Karl Rove's secretly-funded Crossroads GPS is spending $750,000 airing a terribly misleading ad attacking public-sector labor unions. With support declining for the GOP's anti-union stance, Rove's group is looking towards the 2012 elections and aiming to counteract that slide by unfairly demonizing unions.
MADISON--New political ads by corporate and CEO-funded groups have been flooding Wisconsin repeating misinformation from the controversial Walker administration about the budget and labor rights. The total sum spent is not yet known. Labor rights groups have responded to the crisis with some ads to make sure the people know that Walker and his corporate allies are refusing to negotiate and are determined to destroy labor rights. Here are some of these ads:
REP. KUCINICH FIRES UP MADISON WORKERS' RIGHTS RALLY
CMD REPORTS: P.O.W.E.R. WALKERS ARRIVE IN MADISON ON A SUNNY SUNDAY
A new report from CMD's Jennifer Page:
Walking over 84 miles from Milwaukee to Madison to make a point is no laughing matter. But no one would know that looking at the smiling, happy, albeit tired - looking, people who decided to make the journey to protest Governor Scott Walker's budget bill. "It's a great day for a walk," says one of the organizers of the P.O.W.E.R. Walkers event, Steve Whitlow, as the group gets ready to finish the last leg of their walk after stopping for lunch at a Williamson Street store that provided free food for everyone involved.
The Utah-based "American Patriot Recall Coalition" (APRC) registered recall committees online February 18 for eight of the 14 "AWOL" Wisconsin Democratic senators, leaving the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) -- and many Wisconsinites -- with raised eyebrows.
"Any group from anywhere can register a recall committee, however that group must have a local person who lives in the district of the officeholder who's being recalled," explained Wisconsin Government Accountability Board Public Information Officer Reid Magney.
In an extreme move to take away power of local governments, the Michigan Senate voted yesterday to allow the appointment of so-called emergency financial managers to take control of cities and school districts that the newly elected Republican governor in the state unilaterally declares to be "financial emergencies."
AFTER WISCONSIN LEGISLATURE VOTES TO STRIP WORKERS OF THEIR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS, THURSDAY EVENING RALLY MAPS NEXT STEPS IN "PEOPLE'S FIGHT"
7:30 p.m. -- Erica Pelzek reports:
Hundreds of saddened—and livid—protesters gathered at a stage on State and Mifflin Streets outside the Wisconsin State Capitol Thursday evening after the state Assembly passed the budget repair bill eliminating collective bargaining rights for many of the state's unionized workers.
MADISON--The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has filed a brief with the Wisconsin Supreme Court defending proposed disclosure rules passed in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, rules that are being challenged by the Koch-funded group, Americans for Prosperity. In the brief, CMD also questions whether rights granted by Wisconsin's Constitution can be legitimately extended to corporations.
For some, when the going gets tough, the tough gas up the custom-painted luxury motorcoach.
So it is with the Wisconsin branch of the Koch-backed group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), whose four-day, ten-city bus PR event across Wisconsin to support controversial Governor Scott Walker started in Kenosha March 3 and concluded in Madison on March 7 -- but not at the Capitol, where the bus would have been surrounded by the tens of thousands of people gathered to oppose Walker's union-crushing "budget repair" bill. Instead, AFP ended its tour at the Alliant Energy Center, where protesters against Walker's radical proposals who were outside in the cold easily outnumber the pro-Walker crowd in inside the rented space.
And so it went with AFP's "Stand with Walker" Wisconsin road show. At every stop, the AFP PR gambit was met by some supporters, but it was also greeted often by an equal or a substantially greater numbers of opponents. A little-watched YouTube video of AFP's stop at Serb Hall on March 3, 2011 shows a group of about a dozen Scott Walker supporters, and a sidewalk packed with what appears to be about several hundred demonstrators against the governor's extreme proposals.
CMD LIVE REPORT FROM THE WISCONSIN CAPITOL
11:00 p.m. - SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! - REPUBLICAN CONTINGENT OF WI STATE SENATE VOTE TO ELIMINATE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS
Erica Pelzek reporting:
The Democratic Party says it has 15 percent of the total statewide signatures needed to recall eight Republican legislators.
As recall efforts heat up and national and local news reports these efforts in Wisconsin could have historical implications, Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) Communications Director Graeme Zielinski warns there may be surprises for some "more moderate" Republicans.
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