Wisconsin Union Hypocrisy: WEAC Accused of Breaking Staff Union Contract

By: LaborUnionReport (Diary)  |  September 14th at 12:00 PM  | 

Pot, meet Kettle. While it occupied Wisconsin’s state capitol, the union that represents many of Wisconsin’s public school teachers, WEAC, demonized governor Scott Walker’s government union reform as an attack on collective bargaining. Yet, when WEAC found itself no longer able to forcibly collect union dues without state help, with its forced funding being diminished, WEAC decided to lay off 40%of its staff. Now, in | Read More »

Wisconsin progressives attack charter school.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  August 28th at 01:00 PM  | 

Yup, ‘attacked.’ Those locks didn’t vandalize themselves, and they weren’t vandalized by the Scott Walker administration. That leaves a pretty small list of suspects from which to choose. Anyway, I’m just putting this video about the protests at Messmer Preparatory Catholic School (via Hot Air) up, without any of the (scathing) editorial comments that I had originally written. But see if you can guess what | Read More »

George Will and the Wisconsin Progressive Waterloo.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  August 25th at 08:00 AM  | 

George Will visits the wreckage-strewn battlefield where Wisconsin progressives launched their desperate counter-attack against the forces of reform, and finds a certain grim satisfaction there. To refresh people’s memories: Wisconsin progressives’ refusal to accept the widespread repudiation of the Democratic party in Wisconsin in 2010 (loss of the state legislature, two Congressional seats lost, progressive icon US Senator Russ Feingold handily if not contemptuously defeated | Read More »

Russ Feingold (D, NOTHING) cuts and runs.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  August 19th at 09:45 AM  | 

(Via Hot Air) Russ Feingold’s not running for Senate in 2012. He’s not running for Governor in a hypothetical (and futile) 2012 recall election. He’s not running for Governor in the 2014 general election[*]. Russ Feingold’s just running away: “After twenty-eight continuous years as an elected official … I have found the past eight months to be an opportunity to look at things from a | Read More »

Looking for Big Themes in Wisconsin

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  August 10th at 11:00 AM  | 

Last night on twitter, I wrote “Dear GOP: don’t mimic Dem spin that this will have any relevance on 2012. It won’t.” Interestingly, the first reaction to that from Congressman Patrick McHenry’s (R-NC) Chief of Staff was that I was “officially rooting against Republicans.” Now, I don’t know this lady from Adam . . . or I guess I should say Eve, but I find | Read More »

The WI Recall results open thread.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  August 9th at 08:45 PM  | 

[UPDATE] With four retentions and two losses (one being the Republican in the Democratic district, and the other being the guy with the alleged adultery problem), I think that we can safely bring forth the unofficial Democratic Base Theme Song. No, you’ve earned this, Wisconsin Democrats.  Tonight’s results cost you twenty million, and you didn’t reach your primary objective. Enjoy. I’m pre-loading this: I have | Read More »

WI Democrats make (illiterate) threats to news organization.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  August 7th at 01:02 AM  | 

Said threats being made by one Graeme Zielinski, communications director (his title will be funny in a moment; trust me) for the Wisconsin Democratic party – and my, but did he ever communicate!  And more than Zielinski really intended to, methinks. Background information: there’s a site called WisconsinReporter.com.  They apparently cover Wisconsin local politics – of which there’s been quite a bit lately that’s been | Read More »

Wisconsin labor union reform: saving jobs, money, schools.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  July 26th at 03:30 PM  | 

There is a striking (if you’ll pardon the pun) dichotomy taking shape in the Wisconsin public school system right now, and it’s one that should hardly be surprising to anybody who was paying attention to this spring’s labor union reform struggles. Said dichotomy is as follows: School districts that were able to institute Scott Walker’s & the GOP’s reforms to collective bargaining procedures have generally | Read More »

In Which We Learn Reid Ribble Isn’t One Of Us

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  July 18th at 07:30 AM  | 

The New York Times has an interesting profile of House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy — the man who will someday probably gut Eric Cantor’s naked ambitions. For all the talk about a Boehner v. Cantor rivalry, reporters should keep their eyes on the Cantor v. McCarthy relationship. In any event, there is this interesting nugget about McCarthy rewarding House Republicans who toe the party line, | Read More »

The Wisconsin redistricting maps are out.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  July 10th at 09:30 AM  | 

There is a gutter war going on right now in Wisconsin, by the way.  It’s not one that the Republicans there started, but darned if they’re not grimly intent on finishing it – and for anybody who might be upset at that notion, let me remind you of something: oddly enough, when you threaten a man or woman’s family, it’s rare that he or she | Read More »

Mr. Smith, er, Johnson, goes to Washington

By: ColdWarrior (Diary)  |  June 28th at 05:30 PM  | 

First term Republican Sen. Ron Johnson from Wisconsin has just done what the Republican “leaders” of the Senate have thus far failed to do during Opuppet’s presidency: actually threaten to use the Senate rules to fight for our individual liberties and get the Senate to actually do its job: Will Sen. Johnson actually follow through? I hope and pray he does. (Hat tip to Aaron | Read More »

Gov. Scott Walker (R, WI) balances budget over Democratic protests.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  June 27th at 12:00 PM  | 

Via Ann Althouse comes this video of a mini-stampede by Wisconsin Democrats, upon hearing that Governor Scott Walker was supposedly leaving the Capitol after signing legislation balancing the budget without raising taxes: …Oops. Well. Natural mistake. Try this:

Reviewing Ann Bradley’s physical attack on David Prosser…

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  June 26th at 03:00 PM  | 

…what?  I am perfectly entitled to use the rules of thumb popularized by left-wing hack groups like ThinkProgress or Talking Points Memo: since they felt justified in using uncorroborated anonymous reports to vicariously convict Prosser of assault, they have absolutely no justification for other people using the precise same criteria to vicariously convict Bradley.  Besides, my version makes much more coherent sense. OK, let me | Read More »

Shelly Moore’s (D CAND, WI-SEN) UNETHICAL recall freeloading.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  June 22nd at 01:00 PM  | 

Before we go any further, let’s establish something right now.  As this complaint from the WI GOP shows (see more here), Shelly Moore was well aware that she was not supposed to be using her school account to coordinate and encourage both the Big Labor protests earlier in the year and recall efforts against Wisconsin Senators (particularly since she ended up being the Democratic candidate | Read More »

Fred Clark (D-CAND, WI-SEN): would-be abuser.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  June 14th at 10:00 AM  | 

I say ‘would-be’ because Rep. Clark (who is running against incumbent Wisconsin Senator Luther Olsen in the upcoming recall election) doesn’t have the nerve to say things like the below to a constituent’s face: FC: “Ok.  I feel like calling her back and smacking her around.” Nope!  Clark’s much more comfortable with waiting until he thinks that she’s off the phone, and only then playing tough-guy.  | Read More »