Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Too Close To Call

The race between a conservative-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court justice and a little-known challenger fueled by a wave of anger over the state's divisive new union rights law was too close to call early Wednesday morning.

Unofficial returns from Tuesday's election showed Justice David Prosser and his opponent, JoAnne Kloppenburg, were separated by fewer than 600 votes with 99 percent of precincts reporting. The contest was close enough that a recount appeared likely.

Under Wisconsin election law, a candidate has three days after the official results have been tallied to request a recount. The candidate must specify a reason for the request, such as a belief a mistake was made in the counting or some other irregularity.

An assistant state attorney general, Kloppenburg began her campaign with almost no name recognition and faced what looked like an uphill fight against Prosser.

But her campaign has surged in recent days as her supporters worked to focus anger over Republican Gov. Scott Walker's divisive collective bargaining law onto the conservative-leaning Prosser. The law's opponents hope a Kloppenburg victory will tilt the Supreme Court to the left and set the stage for the court to strike down the law. Election officials in Madison and Milwaukee have noted higher voter interest in what would have been an otherwise sleepy contest.

The measure strips most public workers of nearly all their collective bargaining rights. Walker has said the move is needed to help balance the state's budget. Democrats say it's designed to cripple unions, which are among their strongest campaign supporters, and tens of thousands of people spent weeks at the state Capitol protesting the plan.

The law eventually passed, but is on hold as legal challenges make their way through the courts. Many expect the state Supreme Court ultimately will decide the issue.

The seven-member high court is officially nonpartisan. But Prosser, who is seeking a second 10-year term, is seen as part of a conservative four-justice majority. Kloppenburg's allies have presented her as an alternative that would tilt the court's ideological balance to the left.

Prosser has told The Associated Press he doesn't necessarily agree with the law. Still, bitter Democrats have portrayed him as a Walker clone, helping Kloppenburg's campaign gain traction over the last few weeks.

Pat Heiser, 76, said the union struggles weighed heavily on her decision to vote for Kloppenburg.

"I think collective bargaining should be a human right," Heiser said. "We're not slaves anymore; that ended in the 1860s."

Attorney Bill Finke said he normally votes conservative, and supported Prosser in part because he feared Kloppenburg had a political agenda.

"I'm concerned about having an activist judge on the court," said the 73-year-old from Bayside in suburban Milwaukee.

Outside groups, including the Tea Party Express and national labor organizations, have poured at least $3.1 million into a race that initially wasn't expected to be competitive. Prosser won a nonpartisan February primary with 55 percent of the vote, while Kloppenburg finished second out of four candidates with just 28 percent.

Walker has said he wouldn't interpret the election results as either an endorsement or indictment of his policies.

Madison city clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl said 7,190 absentee ballots already had been submitted by Monday, outpacing the absentee count from the presidential primary of February 2008. High turnout in the liberal city would likely benefit Kloppenburg.

Witzel-Behl predicted a 60 percent turnout, which would be a record high for an April election since Madison started keeping records in 1984. Madison also has hotly contested mayoral and county executive races, but political observers suspect the statewide race is driving many local voters.

Statewide voter turnout reached 33 percent, shattering the pre-election prediction of 20 percent from the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board. April elections in recent years have had voter turnouts ranging from 18 percent to 21 percent.

The race was on track to be the most expensive Wisconsin high court contest in history. Groups backing both candidates spent $300,000 to $400,000 per day on TV ads right up until election day, according to a group that studies judicial spending.

Wisconsin has a recent history of costly Supreme Court races. Outside groups spent a then-record $3.4 million here in 2008, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a New York University program that tracks spending on judicial races. After a quiet 2009 race and no race in 2010, spending this year reached a new high $3.5 million through Monday.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/06/135166002/wisconsin-supreme-court-race-too-close-to-call?ft=1&f=1003

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Wis. Supreme Court Race Faces Recount

Tuesday's state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin will shape a court that could rule on Gov. Scott Walker's collective bargaining plan. With only one justice being able to swing the court, all eyes are on these results.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/06/135186316/wis-supreme-court-race-faces-recount?ft=1&f=1003

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Feds to Maine: Reinstall labor mural or repay funding

  • The federal government provided money for a mural in the state's Labor building
  • Gov. Paul LePage removed the mural, which depicts the history of the workers' movement
  • The federal government wants the money returned if the mural is not reinstalled

Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/w5yAlf012rI/index.html

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U.S.: Pakistan Making Little Progress on Insurgents

WASHINGTON -- Pakistan's government has made little progress in the past year in battling militants, and there is "no clear path toward defeating the insurgency" in the country, according to a White House report that comes as the United States struggles to build its often shaky relationship with Islamabad.

While sections of the report speak of military gains in Afghanistan, it says the security situation in parts of Pakistan's border regions has deteriorated since fighting resumed in the last part of 2010. It also raises concerns about current political and economic problems on which Pakistan's government cannot make progress.

U.S. officials agree that Pakistan is critical to U.S. efforts to defeat Al Qaeda, since the terror group's leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be hiding in havens along Pakistan's mountainous border. The Pentagon has worked to bolster the Pakistani government's counterinsurgency program with money and training, and to encourage cross-border cooperation with Afghanistan.

Persistent efforts by U.S. leaders, including repeated visits to the country by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, have improved relationships between the two nations. The report describes recent setbacks, including the recent detention of CIA contractor Raymond Davis, but notes that efforts to overcome them have been somewhat successful. Davis, who was arrested for shooting and killing two Pakistani men in the city of Lahore, was freed eventually after $2.3 million in "blood money" was paid to the families of the deceased.

The report concludes that much more cooperation is needed between Afghanistan and Pakistan to eliminate insurgent havens and more definitively degrade Al Qaeda and other terror groups there. It points to Pakistan's failure to set up long-promised border control centers, much like Afghanistan has on its side of the border.

Using as an example efforts to clear the Brekhna region of militants, the report notes this is the third time the Pakistani military has tried to control that area.

But the military has been hindered by bad weather, a stubborn insurgency and the discovery of large caches of explosives, and has been unable to hold onto its gains or build on them.

"What remains vexing is the lack of any indication of `hold' and `build' planning or staging efforts to complement clearing operations," the report said. "As such, there remains no clear path toward defeating the insurgency in Pakistan despite the unprecedented and sustained deployment of over 147,000 forces."

The report compiled by the administration's national security advisers evaluates U.S. strategy and policies for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The unclassified version was released Tuesday. It updates reports from last year that claimed gains had been made in the Afghan war, and it says those advances are continuing, although they remain fragile.

On the political side, the report says Pakistan's government has been unable to resolve serious economic problems, including fuel price increases, tax reform and budget problems. And it criticizes Islamabad for failing to revamp the controversial blasphemy law. Last month, Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti was assassinated for supporting changes to the blasphemy law, which make it a capital offense to insult Islam.

The report calls the government response "muted," and said it "has increased the political space for extremist voices to dominate the public debate."

Separately, members of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee voiced deep skepticism Tuesday about U.S. policy in Pakistan, saying that despite billions of dollars in aid, most people there still hate America. They also questioned the chances of building democracy in the tribal society of Afghanistan.

Daniel Feldman, deputy special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Al Qaeda was under pressure as never before at the Afghan-Pakistani border, and the Taliban's momentum has been reversed in south Afghanistan. He also said Pakistan's government is increasingly exerting control over its territory.

Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., said: "After hearing the same sales pitch for 10 years, I doubt it."

Feldman acknowledged the distrust that lingers on both sides of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. But he said despite the added strains during the recent detention of Davis, the CIA contractor, the U.S. was deepening its ties with Pakistan's civilian government through dialogue and aid.

He said the U.S. had dispersed $1.5 billion in civilian aid in the past year under a bill authorizing $7.5 billion over a five-year period.

"A difficult partnership with Pakistan is far better than a hostile Pakistan," Feldman said, adding that a political and economic collapse in that country would affect the United States' vital national security interests.

Republican Rep. Steve Chabot said, however, that aid had failed to translate into progress on key security issues by Pakistan or a warmer view of the United States in that country.

"We spend all this money and they still hate us," Chabot said.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, another Republican, said money the U.S. has spent on nation-building in Afghanistan "has been a waste" and radical Islam driven out after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the overthrow of the Taliban regime, was instead posing a growing threat to American security.

"It's not becoming more stable," he said.

Source: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/WmwxXPM583E/

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Radioactive Water Leaking From Crippled Japan Plant

Japan's prime minister surveyed the damage in a town gutted by a massive tsunami, as officials said Saturday that highly radioactive water was leaking into the sea from the nuclear plant stricken by the disaster.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/02/135062624/radioactive-water-leaking-from-crippled-japan-plant?ft=1&f=1007

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GOP's Ryan: Rising star or root canal Republican? (The Arizona Republic)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Paul Ryan, just 41 but already a seventh-term congressman, is the man making the House Republicans' sales pitch for truly big budget cuts. And he's doing it by talking about maturity.... Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/74012831?client_source=feed&format=rss

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