Police have been limiting entrance to the Wisconsin state Capitol in anticipation of Gov. Scott Walker’s presentation of his full budget repair bill, which began at 4 p.m. today. Check out the stream on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Web site. The Capitol has been flooded with protesters over the past two weeks. Police let visitors in through a single door on Tuesday morning, checking them with metal detectors and questioning whether they had an appointment. County Judge Daniel Moeser ordered this morning that the entrance be opened to all during regular Capitol business hours, and filed an injunction against Walker’s Department of Administration. The Department said they are in compliance with the order. Protesters are responding to Walker’s proposed budget repair bill, which eliminates unions collective bargaining rights and limits health care access.
Fashion emergency! Industry superpower Christian Dior dismissed its chief designer, John Galliano, after British tab The Sun posted a video of a drunk Galliano spouting anti-Semitic slurs at customers in a French bar. Dior suspended Galliano on Friday, and chief executive Sidney Toledano said in a statement that his actions were “in total contradiction with the essential values that have always been defended by the Christian Dior house,” according to the New York Times. The firing of Galliano comes one week before Dior presents its latest line during Paris fashion week.
Surprise: McCollum and Bachmann are at odds. This time it’s over the creation of a St. Croix bridge that would cost $700 million and be out of compliance with the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., is onboard with Bachmann’s bill that would allow for an exemption of the act. Bachmann said she’s responding to constituents’ pleas for a new crossing. The bill resurrects the bridge idea that she proposed last session, but in a DFL-dominated House it never picked up a co-sponsor. McCollum said she will do “everything in my power” to stop the bill, and called Bachmann’s plan “more of a political distraction than a real transportation solution,” according to the Star Tribune.
