I went to a protest, and a capitol broke out.

article said:

Harold Cook, the top staffer for Texas' Senate Democrats at the time, referred to it as "the home-team advantage." While lawmakers fled for the border, he noted, "the capitol press corps is at the capitol."

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The difference is that the protesters are STILL at the capital. So when all of the news reporters show up, there's 25,000 protesters able to give their side of the story. They're showing protests inside the capital, they're interviewing protesters, or their just covering their stories with the people walking in the background. It changes the dynamic, and when there are posters with I <3 WI 14, it really plays well with the press.

I'd say that Walker has actually been *losing* the media war the past week. He's had to defend his plans, and has been fumbling around making several mistakes. The whole reason he wanted to pass this in 4 days was that it would prohibit people from *actually* reading it. There's so much terrible stuff in it that's just coming out (the sale of the powerplants, for instance, or the drastic cuts to Medicaid), that the longer it drags on, the worse it is for the Governor.

Now the unions have pretty much agreed to whatever financial aspects are in the bill (ie, NOT the collective bargaining parts), Walker is left trying to spin how eliminating collective bargaining is going to help him balance his budget (it's not).

Maybe I'm just biased because I'm seeing it firsthand instead of filtered through the mass media though?

Update from today. Showed up, and, uh, apparently there were 600 MORE COPS there. Entire sections were blocked off, including the ones closest to the Assembly and Senate chamber rooms.





These cops were pulled in from all over the state.



Most were in a pretty good mood, and some were even racking up some serious overtime.



There was even a Conservation Warden (WTF?) ready to handle the violent riot that was sure to occur.



Overall everybody was friendly, and even gave directions to one of the protests in front of the local bank (more on that later).

Since everybody has seen the "grand crowd shots", I went around trying to get more shots of posters, individuals and the violent rioters themselves.

Ian's Pizza, no clue where these were ordered from.



THIS ANARCHY WILL BE WELL ORGANIZED!!! Locals are showing up in orange vests and doing crowd control and shepherding people like firefighters when they walk through.




(the protesters are VERY knowledgeable about how things like destruction of property or even trash on the capitol grounds hurts their cause)

Locals are still very prevalent here, outnumbering the newcomers by 4-1 or 5-1.



Yes, we could reach into the Assembly with whatever means we had.



This kid was obviously tired after setting fire to police cars all morning and just wanted to take a nap.



"YAY RIOTING!!!!!"



"See Timmy? That protester is hitting that big evil capitalist with a brick!"



"Hush, honey, daddy is ordering up another case of Molotov cocktails."



Firefighters are specifically exempt from the bill, but they know that they're next and are protesting side by side. They always get the biggest cheer when they walk through.



Locals are offering up beds/floor space for visiting protesters.



One of the hazards of politically donating to one of the candidates... when that candidate does something stupid, this happens:





(note, M&I did *not* contribute as a company. However, ~200 employees contributed ~$100,000+, making M&I the largest contributor to Scott Walker, even above Koch PAC. About half those employees contributed ~1/4 of that amount to Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate.)

Dammit, I just posted that as a separate thread. I'll go delete it. Here's my post:

koch: We&#8217;ll back you any way we can. what we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.

walker: you know, well, the only problem with that &#8212;because we thought about that. the problem&#8212;the, my only gut reaction to that is right now the lawmakers i&#8217;ve talked to have just completely had it with them, the public is not really fond of this&#8230;[explains that planting troublemakers may not work.] my only fear would be if there&#8217;s a ruckus caused is that maybe the governor has to settle to solve all these problems&#8230;[something about '60s liberals.]&#8230;let &#8216;em protest all they want&#8230;sooner or later the media stops finding it interesting.

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12345

koch: [laughs] well, i tell you what, scott: Once you crush these bastards i&#8217;ll fly you out to cali and really show you a good time.

Walker: All right, that would be outstanding. [*** ethical violation much? ***] thanks for all the support&#8230;it&#8217;s all about getting our freedoms back&#8230;

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koch: Absolutely. And, you know, we have a little bit of a vested interest as well. [laughs]

walker: [blah] thanks a million!

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walker: [bragging about how he doesn't budge]&#8230;i would be willing to sit down and talk to him, the assembly democrat leader, plus the other two republican leaders&#8212;talk, not negotiate and listen to what they have to say if they will in turn&#8212;but i&#8217;ll only do it if all 14 of them will come back and sit down in the state assembly&#8230;legally, we believe, once they&#8217;ve gone into session, they don&#8217;t physically have to be there. If they&#8217;re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 senate republicans could then go into action and they&#8217;d have quorum&#8230;so we&#8217;re double checking that. If you heard i was going to talk to them that&#8217;s the only reason why. We&#8217;d only do it if they came back to the capital with all 14 of them&#8230;

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Beef Supreme said:

BTW, love, love, love your updates.

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Thanks, I'll keep posting them. Was a little quiet after the last couple, so wasn't sure if anyone was still reading them.

jonKranked said:

just checking.


also, the guy tried calling multiple times. do you not think that this may have raised a flag, or they had a list of known numbers for Koch? maybe he (governor) called the actual Koch, found out this guy wasn't the real deal, then proceeded to feed him a load of BS.

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No, just listen to the tape. He's got that "I'm already down on my knees waiting for you" breathless voice.


Oh, and also the Walker office has already confirmed that it's true.

jonKranked said:

Just wanted to make sure it was legit before people get all excited.

Carry on

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Doesn't *actually* matter in the court of public opinion... Remember that the ACORN and Planned Parenthood tapes were done without consent and heavily edited, and they *still* took down ACORN and did a lot of damage to Planned Parenthood.

jonKranked said:

oh absolutely. I just was hoping that this could possibly constitute legal evidence in a court of law, if the need ever arose.

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Aside from admitting that he considered sending plants into the crowd to start trouble, that he'd accept gifts (vacations) in exchange for political favors, and that he was intentionally lying to democratic state senators, I can't imagine anything that that would be worth dragging him to court over....

Although FOIA on any of those might be really, really, really interesting.

Nope, website's just down due to MASSIVE requests. Here's the link to the transcript from a madison website.

Sh!t. THere were links to youtube videos, but I wonder if they've been taken down? CRAP, I was going to download them if possible.

Ok, here they are:


and pt II


edit: I can't download from youtube, is that possible?

Oh, and as an update for yesterday, while there were fewer people during the day, the crowd swelled back up to ~15k+ by 4:30-5pm. Basically people are going to work, and then coming to the capital to protest.

This isn't going away anytime soon.

So I'd say this is just a *little* bit of bad timing?

article said:

The conservative arm of Americans for Prosperity and the billionaire Koch brothers continues to reach into Wisconsin. Americans for Prosperity, long backed financially by Charles and David Koch, announced in a news release that it is launching a $342,200 TV ad in support of Walker that will begin airing Wednesday around Wisconsin.

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Whooops.

Update (no pics, they're starting to look just like all the rest I've taken):

The Assembly is in a 44+ hour filibuster, with no signs of stopping anytime soon. They've worked through 51 amendments (with the GOP voting every single one of them down), including ones that would open the sale of state assets (power plants, heating/cooling plants) to an OPEN bid instead of a closed bid, and have another 54 amendments that are still waiting to be debated.... And have another 100+ that they have written and haven't submitted yet. This is old-fashioned filibustering, where people ACTUALLY have to get up and talk the whole time.

The Republicans have voted every single one down because if they accept any of them, the Senate has to go back and vote again on the amended bill (and because they're a$$holes). They're silent, staring down at their desks, not answering questions, and just voting no, no, no. It's pretty embarrassing. The standoff goes on, but who knows for how much longer? This is from the local news site:

The ongoing party is likely to end soon, however. Earlier Wednesday, senators and representatives voted to prohibit the public from being in hearing rooms and legislative offices when there are not meetings scheduled. The procedural move was made to force the crowd out of the Capitol when the session ends.

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It will be interesting to see what happens, since there have been hundreds who have been sleeping in the capitol each night in order to keep the building "open". Are they going to drag every protester out, kicking and screaming, only to let them back in the next morning when the legislative session opens back up again?

Anyway, here's the link if you want to watch the Assembly debate:

http://www.wiseye.org/Home/AirVideoStream.aspx

Took some pics yesterday, protested a bit, and then sat through ~2 hours of 'democracy' where Democrats put forth reasonable amendments (legislative oversight over sales of state assets, returning legislative oversight to health care issues, etc), spoke about each one in depth (for 10min before debate was cut off), and the Republicans voted it down. Over, and over, and over again.

Removal of the 37 new positions that would be appointed by the governor with zero oversight from the legislature? Killed. Holding the Capital Police in similar fashion to the State Police, as opposed to eliminating the collective bargaining rights of the Capital Police and not those of the State Police? Killed. Insisting on any sale of state assets (power plants) go to open bid? Killed. Insisting that any sale of state assets (power plants) have to go through the Public Services Commission? Killed. Etc. Over and over again, and the GOP voted down every single one. They even voted down a measure that fixed 2 typos in the bill ("may be" instead of "maybe", and one other one that was slightly more complicated).

So now the assembly has voted (in a pretty sleazy manner), there's still news coming out about how unworkable this bill is, and now it all comes down to the senators staying away as long as they can.

Oh, and the legislature voted to change the rules to shut down the capital at 6pm on Saturday....... Guess where I'm going to be at 6pm on Saturday.

Koch brothers digging in their heels and committing to spending more money in WI politics...

kidwoo said:

What......you think this is about solutions and governing and not one big chest puffing posturing move?

Of course you don't. What were all those comments from republicans last year about 'now the adults are in charge?' Indeed.

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My only hope is that win or lose, people see this as a MASSIVE overreach. Even the right's darling Chris Christie isn't backing Walker 100%, saying he supports "intelligent bargaining" or something to the effect. The GOP assembly pulled a fast one only allowing ~2sec for the final vote, meaning less than half of the Democrats were actually able to get a vote in in that time. The more and more these political tricks come out, the worse it's going to look for the Republicans.

Oh, and apparently Walker wrote this column before Wed's prank phone call came out.

MADISON, Wis. -- Gov. Scott Walker said in a column that he'll "cooperate and communicate" with Senate Democrats only if they return to Madison. Walker made the comments in a column he wrote on Thursday. Fourteen Senate Democrats left the state last week to delay action on a Walker proposal that would take away collective bargaining rights from public workers. Democrats have urged Walker to accept a compromise that would keep bargaining rights intact, but he has refused. Walker said in the column that the Democrats are trying to prevent democracy from working by leaving the state. He said he respects that Democrats disagree with him, and he's willing to talk with them, but only if they return to the Capitol.

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Lol. This guy makes Palin look like a political genius.