This is America?

MCM

Talk Radio’s Nicole Sandler Arrested, Jailed After Rep. West’s FL ‘Town Hall’ [VIDEO]
By Brad Friedman

UPDATE: Finally released after night in jail, 3 hours in solitary & getting MACED by guards – all hours AFTER $25 bond posted

[UPDATE: She's out. Finally. I just spoke to her. See fully story as she just told it to me in 4th UPDATE at the bottom of this article.]

My friend and colleague, talk radio host Nicole Sandler — who does her own show, Radio or Not weekdays from 10p-Noon in Florida, and is the regular fill-in for the nationally syndicated Randi Rhodes Show — was arrested at an insane town hall event held by “Tea Party” Republican Congressman Allen West (FL-22) in Fort Lauderdale last night.

Nicole is a good friend of mine (I was on Randi’s show yesterday with her to discuss the Wisconsin Supreme Court Election recount, as she was filling in again for Randi) and this morning, SoFloRadio.com, which carries her show live at this hour, is running dead air. Her live U-Stream webcast channel is currently off-line as well.
I’ve been trying to reach her this morning, by text, phone, etc. but have had no luck so far. So, I am concerned and presume this means she was forced to spend the night in jail and may still be locked up.

Insane.

Here is the video of the seemingly-psychotic West speaking at the event last night in Florida, as questions are hollered from the crowd, followed by video of Nicole, who is a constituent of West’s, being arrested for reasons not made apparent in the video…

Read more.

Companies can block customers’ class-action lawsuits, Supreme Court rules
Justices rule in a Southern California case that firms can force customers to arbitrate their complaints individually. The ruling is seen as a major victory for corporations.
By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times

The Supreme Court dealt a blow to class-action lawsuits that involve small claims affecting thousands or even millions of people by ruling that corporations may use arbitration clauses to block dissatisfied consumers or disgruntled employees from joining together.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices said Wednesday the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925, originally aimed at disputes over maritime and rail shipments, trumps state laws and court rulings in California and about half the states that limit arbitration clauses deemed to be “unfair” to consumers.

The ruling was “the biggest ever” on class actions, said Vanderbilt University law professor Brian Fitzpatrick, an expert on such litigation.

Read more.

Wal-Mart: Our shoppers are ‘running out of money’
By Parija Kavilanz

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Wal-Mart’s core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday.

“We’re seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure,” Duke said at an event in New York. “There’s no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact.”

Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in.

Read more.

Vermont Gets Health Care Right
via Politics Plus

When Barack Obama announced a few months back that he would waive the ACA for any state that could do better, many on the left thought he was caving in to the Republicans, giving them their way again. I called that one right and credited him for putting the onus on Republicans, showing them up, because they would be unable to do better without a public option or single payer care. I knew that Republicans would not go there, but Vermont has done just that.

In a historic vote on Tuesday, the Vermont Legislature created the enabling legislation for a first-in-the-nation universal health care system. The state Senate approved the visionary plan for a single-payer system in a 21-9 vote after four hours of debate. The split was largely along party lines.

Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, campaigned on a promise to create a single-payer system in Vermont that would contain health care costs and give all of the state’s residents universal access to medical care. On Tuesday, Shumlin made good on the first step toward fulfilling that promise, and just five hours after the Senate vote, he marked the legislative victory in an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

Read more.

What would Franklin do?

MCM

Walker budget cuts target Wisconsin libraries
Materials sharing, Braille service are threatened
Jay Rath

Under Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget, Wisconsin libraries would see their funding requests cut by more than $18.9 million in 2012 alone, threatening a wide variety of services, including those for job-seekers and the blind.

Here in the capital, “My goal is to keep all the libraries open with the same hours,” says Barb Dimick, director of the Madison Public Library. “We’re going to all be hurt.”

She resists commenting on the planned expansion of Madison’s central branch, noting the sensitive and uncertain political atmosphere, statewide and locally. “I am hopeful that this will go forward,” she says. “It’s under discussion and under consideration.”

Read more.

More about Utah man connected to recalls aimed at Democrats
By Tom Tolan of the Journal Sentinel

Here’s a pretty interesting take on Dan Baltes, the Utah man whose American Patriot Recall Coalition was behind a number of recall efforts targeting Wisconsin Democratic state senators.

The story is in the Deseret News, from Salt Lake City, Utah. It reports complaints about Baltes from conservatives who have had dealings with him, and it also reports that Baltes is not his original name.

He’s really Daniel Arthur Elliott, the story says.

Read more.

Bit by bit, Scott Walker and his droogs are nullifying Milwaukee’s government.
It’s basically a slower version of what Michigan’s Rick Snyder did to Benton Harbor.

MCM

Legislature votes to overturn Milwaukee’s wishes on sick leave
By: Shawn Johnson, Wisconsin Public Radio, Superior Telegram

Republican state lawmakers have sent a bill to the governor’s desk that would overturn a Milwaukee ordinance that requires all employers to grant workers paid sick leave.

Read more.

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Assembly committee advances Milwaukee residency bill
By Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel

Madison – A state bill that would lift Milwaukee’s residency requirement for police officers and firefighters squeaked out of committee Wednesday.

Read more.

Wisconsin County 2011 Recorded Vote Analysis
by Richard Charnin

2008 vs. 2011 County data: http://richardcharnin.com/Wisconsin2011.htm

This is a comparison of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the 2008 presidential elections.

Prosser leads by 7,000 out of nearly 1.5 million votes.
In 2008, Obama had 56.2% of the recorded vote, a 415,000 vote margin out of nearly 3 million votes.

Read more, see data.

Students Protest UW-Madison Split At Bascom Hall
Protesters Hold Sit-In At Bascom Hall
Updated: 9:12 pm CDT April 26, 2011

MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison students and campus community members are engaging in a sit-in at Bascom Hall to protest the idea of splitting UW-Madison from the rest of the UW System.

Chanting the words “our house,” protesters entered Bascom Hall Tuesday afternoon to hold a sit-in outside Chancellor Biddy Martin’s office.

Martin has been pushing her plan for the New Badger Partnership, which would spin off UW-Madison from the rest of the UW System.

Gov. Scott Walker included the split in his budget proposal. Under his proposal, UW-Madison would have its own board of trustees and have more leeway on purchasing, construction, money management and tuition.

Read more.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Election Recount Begins Wednesday; Waukesha County Clerk Recuses Self
By Brad Friedman

Wednesday morning at 9:00am Central Daylight Time, County Clerks in 72 counties across the state of Wisconsin will convene to oversee just the third statewide election “recount” in Badger State history. Kathy Nickolaus, the embattled Waukesha County Clerk, GOP activist, and former colleague of Justice David Prosser during their tenure in the Assembly Republican Caucus fraught with criminal felony charges and corruption, will not be one of them.

The two previous statewide recounts in Wisconsin were carried out in 1989 and, before that, in 1865.

By agreement of both campaigns, just 31 of the 72 counties will see some of their paper ballots counted by hand in the state-sponsored contest of the April 5th Supreme Court election between the incumbent Republican Prosser and his independent challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg. All other ballots are scheduled to be counted once again by the same oft-failed, easily-manipulated machines made by companies like Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, which tallied them originally. Each machine-tallied ballot may be examined — though they may not be touched — by representatives of each campaign, prior to being run through the machine again.

Read more.