Wisconsin..........coming to a state near you.

Wisconsin Protests Set to Expand This Weekend


Robert Dougherty Robert Dougherty – Sat Feb 19, 12:59 pm ET


The Wisconsin protests show no signs of slowing down. Since the Wisconsin protests won't stop until the controversial budget repair bill is settled, the ball is in the court of Gov. Scott Walker and his opposition. But the governor isn't budging on his plan to slash public workers' collective bargaining rights, while Democratic state senators are still staying in Illinois to stall the bill. With Republicans waiting a few days to vote in the state Assembly, the Wisconsin protests stand to swarm Madison and the state capitol all weekend.

The crowds have gone up to an estimated 40,000 since the budget repair bill was first introduced. After Democratic state senators fled to Illinois rather than take part in a losing vote, the issue reached national headlines.

Friday, the protests did seem to make some kind of difference in the state Assembly. The Democrats in that chamber weren't leaving, so the Republicans could have passed Walker's budget there. However, they finally relented until Tuesday, to give Democrats time to craft amendments.

But Walker is adamant the budget repair bill get passed soon to reduce the $100-plus million deficit. Yet thousands more people in Madison and around the country are outraged that he wants to cut public workers' benefits and bargaining rights to do it.

Despite the growing power of the protests, Walker and state Republicans are undeterred. Today, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald told MSNBC that no compromise could be made as they can't "implement deep budget cuts" if unions remain as powerful.

[ For complete coverage of politics and policy, go to Yahoo! Politics ]


On the other side, figures like Jesse Jackson and ex-Sen. Russ Feingold have come out to speak at the rallies. Jackson has compared this fight to that of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi's nonviolent movements. He also evoked Montgomery and Selma to show that "When we fight, we win."

But a new level to the protests is set to emerge today as supporters for Walker are gathering as well. Today, the Tea Party Patriots and Americans for Prosperity groups are holding counter-rallies, while Sarah Palin posted on Facebook that the targeted benefits are "not sustainable."

Now that the other side is holding rallies, it stands to raise more questions on the direction of this movement. Will there be greater confrontation over the next few days, and will whatever happens change anything before Tuesday's Assembly meeting?

With the protests reaching national levels, and attracting more national figures, this story is now clearly reaching another level. What that level will look like is still to be determined, but this weekend should provide a few clues.

Wisconsin Protests
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BROKE IS BROKE and the cutbacks needed now are going to hurt....deeply, any group not willing to accept that fact and help will find themselves in the same position as Wisconsin public Unions; their unwillingness to negotiate in the first place has put them in their unpopular position now. Will NYS's CSEA act in the interest of the People of NY when the time comes or throw a tempertantrum like Wisconsin?

http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=2200

Quote :

What on earth is a President of the United States doing actively supporting angry protest mobs in the United States? Silly me, but I thought that an elected President was supposed to be the President of all the people, and not just of the hard, far Left. Isn’t the President supposed to be neutral in matters like this and let the States work it out? So why, you ask, is Obama doing this? I will tell you why. Obama is supporting the hard, far Left in these uprisings because he is on a mission. A mission to bring down this country, overthrow the Constitution he was sworn to protect and replace it with Socialist anarchy. Obama is not a real President, he is the bought and paid for puppet of the Puppet Master, George Soros.

Change has come to America

The Pro-Union riots are spreading now across the country because Obama and his team are fomenting and encouraging the rebellion. This is not a “grass-roots protest” for “teacher’s right’s”, this is the classic Civil Unrest that Obama learned at the feet of his fellow traitors like Bill Ayers, the Weather Underground, and Saul Alinsky. American people, and I will shout this from the housetops – WAKE UP! Your country is being taken from you by the traitor you elected as President. Obama is ENCOURAGING these riots, and helping them to spread. We are losing our country to the Socialist and New World Order forces that have besieged it.

Obama fanning the flames of riots

I have seen the enemy, and he is us.

“MADISON, WIS. – President Obama thrust himself and his political operation this week into Wisconsin’s broiling budget battle, mobilizing opposition Thursday to a Republican bill that would curb public-worker benefits and planning similar protests in other state capitals. Obama accused Scott Walker, the state’s new Republican governor, of unleashing an “assault” on unions in pushing emergency legislation that would change future collective-bargaining agreements that affect most public employees, including teachers.

The president’s political machine worked in close coordination Thursday with state and national union officials to get thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals. Their efforts began to spread, as thousands of labor supporters turned out for a hearing in Columbus, Ohio, to protest a measure from Gov. John Kasich (R) that would cut collective-bargaining rights.

By the end of the day, Democratic Party officials were organizing additional demonstrations in Ohio and Indiana, where an effort is underway to trim benefits for public workers. Some union activists predicted similar protests in Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio) issued a stern rebuke of the White House, calling on Obama to wave off his political operation and stop criticizing the governor. ”This is not the way you begin an ‘adult conversation’ in America about solutions to the fiscal challenges that are destroying jobs in our country,” Boehner said in a statement, alluding to the president’s call for civility in budget talks. “Rather than shouting down those in office who speak honestly about the challenges we face, the president and his advisers should lead.” source – Washington Post

The Obama Revolution

So for the first time since 1776, we have an American leader actively leading a rebellion against a country. Only this time the rebellion is against itself. NTEB has warned you since we started that Obama’s mission was to bring down this country from the inside, and that is exactly what he is doing. This is why America is not in bible prophecy, because at the time of the end we will not exist in any meaningful way, and certainly not as a Superpower. Obama, Soros and Company will see to that.

http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=2200

It could be hypothesized Obama and his team are fomenting and encouraging the rebellion by the Unions, a state issue, to bring chaos across the nation in a calculated move to ramp up the tensions between classes at a time when it looks like there very well could be a federal government shutdown in March. This class tension between unions and non-unions could erupt into class riots and the president is given wide discretion to determine which agencies and programs continue operations during shutdowns, meaning many employees of the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, State and Veterans Affairs would keep working in order to keep national security and defense concerns running. A hard push form the liberal lefts unions resulting in violence nation wide could be used to impliment martial law. Simply put, they will sacrifice their(Obama's) own union ground soldiers to create a scenario to emplement their take over of America.

Just something to think about.....

Wisconsin Assembly Passes Anti-Union Bill as Senate Democrats Stay Away

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: February 25, 2011


MADISON, Wis. — Over shouts of protest from Democrats, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin State Assembly passed a bill in the early morning hours Friday that would strip state employees of most of their collective bargaining rights. But there was no sign that a stalemate over the proposal would end, as Democrats in the Senate remained out of the state after fleeing to prevent their own vote on the proposal.

The 51-to-17 vote just after at 1 a.m. in the Assembly drew boos and shouts of “Shame! Shame!” from Democrats who said that leaders had abruptly cut off debate and prevented more than a quarter of the legislators from casting votes. It came during the second week of sustained demonstrations inside and around the Capitol. Union workers and others from Wisconsin and nearby states continued to protest the proposals backed by the new governor, Scott Walker, a Republican elected in November.

Some Republican leaders in other states have moderated their talk against state employee unions in recent days. But in Wisconsin, Mr. Walker traveled the state on Friday in an effort to put more pressure on the Senate’s 14 Democrats to return from Illinois.

Democrats said the early-morning vote showed that Republicans had little interest in negotiating. They “rushed a vote in seconds, cheating Democratic representatives of the opportunity to vote against this horrible legislation,” said the leader of the Assembly’s Democrats, Peter Barca. “Then they fled the chamber surrounded by armed law enforcement agents,” he said.

Republicans said the Assembly debated the bill long enough during a three-day Democratic filibuster. Mr. Walker said in a statement, “The 14 Senate Democrats need to come home and do their jobs, just like the Assembly Democrats did.”

While Republicans have a majority in the Senate, they are a vote short of a quorum for fiscal legislation. Democrats say they will not return until the governor agrees to negotiate on his proposals to strip unions of power, which include forbidding collective bargaining except for basic wages, and limiting raises to no more than the rate of inflation.

Democrats have already indicated that they would accept provisions that would cut the take-home pay of state employees by diverting money to help finance pension and health care costs.

A spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Administration said the increased contributions to pensions and health care would amount to about a 6 percent decrease in take-home pay for a state employee with a $50,000 income, the average for state workers. Workers would pay more than 12 percent of their health care premiums, up from 6 percent, while 5.8 percent of their pay would be diverted to finance pensions, up from less than 1 percent for typical workers.

A fight over similar legislation in Indiana was stalemated as well, after 37 of 40 Democratic House members walked out, preventing a quorum. B. Patrick Bauer, the House minority leader, said from Urbana, Ill., that Democratic lawmakers would be staying in Illinois through the weekend, and beyond.


Susan Saulny contributed reporting from Indianapolis.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/us/26wisconsin.html?src=mv&ref=us

Everyone on both sides of the debate uses the term "collective bargaining rights" to mean the right of unions to bargain with an employer, by law, bargain in good faith. It also includes the right of a union to negotiate for employees who don't want to be members of the union and don't want to pay union dues. "Collective bargaining rights" really mean the power to force others to pay the dues and/or to join the union and/or to give up their power to negotiate with an employer. So the alleged right is really the "right" to monopolize the supply of labor to an employer. That is a phony right, not a real right. It's really a power.

Economist Morgan Reynolds, who wrote the article on labor unions for the Concise Encyclopedia writes:
Many unions have won higher wages and better working conditions for their members. In doing so, however, they have reduced the number of jobs available in unionized companies. That second effect occurs because of the basic law of demand: if unions successfully raise the price of labor, employers will purchase less of it. Thus, unions are a major anticompetitive force in labor markets. Their gains come at the expense of consumers, nonunion workers, the jobless, taxpayers, and owners of corporations.

Wisconsin Republicans Win Union Vote


(NECN: Peter Howe, Boston) With the capitol of Madison, Wisconsin, in uproar, the state Assembly late Thursday afternoon approved landmark legislation curbing union powers by a 53-42 vote and sent it to Republican Gov. Scott Walker for his signature.

It was legislation Wisconsin Senate Democrats tried to stop by fleeing to Illinois to deprive that chamber of a voting quorum, but Senate Republicans then advanced late Wednesday through a parliamentary move that sidestepped the missing Democrats by making it just a collective-bargaining bill, not a spending bill. It's a sign of what a big deal it is, how much of a critical shift it makes in the balance of power between taxpayers and government unions, how much intense reaction it's drawing -- even 1,000 miles away in solidly union Boston.

Key provisions of the bill: It ends all collective bargaining for public workers over work rules and terms of work, except for allowing them to negotiate pay raises so long as those raises are below the rate of inflation. The state of Wisconsin would no longer collect union dues from state workers through paychecks, and workers will have to vote every year to stay in their unions.

Around the country, with more than a half-dozen states also considering union curbs, government unions and their allies were treating the Wisconsin bill as nothing less than the opening shot in a declaration of war.

At a rally outside the Massachusetts State House in Boston convened by the Black Ministerial Alliance and other groups, protesters shouted, "We ain't going back! We ain't going back!"

Paul Toner, who represents 107,000 public education workers as president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, said, "This is really an attempt by Governor Walker to stifle the voice of unions in the workplace and their political voice.''

Horace Small, executive director of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods, based in Boston's Jamaica Plain section, said: "Everything that's going on with working people, we're just going backwards ... We all kind of thought endless war and corporate bailouts was the problem, not working people struggling to do their job.''

States including Ohio, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, Kansas, and Tennessee are actively debating some or all of the Wisconsin union curbs, and Republicans in even lopsidely Democratic Rhode Island and Massachusetts have introduced Wisconsin-style union legislation that is probably destined to be only a symbolic longshot.

"In Massachusetts,'' Toner said, "I'm not worried so much that we'll see the stripping of collective bargaining the way we saw in Wisconsin.'' However, many other people at the Boston rally said they didn't want to be complacent and wanted to make sure their Democratic allies were on notice how strongly they oppose the Wisconsin measures.

However, Wisconsin's Walker and many others around the nation have called the Madison vote an example of a long-overdue move to give back taxpayers some control of the public-sector unions whose money and power more and more elects the very officials who wind up negotiating and signing union contracts. It's been widely noted that two important contrasts between public-sector and private-sector collective bargaining are that private-sector unions rarely if ever elect candidates to boards that wind up negotiating their pay, while in government, teachers unions and the AFL-CIO and other government unions are critical sources of campaign cash and campaign workers who get governors and legislators elected; and secondly, while private-sector corporations being crushed by the cost of union contracts can file for bankruptcy protection, that's not an option governments can use to keep union pay and benefit demands in check.

"What this bill is about, it's about reform,'' Walker said. "It's about making sure we can put people to work, save jobs, balance our budget in a way that protects the middle class here in Wisconsin.''

Democrats do have a couple of options left in Madison. Some are questioning whether Senate Republicans violated the state open-meeting law by offering insufficient notice before they voted Wednesday, and whether they could pursue a court challenge. Also, Wisconsin allows for recall elections to remove legislators, and Democrats are looking at running campaigns to oust Republican lawmakers, including three senators from districts whose voters went for President Obama in 2008.

Meanwhile, from Boston to Sacramento and in dozens of much less union-friendly capitals in between, the Wisconsin vote is inspiring and outraging unions, governors, lawmakers, and voters.

With videographer Jim Bagley and supervising field producer David Jacobs

http://www.necn.com/03/10/11/Wisconsin-Republicans-Win-Union-Vote/landing_business.html?blockID=437761&feedID=4209