Maybe They Were Right to Call the Governor 'Hosne' Walker in an Unflattering Comparison to Mubarek from Egypt; The Right Attempts to Block Opposition Organizing by Shutting Down an Internet Site

Dear Wisconsin protesters:
You are already being compared to the protesters in the middle east, particularly Cairo.  So follow their example!  Organize on facebook and with twitter.  I doubt the paranoid conspiracy theorists who are trying to gut your collective bargaining rights are going to shut down the entire internet.  But hey! There are always other options.  Just keep up that in-person pressure.
Best of Luck! Dog Gone, penigma.blogspot.com

I have been following our penigma statcounter.com account, noticing that we have been getting an unusually higher number of hits, or reads, from Wisconsin, and to a lesser extent, from other states where there are efforts to stamp out the unions, both public service sector unions as in Wisconsin, and private sector unions, like the ones in Indiana where their democratic legislators have also gone on the lam to Illinois.  Some of them are originating from state government internet connections like this one (ip redacted for privacy):

Madison, Wisconsin, United States
State Of Wi Dept. Of Administration (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) [Label IP Address]
A Penigma - a mystery, under a pseudonym: Scott Walker Punked by Buffalo Beast Pretending to Be David Koch

I tend to pay particular attention to 'reads' from government offices in other states (or congressional offices etc. in DC), and from the offices/headquarters of political parties or other organizations.  There has been an increase in that demographic readership.  Sorry protesters, we're just a blog, we can't do much to help with organizing - but we're delighted you're reading! (That goes for you conservatives too.)

This seems a particularly interesting phenomenon, given that at least Wisconsin has begun to censor the access by internet to the opposition organizers.  I'm going to be curious to see if this trend is followed in those other states where we have been privileged to have readership - and to see if it applies just to those using the Madison, WI state house wi-fi, or if it applies to the actual government office computers as well.


This follows the Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate shutting off the microphones of the Democratic Senators prior to their leaving to prevent a quorum.  I'm pretty safe in guessing that those Republican Senators are big on 2nd Amendment Rights, and maybe on 10th Amendment Rights, but apparently - judging by their actions - they're not so supportive of 1st Amendment Rights to  Freedom of Speech, at least, not for dissent or opposition.

It suggests that those Republicans who are so eager to appear to hang tough must be worried at the level of opposition they have generated.  These are the acts of people who are afraid of the people in the street and in the capital building.  I wonder how long it will be before they resort to the actions of the utterly paranoid, and try something like this on the opposition Democrats - Psyops!  Because, heck, if a United States three star general can deploy a psychological operations team to work on our federal elected officials:

"Miklaszewski also pointed out that using such tactics on U.S. citizens is against regulations and not to be done under any circumstances.


Among those targeted were senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin, as well as Representative Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee, the report said. The team also allegedly targeted Admiral Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

then what is there to stop Governor Walker from using National Guard psyops against his Democratic Senators to get them to vote his way?  Or use them against his own Republican legislative supporters, if any of them weaken in their resolve?  Or, even use them (or their techniques) against the protesters?  If there are (now former) deputy attorneys general advocating using live ammunition on dissenters, is it really so improbable that the right would use psychological warfare - especially if, unlike live ammo, there is less chance of getting caught red-handed?

Maybe I shouldn't risk giving the Wisconsin conservatives any ideas they might not come up with on their own.  Nah! Their current fall-back strategies seem so lame, and frankly so draconian, sending state troopers to Democratic Senators homes to try to round them up.  That is costly, ineffective and inefficient, authoritarian, and ........oh, yeah, I guess so very Republican.

I predicted that there would be some sort of humorous opposition to the Republicans in Wisconsin which would embarrass them, something funny, but also with a serious side to it.  I had thought it would come from inside the Cheesehead's borders, not from New York by way of the Buffalo Beast, or Jon Stewart on the Daily Show.  I'm still looking forward to that irrepressible Wisconsin wicked humor coming to the fore; I don't believe the laughter at the conservatives in Madison is over yet.

An aside - wouldn't it be interesting if the legislators from Wisconsin AND Indiana 'met in the middle' to share strategizing?  The greater Chicago area pretty much reaches from the border with Gary, Indiana most of the way to Rockford, one of the locations just over the border from Wisconsin where the WI democratic senators were reported to be 'hiding out'.  There are some quite nice rest stops on the toll way, those fun ones where the building with the restaurants, gift shops, bathrooms and gas stations are built over the roadway so you can watch the cars going under you as you eat.  I'm sure they could find one where they could meet that is approximately midway in Illinois between Wisconsin and Indiana using one of the GPS services.  Or perhaps some kind of larger confab, with the democratic legislators of the other states facing this kind of legislation is in order, for broader strategizing, parallel to the Republican Governors group that appears to have planned all this legislation.

Budget crisis? Does ANYONE still believe that pretext?  I'm guessing not, or at least far fewer.