Support The Fighting 14 in Wisconsin

Here's the best summary video I've seen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG9I-oA_Er0

By the way, Pipe bands are a tradition of fire departments. Fire departments were originally formed about the time the people from Ireland were arriving in the US. These potato famine refuges were only able to obtain the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. When a fire fighter died, he was "piped home" by his fellow fire fighters.

Although police and firefighters were exempt from the governor’s attempt to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights, the police and fire fighters have stood with their fellow union colleagues all the way. I encourage everyone to help the people of Wisconsin any way you can.

Governor Walker’s bill included gifts to his major campaign contributors, the Koch brothers, with a provision that would allow the governor to sell off state-owned power plants in no-bid sales to whom ever the governor chose. This ‘budget repair’ bill would also give sole control over many educational and social support programs to the governor. It would privatize the University of Wisconsin, one of the premier public universities in the country. The list of give-aways in the bill increases as more people manage to actually read the entire thing. 

The only reason the bill passed the Wisconsin state house of Representatives was because the the Republicans prematurely, and illegally, stopped debate at 1 am when many of the democrats were not present. Voting was only open for 10 seconds. Republicans were seen to not only be pushing their own vote buttons but the vote buttons of others who were not present at the time. The only reason that Walker was not able to ram this bill through the Senate, is that 15 Wisconsin Democratic senators left the state. This allowed time for information about what was really in the 14 page budget repair bill to become more widely known. 

You can help the 14 filibustering with their feet Wisconsin Senators by contributing atwww.actblue.com

As of today, the 14 senators are being fined $100 per day for each day they do not return. However, the longer they can stay gone, it is likely that Republicans will stop supporting the bill. Already one Republican, I think it’s Senator Schultz, has broken rank. For Republicans, that’s a big thing.

Here’s a list of the Fighting 14:
Tim Carpenter
Spencer Coggs 
Tim Cullen 
Jon Erpenbach
...Dave Hansen 
Jim Holperin 
Robert Jauch 
Chris Larson
Julie Lassa
Mark Miller
Fred Risser
Lena Taylor
Kathleen Vinehout
Robert Wirch 
They each have a Facebook page. Please ‘like’ them if you would.

Also, Walker is keeping people out of the state capitol even though the capitol police have publically stated that the people are breaking no laws. The Wisconsin state constitution explicitly states that the capitol must be open at all times to the people who own the capitol—the citizens. A judge ruled Monday that Walker was violating the state constitution by keeping people out when the people were being orderly, not interfering with state business and not breaking any laws.

Walker twice tried to have the people in the state house arrested--on Friday, 2/25. When it became public that Walker was behind this move (he initially blamed it on the police who then denied that they were planning to arrest anyone because no one was breaking any laws). Anyway, after it became clear that he would try to have people arrested on Friday afternoon, off-duty police and fire fighters joined the protesters and told the governor that he would have to arrest them as well.

On Sunday, he tried to have the protesters removed again. At this point, no one, even a bunch of fire fighters in full gear, was allowed into the capitol building. The Capitol Police--the police just for the state capitol building and grounds--refused to obey his order!

Anyway, I hope you will post this information and pass it on to anyone you can.

Signed, 
Fighting Frances stuck in Washington state.