Moe Lane

Go/no-go? There’s no denying that he’s got the advantage of demonstrating that he can take a punch from the Left and respond in kind (only harder).  Assuming Scott Walker wins next year: should he go for it?

Moe Lane

Cle-ver, Governor Walker:

Mahlon Mitchell, the president of the Professional Fire Fighters Association of Wisconsin, says he backs Gov. Scott Walker in his effort to end residency rules statewide.

The move comes less than a year after Mitchell ran unsuccessfully against Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch in an attempted recall of Walker and Kleefisch.

This is a good way to help splinter off the firefighters from the government drones.  Oh, yes, I’m sure that Mr. Mitchell will take the position that this is just a one-time, specific issue, no-precedent sort of thing.  He just wants to know what it’s like to be on the winning side in Wisconsin for once, you see.  And he’d like his fire fighters to know, too.

So, don’t worry your pre… your heads over this, ye Wisconsin progressives.  Everything’s still going your way.

Point:

Ed Schultz concluded the segment by making a wild assertion. “Scott Walker could very well be indicted in the coming days,” the MSNBC host said.

…What’s that?  You want to take a moment to drink Schultz’s pain, there?  Of course, of course.  We can wait*. (more…)

Gee, no bias in this at all:

Gov. Scott Walker announced Wednesday that he won’t propose expanding Medicaid services in Wisconsin, breaking with other Republican governors who decided to accept federal money for an expansion as offered under the health care overhaul law.

And, from later in the article:

So far, six Republican governors have agreed to the Medicaid expansion, while fourteen have turned it down.

Which means that it was those six Republican governors that have been doing the breaking, Sparky. And every single one of ‘em is keeping close to the exit, setting it up so that the legislature could tell ‘em no, or both.

Sheesh. The media we have today!

More detail on what Walker’s doing. vlt.tc/pgtUsing exchange subsidies in lieu of Medicaid dollars.

— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) February 13, 2013

… well, it’s bad news if you’re a progressive Wisconsinite, that is.

Wisconsin’s budget picture brightened Thursday, with new estimates that show a surplus will grow to $484 million, giving Republicans and Gov. Scott Walker even more room to pursue their tax cutting agenda.

The estimate from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau was nearly $137 million better than one Walker’s administration released in November. The numbers will be used by Walker as he puts the final touches on his two-year spending plan, which he’s set to unveil on Feb. 20.

Yes, I’m a dirty so-and-so. So?

Via Althouse, via Instapundit.

He’s also planning to freeze property taxes as much as possible, but Walker is thinking about how to lower Wisconsin’s state income tax rates for upcoming years.

Walker didn’t discuss how much of an income-tax cut he was talking about, other than to say it would be “significant” and would be put in place over a number of years. That means some of the tax cuts wouldn’t take effect until 2016 or later – after the next budget ends in mid-2015.

And here’s the important bit (bolding mine)

For years, such long-term commitments created a massive structural deficit that made budgeting much more difficult for governors and lawmakers. Walker largely eliminated the structural deficit – the imbalance between expected revenue and expected expenses – in his first state budget and has repeatedly touted that.

As well he should tout that; between Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature, Wisconsin’s showing/projecting a budget surplus for the first time in years.  Good thing that that recall nonsense went nowhere, huh?

Via Legal Insurrection.

The interesting bit in this article on union pushback against the new movie Won’t Back Down is not this one…

In real life, Parents Across America, an advocacy group which has received union funding, has launched a “fight Hollywood” campaign asking members to contact entertainers at all involved with the film or even a summer concert to kick it off. The intent, according to its website, which lists phone numbers and emails of agents and publicists, is to brand the film as a “feel bad, not feel good” movie. On their list: Davis and Gyllenhaal, plus Meryl Streep, Morgan Freeman, Jack Black, the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, Maroon 5’s Adam Levine and Josh Groban.

…it’s this one: (more…)

Lord, please continue to make my enemies’ cheerleaders ridiculous.  Amen.

From Hot Air Headlines comes this entertaining Wisconsin post-mortem, and the first paragraph will tell you why I used that adjective:

A controversial incumbent hangs on and retains his job despite fierce opposition in a bad economy. Sounds like a hopeful scenario for the Obama campaign, right? Instead it was Republican Scott Walker’s impressive victory in Wisconsin. If President Obama is smart—and he is nothing if not that—he will go to school on Walker. Here are some lessons he has probably already absorbed.

I’ll just list the ‘lessons’ - Money Matters Most, Ground War Can’t Counter Air Superiority, The Base Ain’t Enough, Go Ugly Early, and Class Warfare Has Already Begun – to reassure my readers that the Democrats (well, Paul Belgala) haven’t actually learned a darn thing from Wisconsin.  No, that actually covers The Base Ain’t Enough: Paul Begala seems to think that the President doesn’t need to move any further to the right to keep independents, which is funny as all get-out.  Just like the thought that the President learns lessons; but that’s not what I want to get into.  What I want to get into is what’s missing from that list of lessons. (more…)

From this almost-hiding-their-panic Politico article cataloging the big losers last night in the WI recall elections (spoiler warning: probably nobody that you’d particularly care about):

A Republican National Committee official confirmed the two dozen Walker campaign offices would immediately be converted into Romney working space as soon as later this week.

Hey, Wisconsin progressives?  Thanks for giving us the ability to set up Mitt Romney‘s* 2012 Wisconsin campaign infrastructure and have it going at full guns right away, and essentially for free!  Much obliged.

Moe Lane

*By the way, I should take this opportunity to note something to the Activist Left: if all y’all didn’t want conservatives to start enthusiastically lining up behind Mitt Romney, then all y’all should have kept your mouths shut and not attacked Mitt Romney’s wife.  Because that sh*t’s not right.

Some interesting happenings at today’s Wisconsin’s Brown County Dairy Breakfast*:

[Democratic gubernatorial recall candidate Tom] Barrett was greeted warmly by some of the breakfast-goers — at least one man told him Barrett he was voting for him, prompting Barrett to joke, “Give him a lot of really good food” — but others reacted differently, telling Barrett they were voting for [Republican Governor Scott] Walker and not shaking his hand when he extended it.

Asked if he got this kind of reaction when he ran against Walker in 2010, Barrett said, “No no, this is a newer occurrence.”

(more…)

I am going to try to avoid too much hyperbole and sarcasm for this one; this is one time where the situation requires neither.  When Scott Walker and other Republicans instituted labor union reforms in 2009, one of the basic planks of such reforms – the one that was quietly and viciously fought, tooth and nail, by the unions – was removal of mandatory dues collection for public sector union employees.  In fact, from the union leaderships’ point of view this was THE reform that needed to be killed; if the Republicans had compromised on it then there probably wouldn’t have been a Wisconsin recall movement at all.  But Walker and the Republicans didn’t compromise… and what was the result?

DOOM.

Wisconsin membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees-the state’s second-largest public-sector union after the National Education Association, which represents teachers-fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011, according to a person who has viewed Afscme’s figures. A spokesman for Afscme declined to comment.

(more…)

Let me spell this out for the Democrats: this ad would probably doom Tom Barrett if he was ahead in the polls right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=icGujXPWhDo

(more…)