March 10, 2011 02:00 PM
UPDATED: Violent Legislation: Wisconsin GOP's Power Snatch
By karoli

Update 2:03pm 3/10: The Wisconsin Assembly just passed the bill as amended, with 4 Republicans voting no.

This is a PDF of what the Wisconsin Senators passed last night. It isn't just unions they're aiming at. Every public program, worker, and Wisconsin citizen will be at risk as a result of this "legislation", if that's even what it is. Here are as many of the highlights as I can gather in one place. This is intended to be a laundry list. Each of these topics probably deserve a post of their own, but I want a list of the crazy all in one place.

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Protesters who marched at the home of Wisconsin state senator Randy Hopper (R-Fond du Lac) were met with something of a surprise on Saturday. Mrs. Hopper appeared at the door and informed them that Sen. Hopper was no longer in residence at this address, but now lives in Madison, WI with his 25-year-old mistress. ...

Blogging Blue also reports that Mrs. Hopper intends to sign the recall petition against her husband. The petition has already been signed by the family's maid.

Raw Story

RWNJ family values!

Wisconsin state Sen. Randy Hopper, R-Fond du Lac, reportedly left his wife and children for a lobbyist 20 years his junior and moved out of his district to the state capitol. His constituents discovered that he no longer lived in his district when protestors went to his house and discovered that his wife and maid were ready to sign the recall petition.

Hilariously, Hopper had previously declined to appear in his district's St Paddy's day parade because he was worried about "death threats" -- but now it appears that the only threat to Hopper was the possibility that his estranged wife might confront him about his infidelities in front of the voters. (via Reddit)

I am assuming that we have no assurance that the question was either asked, or answered, as printed.

Many's the slip twixt the intern's 'poll-taking' and the copydesk's 'editing,' especially when you throw proofreading out the window.

The judge’s order is a major setback for new Republican Gov. Scott Walker and puts the future of the law in question.

Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi issued the order, which was requested by that county’s District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, a Democrat. Ozanne filed a lawsuit contending that a legislative committee that broke a stalemate that had kept the law in limbo for weeks met without the 24-hour notice required by Wisconsin’s open meetings law. The Republican-controlled Legislature passed the measure and Walker signed it last week.

Secretary of State Doug La Follette planned to publish the law on March 25, but the judge’s order will prevent that from happening, at least for now.

[snip]

A spokesman for Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald declined to comment, citing the ongoing legal fight.

ruh-roh, those darn corrupt judges are at it again... ...

Just thought this would be a good place to mention that it is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Kind of ironic.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/24/news/Tr ... htm?hpt=C1

A Wisconsin judge on Tuesday barred state officials from any further implementation of a law that strips most public workers of nearly all their collective bargaining rights.

Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi issued an emergency injunction prohibiting enactment of the law earlier this month. But the Legislative Reference Bureau published the law anyway on Friday.

[snip]

Sumi stopped short of issuing a declaration saying the law was not in effect during a hearing Tuesday but said her earlier order had either been ignored or misunderstood. She said anyone who violates the new order would face sanctions.

[snip]

Wisconsin Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch, Walker's top aide, issued a statement saying the agency will evaluate the judge's order.

Read more on Newsmax.com: Wis. Judge Halts Implementation of Bargaining Law
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

We prioritize the Constitution and the well being of the people of Wisconsin over foie gras at cocktail parties.

Lefty organic food eaters eat foi gras? I thought that was a no no.

Cops, firefighters turn on GOP

Many cops and firefighters have thrown their allegiance to the GOP for years — union members who frequently stray from labor’s longtime support for Democrats.

A host of new Republican governors is changing all that. ...

It’s a political shift that could have significant repercussions, and not just because these right-leaning union members vote for Republicans in sizable numbers. Angry cops and firefighters make for bad PR — especially after Republicans under President George W. Bush aligned themselves so successfully with the heroes of Sept. 11 in the years since then.

Chuck Canterbury, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said his members are “shocked” by the turn of events.

“Who are these evil teachers who teach your children, these evil policemen who protect them, these evil firemen who pull them from burning buildings? When did we all become evil?” said Canterbury, whose union endorsed Bush in 2000 and 2004 and John McCain in 2008.

Politico has a long piece about this - it's very good:

Wisconsin Union Law’s Future May Hinge on High Court Election
By Mark Niquette and Marie Rohde -

Wisconsin voters will elect a Supreme Court justice today in a race that has become a proxy for the battle over Republican Governor Scott Walker’s law curbing collective bargaining for public unions.

Groups inside and outside the state are pouring money into the nonpartisan contest between Justice David T. Prosser Jr. and challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg, an assistant state attorney general. The outcome may shift the court’s ideological balance and determine how a legal challenge to the Wisconsin law is decided, said Mordecai Lee, who teaches government at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

“This is not merely a symbolic referendum on public opinion about the collective-bargaining bill; it is substantively about the collective-bargaining bill,” Lee, a state lawmaker from 1976 to 1990, said by telephone yesterday. “This is the swing seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court that will probably eventually decide the issue.”

The election will send a strong message, said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison politics professor.

If you give the google search a 30 seconds or so, the tweets will start to fall in realtime.

The earlier joy has turned to worry and claims of voter fraud.