Short answer. No What about that says he lied under oath? The unions are spending millions to try and recall him, though, and even with that, he's up in the polls.
I think the bolded parts are where he lied under oath, but it's all near the end of the article, so I can understand if you got bored and stopped reading before you got to that part.
No, I read the quotes. I just see a vagueness to his answering questions during the conversation. Hardly any smoking gun of perjury at all. He was never asked if he's run on an anti-union platform. It is The Nation, though. Plus, Wisconsin's now already in a surplus, so it would be almost impossible to say he did it for political reasons. A non-story for simple-minded partisans. Probably why it was written on The Nation website. I think I'll go to Newsmax and see what the kooks on the right are writing about, next.
Love this comment. As they say, the proof is in the pudding, and WI is now operating within its fiscal restraints.
I always enjoy obviously biased articles that delete information that clearly states that part of the collective bargaining plan was to balance the state's budget. Which, lo and behold, seems to have worked in WI.
No self-respeciting conservative on the internet considers Newsmax to be anything but center-left... almost as far left as Drudge.
The "Indeed, the videotape shows Walker having just such a conversation" part is the opinion of the columnist. I don't think that the taped conversation in question had anything to do with punishing members of the opposition party nor their donor base. Defeating members of the opposition party? Undercutting their donor base? Sure. It's not necessary to punish, though, to achieve those ends... and if every effort to win a political campaign was deemed as an effort to punish then I think that's a pretty odd definition of "punish". Ed O.
That's a fair point; it's more appropriate to say that a politician's entire term, not the campaign, is the punishment.
By definition, the typical government employee coverered under collective bargaining is overpaid. If a state is well under revenues in order to balance they can: Raise taxes Slash services, or "services" if you prefer Cut payroll and benefit expenses Creative accounting, ie, cooking the books, kicking the can down the road, selling assets, etc. Or, some combination. There was an election. Walker said he would not raise taxes as Wisconsin is already a high tax state, nor would he play games with the books or kick the can down the road. He said he would cut "uneeded and wasteful" programs and cut personnel expenses rather than firing a huge chunk of the state staff, so service levels could be maintained. The Dem candidate (Barrett), said he would raise taxes and (essentially) play accounting games to balance. He said nothing about high salaries and benefits costs. One side lost the election. Chaos and hilarity ensues. Sometimes, when a candidate wins, they try to follow through with their plan. Some people are shocked when that happens and act surprised when a pol doesn't want to be everybody's Sugar Daddy.
So you admit you didn't read the article before you wrote all those posts arguing it's wrong. Looks like Blagojevich will have a friend in prison for 14 years.
I think there were some lazy voters that didn't think it mattered the first election. Now they see their folly and wish to attempt to change it.
Think. The folks behind the recall never voted for Walker. They didn't "change" their mind. They are using the protests (which they were behind) as a jumping stone to launch the campaign. In other words, they refuse to accept that they lost a scheduled election. Heads I win. Tails I lose, but refuse to accept the outcome - play again.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/14/1091564/-DNC-refusing-to-send-money-to-defeat-Scott-Walker this is also relevant.
