I took this video yesterday — Saturday, February 26th — at the Wisconsin Capitol building. Meade wanted to go back to see if the protesters had followed through on their promise to remove their things from the Veterans Memorial. The signs that had been taped to the back of the monument were gone, but there was still a lot of junk piled up against it.
The police we encounter didn't want to consult with us on camera, though I do get a clear "no" when I ask if it is against the law to photograph the police. Off camera, they are extremely articulate and professional explaining why the police are allowing the protest and occupation of the Capitol to go on the way it has.
A woman who does not have a Wisconsin accent noses in to tell me I'm "rude" to take pictures.
I say: "Let me ask you a question about 'rudeness.' This is a Veterans Memorial, for people who died in the war. These are all things..."
The rudeness expert interrupts me: "They do things for democracy, which is what we're trying to save right now."
I say: "What would you say to people that are..." And she's turned her back on me and walked away. The rudeness expert.
She had her point and she made it: The memorialized veterans "do things for democracy." That's a poor use of the present tense. They did "things." They died. They fought and they died. But what's important "right now" — according to her — is that the protesters are "trying to save" democracy.
I didn't get to ask follow-up questions, but I think her point was to equate the protesters to the veterans and to make that a justification for piling sleeping bags and all sorts of junk up against the monument. I didn't get to ask how trying to undo the results of the last election is an effort to "save democracy," and, obviously, she wasn't interested in having a conversation with me.
"On Feb. 7, with Wisconsin united in the afterglow of a Green Bay Packers victory in the Super Bowl" — so begins the Wisconsin State Journal begins today's article about the protests with a reminder about how great everyone felt in Wisconsin so recently. We were deprived of our enjoyment of the afterglow!
On February 11th, when Gov. Walker "dropped the bomb" — his words — union chiefs and organizers had "a freakout of a long weekend" — as one of them put it.
As unions organized protests to be launched in the coming days - the largest in Wisconsin's capital city since the Vietnam War - about 250 people in two separate groups picketed Sunday at the Capitol and in front of the Maple Bluff mansion Walker now calls home.
Here's my post commenting on the thin, mellow crowd that day:
It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm Sunday, and our new governor has just dropped a shocking union-busting proposal that our newly Republican legislature is likely to step up and pass. This is the push-back from the unions?
Protests are exactly what Walker wants, because they can only lead to two outcomes: Either they are peaceful and accomplish nothing; or they turn violent and create a massive backlash against the unions and their members. Either way, Walker wins.
Look back over the last 2 weeks. We now know the protests were huge and peaceful, so did they accomplish anything? Did Walker win? He chose not to confront people, and, interestingly enough, the people of Wisconsin who opposed the protests didn't make trouble either. There was one pleasant Tea Party event on the first Saturday, with a good turnout, but everyone was nice. I mean, the anti-Scott Walker folks had their Hitler signs and so forth. But that's all. Over-the-top analogies.
Back to the State Journal:
Before Walker unveiled his budget-repair bill on Feb. 11, the Teaching Assistants' Association at UW-Madison, along with campus student groups Student Labor Action Coalition and Multicultural Student Coalition, had planned a noon march from the Memorial Union to the Capitol to deliver "I Heart UW" valentines to Walker and urge him not to cut education funding....
They delivered the valentines.
That night, TAA leaders went back to campus and sent their 2,800 UW-Madison members an e-mail urging them to return to the Capitol on Tuesday and testify at the Legislature's powerful Joint Finance Committee, which had scheduled a hearing on the bill at 10 a.m.
Unions across the state were doing the same, as a dozen leaders convened Monday.
State law prevents Capitol Police from locking the building while there are ongoing hearings. So some TAA members made plans to stay as long as necessary, not realizing they wouldn't sleep at home again for weeks and that their union would set up a nerve center in a Capitol office, with members coordinating volunteers and helping manage what became the Capitol's 24-hour ecosystem.
So the occupation of the Capitol began as a UW TAA operation.
[Tuesday, February 15th], AFSCME, a 68,000-member union that represents state and municipal workers... started running buses from at least seven cities throughout Wisconsin.
About 10,000 people gathered at the Capitol for noon and 5 p.m. rallies, holding protest signs and chanting "Kill the Bill!" and "This is What Democracy Looks Like!"
Inside, 3,000 more turned the ground-floor rotunda into a raucous drum circle and plastered the walls with anti-Walker, pro-union posters. It was the start of a protest village that would occupy the Capitol at least through Sunday, Feb. 27, when Capitol Police say they'll no longer allow protesters to stay overnight.
So the TAs gained the support of AFSCME (and its buses). Why did the Capitol Police let them stay? They're clearing everyone out today, supposedly, but why did they let them stay so long? I talked to the Capitol Police yesterday, and I asked them the questions I raised in this post about free speech and viewpoint discrimination. I got a sense of what the answer is and will write about that later today.
Back to the State Journal. (These are excerpts from the article. For a more complete timeline, go to the link at the beginning of this post.)
At the [Madison Teachers Inc.] meeting, executive director John Matthews discussed the far-reaching consequences of the bill and the group decided Madison teachers should spend the next three days at the Capitol - and not in the classroom.
"We were in lockstep," said Matthews. "There was no dissention."...
About the same time, finance committee co-chairs Rep. Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, directed staff to stop registering people wanting to testify, angering opponents....
The committee adjourned about 3 a.m. Wednesday. At that point, Democrats continued hearing testimony in another room, giving justification to protesters to stay overnight in the Capitol.
So the reason the protesters could stay in the building overnight was that the Democrats kept hearings going, which kept the building open. With the Madison schools closed, the crowd in the Capitol swelled on Wednesday, and many slept in the building overnight.
Thursday morning, the Senate's Democrats absconded, which kept the bill from passing and the protest going. And here's a State Journal scoop: Republican Mike Ellis, the state senate president, helped the last of the 14 Democrats get out of state, at least according to that Democrat, Tim Cullen. Cullen was assisting the family of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Bill Bablitch, who had just died. Cullen says he called Ellis "to ask if he could enter the Capitol without being detained," and Ellis "said fine, come in. There's no problem." Keep in mind that the Republicans only needed one vote to meet their quorum. They had Cullen, and they let him get away! According to Cullen. Ellis even called Cullen as Cullen was driving to Illinois to "double check" if he got out okay. According to Cullen. Doesn't that mean the Republicans accepted or even encouraged the prolongation of the protests?
The flight of the 14 Democrats enthused the protesters, and Madison public schools were closed for a second day and then a third, February 17th and 18th. Saturday, the 19th, was the day the pro-Scott Walker people showed up too. They came, had a rally outside the building, and then left.
That was a week ago. The occupation of the Capitol continued, and you've seen the pictures and descriptions on this blog. Yesterday, we had "about 70,000 people" at the Capitol, but they were mainly outside. I went inside. I walked right up to the nearest door, and a "volunteer" in an orange vest told me to go wait in a line to go in some other door. This door was for... I didn't quite catch who the special people were who got to go right in the door I'd walked up to, but I said, "This is a public building. You're saying there are 2 kinds of people — ones that get right in and ones that go wait in line? Who are you?" He was obviously not a uniformed city official. I was all "Who are you?" and "How dare you!" and, after a few seconds, I (and Meade) got right through that door.
Once in, I said "How dare they!" about 10 times. Sorry, Meade didn't video that. You've never seen video as emotional as I was right then. I got outraged for myself and for all the people that were out there waiting in that line. I was outraged about them for 2 reasons: 1. Because they were treated as second-class citizens who had to enter through the subordinate door, and 2. Because they meekly accepted their subordination.* On the other hand, whether the restricted entry plan came from the Capitol Police or not, it assisted them in what appeared to me to be a well-coordinated procedure of closing down portions of the building and moving a smaller and smaller group into the central area. I assume this slowly tightening cordon will effectively accomplish the end of the occupation at 4 p.m. this afternoon. _______________________
Calling all tea party and grassroots conservatives in Wisconsin! This is your moment. Your state is ground zero in the fight against the unions. We win there, we win everywhere.
The fight against the unions... Well, there's an open declaration that it's not about solving the budget crisis, fairness, and shared sacrifice. I'm sure the people who've been protesting for the last 4 days will appreciate your frankness. That's what they accuse the Wisconsin GOP of doing. Is that the Tea Party way? You're coming in to serve us some iced tea, here in the Wisconsin winter — ice tea with a wedge of divisiveness, for that refreshing gulp of pure partisan flavor.
Why else do you think President Obama, Organizing for America and just about every element of the Left is focused on the fight in Wisconsin? Heck, even the godfather of the union movement, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, is flying into Madison today [to] address the union protestors.
Yes, the anti-Scott Walker side has its outside agitators. I don't think that necessarily helps the protesters win over the people of Wisconsin. (As I've said.) By contrast, Scott Walker and the GOP legislators have looked like they are focused on the public good, doing what needs to be done for the people of Wisconsin, which I think is a persuasive political message in Wisconsin. You want to switch that to Republicans versus Democrats in a hardcore political standoff? By bringing in your own outside agitators? Is that good Tea Party style? I don't think so!
Tomorrow, (Saturday, February 19) from noon to 3pm, the local tea party leaders from across Wisconsin and American Majority are joining in a counter protest to the unions (I Stand with Scott Walker!) on the state capitol grounds in Madison.
Okay, fine. Fine to have a protest supporting our governor. But it should be about Wisconsin and the public good — not party politics.
Confirmed speakers are Andrew Breitbart, Herman Cain, Jim Hoff of Gateway Pundit and my brother Ned with more to come.
Something tells me these people are not Wisconsinites.
Fox News, CNN and ABC News will be covering the event.
Time to flex some conservative muscle.
Flex some muscle... I know it's a metaphor, but you're sending out propaganda calling the protesters "thugs" — and that's just too belligerent. The point is for people to show up, be there, physically. That means something. And it works a whole lot better when there is nothing explicitly or implicitly violent about your speeches, signs, and caricatures. Keep it idealistic and kind-spirited, pro-Walker protesters.
And if you come in from out of state, I don't particularly want you here, but you need to know — whatever you've read about "thugs" and signs with cross-hairs and Hitler — Wisconsin people are really polite. If you don't understand that and behave extra-well, you will look like a lout — and that's even before the Democratic-friendly media do their usual work of trying to make you look bad.
I hope Wisconsinites do show up today — on all sides of the debate. Be there. I will. Let's be good citizens, interact with each other, try to understand what's going on and who thinks what, who cares about Wisconsin and who's there to take advantage of the spotlight for nonWisconsin purposes. May the greater good prevail.
Here's a little video I took this morning, which fairly represents the scene in the rotunda (the center of the demonstration):
For all the size and noise and sincere fervor, I've seen absolutely no anger, nastiness, or rudeness. Not even any pushing to get into a better position. Everyone is quite nice, really. You need to understand that. Even when my dear bodyguard is not close to me, I don't feel at all endangered. And though I've photographed some signs and other junk piled on the ground, there isn't stuff strewn all over, and there is zero vandalism or destructiveness toward the capitol building itself. Despite all the opposition to the legislature, the entrance to the Senate chamber was barricaded with nothing more than a velvet rope overseen by 2 elegantly dressed guards...
... and no one made the slightest attempt to impinge on the roped-off area.
Does the fish on the flag make it more disrespectful to have it on the ground or does it somehow cause this not to be a U.S. flag anymore and therefore okay to put the whole thing on the ground?
(I attended the Tea Party rally at the Wisconsin State Capitol last year on April 15th, and I did not see a scrap of litter left behind. Participants not only took care to leave no trash of their own, they looked around and made sure no one else did.)
UPDATE: Four days into the protests, we observed that the protesters have done a great job of keeping litter off the Capitol grounds. More here.
ADDED: This, of course, make O'Reilly look very rude, but I didn't watch the interview and I don't know how rude it actually was. To some extent, I like interruptions. I like the back and forth of overlapping conversation with someone who does it well and isn't actually trying to dominate. Overtalking can be an important component of flowing conversations. It's no good when one person holds forth and the other one, instead of listening, is distracted thinking about when it's going to be his turn.
That said, an interview of the President is different. He commands respect. But he can abuse that. Obama could have pursued the strategy of running out the clock, blathering tediously and preventing good pointed probing by the interviewer he perceived as an opponent (if not an enemy). He'd have played O'Reilly, I suspect, if O'Reilly hadn't broken in with questions. The YouTube montage is effective at making O'Reilly look brutish, but that's not necessarily so, and if O'Reilly had patiently waited for Obama to bring each meandering answer in for a landing, it would not have been possible to make a YouTube montage that would show Obama's running out the clock to avoid serious questions.
Okay, now there's a headline. I'm choosing to blog it before even reading the article. Sounds like something terrible and First-Lady-related is going on in the southern city. But what? Let's see. It seems the city of Charlotte, North Carolina was chosen as the site for the 2012 Democratic convention. Check. Michelle Obama sent out an email listing some nice things about Charlotte: "southern charm, hospitality, diversity — 'And of course, great barbecue.'"
But it turns out the great North Carolina barbecue isn't actually in the city of Charlotte.
A local Associated Press reporter quoted a barbecue expert, retired University of North Carolina professor John Shelton Reed, who said that Charlotte for barbecue was "like Minneapolis for gumbo."
The gaffe was enough to make you wonder whether the White House had simply cut and pasted Southern clichés to create the first lady's announcement.
Well, you can un-paste the one about "southern charm."
Or, "Please, when you tread on me, walk gently, but don't worry I won't bite. I'm quite a gentle fellow really. I just have some modest reforms I would like to propose."
Oh, but the snake still looks so awfully angry, with his mouth open, his tongue out, and his tail curved slightly up. Please, help redraw the flag with a friendlier snake — a good citizen snake — and a kindlier message.
"Tread on me, I'll be your friend, we all need somebody to tread on."
In her TLC show Sarah Palin's Alaska, the former GOP vice presidential nominee is seen opening cupboards in search of chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers, asking "Where are the s'mores ingredients?"
"This is in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert," Palin said.
“With all due respect to my colleague and friend Sarah Palin, I think she's misunderstood what Michelle Obama is trying to do... Michelle Obama's not trying to tell people what to eat or not trying to force the government's desires on people... She’s stating the obvious, that we do have an obesity problem in this country."
Well, he's not running for President against Michelle Obama. He's running (potentially) against Sarah Palin. Ironically, Sarah Palin is the one who's thin.
Now... is it true that Michelle Obama isn't "trying to tell people what to eat" and "not trying to force the government's desires on people"? Is it true that she's only "stating the obvious, that we do have an obesity problem in this country"? I don't know why Michelle Obama looks better if she's simply "stating the obvious" fact that there are a lot of fat people in this country. If it's so obvious, why point it out? And it's rude to do nothing more that point out that people are fat.
Here's Michelle Obama looming over some little boy as Barack Obama signs the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Looming large. You decide what's obvious. Or ask Huck, the arbiter of obvious. I just want to note that this bill seems to be about telling people what to eat and forcing the government's desires on people. (Forcing the government's desires on people? That sounds weirdly rape-y.)
But as the school-nutrition bill evolved, the first lady became involved in the sometimes messy world of legislative sausage-making to help push it through.
This government that forces its desires on us pushes through with a messy sausage. Yikes. The imagery. Avert your eyes.
Anyway, what's in that bill? It's not about telling us what to eat? The linked article says it "will set national nutritional standards for public schools, boost funding for low-income meal programs and advance [Barack Obama's] wife’s campaign against childhood obesity." And in those "national nutritional standards," do the kids get s'mores or not? I don't know, but I see that as Obama signed the bill, he said:
“Not only am I very proud of the bill... but had I not been able to get this passed, I would be sleeping on the couch.”
Is it cool for the President to pose as pussy-whipped?
"You should be asking yourself: Why am I the one loser who has to do that and 220 other people know better?"
Via TaxProf, who says "Cornell Prof Goes Nuts After Student Yawns in Class."
Frankly, I don't think what this teacher (Mark Talbert) did is that bad. The student didn't just yawn, he yawned in an exaggerated, loud way that sounds like intentional disrespect. The teacher indicates that this has happened more than once. How dare one student disrupt a class — a large, serious class — for his personal amusement? 220 students are there, working hard, having paid big tuition, and one loser is appropriating their time and attention and knocking the professor off stride. It's not acceptable, and why doesn't the student know that? Why should a college professor have to give remedial etiquette lessons?
... coming to the door by himself. There was a parent back there in the dark somewhere. Earlier, the bell rang and there were 3 kids: a clown, a ketchup bottle, and a witch.
ADDED: I'm less sentimental now than when I wrote that — 10 minutes ago. We've been holding out a bowl with 6 different kinds of full-size candy bars and saying "Take one." There were 3 kids and one boy took 2. Meade said "Take one!" He said that 3 times, and the boy didn't put one back. Nor did the parents, 15 feet away do anything to rectify the situation. The next group came, and Meade held out the bowl and said "Take one," and a parent, standing back 15 feet, called out "Take one or 2." The hell? Full-size candy bars cost 89¢ at Walgreen's. You don't take 2. My faith in kid-humanity is shattered. Now, we have to switch to choosing for them and handing out one apiece.
ADDED:
IN THE COMMENTS: Meade said:
Hey, we just finished up the night with a great bunch of seven kids - looked to be about 10-12 years-old - and they all sang us a song! They were great! And polite.
The ugliest, most illiberal political ad of the year may be this one, from Kentucky Democrat Jack Conway:
... The trouble with Conway's ad is that it comes perilously close to saying that non-belief in Christianity is a disqualification for public office. That's a pretty sickening premise for a Democratic campaign.
Consider that the ad has more to do with the question of whether Rand is weird than whether he's irreligious. But, ironically, Conway has made himself seem creepy for throwing all this crap at the screen.
First, I can't believe he said "you look like a student" to a woman who identified herself as a member of a university faculty. That is an irrelevant and, I would say, sexist remark. Not only is it equivalent to saying "gee, you're pretty," but it's revealing that you have a picture of what professors are supposed to look like and you don't mind derailing the conversation to say she doesn't look like one. I know it's supposed to be a compliment, but it's really clueless. Believe me, I've had people say "you don't look like a law professor" or some such thing to me thousands of times over the last quarter century, and I remain superficially polite, but I can tell you it is not appropriate in a professional setting. Unless we are in a social context where it would be welcome for you to say "you look beautiful," then you should not say "you look like a student." Okay?
Now, to the substance: The woman, Bridget Todd, asks the President:
I know that you’ve mentioned that you want the Senate to repeal it before you do it yourself.
My question is — you as the President can sort of have an executive order that ends it once and for all as Harry Truman did for integration of the military in in '48. So I wonder, why don’t you do that if this is a policy that you are committed to ending?
Obama responds with a lot of words:
First of all, I haven’t “mentioned” that I’m against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
Oh, lord, he begins by getting all pedantic about words. I'll get pedantic back. She didn't say he mentioned that he was against DADT. She said he mentioned that he wanted the Senate to repeal it instead of doing something that he might be able to do on his own.
I have said very clearly, including in a State of the Union Address, that I am against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and that we’re going to end this policy.
Fine, so he's repeating the promise that some people feel very bad that he has not kept.
That’s point number one. Point number two, the difference between my position right now and Harry Truman’s, is that Congress explicitly passed a law that took away the power of the executive branch to end this policy unilaterally. So this is not a situation in which, with the stroke of a pen, I can simply end the policy.
Now having said that, what I have been able to do is for the first time get the Chairman of the Joint Chief’s of Staff, Mike Mullen, to say he thinks the policy should end. The Secretary of Defense has said he recognizes that the policy needs to change. And we, I believe, have enough votes in the Senate to remove to go ahead and remove this constraint on me as the House has already done so that I can go ahead and end it.
But, as the linked blog post (by Jane Hamsher) indicates, he doesn't have the votes in the Senate and he hasn't put the weight of the presidency behind getting Senators to vote for repeal. He seems like he's using the statute as an excuse, so that he can play both sides on this issue. I understand the political motivation for that, but it amounts to breaking his promise to end DADT.
Now we recently had a Supreme Court — a district court case — that said DADT is unconstitutional. I agree with the basic principle that anybody who wants to serve in our armed forces, and make sacrifices on our behalf, on behalf of our national security, anybody should be able to serve. And they shouldn’t have to lie about who they are in order to serve.
So don't appeal the case! Say you think the court got it right! Or say that you think DADT isn't unconstitutional. It's just bad policy, and you object to the judiciary taking over in this area.
And so we are moving in the direction of ending this policy. It has to be done in a way that is orderly because we are involved in a war right now.
That's pretty much a cloaked statement that he thinks the court was wrong and that the policy is constitutional. It's not "orderly" for the court to strike it down. The judiciary shouldn't be supervising the military. I'm going to assert with confidence that that is his opinion.
But this is not a question of whether the policy will end. This policy will end, and it will end on my watch.
The arc of history is long! Keep waiting, oh captive voters. Who else are you going to vote for?
But I do have an obligation to make sure that I’m following some of the rules.
Some of the rules?! Man, if you are only following some of the rules, why not give gay people a break?
I can’t simply ignore laws that are out there. I have to work to make sure they are changed.
Okay. Here. I don't want there to be an increase in suicides because you people have nowhere else to go. Satisfied? Now, please clean up after yourselves.
Is that a properly written headline about improperly cooked eggs? 6 people are dead... Should you write "cracks... eggs"?
And am I a bad person for wanting the detail — it's not in the article — of exactly how the eggs were cooked? Were they overdone? Underdone? Scrambled instead of over-easy? Over easy? Over hard.
"... so that a conversation between them consists of each person trying to say what the other person would have said had it been their turn to speak. And that isn’t a real conversation at all."
A British professor, quoted by an American lawprof (Einer Elhauge) in an article (published last October) called "Is 1L one hell? Survival tips from a law professor." There are 10 survival tips, and the Britprof's quote is from #9: "Don't be boring." That's a good tip for everyone, but as applied to first year law students:
Don’t be afraid to disagree or be provocative, or even to try on positions you aren’t quite sure about. And don’t close your minds to those who disagree with you. You may find that they are more convincing than you thought, or that discussion with them deepens your understanding of just why they are so wrong.
Students (and others) are afraid to say something wrong or — horrors! — frowned upon by their peers 'n' profs. We need the fear of being boring as a counterweight. Oh, I'm kidding. You don't need to be afraid of being boring. You just need to succumb to seductive and intense pleasures of not being boring.
***
Professor Elhauge's #1 tip is something I've been saying to students for a quarter century:
1. Realize the Difference Between Being Confused and Understanding the Confusion
Often students have the following the experience. They read the materials and thought the law seemed pretty clear. Then they went to class. And now the issues seem confusing. So they wrongly conclude that class is actually lessening their understanding. What this reaction misses is that often the correct understanding is that the laws and issues are unclear. There is conflict about what the doctrine means, when it applies, when it trumps other doctrines, and what justifies it, and the same set of issues can be framed in multiple ways. Realizing this doesn’t mean you are confused; it means you understand the confusion.
It's a gift to delight in understanding that comes in the form of confusion. Most lawprofs have this gift, I think. Which makes it all the more annoying for the law students who resist the realization that their confusion is in fact an understanding of confusion. See? It's annoying. We're annoying, we lawprofs.
