Produced by Finn Ryan and David Nevala.

We stand together to support workers and families of Wisconsin. We are teachers, firefighters, fathers, daughters, brothers, sisters, young, and old. We are Wisconsin.

h/t Politicususa

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Wisconsin state Senator Glenn Grothman apparently doesn't think much of the protesters spending the night in the capitol building and used the excuse that they're just a bunch of "slobs" trashing the building as the reason why Governor Scott Walker decided to lock them out.

Apparently this is something he's been throwing out there a lot lately as this blog which is devoted to tracking him has taken note of -- What did Glenn Grothman get wrong this week? .

I guess after this greeting he got from the protesters today while trying to enter the capitol building that they were locked out of, he's even less happy with those "slobs". I refuse to link to him, but this video is posted at The Gateway Pundit's site, or as Media Matters calls him, the Dumbest Man on the Internet, under the breathless headline Breaking: Wisconsin GOP Senator Glenn Grothman Mobbed at Wisconsin Capitol. I guess if by "mobbed" you mean followed and having a bunch of people yell "Shame!" at you and then after being talked to by one of the Democratic congressmen and some others, people leaving with chants of "Peaceful protests!".

Tensions are running high right now in Wisconsin, but I didn't see anyone looking like they were going to threaten the Senator. I'm sure he doesn't like being followed or yelled at by a large group of people and I'm quite sure that's an extremely intimidating situation for anyone to find themselves in. That said, it doesn't look like anyone was out to do any physical harm to him either. When you're out to destroy people's livelihoods and they're upset with your for it, sometimes democracy is messy and you're going to end up with pissed off people yelling at you.

It's funny how the right seemed to love this stuff when it was bused in teabaggers screaming at Democratic members of Congress during the health care debate, one of them apparently armed that wingnut and now sadly CNN contributor Dana Loesch defended here, or when there were gun nuts showing up outside an Obama rally in Phoenix with assault rifles, but when one of their own elected officials who catered to them has a group of actual grass roots protesters yelling at him, he's being "mobbed" by some dangerous crowd of "union thugs." Quite the double standard out of these so-called "lovers of democracy" I'd say. Guns and threats of shooting someone and lots of yelling by our side sponsored by the Koch brothers, that's just freedom of speech. For union members who aren't packing heat but just making a lot of noise, not so much.

Transcript below the fold.

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Our mainstream media might be ignoring the protests in Wisconsin but Democracy Now had some excellent coverage of some of the speakers there over the weekend.

Voices from the 100,000-Strong Protest for Workers’ Rights in Wisconsin:

AMY GOODMAN: Labor protests in Madison, Wisconsin, have entered their third week. Hundreds of demonstrators defied police orders and slept inside the State Capitol building on Sunday night to oppose to the Republican Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to strip most public employees of the right to collectively bargain. Governor Walker had ordered the Capitol to be emptied by 4:00 p.m., but Capitol police decided not to enforce the order after hundreds of labor activists, students and supporters refused to leave.

Meanwhile, on Saturday as many as 100,000 people packed the freezing streets of Madison in the largest protest the city has seen since the Vietnam War. Tens of thousands of people marched in solidarity protests in other state capitols. While it may have been the largest labor protest in the United States in years, the demonstration in Madison received little attention by the corporate press. Today we broadcast some of the voices from the Madison rally.

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Could Fox's Gregg Jarrett have found a slimier couple of characters than Hans von Spakovsky and John Fund to throw around accusations that the White House is coordinating with Organizing for America and the DNC to organize the protests we're seeing in Wisconsin and other areas of the country?

Let the games begin with more distraction and drummed up controversies from Fox. Anything to keep us from talking about the real reasons there are thousands of Americans out there protesting.

Organizing for America and the DNC are working with the protesters and Eclectablog at Daily KOS wrote about here -- UPDATED x2 - OFA/DNC in Wisconsin working with protesting public employees. And as they noted, it's not just clips like the one above that Fox has been airing over and over today, but they also posted this at Fox Nation -- DNC Caught Organizing Wisconsin Protests:

The Democratic National Committee's Organizing for America arm -- the remnant of the 2008 Obama campaign -- is playing an active role in organizing protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's attempt to strip most public employees of collective bargaining rights.

OfA, as the campaign group is known, has been criticized at times for staying out of local issues like same-sex marraige, but it's riding to the aide of the public sector unions who hoping to persuade some Republican legislators to oppose Walker's plan. And while Obama may have his difference with teachers unions, OfA's engagement with the fight -- and Obama's own clear stance against Walker -- mean that he's remaining loyal to key Democratic Party allies at what is, for them, a very dangerous moment.

Even though von Spakovsky admitted that there is nothing wrong with OFC or the DNC being involved with these protests, he said if the White House or any of their staff is coordinating with them, they could be guilty of violating federal anti-lobbying act. He didn't offer any proof that they were, but that didn't stop him from throwing the accusation out there anyway. I'm assuming this will be next on Darrell Issa's hit list for subpoenas to issue.

And you've got to love this comment by Fox's Gregg Jarrett:

You know John, the subtitle of your terrific column today, I must say is always very good is, "Who's in charge of our democracy, voters or unions?" Do you think this is sort of an effort by the left to create their own liberal version of the tea party?

This stuff makes my head hurt. Fox is just shameless. Note to Gregg Jarrett, union members are voters you schmuck. I should know, I'm one of them. Here's more from Susan Gardner at KOS on what Garrett is doing here -- Conservatives use divide and conquer rhetoric in Wisconsin union protests.

I don't remember Fox going after the Bush White House when Lurita Doan was using the General Services Administration to help Republicans with reelection efforts, but they're going to go after the Obama White House with no proof they've broken any laws for potentially making phone calls to OFA and the DNC. I'm no lawyer but this looks like grasping at straws to me. Anything to try to delegitimize the union protesters and paint them as some evil pawns of the Obama administration.

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When asked by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! noted linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky brings up the current meme of comparing the uprising in Egypt with what is happening in Wisconsin. Since I'm a fan of this idea it's particularly sweet that a giant of the American Left is using it as well. The political right are at turns, either openly dismissive or virulently hostile to such comparisons. And they absolutely hate Noam Chomsky.

AMY GOODMAN: The New York Times coverage of Madison?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, that was very interesting. In fact, I urge people to take a look at the February 12th issue of the New York Times, the big front-page headline, you know, banner headline, "Mubarak Leaves," its kind of subheadings say, "Army Takes Over." They’re about 60 years late on that; it took over in 1952, but—and it has held power ever since.

But then if you go to an inside page—I don’t know what page it is—there’s an article on the Governor of Wisconsin. And he’s pretty clear about what he wants to do. I mean, certainly he is aware of and senses this attack on public workers, on unions and so on, and he wants to be upfront, so he announced a sharp attack on public service workers and unions, as the questioner said, to ban collective bargaining, take away their pensions. And he also said that he’d call out the National Guard if there was any disruption about this. Now, that’s happening now to Wisconsin. In Egypt, public protests have driven out the president. There’s a lot of problems about what will happen next, but an overwhelming reaction there.

And I was—it was heartening to see that there are tens of thousands of people protesting in Madison day after day, in fact. I mean, that’s the beginning, maybe, of what we really need here: a democracy uprising. Democracy has almost been eviscerated.

The title on the video is from the famous Leonard Cohen song.

As seen on the WEAC Facebook page. (Wisconsin Eduation Association Council). Here is Muhammad Nusair's tweet from Cairo.

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Fox Business reporter Jeff Flock got a bit more than he bargained for in Madison today as some of the locals voiced their opinion of Fox's reportage. One guy in a wool cap was particularly in-your-face about it.

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The video is actually a compilation of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) making the analogy of the recent unrest in Egypt with what is going on in Wisconsin. The links and quotes are from Heather's earlier post on Ryan.

Via TPM:

Speaking on Morning Joe Thursday morning, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) compared the current situation in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker (R) has inspired days of protests by proposing a budget that would remove key bargaining powers for public employee unions, to the recent unrest in Egypt that toppled the 30-year authoritarian rule of Hosni Mubarak, saying it's "like Cairo has moved to Madison these days."

..and another from NBC evening news where a protester in Madison makes the same comparison, albeit from the protesters point of view. Ryan seems to be equating Republicans austerity measures with the oppression of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. And pointed out by many, including Andrew Leonard at Salon.com:

On Thursday morning Ryan topped that headscratcher with a real doozy: He compared the protests currently raging in Wisconsin over Gov. Scott Walker's plans to crush public sector unions to the upheaval that brought down President Mubarak in Egypt. [...]

But when a Republican legislator voluntarily places his own party in the position of Mubarak, you have to wonder what's in the tea these people are drinking. Yes, yes, I know conservatives are worried that democracy in Egypt could lead to the Muslim Brotherhood taking power. But to the vast majority of people on this planet who paid attention to what happened in Egypt, the protesters were the good guys and Mubarak was the bad guy. The sight of people gathering peacefully in Tahrir Square was incredibly inspiring.

Ryan sees riots and Cairo-style destabilization in the masses who have risen up in Wisconsin. But that's not what Democrats and union members and Americans who don't share the Tea Party ethos are seeing. They're seeing the dramatic, exciting beginning of a pushback against Republican over-reach. If Paul Ryan thinks it looks like Cairo, well then, maybe he's right.

Harold Meyerson at the Washington Post quipped that Walker was the "cheesehead pharaoh of Wisconsin."

Protesters have seized on the idea as well.