Wisconsin Union Members Already in Gear for Election Season
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Wisconsin working families aren’t waiting until Labor Day to mobilize for the fall elections. They are already knocking on doors, leafleting worksites and more to get out the vote.
Rep. Steve Kagen (D- Wis.) won’t know until the Sept. 14 Republican primary who will be his general election opponent. But in the meantime, unions and their members are mobilizing to re-elect the Green Bay physician.
Denny Lauer (see top photo) of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 2-1279 took part in a recent labor walk where he talked with other union member families about Kagen, who has voted for job-creation legislation to put people back to work. Says Kagen:
It’s Main Street, not Wall Street or Big Business, that will provide jobs that will complete our economic recovery.
Earlier this week, a group of military veterans from the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council met with Tom Barrett, Democratic candidate for governor. Barrett has the backing of Wisconsin’s unions. The group discussed vital issues, including jobs, the economy and veterans’ health care.
Unlike either of the leading candidates in the Sept. 14 Republican primary who have endorsed jobs cuts and furloughs, Barrett has proposed a detailed jobs plan that is estimated to create as many as 180,000 Wisconsin jobs in his first term.
Find out more about Labor 2010’s action in Wisconsin here.
Join Web Briefing on Health Care Town Halls
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Tonight, you can get facts about health care reform, find out what you can do and get the inside story from a U.S. House member who has confronted the disruptive crowds at town halls around the country.
Join a special Web briefing at 9 p.m. EDT with Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Richard Kirsch, national campaign director for Health Care for America Now! (HCAN!), Edie Falco, actor and health care reform advocate, and Dan Heck, a Working America and HCAN! canvasser who talks daily to working families about health care reform.
The call is designed to give you tips on how to get the facts out about health care reform, spread the word and help activists prevent town hall hijackings. Earlier this month, extremist zealots disrupted one of Doggett’s town halls, but he has since held several orderly and peaceful meetings and will share his experiences and lessons.
Teabaggers: ‘Their Intent Is to Stop Conversation’
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The orchestrated, handbook-guided extremist disruptions of town hall meetings on health care reform being held by members of Congress are turning into “a series of shout-downs and freak-outs,” says Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo.
“…something resembling right-wing performance art. [It's] a well-orchestrated national effort to mobilize teabaggers to go and shut down these town hall events with raucous demonstrations and generally making it impossible for the members of Congress to talk.”
“Teabaggers” refers to the fact that many of the groups behind the manipulated chaos are the same outfits that staged the phony grassroots “Tea Party” tax protests earlier this year. Then, as now, Fox News and other right-wing media outfits are trying to portray the actions as genuine revolts. Many of staged tax “protest” events drew just a handful of people, but closeup camera angles and breathless, fawning coverage seriously exaggerated the scope of the protests.
