Wisconsin Senate Votes to Hurt Unemployed and Police Manhandle Protester
Wisconsin Capitol building. Image from http://www.screwedkenoshastyle.com/Court/index.html
While the nation was fixated on Washington D.C. today, and rightfully so, Wisconsin saw its fair share of GOP induced abuse of working families. The Senate voted to extend unemployment one week. At a time when thousands are without work, often times due to no fault of their own, they voted to add a one week waiting period to unemployment. But it goes beyond that, the hypocrisy was running rampant. Remember this is the same state Senate that voted unanimously to not add the one week waiting period. That was before brothers Fitzgerald (Jeff and Scott, leaders of the Senate and Assembly) met in a back room and decided to instead go with Scott Walker and require the waiting period. So today the Senate vote was much different than the 33-0 vote to end the waiting period. In one week the GOP senators miraculously changed their mind and voted to add an extra week of waiting.
Now please do keep in mind that this entire vote was postponed twice already so that no one would be effected before recalls. You see the Wisconsin GOP realized that if people had to wait an extra week for unemployment when they are on the verge of losing everything and would appreciate a little food on the table, they would lose the recall elections. So instead they decided to just make sure everyone suffers after the recalls. This is one of many reasons we need all hands on deck calling the recall districts. Please, everyone across the country take a little time to make some phone calls. What happens in Wisconsin will affect everyone, if we win this battle it will have a positive affect on the entire country. If we lose it will have a potentially lethal affect on our entire country. So please take a moment and make a few calls here:
As many of you know I am in recovery from an operation and my knee is in pretty bad shape. I decided today, however, that despite having a bad knee I would go and make a stand for our constitution. I decided to film an open meeting of the Senate as I do feel this unconstitutional rule needs to be repealed. Once again I got asked to put the camera away or leave. So I informed them that I was protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution and Article 1 Section 3 of the Wisconsin Constitution. The police came over. They often carry me out for things like silently videotaping and upholding the Constitution. But this time I got up, knowing that getting carried out would likely add weeks on to my surgical recovery. One officer grabbed my arm and started pulling me, the other pushed me from the other side quite violently.
At this point several people had noticed and, as they described it, I was being manhandled. I was walking with the officers but they didn’t think it was fast enough, so one officer pulled me quite hard. I fell and my knee pulled causing excruciating pain. I was prepared for this but just reacted out of instinct. I couldn’t get up because my knee was in too much pain. So I took half my arm from elbow to hand and flung it against the State Trooper in front of me who pulled me, pinning him to the wall. I managed, as he was falling back a bit, to push myself up enough to stand. I didn’t do it in a way to cause harm to him and so it did not. He was fine, thankfully, and I managed to hoist myself up. He said something about resisting arrest and assault of an officer and then he finally heard what I had already said ten times: that my knee was hurting and I couldn’t walk fast. He decided it was not best to push this as assault of an officer as he was the primary aggressor. I did manage to get video of some of the Senate session (although pretty much all of it’s just audio). You can find that here:
And as always, myself and the other activists at the Capitol, will continue to hold down the fort. Some people say it’s silly to risk your own health and safety just to be able to film a meeting. To that I say, our troops die for us to have these very rights. Is that silly? Of course it isn’t. We will continue to fight one day longer and one day stronger because it is necessary. We are willing to give our safety, we are willing to make whatever sacrifices are needed to restore our rights and our democracy. We as a people need to rise up and stop waiting until something is in effect to challenge it. We must question and challenge our government every step of the way and we must keep track of what our government is doing. We as a people created this mess by becoming too compliant. We as a people must fix it!
Jeremy Ryan
Defending Wisconsin PAC
jryan@defendingwisconsin.org
NOTE: Jeremy’s activism and efforts are completely funded by the people and times have been tough. Please help with the rent and food fund if you can by clicking here!
8:58 pm
I wonder when I can look forward to your commentary on “barbecue for votes”?
6:14 pm
Scott Walker should be arrested, for violating the Highest Law of the Land, Scott Walker also violated Article 1 section 10, to which states in pertinent part that “No State shall make anything but gold and silver, in payment of tender of debt, or pass any ex post facto laws, impairing the obligations of a contract.” As in this particular matter of Scott Walker’s criminal actions against the Highest Law of the Land, but it also is true, the assertion of this doctrine was promptly sized upon as a boon by the special interests and by all who at heart believed in the government of teh many for the benefit of the few. It has practically made the courts the dominant power in every Stateand in the Union…Whenever any progressive statute has not been in accord with the economic views entertained by the courts, it has always been in their power, which has been generally exercised, to declare that the statute in question was unconstitutional because it was not “due process of law” or “deprives of the equal protection of the law,” and there are other phrases which the judges use at will. Even Magna Carta, which was a treaty between King John on the one hand and 13 barons and 13 bishops on the other, in an attempt to resrict the absolute power of an irresponsible king, has sometimes been restorted to as being in some inconceivable way a heaven-born bar in the hands of the courts upon the power of American People. The phrases above quoted are very elastic and mean just whatever the court passing upon the statute thinks most effective for its destruction. This, of course, makes of vital importance the inquiry,”What are the beliefs of the majority of the court on economic questions, and what happens to be their opinion of a sound public policy? A power so great adn so irreviewable, and therefore so irresponsible, has become the mainstay of the anti-progressive element. besides “Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved there can be no rule making or legislation that would abrogate them.” See, Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436, 491 (1966)…