Union leaders urged Vice President Joe Biden during a White House meeting last month to go to Wisconsin and rally the faithful in their fight against Gov. Scott Walker's move to curtail collective bargaining rights for most public employees.

Wisconsin State Representative Mark Pocan, the former co-chair of the legislature's powerful Joint Finance Committee, says he is starting to feel as if he lives in a “third world junta.” Wisconsin State Senator Bob Jauch, a senior Democrat, says that what he is witnessing feels like “a coup.” Marty Beil, the head of the AFSCME Council 24, the state’s largest public employee union, said Wisconsin had been turned into “a banana republic.”

Once again, Medicaid seems forgotten as another wave of protests and media stories rocks the Capitol. Last night's surprise vote by GOP lawmakers pushing a pared down version of the so-called budget repair bill through a hastily convened conference meeting and a rapid approval by the Senate to what now seems to be almost definite passage as early as this morning impacts not just collective bargaining rights in the state, but the health care and benefits of nearly 1.2 million Wisconsin residents in the public health programs.

"You will live in the history books!” Michael Moore shouted from the rotunda of the state Capitol to the thousands of Wisconsin workers, teachers and their allies who had come Saturday to protest against Governor Scott Walker’s assault on public sector unions and public services. Speaking without a microphone, in a voice that was worn but enthusiastic after addressing tens of thousands of protesters outside the Capitol, Moore.

There’s a joke circulating around the Internet that goes something like this: A corporate CEO, a union member and a tea partier are sitting at a table with a plate of a dozen cookies. The CEO takes 11 cookies and wolfs them down. Then he turns to the tea partier and says, “Watch out for that union guy. He wants part of your cookie.” It’s a joke that has billionaires like the Koch Brothers—who fund tea party groups through Americans for Prosperity—and their errand boys Dick Armey of Freedom Works and Karl Rove of American Crossroads laughing all the way to the bank.