If recent Wisconsin politics is not your cup-of-tea, (or tea party), please disregard the following off-topic public service announcement: As they say: "Move along. nothing to see here...."
<LEGAL MANEUVERING BEGINS> A recent right-wing conservative republican lead "Shock and Awe" agenda aimed at trying to destroy public unions democratic right to bargain collectively has pretty much been completed at this point. I suspect conservative groups feel they have won the battle, that they have successfully destroyed collective bargaining. I suspect they are also hoping everyone will now just settle back and accept the new status quo with no more questions asked. However, there is a wrinkle to the plan. The "Budget Repair Bill", which now includes the highly contentious removal of collective bargaining is supposed to be officially implemented no later than March 25, with the official publication of the measure. After the measure had been voted on and passed Governor Walker quickly signed it. He then requested that the measure he had just signed be published as soon as possible - meaning immediately. That would cause the measure to take effect immediately - today. Curiously, that hasn't happened. The last official date when the measure must be published is still being scrupulously observed, that being March 25. In the meantime, an insurgency of legal maneuvers has now begun to surface, such as: Thursday, March 17, "DA files open meetings complaint over budget session" http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_19b9492e-50 0b-11e0-911b-001cc4c03286.html http://tinyurl.com/62a7mxt Friday, March 18, a judge ruled: "Judge blocks contentious Wisconsin union law" http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-03-18-wisconsin-union_N.htm http://tinyurl.com/5roh82p These articles do a pretty good job of describing the technical problems pertaining to the republican's parliamentary maneuver as perceived in the eyes of many. Republicans relied a debatable parliamentary maneuver to split out the not-agreed-to non-fiscal collective bargaining portions from Walker's "Budget Repair Bill". (Weeks ago public unions had already agreed to all the fiscal concessions demanded from the governor.) Nevertheless, relying on this obscure parliamentary maneuver, the republicans then convened a hastily arranged meeting with little notice in order to specifically vote out collective bargaining. Such an "emergency" meeting, it was alleged, didn't require the presence of the 14 AWOL democratic senators in order to constitute a legally binding vote. Legally, if such a meeting is declared an "emergency" it can be convened which just two hours notice - IF it's an emergency. WHO determines if the meeting was an emergency? It's debatable. Regardless of whether the meeting was an emergency or not, that observance was not technically followed. The "emergency" meeting was convened in just one hour, forty minutes notice. Typically a meeting of this sort necessitates a full 24 hours notice. In other words, emergency or not the letter of the law was flagrantly disregarded. In less than two hours notice the right to bargain collectively was "voted" out of existence along with all of the fiscal concessions for which the unions had already agreed to. Within hours after this hastily arranged parliamentary maneuver had been completed I witnessed one of the most hastily assembled counter protest demonstrations that I can think of, as twitter and Facebook accounts spread the news across Wisconsin like wildfire. Twitter and Facebook were largely responsible for alerting many who were deeply concerned about what had been going down in their state over the past month. Those who were alerted responded by rushing as fast as they could to the capital in order to express their outrage. I saw people literally running up State Street to get to the capita. The following You Tube video I shot on the evening of March 9 documents some of those masses as they quickly assembled around the capital building. Eventually thousands were allowed to enter the capital. This was one of the most dramatic moments of active democracy I've ever experienced in my life. I was fortunate to have been in the right place and right time to document portions of the spontaneous event as it developed. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJBbdVJ9G0U The DA filing followed by the Judge's temporary ruling might actually have a chance of stopping efforts to remove collective bargaining from being implemented - at least for a while longer. The ultimate aim is to get some kind of democratic debate started pertaining to the wisdom of removing collective bargaining. The point being: removing collective bargaining does nothing to help solve Wisconsin's financial crisis. IMO, it has far more to do with Wisconsin's gubernatorial branch consolidating an overreach of its power base. As the old saying goes: absolute power corrupts absolutely. </ LEGAL MANEUVERING BEGINS> We now return you back to Rossi & Focardi, Japan's recovery, and other Vort news. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
