The Bad News for Labor from Wisconsin →

The defeat of the effort to recall Scott Walker from his post as governor of Wisconsin is less of a victory for the Republican Party, or even a defeat for the Democratic Party, as it is a defeat for the labor movement. Walker, after all, has been a particular anathema to organized labor as his radical anti-union policies have drawn attention and opposition from labor unions and their supporters across the country. For progressives, recalling Walker would have been a major victory, but for labor, the stakes were even higher.

Back to the Nineties with Newt →

Before there was Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Scott Walker or any of the other current radical conservatives seeking the national spotlight and perhaps the Republican nomination for president, there was Newt Gingrich. The recent boomlet around a potential presidential bid by the aging right wing revolutionary feels like a strange hybrid of the unique quirkiness that has always been part of Gingrich with nostalgia for the 1990s. Next thing you know, we'll be talking about impeaching a Democratic president and shutting down the government. Maybe the 1990s really are back.

The Fight in Wisconsin →

In some respects, the biggest surprise about Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's efforts to take away public employee unions' right to bargain collectively is why it took so long. Public employee unions are an understandably irresistible target to right wing Republicans. Public employee unions work for the government which, in Republican minds, is already one strike against them. They also reflect efforts by ordinary people to succeed not through feats of individualism, but through working together and cooperating, which, inevitably, feels too close to socialism for most Republicans. Lastly, in many places, although not Wisconsin, public employee unions are heavily non-weight, so consist of people that would be unlikely to vote for the Republican Party anyway.

Lincoln Mitchell