at least it's an ethos...

Signing the Recall Petition for Governor Scott Walker and Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch - photo by Phil Ejercito (dane101.com)

As the minutes ticked by and midnight approached, however, the number of people who packed into the building doubled, tripled, and more - eventually filling the space in a wall-to-wall scrum of cheering, energized Wisconsinites.

At five minutes ‘til an announcement was made by United Wisconsin organizers: “We’re going to do this ethically, so at midnight exactly we’ll start gathering signatures!”

And when the clock ticked over to 12:00 a.m. the bar erupted in clapping and chants and the television cameras shined their lights on a small table pressed up against one wall where petitions were located: White for Walker, yellow for Lt. Gov. Kleefisch, who is also being targeted for recall.

-Emily Mills for dane101

In early June dane101 reported on information from anonymous state workers who claimed that an emergency response team operating out of the GEF-2 building downtown had been set up to monitor the social media activity of protest related organizations.

A recently released report (pdf) put together by the Wisconsin National Guard and Wisconsin Emergency Management now seems to confirm there was, in fact, state-run internet monitoring happening during the protests.

The report, which makes recommendations for how the state might better handle large protests in the future and points out specific shortcomings in the response that did happen earlier this year, was released as the result of an open records request made by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The MJS had earlier questioned Capitol Police spokeswoman Lori Getter about the existence of such an emergency team. Getter denied that one had ever been used by the division’s Joint Information Center.

On page 11 of the report, however, a “Telecommunications Emergency Response Team” is specifically mentioned as having “provided essential staff for this prolonged event.” The report also cites a lack of earlier “monitoring of social media during events to anticipate crowd psychology, actions and reactions” as an area of needed improvement. It suggests that state/law enforcement engaged in social media and networking “much too late,” supporting the late May/early June-leak of the creation of an emergency response team.

[emphasis mine]

understood.  but signatures can be gathered starting in november 2011 and paperwork can’t be turned in before january 3, 2012 (1 year after his inaugeration).  that leaves 11 months of walker rule if we wait until november.  i don’t care for this path.

mitchelbackinwausau:wiscostorm

#wiunion: The first step toward improving Wisconsin begins with turning the senate.  This graphic outlines the path to that end.

tell your friends! 

• blue checkmarks show the real democratic candidates. 
• pics marked fake are republican funded faux democrats. 
• recallrepresents republican senators who stood with scott walker.

FIX THIS, WISCONSIN!

(via mitchelbackinwausau-deactivated)

From the official NASA Launch Blog - Final Space Shuttle Liftoff - Friday July 8, 2011 @ 10:29:09 CDT

the kid has no fear of fireworks, loud noises, or fire in general. this both heartens and dismays me.

With the accompaniment of wheezing bagpipes, upwards of 800 hundred supporters were present while backers of a referendum that seeks to overturn Ohio’s controversial attack on public worker collective bargaining rights this fall gave speeches and unloaded a semi-truck filled with over 1.2 million signatures to the Ohio Secretary of State, which will proceed to tally them and send them out to Ohio boards of election, where the laborious process of verifying valid signatures will take place.

they only needed 231,000 signatures.  that’s 5x what was needed.  ohio is doing good work.

#wiunioninspiration

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was greeted by a healthy display of cheese heads and blue solidarity fists when he took part in a Republican fundraiser in New York City on Tuesday. The fundraiser was being held in honor of Wisconsinite and Chairman of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus at a home of Gilbert Haroche.

(via dane101)

a groggy good morning with slight side-eye from camp in blue mound state park.

poutine classique* and a baguette slider @ patati patata in montreal.