They've already left The Clocktower: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archive…

Here's the proper link: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/…

I wonder if they're going to have their own Poll Tax Riots in WI.

I for one am wearing my Cheesehead in solidarity with the refugee Senators.

Today we are all Cheeseheads.

I'm Muenster.

It appears protests are starting in Ohio now too: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-17…

ah, but sarah palin is above the fold on nyt while this is not.

@4

Ich bin ein Cheesehead!

Ah Rockford. Home of 2nd generation, appalachian hillbillies, Cheap Trick and Crazy Pete Sjorberg.

Didn't we go through this a few years ago in Texas and the whole thing was declared horrendously illegal and a gross misuse of police power?

This is kidnapping. If the politicians aren't doing their job, there are mechanisms for removing them from office, but sending the cops to arrest them and drag them to work isn't one of them.

Tea Party people went to political rallies to protest and were called babies who had to "deal" with the fact that the purple lipped prince was in charge. But now, the actual politicians and their supporters who mocked the Tea Party for being immature douchebags, are the ones taking off in short busses to another state while the union teachers call in "sick"? Pathetic leftist vermin. And when you leave Wisconsin for the most corrupt state in our country that is on the verge of bankruptcy, a state that people are fleeing from, just how pathetic are you?

@10: Aw, poor baby :(

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Madison.

(Except for Rush Limbaugh, who has taken to referring to Madison as "Moscow West" - as though the hippies and college kids in Madison would be up to running the gulags.)

You mad?

@10, I like your mustache. But that's all I like.

Chocolate for the win!

I hope they can taste some excellent organic fair trade chocolate from the Fremont chocolate factory.

Not sure I've ever see a Slog poll with almost 250 responses and zero votes for one of the selections.....

Guess Mr. Mustache @10 did not vote.

@10 are you serious? I can't tell any more. I've seen so much seriously racist shit on the internet that my brain is broken.

If you are serious: I pity you.

"the cheese curtain'.

Ok, that was pretty funny Goldy.

While I see where the republicans are coming from, breaking collective bargaining agreements by legislation is a repugnant tactic that is doomed to fail in the long run.

I'm going to copy/past e from my facebook because I can:

The Senators in Wisconsin are just as bad as the U.S. Senators that filibustered *everything* over the last two years. I'm sorry - I support the workers, and think the bill they are trying to kill is terrible - but elections have consequences, even when I don't agree with them.

I do both. Join the protesting state workers and then get some nice chocolate.

@13: He mad.
@10: I dispute your fallacious assertion that people are fleeing my state.
I also should remind you that such a stalling tactic to prevent a bill from coming to a vote is ALMOST EXACTLY what Senate Republicans did ON NEARLY EVERY SINGLE ISSUE over the past two years. At least the cheeseheadgislators have a reason to take such extreme action; there are actually huge crowds protesting against the bill that would be voted on.
Take your self-righteous bitching and moaning and shove them up your ass.

@19 I know, right? Since the Democratic Wisconsin State Senators have left the state to stop action on every single bill proposed by the Republicans. Even procedural votes, at the drop of the hat off they go to Illionois *shakes head*.

Reserving drastic action for when it's actually called for is a sign of intelligence, not stubborn douchebaggery, michaelp.

I hate Walker's budget and support the protesters, but what the senate dems in WI are doing is a dickish move. They're basically taking a page from the republicans.

Not that I don't like seeing the republicans get a taste of their own medicine now and then, but in the end this isn't going to change anything or stop this bill from passing. What it will do is further widen the partisan divide. We need our elected leaders to GOVERN through COMPROMISE. That's not likely to be easy when one side pushes through unilateral bullshit budgets and the other side flees the state to stall the process by quitting.

@22 - I just don't agree with the tactic, ever. Those folks who are crowding the capitol building - where were they when Democrats were trying to get the vote out? How many of them didn't vote? How many voted for these Republicans?

Wisconsin voters knew they were getting a tea-baggin' right-wing nutjob for a governor, and voted in a few more to their Legislature. It sucks losing, but stopping the democratic process is no way to respond.

I know that I get pissed when the Republicans throw tantrums and hold up the process based on their party line whims, so I get the criticism of the Dems now that the roles are reversed. That said, the Republicans usually don't have tens of thousands of people banging down the capitol doors when they flip out, so that's something to consider.

One thing I don't agree with whatsoever is the attitude of "the election's over; shut up and take it." Last election, the voters of Wisconsin shit the bed. At least now they're trying to clean the sheets. This needs to happen more in America.

@24 Since many of those crowding the capitol building are in unions or in families with union members, assuming a significant # didn't vote Democrat, let alone vote at all, is pretty asinine. Union families vote.

But even in the hypothetical world where most of these protestors were completely apolitical until today, good on them! The best day to start caring about politics is today, no matter what day that is.

And lastly, massive public protests are the very essence of the democratic process, you fucking moron. This isn't stopping the democratic process, this is the democratic process.

@24 Ok, I realized I kinda mixed up the protests and the quorum-stopping actions taken by the Senators there, my bad. Sorry, this story gets me easily worked up (...deep breathes). My brother is one of those protesting union workers.

21, Chicago's population dropped about 7% the past decade and people are fleeing Illinois because of new taxes and the welfare state.

17, What did I say that was racist?

Cute new avatar, michaelp....

@27 - I wasn't implying that I believe a lot of them didn't turn out to vote, but one thing I have learned dabbling in Democratic and Labor GOTV efforts over the years is that many union members vote Republican. They are in no way a monolithic voting bloc (although I would agree that the vast majority vote, I just threw the non-voting ones in for good measure). At the same time, while some unions it's easy to get folks to work GOTV efforts, it's the exception, not the rule.

I really wish that folks who are pissed now would have been willing to do more beforehand. It's not like we didn't know what we were getting with the tea party, and this new brand of Republican.

Hopefully seeing what the GOP is doing now will remind folks that you can't sit out elections to punish one party, and not expect consequences.

Thanks, Canuck! Lili does make everything better :-)

The aquarium meeting is 15minutes on & there's no sound. The first minutes of video were of a still podium before the waterfronters crowd. Speakers being tested now, camera panning the ceiling aquarium and back to the podium, but still no sound. This is SeattleChannel camerawork, we're watching at an important meeting that appears to be now 20 minutes behind schedule, which makes me wonder who's running the show. .

The image projected behind the podium has near zero idea imagery. "Hey everybody, let's get together to see your ideas, but not ours." Early constructs are nice. Nice enough to project main portal "changes" with closeups, materials, examples. I hope they do. The camera and sound are on now. I suggest you watch it and note what ideas seem good until you look up close. I'm sure there'll be many. The dbt is a very poor match for the soil conditions and topography. The surfacetransit option fixes I-5, takes AWV down soonest, works on transit alot & does NOT rule out the better tunnel to build later or at the same time:
The Cut/cover.... In otherwords,

It is possible to rebuild the waterfront with 1/2 the amount of traffic attained with the bored tunnel - only with the cut/cover. Whatever waterfront gets built could have that much less traffic that this option makes possible.

@30 Purple lipped prince. You couldn't just say Obama like a normal adult.

OMG! The presentation after mayor Mike's speech is shit for the first 10 mins. If the whole thing is as bad as this guy, it's off to a bad start. This just doesn't look like cooperation to me. Putting the global trade guy on first was a mistake. good grief...

@37: it may pretend to merely be a high pitch dog whistle; but a despicable attempt at a dog whistle is just what it is...

and acting all coy about it serves no one well.

For two years, republibaggers bitch and whine that legislation is pushed through too quickly, people need to read it and understand it first.

Then republibagger Wisconsin gov. tries to ram through major legislation in less than a week. The democrats oppose, saying it's too fast, people haven't had time to read and understand it.

So, by the democrats leaving, this gives people a chance to really review the proposed bill before it's voted on. The republibaggers should embrace that, right? That was one of their major bitch-sessions in the last two years, right? Oh, I forgot, they're all lying shitheads.

Fuck you republican teabagger anti-american dicks.

I think everyone who is against the union rights should give up their own. No weekends, no overtime, endless workdays, no LNI, no K-12 education and zero worker rights in the courts then no lowered tuition for higher education.
Anti-Union sentiment has always been a red flag for me that the other person has zero information on the last 140 years of american history or the founding ideals of this country. We would be in the dirt like Russia if it wasn't for the Unions.

@30 "Purple lipped prince." Is a dog whistle of racism reminiscent of the "surveyor marks" on Palins map.

buses. usually.

Like the national elections in 2006, 2008, and 2010, the 2010 election in Wisconsin was about voter anger at the arrogance of the party in power. People voted the incumbents out, they were voting against something, not for something. The democrats both in Washington and Madison asserted they a mandate for change, they didn't. The voters made the change. The republicans in Madison are asserting that they have a manadate for radical change, they don't. Walker only received 52% of the vote winning by about 100,000 votes. More than a 1 miilion of the registered voters in Wisconsin did not vote. What happened in the state senate has also happenned in the assembly. The democrats walked out and neither body has a quorum and can not conduct any business. What has not been widely publicized is that two republican state senators have also walked out. I agree, elections do have consequences if people are voting for something, but not when they are voting against something. By all indications, Walker would have soundly defeated it
he had campaigned on a platform of radical change. Nothing can be done about the governor, senators, or members of the assembly who were elected last year until after one year in office. However, efforts to recall all of the republican state senators elected in 2008 have already begun. Control of the Wisconsin state senate should change by June of this year. So much for Walker's mandate for change. As with the president nationally, there is a lot of buyer's remorse towards Walker. The country is being given a demonstration of democracy in action.

As an aside, the tea party is coming to Madison today. Most of them appear to be coming in from out of state.

The unions havie been trying to talk to Walker since he was elected. He absolutely refused to talk to them or ask them for concessions. Up to this point his rubber stamp legislature has passed, almost in tact, everything he proposed including the transfer of powers from the legislature to the governor without amending the state's constitution and with almost no debate or public input. Like the democrats before them and who just got kicked out, the republicans were tried to do in the middle of the night something that should never have seen the light of day. It would have been like the democrats trying to pass health care "reform",the stimulus package, and everything done last December in a month's time. Given how the legislative process works in Wisconsin, everything that has been enacted or proposed so far was written long before Walker ever took office and probably before he was ever elected.

A large number of people jamming the capitol are students who were too young to vote or were too depressed/disinterested to vote. A major change from 2008 when young people were energized and came out in record numbers. This time many long time democrats were so angry/disgusted/depressed by the actions of the governor and democratiically controlled legisalture and by the democrats in Washington that they either didn't vote or voted against the democrats. In many respects, 2010 election was a referendum on Jim Doyle just the 2006 and 2008 elections were referendums on Dwubya.

The lession of all this is that angry people vote and there are a lot of angry people in Wisconsin right now.

I'm basically a moderate conservative and a public employee. (Yeah I know, oxymoronisms) I tried my damnedest to convince every liberal I knew or met to vote against Walker in the republican primary. The man is just not qualified or intelligent enough to be governor as he proved when he was Milwaukee county executive, which is much larger than Madison/Dane county and almost as liberal/democratic.