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[Realmfighter]

For (Eight?) I thought that he was saying Agr, a shortening of Agriculture day at the Capital.

[Vactor]

For (Eight?) I thought that he was saying Agr, a shortening of Agriculture day at the Capital.

yeah he's saying Ag day, in reference to the lobby days that are held:  http://www.wisconsinagconnection.com/story-state.php?Id=284&yr=2011

[jester]

Farming folk the world over: Fighting the goddam man since the year .

[Aqizzar]

As pretty much anyone could have expected - a Wisconsin state circuit judge has placed a stay on the implementation of the union/budget bill, pending further hearing and trial, in light of reasonably substantial complaint that the bill's passage violated open-disclosure laws.  The issue is definitely still alive and still moving.

Meanwhile, after Governor Scott Walker released some emails to make his case that he had huge public support on his side, this somehow triggered a real legal argument that allowed the Associated Press to sue for release of his official emails, probably under freedom of information laws.  It's still pretty up in the air, but the 8000 or so emails released, on the whole, don't exactly speak in his favor to put it politely, and may even wind up building an Ethics case against him in conjunction with the fake-Koch phonecall.  I'll try to find a proper link once the story shakes out a bit.

[Aqizzar]

I think our old pal Vactor may have been crushed under the mob.  I wonder whatever happened to him.  Yo Vac, hope to hear how things are going.

I can ask that, because the public-worker-union business isn't over yet.  As you'll notice from my nine-day-old post, a Wisconsin state-capitol judge placed a stay on the "Budget Repair" bill's implementation as a law.  Governor Walker wanted it to be a law anyway, but the guy who actually publishes laws to be laws, the Secretary of State (Democrat) Doug LaFollette refused to publish it, because y'know judge's stay on the bill and all.  So Walker went to the "Legislative Reference Bureau" and made them officially publish the bill, and supposedly the governor's office is already sending out notices of pay cuts.  The LRB meanwhile insists they only published the bill because they didn't think they had the authority for that to mark it as standing law.

So you have the courts, the responsible government publishing bureau, and the Secretary of State all saying a kinda-sorta published bill isn't really a law yet, and the Governor who has the power to order things to be enforced says it is a law.  All political concepts and arguments aside, this is not how you run a government.  There should not be this kind of dire confusion over whether a bill is actually and can actually be implemented, with the Chief Executive at odds with his own offices and the Judiciary.

Meanwhile, semi-private agencies like state university faculties are lining up to unionize.  And the state's own budget-analysis offices report that the upcoming Wisconsin budget, passed under the shadow of the Governor insisting the state is too broke to follow the legal legislative process, will actually increase spending by about 1%, while still managing to slash most actual department budgets, with most of the savings being creamed off to private-public partnerships.

[Burnt Pies]

Good to see someone's keeping the old tradition of hideous corruption alive and kicking.

[Urist Imiknorris]

At this point, Wisconsin seems to have become a hideous... I'm not really sure how to describe it. Let's just go get Vactor's broken and mangled corpse and then quarantine the state.

[darkrider2]

A hideous example of how not to make a bill law.

In before bill is taken away, and layoffs/paycuts happening now are not accounted for because, "well technically it was never a bill, so you can't account for something that was never a legal force" blaming dems for removing the bill and defending his own actions in the way I can only expect such a character to do.

PS: above is speculation on a specific situation with several variables. I know it is unlikely to happen at all, but i still want to be in before it does. 

[Vactor]

I'm still alive, but have been trying my best to divorce myself of dealing with this stuff when i'm not at work.  One quick correction to Aqizzar's post, the upcoming budget has yet to be passed.  The bill that was passed was simply a budget repair bill for the previous budget.

Right now we're getting ready to take the upcoming, and in all likelihood more controversial, 2011-2013 budget around the state for public hearings before the joint finance committee.  I've been applying for other jobs, but it seems unlikely I'll land one before we dive back into the middle of the fray.

Its a rather terrible type of dread that i've got for this, as there is nothing I can do to resolve the upcoming situation, it just keeps looming closer and closer.  Tommorow and Wednesday we will be working the departmental briefings, and at the end of the week we'll be holding our first hearing on it.

[Aklyon]

I'm still alive

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Bauglir]

-snip-

[Kogut]

<post to watch>

In general, I rather dislike unions but style and methods of implementing this law is sick. And democrats are still hiding somewhere?

[Vactor]

<post to watch>

In general, I rather dislike unions but style and methods of implementing this law is sick. And democrats are still hiding somewhere?

The Democrats have been back for a few weeks now, once the bill was voted on in the Senate they came back.

[thobal]

Doesn't the democrats return run the risk that the law will be passed in a proper form now that they've returned?

[Nikov]

On a similar note...

Something tells me the Democrats will be suffering a real hangover come next election day.