Walker to Senate Dems: Stop hiding out

Scott Walker accused his political opponents in the state Senate of “hiding out” and warned that any negotiation would take place in Madison, not Chicago or Rockford. If Democrats want to negotiate the terms of the bill, the governor told George Stephanopoulos this morning, then the arena for that is in Madison, where those Senators are supposed to be working. And time is running short, because without a budget repair bill by the end of the week, Wisconsin can’t restructure its debt in time to avoid taking a bond-rating hit that will explode the coming budget deficit (via Sharif Durhams at the MJS):

Meanwhile, the union issued a call today to have teachers return to work by tomorrow:

Mary Bell, the president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, said Sunday that if teachers are not otherwise off on Monday, which is Presidents’ Day, they should report back to the classroom.

If they are off, Bell said they should come to Madison to continue to protest against Gov. Scott Walker’s budget-repair bill.

“It’s time for educators to be back in the classroom with the students,” Bell told reporters in a teleconference.

Later, Bell indicated that educators also should be in the classroom on Tuesday. “We are speaking about Monday and Tuesday,” she said. “I have no idea where things will be next week. But we are saying it is time for educators to be back in the classroom with their students. And it will be a continuing of the actions in Madison in communities around the state and we will continue to speak with our members and we will continue to advocate with legislators and whatever comes next will be determined by the actions we see.”

The state may look for some extra savings by firing teachers who stay out on the wildcat sickout, especially considering the widespread doctors-notes fraud:

Doctors who wrote medical notes over the weekend excusing protesters at the Wisconsin Capitol from work are getting slammed with angry phone calls and profane e-mails from people telling them they deserve to be thrown in jail, one doctor said Sunday.

The physicians wore lab coats Saturday as they stood on a street corner and offered medical notes to the tens of thousands of protesters who paraded past them. The protesters were rallying against a Republican-backed state bill that would eliminate collective bargaining rights for most state workers.

One of the doctors was Lou Sanner, 59, who practices family medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Sanner said he gave out hundreds of notes and that many protesters with whom he spoke seemed to be suffering from stress.

“Some people think it’s a nod-and-a-wink thing but it’s not,” he told The Associated Press on Sunday. “One of the biggest stresses in life is the threat of loss of income, loss of job, loss of health insurance. People have actually been getting ill from this, or they can’t sleep.”

Er, what?  Sanner wants to seriously argue that these teachers were too ill and sleep-deprived to teach their classes, but were perfectly OK to spend hours marching and protesting in cold weather over the same period of time?  Maybe Sanner’s other patients should consider his medical judgment before choosing him to assess their own health.

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