Just a short time ago we brought you word that the state senate Democrats in Wisconsin were worried that the Republicans could manage an end-run and push the union-busting bill through without their being present. The approach would be to take that stuff out of the budget bill, which requires a larger quorum of senators present, and put it into regular legislation they could pass with the Dems still out of state. But now the Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald is saying he won’t take the legislation up until the Democrats come back.
The backstory seems to be that there’s a moderate faction among the Republican senators. And they are apparently refusing to go ahead with that approach. We don’t know that latter point for certain yet. But it seems to be the most logical inference to draw from Fitzgerald’s statement. And his clear ruling out of such an option seems to leave the standoff in place, with no clear option for Walker absent some agreement with the Democrats.
The first act of the Egyptian Revolution is over. Mubarak is out of power. But as you can no doubt see, there are now upwards of half a dozen uprisings or mass protests afoot in different Arab countries and in Iran. And at least one of those (Libya) seems to be on its way to a much more jagged, chaotic and violent end than what we saw in Egypt.
But it seems impossible not to note that there’s just far, far less coverage of these other uprising. There’s coverage. Otherwise, how would we know about it? But there’s not that flood the zone, learn the key people’s names, the world is watching coverage that we saw with Egypt. So why is that? Read More
Huckabee says Haley Barbour’s record on race is “impeccable.”
I guess from one point of view that might be right.
Packers star cornerback Charles Woodson comes out in support of state public employees unions.
One thing I was curious about was whether there’s less news out of Libya because it is a more thoroughly authoritarian state. There just aren’t a lot of foreign journalists there. Ever. Certainly nothing like Egypt. Egypt under Mubarak was far from Democratic. But it was full of foreign journalists. And in many ways quite open, at least compared to more intensely repressive states. What I’m hearing is that a number of major international news orgs are simply having immense difficulty getting their reporters into the country. Cooling their heels at border points of entry, unable to get in.
CNN has more on this front.
Events are moving rapidly in Libya, so fast that it’s difficult to sift the facts from the noise of contradictory reports. But here are a few reports that point to a rapid breakdown of the government’s authority. Two high-ranking Libyan Air Force pilots have reportedly defected to Malta after refusing orders to conduct aerial bombing of civilian protestors. Reuters reports, with little detail, that a group of Libyan officers has issues a statement calling on the armed forces to “join the people” and remove Gaddafi from power. And the staff of the country’s mission to the UN has in effect defected from the current government. (Not completely sure you can do that; but I guess it’s the thought that counts.)
Finally, the country’s Ambassador to the United States — if I’m understanding this post from Ben Smith correctly — has just called on the Obama administration to more forcefully denounce his government.
Late Update: Actually, we were just able to watch a brief interview with the Ambassador on al Jazeera. He’s clearly cut the cord.
Latter Update: Watching the coverage of the Libya situation on al Jazeera English and, honestly, it’s pretty embarrassing to compare it to what you get on the US cable nets. Reminds me of what CNN was sometimes like 20 years ago or actually what the BBC used to be like.
I mentioned earlier the great importance of video and a press presence in the new post-Egypt uprisings, or more specifically the lack of it in countries like Libya. To that end we’ve put together a package of photographs of protests over the weekend in Libya, Morroco, Bahrain, Algeria and other countries across the region. Take a look.
A TPM reporter will be arriving in Wisconsin tomorrow morning. So I’m looking forward to more on the ground reports of events in Madison. But going on what I’ve seen today, I’ll stick with what I said a couple days ago: I don’t think this is going well for Gov. Walker (R).
He just gave a late afternoon press conference in which he grandly stated that he won’t compromise on union rights to collective bargaining and that it’s time for the senate Democrats to come back to Madison. But why would they? Walker appears to be totally hamstrung by their absence. And his ally, the senate Majority Leader, said today that he won’t try to push a workaround to get those provisions through before the Democrats come back. Read More
Gov. Walker (R-WI) has just announced that tomorrow evening at 6 PM he’ll deliver what he’s calling a “fireside chat” to discuss the impasse in the state.