The latest out of Wisconsin is that the two big public employee unions say they’re willing to accept the givebacks contained in Gov. Walker’s budget. Apparently all of them. But they refuse to budge on their collective bargaining rights. They say this has been their position all along. Read More
What’s up next from DARPA, the Pentagon’s advanced research and development agency? Four words: cyber camouflage and robotic hummingbirds.
In all the swirl and drama of events in Wisconsin and all the competing fiscal accounts, one thing is pretty undeniable: the crux of the fight isn’t about reductions in benefits, it’s about the future of collective bargaining for public sector employees. Killing collective bargaining rights doesn’t do anything to solve the current fiscal crisis. That’s why pretty much everyone sees that this is a push to break the unions. There’s an active disagreement about whether that’s a good thing. But everyone gets that that’s what this is about.
But there’s another layer of the story that’s only gotten cursory attention in the national media. Walker’s proposal doesn’t apply to all public sector unions in the state. Broadly speaking it targets unions that consistently support Democrats (teachers and other public employees) and exempts those that are often more friendly to Republican candidates (police and firefighters). Walker has been quick to point out that the statewide police and firefighters unions, as opposed to those in Milwaukee, both supported his opponent last year. He claims he makes the exception because the state can’t afford any walk-outs from these public safety related employees.
But that doesn’t really hold up.
It strains credulity to see this as anything but a political effort to destroy organizations that are critical foot soldiers for Democratic candidates at election time.
Former Sen. Santorum (R) releases statement of support for Gov. Walker …. Read More
In Wisconsin, the pro-Walker state troopers union repudiates its earlier endorsement while the state teachers union says teachers will be back on the job on Tuesday.
Late Update: Okay. This one got significantly more complicated. The union head who released the statement was not authorized to withdraw the earlier endorsement and he has since pulled down the statement. We’ve just posted a new report including an interview with the union president Tracy Fuller.
At the moment, we still have the standoff in place in Wisconsin. The real question seems to be whether Republicans can get around the effective block state senate Democrats have put on the union-busting bill by leaving the state. There are rumors floating around Madison that senate Republicans could try to move the bill out of the budget process, thus avoiding the need for 3/5 of the members to achieve a quorum. We’re looking into that possibility this morning. Read More
Moderate Wisconsin Republican floats compromise plan to break Wisconsin impasse.
This is consistent with what I’ve heard over the weekend from on the ground in Madison. Specifically, state Republicans have been hanging behind Walker in large part because they don’t want to undermine a Republican governor early in his term. But there seem to be a number less hard-right Republicans in the state who are not altogether comfortable with Walker’s inflexible stand.
Wisconsin state senate Democrat Jon Erpenbach says he’s worried that senate Republicans may have found a way to push through their bill to end collective bargaining without them. Meanwhile, the leader of the state senate says, no compromises.
It’s been pretty clear for a while that that US Embassy worker in Pakistan held for shooting two Pakistanis must have been an intelligence operative of some sort. And now US intelligence officials are conceding that he was in fact working on a CIA covert team in country.