Wisconsin Updates

1. Capitol building’s closed, Capitol building’s open. Never a miscommunication.
2. According to the right-leaning polling company Rasmussen, Gov. Walker’s approval rating is down to 43% amongst likely WI voters.
3. Even Forbes magazine is saying that Walker has lost the collective bargaining battle.
4. Murphy went to Madison.
5. So did Michael Moore. Here is the speech he gave at the Capitol.
6. Anonymous can haz boycott of Koch Industries products.
7. The Wisconsin AFL-CIO is using excerpts of the Walker/Koch call in an ad.
8. Voters are starting a campaign to recall 8 Republican state senators. If you live in WI, consider helping by collecting signatures.
9. Mary Lazich is one of those 8, and she is a co-sponsor to a bill which would make it illegal to impersonate someone else over the phone if it hurts someone’s feelings.
10. The 14 out of state Democratic WI state senators are againappealing to Gov. Walker for a meeting to negotiate.
11. Robert Jauch (D-Poplar) says they will be returning soon anyway in order to give up and let the Republicans win, hoping that it will result in a backlash. Not too surprising since capitulation is just what Democrats do when the public is on their side.
12. But the 14 senators themselves are denying the above report, saying they have no intention of returning anytime soon.
13. The WI state Democratic Party is going to file a complaint to the state Government Accountability Board calling for an investigation into things Walker said to fake Koch of questionable legality.
14. Scott Walker will speak at an annual tourism conference today. Hopefully he will take advantage of this opportunity to claim that the whole thing was a big ploy to get people to visit Wisconsin in the winter.
15. Another poll, this one by a right-wing think tank, shows that the teachers’ union has a higher approval rating than the Governor.
16. Democrats in Wisconsin are exceeding their signature-collecting goals for the recall campaign.
17. And in totally unrelated news, the state senate’s GOP leader is trying to make the case for the illegitimacy of the recall statutes.
18. Walker uses government power to enforce new rules of behavior at the Capitol, probably because he’s a socialist. Now visitors will not be allowed to talk, have signs, read books, smoke, eat, drink, carry backpacks, bring chairs, take pictures, record audio, have cell phones on, or pretty much do anything else at all.
19. Sen Jauch says 6 of 7 Republican state senators don’t want to strip public unions of their collective bargaining rights. Don’t know if that’s for real or another political trick though.

*

Follow me on Twitter