Wisconsin Protests

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Koch-funded astroturf group, held a Tax Day rally in Madison on April 14. This year's Tax Day rally was dramatically smaller than the 2009/2010 rallies at the Capitol and even smaller than last year's rally which took place in the sleet and the snow at the height of the Wisconsin Uprising. With the sun shining down on this year's rally, this year's themes included the supposedly fake "War on Women" and claims about how well Governor Scott Walker's policies are working for Wisconsin.

Wisconsin's chapter of AFP has been very supportive of Walker and his policies over the past year, running ads supporting the passage of Walker's union-busting "Budget Repair Bill," that sparked unprecedented protests in February and March of 2011. In more recent months, they have also partnered with the conservative belief tank, the MacIver Institute, to launch an expensive TV ad and Internet campaign called "It's Working," suggesting that Walker's collective bargaining measure and budget cuts have been successful.

On April 11, the Center for Media and Democracy filed a letter with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board documenting how the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, provided the ethics board erroneous information about corporate-funded gifts to ALEC legislative members. This letter supplements the complaint CMD filed last month.

Hours after the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and other progressive groups publicly called on McDonald's to drop its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the fast food giant announced it has left the organization. McDonald's is the fifth major corporation in a week to withdraw from ALEC, and groups are now calling for legislators to follow suit.

A federal judge has struck down key provisions of Act 10 -- Governor Scott Walker's controversial legislation limiting collective bargaining -- on grounds that the arbitrary, possibly politically-motivated distinction between "public safety" and other public employees violated equal protection and First Amendment rights.