Walker administration Throwing Taxpayer Money Away on Unconstitutional Arrests and Protester Intimidation

Republican voters don’t seem to mind throwing money away, when their kind of spending. For instance: Little was made of the excessive law enforcement protection around the Capitol during the 2011 protests. They didn’t care how much it costs. Or the over the top estimates of “damage” to the building itself. And little was made of running fake Democrats in primaries that ran up the bill to local governments. No problem.

Now those penny pinching right wing scrooges won’t make much of the excessive costs run up by the Capitol Police to intimidate citizen’s liberals protesting their own government. Hey, there’s a time and a place for protesting, right? Let’s hit the “panic button:”

Attempts to step up Capitol security continued this week with the installation of panic buttons in staff offices … The Department of Administration installed 482 panic buttons in offices around the statehouse, in an effort to provide a level of comfort for staffers who they say have felt harassed by the presence of protesters in the historic building.

Taxpayer money well spent? I don’t think so:

DOA Spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis said the buttons cost a total of $103,172.

Oh, and how about the cost of arresting protesters holding signs? Why not run up the cost even more by delivering those tickets to the protesters house or maybe their place of work? Gas, mileage, time spent driving using two officers at a time…or more. Now that’s fiscal conservativism. From WKOW, Tony Galli: 

And while Democrats showed backbone during at the DNC, state Dems are still lacking:

State Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, said she understands the desire to be safe, but thinks the chief's approach has been heavy handed. State Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, agreed that he has never felt really unsafe in the building, but added, "It's never a bad idea to be careful."

Check out the last 5 minutes of this interview of Taylor by Sly in the Morning, asking what legally can be done. She has no answer. We've had since December to head this off, and still, no lawsuit?