5:16 p.m. - Brendan Fischer reports that the rally has a bigger showing than past days with international representation.

5:15 p.m. - KOCH LOBBYING OFFICE DRAWS PROTEST; BUILDING EMPLOYEES GAWK FROM WINDOWS

Erica Pelzek reports:

Cars, SUVs and buses whoosh down Madison's King Street Thursday afternoon, honking, windows rolled down, thumbs up in solidarity as neon-vested police officers direct traffic.

"Stay strong!" shouted a man out the driver's-side window of a State Employee Vanpool van. A Madison Metro bus driver drives by, honking and cheering.

In his attack on workers' right to bargain collectively, Scott Walker is diametrically opposing the legacy of former President Ronald Reagan -- the same conservative figure Walker idolized in his prank phone call with a blogger posing as "David Koch."

Reagan understood the importance of unions intimately. He served seven terms as president of a labor union -- the Screen Actors Guild -- during tumultuous years from 1947 to 1952, and again from 1959-1960. Under his tenure, the union became one of the first to require a loyalty oath from its members. As president of SAG, Reagan fought for and won many payment rights for actors during at the time when the popularity of big-screen movies waned due to the advent of television. Under Reagan's presidency, SAG members also won pension and health plans.

Connecticut residents who believe their state should be the first in the nation to set up a public health insurance option to compete with private insurers should brace themselves for what will be a beautifully packaged, seemingly well-researched study from the insurance industry to convince them otherwise.

America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a big Washington-based lobbying group, last week told Connecticut lawmakers (pdf) that -- surprise, surprise -- they would be making a very big mistake if they approved funding to get the public option, called SustiNet, up and running. AHIP said it had hired "a well-known consulting firm" to produce a study that would support the conclusions the industry had already reached about SustiNet. AHIP even had the audacity to claim that said study would be an "objective analysis."