Daily Kos

• Starting with news out of Wisconsin, Crooks and Liars is reporting that disgraced former tea partier Mark Williams is back -- with a plan to disrupt the protests. Williams sent out an email saying:
  

  That link will take you to an SEIU page where you can sign up as an “organizer” for one of their upcoming major rallies to support the union goons in Wisconsin.

  Here is what I am doing in Sacramento, where they are holding a 5:30 PM event this coming Tuesday: (1) I signed up as an organizer (2) with any luck they will contact me and I will have an “in” (3) in or not I will be there and am asking as many other people as can get there to come with, all of us in SEIU shirts (those who don’t have them we can possibly buy some from vendors likely to be there) (4) we are going to target the many TV cameras and reporters looking for comments from the members there (5) we will approach the cameras to make good pictures… signs under our shirts that say things like “screw the taxpayer!” and “you OWE me!” to be pulled out for the camera (timing is important because the signs will be taken away from us) (6) we will echo those slogans in angry sounding tones to the cameras and the reporters. (7) if I do get the ‘in’ I am going to do my darnedest to get podium access and take the mic to do that rant from there…with any luck and if I can manage the moments to build up to it, I can probably get a cheer out of the crowd for something extreme.
  

• Ezra Klain makes an important point:

  Let’s be clear: Whatever fiscal problems Wisconsin is -- or is not -- facing at the moment, they’re not caused by labor unions. That’s also true for New Jersey, for Ohio and for the other states. There was no sharp rise in public workers’ wages in 2006 and 2007, no major reforms of the country’s labor laws, no dramatic change in how unions organize. And yet state budgets collapsed. Revenues plummeted. Taxes had to go up, and spending had to go down, all across the country.

  Blame the banks. Blame global capital flows. Blame lax regulation of Wall Street. Blame home buyers, or home sellers. But don’t blame the unions. Not for this recession.

• It's hard to say who is being the most blatantly partisan here with their attacks against the unions and the protesters  -- potential 2012 Republican hopeful Herman Cain, or the Fox News' hosts who are cheering him on.
• And the tweet of the day on the protests:
  
• Interesting factoid from Steve Benen:

  Number of times spending cuts came up on Meet the Press: 40. The number of times unemployment came up: 1

• TSA has another fan:

  An Alaska state lawmaker is returning home by sea after refusing a pat-down search at a Seattle airport, a spokeswoman said.

  Rep. Sharon Cissna underwent a body scan as she was preparing to leave Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Sunday and was then required to undergo the pat-down by Transportation Safety Administration officials, said Michelle Scannell, her chief of staff.

  Scannell said that TSA called for the pat-down because the scan showed Cissna had had a mastectomy. But it wasn't immediately clear from statements by the lawmaker's office and TSA why that would necessitate the further search.
  

• Uh oh:

  Of the nation’s 85,000 dams, more than 4,400 are considered susceptible to failure, but repairing them all would cost billions.

  Sounds like a pretty big problem, but fixing them might mean a lot of union jobs, so ...

• Former Senator Chris Dodd may have a new gig:

  Hollywood is a whisker away from naming Christopher J. Dodd as its new chief lobbyist.

  The Motion Picture Association of America is wrapping up the hiring of Mr. Dodd, the former Democratic senator from Connecticut, as its chairman, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid conflicts with the movie organization. Barring a last-minute snag, a contract announcement could come early this week, these people said.

• What everyone assumed is now confirmed:

  An American jailed in Pakistan for the fatal shooting of two armed men was secretly working for the CIA when he was arrested, a disclosure likely to further frustrate U.S. government efforts to free the man and strain relations between two countries partnered in a fragile alliance in the war on terror.

• How bad is it in Libya? This bad:

  Global oil companies said Monday that they were making plans to evacuate employees in Libya after some operations there were disrupted by political unrest. Libya holds the largest crude oil reserves in Africa, and the moves drove some stock prices down and a crucial oil benchmark to a three-year high.
  

Via Mike Konczal, more explanation of why big corporations like Koch Industries are going to such lengths to support Gov. Scott Walker's budget. There's some sweet deals in it for them. Ed at ginandtacos highlights one:

The lion's share of attention regarding Scott Walker's legislative proposal has been paid to the effort to revoke Wisconsin public employees' collective bargaining rights, but the 144-page bill (more reliable link here) is a far more exhaustive and inclusive list of the fundamentals of Republican politics in the 21st Century. Not many people have the time to plow through the whole bill but those who do will be rewarded with plenty of gems like this:

16.896 Sale or contractual operation of state-owned heating, cooling, and power plants. (1) Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).

If this isn't the best summary of the goals of modern conservatism, I don't know what is. It's like a highlight reel of all of the tomahawk dunks of neo-Gilded Age corporatism: privatization, no-bid contracts, deregulation, and naked cronyism. Extra bonus points for the explicit effort to legally redefine the term "public interest" as "whatever the energy industry lobbyists we appoint to these unelected bureaucratic positions say it is."

Walker's budget—and his intention—goes well beyond crippling public employees' unions. He's selling the state to the highest bidder (or more like it, the largest campaign contributor, since bids won't be required for the acquisition of state assets). The new slogan: What's good for the Koch brothers is good for Wisconsin. Breaking the back of labor is one part of that end goal, but not the whole of it.

The uprising sparked six days ago by the arrest of a peaceful dissident in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, spread over the weekend to Tripoli, the capital. Al Jazeera Arabic has confirmed that the regime has been attacking protesters by airplane and artillery barrages within the city. Nonetheless, hundreds of thousands of protesters are now in the streets.

With elements of the military reportedly defecting, the Tuareg and Werfallah, two of Libya's largest tribes joining the opposition, a sheikh threatening to cut off the country's oil pipelines, elements of the military defecting and high-level officials of the government, including six ambassadors, the Libyan U.N. delegation and the justice minister resigning, it seems clear that the many Libyan expatriates and exiles interviewed by outside media Sunday who said they believe the regime's days are numbered have got it right.

But, unlike the toppling of authoritarian governments in Tunisia and Egypt, it appears certain that more blood will be spilled before the end comes to the 41-year-old rule of the erratic and ruthless Muammar al-Gaddafi. {Some of the dead can be seen here. Caution: Extremely graphic. UPDATE: Removed because YouTube perhaps thinks it's too graphic.} On Sunday evening, in the wake of protests and vicious government response in more than a dozen cities, Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi's son and one of his heirs apparent, delivered a rambling, combative, contradictory, much-ridiculed and some might describe as delusional speech saying, in essence, that the regime would fight to the last bullet.

The speech was followed, according to numerous reports on social media, by the government's brutal militias fanning out across Tripoli. There have been reports of looting by both militias and protesters, burned buildings and vehicles, and death everywhere. Militiamen today have been warning they will shoot anyone who comes out of their houses. Citing medical sources, Al Jazeera reported that at least 61 people were killed overnight in the capital. Without doubt, more have been killed today.

But, as has been the case all along, getting a good grip on the number of fatalities is no easy matter. Using hospital reports, Human Rights Watch says at least 233 have been killed. All that is certain, however, is the "at least." And some social media are reporting many hundreds dead.

In fact, because there are still few, if any, professional journalists in the country - Al Jazeera has long been banned - the only reports until recently have been those provided by cellphone and social media. (My family, with strong ties to Libya, has been unable to reach Libya by phone since early this morning amid reports that landlines, cellphone service and the Internet have been cut off by the government there.)

Included in these reports have been videos of protesters in cities like Zentan and Tobruk, on opposite sides of the country, burning the centers of the Greens, Gaddafi's militant ideological stalwarts, and, in one instance, toppling concrete slabs representing the dictator's "Green Book," a stifling and highly derivative treatise on political, social and economic affairs that supposedly guides the country's governance. Other videos have shown yellow-helmeted thugs clashing with protesters.

But, as in any war zone, even ones well-populated by veteran journalists with records for reliability, rumors are running rampant. On Sunday, it was widely reported on Twitter that the dictator was on a plane to Brazil or Venezuela. Previously, it was reported that Saif had been shot by his younger brother Moatessem, the country's grim-faced national security adviser and the other son believed to be heir apparent.

Outside governments have said rather little publicly about the rapidly evolving situation. Human Rights Watch has called on the African Union, the European Union, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other governments with ties to Libya to::

• Publicly demand an end to unlawful use of force against peaceful protesters;
• Announce that those responsible for serious violations of international human rights law must be held individually accountable and will be subjected to appropriate measures;
• Impose an embargo on all exports of arms and security equipment to Libya; and
• Tell Libya to restore access to the internet.

Other reports can be seen here:

• 17 February Libya
• Dozens killed in Libyan capital as Arab leaders struggle to calm unrest
• Libya protests spread as barrier of fear crumbles
•
Highlights of Gaddafi son's address
• ACTION for Libya - President Obama, the Libyans Need You NOW+
• Eyes on Egypt & Region Liveblog #115+
• Libya a personal matter at my house

Fighting for the rights of workers moves to Indiana:

The thousands of union supporters that packed the Statehouse this morning and spilled out onto Downtown sidewalks hoped their show of solidarity would be enough to dilute legislative support of a proposed right to work bill.

Unlike Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Indiana's Governor Mitch Daniels says that "this isn't the year for such legislation," but that didn't stop Republican Rep. Gerald Torr from sponsoring the bill, nor did it stop Republicans from passing the bill out of committee.

And it didn't stop thousands of workers from pouring into the statehouse to protest this latest blatant attempt at union-busting.

As week two of the stand-off in Wisconsin begins, it's clear that bargaining—either collectively or in good faith—isn't something that Governor Scott Walker is interested in doing.

And so the Wisconsin 14—the State Senate Democrats who left the state rather than allow Walker's union-busting disguised as a budget to be rammed through—are holding firm.

"We'll be here until Gov. Walker decides that he wants to talk," said state Sen. Tim Carpenter (D) in an interview with The Huffington Post on Saturday. He added that so far, the governor refuses to meet with them or even return the phone calls from members of the Democratic caucus.

"He's just hard-lined—will not talk, will not communicate, will not return phone calls," said Carpenter. "In a democracy, I thought we were supposed to talk. But the thing is, he's been a dictator, and just basically said this is the only thing. No amendments, and it's going to be that way."

"Clearly, we offered a viable compromise at the end of last week," said state Sen. Robet Wirch (D), who is in northern Illinois, but not in Rockford with other members. "We wanted the clergy to come in and mediate this thing. But the governor just has his feet in cement."

Naturally, Walker's office refused to comment for the story.

Bear in mind, the unions have agreed to the portion of Walker's bill that would have members "double their health insurance contributions and contribute 5.8 percent of their salary to their pensions," but of course this isn't about money, it's about busting the unions.

And remember, the Wisconsin 14 are talking a huge risk to fight for the collective bargaining rights of thousands of Wisconsinites, and they may pay an equally huge political price for it. Please take a moment and donate to these Senate Democrats for the fight that's still ahead of them.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor attempts to be serious in an op-ed in Politico today, an open letter to President Obama.

He starts out on a ridiculous note:

This is a leadership moment.

When Republicans gained control of Congress, we promised to do everything in our power to grow the economy and create jobs. From Day One, our majority has made clear that those goals can be achieved only by first getting America’s fiscal house back in order.

If the number one priority was creating jobs, why have they devoted so much time to their war on women, to devising legislative chastity belts to punish us? If the number one priority was creating jobs, why did they kill jobs with their cuts to community health centers? And if their goal is deficit reduction, why did they vote to repeal a law that cuts the deficit?

More blathering until he gets to the heart of the matter: let them eat catfood.

And what to make of leaving entitlements out of the budget entirely? Walling off Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from the budget may spare the president the tough decisions the president was elected to make. But kicking the can down the road is no substitute for real leadership. Just ask Greece.

Facing withering criticism over its budget, the White House now signals a new willingness to deal. The president says he is “glad” that Republicans will include entitlements in our budget and calls the move “significant progress that there is an interest on all sides on those issues.” Many Americans are understandably skeptical.

His actions are more important than his reassuring words. Can the president, who already added a new open-ended health care entitlement, suddenly summon the courage to rein in other entitlements? Is he willing to fight to ensure that the mission of health and retirement security is fulfilled?

Paul Krugman answers Cantor in this column.

The whole budget debate, then, is a sham. House Republicans, in particular, are literally stealing food from the mouths of babes — nutritional aid to pregnant women and very young children is one of the items on their cutting block — so they can pose, falsely, as deficit hawks.

What would a serious approach to our fiscal problems involve? I can summarize it in seven words: health care, health care, health care, revenue.

Notice that I said “health care,” not “entitlements.” People in Washington often talk as if there were a program called Socialsecuritymedicareandmedicaid, then focus on things like raising the retirement age. But that’s more anti-Willie Suttonism. Long-run projections suggest that spending on the major entitlement programs will rise sharply over the decades ahead, but the great bulk of that rise will come from the health insurance programs, not Social Security....

What would real action on health look like? Well, it might include things like giving an independent commission the power to ensure that Medicare only pays for procedures with real medical value; rewarding health care providers for delivering quality care rather than simply paying a fixed sum for every procedure; limiting the tax deductibility of private insurance plans; and so on.

And what do these things have in common? They’re all in last year’s health reform bill.

That’s why I say that Mr. Obama gets too little credit. He has done more to rein in long-run deficits than any previous president. And if his opponents were serious about those deficits, they’d be backing his actions and calling for more; instead, they’ve been screaming about death panels.

I'd just add to the list an extremely expensive and increasingly futile war that too few seem interested in addressing when we're talking about deficits. If the GOP was serious about deficits, they'd be talking about the war, they'd be recognizing and accepting reality. What they are serious about is demolishing any program that doesn't make the private sector wealthier. They are serious about punishing women. They are serious about making the rich richer and the hell with everyone else.

Over the weekend, House Republicans bowed to pressure from their teahadist base by passing a spending bill that would cut $61.5 billion from the federal budget through the final seven months of this fiscal year. But even before the bill passed, Republicans were acknowledging that it was dead on arrival.

On Friday, House Speaker John Boehner shifted emphasis from his earlier comments threatening a government shutdown to recognizing that a stop-gap funding measure would be necessary to keep government open. Boehner continued to insist that any short-term measure include spending cuts, but it would be unrealistic for him to expect any sort of meaningful cuts to be implemented before negotiations are complete.

On Sunday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan also acknowledged the House-passed bill would not become law:

House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) acknowledged the obvious on Sunday: The resolution he and his colleagues passed Saturday morning to keep the government funded would not survive the Senate in its current form.

But in gaming out how Congress will negotiate a continuing resolution before the current one runs out on March 4, the Wisconsin Republican provided some telling hints. GOP leadership, he said, would accept a short-term extension of funds to keep the government running while negotiations with the Senate on a long-term deal continued. Those funds, however, could not be at the same level as the current continuing resolution; they'd have to contain cuts.

Although both Boehner and Ryan seem to want to inch away from a standoff guaranteed to result in a government shutdown, they are clearly scared to death of their teahadist base. As a result, their essential position remains untenable. While they are proposing negotiations between Republicans and Democrats, they are placing an absurd condition on those negotiations, insisting that Democrats agree to the GOP's basic demands before talks even begin.

If Republicans really want to avoid a shutdown, what they need to do is move towards the stop-gap funding compromise offered by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Friday. Her proposal would avert a government shutdown by freezing spending at current levels through March 31. As things now stand, government will shut down on March 4 without a long-term spending deal in place. Pelosi's measure would extend that date to March 31 while freezing current spending levels during negotiations.

Absent Pelosi's proposal or a long-term deal, the government will shut down on March 4. Both the White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have ruled out supporting the House-passed plan because it would threaten economic recovery and slash critical national priorities, but there is also Republican opposition. On Sunday, for example, Republican Senator Dick Lugar came out against the House Republican bill.

Right on cue, the "compromise" that isn't a compromise:

With Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker maintaining a hard line on his budget bill and Democratic senators refusing to return to Madison to vote, attention is turning to a group of moderate Republican senators to negotiate a compromise to the stalemate that has drawn thousands of protesters to the state capital for a sixth straight day.

The proposal, written by Sen. Dale Schultz and first floated in the Republican caucus early last week, calls for most collective bargaining rights of public employee unions to be eliminated – per Mr. Walker's bill – but then reinstated in 2013, said Mr. Schultzs's chief of staff Todd Allbaugh.

"Dale is committed to find a way to preserve collective bargaining in the future," said Mr. Allbaugh in a telephone interview.

Here's how you preserve collective bargaining for the future: you don't take it away today.

Contrary to conventional wisdom that public employees across our nation are collecting bigger paychecks than their counterparts in the private sector, the Economic Policy Institute has found quite the contrary. That's true in Wisconsin and Ohio, which have become the latest battle fronts in the right-wing's 65-year-long effort to gut the legal collective bargaining rights of Americans that were established after decades of bloody struggle during the New Deal.

In Wisconsin, which has become a focal point in this debate, public servants already take a pretty hefty pay cut just for the opportunity to serve their communities ... The figure below shows that when comparing the total compensation (which includes non-wage benefits such as health care and pensions) of workers with similar education, public-sector workers consistently make less than their private–sector peers.  Workers with a bachelor’s degree or more—which constitute nearly 60% of the state and local workforce in Wisconsin—are compensated between $20,000 less (if they just have a bachelor’s degree) to over $82,000 a year less (if they have a professional degree, such as in law or medicine).

Here are the figures broken down by education, as evaluated by EPI.

The deficit that Wisconsin faces is caused by the current economic downturn and the recent tax cut package.  It has nothing to do with the compensation of the people that educate our children, keep the streets safe and clean, keep dangerous chemicals out of our water, and keep insurance companies from taking advantage of us.  These public servants are already paid less than those in the private sector, and nationally, this gap has actually been increasing over the past few decades ...

The situation in Ohio is quite similar. In a "rigorous analysis" of full-time state and local government workers in Ohio, EPI found that they are undercompensated by 6 percent. The analysts screened for variables including hours of work, organizational size, gender, race, ethnicity, experience, citizenship and disability.

Among EPI's findings:

• On an annual basis, full‐time state and local workers and school employees are undercompensated by 6.0% in Ohio, in comparison with otherwise similar private‐sector workers. When comparisons are made for differences in annual hours worked, the gap remains, albeit at a smaller percentage of 3.5%.

• Ohio public‐sector workers are more highly educated than private‐sector workers; 49% of full‐ time public‐sector workers hold at least a four‐year college degree, compared with 26% in the private‐sector.

• Ohio’s state and local governments and school districts pay college‐educated workers 25% less in total compensation, on average, than private employers.

• In addition to having higher education levels, Ohio state and local government employees, on average, are also more experienced (23.2 years) than their private‐sector counterparts (21.7 years).

While some of the effects of the Great Recession have had a delayed impact on public employees, that impact is being felt big time now. Tens of thousands of lay-offs, furlough days, pay freezes and pay-cuts, and a continuing assault on public employees' health benefits (something that has been going on through premium raises and cuts in coverage for years) are all part of the damage being done.

While the likes of renowned liar and Andrew Breitbart pretends to be a friend of the little guy who he claims is being gouged by public workers such as those in Wisconsin and Ohio, the truth is that the efforts now being carried out are a culmination of the long-standing attacks against the whole concept of unions. Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh and the governors are mere mouthpieces for an oligarchy feeling its oats and viewing the current situation as another opportunity to weaken the resistance to their agenda.  One word, one attitude should describe the progressive agenda at this critical moment. It's a word and attitude we've seen revived in the past few days after a long dormancy: Solidarity!

Here are the developments in Wisconsin from over the weekend:

Six days of footage
If you haven’t seen this video of the protests set to the music of Arcade Fire, please watch it now:

I've watched it at least eight times since Saturday, and gotten choked up every time. There is a follow-up video, too.

Unions agree to all financial concessions.
This point cannot be hammered home enough—the public employee unions in Wisconsin have agreed to all of the salary, health insurance and pension cuts in the so-called "budget repair bill." This fight is entirely over the rights of workers to negotiate with their employer. It has nothing to do with money.

Walker rejects all concessions and refuses to negotiate with anyone about anything in the budget, ever
Even though the unions have agreed to all of Walker’s proposed salary and benefit cuts, Walker rejected these concessions as a "red herring."  So, instead of focusing on "red herrings" like the unions agreeing to all proposed salary and benefit cuts, Walker has instead focused on the need for the unions to agree to all proposed salary and benefit cuts.

On Sunday, even Chris Wallace of Fox News had a hard time swallowing this:

Host Chris Wallace pressed Walker on why he’s seeking to end collective bargaining rights if he’s trying to balance the budget. In his answers, the guv frequently went back to talking about the pension and health care concessions he’s seeking because of the state’s dire fiscal situation.

Additionally, Walker has rejected negotiating any aspect of the bill with anyone at anytime. Walker’s spokesperson, Cullen Werwie:

"Gov. Walker has repeatedly said that we won't negotiate the budget and we can't balance the budget on a hope and a prayer," Werwie said.

Even if the unions agree to all financial concessions, Walker refuses to negotiate with them, or anyone else, about anything in the bill. Ever.

Wisconsin Senate Democrats vow to stay out of state until Walker negotiates
Our side is holding firm, too:

"We'll be here until Gov. Walker decides that he wants to talk," said state Sen. Tim Carpenter (D) in an interview with The Huffington Post on Saturday. He added that so far, the governor refuses to meet with them or even return the phone calls from members of the Democratic caucus.

"He's just hard-lined -- will not talk, will not communicate, will not return phone calls," said Carpenter. "In a democracy, I thought we were supposed to talk. But the thing is, he's been a dictator, and just basically said this is the only thing. No amendments, and it's going to be that way."

The Dems are showing real guts here, but they remain at risk. Wisconsin Senate Republicans are going to start passing through non-budgetary bills that do not require 20 Senators to be present:

With Democratic state senators still holed up in Illinois Sunday to block a vote on Walker's bill, Republicans who control the state Senate were seeking to put pressure on them by planning action on other bills for Tuesday. Without Democrats present, the Republicans have enough members to be able to hold votes on non-financial bills, but not on budget bills.

"Tuesday the Senate is going to the floor with a full calendar," said Andrew Welhouse, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau).

The 14 are making a bold move here, but they are likely to pay a real political price for it. This is why your continued support of the 14 is so important—we need to buck them up while the blows rain down on them. If the pain is too immense and even one of them comes back, this bill passes and workers’ rights are crushed. Please, if you haven’t already, chip in $14 to the Wisconsin Senate Democrats, $1 for each of the 14 heroes.

Winter weather returns to Madison, shrinks crowds
After a week of unseasonably warm weather, there was some snow yesterday in Madison. This shrunk the size of the crowds a bit, but they were still big:

With winter weather back in the capital city, demonstrators on both sides of Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill have a chance to show their commitment.

Union supporters were clapping and chanting "We want justice" and "We are family" Sunday in the Capitol Rotunda as heavy, wet snow and then rain fell on the square outside. Though smaller than the massive crowds of last week, the group still added up to a sizable demonstration by normal statehouse standards, filling the rotunda with its numbers and its drumming.

No matter the weather, the protests are expected to continue all day Monday and Tuesday. Teachers in the Madison public schools have said they will return to work on Tuesday, however.

We can't expect our allies in Wisconsin to keep this up forever on their own. We must share the load and start protesting ourselves. Our friends at SEIU set up a special page were Kossacks can attend a solidarity rally near where they live. Check it out, sign up, and hit the streets.

Pro-union rally far larger than pro-Walker rally
The vaunted tea party counter-protest, sponsored by the billionaire Koch brothers, was a flop. From the Wisconsin State Journal:

Early estimates of the pro-Walker crowd were around 2,000.

Maybe it got bigger than 2,000 as the day went on, but still, by way of comparison:

Police say nearly 70,000 people have converged on the Wisconsin Capitol to join in protests over a Republican bill that would strip public workers of most of their collective bargaining rights.

Undaunted by protesters, Scott Walker waxes Nixon, talking of a "quiet majority" and 19,000 supportive emails.

Wow—19,000! That’s cute. If I had a cat, it could cough up 19,000 anti-Walker emails right now. The PCCC alone will be likely showing over 100,000 today, according to an email they sent Sunday morning. The president of the Wisconsin firefighters union, speaking at Saturday’s rally, had the best response of all:

“I think I have 19,000 people behind me,” said Mitchell.

Pointing to one edge of the massive audience arrayed before him, he said: “And 20,000 there.”

He pointed to the other edge of the crowd: “And 20,000 there.”

Finally, he pointed down State Street, the thoroughfare that stretches from the Capitol to the University of Wisconsin campus, which was packed with students who have backed the unions: “And 20,000 there.”

Allies turning on Walker
Tracey Fuller, President of the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association, issued an excoriating statement on Scott Walker yesterday. And he did so in all caps:

I SPECIFICALLY REGRET THE ENDORSEMENT OF THE WISCONSIN TROOPER’S ASSOCIATION  FOR GOVERNOR SCOTT WALKER.             I REGRET THE GOVERNOR’S DECISION TO “ENDORSE” THE TROOPERS AND INSPECTORS OF THE WISCONSIN STATE PATROL. I REGRET BEING THE RECIPIENT OF ANY OF THE PERCEIVED BENEFITS PROVIDED BY THE GOVERNOR’S ANOINTING.

The statement, which originally appeared on the WLEA website, has since been taken down so that it would not be construed with an official statement from the organization rather than a personal statement from Fuller. Unions are, after all, democracies. Talking Points Memo has more on this story.

Beyond the law enforcement community, the Madison Chamber of Commerce isn’t happy with Walker anymore. President Jennifer Alexander writes:

The GMCC supports the work to address the state budget deficit and the efforts toward improving the state's economy. That support ends at the adversarial way elected officials are approaching it. Public policy issues of this magnitude should not be rushed through the legislative process. Given this state's long history of collective bargaining, policy changes of this magnitude should be thoroughly debated for an adequate period of time, in good faith by both sides, with all potential consequences considered. Currently, that is not happening.

What Alexander is objecting to is how Walker introduced his plan to strip collective bargaining rights on Friday, February 11th, and then attempted to pass it into law on Thursday, February 17. No warning. No time to debate. No negotiation. That’s Scott Walker.

Club for Growth hits the airwaves in Wisconsin
According to an email from the Wisconsin Senate Democrats, the Club for Growth has started running attack ads against the unions and the Senate Democrats.

For those of you who don’t know, the Club for Growth is an arch-right-wing 527 and PAC funded by big corporations and the uber-wealthy. It’s primary purpose is to run paid advertisements attacking right-wing Republicans in primaries for not being sufficiently pro-plutocrat. Famous ultra-liberal Mike Hackabee called them the "Club for Greed" when they attacked him during the 2008 presidential campaign.

*

They got the Koch brothers, Fox News and the Club for Greed. What we have is the grassroots, the blogs, and the unions. Sometimes, it feels like fighting a flamethrower with a squirt gun, but what’s happening in Wisconsin shows we can be powerful if we stand together. Please, contribute to the Wisconsin Senate Democrats. Also, find a solidarity rally near where you live. This fight started in Wisconsin, but it is spreading fast. We need to join in everywhere.

• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon says that she hasn't "made up my mind yet" but that she is "leaning in [the] direction" of another senate run. As Daniel Kelly, ED of the state Dem party rightly points out, she can swamp the GOP field in the primary with her zillions, but she'd be the same tainted goods in the general as she was last year – and, I would add, this time, she'd be running in a blue state in a presidential year. Good luck, lady!

Meanwhile, another much-lesser-known Republican, state Sen. Scott Frantz, says he won't "rule out" a senate bid, but that he has "no plans to run."

• FL-Sen: Obama alert! Barack Himself (and DSCC chair Patty Murray) will host a March 4th fundraiser for Sen. Bill Nelson in Miami Beach, with proceeds to be split between the Nelson campaign and the DSCC. I draw two things from this bit of news. First, if you're facing a competitive race and want presidential help, it's a good idea to live in a swing state. Second, it's nice to see that Nelson isn't shying away from Obama.

On the GOP side, the St. Petersburg Times has an interesting (and lengthy) profile of likely senate candidate Connie Mack. Mack is a hardcore conservative, but remember – it's not just about how you vote, it's about how you belong. And Mack has taken a few stances that put his tribal membership into some doubt, such as "supporting stem cell research, defending WikiLeaks and denouncing Arizona's tough immigration law as Gestapo-like." Still, with the possible exception of the Arizona law, these are mostly second-order concerns for teabaggers, and Mack would still probably have to be considered the favorite in any primary.

• ME-Sen: If Olympia Snowe is going to get teabagged, we finally have a potential name that's a notch of above Some Dude: wealthy real estate developer Eric Cianchette (a cousin of former Republican gubernatorial candidate Peter Cianchette) is reportedly considering the race. But the guy who originally broke the news, Dennis Bailey, says that Cianchette may actually be having second thoughts and considering another race.

• NV-Sen: Ah, the blind quotes are out to get John Ensign. "One Republican lobbyist" says he (and everyone else) is supporting Dean Heller, while "another Republican lobbyist" says he's pushing John Cornyn to have Ensign fitted for some new Ferragamo cement wingtips. On the flipside, one lobbyist with an actual name, Kenneth Kies (who is supporting Ensign), claims "Cornyn's been clear that he doesn't get involved in these things." I guess when you're a Republican lobbyist, you are either very good at believing things which aren't true or at least just saying them out loud.

• FL-Gov: Usually, when the headline is "Criminal Behaves Like Criminal," it's not really news. But when that criminal is the sitting governor of Florida, it is. Zillionaire creepster Rick Scott followed through on a campaign promise to sell one of the state's two planes. The problem is, he used the proceeds from the sale to pay off the lease on the other plane – and, says Republican state Sen. J.D. Alexander, it's up to the legislature, not the governor, to decide how to appropriate state funds. It's kind of amazing how frequently Rick Scott has already gotten on the wrong side of his fellow Republicans during his very short tenure. Actually, when I said "kind of amazing," I meant "totally predictable and expected." Florida is damn near turning into a cat fud factory.

• AZ-08: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Adam Smith are hosting a fundraiser for Rep. Gabby Giffords on March 15th in DC.

• FL-25: When Republicans vetted Rep. David Rivera, they must have used the same crew of CHUDS and mole-people who blessed Bernie Kerik's bid for homeland security chief. Now comes word that in just a few short years, Rivera funneled at least $817,000 to a consultant and "close friend," Esther Nuhfer, through an often-complicated series of arrangements that remind me of a South Florida version of BMW Direct. Ferinstance, Nuhfer's firm raised an astounding $1 million for Rivera's state senate campaign (before he switched over to the FL-25 race)… but he burned through $700K by February of last year, and at least a quarter mil of that went to Nuhfer. Also, this.

• IN-02: Jackie Walorski is now saying she'll decide whether to see a rematch against Joe Donnelly (who himself may not run again) in a "couple of weeks." She also says she has no interest in running for Senate or Secretary of State.

• NY-26: I doubt this matters much, since there won't be a primary here, but Kieran Lalor's conservative Iraq vets PAC is pushing one of their own for the GOP nomination: David Bellavia. Even though Assemblywoman Jane Corwin appears to be the frontrunner, Bellavia will be interviewed by local party leaders.

• OR-01: This is deeply, deeply disturbing. Days before the election last year, David Wu's staff confronted him and "demanded he enter a hospital for psychiatric treatment." He refused, and went on to win re-election anyway, but as you know, he faced a staff exodus earlier this year. Read the article for the full (and scary) details – excerpting it won't do it justice. Wu seriously has got to go – and has to get the help he needs. Blue Oregon has more.

• PA-10: Did someone crack out of turn? Last week, Steve Israel said he didn't want to talk up potential recruits for 2012 lest they get pre-redistricted into oblivion in 2011. Former Rep. Chris Carney seems like exactly the sort of person who would fall into that category, yet an unnamed source told Politico's Dave Catanese that Carney was just in Washington to meet with DCCC officials about a potential rematch with Tom Marino. Now the GOP will probably try to find a way to move Carney's house to the District of Guam.

• Philly Mayor: 2007 candidate and richie rich Tom Knox said he might change his mind and run in the Democratic primary once again, rather than as an independent (which is what he previously claimed he would do). He says he's waiting on the results of a poll to decide – I like the honesty! He'd face incumbent Michael Nutter in the primary if he chose that route. Also, Milton Street, bother of Nutter's two-term predecessor John Street, said he's getting in the game, too.

• Nassau Co. Exec: On the list of doomed Republicans, Nassau Co. Executive Ed Mangano ranks pretty high. He ran his super-wealthy county's finances into the ground almost immediately after his upset victory over Dem Tom Suozzi in 2009. Just a few weeks ago, the state took control of the county's finances. Now, Mangano is lashing out against unnamed enemies like sweat-drenched victim of night terrors. He's running a campaign-style ad in which he attacks "opponents." Yeah, "opponents." NWOTSOTB, of course, but he's got quite a few more years to keep digging this Death Valley-depth hole down to Dead Sea levels.

• NRSC: Like a bunch of mathletes tired of being picked last for everything in gym class, it seems that Republican senators have managed to give just about everyone who wants one some kind of title down at the No Homers NRSC clubhouse. My favorite are "low-dollar chairs" Johnny Isakson and Kelly Ayotte.

See, there is no this week in Congress. They're in recess for the Presidents Day week. Yes, it's true that you and I only get one day off for Presidents Day, if that, and the Congress is taking the week.

But for one thing, a Congressional "day off" is a lot different from a day off for you and me. Their "days off" are typically filled with constituent meetings, political functions, even fundraisers and the like. For another, did any of you work past midnight all of last week, and until 5 a.m. on Saturday morning? Because the members of the House did.

Anyway, the point of my posting a This Week in Congress when there is no this week in Congress is to remind you of the fact that there are only two weeks left until the current continuing resolution funding the government (last year's H.R. 3082) runs out, which means a new one has to take its place or else the government shuts down. The House Republicans intend for H.R. 1 to be that replacement. Senate Democrats undoubtedly have different ideas. But whether it's H.R. 1 or something else, there are two weeks left before a new bill has to be in place.

And one of those weeks is being spent in recess.

The House -- typically the more "efficient" of the two houses -- took a full week to get H.R. 1 through.

The Senate, on the other hand, took nearly the entire month of February to finish the FAA reauthorization bill and pass it by a vote of 87-8.

Now, there is a way out, which is to pass a short-term, temporary continuing resolution that will simply buy time until the two houses can resolve whatever differences they may have over H.R. 1 or whatever other vehicle they decide to use. That's the standard practice in these situations. But Speaker Boehner apparently resigned to the passage of middle class tax cuts, but by December had decided they were "chicken crap.") But even there, he had to move from his natural inclination to where the Teabaggers were. With the Teabaggers once again grasping him by the short hairs, will he be able to maneuver, or would he rather force the shutdown he insists no Republican is talking about, but which is actually loudly demanded by the people responsible for his last flip?

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Giant Throbbing Presidents' Day Fun Quiz

(And no fair Googling!)

1. Which president negotiated a treaty with Peru that kept U.S. businessmen up to their elbows in a cheap (cheep?) fertilizer known as bird shit?
A) Lincoln  B) Fillmore  C) McKinley  D) Kennedy

2. Which president's autobiography fails to mention his wife even once?
A) Van Buren  B) Grant  C) Wilson  D) Taft

3. Who liked to blame his farts on his Secret Service detail?
A) Hayes  B) Ford  C) L. Johnson  D) Eisenhower

4. "I can't remember what I did" is what this president said about his time in the Alabama National Guard…and no one else can remember anything about his service there, either:
A) Clinton  B) Hoover  C) Nixon  D) George W. Bush

5. Which president shared the same nickname with his five brothers?
A) Eisenhower---"Ike"  B) Tyler---"Tye"  C) Monroe---"Mugs"  D) Taft---"Big [Name]"

6. Which president-to-be lost his first election, claiming that his rival only won because he was the tallest man in the room?
A) Pierce  B) John Quincy Adams  C) John Adams  D) Cleveland

7. Who uttered the misstatement, "Now we're trying to get unemployment to go up. I think we are going to succeed."
A) Obama  B) Truman  C) Harding  D) Reagan

8. Who felt that horses "ate too much, worked too little, and died too young," and became influential in the breeding of mules for farm work?
A) Jefferson  B) Washington  C) Jackson  D) Taylor

9.  Who advocated for the removal of "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency?
A) Carter  B) Teddy Roosevelt  C) Polk  D) Garfield

10. Who got swindled by a brokerage firm, declared bankruptcy, and rejected an offer of $100,000 from P.T. Barnum for his war memorabilia?
A) Benjamin Harrison  B) W.H. Harrison  C) Grant  D) Madison

Answers: B, A, B, D, A, C, D, B, B, C

Despite their best efforts, the Republic endures!

Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Jibber your jabber

Monday punditry, the "something's in the air" edition.

 Paul Krugman :

Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin’s new union-busting governor, Scott Walker — demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday — Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison.”

It wasn’t the smartest thing for Mr. Ryan to say, since he probably didn’t mean to compare Mr. Walker, a fellow Republican, to Hosni Mubarak. Or maybe he did — after all, quite a few prominent conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, denounced the uprising in Egypt and insist that President Obama should have helped the Mubarak regime suppress it.

In any case, however, Mr. Ryan was more right than he knew.

 NY Times :

But in the view of officials from both major political parties, Republicans may be risking the same kind of electoral backlash Democrats suffered after they were perceived as overreaching.

Public surveys suggest that most voters do not share the Republicans’ fervor for the deep cuts adopted by the House, or for drastically slashing the power of public-sector unions. And independent voters have historically been averse to displays of political partisanship that have been played out over the last week.

 EJ Dionne :

Take five more steps back and you realize how successful the Tea Party has been. No matter how much liberals may poke fun at them, Tea Party partisans can claim victory in fundamentally altering the country's dialogue.

 NY Times:

Hours earlier, the protests against Mr. Qaddafi’s 40-year rule spread to the capitol, Tripoli, on Sunday night, and protesters in the eastern city of Benghazi were celebrating their takeover of the city and a prominent Libyan diplomat said he was quitting to join “the popular revolution.”

Witnesses in Tripoli interviewed by telephone Sunday night said protesters were converging toward the city’s central Green Square and clashing with heavily armed riot police officers. Young men armed themselves with chains around their knuckles, steel pipes and machetes.

The problem, of course, is that at least one recent poll showed that a majority of Republicans have doubts about the president's citizenship, which explains the rise of "post-birtherism." Republican leaders don't want to anger a large section of their base by flatly calling this stuff what it is, which is nuts. So the new approach is to joke about it or to carefully avoid denouncing the idea completely.

Everyone wants to see more private sector employment. No one, no matter what you hear, favors driving off businesses. But public workers, despite protestations on the letters page, spend their salaries and pay their taxes like anyone else. There was a time when it made sense for the government to hire people when the private sector wouldn't; Republican presidents once pushed for stimulus plans, too.

Infrastructure improvements would appear to be an issue that everyone could get behind. You can't avoid bridges and pipelines. And unemployment remains at a level that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

Al Jazeera's silence on Lara Logan has been deafening. And while I appreciate Allan getting back to me, her explanation rings a tad hollow. She writes that journalists "are not the story." But the Web site of Al Jazeera English ran an excellent story on Feb. 3 headlined, "Media in the line of fire in Egypt: Domestic and foreign journalists have come under siege amid the turmoil in Egypt." And when CBS News asked that the press respect Logan's privacy, the network wasn't asking that the story not be covered. After all, its own statement revealed details of the attack -- albeit days later.

At Hullabaloo, digby writes, Donald Rumsfeld: Rock Star Has-Been:

As I watch Don Rumsfeld lie all over television this morning it makes me feel nostalgic for the good old days. Remember when the press gushed over him as if he were Justin Bieber? It's a wonder anyone has any respect for the profession left at all:

"Everyone is genuflecting before the Pentagon powerhouse," noted Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz (12/13/01). Since the war in Afghanistan started, Kurtz observed, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was "getting better press than Rudy Giuliani." Rumsfeld, Kurtz wrote, was "America's new rock star."

Why do so many journalists revere Rumsfeld? His "rough-hewn charm and no-nonsense demeanor" are part of it, says Kurtz. And dozens of other journalists concur, often citing his "candor" and describing him as "plain-spoken" and a "straight-shooter." Journalists' comments about Rumsfeld range from the flattering to the obsequious to the downright bizarre.

"Sixty-nine years old, and you're America's stud," Tim Russert told Rumsfeld when he interviewed him on NBC's Meet the Press (1/20/02); Larry King informed him that "you now have this new image called sex symbol" (CNN's Larry King Live, 12/06/01). Fox News' Jim Angle (12/11/01) called him "a babe magnet for the 70-year-old set."

Remember when he would hold press conferences and the reporters would giggle like schoolgirls at his every utterance? Pentagon briefings were so much fun in those days.

But nothing can beat the paeans to his many manliness from wingnut women of all ages. It was a sight to behold. ...

Say what you will about these days, but at least we don't have to put up with this drivel.

Rummy meanwhile is on his redemption tour, all over the TV, saying things like "heavens to betsy" and "oh my goodness" and it's not getting the laughs it used to from the press. It's tough being a "rock star" has been.

• • • • •

At Daily Kos on this date in 2005:

Ahmad Chalabi claims he has the votes to become the new Iraqi Prime Minister:

Shiites and their clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance, which received nearly half the election votes, were to decide in coming days on their choice for prime minister. The two main candidates so far are the former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Shiite, and Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the interim vice president.

Chalabi last week claimed in an Associated Press interview that he had enough support among the 140 alliance delegates elected to the National Assembly to beat Jaafari. He repeated the assertion in an appearance Sunday on ABC's "This Week" television show with George Stephanopoulos. "I believe I have a majority of the votes on my side right now," Chalabi said.

What a strange twist of fate, no?

• • • • •

The photo below shows one reaction to the speech tonight by Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam. In his rambling speech Saif lied through his teeth and blamed everybody but the regime for the turmoil in the country. Some commenters here said he sounded like Glenn Beck on crack.

Among the countless ridiculous, embarrassing, and surreal stories that emerged from the CPAC conference was this jaw-dropper:

If there is one message to take away from CPAC’s panel on immigration, it’s that White America is in serious jeopardy and may soon succumb to immigration, multiculturalism, and socialism. The panel “Will Immigration Kill the GOP?” featured former congressmen Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and Virgil Goode (R-VA), Bay Buchanan of Team America PAC, and special guest Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA). The group Youth for Western Civilization sponsored the panel, and its head Kevin DeAnna was also a panelist. Youth for Western Civilization is a far-right group that regularly criticizes affinity groups on college campuses, especially those that represent black, Hispanic, LGBT, Native American, and Muslim students.

To begin with, these young bigots without a clue apparently never have seen a map, or they'd have figured out that Hispanics and Native Americans are from the parts of the world traditionally considered Western. And to whatever degree these Republicans mistakenly consider themselves civilized, most even marginally educated people consider Western Civilization's pillars to include the likes of Sappho and Socrates, Alexander the Great and the Roman Emperor Hadrian, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and Shakespeare and Walt Whitman. Each of whom would qualify as LGBT. But the best part of that quoted paragraph is the name of the CPAC panel itself: “Will Immigration Kill the GOP?” Because CPAC has it exactly backward. Immigration won't kill the GOP, but the GOP's attitude about immigration will. In other words, as a friendly word of advice to Republicans: Your problem isn't immigrants, it's you.

Tancredo, a star among anti-immigrant activists, started the event by claiming that he wasn’t bigoted against Latinos and that the majority of Hispanic Americans support him and favor Arizona’s draconian SB-1070 law. “I have a lot of people who have Hispanic last names who support me,” Tancredo told the jam-packed room, “I speak for most Americans.” The former congressman, who in 2010 received just 37% of the vote in his bid for governor of Colorado, claimed that the GOP should embrace his nativist politics because immigration is the “ultimate economic issue,” and even claimed that Hispanics supported him over his Democratic opponent, Governor John Hickenlooper.

Exit polls notwithstanding. But he's not really a bigot. Some of his best friends are Latinos! Or maybe he'd at least like to hire some to do menial labor?

As previously noted, the modern Republican Party encoded bigotry into its political DNA. When your political agenda is based around robbing from the poor and the middle class to give to the tiny minority of very wealthy, you need a means of confusing and manipulating people into voting against both their and the general public's self-interests. The means the Republicans have used to convince people to hurt themselves and the nation as a whole has been to exacerbate and exploit bigotry. The Republicans are like the pickpocket in the film Casablanca, who implores a new arrival to beware of vultures, vultures everywhere, while surreptitiously lifting the man's wallet. Except that the Republicans' warnings are even more dishonest, and are much more hateful and destructive.

The Republicans often have succeeded by convincing white straight voters to fear blacks, gays, immigrants, and anyone else who cynically can be categorized as Other, even as Republican policies emptied those voters' bank accounts into theirs and those of their patrons. The Republicans now know nothing else. They are divorced from basic honesty and decency, and they clearly care little if at all about others. Lying and fear-mongering and using any means possible to gain and hold power is their basic primal mode of operation. They play their voting base for suckers. They have for decades. But what they didn't anticipate was that their base would steadily diminish demographically, leaving them with no path to electoral future success unless they change the very nature of who they are.

America is growing racially more diverse, and that is changing the electoral map. But even as the public supports humane immigration reform, the Republicans continue to crush dreams. And then they ask if immigration will kill the GOP?

Evidently, while the panel’s speakers see unrepentant Nativism and immigrant-bashing as the way for the GOP’s electoral success, it mainly appealed to the CPAC attendees who feared the demise of White America and the emergence of a more diverse population. All four panelists agreed that unless the Republican Party embraces their hard line anti-immigrant stance, the GOP will become inextricably weakened and the country will dissolve into multicultural dystopia.

The Latino vote was signficant or decisive for the Democrats in several key races in November. It promises to be the same for President Obama next year. As Harold Meyerson recently wrote:

Read the census data that have been coming out over the past couple weeks and you're compelled to a stark conclusion: Either the Republican Party changes totally, or it has a rendezvous with extinction.

But the Republicans are incapable of changing. They don't and won't recognize the need to change. If they can't exploit and exacerbate bigotry to scare people into voting for them, they'll have to run on the issues. But they can't win on the issues. Robbing from the poor and the middle class to give to the rich isn't great politics.

Meyerson:

What the census shows is that America's racial minorities, aggregated together, are on track to become its majority. The Republican Party's response to this epochal demographic change has been to do everything in its power to keep America (particularly its electorate) as white as can be. Republicans have obstructed minorities from voting; required Latinos to present papers if the police ask for them; opposed the Dream Act, which would have conferred citizenship on young immigrants who served in our armed forces or went to college; and called for denying the constitutional right to citizenship to American-born children of undocumented immigrants.

If the Republicans have a long-term strategic plan, it seems to derive from King Canute, who commanded the tide to stop.

Failing to block the tide, Republicans will blame it. The political party that preaches personal responsibility lives to blame others, for pretty much everything. The answer to the CPAC panel's question, Will Immigration Kill the GOP?, is right there in how the question is asked.

Immigration won't kill the GOP, but the GOP's bigotry toward immigrants will.

Jibber your jabber