Wisconsin is kind of a launching pad for conservatives who want to break public employee unions. Other efforts are happening in concert. Tennessee just passed a bill out of a Senate committee stripping collective bargaining for teachers. If you weren’t aware that the tea party push to elect Republicans was more about union-busting than liberty or freedom, you weren’t paying attention.

The “special factors” in this case — including Abu Zubaydah’s torture — mean American citizen Jose Padilla can’t sue for having been tortured and denied counsel.

There is justifiably a lot of angry attention drawn to the fact that Wisconsin didn’t really have a budget problem until Republican Governor Scott Walker artificially created one by rushing through a series of business tax cuts. Now, in a classic shock doctrine fashion, he is using this manufactured “crisis” to justify his push to cripple labor unions and cut the salaries of teachers.

While I find his behavior deplorable, it is important for grassroots progressive to keep in mind that what Gov. Walker is doing in Wisconsin is, in many ways, a small-scale version of what President Obama (with the help of Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell) has been overseeing at the federal level.

In case you’re coming to this late, we know of at least three dead in Yemen from anti-government protests, with police firing tear gas, rubber bullets, and according to some protesters, live rounds. Libya’s security forces are shooting protesters indiscriminately. And in the most shocking massacre, Bahraini forces from an overhead helicopter fired into a crowd of thousands. There are varying degrees of media access in these countries, so we probably don’t have the full picture. But we know this much: this is a day of blood. And, in response, we get this boilerplate from the White House.

Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is letting the statute of limitations run on securities fraud related to sales of real estate mortgage-backed securities. He’s very busy with insider trading cases and partying with his buddies at the law firms that got reich creating teh deals and then coping with the fall-out.

The worst part is not that President Obama has recently forfeited the rhetorical war with Republicans by adopting their tired trope–like regular families are tightening their belts during this recession, the federal budget needs to, as well–but that the analogy is horribly wrong. Their is probably no two entities that technically have budgets that are less alike than the United States Federal government and a typical American family.

Consumed by fear, Garin insists that Democrats play on the Republican’s side of the field, and try to out-cut them. The implications for real people doesn’t really matter in this game.

AFP has a report (notably picked up by Pakistan’s Dawn) on the Senate’s hand-wringing over whether we should tie aid to Pakistan to the release of Raymond Davis, the “consulate employee” who shot two alleged Pakistani spies. Here’s what Lindsey Graham had to say…

Jeff Bingaman, the Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, will announce his retirement later today, according to sources. He becomes the sixth Senator – three Democrats, two Republicans, and Joe Lieberman – to announce their retirements in the past month.

Just a reminder of what “small government” looks like under our Republican overlords in Texas.