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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Could Scott Walker's virtual blackmailing of the citizens of Wisconsin end up costing Badger State taxpayers millions of dollars?

Quite likely.

As BuzzFlash pointed out in an earlier column, "Walker Whacks Wisconsin Taxpayers With Bill for Wackenhut After Illegally Asserting Powers", Walker used the time-pressed coercion technique to fire union security guards at the Milwaukee County Court House and two other buildings. As executive director of the county, he bypassed the board to crush the union, claiming a fiscal emergency.

Sound familiar? Well, as we noted (hat tip to Rachel Maddow), an arbitrator has subsequently ruled against Walker. As a result, the taxpayers of Milwaukee will have to pay half a million dollars in back wages to the union security guards, who were ordered reinstated. That's on top of the money wasted on the union-busting Wackenhut firm, whose Milwaukee supervisor was allegedly a convicted criminal.

Fast forward to 2011 and we have another potential situation of claiming an emergency, taking precipitous ideological action, and the state taxpayers potentially ending up paying the bill as they are doing in Milwaukee County.

Already, at least one Wisconsin labor union has filed a formal complaint against Walker, charging him with refusing to bargain with them, in violation of current law.

Meanwhile, as Ruth Cuniff reports in The Progressive, fear of Walker's thuggish efforts to enrich wealthy backers at the expense of public workers is driving state employees to retire early at a record pace, causing confusion and disruption in state services.

Walker leaves a trail of bills and chaos in his wake. Unfortunately, the taxpayers will likely have to pay the debt down the road for his high-handed, high-pressure tactics.

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While Newt Gingrich is going around the country courting conservative Christians and complaining that America is "too secular a society," its "religious belief ... [is being] challenged by a cultural elite," and "God is [being] driven out of public life," his 527, American Solutions for Winning the Future, became the No. 1 fundraising committee during the 2010 election cycle.

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Anyone who has even remotely followed the career of Newt Gingrich knows that you can definitely count on a few things from him: He has an opinion on just about everything; he thinks he's the smartest guy in the room; he's prone to making bone-headed statements and then tries to walk them back; his Gingrich enterprises are running 24/7, churning out books, videos, movies, op-ed pieces, websites, tweets, and You Tube videos; he's always raising lots and lots of money for his work; and, the capper, he wants to be your president.

Another thing you can be fairly certain about Gingrich is that these days he will go practically anywhere at any time in order to profess his religious beliefs. As the New York Times rather kindly pointed out recently, Gingrich's "conversion to Catholicism two years ago is part of an evolution that has given him a deeper appreciation for the role of faith in public life." This "evolution" on Gingrich's part is likely due at least in part to the fact that over the years serious questions have been raised about the former Speaker of the House's moral character, especially by leaders on the Religious Right.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

What if the alphabet only had the letters "A" and "B"?

In that case, Scott Walker would be a champion speller because, although he could offer a full alphabet of options for a state budget, he seems to have forgotten the rest of the letters beyond "A" (destroy the unions) or "B" (fire state workers).

BuzzFlash/Truthout staffer Dan DiMaggio wrote a commentary about Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, who offered another option: taxing the super rich:

But across the border from Wisconsin in Minnesota, Democratic Governor Mark Dayton has proposed an alternative idea: Raise taxes on the rich to help close the budget gap. Dayton's budget plan would increase taxes to 10.95 percent on Minnesota families earning over $150,000 a year (or single adults earning more than $85,000). He would also add an additional 3 percent surtax on the superrich - those earning more than $500,000 - for the next 3 years.

Dayton would still make some workforce and social service cuts, but he is putting more than two options on the table. The Republicans, as they did with the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, have basically limited the alphabetic choices to two, and neither of them require sacrifice for the wealthy and corporations. In fact, Walker is cutting taxes for that privileged group.

But what if the wealthy of Wisconsin paid their fair share for the services and abundance that democracy offers them?

Mark Levine, founder of the Center for Economic Development at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, wrote an op-ed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel proposing a modest fair share contribution from the super wealthy. Levine also notes this stunning statistic: "Moreover, as a study by the Institute for Wisconsin's Future documented, Wisconsin corporations underpay state and local taxes by more than $1.3 billion annually: This is the difference between what businesses actually pay in state and local taxes and what they would be contributing if paying at the average national rate."

We had a president, George W. Bush, who had trouble with language, now we have a governor of Wisconsin who only knows two letters of the alphabet.

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