As Ed Schultz noted tonight, the GOP governors appearing on the Sunday bobblehead shows all had their talking points ready and were on the same page with their defense of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker -- Wisconsin is broke, Democratic Senators are cowards and public employees have it way too good.

But as Ed noted, one Republican governor in Maine let the cat out of the bag with what their real agenda is: enacting so-called 'Right to Work' laws and busting unions.

LePage: 'We're going after right-to-work':

Maine Gov. Paul LePage said Saturday he would push forcefully ahead with right-to-work legislation in his state, even if it means a Wisconsin-style fight with unions.

In an interview at the National Governors Association, the Republican praised Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and couched his own proposal in the language of liberty loved by tea partiers.

"He's got a big challenge, and quite frankly, once they start reading our budget they're going to leave Wisconsin and come to Maine because we're going after right to work," LePage told POLITICO.

"I believe that the Declaration of Independence says 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,'" he said. "Whenever someone forces me to do something against my will, they're infringing upon my freedoms and my liberties. And that's what I think we're doing in Maine when we have fair share, which means that you are required to belong to a union, you're required to pay dues but you don't want to participate. I find that to be against everything the United States of America stands for." [...]

LePage said he's "never inspired by a fight," but that Wisconsin is unquestionably an impetus behind a renewed GOP push to demand concessions from public-sector employees and to go after union power. [...]

LePage said people who want to join unions have that right, but stressed that no one should be forced into the decision.

"I believe if an individual wants to join organized labor and work under a union contract, they should have the legal right to do so," he said. "At the same token, a person who does not want to work under organized labor and wants to work should have the ability to do so without the threat of having to join and having to pay dues to organized labor."

"It's that simple," he said. "It's all about freedom and liberty."

"Freedom and liberty" huh? I don't think so, Governor LePage.

As Ed pointed out, Maine workers cannot be forced to join a union already:

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Normally I wouldn't bore our readers with a "what I did on my midwinter vacation" post, but the sounds and pictures I collected last week off the west coast of Maui were so cool I wanted to share them with you all.

If you want to know more about the humpbacks' songs, I can't strongly enough recommend David Rothenberg's superb 2007 book about whale music, Thousand-Mile Song. As you can hear, they're very different from the orca sounds I usually collect.

Thanks also to the captains and crews at Trilogy Excursions, who were artful and thoughtful about approaching the whales and maintaining the proper distances while still giving us a thrilling view (and sound scientific commentary from the naturalists).

(Hi-def YouTube version here.)

Some pretty music for a Monday night.

What are you listening to?

Some pretty music for a Monday night.

What are you listening to?

As MSNBC reported earlier, economists have analyzed the GOP's proposed budget cuts and it doesn't look too good for Mr. "Where are the jobs?" John Boehner.

Economist predicts GOP cuts would cost 700,000 jobs:

A report by economist Mark Zandi from Moody’s says that Republicans’ plan to cut spending would cost 700,000 jobs through 2012, the Washington Post reports.

Republicans, however, are pushing back, trying to discredit Zandi (who was an economic adviser to John McCain's campaign), calling him the "chief architect" of the stimulus.

"When considering the latest study from Mark Zandi on the GOP’s efforts to rein in government spending, let’s not forget that he was the chief architect of the Democrats’ failed stimulus plan," wrote Brian Patrick, a spokesman for Majority Leader Eric Cantor. "Even as unemployment climbed into the double digits, Mr. Zandi continued to defend this failed policy. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that he would come out against the GOP’s common-sense efforts to put an end to more stimulus-style spending."

Rep. Robert Andrews joined Cenk Uygur to discuss the proposed cuts to the budget and the fact that they're not getting much support from the public.

"My prediction is at the end of the day, the Republicans will blink because two-thirds of the public doesn't want us to walk away from education, from health care, from the things that make this country go," Rep. Robert Andrews (D-NJ) told MSNBC.

"Our side will win the argument," Rep. Andrews told MSNBC's Cenk Uygur.

Inviting Egyptian-born writer and activist Mona Eltahawy to J Street's Conference this past weekend may have been seen by some as a provocative move but seen in context is entirely consistent with their stated aims "to promote American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Israel-Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatically" and [J Street] "supports a new direction for American policy in the Middle East – diplomatic solutions over military ones"

If anyone was concerned beforehand they needn't have worried. She was greeted with a standing ovation, as was Sara Benninga of East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement the night before.

Eltahawy gets standing ovation when she calls on peaceful revolution to come to Israel and Palestine

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Eltahawy's closing challenge was that just as the Arab dictators responded late and stupidly to the demands of the people, Israel and Obama and its friends are responding late to the political movement afoot. They were completely tone-deaf to Gaza, she said; as Arabs everywhere watched Palestinians being "torn apart." It was a "massacre," she said twice. Great to hear that from a Jewish pulpit.

"My question to J street and to Israel, do you want to be ten days too late, do you want to be like these dictators that [Netanyahu]... loves so dearly… the people have outpaced the Obama administration…Here’s my challenge to you--"

Just as Egyptians and Tunisians "have managed to get rid of the unriddable…" without burning one foreign flag, "the best of Gandhi and Martin Luther King combined," it is time "to march for the freedom and dignity of our Palestinian brothers and sisters, and we will.

"Make that call, I will be with you. It’s about time, and it’s something that everyone is thinking about."

She added, "This is not something that is supposed to scare you.. Embrace.. nonviolence. Millions of Arabs peacefully dismantled dictatorships ....Embrace them and reach out to them, and we too will march for the freedom and dignity of Palestinians.. Cll for that nonviolent revolution for freedom and dignity for Palestians, and I will be there."

Wild cheers.

The clip above is an excerpt from her opening remarks. A complete version is here. Full video of the panel discussion (moderated by Steve Clemons) can be seen here [90 min].

As Steve Benen pointed out this Sunday, Mitch Daniels probably really would have preferred that Chris Wallace had not have pointed out his record as the budget director for George W. Bush.

A couple of days ago, David Brooks praised Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) for his record of fiscal responsibility. That record, in Brooks' vision, starts in 2004 when Daniels was elected to statewide office. But there's also that inconvenient period in which Daniels was Bush's budget director, and the U.S. government began the most fiscally irresponsible period in American history. [...]

This fails on a whole lot of levels. It's true that Daniels, as Bush's budget director, was helping shape the books during an economic downturn, but I seem to recall Republicans concluding that these details are irrelevant -- Obama inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, but as far as the GOP is concerned, that's not a good excuse for large deficits.

For that matter, Daniels is correct that his tenure also included 9/11 and the launch of two wars, but every president in American history raised taxes to help pay for previous U.S. wars, to prevent deficits from spiraling out of control. Bush, with Daniels' blessing, approved two massive tax cuts that ultimately added $5 trillion to the debt in just eight years.

It's that same debt that Daniels believes will destroy the country. Funny, he didn't think that that way when he was directly responsible for making the problem worse. [...]

In other words, when evaluating Daniels for federal office, just pay no attention to his only federal experience.

He's counting on Americans having poor memories.

Transcript below the fold.

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If, by some strange reason you may have forgotten, today marks what would have been Rolling Stone founding member Brian Jones birthday - Number 69 to be exact. Those of us who were fans since Day One remembered how much the sound had changed when Brian left the band (actually kicked out over his drug excesses which, for The Rolling Stones was really saying something). And how saddened we all were when we learned of his death some weeks later (a death disputed over the years as either overdose, suicide or murder). Little did we know it would be the start of a trend that also saw the untimely deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison - all going down that same road. Things just up and changed in a very short period of time.

But that's another story.

Tonight it's celebrating the work of an incredible talent whose contribution to Rock will never be short-changed, despite what's been said over the years and all the rumors to the contrary. He did some great work and he was one of the masterminds, if not the mastermind behind what The Rolling Stones were all about.

Because their history goes back such a long way, and because there have been so many albums released by them over the decades, it's possible, if you've come to their music the past twenty years, that you may have missed the formative period of The Rolling Stones. Those early years when they were raw and knee-deep in Chicago Blues.

To give you an idea of what they sounded like in 1965, here's a track from one of their milestone albums, Out Of Our Heads, and a song made popular in 1962 by Solomon Burke, but given the distinctive Mick Jagger touch and the inimitable Brian Jones accompaniment, Cry To Me.

Happy Birthday Brian Jones. You're still missed.

A new NY Times/CBS poll was just released and the results show Americans strongly support public unions 2-1 over the Koch Brothers-paid stooge, Gov. Scott Walker.

As labor battles erupt in state capitals around the nation, a majority of Americans say they oppose efforts to weaken the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions and are also against cutting the pay or benefits of public workers to reduce state budget deficits, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. [..]

But the nationwide poll found that embattled public employee unions have the support of most Americans — and most independents — as they fight the efforts of newly elected Republican governors in Wisconsin and Ohio to weaken their bargaining powers, and the attempts of governors from both parties to cut their pay or benefits.

Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employee unions by a margin of nearly two to one: 60 percent to 33 percent. While a slim majority of Republicans favored taking away some bargaining rights, they were outnumbered by large majorities of Democrats and independents who said they opposed weakening them. Those surveyed said they opposed, 56 percent to 37 percent, cutting the pay or benefits of public employees to reduce deficits, breaking down along similar party lines. A majority of respondents who have no union members living in their households opposed both cuts in pay or benefits and taking away the collective bargaining rights of public employees.

And here's a result that the Beltway media, President Obama, politicians and pundits should really take a good look at: Americans would rather be taxed to reduce deficits than anything else. It's not even close.

Tax increases were not as unpopular among those surveyed as they are among many governors, who have vowed to avoid them. Asked how they would choose to reduce their state’s deficits, those polled preferred tax increases over benefit cuts for state workers by nearly two to one. Given a list of options to reduce the deficit, 40 percent said they would increase taxes, 22 percent chose decreasing the benefits of public employees, 20 percent said they would cut financing for roads and 3 percent said they would cut financing for education.

Did you hear that, all you deficit hawks? Raising taxes isn't anything close to messing with the real third rail in politics. Karl Rove is tweeting that's he'll be on O'Reilly tonight to talk about WI. I responded and asked him not to forget to mention these new poll results.

Follow me on twitter here @ JohnAmato

Our mainstream media might be ignoring the protests in Wisconsin but Democracy Now had some excellent coverage of some of the speakers there over the weekend.

Voices from the 100,000-Strong Protest for Workers’ Rights in Wisconsin:

AMY GOODMAN: Labor protests in Madison, Wisconsin, have entered their third week. Hundreds of demonstrators defied police orders and slept inside the State Capitol building on Sunday night to oppose to the Republican Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to strip most public employees of the right to collectively bargain. Governor Walker had ordered the Capitol to be emptied by 4:00 p.m., but Capitol police decided not to enforce the order after hundreds of labor activists, students and supporters refused to leave.

Meanwhile, on Saturday as many as 100,000 people packed the freezing streets of Madison in the largest protest the city has seen since the Vietnam War. Tens of thousands of people marched in solidarity protests in other state capitols. While it may have been the largest labor protest in the United States in years, the demonstration in Madison received little attention by the corporate press. Today we broadcast some of the voices from the Madison rally.

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