Trying to provoke violence?

Not content to have passed the union-busting legislation he rammed through, Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-my way or the highway) has turned to party-busting.  He now arrogates to deny Democratic Senators their lawful votes in committee.  Republicans all over America look for ways to rule by fiat and to deny the vote to those they dislike.  The authoritarian Fitzgerald has combined the two.  Next he'll form an exploratory committee to run for President.

You might think that this won't change the outcome of any votes.  The committees all have Republican majorities.  But this tinpot ruling means that Fitzgerald only needs the votes of half his caucus to move legislation out of committee.  That means the most extreme 30% of Wisconsin citizens effectively run the State Senate.  The teabaggers, in other words.

This means that any moderate Republicans who might make overtures to the center have no one to make overtures to.  In the long run, this may help the recall efforts, the righteous campaign to turn these anti-democratic thugs back out into the streets.

Fitzgerald isn't even pretending that republican government matters.  You citizens who elected these Democrats, your votes are meaningless.

What is to be done?

Don't get mad.  Get even.

• Continue the recall, and get these thugs out of office.
• Occupy the capitol building.  Peacefully.  But expect mass arrests and manufactured or provoked riots.  Gov. Walker was contemplating it.  He'll do it.  These men have no conscience.  They only understand power.
• File an emergency lawsuit in U.S. District Court.  If this isn't an equal protection violation, the words equal and protection are meaningless in Republican bizarro-world.
• Call President Obama. The U.S. Constitution, supreme law of the land and superior to any pipsqueak tinpot Republican legislative capo di tutti capi, states in Article IV, section 4:

  The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.

  Time to get to guaranteeing, Mr. President.
  

(h/t Jed Lewison at DailyKos)