Looms

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/18/2167151/every-plant-and-tree-died-huge-alberta-pipeline-spill-raises-safety-questions-as-keystone-decision-looms/

As the Obama administration’s decision regarding whether to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline draws nearer, the latest disaster is raising serious concerns about the safety of Canada’s rapidly expanding pipeline network.

A massive toxic waste spill from an oil and gas operation in northern Alberta is being called one of the largest recent environmental disasters in North America. First reported on June 1, the Texas-based Apache Corp. didn’t reveal the size of the spill until June 12, which is said to cover more than 1,000 acres.

Members of the Dene Tha First Nation tribe are outraged that it took several days before they were informed that 9.5 million liters of salt and heavy-metal-laced wastewater had leaked onto wetlands they use for hunting and trapping.

“Every plant and tree died” in the area touched by the spill, said James Ahnassay, chief of the Dene Tha.

As the Globe and Mail reports, the Apache disaster is not an anomaly:

http://host.madison.com/news/local/writers/paul_fanlund/paul-fanlund-in-race-against-scott-walker-the-high-road/article_a5c6e675-8f7f-5cee-98f2-099f876d2c79.html#.Ub_WwRttLaI.facebook

One sunny Saturday nearly two years ago at a Williamson Street coffee shop, Tammy Baldwin told me that, yes, she really did intend to run for the U.S. Senate.

It struck me then as quixotic, this locally popular Madison Democrat surrendering a safe U.S. House seat to make herself a dart board for millions of dollars in negative ads. Moreover, she would be a lesbian running in a state that made gay marriage unconstitutional just five years prior.

Her unequivocal statement to me (“I think I am likely to run”) was picked up by national publications and she headed off to tirelessly introduce herself to voters in every corner of the state.

That she could eventually win seemed far-fetched at the time, since that summer was a moment of high tide for Gov. Scott Walker and his Republican Legislature after their successful assault on public unions.

So now, in June 2013, we are again 16 months from a crucial statewide election, this time to determine whether Wisconsin re-elects Walker, its most divisive politician since the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

Now, as two years ago with Baldwin, progressives sound more hopeful than confident about their prospects.

http://journaltimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/fdfba375-7969-5ded-b72e-dcc7e45cb177.html

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos vowed Wednesday that he will do everything possible to quickly reinstate the requirement that Wisconsin voters present a photo identification in time for the 2014 general election.

“It’s my intention to get that bill through the Legislature … and be signed by the governor sometime this fall,” said Vos, R-Rochester.

Vos made that promise just before the GOP-led Assembly approved a bipartisan elections-law bill that stripped a provision to resurrect voter ID.

That requirement has been suspended as four legal challenges make their way through the courts. After that and other controversial elements were taken out of Assembly Bill 225 in committee Monday, Democrats signed on, and the measure passed the full Assembly on a voice vote Wednesday with a smattering of “no” votes.

The voter ID law Republicans passed in 2011 has been suspended as four legal challenges make their way through the courts. Rep. Jeff Stone, R-Greendale, sought to revive it through AB 225. But then Republicans and Democrats agreed to pull that language from the bill in an effort to increase campaign contribution limits and make it easier to register to vote

http://journaltimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/d2ccd0de-d26c-55c9-b0ad-1ae963b2a5ff.html

Veterans groups are rising up against what they consider a “shameful” move by Republican state lawmakers to strap limits on a popular tax credit for 100 percent disabled veterans and surviving spouses.

A spokesman for Gov. Scott Walker said Wednesday that he wants the Legislature to “fix the issue.”

The Legislature’s budget committee added the restrictions as part of a tax bill it passed last week.

“Apparently, some Joint Finance Committee members feel the sacrifices made by severely wounded, injured and ill veterans are just another budget item,” said Al LaBelle, legislative director of the Disabled American Veterans of Wisconsin. “Balancing the budget on the backs of these severely injured heroes is shameful.”

The limits were introduced by committee co-chairs Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, and Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, and passed 12-4 on a party-line vote, said Rick Olin, a fiscal analyst for the Legislative Fiscal Bureau who provided the panel with alternatives for changing the credit.

Darling didn’t return phone calls seeking comments, but a Nygren spokeswoman said the limits would protect the tax credits.

http://www.progressive.org/why-scott-walker-job-record-is-so-embarrassing

When he ran for governor in 2010, Scott Walker vowed to create 250,000 jobs in his first term. But he must be regretting that promise today.

Wisconsin retains a job deficit of 156,300 according to the Center on Wisconsin Strategies, a progressive think-tank at UW-Madison. That deficit includes 71,900 jobs lost since the recession plus an additional 84,400 jobs needed to keep pace with population growth.

Wisconsin ranked 44th in private-sector job growth even by the economic measure selectively used by Walker, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. Wisconsin fell from 41st and 37th in the previous two quarterly reports.

While wages for US workers fell 1.1% last year, the situation in Wisconsin was even worse, with wages falling at double that rate, a loss of 2.2%. This wage decrease heightens growing inequality in Wisconsin: “Between 1996 and 2010, the bottom 40 percent of Wisconsin earners experienced an average decrease of $2,407 in their adjusted gross income, measured in 2012 dollars,” according to COWS and the Wisconsin Budget Project. “The top fifth of income tax filers saw an increase in earnings of more than $17,000 over this period.”

The picture is likely to become even grimmer: Wisconsin is projected to rank 49th in job creation in the coming year, according to projections by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

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I highly doubt Walker even gives his broken promises a passing thought. He follows ALEC's agenda and really DOESN'T CARE.

Source: News & Record (AP)



RALEIGH – About 60 people were arrested Monday in the Legislative Building during an NAACP-sponsored protest against the GOP-led legislature and policies of Republican Gov. Pat McCrory.
The arrests came during the sixth Moral Monday rally at the General Assembly.

Before the arrests, more than 1,400 people demonstrated at the Halifax Mall behind the Legislative Building, holding hands, singing religious songs and praying.

The demonstrators included clergy members, union members and teachers.
The demonstration followed a 26-stop tour across North Carolina last week during which NAACP officials drummed up public support for Monday’s rally. The demonstrators protested against the repeal of the Racial Justice Act, tax reform, proposed cuts to public education and the ending of unemployment benefits to about 70,000 state residents.

After that demonstration, several dozen protesters gathered in front of the entrance to the N.C. Senate chambers. They stood there for 30 minutes singing hymns and praying before Jeff Weaver, the chief of General Assembly police, asked them to leave the Senate entrance.
“This is an unlawful assembly,” Weaver said. “I am asking you to disperse. You have five minutes to leave or you will be arrested.”

Read more: http://www.news-record.com/news/local_news/article_8a8c2da8-d289-11e2-9023-001a4bcf6878.html

Moral Monday 6/3/13 NC NAACP

http://streetsblog.net/2013/06/04/federal-judge-issues-injunction-against-1-7b-wisconsin-highway-project/

1st its the gerrymandering, re-writing of maps & destroying evidence, now it seems Walker & assoc.s are creating a physical obstacle that prevents low income residents of Milw. from traveling west on Bluemound road for jobs, recreation etc. No plans for public transit in the works here. (It would almost be impossible for a person without a car to work west of the Zoo.)
It seems the Rupukes have an urban "ghetto" like mentality in sequestering residents mentally, physically and politically.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/118341699.html

"Under the accelerated reconstruction sought by Gov. Scott Walker, work on the Zoo Interchange project would start in 2013 and finish in 2018...Developing a transit alternative to the freeway expansion is not likely to be part of the DOT plans, according to the new transportation secretary, a civil engineer who served as a Republican in the state Assembly from 2002 until his appointment earlier this year."

What do You All think is going on????

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/210210181.html

Madison -- The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism would have to leave the UW-Madison campus, under a Republican motion before the Legislature's budget committe.

GOP lawmakers were set to vote early Wednesday morning on the motion, which specifically named the center established by former Wisconsin State Journal investigative reporter Andy Hall.




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As usual Repukes are scuttling/shunning the light of truth....

http://streetsblog.net/2013/06/04/federal-judge-issues-injunction-against-1-7b-wisconsin-highway-project/

5:20 p.m.: This article has been corrected to reflect corrections in the original article.

Environmental attorneys in Wisconsin are doing tremendously important work. Groups representing people of color and poorer Wisconsinites won an injunction against are advancing a lawsuit against a $1.7 billion interchange outside Milwaukee. They argued that such a costly highway project, with no provisions for transit, is discriminatory because it confers advantages to relatively wealthy commuters while offering nothing for the region’s transit-dependent population.

The civil rights lawsuit against this $1.7 billion interchange project will proceed. Image: For Construction Pros

This lawsuit has the potential to set an important precedent about state highway spending and social equity in cities. Robbie Webber at the State Smart Transportation Initiative discusses the implications:

A federal judge in Wisconsin has allowed a lawsuit against a major urban freeway project to proceed, agreeing with community groups that low-income residents could suffer “irreparable harm” if the project moves forward. The groups contend that the project advantages wealthier auto commuters at the expense of poorer transit riders, and the judge found that the plaintiffs have a likelihood of success on the merits.

The Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin and Milwaukee Inner-city Congregations Allied for Hope targeted the project’s environmental impact statement, claiming that state and federal transportation officials failed to fully evaluate the project’s environmental and related social and economic impacts.