Tag: Wisconsin

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WI: Multi-Platinum Recording Artists Headline ‘Get Out the Vote’ Rally in Madison

Via press release: Grammy Award-winning guitarist Tom Morello of “Rage Against The Machine,” singer-songwriter Jackson Browne, Tim McIlrath of the punk rock band “Rise Against,” international touring hip-hop artist Brother Ali and Mike McColgan, the original lead singer of “Dropkick Murphys” and the lead singer of the “Street Dogs,” are all hitting the stage in Madison to turn out the vote in a Wisconsin recall election that looks too close to call.

The “Get Out The Vote’ Rally, sponsored by We Are Wisconsin, will provide a massive boost to canvassing efforts days before the recall election on June 5.

The event, which will be held at the Madison Labor Temple at 1602 S. Park St., is free to the public with a sign up to volunteer to help get out the vote. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.

“Gov. Scott Walker messed with Wisconsin workers and now it’s time to pay the piper,” said Morello. “I’m headed back to Madison with some friends to help yank that right-wing extremist out of office like a bad tooth. We are ready, willing and able to use our music to help rally the troops to do the hard work of knocking on doors and getting out the vote during the last critical hours of this recall election.”

Three different polls released in the past week have shown a dead heat with challenger Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett having clear momentum and a superior field operation. Both sides have consistently said the election will come down to whom has the better ground game and turns out its base.

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Wisconsin: Scott Walker’s number stagnate despite millions spent on recall

A new Marquette Law School poll finds that Scott Walker and his most likely recall opponent, Tom Barrett, are in a dead heat, with Barrett edging Walker by 47-46 among registered Wisconsin voters.

The really important finding here, however, is that Walker’s approval rating, and his head to head numbers with Barrett, have not changed in months — if anything, they’re going down. And this is in spite of the fact that Walker and his allies have vastly outspent rivals in TV ads.

Charles Franklin, a political scientist and expert in Wisconsin politics who directs the Marquette poll, sends over some numbers.

In January, Walker’s job approval was 51 percent; in March, it was 50 percent; and this month, it’s 47 percent.

Recent poll numbers:

January: Walker leads Barrett 50-44
March: Walker leads Barrett 47-45
Now: Walker trails Barrett 46-47

“There’s been a great deal of advertising in the state, especially from the Walker campaign and Republican supporters, and we’ve seen virtually no movement in the Walker numbers,” says Franklin.

Read more at the Washington Post.

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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recall petitions to be submitted Tuesday

Supporters of a push to oust Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker from office are prepared to declare victory in their effort to force the Republican into a recall election. However, a large issue stills remains undecided: who will run against him?

Recall organizers say they have gathered far more than the 540,208 signatures required to force the election against both Walker and GOP Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, and will submit their petitions Tuesday.

Democrats and union leaders insist they’re not concerned about not having someone actively running against Walker and trying to match his fundraising. In fact, they say it was part of their strategy.

“It forced Walker and his minions to run on their record and issues rather than to run against an announced Democratic candidate,” said Marty Beil, president of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, the largest union of state workers. “That was part of the rationale through the whole recall petition collection process.”

Democrats and union leaders said they also never anticipated competing with Walker on fundraising. Beil said the key for recall supporters will be to maintain the enthusiasm that fueled recall signature collection for the past two months.
(source)

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With over 500K signatures collected Gov. Walker recall looks inevitable

A recall of controversial Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker now appear inevitable. In just 28 days, activists collected 507,533 signatures. Organizers have until January 17 to collect 540,208 signatures, which is equal to 25% of the state’s 2010 general election turnout.

To be safe, recall advocates have set a new goal of 720,277 signatures by the deadline.
(source)

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Campaign to recall Gov. Walker has begun: Occupy Walker

On Monday November 14, One Wisconsin Now launched #OccupyWalker — an online movement to publicize the disastrous policies of the pro-corporate, anti-middle class Scott Walker administration.

#OccupyWalker will flood social networks with the truth about every aspect of Scott Walker’s disastrous agenda, with the scores of facts uncovered by the One Wisconsin Now reseach team and the individual stories of working Wisconsin families personally harmed by Walker’s anti-middle class schemes.

It’s been over two years since Scott Walker stepped into the spotlight and started laying out his Koch-funded, pro-corporate agenda. The list of Walker’s failures seems endliess: from his early failure to report information on $500,000 worth of his top campaign contributors, to spending 20 minutes on the phone with who he thought was billionaire David Koch talking about stripping away the rights of 175,000 Wisconsin workers, to his most recent decision to cut 65,000 of our state’s most vulnerable residents – including 29,000 children — off health care.

For more info, go to OneWisconsinNow.org

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Wisconsin Gov. Walker booed at opening of State Fair

 

Today, Wisconsin voters will head to the polls for the special recall elections of six Republican state senators who supported Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) anti-union bill that stripped public workers of collective bargaining rights.

While Walker can tread the recall backlash until January of 2012, Wisconsinites are forcing him to face the music now.

Last week, Wisconsin kicked off its 10-day state fair. It’s traditional for the governor to herald the fair’s opening day. But when Walker took the stage Thursday, he was met with a hail of boos and protests signs. “This is the one place where all across the state where people can actually come together,” he tried to shout over the crowd. “At least most people can.” As he walked off stage, the crowd chanted “Recall Walker.”

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Wisconsin Domestic Partnerships upheld

A judge in Wisconsin ruled yesterday that domestic partnerships are not substantially similar to marriages, thus meaning the partnerships do not violate the state’s 2006 constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Judge Daniel Moeser made it clear that domestic partnerships don’t come close:
The state does not recognize domestic partnership in a way that even remotely resembles how the state recognizes marriage. Moreover, domestic partners have far fewer legal rights, duties, and liabilities in comparison to the legal rights, duties, and liabilities of spouses.

Wisconsin’s domestic partnerships allow same-sex couples to visit each other in hospitals, make end-of-life decisions, and inherit each other’s property. The partnerships do not guarantee any ability to share benefits, and same-sex couples still don’t have the right to adopt.

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Wisconsin Anti-Union Law Struck Down By County Circuit Judge

Gov. Walker

From Huffpost Politics: A Wisconsin judge has struck down a law taking away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most state workers.

Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi ruled Thursday that Republican legislators violated Wisconsin’s open meetings law during the run up to passage. She says that renders the law void.

The law pushed by Gov. Scott Walker takes away all bargaining rights except over base salary for teachers and other public workers.

The decision is not the end of the legal fight. The state Supreme Court has scheduled arguments for June 6 to determine whether it will take the same case.

Lawmakers could also pass the law again in order to nullify open meeting concerns that led to the judge’s ruling Thursday.

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Wisconsin Gov. says domestic partnership law unconstitutional

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has decided to stop defending a new domestic partnership registry law that gives same-sex couples a handful of the rights granted to married couples, but that Walker and others believe violates the state constitution.

The Journal Sentinel reports on the motion from Walker against the law, which Democrats adopted in 2009 when they controlled the legislature. Opponents have challenged the law in Dane County circuit court as a violation of the state constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2006 that bans same-sex marriages and, they argue, any substantially similar arrangement.

When Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen refused to defend the domestic partnership registries, former Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat replaced by Walker in January, hired an attorney to defend the state.

“Governor Walker, in deference to the legal opinion of the attorney general that the domestic partner registry…is unconstitutional, does not believe the public interest requires a continued defense of this law,” says the brief.

The state supreme court refused to hear a lawsuit filed against the registries in 2009, which led opponents to the district court.

According to the Journal Sentinel, “Even if Walker is allowed to withdraw from the case, the law would still be defended in court because gay rights group Fair Wisconsin intervened in the case last year.”

Around 1,500 same-sex couples have signed up for the registries that, according to the Journal Sentinel, “allow same-sex couples to take family and medical leave to care for a seriously ill partner, make end-of-life decisions and have hospital visitation rights. But according to Fair Wisconsin, they still confer only about a quarter of the rights associated with marriage, lacking provisions to allow couples to file joint tax returns or adopt children together.”

This governor continues to make anti-social, mean spirited decisions that can only be viewed as pandering to a far-right crowd. Just sad. He fights to take away labor rights and now he fights to take away a handful of rights for the LGBT community.

Just sad.

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Fox News uses fake video to show “violence” in Wisconsin

TalkingPointsMemo points out that Fox News is using clips from a violent rally in Sacramento California when talking about the Wisconsin Union Protest. Just another blip in the long line of ethical violations Fox has to its name. Watch the video above.

Notice the B-roll footage in the background at the 1:42 point in the clip, complete with the calming backdrop of palm trees and… wait, there are palm trees in Madison, Wisconsin?

No there are not. But that’s because the footage comes from a solidarity protest in Sacramento, CA. Conservatives thought they’d found the clip that could undermine the entire pro-union movement.

Surprisingly, Fox did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fair and balanced kids, fair and balanced.