UPDATE: COURT TRANSCRIPT MANN V ATI CAN BE FOUND BELOW.
The American Tradition Institute, ATI, is heading to the Virginia Supreme Court suing the University of Virginia, a publicly funded institution, to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request to release 12,000 emails written or received by Michael Mann while he was a member of the faculty at University of Virginia’s environmental sciences department in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. [Read more…]
UPDATE X1 – SEE IMPORTANT UPDATES AT END OF THE POST
Every single Tea Party/Patriot voter should be demanding from the officials they elected into office in 2010 to follow the letter of the law and demonstrate transparency. If not, then your credibility as a movement is toast. You must practice what you preach, otherwise this so-called patriot movement is as self serving as the Democrat/Republican Party machines you fought tooth and nail to replace.
What Governor Walker did last night in Wisconsin proves beyond any doubt that his target all along was to end the right of employee’s to task a third party to negotiate on their behalf their employment benefits. This tawdry move made by the GOP leadership, after hiding behind closed doors all day, has no relationship whatsoever in saving taxpayers money. Yet the TP/Patriot leadership wants you, their voter, to believe otherwise. Poppycock!
Why? Because the GOP’s vote was on legislation NOT on the budget. Member’s of your respective state assembly’s vote on legislation AND on the budget – two separate processes. Although they interrelate, they are managed and voted on separately. No taxpayer funds were saved with yesterday’s vote. NONE. ZILCH. ZERO.
What Walker and his GOP thugs achieved was ceasing state employee’s rights. That is it! And they did it in secret – an all out blatant assault on our democracy. Is this the kind of politics the Tea Party/Patriot movement voted into office?
Not once during the 2010 election did I see the first placard, commercial or candidate telling the voter that in order to cut the budget or end deficit spending they would need to vote to end the people’s rights to collective bargaining. Did you? That’s what I thought – a resounding NO!
Which is precisely why Walker and his GOP brethren didn’t run on it. They knew they wouldn’t win! So, knowing their top corporate donors wanted to bust up the unions they stealthily infiltrated the independent Tea Party/Patriot movement by telling them what they wanted to hear “reduce the budget” “cut taxes” “end deficit spending” all the while knowing their hidden agenda – bust up the unions at any and all costs – the worker be damned. Their campaign strategy worked. They won a majority thanks to the TP/Patriot vote.
Once in office, Walker’s first few days of the legislative session takes those patriotic tax slogans and twists them into anti-rights legislation, while telling Wisconsinites that this is what you, the TP/Patriot voter, wanted when you voted him into office. You know this is not true, but instead you are the one’s taking the hit.
The TP/Patriot voter is being used as not only as cover, but as a punching bag taking the right and left hook for these duplicitous scoundrels. Why are you letting them get away with it?
The Tea Party/Patriot voted to cut the budget AND to end deficit spending NOT to end the people’s “rights“! If you want union reform then say it out loud and be a leader. Cowering behind the flag and using the TP voter as cover is small minded and beneath any true and decent American patriot.
Learn what the GOP in Wisconsin is really doing by clicking HERE.
Just saw this. The T-Room does not condone violence. However, given the mood of America such anger and threats are not surprising. Honestly, I’m surprised it has taken this long, especially since the elite have been baiting the citizens for sometime now –
UPDATE X1 –
Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council weighs in on open meeting controversy
Bill Lueders on Thursday 03/10/2011 10:54 am
I have been asked whether the Wisconsin FOIC has a position on last night’s action by the state Legislature. As you know, I am not a lawyer and do not play one on TV. These are difficult issues to parse. But a few points can be made:
The Open Meetings Law, at 19.84(3), states: “Public notice of every meeting of a governmental body shall be given at least 24 hours prior to the commencement of such meeting unless for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical, in which case shorter notice may be given, but in no case may the notice be provided less than 2 hours in advance of the meeting.”
There is no dispute that yesterday’s meeting was not noticed 24 hours in advance and I see no way it could be argued that giving 24 hours notice was “impossible or impractical,” three weeks into a budget stalemate. There is also some question as to whether a full two hours notice was given, in that it was arguably not posted in a location to which media and others have unfettered access. The Assembly Dems say they did were not notified until 4:10 pm, and the Senate meeting purportedly began at 6 p.m.
The Senate Chief Clerk, Robert Marchant, has advanced the argument that the notice was sufficient under Senate Rule 93, which holds that the Senate can convene in special session without giving advance notice. Others have pointed out that this rule pertains to the Senate, whereas last night’s meeting was a Joint Committee of Conference, a.k.a. Joint Conference Committee. They say Rule 93 would not apply in such a case.
The council’s position is that, whether or not a viable legal challenge can be brought, this action merits the condemnation of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council as contrary to the spirit, at least, of the Open Meetings Law, as well as to the state’s traditions of openness.
We believe the meeting was hastily convened without adequate public notice because the people convening it felt they needed an element of surprise to prevail — making it precisely the sort of action the state’s Open Meetings Law was intended to preclude.
Related Post:
The Real Tea Party Patriots are Paying Dearly for Trusting the Snakes Again
MSNBC Interviews Blogger, Ian Murpy, Buffalo Beast Audio of Call – Walker talks to David Koch
UPDATE at the bottom of the post
Thus Always to Tyrants /Persevering
Virginia’s Founding Fathers officially adopted the state seal on July 5, 1776. On the obverse side they chose Sic Semper Tyrannis out of admiration for the Roman Republic which triumphed over tyranny or rule by one thus, illustrating Virginia would be a government for and by the people. The reverse side highlights the gifts a democratic republic enjoys which are the blessings of freedom and peace as represented by the three Roman Goddesses Libertas, Ceres and Aeternitas.
Since Sunday afternoon of last week, Virginia’s State Seal has stared back at me everywhere I walked on the Capitol grounds. Never before had I bothered to learn what our Founding Father’s intent was behind this great seal. So I took some time to learn its history, and more importantly, its meaning yesterday afternoon. As always seems to be the case, I found myself in awe by the bounty of gifts these forward-thinking men gave all of us nearly 234 years ago. Today, however, I fear some who are honored by the voters to represent us at the statehouse may be losing sight of the privilege we bestow upon them every two or four years, and it pains me greatly to have witnessed their tawdry behavior toward the people this week. [Read more…]