Excitement in the Badger State - Update

I woke up this morning to the sound of an AFL-CIO radio ad calling on people to stand up against our new governor, Scott Walker.

Walker was the Milwaukee County Executive before this. Not living anywhere near Milwaukee, I didn't know anything about him, but he struck me as a pretty low-key guy. Figured he might do a good job, but he would have all the excitement of a Tim Pawlenty. Par for the course around here.

Or not.

Hundreds gather for protest at Walker's house

We're what, a month beyond inauguration and he's already trying to take away collective bargaining rights from public unions, or something. I don't know all the details yet, but the AFL-CIO is running radio ads. "Call your legsiators, tell them to vote no..."

This is exciting.

And check this out, Ieshu Griffin is one of the people running for Walker's old seat. She ran in the November elections on the slogan, "I ain't no white man's b**ch." Yeah, she didn't make it. LOL. But that is an awesome slogan.

Usually it's boring as milk around here.

Here's Walker today explaining some of what's going on:

Update - I just talked to a friend of mine who used to live in Milwaukee. He told me that Walker was low key, but he kicked a** at the same time when he was the county exec.

Update II - Okay, short version. From what I gather, Walker wants to have public employees put some of their own paycheck toward their pension fund and to pay a greater percentage of their own health insurance premiums. And that new percentage would still only be half the national average. This would go a long way toward balancing the budget. If they don't do this, they'll probably have to lay off more than 1,000 people instead. And yes, people are literally walking out of school to protest this.