fitzgerald is worried he'll get voted out and jealous that Hansen wasn't.

Senate Republicans voted in step with Fitzgerald and the Senate reconvened at 12:01 AM and quickly moved to a vote on the Wetland Destruction Bill. The Republicans passed the bill onto the Assembly on a party-line vote. Protesters against the bill could be heard in the gallery, but I'm sure far fewer people were able to attend or watch at midnight.

I don't have a video for you, because WisconsinEye continues to lock down their videos, making it impossible for us to share videos of our government's proceedings. However, if you have a Windows PC, or are good with your Mac, you can view the videos here and here.

If you are unable to see the debate and votes, you can thank Scott Fitzgerald for his part. This is one of the reasons he has been recalled.

Republican Intimidation, Secrecy and Lies

Last week, we learned through a court order that the Republicans signed confidentiality agreements and were told to ignore the public comments of their fellow Republicans while gerrymandering Wisconsin. The memo read, "Public comments on this map may be different than what you hear in this room. Ignore the public comments." Republicans kept this secret all while doing the work of Wisconsin at a private law firm, and then later fought tooth-and-nail in court to keep this stuff secret.

Today, PolitiScoop has an article regarding an anonymous Republican NDA-signer who says they were threatened into signing the NDA. Zak Schultz from Wisconsin Public Television has the scoop in this video from WPT's Here and Now on Friday.

"According to one lawmaker who asked not to be named, the logic they were given was the maps and the documents would be protected by attorney-client privilege, and the secrecy pledges were needed to protect that. But this lawmaker told me he felt part of the pledge was intimidation, to keep the rank and file from complaining. He was even shown two versions of the map, one more favorable and one less favorable, and was told if he didn’t go along, the less favorable version would become law."

The WPT Here and Now clip has lots more background information, including an interview with UW-Madison Professor Barry Burden.

Last year, Republicans rudely denied any plans to draw new maps in secret.

'“You talked to Democrats who ‘think’ that Republican leaders have these grand plots,” Andrew Welhouse, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, says in an email response to questions about GOP plans. “I guess I’ll leave it up to your journalistic standards if their motivated speculation is worth reporting on.”'

Now they have.

February 11th: Wisconsin Day!

One year ago today, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the Koch brothers unleashed their assault on the rights of our public workers, our education, our poor, our health, and nearly everything else Wisconsin values.

One year ago today, the people of Wisconsin stood up to Walker and his rich corporate interests in historic fashion. The Wisconsin Wave has declared February 11th a new holiday - Wisconsin Day. We began the first big protests of the United States in recent history and that energy later led to the 99% and Occupy Wall Street movements. Wisconsin Wave is holding a rally noon today at the Capitol to mark the first Wisconsin Day!'

Rallies start today at 10:30am marching from the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce to the Capitol in the Bury the Mining Bill Feeder March until the Wisconsin Day rally at noon.

From the Wisconsin Wave:

February 11th is the one-year anniversary of the day Walker and his funders launched their all out assault against everything that makes Wisconsin a great place to live, work, and learn. It also marks the anniversary of the day the people of Wisconsin rose up in mass protest to not only “kill the bill,” but also to demand an end to the many economic and social injustices present in our society.

Come celebrate this historic day with a rally hosted by the Wisconsin Wave to mark a new holiday- Wisconsin Day! Speakers will address the challenges and opportunities the grassroots social movement born a year ago faces moving forward.

The rally will also serve as a launching point for a “No More Stolen Elections” campaign which will work to ensure future elections are free of voter suppression and the intentional manipulation of election results.

Speakers include: Peter Barca, State Assembly Rep.; Mahlon Mitchell, Professional Firefighters of WI; John Nichols, Capital Times & The Nation; Charity Schmidt, UW-Madison TAA; Leland Pan, UW-Madison student government, Ben Manski, Liberty Tree Foundation; John Peck, Family Farm Defenders and others!

RSVP/spread the word on facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/318774838159369/

This event is part of an Anniversary Week of Action to celebrate the Wisconsin Uprising. Click here for more info!

Scott Walker Stealing Victims' Money to Repair Budget Deficit

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker lies when he says he balanced the budget. Using accounting tricks, Wisconsin has a deficit of $216 million. Using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), which we demand of every other business and government in Wisconsin, we have a deficit of about $3 billion.

Wisconsin was awarded $31.6 million from the Wall Street mortgage fraud settlement. This money is supposed to go to Wisconsin taxpayers who were victims of fraud and abuse by banks. However, Walker is planning on stealing most of the money to help repair the budget deficit he tells us he fixed. Walker is stealing from middle-class taxpayers, because he can't be truthful about his incompetence, and he can't make the tough decisions such as appropriately taxing the rich corporations and individuals who fund his campaign.

These people are really hurting, but Walker has no problem taking from them to keep the millions of fundraising dollars pouring in from outside Wisconsin. The settlement money isn't meant to help Walker do his job. It's meant for people who work hard doing their job and were victims of illegal financial practices or negligence. Walker used to say he was against things such as accounting tricks and stealing settlement money. Like during his Budget Repair Address nearly a year ago.

"The facts are clear: Wisconsin is broke and it's time to start paying our bills today — so our kids are not stuck with even bigger bills tomorrow. This deficit did not appear overnight. Wisconsin got here through a reliance on one-time fixes, accounting gimmicks and tax increases. Previous governors and legislatures from both parties took money from our tobacco settlement."

Please, Mr. Walker, don't steal from those who are down, those victims and taxpayers. Where's your Christian heart when you need it?

Wisconsin: Ignore the Public Comments

"Public comments...may be different than what you hear in this room. Ignore the public comments."

That's what Wisconsin Republicans were told to do while they secretly redrew district maps to keep them in office. Of course, the Republicans didn't want Wisconsin to know they were screwing us over. The Republicans also signed confidentiality agreements to not talk about the maps while they worked on them in secret at a private law firm in Madison.

The information came about during court proceedings for a lawsuit against the Republicans in front of a three-judge panel. The Republicans fought hard to keep this information secret, but the judges forcefully ruled against them saying,

"Quite frankly, the Legislature (Republicans) and the actions of its counsel give every appearance of flailing wildly in a desperate attempt to hide from both the court and the public the true nature of exactly what transpired in the redistricting process."

"Indeed, the arguments advanced by the Legislature more than suggest that it wishes to have its cake and eat it too. "

"...the Legislature has taken action that affects the voting rights of Wisconsin's citizens and now attempts to cloak the record of that action behind a charade masking as a privilege."

"Finally, given the Legislature's refusal to adequately cooperate in the discovery process, despite the Court's having twice denied their requests for privilege, the Court reaffirms its earlier directive: cooperate immediately. Neither this Court, the parties in the case, nor Wisconsin's citizens have the interest or time to endure the litigation tactics being used by public officials or their private counsel in what has quickly become a poorly disguised attempt to cover up a process that should have been public from the outset, despite the Legislature's concerted efforts to mask the process behind the closed doors of a private law firm."

Ignore the money they spend, too. We taxpayers paid $400,000 for these secret meetings to draw up where and who we vote for. The secretly gerrymandered maps were finished months ago, but we're still paying for two Republican aides to work at the private law firm of Michael Best & Friedrich. We pay the two aides $129,236 per year in total, and we don't know what they're doing there. According to the Journal Sentinel, the agreements say the aides are "working at the direction of Michael Best attorneys."

When asked about the news, Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca said, "You almost get the image of a shadowy government." An immigrants rights group has written a complaint letter to the Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne to investigate the Republicans' redistricting process as another violation of the Open Meetings Law. You may remember the last one.



Wisconsin: Ignore the public comments of Republicans, because they clearly aren't being the slightest truthful. Do we really want to be ruled by the secret government of Scott Walker?

Wisconsin Rights Protesters Featured in Super Bowl Ad

We made it to the Super Bowl! Well, not really, but Wisconsinites standing up for their rights did. Chrysler's "It's Halftime in America" Super Bowl 46 commercial features a short clip of protesters outside the State Capitol in Madison. The commercial aired during the game's halftime.

At about 50 seconds in, there's a clip of protesters outside the Capitol from the Spring 2011 protests against Governor Scott Walker's rights-stripping bill.

Here's the video of the ad with the venerable actor and director Clint Eastwood


If you're unsure, here's a screenshot of the video with the Hans Christian Heg statue on the right side.

You can see the same statue in this daytime photo from Flickr user courthouselover

"...and our second half is about to begin. All that matters now is looking ahead and finding a way forward." Public workers were trying to negotiate to move Wisconsin forward in 2011, but Walker just wanted to divide us and dismantle the unions. We're just ramping up, and once we get rid of Walker and his uncompromising cronies, we can get Wisconsin moving forward again. They are clearly impeding our progress and refuse to work together.

Update (10:35pm): To the talk of whether or not the protest signs in the clip are "Photoshopped," it looks to be the case.  I don't recognize any of the "readable" signs, particularly the repeated signs. However, there's a sign in the far back left with red hearts that looks like it could be a familiar teachers union sign. I don't blame Chrysler, they're not trying to take one side or the other in their message. They're asking us to come together.

The meaning of the Chrysler commercial, IMNSHO, is that we need to come together, and we have come together before, to get America "back in the game," just like the people of the big car companies in Detroit did. We have to come together to start moving real solutions forward. No more holding up debate for partisan gain and ignorance of facts and reasoning. The only thing that matters is getting it right, it's time we all start working together. "Because that's what we do."

"...But after those trials, we all rallied around what was right and acted as one.

Because that's what we do. We find a way through tough times, and if we can't find a way, then we'll make one.

All that matters now is what's ahead. How do we come from behind? How do we come together, and how do we win?

Detroit's showing us it can be done, and what's true about them is true about all of us.

This country can't be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again. And when we do, the world's gonna here the roar of our engines!

Ya, it's halftime America, and our second half's about to begin."

Update: John Nichols confirms that the protest signs have been edited in the Chrysler ad, and Blogging Blue has screenshots for comparison. Again, I don't impune Chrysler for doing that, because our message wasn't their message. Clearly, they're proudly promoting the success they've had by coming together with employees on tough decisions, but the more partisan their ad appears, the less impact it will make on an integral portion of the population. Chrysler didn't want everyone to associate the clip with the specific problems here in Wisconsin, as Nichols points out, they went so far as to remove the engraving on Heg's statue. They weren't promoting any specific policy, just the idea that we've had some trouble and deeply-divided disagreements, and now it's time to get back to working together to solve our problems. That's the American way.

Don't make Chrysler wish they just used some stock protest clip from the '60s. We all know it's us, and it's not Chrysler's job to get political. More people should be standing up and demanding that we work together, which is what Chrysler did with their ad and we did during the 2011 protests.

Just bask in the knowledge of the impact we made to motivate someone to even consider putting a clip in their Super Bowl ad, and let's get back to solving problems.

It's Halftime in America

"...and our second half is about to begin. All that matters now is looking ahead and finding a way forward."

This has to be the best Super Bowl 46 commercial. It aired during halftime and features Clint Eastwood talking about America coming back, just like Detroit has come back. Everyone came together, workers, shareholders, and creditors, and now GM and Chrysler are back from the brink. To the benefit of us all.

At about 50 seconds in, there's a clip of protesters outside the Wisconsin State Capitol from the Spring 2011 protests against Governor Scott Walker's rights-stripping bill. (more info)

Walker Hauling In More Out-of-State Than Presidential Super PACs

According to the latest numbers on Presidential Super PACs from the New York Times, Scott Walker's latest month of $4.5 million in out-of-state fundraising has outpaced most of the Presidential candidates' total fundraising from Super PACs.

The recall election will be a tough battle to reinstill our Wisconsin values with a governor that will follow them. Who's concerned about out-of-state interests, Walker or the people of Wisconsin? You decide.

Thanks to James Rowen at The Political Environment for pointing these facts out.

The Definition of a Super PAC

Super PAC: a frothy mix of lube and campaign funding that is sometimes the byproduct of politics.

You hear the term thrown around a lot, Super PAC or SuperPAC. But many people ask what is a Super PAC? A great visionary in Super PAC development, Stephen Colbert, provided this simple definition. He gave us this definition during his television program, The Colbert Report, on Thursday. A Super PAC is a frothy mix of lube and campaign funding that is sometimes the byproduct of politics.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

If you want to help change this, support the DISCLOSE Act.

In case you're interested, here's the real definition on Wikipedia.