Free Republic

The only significant information in a recent Drudge-linked story about James O’Keefe is that he receives death threats, including one involving gasoline, plastic tubes, and one of his orifices. Naturally, the author of this hit piece on O’Keefe, Mike Spies, exhibits no curiosity as to the status of the federal investigation about the “gass” bomb threat. Spies probably knows by now that when it comes to federal criminal investigations involving James O’Keefe, it’s a one-way street.

MADISON — Mary Bell calls herself an “unlikely advocate” — just a Wisconsin Rapids school teacher who heard the call. She speaks with an earnest edge to her voice, hoping to persuade Wisconsinites to the rightness of her cause. The image, of course, is contrived. She is a handsomely paid activist, who is years removed from the classroom. And she heads the state’s most powerful lobbying organization — the Wisconsin Education Association Council. But most Wisconsinites simply call it “the teacher’s union.” Long before Scott Walker came to the statehouse, Bell was a union firebrand. “This is a highly emotional,...

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett demanded Tuesday, May 16, that Gov. Scott Walker disclose any advice state election officials gave him about forming a defense fund linked to a secret probe of his associates. The Republican governor hasn't been charged in the investigation but Democrats insist he created the fund because he's a key figure in the probe. Barrett, a Democrat who will face Walker in a June 5 recall election, has demanded for weeks that Walker reveal exactly what's going on.

...One year after the Republican-controlled Legislature curtailed collective bargaining for most public-sector workers, thousands of pro-labor demonstrators converged Saturday on the Capitol in a "Reclaim Wisconsin March." They sang songs, listened to speeches and chanted, "This is what democracy looks like," an echo of the demonstrations that clogged the Capitol during the height of last year's protests ... Saturday's crowd wasn't as large as the throngs that showed up a year ago, but on a bright, sunny, springlike afternoon, enthusiasm was high during an event that amounted to a kickoff for an expected season of recall elections. "It's more of...

The parliament approved a painful set of austerity measures on Thursday, defying violent protests in central Athens and a general strike which shut down much of the country. The government won the parliamentary vote with 154 votes in favor and 144 against, despite the decision by one deputy in the ruling party to oppose one article in the package. The victory should ensure the European Union and International Monetary Fund release a vital 8 billion euro loan tranche which the government needs to keep paying its bills past November. The mix of deep pay and pension cuts, tax hikes and...

Five people were cited for trespassing after they refused to leave a local political party office during a protest believed to be tied to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Police were called Monday afternoon when 50 to 75 protesters filled the lobby of the Oakland County Republican Party offices on Woodward Avenue in Bloomfield Township. Five protesters who refused to leave after police arrived — Detroit residents Tyrann Chauncey, 39, Tinia Fleming, 22, Earraina Jones, 48, Jaylen Jordan, 18, and Darryl Alston, 54 — were arrested. Bloomfield Township Police Capt. Scott McCanham said all five were issued citations for trespassing,...

After some quiet time following last year’s departure of union bosses Andy Stern and Anna Burger, it appears the purple behemoth known as Service Employees International Union, has been quietly plotting its own Egyptian-style revolution. Given the ever-shrinking private-sector union membership ranks, as well as the realization that its political influence has shrunk as well, the SEIU’s plan is apparently to engage in a class-warfare based campaign. According to a Politico piece, SEIU’s plan (called “Fight for a Fair Economy”) and will reach outside the union movement in order to “mobilizing underpaid, underemployed and unemployed workers” and “channeling anger about...

Rising star Paul Ryan seems to have had a rough outing when talking to seniors in Milton Wisconsin today. The video, posted by liberal site ThinkProgress, shows an antsy group of seniors question Ryan about current levels of taxes on the rich. Specifically, he's asked why the rich can't pay more in taxes -- even if we do cut spending -- and at about 1:25 he said "we do tax the top," which is what prompts the chorus of boos. Two things we take away from this: cutting spending is going to be political hell and people like to see...

Favorable views of labor unions have plummeted since 2007, amid growing public skepticism about unions’ purpose and power. Currently, 41% say they have a favorable opinion of labor unions while about as many (42%) express an unfavorable opinion. In January 2007, a clear majority (58%) had a favorable view of unions while just 31% had an unfavorable impression. The latest nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Feb. 3-9 among 1,383 adults reached on cell phones and landlines, finds that favorable opinions of unions have fallen across demographic and partisan groups. Still, far...

President's side doing too little, too late to stop an increasingly violent and vocal surge of conservative opposition. With the opposition angry, growing, and getting ever-more extreme, with the polls tanking, with its own supporters disillusioned and confused, and with the Republicans smelling blood, President Barack Obama's administration appears to have abandoned hope of bipartisan compromise in health-care reform. “The Republican leadership has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama's health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day,” Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, told...

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