Please.

I always liked Martin Sheen, and if I feel bad for anyone, I feel bad for him.  But what do I know - maybe Martin was/is a terrible father and this is all his fault?

Ugh.

The coverage I've seen on Wisconsin is what I expected - and that's not a compliment, I can assure you.  Why do I have to see Chris Christie every damn night flapping his gums about those evil public employees to lend support to Scott Walker's position that unions are the cancer that is eating our economy?

And Piers thought by the evening people would still be hungry for more Charlie.  

From WisPolitics, via David Dayen:

Meanwhile, while the Governor's budget isn't fully public yet, details are leaking out, and it includes a real whopper:

Gov. Scott Walker today will call for big cuts in state aids to schools, local governments and the UW System and a tight cap on property taxes as part of his plan to balance a $3.6 billion budget shortfall, sources tell WisPolitics.com.

Walker won't call for any tax increases, fee hikes or fund transfers, according to sources with knowledge of the proposal. He also won't propose repealing combined reporting, but will call for allowing companies to claim a portion of what they pay through the tax as a future credit. And he won't peel back the new tax bracket Dem Gov. Jim Doyle and a Dem-run Legislature created in the 2009-11 budget for the state's top earners.

But Walker is proposing a long-term capital gains exemption for reinvesting in a Wisconsin business for five years or more.

The sources said the guv's budget, to be introduced at 4 p.m. today, will call for a strict property tax cap that would largely only allow increases for new construction. The provision would allow local governments to exceed the cap through referendum.

What a tight cap on property taxes has to do with closing a budget gap is beyond me. However, it has a lot to do with turning Wisconsin into California. This is the second half of the Prop. 13-style legislative agenda of Gov. Walker. First, he signed last week a bill requiring a 2/3 majority for income or sales or franchise tax increases. That only applies to this legislative session, to be clear. But this cap on property taxes is the second half of the Prop. 13 agenda. Now there are basically no outlets for revenue, and if these are extended down the road it would necessarily ratchet down state spending over time. Walker has created this self-induced crisis as a pretext to bust unions. There's a reason that we've seen a wave of sudden retirements among public employees in Wisconsin - the workers know there's a target on their backs, and despite the trouble implementing this agenda Walker still holds a lot of power.

It is still a long way from over, Towanda. Yet, I'm starting to reflect on how this has truly reinvigorated labor unions & public employees in so many ways. It certainly seems that way...it certainly seems like the Repubs have again overreached.