Have You Heard about This?

The Protests in Wisconsin

I'm curious as to what the rest of the country has heard.

I know we finally broke CNN, and was on the cover of the New York Times; but have you guys really heard anything about this?

I work exactly 20 ft from the protests, so I am fully immersed in it.

the protesters are riding the bus with me to work.

I am hearing the marches from my office window.

It's allover the news.

and, like cairo, twitter's spurring most of the movement.

And it's quite exhilarating.

Here's my very (ill)informed breakdown:

1) walker gets elected gov on a ballot of getting out of debt, starts position last month
2) last week, walker announcing sweeping legislation for this year's budget:

• state employees would have to start paying into their benefits, essentially a 6% paycut per person.
• the main reason people are upset, is it completely negates any unions bargaining rights

3)this week has seen over 30,000 protesters visit the capital.

• a large number of those being teachers
• schools have been closed for the past 3 days

4)The vote was supposed to take place yesterday

• it passed the joint finance committee and was sent to the senate floor
  
• the democrat senators knew they didn't have enough "no" votes, so instead, they refused to attend. the vote couldn't be held because the there weren't enough senators to hold a vote.
• the madison capital police went to round up the dem. senators and require them to vote, but they had fled the state and were hiding in an undisclosed location in Illinois.
• It's basically a way to buy time, the vote will still be held.

exciting stuff, no? it's playing out like a movie.

I'm not going to get into any of my opinions here.
But as someone who adored poli sci in college, it's been very exciting for me to bear witness to the events unfolding.

and the signs have been pretty entertaining too

my personal favorite was, "100% of teachers protesting here have a higher education than governor walker"

So tell me, what have you guys heard?