Arizona Republicans are proposing a bill to strip public unions of collective bargaining rights and impose limits even more egregious than those adopted in Wisconsin. Even though it’s been strongly opposed elsewhere, it’s a strategy to defang unions and undermine political funding for the Democratic Party.

The case, which the state Supreme Court threw out in a 4-3 ruling, included the participation of Michael Gableman, the Supreme Court justice who received thousands of dollars in free legal services from a high-powered conservative law firm in the state which frequently works on cases before the Court (in a fitting twist, Gableman secured the law firm’s services to defend him in an ethics case). In fact, Michael Best & Friedrich, the law firm in question, worked for the state and Walker’s administration in the case of the anti-union law. Gableman never recused himself from the case, and provided the deciding vote, overturning the ruling from a Dane County district court judge.

Wisconsin may have to add another recall. One of the Republican-appointed judges on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, an elected position that is subject to recall, has been caught in a major scandal, ruling on cases represented by the same law firm that provided him free legal services.

As many as two million public sector workers are on strike against austerity and slashing pensions in Britain today. This is the biggest strike in Britain in 30 years, when the protests focused on another purveyor of austerity, Margaret Thatcher.

The Ohio campaign to defeat SB5, the anti-union bill, has really ramped up over the past couple weeks. And it turns out that when both sides get to make their arguments, the state of Ohio dislikes the stripping of collective bargaining rights and the right to strike, according to the latest polling.

I’m a bit stunned by Ben Bernanke’s morning in America speech, so let me try to recover by looking at Wisconsin. Yesterday was the first day that elevated contributions to pensions and health care came out of the paychecks of public employees, as part of the anti-union bill. So protesters returned to the Capitol in Madison by the hundreds, chanting and demonstrating against the policy. After closing time, the Capitol Police struck back.

So this means that the Democrats picked up a total of two seats in the recalls, and Republicans will have a 17-16 majority in the State Senate when they return to session. Dale Schultz, the moderate Republican who voted against the anti-union bill that stripped collective bargaining rights, will have a lot of say over what else of Scott Walker’s right-wing agenda gets passed. And the state waits for January 2012, when Walker and the rest of the legislature becomes eligible for recall.

I think a really underrated factor in why Democrats in Wisconsin came up just short of winning back the state Senate is because of that extra month on the schedule forced by the “spoiler candidates” put forward by state Republicans. The extra month did not only give Senate incumbents like Alberta Darling and Luther Olsen extra time to campaign and fundraise. It put the elections one more month removed from the outrage across Wisconsin over the theft of collective bargaining rights. Feelings have a way of fading gradually over time. And so an election in July may have had a different feel than an election in August.
There is one man in Wisconsin who can upset this dynamic, however, and bring vitality and energy to a recall. His name is Russ Feingold.

Wisconsin Democrats came up just short last night, flipping two seats in recall elections but not the three needed to take back the state Senate. Currently the Senate will have a 17-16 majority for Republicans; there are two recall elections against incumbent Democrats Robert Wirch and Jim Holperin next Tuesday, August 16. It’s possible that the disappointment of not reaching the goal number in the Republican recalls will depress Democratic turnout, but the expectation is that Wirch and Holperin will hold the seats.

In Chris Cillizza’s smug dismissal of liberal frustration, with the curt statement “liberals and progressives have nowhere else to go,” he overlooks the fact that liberals have plenty of places to go. More than ever, in fact. From a movement-building perspective, there are more opportunities than normal in an off year to really make a difference on progressive policy.