Breitbart and Tea Party Plan Rally in Wisconsin
Mother Jones reports:
After several days of union protests in Madison, Wisconsin, opposing Republican Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to end collective bargaining rights for many state employees, tea party activists are mobilizing their own foot soldiers to converge on Madison on Saturday, February 19. Tea partiers are arranging for buses to the state Capitol, with the help of a local talk radio host. They're promising a massive counter-demonstration to all those angry teachers. And this effort is being spearheaded by the conservative group American Majority, which has been training activists to become candidates at the state level.
American Majority has set up an "I Stand With Scott Walker Rally" Facebook page to spread the word, and by 1 o'clock Friday, 1100 people had replied and said they were planning to descend on Madison. And if they and others do flock to the state capital, Madison could well become a media circus. Conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart will be headlining the tea party rally, along with Gateway Pundit blogger Jim Hoft, who recently scoffed at the Egyptian pro-democracy uprising. (Hoft also blamed CBS News reporter Lara Logan's "liberal belief system" for her sexual assault in Egypt.) Recently added: potential GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain. And there may also be a cameo appearance by Joe "The Plumber" Wurtzelbacher, who tweeted Friday morning that he he was headed to Madison to "do some interviews."
Many tea partiers across the country have complained on their websites that Walker and other conservative leaders haven't responded forcefully enough to the unions. They were ticked off that Walker was not organizing a street-level counter-protest. And this void, they said, needed filling. Breitbart, for one, has been circulating a video purportedly showing a single tea party activist harassing fugitive Wisconsin legislators, who fled the state to prevent the GOP-dominated state legislature from voting on Walker's bill to gut the public-sector unions. Given that the tea party has previously held sizable demonstrations in Madison, the prospects are good that it can produce a crowd this weekend—which could lead to an ugly confrontation between the union supporters and the conservative activists.
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