The situation in Egypt and elsewhere seems to be

pretty much on their own, as the President seems to be- if anything- helping encourage the enemy(Muslim Brotherhood, Taliban, etc.) instead of actually wanting to help toward a real representative government. With the aid of that clown Jimmy Carter, who's either as stupid as ever or encouraging his only hope at no longer being the worst modern President in our history. So the current Brave Sir Democrats and union thugs demonstration in WI is kind of at the fore. I'd like to copy bits from two pieces Insty pointed to. First,
Mr. Walker's proposals are hardly revolutionary. Facing a $137 million budget deficit, he has decided to try to avoid laying off 5,500 state workers by proposing that they contribute 5.8% of their income towards their pensions and 12.6% towards health insurance. That's roughly the national average for public pension payments, and it is less than half the national average of what government workers contribute to health care. Mr. Walker also wants to limit the power of public-employee unions to negotiate contracts and work rules—something that 24 states already limit or ban.
Which actions to try to actually FIX THE PROBLEMS in their budget just can't be tolerated; it's been pointed out that if they can do this the state won't have to lay off something like 5000 public employees, but the unions would rather see those people canned.
But when it became obvious that the governor had the votes to pass it, Mr. Jauch and his 13 Democratic colleagues got on a bus and fled the state to deprive Republicans of a sufficient quorum to conduct any legislative business. They were later found at a Best Western Hotel in Rockford, Ill. Scot Ross, director of the liberal activist group One Wisconsin Now, endorsed the temper tantrum: "The senators have rightfully taken matters into their own hands."
Yeah. Rather than actually deal with the problems they ran away and hid. And morons like WN think that actually helps things. Well, admittedly, from their point of view it does help; it keeps things effed-up which they seem to prefer.
And now to what the unions probably care more about than they do about the average lousy member:
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. New York City ended the dues collection ban after 18 months.
A: the government should not be in the business of collecting dues for the unions. Period.
B: If you don't care enough about the union to bother to vote, why are you a member?
Yeah, I know: a lot of them are members because they're forced to join if they want the job. Which should not be the case, and which is a big part of how this got so messed-up. Sounds like the unions are scared that the majority of members, if they actually have to vote on the union, will vote 'no', so rather than try to fairly win the vote they want to keep them from voting at all. Very Democratic of them, isn't it?
On the dues, kind of like the idea of ending income tax withholding so people would actually have to write a check to the government every year; politicians overall flat hate the idea because of the reaction people would have as they had to write that check. The unions are apparently scared of the idea of only getting dues from the members willing to pay them instead of having the taxman take it for them.

The other is from here, where RWPP Jesse Jackson showed up to screw around in a matter that touches neither on civil rights or racial matters:
"If we can find the money to bail out wealthy businessmen, we can bail out Madison, Wisconsin!" Jackson yelled, to thunderous applause from the crowd, many of them clad in Badger red.
Jackson knows, unless he's a truly stupid man, that we DIDN'T HAVE THE MONEY FOR THE BAILOUTS, but a bunch of idiot/crooked/lied-to politicians stole it anyway; now he wants the federal government to steal more money from people around the country to bail out states and cities from the holes they dug themselves into. Fat effing chance, Jackson. We're not having our pockets further picked so you clowns- I include he and the union thugs in this- can keep screwing things up even more.

By the way, Michelle Malkin has a list of some of the salary figures for some of these poor, downtrodden workers. BEFORE benefits. Take a look.

No, I don't live in that state; back when I worked for the state of OK, I remember the annual bullcrap of the teachers unions and the OPEA(OK Public Employee Assoc.) to get as much money as possible, and screw everyone else. This reminds me enough of that that it really pisses me off.