The effort to recall Wisconsin’s Gov. Scott Walker recall is statewide, which brings in a lot of low-hanging fruit for signatures: the liberal bastion of Madison, for example, or the Democratic-rich city of Milwaukee. So it’s not really a surprise that Democrats are able to gather a hefty amount of recall signatures in a short amount of time. But early results are impressive.

Russ Feingold, author of the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Relief Act of 2009, has responded to the news that President Obama sent 100 combat-equipped troops to Uganda last week. I said I would follow up on that, so here it is.

Today former Wisconsin Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, who lost his seat in 2010 to Ron Johnson, told supporters he will not run for office in 2012.

This decision could be good news for Gov. Walker. Without a strong challenger like Feingold willing to run in a recall election, it could cause forces opposed to Walker to decide it may not be worth going through the difficult and expensive task for running a recall effort.

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.

I don’t know what the fine Cheese-and-Bratheads up in Wisconsin did to piss off the political gods, but they have been blighted. It was bad enough to cause national outrage and solidarity when extreme right wing movement conservative Governor Scott Walker and the crazed GOP majorities in the state legislature started attacking the working men and women of Wisconsin’s unions, teachers, cops and firefighters. But now they have gone a bridge too damn far.

And that is why I am supporting Russ Feingold in a recall election against Walker, and you should too.

Russ Feingold is a hero, and for good reason, to progressives. Russ was one, if not the only one, of the Democratic Senate, make that Senate as a whole, who really stood up for civil liberties in the face of the bipartisan onslaught that has occurred over the last decade, both under George Bush and Barack Obama.

I remember receiving a phone call from a prominent newspaper reporter in Fall 2009 about the emergence of the Tea Party, largely in opposition to President Barack Obama’s health care legislation. “Is the Tea Party going to become a major force in American politics,” the reporter asked. “No,” I responded confidently. “Like other fringe protest parties in the past, it will fizzle quickly. Their message is too negative.”

I have never been so wrong in my life!

• Twelve corporations that made $171 billion in pre-tax profits between 2008 and 2010 paid a negative tax rate over that period. This includes companies like GE, Exxon, IBM, Yahoo and Boeing.

Right now, opposition to PATRIOT excesses is still mostly a Democratic issue (though Rand Paul definitely took the leadership role Russ Feingold would have had in the past). Until more Republicans join Paul, Heller, and Lee in opposing PATRIOT, it’ll remain on the books, particularly so long as we have a Democratic President whom Democratic Senators are happy to have wielding such power.

Republican Gov. Scott Walker has been steadily making himself less popular in Wisconsin, so much so that he is now potentially vulnerable to a recall campaign, which could theoretically be launched six months from now.