A Letter to the Editor in the March 1 Tomahawk Leader:

Tomahawk High School, parents, and concerned citizens have all had their say! Now it’s time for what information I have gathered from Tomahawk Middle School. Many people in my school have commented that we would like the community to know our point of view, so here it goes.
Our teachers, whether we like them or not, give us support, listen when everyone else thinks we are too young, help us learn, and give us their patience. It takes a special sort of person to be a teacher, because kids are not the easiest to work with. What Gov. Walker does not understand is that teachers aren’t just the strict educators you think about when you think school, they are somebody who gets down to your level and actually listens, not just tolerates. Maybe Walker shouldn’t worry about more jobs, but the jobs we are already losing. He also doesn’t comprehend that teachers have families they have to support and bills they have to pay just like everyone else! They already have a low income as is and in your last issue it had been mentioned that $600 was lost everyone month to one teacher’s pay check! When you cut their money you cut hope of teachers coming out of my generation, not to mention any patience or trust you have also cut. I have heard people say it’s an easy job because it’s 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and they don’t have to work summers, well actually teachers stay later than 3:30, correcting and helping our community learn, plus they have teaching exercises in the summer.

My class recently had a discussion about this in which one kid said this, “My mom is a teacher and my dad works at the mill and my dad makes more money!” We also discussed how we didn’t believe this was in the best interest of Wisconsin. One of my friends later said this, “I am honestly scared about this.” Why you ask? Because both of his parents are teachers and their stress is scaring him! I know many teachers that have kids and, as any parent would know, all the schooling, clothes, and many other things can equal a lot of deduction to a parent’s budget.

What example are you setting for my generation, when someone with a master’s in teaching is earning less than someone with no college education? What do we think when you tell us everything will turn out fine? We know it isn’t true. For anyone who says teachers and any other government employees aren’t doing their fair share, what is it called when they try and help but you want them to give more every time? From the looks of things when I get older we will have to patch up the holes you just kept on making, even when we ask you to stop.

Kim Shuman,
Concerned seventh grader
Tomahawk

Didn't you learn in grade school that the school principal is your pal? One hopes that most principals have principles

And benifit is incorrect, it's benefit. You get a C for this post.

_________________
Nell

More women die of lung cancer than breast cancer. If you smoke, quit. If you don't, don't start.

Friends never lets friends drive drunk.

An exerpt of today's "peaceful protest".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cx77K8e ... ded#at=231

Maybe the National Guard wasn't so bad an idea after all.

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"There are two parties in politics: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have bad ideas, Democrats have no ideas." - Lewis Black

Please Governor Walker, tell me how our shortening the school year will help our educational system. Your plan to eliminate the mandatory 180-day student year doesn't make sense to me. Yes, I know the minutes per year will stay the same as schools can lengthen the days, but as an educator I know that "the parts will not equal the whole" in this situation. I know it will allow school districts to have 4-day weeks... oh, it will save us money! I get it! No worry! Our students don't need to be competitive with those from other countries. As long as we can save a buck...

Here's another video of the "violent" protests, according to Fox News. When did they get palm trees in Madison? Fair and Balanced my ***.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RClJ6vK9 ... r_embedded

I saw that video as well. Good grief!! And I'm told FOX isn't slanted! Nor do they take things out of context. Seriously!

_________________
Life is too short for drama & petty things!
So, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly!

If you're naive enough to think Fox News or MSNBC are unbiased news sources, that's your problem.

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"There are two parties in politics: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have bad ideas, Democrats have no ideas." - Lewis Black

neup99, I agree with you 100%.

The problem is that many, many people get all their news from channels like Fox News and believe everything they hear. This February marked the 110th straight month for Fox News being the most watched news channel in America.

neup99 - This video from "Faux News" is way beyond biased - it's a lie!

While I think Fox's use of video was horrible it seems there is a bit of an explanation that has been pointed out to me. I'll pass it on so people have both sides of the story to look at.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/no-fox-news-did-not-lie-with-wisconsin-palm-tree-violent-protest-video/

Here`s an interesting view of Walker and his agenda.................'
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Myth: Walker’s budget repair bill is only about money, nothing else.

Fact: Republicans claim the bill is all about money and necessary to balance the state budget, so therefore it could be put on a fast track and circumvent the normal legislative process. Walker has called his union-busting proposal “modest” and claimed “it’s about the money.” State Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) called it “fair” and a “small sacrifice” for represented workers.

But Walker’s budget repair bill is about far more than health care and pension contributions. The Senate Democrats and unions agreed to those concessions last week, but the Republicans rebuffed the offer, saying that the bill is not negotiable. Therefore, the bill the Democrats would have to vote for would disallow public employee unions from negotiating on health care coverage, staffing levels, seniority, workplace safety, sick days, vacation and more. Walker has even rejected a Republican proposal to suspend bargaining rights for two years.

But that’s not what this whole battle is about. The battle is about “power,” noted Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in TheNew York Times. “What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin—and eventually, America—less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy.” Because, Krugman explained, Walker wants to bust unions, which will increase the power of lobbyists funded by billionaires like the ultra-libertarian Koch brothers, who own the largest privately held oil firm in the country and fund the Astroturf tea party group Americans for Prosperity (AFP).

The Koch Industries PAC just happens to have donated $43,000 directly to Walker in 2010. The Koch PAC also donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which spent $65,000 in support of Walker, according to an investigation by Mother Jones.

The Times confirmed the union-busting-Walker-AFP connection, and reported that AFP’s head, Tim Phillips, plans to repeat the strategy in other states. “The effort to impose limits on public labor unions has been a particular focus in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all states with Republican governors, Mr. Phillips said, adding that he expects new proposals to emerge soon in some of those states to limit union power,” the Times reported on Tuesday.

Even if you don’t believe TheNew York Times’ take on Walker’s bill, perhaps Bob Lang, the highly respected chief of the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB), will convince you. Lang found numerous non-fiscal policy items in the budget repair bill, including changes to collective bargaining rights for public employees, as well as eliminating that right for University of Wisconsin System faculty and academic staff, among others.

So much for it being all about the money.

So FOX is busted for their slanted form of journalism. Are we surprised?

_________________
Life is too short for drama & petty things!
So, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly!

Love hearing from Nurse Nell too!

_________________
Life is too short for drama & petty things!
So, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly!

Thank you, Ken - a voice of reason!

mimi61


They already are not able to compete with many other countries !

Perhaps it is time for some change !

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God and the Soldier we all adore,
In times of trouble and then no more
when war is over and all things righted
God is forgotten, the old soldier Slighted.

Two years ago, County Exec Walker used an invented financial crisis to lay off county security guards and privatize their jobs. A judge recently ruled that the supposed fiscal crisis was no emergency, and reversed the move. Not only was Walker's move deemed legally unjustifiable--it saved the county exactly $0, and may end up actually... costing it nearly $500,000. Interesting article...

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/117276913.htm

My heart goes out to all the security guards involved both those laid off and those hired to replace them. Not only will this "move" end up costing Milwaukee County, I'm sure it will/has cost the guards involved more than just the loss of wages. Sad indeed. I can't help but think too that the State of Wisconsin has and will be paying for this "move".

_________________
Life is too short for drama & petty things!
So, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly!

OldScout - Outlawing collective bargaining for teachers and slashing funding for education is not going to improve the education of our children and make them more competitive on a global level. Here is what outlawing collective bargaining has done in other parts of the country.

"Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows:

South Carolina – 50th
North Carolina – 49th
Georgia – 48th
Texas – 47th
Virginia – 44th

If you are wondering, Wisconsin, with its collective bargaining for teachers, is ranked 2nd in the country."

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democrac ... /02/unions

XYZ1,

It's been pointed out in numerous locations that this is a faulty argument and statistic. The testing companies themselves say you can't compare state to state. In Wisconsin, only those considering going to college take an exam, and typically, they take the ACT if they are going to school anywhere around here. Typically for a Wisconsin student to take the SAT they are looking at going to a high end school so those are definitely only the best and the brightest.

In some of those states, every student takes one of the tests. If you compared all of our students, to all of their students it might not look as good.

We agree on not supporting the bill, but I won't agree with pushing bad data...

Can anyone enlighten me as to why the governor is yet again in Eau Claire today? 4th time in about a week. 3rd time flying in. This past weekend it was the American's for Prosperity bus that brought him. Each of the 3 times he has flown in for a brief visit it has been closed to the public. Seriously? Anyone know what it might cost to fly that jet?

_________________
Life is too short for drama & petty things!
So, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly!

Hope everyone is happy now that Wisconsin is synonymous with Fascism. And if you ever thought that Walker was doing this to balance the budget, now you know the truth. I just hope that it can be overturned in the courts. If anything this move just prolonged this battle. What are local governments going to do now? Act like this is the new law of the land when it was passed illegally and will be likely overturned? And then have to re-negotiate everything all over again? Nice strong arm tactics. Just made everything a lot worse.

Is the idea that it was passed illegally and will be overturned just because you don't like it or do you have some criteria that you are basing this on?

_________________
"There are two parties in politics: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have bad ideas, Democrats have no ideas." - Lewis Black

What happened last night sickens me. What that little slime ball governor and his corporate croonies disguised as senators did is a disgrace. I hope the courts do the right thing and throw it out, and all the recalls work.

Wisconsin Republicans were in such a rush to pass their union-busting bill last night . What a coincidence that the GOP state Senate leaders have to be in Washington, DC in a few days for a big-money fundraiser hosted by conservative DC lobbyists. Private guest list, very exclusive - but they'll probably raise at least $100,000.

They're trying to literally cash in on the fact that they just took away the rights of tens of thousands of working families.

Last night in Madison, Wis., in the dead of night, Senate Republican rammed through a bill that strips Wisconsinites of the collective bargaining rights their parents and grandparents bargained for, marched for, went on strike for and sometimes even died for.


This assault on workers' freedom will not stand. As the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO said last night: Scott Walker and the Republicans' ideological war on the middle class and working families is now indisputable, and their willingness to shred 50 years of labor peace, bipartisanship and Wisconsin's democratic process to pass a bill that 74 percent of Wisconsinites oppose is beyond reprehensible.
What we saw in the dead of night in Wisconsin wasn't democracy. It was back-door deal-making, partisan politics taken to the limit. That isn't worthy of America. And working Americans simply won't stand for it. Not in Wisconsin, and not anywhere.

It's time to turn outrage into action. Take action now: Tell your state or local lawmakers that what happened in Wisconsin last night is unacceptable anywhere. Last night, Gov. Walker and his rubber-stamp Republican senators showed us they will do just about anything to pay back corporate donors by stripping workers of their right to bargain for good, middle-class jobs.

First, they claimed Walker's bill was aimed at balancing Wisconsin's budget. But that was exposed as an outright lie last night. Their true motives were exposed when they robbed hundreds of thousands of nurses, teachers, snowplow drivers and EMTs of their collective bargaining rights-without even a dime of savings to Wisconsin taxpayers. And they thumbed their noses at their state's open meeting laws to do it.

Afternoon, but keep going,


3:42 pm to be exact,


after a few hours of deliberation and being the second time the assembly was voting on the bill,


except wages, and gives individauls the freedom from being forced to pay into unions,


that's possible,


maybe,


not likely, but I guess maybe,



What? Died for? For union rights? Any chance you can back up this statement?



What EMT's are "having their bargaining rights robbed"?

_________________
"There are two parties in politics: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have bad ideas, Democrats have no ideas." - Lewis Black

Bay View Massacre

The Bay View Massacre (sometimes also referred to as the Bay View Tragedy) was the culmination of events that began on Saturday May 1, 1886 when 7,000 building-trades workers joined with 5,000 Polish laborers who had organized at St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to strike against their employers, demanding an eight-hour work day.

By Monday, these numbers had increased to over 14,000 workers that gathered at the Milwaukee Iron Company rolling mill in Bay View. They were met by 250 National Guardsmen under order from Republican Governor Jeremiah M. Rusk to "shoot to kill" any strikers who attempted to enter. Workers camped in the nearby fields and the Kosciuszko Militia arrived by May 4. Early the next day the crowd, which by this time contained children, approached the mill and were fired upon. Seven people died as a result, including a thirteen-year-old boy.[1] Several more were injured during the protest.

Since 1986, members of the Bay View Historical Society, the Wisconsin Labor History Society, and other community groups have held a commemorative event to honor the memories of those killed during the incident. The event is held at the State Historical Marker site at the intersection of Superior Street and Russell Avenue, within view of the former rolling mill location