It has been another interesting week in Wisconsin. The first two weeks at work you could cut a knife through the tension and stress from what was happening at the Capital. The tension is less this week because you just cannot keep living on the edge. Anyone who can retire before the extended contract ends, March 13, is just leaving. Since January 1, 29-31 people out of about 300 will retire from my section. Some of these people were planning on retiring this year but not this early. They wanted to leave with someone trained to take over their duties and not leave things unfinished but now they must leave to protect themselves. Possibly losing some of their retirement benefits by staying is just not worth it. Others believe the Governor will wait until July 1 and are willing to take the chance if I was in their shoes I leave now.
The Governor was limiting access to the Capital and until Thursday night when a judge ruled the protesters must leave the Capital at night but access was not to be restricted during the day. During the period of limited access some of the protester sent word out that the Republicans were letting in supporters through several underground tunnels. This limited access also included pass and current legislators. The government started jamming access to a web site the university teaching assistants were using to organize the protests. The government claimed that they needed to be sure that they were not using illegal or inappropriate web sites. Someone did comment that if they tried to log on to a porn site at the Capital that they would have no problem getting into it.
The Republican Senators passed Wednesday that any Senator who is not attending the session for more than 2 days will be fined $100 a day starting today. Other rules they passed are making Democratic Senators to appear on the floor to pick up their paycheck. One senator got around that rule by signing over power of attorney over to an aide so he/she could pick up the check. The leader of the senate now is required to sign all the Democratic Senators' Aides timesheets. Rumor is they are also denying the aides’ access to the Capital too. All the Democratic Senators offices coping machine rights have been pulled.
Monday, I attended a town meeting in my home town with our Senator, he made a statement and several other people against the budget repair were allowed to make statements. Then the public was given a chance to say their piece. The major were against the bill. There was one person who said she was for it but talked about how the protesters barred the legislators from the bathrooms and how the Republicans were respectful to the people who testified. Funny the local reporters did not report it that way nor did I hear that from the people who were at the Capital. I would have thought she would have stated why this bill would be good for Wisconsin instead of complaining about bathrooms.
Our dear Governor Walker delivered his 2011-2013 budget address on Tuesday. He is stripping education and destroying Wisconsin children future. I guess if you destroy the educational system it will make it easier to control the population with your propaganda. OH did I really mean this, YES! Reducing the educational funding means Wisconsin children will have a hard time finding jobs that will pay a living wage.
The best thing that is happening is 8 Republican Senators are being recalled. Five Democratic Senators are also being recalled. I am counting the days until January when we can file recall papers against Governor Walker but he still can do a lot damage to the state before this.
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