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JSOnline:
Senate advances collective bargaining changes; Democrats to return after Assembly action — Republicans advance bill curbing most collective bargaining; Maneuver ignites furious protests — By Patrick Marley and Lee Bergquist of the Journal Sentinel — Madison — With Democrats still in Illinois …
Discussion:
Reuters, Right Turn, Hot Air, NPR Topics, Outside the Beltway, WISC-TV, The Hill, New York Magazine, Right Wing News, TBogg, The Plum Line, Power Line, Examiner, RedState, Michelle Malkin, Taylor Marsh, Cubachi, Balloon Juice, Tennessee Guerilla Women, Sister Toldjah, Pundit & Pundette, The Daily Caller and Patterico's Pontifications
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Ezra Klein:
What happened in Wisconsin tonight — Here's what just happened in Wisconsin: The rules of the state's Senate require a quorum for any measures that spend money. That's how the absence of the Senate's Democrats could stymie Gov. Scott Walker's proposed budget law — it spent money, and thus it needed a quorum.
Scott Walker / Wall Street Journal:
Why I'm Fighting in Wisconsin — We can avoid mass teacher layoffs and reward our best performers. But we have to act now. — In 2010, Megan Sampson was named an Outstanding First Year Teacher in Wisconsin. A week later, she got a layoff notice from the Milwaukee Public Schools.
Discussion:
The Politico, Betsy's Page, Bloomberg and FrumForum
David Dayen / Firedoglake:
Anti-Public Employee Bill Passes Senate in Wisconsin; Only the Beginning of the Fight — Wisconsin's Capitol dome in Madison (photo: WxMom) — If you've been following along in my last post, you know the news: the Wisconsin State Senate rushed through and passed a bill …
Discussion:
Ezra Klein, Washington Post, naked capitalism, Rortybomb, National Review, Angry Bear, The Moderate Voice and Bloomberg
John McCormack / Weekly Standard:
Breaking: Without Democrats Present, Wisconsin Senate Voting on Largely-Intact Budget Repair Bill — Update 7:33 p.m.: As I was writing this up, the state senate voted 18-1 to pass the bill described below. — Update 7:38 p.m.: Wisconsin senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald confirms …
Discussion:
Weigel, National Review, Mediaite and Pajamas Media
Scott Bauer / Associated Press:
Wis. GOP bypasses Dems, cuts collective bargaining — MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Senate succeeded in voting Wednesday to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from public workers, after Republicans outmaneuvered the chamber's missing Democrats and approved an explosive proposal …
Discussion:
The Gateway Pundit, Scared Monkeys, JSOnline, JammieWearingFool, Althouse and Pajamas Media
Monica Davey / New York Times:
Wisconsin Senate Limits Bargaining by Public Workers — CHICAGO — The bitter political standoff in Wisconsin over Gov. Scott Walker's bid to sharply curtail collective bargaining for public-sector workers ended abruptly Wednesday night as Republican colleagues in the State Senate successfully maneuvered …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, FiveThirtyEight, JSOnline, FrumForum and The Page
Lee Fang / ThinkProgress:
WI Senate GOP Leader Admits On-Air That His Goal Is To Defund Labor Unions, Hurt Obama's Reelection Chances — A prank call from a man purporting to be petrochemical billionaire David Koch to Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) a few weeks ago revealed that Walker had crafted his “budget repair” bill in a bid to crush the labor unions.
Discussion:
TPMDC, Examiner, Daily Kos, The New Republic, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The Mahablog and Hullabaloo
msnbc.com:
GOP rams anti-union bill through Wis. Senate — Barca shouted that the meeting was a violation of the state's open meetings law. “The jig is now up,” Barca said. “The fraud on the people of Wisconsin is now clear.” — However the Senate's chief clerk said hours later the meeting was properly held.
Michael A. Fletcher / Washington Post:
Republican Wisconsin senators bypass Democrats in vote on collective bargaining — Senate Republicans abruptly passed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's plan to sharply curtail collective-bargaining rights for public employees Wednesday night, using a legislative maneuver to approve …
Discussion:
The Fix and The Politico
Ed Lavandera / CNN:
Wisconsin Senate passes union limits despite Democratic walkout
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars, Mish's Global Economic … and Pharyngula
Christian Schneider / National Review:
How the Wisconsin Senate Passed Walker's Bill
Discussion:
Moe Lane
David Kurtz / Talking Points Memo:
Just Like That — In a brief meeting that lasted barely five minutes …
Discussion:
TPMDC and First Draft
Eric Kleefeld / TPMDC:
Wis. State Senate Passes Anti-Union Bill, In End-Run Around Dem Boycott
Discussion:
Daily Kos and Balloon Juice
Ann Althouse / Althouse:
Protesters are locking the Capitol doors shut from the inside using metal handcuffs, Meade reports from the scene. — He told me that just now, by phone. He got out, and is warning others not to go in. Obviously, it's a terrible fire hazard to make it so people cannot get out of the building easily.
Discussion:
NewsBusters.org, Pajamas Media, The Gateway Pundit, Instapundit and Weasel Zippers
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Ann Althouse / Althouse:
Chaos at the Wisconsin Capitol tonight.
Discussion:
“Badger 14” and The Jawa Report
BBC:
Gaddafi forces beat up BBC team — Goktay Koraltan and Feras Killani said other detainees had been badly beaten — Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi's security forces detained and beat up a BBC news team who were trying to reach the strife-torn western city of Zawiya.
Discussion:
New York Times, AOL News, Prairie Weather, War in Context, msnbc.com and FrumForum
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Byron York / Washington Examiner:
GOP: Full speed ahead on defunding NPR — TAGS: - Corporation for Public Broadcasting - House Republicans - National Public Radio - npr - vivian schiller — Chief Political Correspondent Follow Him @ByronYork — After the release of the James O'Keefe sting video Tuesday …
Discussion:
FrumForum
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James C. McKinley Jr / New York Times:
Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town — CLEVELAND, Tex. — The police investigation began shortly after Thanksgiving, when an elementary school student alerted a teacher to a lurid cellphone video that included one of her classmates. — The video led the police to an abandoned trailer …
Discussion:
New York Magazine, Shakesville, DISSENTING JUSTICE, Feministing, ECHIDNE of the snakes, Feministe and AOL News, more at Mediagazer »
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Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Spending plan vote backfires as Democrats suffer defections — Senate Democrats suffered a wave of defections Wednesday as their proposal to cut just over $6 billion from federal spending this year went down to defeat. — The Democratic bill attracted two fewer votes than the rival GOP measure …
Discussion:
The Hill
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Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Senate rejects dueling spending plans, leaves legislative stalemate
Discussion:
Cubachi, Washington Monthly, Liberty Pundits Blog and FrumForum
Richard Pérez-Peña / New York Times:
Christie's Talk Is Blunt, but Not Always Straight — New Jersey's public-sector unions routinely pressure the State Legislature to give them what they fail to win in contract talks. Most government workers pay nothing for health insurance. Concessions by school employees would have prevented any cuts in school programs last year.
Discussion:
Don Surber, PoliPundit.com, New York Magazine and Prairie Weather
Adam Bernstein / Washington Post:
David Broder dies; Pulitzer-winning Washington Post political columnist — David S. Broder, 81, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post and one of the most respected writers on national politics for four decades, died Wednesday at Capital Hospice in Arlington of complications from diabetes.
Discussion:
The Fix, The Atlantic Online, Taylor Marsh, Hendrik Hertzberg, Tuned In, Politics Daily, Pajamas Media, Ezra Klein, New York Times, The Caucus, Ben Smith's Blog, Achenblog, The Moderate Voice, MarkDaniels.Blogspot.com, Boston Globe, msnbc.com, The Enterprise Blog, Capitol Alert, AOL News, Firedoglake, FrumForum, Gawker, Mediaite, Outside the Beltway, Balloon Juice, FishbowlDC, The Page, NPR Topics, Washington Monthly and AmSpecBlog, more at Mediagazer »
Expressen:
Interrogator in the Assange case friend with woman accusing Wikileaks founder — The police interrogator in the Julian Assange-investigation is a friend of one of the two women who is accusing the Wikileaks founder och sexual assault, Expressen can now reveal.
Discussion:
Guardian, Blogcritics and The Wire
Linda Greenhouse / Opinionator:
Justice Scalia Objects — One rough measure of how any Supreme Court term is going is to track the decibel level of Justice Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinions. In a case last week, the question was whether statements made to the police by a shooting victim as he lay bleeding to death …
Discussion:
Mirror of Justice and The Volokh Conspiracy
Simon Maloy / Media Matters for America:
Look At NPR's Coverage; Don't Privilege The Serial Liar — It seems that James O'Keefe won't be ignored. — The many-times discredited activist is back with yet another “sting” video, this one of NPR executive Ron Schiller speaking with what he believes to be perspective donors …
Discussion:
Riehl World View, Big Government, Firedoglake, Pajamas Media, Guardian and Media Decoder, more at Mediagazer »
Jennifer Epstein / The Politico:
As hearings begin, Peter King reveals threat against him — ‘If we know a threat is there ... how can we not investigate it?’ King said Thursday. AP Photo — Ahead of his controversial hearing Thursday on the “radicalization” of American Muslims, Rep. Peter King is revealing …
Discussion:
CNN
JSOnline:
The quiet after the Capitol storm — Madison - After a wild and raucous night at the State Capitol, the scene inside the building Thursday morning looks just like it was a few weeks ago when protesters camped out overnight. — At 6:30 a.m., there were dozens of people who stayed the night …
Discussion:
Hot Air and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion
Scott Wilson / Washington Post:
On Libya, Obama willing to let allies take the lead — President Obama is content to let other nations publicly lead the search for solutions to the Libyan conflict, his advisers say, a stance that reflects the more humble tone he has sought to bring to U.S. foreign policy but one that also opens …
Discussion:
Pajamas Media, Booman Tribune and FrumForum
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