READER BOB WIRKA SENDS THIS PICTURE from the Madison Tea Party rally in support of Gov. Walker. I like the sign that says “Teach Economics 101.”

UPDATE: More photos and reports at Gateway Pundit. There are thousands present — and they weren’t given the day off from work to attend.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here:

Thousands gathered outside of the state capitol this afternoon to support Gov. Scott Walker. Teachers and firefighters circled the tea party as it rallied. Gadsden flags clashed with union banners in the cold Wisconsin air. It was a beautiful sight — loud, raucous, animated, and sweaty. So far, Andrew Breitbart, Herman Cain, Brad Thor, Tim Phillips, and Joe the Plumber have addressed the crowd.

Joe the Plumber’s question turns out to have been the most salient of the 2008 campaign, though I suppose the frantically hostile reaction to him should have made that clear at the time.

MORE: Jim Treacher emails: “Joe the Plumber was the canary in the coal mine, wasn’t he? That whole mess was the first sign that Obama was willing to roll over average people to get what he wants. If only he had as much contempt for America’s enemies as he does for Americans who stand in his way.”

STILL MORE: The left is losing this battle, and they know it.

Plus, another crowd photo, from Twitpic.

MORE STILL: A high-school friend emails:

Something occurred to me a couple of days ago.

Watching the unions and their allies wage such a ( possibly ) losing pitched battle in the heart of Progressivism, Madison WI, reminded me of Pickett’s Charge. Is this the high water mark of Liberal America? Will their push be broken? Is the tide turning? All eyes seem turned to the Wisconsin Capital, waiting for a result.

Just like 1863, there will be years of hard fighting still ahead to save our country, but we need a “Sherman”s March” through the institutions, systematically dismantling the Statist Confederacy that has enslaved the tax payers of these United States. I am for freedom of all kinds. Go Tea Party!

From Gramsci to Sherman in two generations.

HOUSE VOTES TO kill funding for UN IPCC.

JAY COST: In defense of Mitch Daniels’ “Truce” on social issues.

FDR: “A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government.”

IN TUNISIA, protesters demonstrate for a secular state.

WISCONSIN “BADGER 14” SENATORS now on milk cartons. Heh.

AMERICA’S WORST SPEED TRAPS. It’s about revenue, not safety, which is the case with most traffic enforcement.

IN THE MAIL: From comedian Tom Naughton, Fat Head.

WHAT DOES GOVERNMENT DO? Mostly, write checks to beneficiaries.

The biggest single thing the federal government does these days is … cut checks.

Lots and lots and lots and lots of checks that go to individual citizens — $2.3 trillion worth last year alone.

In fact, according to a table buried deep inside the little-noticed Historical Tables volume of the White House’s 2012 budget, these “direct payments to individuals” accounted for more than two-thirds of federal spending in 2010. That’s a post-war high. And that share has been steadily climbing. Payments to individuals accounted for 2.4 percent of all federal spending in 1945. By 1980 it has risen to 47 percent, and in 1992 it crossed the 50 percent mark.

I’d be happy to cut this back to 1945 levels. . . .

ARE YOU CRAZY, ARE YOU HIGH — OR JUST AN ORDINARY GUY? Documents Show Congressman David Wu’s Staff “Threatened to Shut Down His Campaign.” “U.S. Rep. David Wu’s behavior grew so erratic in the final weeks before his re-election last November that the Oregon Democrat’s closest political advisers staged two of what some of them termed “interventions” to urge him to seek psychiatric help, WW has learned. Wu played down their concerns. Several staffers and consultants left his employ after the confrontations.”

The country’s in the very best of hands.

SO IS THIS THE HOPE, OR THE CHANGE? Fear of ‘Catastrophic’ Crash Rising Despite Bull Market. “In an unprecedented move, the number of investors fearing a catastrophic stock market crash is rising even with the stock market at 2 ½ year highs. The unusual dislocation comes from two distinct reasons: a lack of trust in the U.S. financial markets following the so-called Flash Crash last May and the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2007.”

RANDY BARNETT: Commandeering The People: Why the Individual Health Insurance Mandate is Unconstitutional.

I WON’T ARGUE: No Man Should Wear His Ex-Girlfriend’s Jeans.

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Rex Murphy: Egypt Crisis Leaves Obama Diminished.

TODAY ONLY: Rich Man, Poor Man, the complete miniseries for 25 bucks. I didn’t realize that was the very first dramatic miniseries.

PJTV: Kruiser Control: Lawrence O’Donnell gets the Parker-Spitzer, Plus Kruiser Cabana & CPAC’s Miss Congeniality Revealed!

JOHN FUND: WHAT’S AT STAKE IN WISCONSIN: Plus, why the unions are really upset:

Labor historian Fred Siegel offers further reasons why unions are manning the barricades. Mr. Walker would require that public-employee unions be recertified annually by a majority vote of all their members, not merely by a majority of those that choose to cast ballots. In addition, he would end the government’s practice of automatically deducting union dues from employee paychecks. For Wisconsin teachers, union dues total between $700 and $1,000 a year.

“Ending dues deductions breaks the political cycle in which government collects dues, gives them to the unions, who then use the dues to back their favorite candidates and also lobby for bigger government and more pay and benefits,” Mr. Siegel told me. After New York City’s Transport Workers Union lost the right to automatic dues collection in 2007 following an illegal strike, its income fell by more than 35% as many members stopped ponying up.

But it seems to me that they’re feeling the heat, since the unions are now starting to offer concessions. Not that one, though. . . .

UPDATE: Reader M. Simon writes that they got the year wrong: “Democrats think it is 1933 when it is actually 1773.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Mark Corlazzoli recommends this counter-protest maneuver:

Have the home schooling parents set up tents in the parking lots of shuttered schools and invite parents to bring their kids down for a day of learning using the materials approved by the school system. Invite the media and hope for an arrest or two.

Heh.

UPDATE: Reader Allan Rossmore writes:

The Wisconsin unions don’t seem to understand that Gov. Walker is just following what they have always asked for. Wealth redistribution. They say that the wealthy should share with the poor. Well, right now, the private sector worker makes about half of what the public sector worker does. Seems like the wealthy public sector should share.

Also, only a very small minority of private workers are unionized. Most of those unionized jobs have become so cost prohibitive that they are now overseas. I would say that with today’s technologies, those unionized school teachers could also be outsourced. Maybe they cannot see the writing on the wall. Or maybe they do.

Unions aren’t for wealth redistribution in general. Just in particular.

Plus, some amusing turnabout from reader Bill Marcy.

BILL DYER: Still More Mush From The Wimp.

NOT A STROKE, BUT A MIGRAINE: This doesn’t surprise me. I once had an optical migraine, in which the left 2/3 or so of my visual field was obscured by what looked like ripples in clear water. I thought it might be a stroke, and I went to the ER where they diagnosed it pretty quickly and told me that it wasn’t that unusual. Afterwards, I talked to several people I knew who’d had that experience, though I’d never heard of it.

WIDENER LAW SCHOOL UPDATE: An Interview with Professor Lawrence Connell. And why Dean Linda Ammons appeared in his hypothetical.

I’m still waiting for some evidence that Widener — and Dean Ammons — are something other than an embarrassment to legal academia. So far, not seeing it. Normally, law schools hope their deans will enhance their reputation with other legal academics, rather than tarnishing it. (Via The Volokh Conspiracy.)

ADDRESSING THE IMPORTANT LEGAL QUESTIONS:Should the Justice League of America Incorporate? Or become an LLC?

My first thought was: Who cares, when you’re invulnerable, pseudonymous, and some of your members can make diamonds by crushing coal in their hands? Turns out the experts agree.

WISCONSIN MADNESS AS SEEN BY “THE LITTLE PEOPLE.” “Yesterday a good friend who lives in southeastern Wisconsin sent me an email telling me how embarrassed she is to be from Wisconsin. The recent protests and the pathetic escape of the Senate Democrats to the nearby People’s Republic of Illinois have both angered and shamed my friend Margaret. She simply cannot believe that while she and her neighbors have been financially crippled over the past two years, these supposed public servants continue to grow fat while feeling no ill effects of the Obama recession. No longer basking in the glow of the Green Bay Packers Super Bowl victory, my friends on the other side of the border are positively beside themselves at the insane behavior of their public servants.”

STACY MCCAIN: On, Wisconsin! “The unemployed, the under-employed and regular folks trying to pay their bills aren’t likely to have a lot of love for people who (a) have jobs, (b) work at taxapayer expense, (c) get paid more money than the average taxpayer, and (d) go on strike because they don’t want to pay a dime toward their own generous benefits.”

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Fallout from Contra Costa’s top drug agent’s arrest begins. “The arrest of Norman Wielsch, commander of the state’s Central Contra Costa Narcotics Enforcement Team, or CNET, could have far-reaching ramifications in superior and appellate courts, said Contra Costa County Public Defender Robin Lipetzky. The arrest not only calls into question the credibility and integrity of Wielsch as an individual, she said, but also that of the task force as an investigative body and the guardian of prosecution evidence.”

THE PEOPLE VS. THE POWERFUL: Teachers In Wisconsin Make More Than Double The Per Capita Income.