“It’s like getting punched in the gut. It’s like you’re not even in America.”

The middle-aged man was just an onlooker, on his lunch hour in the Wisconsin Capitol rotunda. He’d been watching a crowd of 100 people singing when two police officers held up a powerful “long-range acoustic device” (also used to ward off pirates off the coast of Somalia) and the recorded voice of Capitol Police Chief David Erwin—Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) former bodyguard—echoed through the dome:

Jill H., a graduate student at UW-Madison, brings us this “Walkerville” update (cross-posted from Defend Wisconsin).

As the daughter of lifelong public school educators—my mother in elementary special education and my father as a high school health teacher—I wanted to be sure to visit Walkerville today to find out more about the proposed budget cuts to grades K-12 education in Gov. Scott Walker’s 2011-2013 biennial budget.

Wisconsin’s public employees have agreed to Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) demands for pension and health care concessions–but they won’t give up their right to bargain collectively, says Mary Bell, Wisconsin Education Association Council president.