By Rick Moore

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist and right-wing blowhard Patrick McIlheran always gets under my skin with his nonsense. But today's column moves from irritating and/or offensive to something more ominous.

In it McIlheran writes, "State public-sector unions already are complaining mightily, and Democrats in the Legislature have said they expect Walker to force the issue by trying to revoke collective bargaining rights granted in the 1960's.

"Walker should oblige. If he means it about transforming government, he must change the factor that is central in raising public-sector labor costs well above the private sector - unions. Handily enough, unions are also central to lobbying for the unceasing expansion of government. It was established Democratic Party orthodoxy until the 1960s, voiced by stalwarts such as President Franklin Roosevelt and Milwaukee Mayor Frank Zeidler, that government employees ought not to unionize. We now see why: It makes government unaffordably costly."

Do we now turn the clock back decades in denying basic worker rights to our members and other government employees? Is this simply another nonsensical rant or a dire warning of what we are going to face in the coming months? I've joked that Walker and his minions seem determined to make us the Mississippi of the Upper Midwest. But is Mississippi going to look good by comparison by the time the governor and his ilk are done?