Posted on 03/08/2012 10:51:12 AM PST by Hunton Peck
Milwaukee--Lyle Balistreri wasn't scheduled to speak during Wednesday night's "Reclaim Wisconsin" rally at Serb Hall, but took the stage anyway to lash out against what he called the "ugly partisan politics" that led to the rejection of a mining permit bill.
He singled out the 16 senate democrats who voted no including Milwaukee State Senator Spencer Coggs who was also in attendance.
Balistreri represents more than 15-thousand construction trades workers in southeast Wisconsin, men and women who would have benefited from the mining reform bill.
"For the Senate Democrats to vote against this bill is a sign that they're not with us. They're certainly not job creators, and in fact they're job killers. And I'm sick and tired of the partisan politics in the State of Wisconsin. The working people in the state of are taking a beating. Democrats and Republicans are at each other's throats, and this sort of thing has to stop," said Balistreri.
State Senator Spencer Coggs told CBS 58 that Senate Republicans were unwilling to make compromises necessary to protect the environment.
State Senator Dale Schultz was the lone republican who side with democrats and voted no.
The company that was hoping to build that mine now says it's giving up all plans for Wisconsin.
“The state even got the badger nickname from mining . . .”
I’m a native of Wisconsin, and lived there a long time before learning of the Cornish miners that came to work the lead mines in southwestern corner of the state. At first they were very poor, and some took to living in caves in the limestone bluffs, to which some of the local folk responded by remarking that the miners were “living like badgers.” The “Badger State” tag has nothing to do with the number of those rodents in the state, which actually is very small.
Many loads of lead shot were shipped by river barges to equip Union soldiers.
Somewhere I read that badgers (literal ones, that is) aren’t even indigenous here.
Some of the anti-mining fools would no doubt prefer that we stop being cheeseheads, packers and brewers, too, and become exclusively tofuheads, sproutgrowers and mineralwaterers (no, wait; that last one won’t work, as they don’t even like mineral water, if its extraction might make someone some money).
The mining company walked. There won’t be any reason to bring it up.
It’s possible that if Republicans gain seats that they or even another mining company could come to Wisconsin. It would definitely take some encouraging, though.
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