Predictable: No Mention of Death Threats in L.A. Times Wisconsin Story
What’s missing from this L.A. Times story about the Wisconsin situation?
Stoking Republican efforts to check union power across the country, Wisconsin’s state Assembly sent Gov. Scott Walker a bill he has sought to limit the collective bargaining rights of government workers.
The vote, coming after another emotional day at the Capitol, is expected to intensify bitter fights in legislatures from Idaho to Indiana, emboldening other budget-cutting Republican governors to press ahead with anti-union legislation.
But it also is likely to galvanize unions and their Democratic allies. Since Republican senators in Wisconsin approved the bill Wednesday night, the state’s Democratic Party took in more than $300,000 in donations.
Opponents of the bill packed the balconies in the Assembly and began jeering as soon as representatives started voting, making it almost impossible to hear the result. Boos and chants of “shame!” broke out as the bill passed, 53 to 42, with one abstention, culminating weeks of heated debate that has brought tens of thousands of protesters to the Capitol in Madison and sent Democratic lawmakers fleeing the state to try to prevent the bill’s passage.
You guessed it: any mention of the death threats Republican Wisconsin Senators have received, as I chronicled here last night.
Shocka!
P.S. I have said it before and I will say it again. When you have this situation:
Opponents of the Wisconsin legislation are taking their fight to court, contending that Republicans violated the state’s open-meetings act in the vote, a charge that Republicans dispute.
Why not just pass the bill you wanted to pass in the first place, Wisconsin Republicans — fiscal provisions and all — now that the fleeing Democrats have returned?
P.P.S. The story confirms that recall efforts are underway for Senators from both parties. Which does the paper highlight?
Naturally.
There is no chance that a similar effort to rein in public employee unions will occur in California. Schwartzenegger tried a few modest reforms by initiative in 2005 and the the teachers union mortgaged their Sacramento headquarters building to spend $50 million to defeat them. He gave up at that point. Only bankruptcy will end their grasp on California’s finances.
Mike K (8f3f19) — 3/11/2011 @ 7:51 amCalifornia is owned by union whores to where for reals Americans are leaving the state in droves. Not just people whole entire companies.
What happens after our geriatric dirty socialist governor monkey works his budget magic I am very curious to see.
happyfeet (ab5779) — 3/11/2011 @ 7:57 amLuckily, the LA Times isn’t much influence in Wisconsin. Given that the voters gave Republicans 4 extra Senate seats last time (out of 17 up, not all of whom were Democrats) you would think that the Dems wouldn’t want the other 16 seats in play quite so soon. But then if Dems were rational they’d be Republicans.
Kevin M (298030) — 3/11/2011 @ 8:11 amYes, Ed Morrissey agrees with you.
aunursa (a2a019) — 3/11/2011 @ 8:18 amhttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/03/11/walker-you-can-stop-the-layoffs/
Mike–
Maybe we should put up initiatives every election that the unions hate. Eventually, they’ll run out of things to mortgage.
I’d start with one that makes future pension spiking a felony (pension fraud) and makes continued acceptance of a spiked pension a crime. With a temporary amnesty clause.
Then I’d go on to capping all pensions by means of a windfall tax.
Kevin M (298030) — 3/11/2011 @ 8:19 amFor your amusement, the Indiana Republican legislators have released a video about their own state’s missing Democrat colleagues who are staying across the border in Urbana Illinois. (74 is the road number) Set to the song “Country Roads”, some of the lyrics are:
74 bring them home to the place they belong, Indiana, not Urbana, take them home 74.
Pat Bauer, lost his mind, took his caucus, ran across state lines.
Right to work, PLA’s, bunch other stuff, made them run away.
74 bring them home, to the place they belong, Indiana not Urbana take them home 74.
School reform, was our plea rather than debate it, they all chose to flee. When they come back, time will tell, if they don’t, they can go to (slap).
74 bring them home to the place they belong, Indiana, not Urbana, take them home 74.
Unemployment, who steps up? We got elected, stop acting like you won. When they show up, you know who, just like Noah’s ark they come back two by two.
74 bring them home to the place they belong, Indiana, not Urbana, take them home 74.
elissa (b8ffea) — 3/11/2011 @ 8:21 amWhy not just pass the bill you wanted to pass in the first place, Wisconsin Republicans — fiscal provisions and all — now that the fleeing Democrats have returned?
Exactly.
I’ve been wondering the very same thing. So perhaps the bill as it now stands-was procedurally incorrect-Republicans should announce that they want to get it right and do the bill over.
Is it possible for the republicans to say-let’s get it right and re-vote.
I don’t know if it’s that easy maybe once it’s a law it’s a law-and sometimes people have a hard time admitting that they’ve made a mistake.
However the Court option just drags it out and who’s to say the Democrats don’t win it? The last Democrat governor had eight years to load the state bench-in Wisconsin. It’s probably pretty damn liberal.
Now if it gets to the 7th it might get a shot at being heard by Conservative judges-but why go through all of that?
madawaskan (fd190b) — 3/11/2011 @ 8:48 amOK I followed aunursa’s link. Ed Morrissey’s update-Walker signed the bill and now it is law. So essentially there is no doing it over? oy.
madawaskan (fd190b) — 3/11/2011 @ 9:06 amOK I followed aunursa’s link. Ed Morrissey’s update-Walker signed the bill and now it is law. So essentially there is no doing it over? oy.
madawaskan (fd190b) — 3/11/2011 @ 9:06 amYes, here in Champaign Urbana, the fleeing legislators from Illinois are all the rage on the news. I wish they’d go home so our Governor could start concentrating on our own sorry state of affairs instead of scolding the governors of Indiana and Wisconsin.
Rochf (f3fbb0) — 3/11/2011 @ 9:31 amThe Wisconsin open-meetings law has a major exemption for the legislature, and the meeting did not violate the rules of the legislature, so the open-meetings claim is sheer bluster.
Tully (62151d) — 3/11/2011 @ 9:49 amThere may be a protracted battle of attempted recalls of both repubs and dems from various close districts, each side claiming they are the ones who really represent the state and not the Koch brothers or the dem-union money laundering scheme, depending on how you see it.
More than a few poli sci students now have their dissertation topic broadly defined.
MD (from UW-Madison) in Philly (3d3f72) — 3/11/2011 @ 10:00 amWhy do you still read the LAT? I haven’t seen copy in months, life still full. Folks: The way you teach those biased, loony left, lying hacks a lesson is….DO NOT BUY THEIR PAPER….DO NOT DISCUSS THEIR PAPER.
Kevin Stafford (abdb87) — 3/11/2011 @ 10:24 amOn a local blog here in the people’s republic of Illinois, I made a comment that the people in Wisconsin making death threats were acting like terrorists, and was immediately told to tone it down by the operator of the blog–as if anything I said was worse than the original threats. Gotta love those liberals.
Rochf (f3fbb0) — 3/11/2011 @ 10:27 amObama’s presser should garner about 10 Pinnochios.
JÐ (0b8a2b) — 3/11/2011 @ 10:30 am#15–yeah, especially he’d apparently rather be the President of China or something.
Rochf (f3fbb0) — 3/11/2011 @ 10:36 amBecause they still haven’t returned.
And frankly, I suspect that they won’t return until after the court has made it’s ruling.
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 3/11/2011 @ 10:38 amTough to campaign on a recall from Illinois. And what’s the residency law anyway? After 90 days in Illinois are they still Wisconsin residents?
Kevin M (73dcc9) — 3/11/2011 @ 10:41 amKevin–
I don’t buy their paper — I unsubbed in January and they sent me a refund. But they are still delivering it and I’m letting them. They’ll go broke just that much faster. Hopefully Murdoch will buy them out of bankruptcy.
Kevin M (73dcc9) — 3/11/2011 @ 10:44 amMaybe we here in Illinois can do some forcible annexation or something–we need the tax base.
Rochf (f3fbb0) — 3/11/2011 @ 10:55 amit would be so much easier if Obama was the president of China
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 3/11/2011 @ 11:03 amYeah, but the Chinese would never allow it coz he’s not pureblood Han. See, over there they have no hangups about being racist. Only Westerners are not allowed to be racist.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 3/11/2011 @ 11:38 amIf it ain’t part of Teh Narrative then it ain’t news!
Icy Texan (4e6c9d) — 3/11/2011 @ 11:40 amGiven that the voters gave Republicans 4 extra Senate seats last time (out of 17 up, not all of whom were Democrats) you would think that the Dems wouldn’t want the other 16 seats in play quite so soon
I suspect they think that, with their base riled and public opinion polls showing the public on their side, they think the result would be different today than five months ago.
They may be wrong, but it’s hardly an irrational theory.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 3/11/2011 @ 4:17 pmAphrael, Only the Democrat biased polls are saying that. WI citizens are pissed off at the trashing of the capitol by the union goons. Also, If the GOP start confronting “journalists” about the death threats, there won’t be a union loving Democrat in office or employed in WI.
PCD (72f2dc) — 3/12/2011 @ 4:47 amFrom Brian Leiter at U of Texas:
“Meanwhile, the Republican criminals in Wisconsin forced through their attack on workers’ rights, leading to an uproar in Madison … At some point these acts of brazen viciousness are going to lead to a renewed philosophical interest in the question of when acts of political violence are morally justified, an issue that has, oddly, not been widely addressed in political philosophy since Locke.”
narciso (a3a9aa) — 3/12/2011 @ 11:37 amSorry U of Chicago, which makes it even worse.
narciso (a3a9aa) — 3/12/2011 @ 11:38 amWisconsin DOJ Division of Criminal Investigation has located and gotten a confession from one of the senders of death threats against Republican lawmakers. Another report says it is a potty mouth female.
http://wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=229915
elissa (f84d34) — 3/12/2011 @ 11:50 amImagine if the tea party said something similar to maobama over maobamacare narciso?
DohBiden (984d23) — 3/12/2011 @ 1:30 pmGood image: no doubt unions wish to recall Liberty, and the Democrats have sold the people’s freedom to unions.
tehag (02d37b) — 3/13/2011 @ 3:59 am