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Shutdown: The Political War In Washington, Common Dreams.org, March 31, 2011, by Danny Schechter, quoted verbatim under Creative Commons 3.0 license:
Forget Libya; the real bombing is underway elsewhere. Pay less attention to Pakistan; the drone attacks there pale in comparison.
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The real US war is about to erupt in Washington pitting those who believe government has a necessary role to play and those determined to weaken it.
The former understand that, without regulations, without rules, without programs for those in need, we could have a system collapse — perhaps even an uprising — that will make Wisconsin look like a real tea party.
But America’s would be political suicide bombers could care less. They are on a holy our-way-or-the-highway mission.
What would a shutdown mean? The Boston Globe calls it a “downshift”:
A federal ‘shutdown’ is more like a massive downshift — the federal government reaches too deeply into the crevices of daily American life to close. Social Security payments would still be made. Air traffic controllers would scan the skies. The mail should arrive at the doorstep.
There are problems; apparently no one realized in the last shut down when the National Institute of Health was closed, no one was left to feed the lab animals. Ah, but who cares about them?
You can be sure the Republicans won’t defund the military in part because their operation is run like a military campaign complete with deceptive propaganda and iron discipline.
Already conservatives are blaming Democrats for the problem, and, naturally praising themselves.
Here’s House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, “House Republicans continue to offer serious solutions to get our fiscal House in order, but we cannot keep doing it alone. If Senators Reid and Schumer insist on shutting down the government because they want to protect every last dollar and cent of federal spending then that will be on their hands.”
Democrats like New York’s Schumer are firing back by calling them “extreme.” “Instead of lashing out at Democrats in a knee-jerk way, we hope House Republicans will finally stand up to the Tea Party and resume the negotiations that had seemed so full of promise.”
Each party is blaming the other. Each deploys message points. Each acts sanctimoniously.
And, as the Zogby Poll illustrates, the public is, predictably confused.
Voters are split on whether they are concerned about a possible government shutdown, and if they agree that a temporary shutdown would be a good thing because it will force spending cuts. Democrats, however, are much more likely than Republicans to be concerned and much less likely to think it would be a good thing.
It’s an institutional failure, not just a political one. In the end, if negotiations fail, America’s least approved institution, the Congress itself, will find itself rejected and disrespected by more Americans.
Make no mistake: behind the rhetoric, the hard-line ideological right is on a war footing. They don’t care who they will hurt, and are hell bent in shutting down the government, in defunding any programs Democrats like or people need. They are not into compromise, conciliation or even dialogue.
In response, the center operates more like the flabby do gooders of the Salvation Army, trying to save what it can, trying to keep their unraveling coalition together, compromising and colluding with whomever it can.
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In contrast, the right is more like a more muscular Marine Corps, determined to seize that hill, in this case, Capitol Hill. They are, in one sense, true Jihadists in suits, on a mission from God, and in this case, the great deity’s chosen representatives on earth like the Billionaires, Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch.
This is not about Money; it is about Power. And it is coming to a head soon. Each party is scurrying to get the best deal but a large number of diehards have wrapped themselves in “live free or die” banners and are willing to take the government down with them.
It is a calculated tactic, akin to holding the country hostage, by creating a crisis that only they can solve, when their opponents cave into their demands, that is.
In essence it says to pols in Washington; do what we demand or we take your government away.
Writes David Johnson of the GOP:
Their election strategy for 2010 was to obstruct everything and keep the economy from creating jobs, and then blame Democrats. It worked. So now they’re doing it even more. But is that the whole plan? In every instance Republicans are obstructing the very things that can help the economy recover and provide the jobs people need. Everything they do is aimed at making things worse. It is hard to understand their actions except as a systematic attempt to blow up the economy.
Thomas Frank called Republicans the “Wrecking Crew” in a book of the same name well before they were able to beat up on a flabby, dispirited and poorly organized Democratic Party led by a President who wants to be everyone’s friend. Time Magazine said of his book:
Frank offers one damning anecdote after another. The Wrecking Crew explains how cynical conservatives have wrested control of the government by railing against its very existence, all while using federal perches to funnel billions into the pockets of lobbyists and the corporations they represent.
As Steve Koss explains:
According to Frank, the conservative worldview is totally committed to “the ideal of laissez faire, meaning minimal government interference in the marketplace, along with hostility to taxation, regulation, organized labor, state ownership, and all the business community’s other enemies.”
The conservative movement promotes the interests of business exclusively over all else in accordance with the motto, ‘More business in government, less government in business.’ So-called ‘big government,’ also tagged as the liberal state, is the enemy; in fact, virtually all government is the enemy, other than the national defense.
That said, where are we now?
The Daily Beast reports:
Senate Democrats are preparing to offer $20 billion in new spending cuts in order to avoid a government shutdown- but will it be enough for the Tea Party? (DS: They are now up to $30 B) The offer, which is Democrats’ highest yet, comes on top of $10 billion in cuts that have already been enacted. The House GOP, however, has so far stood by its demand for $61 billion in cuts as it faces pressure from the Tea Party activists. Congress returns from recess Monday and has until April 8 before funding runs dry.
On the sidelines is an emboldened Wall Street, “resurrected” in the words of the National Journal, into “a global financial elite even less under U.S. control than before the crash.” Its many lobbyists are hard at work toning down the rules that will govern the financial reform bill.
They are shifting their political money to Republicans, some even recognizing that the Tea Party is their best friend all in the name of the “free: (sic) market.”
Welcome to the age of stalemate and paralysis with the tone still set by an ever so cautious President who still hopes to make a deal rather than fight for his program. He is watching the polls— not listening to the cries of his supporters.
Contrast Obama’s failure to explain the real challenge with the stand taken by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. (He was re-elected three more times), condemning “business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, (and) war profiteering.”
FDR said then, “We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”
The times have changed, although the conflicts that surfaced in the 1930’s are surfacing again as economic inequality grows and cutbacks intensify. A half a million people took to the streets in London last week. Don’t think the same or more can’t happen in the USA.
A last minute deal is likely to get done with more compromise on the left and more gloating on the right.
Who will get hurt? Not the wealthy, that’s for sure. But these issues, and this conflict are here to stay with or without a last minute compromise or a sell-out by Democrats.
Mediachannel’s News Dissector Danny Schechter investigates the origins of the economic crisis in his book Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal (Cosimo Books via Amazon). Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org
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Why Obama Isn’t Fighting the Budget Battle, Robert Reich.org, March 11, 2011, by Robert Reich, used with permission, quoted verbatim:
In the next week the action moves from Wisconsin to Washington, where the deadline looms for a possible government shutdown over the federal budget. President Obama has to take a more direct and personal role in that budget battle – both for the economy’s sake and for the sake of his reelection. But will he? Don’t count on it.
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Worried congressional Democrats say the President needs to use his bully pulpit to counter defections in Democatic ranks, such as the ten Democrats and one allied Independent who on Wednesday voted against a Senate leadership plan to cut $6.2 billion from the federal budget over the rest of fiscal year 2011. They want Obama to grab the initiative and push a plan to eliminate tax breaks for oil companies and for companies that move manufacturing facilities out of the country, and a proposal for a surtax on millionaires.
Most importantly, they’re worried the President’s absence from the debate will result in Republicans winning large budget cuts for the remainder of the fiscal year – large enough to imperil the fragile recovery.
But Obama won’t actively fight the budget battle if the current White House view of how he wins in 2012 continues to prevail.
Shortly after the Democrats’ “shellacking” last November, I phoned a friend in the White House who had served in the Clinton administration. “It’s 1994 all over again,” he said. “Now we move to the center.”
The supposed parallel between 2010 and 1994 is something of an article of faith in the Obama White House. That’s partly because so many of President Barack Obama’s current aides worked for Bill Clinton and vividly recall Clinton’s own shellacking in 1994. It’s also because the Clinton story had a happy ending, at least electorally. The fact that Bill Clinton went on to win re-election is a source of comfort to the current White House as it looks ahead to 2012.
From this, many in the Obama White House have concluded that the president should follow Clinton’s campaign script — distancing himself from congressional Democrats, embracing further deficit reduction, and seeking guidance from big business. If it worked for Clinton, it must work for Obama — or so it’s supposed.
The superficial logic that so often passes for thought in Washington typically sees causation where there’s only correlation. In fact, there’s no reason to believe that Clinton’s lurch rightward at the start of 1995 is what won him re-election the following November. He was re-elected because of the strength of the economic recovery.
By the spring of 1995, the American economy had bounced back, averaging 200,000 new jobs per month. By early 1996, it was roaring — creating 434,000 new jobs in February alone. I remember suggesting to Clinton’s political adviser, Dick Morris, that the president should come up with some new policy ideas for the election. Morris scowled. This election will be about the economy — nothing more, nothing less, he said. Morris knew that voters didn’t care much about policy. They cared about jobs. “The president,” said Morris, “is going to say, ‘You’ve never had it this good, and you ain’t seen nothing yet.’”
The 1991-1992 recession was relatively mild as recessions go. As is typical of most recessions, it had been brought on by the Federal Reserve raising interest rates too high in response to fears of inflation — meaning that a recovery would occur when the Fed reversed course and reduced short-term rates, which then-Chair Alan Greenspan obligingly did.
President Obama won’t be as fortunate. The Great Recession resulted from the bursting of a giant debt bubble. Wall Street’s irresponsible lending and speculating, negligible oversight by federal regulators, and the insatiable desire of Americans to use their homes as ATMs created a toxic mixture that exploded at the end of 2007 and continues to sicken the economy.
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The Fed has kept interest rates near zero for more than a year and has opened the spigots of its discount window, without much result. Unemployment continues to hover around 9 percent. Economic growth is pathetic.
While jobs used to follow corporate profits, American corporations now rack up big profits without expanding employment. Their profits are coming mainly from buoyant sales by their foreign operations — especially in China and India — combined with cuts in jobs, wages, and benefits here in the U.S.
The richest 10 percent of Americans, who own about 90 percent of all financial assets, are buying again (sales at Neiman Marcus and Tiffany’s are way up). But most Americans still have little purchasing power. Under a huge load of debt, worried about meeting mortgage payments, and seeing their major asset — their home — continue to drop in value, they’re holding back from the malls.
A strong recovery cannot be sustained by the richest 10 percent. Before the Great Recession, the top 10 percent received about half of total income, but they accounted for only about 40 percent of total spending. Forty percent of spending isn’t enough to convince businesses to invest in new capacity and jobs, which is why corporations are still sitting on $1.4 trillion of cash.
So many jobs have been lost since Obama was elected and so many people have entered the workforce needing jobs that even if job growth were to match the extraordinary pace of the late 1990s, year after year, the unemployment rate wouldn’t fall below 6 percent until 2016. That pace of job growth is unlikely, to say the least.
If Republicans manage to cut federal spending significantly between now and Election Day while state outlays continue to shrink, the certain result is continued high unemployment and anemic growth.
Obama’s challenge in 2012 has nothing to do with Bill Clinton’s in 1996. He must fight the Republican plans to cut the budget deficit this year and next, and explain to the public why he’s doing so. And he must convince Americans that public spending during the next few years is necessary to get the economy moving, reduce the long-term debt as a portion of the total economy, and get jobs back.
Robert Reich was the nation’s 22nd Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton and is Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations. In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the Ten Most Successful Cabinet Members of the century. He has written eleven books, including “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages. His recent book is “Supercapitalism.” For Professor Reich’s book page for Supercaptialism at Amazon, go here. Reich’s newest book, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future has been released September 21, and is available for ordering at this link (Amazon.com). The above article is from Reich’s new blog, and can be viewed here.
Robert Reich’s commentaries are available for listening to at Publicradio.com. Watch the video Aftershock: The next economy and America’s future (about his new book). Thanks to Professor Reich for permission to publish his articles on an ongoing basis.
The Principles of the People’s Party, Robert Reich.org, March 9, 2011, by Robert Reich, used with permission, quoted verbatim:
The following was sent to me by someone in Madison, Wisconsin, who found it in the Capitol building last week. It was obviously written in a hurry, and it carries the label “first draft.”
It’s emerging from the heartland – from Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, and Iowa — and it is spreading across the nation. It doesn’t have a formal organization or Washington lobbyists beyond it, but it’s gaining strength nonetheless. Like the Tea Party did with Republicans in 2010, the People’s Party will pressure Democrats in primaries and general elections leading up to 2012 and beyond to have the courage of the party’s core convictions. But unlike the Tea Party, which has been coopted by the super-rich, the People’s Party represents the needs and aspirations of America’s vast working middle class, along with the less fortunate.
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The People’s Party is dedicated to the truth that America is a rich nation – richer by far than any other, richer than it’s ever been. The People’s Party rejects the claims of plutocrats who want us to believe we can no longer afford to live decently – who are cutting the wages and benefits of most people, attacking unions, and squeezing public budgets. The People’s Party will not allow them to turn us against one another – unionized against non-unionized, public employee against private employee, immigrant against native born. Nor will the People’s Party allow the privileged and powerful to distract us from the explosive concentration of income and wealth at the top, the decline in taxes paid by the top, and their increasing and untrammeled political power.
We have joined together to reverse these trends and to promote a working people’s bill of rights. We are committed to:
1. Increasing the pay and bargaining power of average working people. We’ll stop efforts to destroy unions and collective bargaining rights. Protect workers who try to form unions from being fired. Make it easier for workers to form unions through simple up-or-down votes at the workplace.
2. Requiring America’s super-rich to pay their fair share. Increase top marginal tax rates and the number of tax brackets at the top. Treat income from capital gains the same as ordinary income. Restore the estate tax. Revoke the citizenship of anyone found to be sheltering income abroad.
3. Protecting and expanding government programs vital to the working middle class and the poor. These include Social Security, K-12 education, Pell Grants for disadvantaged students, public transportation, Medicare and Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
4. Ending corporate welfare and cutting military outlays. Trim defense spending. End special tax subsidies for specific corporations or industries – at both state and federal levels. Cut agricultural subsidies.
5. Saving Social Security while making it more progressive. Exempt the first $20,000 of income from Social Security taxes. Make up the difference – and any need for additional Social Security revenues – by raising the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax.
6. Ending Wall Street’s dominance of the economy and preventing any future taxpayer-funded bailout. Break up Wall Street’s largest banks and put a cap their size. Link pay on the Street to long-term profits rather than short-term speculation. Subject all financial transactions to a one-tenth of one percent transactions tax.
7. Fully enforcing regulations that protect workers, consumers, small investors, and the environment. Raise penalties on corporations that violate them. Expand enforcement staffs. Provide more private rights of action.
8. Providing affordable health care to all Americans. The new health law isn’t enough. We’ll fight for a single payer – making Medicare available to all. End fee-for-service and create “accountable-care” organizations that focus on healthy outcomes.
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9. Slowing and eventually reversing climate change. We’ll fight to limit carbon emissions. Impose a ceiling on emissions or a carbon tax on polluters. Return the revenues from these to the American people, in the form of tax cuts for the working middle class.
10. Getting big money out of politics. We’ll fight to appoint Supreme Court justices who will overrule Citizens United v. FEC. Require full disclosure of all contributions for or against any candidate. Provide full public financing for all presidential, gubernatorial, and legislative candidates in all general elections.
A few of the places it’s happening:
Robert Reich was the nation’s 22nd Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton and is Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations. In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the Ten Most Successful Cabinet Members of the century. He has written eleven books, including “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages. His recent book is “Supercapitalism.” For Professor Reich’s book page for Supercaptialism at Amazon, go here. Reich’s newest book, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future has been released September 21, and is available for ordering at this link (Amazon.com). The above article is from Reich’s new blog, and can be viewed here.
Robert Reich’s commentaries are available for listening to at Publicradio.com. Watch the video Aftershock: The next economy and America’s future (about his new book). Thanks to Professor Reich for permission to publish his articles on an ongoing basis.
Abbreviated Pundit Round-up, Daily Kos, March 9, 2011, by DemFromCT, used with permission, quoted verbatim, photo © Newseum:
The Wisconsin 14 have acted courageously and sacrificially. They cannot hold out forever; it may even be time for them to come home. But if they fall now, then the anti-union tide will advance elsewhere. As the Wisconsin 14 make their decision, they need to consider not only their own state’s politics, but also their unasked-for role as defenders of the labor union movement for the nation.And they should not be asked to hold out by themselves. Labor’s defenders in other states need to recognize that these fourteen individuals are making tangible sacrifices not for Wisconsin alone, but for the country. It’s easy to ask them to keep sacrificing on Labor’s behalf. The credible reports that they may soon be forced to surrender should make all labor advocates think hard about whether there is anything else they can do — including, to the extent they can lawfully do so, monetarily — to help the Wisconsin 14 keep holding out, if they remain willing to do so.
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Though none of the 14 state senators who are scattered over Northern Illinois — they would not reveal where they were staying after the Gurnee meeting–are packing their bags for a return to Madison quite yet, three scenarios have emerged that could bring them back to the Capitol building this week.One scenario would involve a guaranteed amendment to the budget repair bill protecting collective bargaining rights for public employee unions. ”We believe collective bargaining is a civil right,” said Larson. Getting rid of the mechanism that “has helped build the middle class for over fifty years is like saying, ‘Seat belts have done such a great job at saving lives that we don’t need to wear them any more.’”
Another event that could bring the Democrats home would be if proposed changes covered by the budget repair bill were moved into an official state budget, which would allow for a roughly three-month debate period before a vote, as opposed to the three-day period originally imposed by Walker and senate Republicans. This option would likely be the most palatable for Republicans, allowing them the greatest face-saving opportunity while Democrats took advantage of the tsunami of opposition to the bill that’s emerged over the past three weeks.
The third and ultimately most dramatic scenario that would bring the Democrats back would be if three — and there’s speculation that there could even be five, at the rate things are going — Republican senators were to reverse their positions and join the Democrats in voting down the entire bill.
Anybody can botch a name, of course, but Pawlenty’s problem is more substantive: As he prepares to seek the presidential nomination, Pawlenty seems to have botched his entire persona.
Gingrich really can’t expect to get much of a bounce even if Palin and Huckabee don’t end up running. And that probably means someone(s) from further back in the field who have a lot more room to grow as they become better known will become the conservative purist alternatives to Romney. Our numbers just don’t suggest much of a path for Gingrich.
The oldest and most common dig against organic agriculture is that it cannot feed the world’s citizens; this, however, is a supposition, not a fact. And industrial agriculture isn’t working perfectly, either: the global food price index is at a record high, and our agricultural system is wreaking havoc with the health not only of humans but of the earth. There are around a billion undernourished people; we can also thank the current system for the billion who are overweight or obese.
Yet there is good news: increasing numbers of scientists, policy panels and experts (not hippies!) are suggesting that agricultural practices pretty close to organic — perhaps best called “sustainable” — can feed more poor people sooner, begin to repair the damage caused by industrial production and, in the long term, become the norm.
See also Jill Richardson‘s diary for more comment.Ruth Marcus demonstrates what’s wrong with Villagers. She claims:
“It’s absolutely the right thing to do for the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee to investigate radicalization, but to say we’re going to investigate a religious minority . . . is the wrong course of action to take,” Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, told CNN.Yes, there are other sources of terrorism. Radical Islam is the biggest and most dangerous. And, yes, King is a flawed questioner. But the question he poses is an appropriate – and important – one.
As if “King is a flawed questioner” doesn’t matter (see Joseph McCarthy). Contrast with a LTE to the NY Times and Greg Sargent, and see who is more politically savvy:
It is no surprise that Representative Peter King and others on the right are spiraling up their attack on Islam in general and American Muslims in particular.With recent polls showing that many voters are growing wary of its agenda, the right is inciting fear and hatred through the introduction of wedge issues, a tactic that has served it well in the past.
These tactics will do little to protect the public from terrorism, but they will do much to further convince Muslims at home and abroad that America hates their religion.
SIGN PETITION
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It looks like Pete King’s hearings into Muslim radicalization are really shaping up as a three ring circus — in more ways than one.A Democratic staffer on the Homeland Security Committee, which is hosting the hearings set to begin on Thursday, points out that the committee has quietly divided its plan for the hearings into three separate panels — separating Republicans from Democrats who might disagree with them on the issues in question.
For instance, the first panel features as a witness Dem Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress, while the second features GOP Rep. Frank Wolf. Dems expect Wolf, who has a long history of doing battle with the Council of American-Islamic Relations, to support King’s views of the threat of Muslim radicalization. Previously, Dems say, the plan was for Ellison to be on the same panel as Wolf, but now the two have been separated — meaning that Dems won’t be able to ask Ellison to rebut Wolf during hearings that are expected to attract national attention.
“This type of division based on party and ideology is curious. especially when the hearing is supposed to be combining thoughts to combat radicalization,” one Dem staffer on the committee tells me. “Now, if Representative Wolf says something negative about Muslims, Mr. Ellison will not have the opportunity to rebut it. There is no rationale for this decision.”
Our current recovery, alas, is different from all previous recoveries that America has experienced since the end of World War II. The earlier ones were marked by wage increases. As the economy picked up and more revenue started flowing to business, those businesses shared the revenue with their employees. Mark Whitehouse of the Wall Street Journal looked at how businesses were dividing up the pie 18 months into every previous recovery since 1947 and found that 58 percent of their increases in productivity trickled down to their workers in increased wages.This time around, the numbers are starkly different. Productivity increased 5.2 percent from the recovery’s start in mid-2009 to the end of 2010, he found, but wages rose by a minuscule 0.3 percent. That means just 6 percent of productivity gains have gone to our newly more-productive workers.
Wisconsin Democrats Launch Recall Effort Against GOP Senators, The Huffington Post, March 2, 2011, by Sam Stein, used with permission, quoted verbatim:
WASHINGTON — The Wisconsin Democratic Party has launched a fundraising campaign to recall state Senate Republicans who have supported the budget bill by Gov. Scott Walker (R) that would strip collective bargaining rights from the state’s public employee unions.
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The email the party sent out on Wednesday afternoon is excerpted below:
In 60 days you can take Wisconsin back. It’s that simple.
This morning citizens from around the state took the first steps by filing recall papers against key Republican Senators who have stood with Scott Walker and pushed his partisan power grab that will strip thousands of middle class teachers, nurses, librarians and other workers of their right to collective bargaining. And we learned just last night that their disastrous budget that will cut millions from our schools and universities.
In 60 days you can take Wisconsin back by recalling the Republican Senators who have decided to push Scott Walker’s divisive attack on the rights of workers and his assault on schools, universities and local communities. Can you contribute $60 today to support the Democratic Party’s recall efforts?
Make no mistake, these Republican Senators are vulnerable to recall for their radical partisan overreach. Senator Randy Hopper won his last election by just 184 votes. And Alberta Darling won her last race by only 1,007. By recalling just three of the eight Senators we are targeting, we can regain control of the Senate.
But we need your help today. The clock is ticking and we have just 60 days to collect the signatures we need to force a recall. Every day and every dollar counts.
[snip]
If we can recall at least three Senators and regain control of the Senate, we can end the ugly games Republicans in the legislature have played in the last few days — unplugging phone lines, bolting windows inside the Capitol shut, and withholding the paychecks of Democratic legislators.
The state party’s formal involvement in a recall effort, an idea previously bandied about only by labor officials and activists, represents a new stage in the high-stakes battle between Walker and the state’s public unions.
Gerald McEntee, who heads the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, told The Huffington Post several weeks ago that his union would be launching a recall effort against Walker himself. But even beginning that attempt would take many months, as lawmakers cannot be booted from office until they have served for at least a year.
Though recall efforts are rarely successful, the threat of a recall can be a powerful incentive — Walker himself assumed the post of county executive after his predecessor stepped down over a recall threat. And while Wisconsin Democrats are likely to raise good money from the drive, Democratic lawmakers in the state also have been warned that if they return from their quorum break without the governor’s bill shelved, they too might face recall threats.
Email Sam Stein here.
Must See: Visit OneWisconsinNow.org.
See Wisconsin Capitol protests may end, but movement is just starting, Green Bay Press Gazette, February 27, 2011, by Ben Jones.
See Republicans May Skip White House Budget Meeting with Biden, Roll Call, March 2, 2011, by Jennifer Bendery.
See Wisconsin – I do not know where to begin…(Photo Diary), Daiy Kos, March 2, 2011, by Kodiak 54.
Recommended: See UPDATED: WI GOP State Sen Schultz Says Walker Move a “Classic Overreach” and GOP Colleagues Unsure, Daily Kos, March 2, 2011, by Jud Lounsbury.
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