After daylong protests yesterday drew as many as 30,000 people in Madison, hundreds of Wisconsin workers, students and allies camped out last night in the Capitol Rotunda as a hearing on Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) budget bill that eliminates collective bargaining rights for nearly all of the state’s public service workers went past midnight.

The Wisconsin battle against Gov. Scott Walker’s attack on workers’ rights has drawn national attention. President Obama weighed in during an interview with WTMJ radio in Milwaukee yesterday, saying Walker’s plan looked less like an attempt to fix the state’s budget deficit and “more of an assault on unions.”

It seems Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) has a real penchant for degrading and demonizing public workers. Not only is he trying to take away the right of state employees to bargain, but the revelation today that last month he called a Columbus police officer an “idiot” for giving him a traffic ticket has caused a firestorm of criticism.

A massive protest against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to eliminate collective bargaining rights for state workers entered its second day in Madison with as many as 30,000 people, according to some estimates. More demonstrations are expected tomorrow.

More than 15,000 people, including public employees, union activists and community supporters, jammed into the Capitol Square in Madison, Wis., yesterday to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) plan to strip away state workers’ rights and decimate family-supporting middle-class jobs. Some 3,000 massed inside the Capitol building where a hearing on the bill was under way.

While workers across Egypt and other nations are marching in the streets to advance their countries toward democracy and a better life, workers in the United States are facing attacks on every advance they’ve gained in decades. Case in point: yesterday, three state legislatures tried to weaken unions with so-called “right to work”  laws.

Wisconsin college and high school students are showing their support for their teachers—and for all public employees—who are under fire by Gov. Scott Walker. Walker’s budget proposal attacks family-supporting middle-class jobs through unilateral pay and benefit cuts and takes away nearly all of the workers’ collective bargaining rights.

I have been writing about politics and legislation from a workers’ viewpoint for the better part of three decades. I still get angry and my blood pressure jumps when politicians come after workers and unions with the same old lies and bull crap that we are seeing today in states across the country. Just check out here, here and here what’s happening in Wisconsin.

Some 400 members from dozens of Minnesota unions—backed by more than 1,000 e-mails and phone calls—helped score a victory for working families last week. They jammed a state House hearing room in opposition to a bill that called for a wage freeze for state employees, elimination of vital parts of the state’s Public Employment Labor Relations Act, a 15 percent cut in the state workforce and a so-called “Right to Work” provision. 

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), New Jersey Chris Christie (R) and politicians around the nation are running campaigns to demonize public employees and lay the blame for state budget problems at their feet.