Wisconsin courts rule union law legal
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled today that the union law passed earlier this year is legal.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled today that the union law passed earlier this year is legal.
Wisconsin is preparing for new protests next week as the Legislature begins the process of approving the governor’s budget.
The Republicans here must stay the course, remembering always that they won the election handily and still represent the majority.
A whistle-blower from a Wisconsin research lab claims his accusations cost him his job.
After months of friction that culminated in his openly questioning the reproducibility of data published by his supervisor, a postdoc at the University of WisconsinβMadison’s zoology department was presented with three options. The department’s chairman said he could wait to be fired, resign voluntarily or accept a “gracious exit strategy” that would give him time to prepare a paper for publication, if he dropped his “scientific misconduct issues”.
When geneticist Aaron Taylor objected that the third option sounded like a “plea bargain” meant to discourage him from pressing his concerns about the lab’s data, the chairman, Jeffrey Hardin disagreed. But Hardin also said: “I think you’d have to decide which is more important to you.” He later added: “You have to decide whether you want to kind of engage in whistle-blowing.” [emphasis mine]
The investigation of doctors who issued fake sick notes to union protesters in Wisconsin goes forward.
After much fussing in the vote-counting process, the conservative judge has won in Wisconsin. This probably ends the debate over the union law passed last month, which will now become law.
More leftwing civility: Investigators look into additional threats allegedly emailed by Wisconsin teacher.
A 26-year-old woman has been charged for sending the email death threats in Wisconsin. More details here. It turns out she’s a teacher with a degree in early childhood education!
A quick summary of the legal situation in Wisconsin.
More leftwing civility: Wisconsin Republican legislators continue to face threats.
“Protesters have congregated at the homes of Republican legislators, surrounded their cars and jeered at them as they walk to work, Mr. Jefferson said,” the Journal reported.
Want to know why that judge in Wisconsin ruled against the anti-union legislation? Well, it wasn’t because she was interpreting the law: Her son is a union activist and her husband is a leftwing environmentalist.
More leftwing civility in Wisconsin: “Are you wearing a bulletproof vest?” Also this:
So you Tea Bags want to take away my hard earned blue ribbon bennies. Well guess what you scum sucking Tea Bags, I got your kids all day long in my classroom and with just a few slick questions I know who the little tea bags are! And you think you’ll have the last laugh HA-Ha-ha
A judge has blocked Wisconsin union law.
Isn’t it interesting how often laws that the left dislikes get thrown out by unelected judges?
Real civility from the left: “Burying the death threat story is a clear example of intellectual dishonesty and journalistic bias.” Read the whole thing.
The Wisconsin assemblyβs bold leap. Key quote:
It was these freshman legislators who stood on the assembly floor following Knilansβ speech that day, while their orange-T-shirt-clad Democratic colleagues shouted βSHAME! SHAME! SHAME!β in their faces. They could feel the ambient rumble of the thousands of pro-union protesters that stood mere feet outside the assembly chamber. Newly elected representative Michelle Litjens had earlier been the target of a threat from a Democratic assemblyman, who pointed at her and said, βYouβre f***ing dead.β
Knilans himself felt the intimidation. In his capitol office one day, he heard a group outside his door say, βWe know where you live.β Picketers showed up at his house. He said he didnβt personally feel threatened, but he was anxious about the safety of his wife and two small children at home. One day, his five-year-old son asked him, βDo they hate you, Dad?β
Yet they stood together, endured the insults, and passed the bill on to Walker, who signed it the next day.
Why public sector unions are losing – and can’t stop it if they tried. Key quote:
This is why the Wisconsin Democratic Senators were in the minority in the first place. There is no reason for ninety percent of the population to rally for benefits that accrue to only ten percent of the workforce when they themselves are cut out of those benefits. So Wisconsin Democrats found themselves a powerless minority, whose only recourse was to run and…hope that tomorrow a new world would dawn. Such hopes are foolishness. And the Wisconsin Republican Senators showed them exactly why that is so. [emphasis in original]
The new civility from the left: Death threats on Twitter against Scott Walker and the Republicans who support him.
More civility from the left:
Senate Republicans were harried by swarming crowds. βWe tried to get out of the building after the vote, because they were rushing the chamber, and we were escorted by security through a tunnel system to another building. But, after being tipped off by a Democrat, they mobbed the exit at that building, and were literally trying to break the windows of the cars we were in as we were driving away,β Republican senator Randy Hopper tells NRO. Such tactics, he sighs, were hardly unexpected. βI got a phone call yesterday saying that we should be executed. Iβve had messages saying that they want to beat me with a billy club.β
The new civility from the left: The Wisconsin Republicans who voted on limiting union collective bargaining have all received a detailed death threat.
We have all planned to assult you by arriving at your house and putting a nice little bullet in your head.
Read the whole thing. It is quite horrible.