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Protests Brew Anew In Wisconsin

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  • M B

    The thing is, it’s obvious that these politicians care more about their vendetta and their business interests than they do the people.

    I would be GREATLY surprised if now that they ‘won’ this victory that they are simply going to stop there. No, it will continue with little things until the old adage of “death by a thousand paper cuts” becomes apparent.

    If I was a Wisconsonite, I’d be demanding their resignation.

    • TF

      Kind of like the interests of the democratic senators that fled the state instead of doing their constitutional job in the interest of protecting the unions that support them regardless the impact on constituents?

      I’m not saying that the GOP has a clean record, but please don’t throw stones in a glass house. Your likely to get glass in your eye and I can’t afford to pay your medical benefits anymore.

      • KH

        The Republican party may be the ruling majority sitting in Madison, but they certainly were NOT elected so they could consider it their “constitutional job” to be arrogant, santimonious bullies who can bypass legal procedure to strip constituents of their rights. Believe me, MB, it’s gonna blow up in their faces. And TF – you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Let us all know how you’re “affording” the fallout from the unbelievable domino effect that will happen if these morons get their way. Funny how short-sighted people can be when they don’t look beyond their own noses…

      • TF

        Short sited? I am not the one representing the party that is throwing our childrens future away by burying them in so much dept that no amount of taxation of the rich could ever cover the tab.

    • dsp

      I guess this sounds somewhat familiar. Didn’t our liberal congress ram through Obamacare in the same way.

      • Dang Straight

        Obama’s campaign highlighted health care. Walker didn’t say a word about stripping worker’s rights during his campaign.

        Governor Freaking Weasel.

      • sd

        Wasn’t it Bush who started the so-called “Obamacare”? I believe he was and left it for others to finish.

      • JH

        Good one DSP! Spot on!

        This is who Wisconsin elected and he ran on the platform that he would make changes and balance there budget. If you dont llke it, you should have been there last November!

        Good for the Republicans for following through. I can’t imagine the pressure they are under.

      • winoceros

        sd, you’re wrong and well, just wrong. Prove it, pretzel boy.

      • deltadawn

        But, thats ok for the dems. They whine when the repubs do a fraction of what they’ve done.

    • susie

      Who’s resignation would you demand? the democrats who bailed on the people or the GOP who stayed and worked?

      • http://thebearisawake.wordpress.com foridealists

        What work?

    • ML

      No matter what the politicians do, we the people can always walk off the job and make our point anew.

  • Stan

    @KH, From what your telling us you voted for Obama and do you think he cares about what is going on in Wisconsin ??. I thought he said he would walk with the Union people, sorry he was busy and you forget it’s all about MONEY and Obama and the “Giving Party” needs to start saving money. Cut up your credit cards and look at the big picture OUR State is broke Walker can’t fix the problem without everyone giving up something. I never noticed my State to be so selfish.

    • N.Baum

      AMEN!

    • PAUL

      YES EVERYONE ……………………..NOT JUST PUBLIC UNION WORKERS …………….ARE ALL THE PRIVATE SECTOR WORKERS TAKING WHAT AMOUNTS TO AN 8%CUT IN WAGES ……………………..I DON’T THINK SO ! AND ARE WALKER AND HIS STAFF TAKING CUTS %$#@ NO !!!!!!!!

      • RightUnite

        This isn’t about private unions. The tax payers are not paying for Private union benefits. What part of that do you not understand?

        • Stien

          Rightunite

          Really? Who pays MNA benefits when you go to the hospital? They are a private union. I know….I know…not all nurses are MNA. Yes, taxes payers are paying private unions. Don’t kid yourself!

    • Irv

      Ok Stan,
      No get on your horse and tell your Gov and legislators they to need to take pay and bennie cuts as they too are gov. employees who happen to get their pay and perks long after they are gone. Oh and yes they vote in their own raisees. You think Walker and his minions will listen. I’ll take any bets that none take you up on it. Why? They don’t care about leading by example, they care about pleasing their boss, Koch, Waltons and the rest of their billionaire owners.

    • RightUnite

      Oh yeah, if he’s not playing golf, he’s partying at the WH. He’s too busy to be walking with the Union people, but he’ll still accept their union donations now, won’t he?

  • Rob Wagner

    GO SCOTT WALKER!!!!

    • MsM

      Yes, go walker – riight to Russia where your agenda is popular.

    • Stien

      You have to admit….this Scott Walker guy has some stones. Like it or vote him out. I may not agree with all he does, but you have to admit he stands his ground.

  • steve

    Sadly, some of you people can’t see that the kids ARE the ones who are losing because the state of WI isn’t placing the education of their children as a top priority. I hope they have fun trying to sell their homes in an area where the education system has gone down the tubes. Oh, and you will also enjoy spending that extra money to insure your homes against robbery and theft from young adults who haven’t had a proper education. However, you obviously didn’t get a proper education or you would have learned how to spell the word YOU’RE correctly.

    • Al B

      Really, Steve? You are willing to draw a direct line between the members of the Teachers Union getting paid a few percent less, and an increase in violent crime? Really? Why don’t you propose to double their pay and save billions by not having police or prisons? Can you give me one street address in the entire state of Wisconsin where a child cannot receive a K-12 education in heated buildings with licensed teachers and modern textbooks? One address?

      • RightUnite

        Steve is just fearmongering…. Anything to get out of paying that small amount towards the teachers pension/healthplans.

  • Mare

    Stan – did you see Michael Moore when he was in Madison? If not, search it out and listen to his speech.

    • Stan

      @Mare, I watched Michael Moore on March 5th 2011. If I didn’t have the connections that I work with daily, I would believe Michael’s story. I’m not a rich busness person nor am I on welfare but sad to tell you Wisconsin is in need to adjust and pay/contribute equal. This will be interesting, Wisconsin isn’t alone and several States are in trouble, sorry to see Michael’s fear factor talks that won’t give back or fix finacial problems. Good luck……

  • Hannah

    It looks like the guy who was escorted out is a college kid! Don’t they have better things to do like attend class rather then protest! I wonder how many more college kids from the U of Wisconsin are skipping class and protesting…most college kids don’t even hold a union job, much less of any kind of job!

    • JH

      I was thinking the same thing.

    • How About Them Apples

      Hannah,
      Did it ever occur to you that collage student is studying to become a teacher, and is trying to secure his, or her future?

  • Dang Straight

    It never ceases to amaze me that there are people who applaud the mistreatment and scapegoating of others.

    What pitiful lives you must lead.

  • KH

    TF and Stan, I LIVE in Wisconsin, and I’d like to know how you expect MY 2 children (15 and 8yrs) to get the excellent education I/you/we had if you insist on crippling the very same system that is currently one of the top-ranked in the country? How will our kids earn enough to afford to stay around here to keep Wisconsin strong, progressive and thriving? Like I said, there will be a huge domino effect; mess around with education and you are destroying the basic building block of a solid society. Make it harder for kids to get a good education in the young, formative years and for older students to get financial support to get secondary degrees, and you might as well just hand the keys over to India or China, where education is valued above…dare we say it?…money.

    And if you don’t want to spend YOUR money to help take care of the physical bodies or mental issues of people in need, well go right ahead and ignore them, too, and watch how YOUR quality of life will deteriorate, because those people are not just going to go away – you WILL pay for their care, one way or another, and it will cost a whole lot more in the long run if you eliminate medical coverage and food assistance programs now.

    Guess what! The money Walker says he’s “saving” by all this hoopla is NOT coming back to YOU – it’s going straight into the pockets of big business and the uber-wealthy! How can you people not see this????

    • Dave

      Ahahaha another sensationalist lefty whack job. You should work for CNN.

      I must have missed the article about the firing of teachers and closing of schools and underfunding of the education system. Oh thats right, there wasn’t one.

      Teachers won’t get 5% raises, which is about 3X the raise myself and others have been seeing the last few years. Boo hoo, I also don’t get 3 months off every summer. They’ll have to pay a larger portion of their health plan that I fund that offers way better terms than any plan I could get my hands on through a private company.

      Apparently higher salaries somehow correlates to better teachers in your jeered view of the world? More money also somehow correlates to the student taking more initiative to get the most out of their education as well.

      And the part about the money going to the pockets of big business, oh man, that’s rich! I don’t know where you guys infer this information from?

      So many comments on here with absolutely no credibility, backing, or facts to base them on. That’s when you know its a lefty posting it. Now go rally around Jesse Jackson and make more of a fool of yourself.

      • Gary

        Teachers do not get paid for those three months, they get laid off without being able to apply for unemployement regardlesss of whether they are seeking summer work or not- most would rather work and get paid for it.
        Getting rid of the union is the first step towards cutting teachers, crowding classrooms and paying the debt off out of the pockets of educators and from the education of our youth. Paying more for their benefits is fair and the teachers agreed to it- stripping them of colective bargaining rights is dictatorship.

    • MS

      KH, I’m with you, I lived out East where you had to have money to get a decent education. WI has good schools because of the teachers and the gov is putting students in the middle of a larger political agenda. I wonder why the police and firefighters unions weren’t targeted?

  • Stan

    Oh my, Wisconsin has brought in the Rev Jesse Jackson, Can the camera bring anymore popular faces to the state. Poor Jesse wants the State of Wisconsin to give more, rob Peter to pay Paul, sad to say the money is gone. Sure hope the residents of Wisconsin still have a State House when this is done. I’m sad to live in a State of such confusion.

    • mike

      Come on Stan, you can’t take all that money with you when the devil calls you
      home……..

  • Jim

    The GOP was angery that the labor unions donated to the Demacratic Party. How do you stop that? Kill the unions.

  • Paula

    Good argument for home schooling. I wouldn’t allow any of these freaks teach my children. It’s time to stop collective bargaining and bust the unions,

    • Jason

      Same here. Im going to do whatever it takes to keep my boys in private school. More overtime for me. Small trade off in the big picture.

    • Brian H

      My Mom is a hard core liberal and a retired teacher (Wisconsin). She called me up today to rip on me about the Union gutting legislation. She extolled the virtue of the unions and how they make sure only qualified and competent teachers teach in our public schools.

      I had only one question for her: ‘so Mom, if that is all true, how come you suggested that I home school Noah and Alice, and helped me get the necessary materials and state procedures to do so?’

      She said a couple rather nasty things and hung up. If an uber liberal pro union person like my Mom is against the Unionized public school system, what hope is there that the system won’t utterly fail our kids?

      • Jenelle

        Wow, really harsh against ur Mom. Funny ask heck though, a pro union teacher telling her son to home school her grandkids. So ****ing rich!

      • http://thebearisawake.wordpress.com foridealists

        Nice work there Brian. I’m sure your mother made her recommendation based on what’s happened to education around the country due to cuts. The unions have worked hard to keep up teacher moral as well as the quality of education, but even midwestern schools have suffered from those cuts. Even great teachers struggle with maintaining their professional standards in overcrowned classrooms with ever increasing demands. Shame on your mother for sacrificing her heartfelt affiliations for what she felt was the good of her grandchildren. Oh, and by the way, shame on you too.

    • MsM

      I apologize for your lack of education, especially in the area of speaking and spellling. Good reason for not expanding homeschooling.

  • Stan

    @KH, I live in Wisconsin too, sorry the State is broke and I’m a Veteran and a Union Member but enough is enough. Please don’t use students as a pawn it’s not about children. You haven’t seen anything yet, and you might have to get a partime job at Menards

  • Stan

    @Paula, Very good point….

  • James

    And the next thing that needs to be done is to DEFUND U W Madison. School’s for fish and you can’t make a dolphin from a state full of carp. You can try, but you’ll only end up with a load of expensive bottom feeding carp and a smell you can taste from Minnesota.

    Can’t thank you enough for all the time.

  • Stan

    We need to get this passed to see what’s in it, sound familar Nancy said it well and we the people didn’t have a choice. Maybe we can see if Nancy has time to come to Wisconsin today, you have to love the lip service……

  • common cents

    Unions benefit more than just there own members. They’re responsible for the 40 hr work week, vacation time, PTO. If a group of united workers lose their rights, what can the single employee expect?

    • Maurice Franz

      A single employee can expect to negotiate his/her salary and benefits and work 40+ hours per week like the rest of us citizen taxpayers.

      • PAUL

        NO you will take what they offer or you will here ………….YOUR FIRED!!!!!……….WAKE UP !

    • Maurice Franz

      What bothers me is the absolute vitriol and thinly veiled threats of violence against anyone who questions the unions or democratic party. I have to hand it to the protest organizers, they did a great job of preventing violence The protest organizers showed the world just how much utter hatred they could drum up on short notice.

      I think the definition of public servant was brought back into line with reality. Public servants are there to serve the public good, not the public serving them with benefits out of tune with fiscal sanity.

  • anita mann

    I sense bitterness in the comments against unions as if people are mad that they aren’t in a union so they don’t want others to be, either. Union workers, of which I am not, are not freeloaders that get a break from paying taxes. They work, they contribute to the economy and pay taxes. Why do so many of you want to take away your neighbors rights as union workers?

    • Get a clue

      Where have you been? Did you just wake up from a really long nap?

  • Wiser than most

    I wonder how many college students in Wisconsin changed their majors today.

  • Tb

    Obama says we must all sacrifice and we must all accept his health care plan.
    Except the unions, of course.
    The unions aren’t interested in equal rights. They want exclusive rights.

    • DH

      Kinda like Feminism?

  • Trumka Lies

    I think the cops need to come in and do an old fashioned Qaddafi beat down on all protesters.

    • P

      trumka lies your an IDIOT why don’t you give us your address so you can have your beat down for being an IDIOT

  • Jalan

    Death threats, this pretty much deals the Unions fate. You Union People do not hold the Majority in the State. The Repubs were elected by the Majority to do exactly what They did!
    Union Perks are NOT a Civil Right!
    Union perks are NOT a Human Right!

    • PAUL

      they were NOT elected to serve ONLY the rebublicans ………….they were elected to serve ALL of WISCONSIN TO strip ONLY one group of people of there RIGHTS IS pain and simply WRONG and the way they did it is an absolut sham and CRIME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SEE YOU IN COURT !!! besides I do beleive that the state and the UNION have a valid and binding contract

  • Michael Loewen

    remember about a year ago the WI teachers union was fighting because they still wanted their Viagra covered. Come on – talk about abusing the system…..The Republicans are just doing what the unions have been doing for years and now they don’t like it! I have worked for 30 years, never been in a union and never had the benefits/collective barganing that they have They have been abusing that power for years. Look at the NFLPA too – same story.

  • FREE RIDE

    Good looking bunch. Lots of clean fingernails. Try getting those hands dirty and working for a living, GO SCOTT WALKER!

  • mark

    this really boils down to the average non union (public or private) working family sick and tired of ever increasing costs (taxes and health insurance) while the state and teacher union employee get raises and pay a fraction of their health insurance. This just levels the plying field. The ride is over and the taxpayers will now be paying to dig out from years and years of wasteful spending on the entitled.

    Too bad the democrats could not stay at the capital and “fight” as they were elected to do. Can you imagine what would happen if republicans ever tried to do this????

    WOW

    • How About Them Apples

      mark,
      Are you still crying “me to”? Join a union and get off your knees.

  • PK

    NEWSFLASH! To all of those who keep saying you don’t know how the union busting is going to affect the schools? It isn’t just that, Walker is making a 1.5 BILLION budget cut to schools, medicare and local government. If you don’t think those cuts will affect the quality of education in WI, you need to go back to school. Wi is currently in the Top 10 of best quality of education for kids. I definitely see this changing with the slashes. The Union Members made concessions…I feel like a broken record. Get your facts straight. The protesters got angry when the REpubs pushed through the bill. They did not get violent. They have been very polite and respectful (even the police were thanking them for being so). The only threats and anger I have seen have been from the opposition on these boards!

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