Just A Reminder

In this harsh economic climate there is little talk about the real fiscal problem.

Wisconsin Where?

Dave Weigel is doing an outstanding job not forgetting The Wisconsin Workers.

Wisconsin Capitol Occupation Ends With Fishy Damage Figures

Posted Friday, March 04, 2011 11:11 AM | By David Weigel

The two week sleep-in at the Wisconsin state capitol is over; protesters will no longer crash in the building. The decision comes after a court battle (a polite, short one) over whether it was legal for the state to limit access to the building, and the state's case was that protesters were doing damage.

[S]tate officials said that damage from the demonstration to the marble inside and outside the Capitol would cost an estimated $7.5 million: $6 million for damage inside, $1 million for damage outside and $500,000 for additional expenses.

How do they estimate this?

But the state provided no explanation for their figures or the kind of evidence that one expert said they would need for such a figure.
Officials said in court that the damage came from tape used for posting fliers and papers and other materials.
But DOA spokesman Carla Vigue said she could not immediately provide any detail about how state officials arrived at such a figure.

I've got my own call in on this. There's no precedent for the occupation of the Capitol, nothing to compare this number to, but protesters were very conscious to limit damage to the building. The conservative MacIver Institute reported that the door to the Supreme Court had been damaged, but I did not hear about or see any physical damage to the building. After the first day, according to student organizer Tom Bird, only blue electrical tape was used to put up signs -- this tape left no noticeable impression on wood or marble. There was a little vandalism of toilet paper dispensers in bathrooms, but by the time I got to the state the doors to every bathroom had signs on them asking people not to "tag" anything.
The only times I looked at the Capitol and said "wow, this is going to need cleaning" were when I saw carpet in the rooms being used for strategy and protest-staging, like the third floor room occupied by teaching assistants. There wasn't filth; there was just some of the liquid spatter and food crumbs you'd expect after two weeks of people living in these rooms. But will it cost $6 million to scrub the building's carpets and floors? It's worth checking back in a few months to see if this $7.5 million estimate actually panned out; also worth checking how much it usually costs to clean the building.

Thanks to Dave Weigel.

Once In A While, just once in a while...

I read Ezra Klein. He is not a flaming left wing commie. He is, generally a very sensible person. He is kind enough to explain to George Will the economic theory of choices.

When Freedom Rings...Hollow

Our present SCOTUS has legitimized the Westboro/Phelps carnival barkers, etching this little gem in the stone of American jurisprudence:

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the court. Justice Samuel Alito dissented.

"What Westboro said, in the whole context of how and where it chose to say it, is entitled to 'special protection' under the First Amendment," Roberts wrote, "and that protection cannot be overcome by a jury finding that the picketing was outrageous."

Outrageous? Driving drunk is outrageous. What Westboro does is terrorism. SCOTUS should be able to differentiate.

I suppose future historians will understand that you just had to be here.

Now What?

Thanks to Pavlovian Obeisance.

Scott Walker and The Fetal Position

Our National Introduction to Scott Walker has been less than inspiring. He is a college drop out with a deep dislike for his "inferiors", ain't that a hoot? A Union busting "good ole boy"*, he has the key to the koch outhouse.

*  Steve Fitzgerald, the father of the top two Republican lawmakers in state government, will lead the Wisconsin State Patrol, Gov. Scott Walker's administration announced Tuesday.

An in depth understanding of Scott Walker (oxymoronic, I know) is emerging. I turns out he is just as dedicated to dis-empowering women as he is unions:

From Andy Kroll at Mother Jones:

Walker's nearly nine-year record in the Wisconsin Assembly, the legislature's lower house, reads like a pro-life handbook, an all-out assault on abortion rights. What's more, the many anti-abortion initiatives he backed are perfectly in sync with the assault on reproductive rights now unfolding on the national level, where House Republicans recently gutted funding for Planned Parenthood and controversially tried to redefine "rape" to limit the long-standing exceptions to the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save a mother's life.

This Is The Real Thing

Madison, Wisconsin...Anytown USA

Have we forgotten who stole all the money? It wasn't the cheese-heads. It wasn't Mexicans or poor people or sick people or elderly people. It wasn't unions or carpenters or doctors or gay people. It wasn't me. It probably wasn't you.

Yup. Hims.