POWIP Piece of Work In Progress – Former Abode of Dan Collins

Winning Hearts and Minds in Wisconsin [UPDATED]

I'm going to try to make quick work of this post, so that some of you might not have seen all of this on the nightly news. For starters, via William Jacobson:

The office of Sen. Dan Kapanke (R-La Crosse) said the senator has been subjected to damage of personal property and has received threatening statements in the wake of mass protests in recent weeks over Gov. Scott Walker’s budget-repair bill.

Kapanke have been unavailable, but an aide to Kapanke says that windows on Kapanke's car were broken in Madison and the senator's wife found nails strewn on the driveway of their home.

According to Rose Smyrski of Kapanke’s staff:

Nails were scattered on his driveway twice last week. The incidents were reported to the La Crosse Police Department.

Also, Kapanke's’s windshield was damaged on March 9 after the Senate voted on the budget-repair bill. Kapanke was advised by Capitol police he would not be able to reach his car parked on the Capitol Square because of protesters. A state trooper moved the car, and when Kapanke went to his car a short time later, he found a hole in the windshield. He drove home to La Crosse. He reported the damage on Wednesday to Capitol police.

You'll find more information there about death threats, and a link to Ann Althouse, who's also received threatening communications:

Althouse is a UW-Madison law professor who has been covering and writing about the thuggery and incivility in Madison. She and Meade are now on the receiving end of this bizarre and hateful threat.***LANGUAGE WARNING*****
Union thuggery against Althouse and Meade: "We will hang up wanted posters of you everywhere you like to go."

"We will picket on public property as close to your house as we can every day. We will harrass the ever loving shi*t out of you all the time. Campus is OCCUPIED. State street is OCCUPIED. The Square is OCCUPIED. Vilas, Schenk's Corners, Atwood, Willy Street – Occupied, Occupied, Occupied, Occupied. Did you really think it was all about the Capitol? F*ck the Capitol, we are the CITY... We have the numbers and we don't back down from anyone. We all know each other. We all know each other. We know each other from Service Industry Night at the Orpheum, because we're regulars at the same coffee shops, restaurants and bars, we know each other from the co-ops, we know each other because we've had a million jobs each (and we all worked at CapTel at least once), because we live in every shitty townie house in ever-changing groups of 2 – 7 people, because we are young and horny and screw each other incessantly, because we're all on facebook, and because we aren't anti-social, life-denying, world-sterilizing pieces of human garbage like the two of you. WE WILL F***K YOU UP. We will throw our baseballs in your lawn, you cranky old pieces of sh*t, and then we will come get them back. What are you gonna do? Shoot us? Get Wausau Tea Patriots to form an ad hoc militia on your front lawn? That would be f**king HILAROUS to us. You could get to know the assholes on your side in real f**king life instead of sponging off the civil society we provide for you every single day you draw breath."

That's from Charlie Sykes at WTMJ.

Via Sarah W comes the information that this is the noble young man who drafted the threatening letter to Althouse.

Also via Sarah this photo of the idealistic young man and his sweetheart:

So sweet.

Nuclear Energy Information Service peacenik demonstrates his love for all of God's creatures.

Oh, look: Governor Moonbeam has laid off 19,000 teachers in California. How many did evil Scott Walker fire, again?

You mustn't lay off any government workers, though, because if they suicide the blood will be on your hands. The same is true when they resort to crime.

Nice piece on unions and their fellow travelers.

Those ObamaCare waivers: most of them have been given for reasons that weren't permitted in the legislation.

Oh, gosh. What?

Oklahoma GOP Sen. Tom Coburn warns Social Security solvency should not be contingent on the federal government’s continuing ability to borrow money and previous Congresses have “stolen” the trust fund intended to make the American people secure in retirement.

“We have stolen $2.6 trillion from it. We put paper money in there. The problem is, we spent the money – we didn't just take it, we took it and spent it,” Coburn said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “Social Security ran about a $53 billion deficit last year – it's projected to run a continuous deficit.

Tsk.

An important post by Juliette on honor in Japan, and here at home.

Yikes! Lee Stranahan at . . . HuffPo?

Is this really what liberalism has come to in 2011?

Since working with Breitbart, my position on political issues hasn't changed but I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm deeply disappointed by the virulent, lockstep attitude I see on the left. My experience in the last few months tells me what I would not have believed possible; on any number of issues (including Pigford, by the way) I've seen liberals act much nastier and with less factual honesty than the conservatives... and this includes on issues where I disagree with conservatives.

Burying the death threat story is a clear example of intellectual dishonesty and journalistic bias.

Don't take my word for it, though. Look into the story of death threats in Wisconsin yourself and see who has been covering the story and who hasn't. Try for a moment to see this story from the perspective of those who you may disagree with on policy and ask yourself how this looks to them. Can you blame them for feeling that way? Then take a few seconds and read those questions I asked you at the beginning of this article.

And then ask why progressives shouldn't expect more from our media -- and ourselves -- than we expect from our political adversaries.

via Katnandu on Twitter

UPDATE: Jim Shankman (who's been forced to commit "identity suicide" by crazy right wing bloggers) is a member of the Nottingham Commune.

And, from HuffPo by way of The Blaze, SloJo talks to AFL-CIO with Sec. Labor Solis on a conference call. Honestly, the best bits were left out of the parts transcribed at The Blaze:

via @VickiMcKenna on Twitter