wisconsin – Page 16

Wisconsin cops & firemen break their oaths.

It would seem that loyalty to their union masters take precedence over loyalty to the people of Wisconsin. From a contemptible letter written to M&I Bank threatening a boycott:

The undersigned groups would like your company to publicly oppose Governor Walker’s efforts to virtually eliminate collective bargaining for public employees in Wisconsin. While we appreciate that you may need some time to consider this request, we ask for your response by March 17. In the event that you do not respond to this request by that date, we will assume that you stand with Governor Walker and against the teachers, nurses, police officers, fire fighters, and other dedicated public employees who serve our communities.

In the event that you cannot support this effort to save collective bargaining, please be advised that the undersigned will publicly and formally boycott the goods and services provided by your company.

Now, this would not be a contemptible letter if it were signed by members of private sector unions. Private sector unions work in trades, and they have the right to make informed business choices (and even uninformed ones). But public sector union members are supposedly public servants – and they are expected to avoid even the hint of impropriety in their labor disputes. This is a barely-veiled threat from the cops and the firemen that organizations subject to the anti-labor reform boycott cannot expect a prompt and effective response from them in case of emergency. Simply put, there are different standards of behavior for emergency responders. Stricter ones, because being a repository of the public trust carries with it an expectation of behavior that is appropriate for that trust. This letter harms that trust. Continue reading Wisconsin cops & firemen break their oaths.

For the record: 70K-100K protesters predicted in Madison today.

I’m noting that now. This is what they’re expecting and forecasting.

Madison Police predicted the 27th consecutive day of demonstrations against the law to severely restrict the power of public sector unions in the state would approach the 70,000 to 100,000 a week ago, the largest demonstration at the state Capitol since the Vietnam War.

[snip]

“Saturday’s going to be huge,” said Terese Berceau, a Democratic member of the state Assembly who represents Madison, a university town that has seen its share of protests over the years. “Absolutely huge.”

I don’t particularly care if they hit that number, mind you – but the protesters do, so I’m noting it here and now.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Dues checkoff: the true issue at stake in Wisconsin.

I understand why Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin is couching the Left’s tantrum (H/T: Instapundit) over the Wisconsin budget bill in terms of having public sector employees contribute more of their fair share to health care and restricting harmful collective bargaining practices; both sides of the issue are publicly and politely pretending that this were the central issues. Only, they were not. Oh, sure, limiting collective bargaining via statute (which makes it harder to reverse) is a clear and present danger to the ability of organized labor to keep its leadership fat and happy; nobody’s debating that, although some (dumb) people would dispute my depiction of said leadership. But the real problem with the bill for the Democrats is much simpler:

The ending of automatic dues checkoff for public sector unions in Wisconsin. Continue reading Dues checkoff: the true issue at stake in Wisconsin.

Scott Fitzgerald auditions for WI-SEN in 2012.

…At least, that’s how I’m interpreting this letter from the Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader to (hiding) Wisconsin Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller, in response to Miller’s request for a face-to-face meeting to discuss a possible compromise that would allow Wisconsin senators to came back home with something roughly approximating their dignity intact. Fitzgerald’s letter starts as follows:

Sen. Mark Miller
Parts Unknown, IL

…and pretty much continues in that vein for six paragraphs’ worth of what has to be one of the better official political letters that I have read, and I unfortunately have to read a lot of these. Read it for yourself: it’s a treat. Then again, any official document where the words and phrases ‘bizarre,’ “We all deserve better than this,” and “I hope you are enjoying your vacation, and your vacation from reality” usually is.

Couple this with Governor Scott Walker’s response – short version: No; slightly longer version: Heck, no* – and you might be forgiven for thinking that the Wisconsin GOP is not going to back down on this issue…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*With a dollop of implied “We’re talking to Senate Democrats that aren’t you, you know.”

Wisconsin: Democratic Senators losing unit cohesion?

There’s some confusion going on with regard to the intentions and plans of the fourteen AWOL Democratic state senators from Wisconsin who have been hiding from their job responsibilities for the last two weeks. They are or are not or are or are not or are or are not* about to give up and just come back in; what is actually going to happen is still to be determined. On the other hand, it’s easy enough to see what did happen over the weekend: the fourteen AWOL senators lost whatever unit cohesion that they might have had in the first place. Two weeks of living on the lam and being politely chased by private citizens with video cameras will do that to a group, after all.

You see, we tend to forget that politicians are not identical, like potatoes: these fourteen men and women are just that – men and women – and it’s easy to believe that they’re getting tired, sore, and fuming about how they’ve somehow become the surrogate whipping boys for a national debate on public sector unions. Some of them might even be thinking that they didn’t actually sign up for this, that this wasn’t in the job description, and that the people urging them to exile in Illinois might not really give a tinker’s dam about them or their problems. And that this situation that they’re in is getting old. Oh, sure, no doubt a few of the AWOL senators are having a ball… but some of them are not, and the loss of message discipline in the last few days shows that.

And it only takes one AWOL senators to end this nonsense. Continue reading Wisconsin: Democratic Senators losing unit cohesion?

WI Democrats tried rushing fatcat union contracts.

Oh, the wickedness of the world.

Let me describe the video below: it walks through an interesting scenario planned by Wisconsin Democrats with regard toGov. Walker’s budget repair bill. Essentially, what happened was that Madison mayor Dave Ciesliewicz (D) colluded with state senator Mark Miller (D) to convince Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette (D) to delay publishing said budget repair bill once it passed for long enough to allow Ciesliewicz to sign last-minute, fat union contracts. As the Fox7 investigation noted, while La Follette ultimately refused to play ball, this was eventually a moot subject, as the Democratic senators (who are recipients of considerable union largess), somehow ‘spontaneously’ all decided to flee the state anyway.

Continue reading WI Democrats tried rushing fatcat union contracts.

Collective bargaining reform passes Ohio Senate.

The bill is SB5, and it will limit future collective bargaining for Ohio state employees to base salary: it passed the Ohio Senate with a one-vote margin (all hail the power of having a strong enough majority to allow you breathing room: elections matter, folks*). The bill now goes to the House, where the GOP has a 59-40 advantage: and a simple majority constitutes a quorum in the Ohio legislature, which means that the bill will likewise almost certainly pass there with sufficient margin to permit a defection or two. Governor Kasich will of course sign the bill once it is law.

While this is all of course good news for advocates of reform generally, it does also have a bearing on the specific situation in Wisconsin. The time has come for union leadership and other Democrats in that state to ask themselves what they want to do. To wit: do they want to start an armed insurrection against the legitimate government of Wisconsin? Or do they want to start preparing their supporters for what promises to be a crushing defeat of their (misguided) hopes? Continue reading Collective bargaining reform passes Ohio Senate.

An iconic Madison protester video.

It starts with pro-union protesters complaining that pro-union reform protesters don’t want to engage with them; and it ends with pro-union protesters engaging in rhythmic chants and literal whistle-blowing to interfere with the cameras. Actually, that’s not quite correct: they actually grabbed for the camera, too.

This video is from Ann Althouse’s site; her and her husband Meade have been doing yeoman work in covering the Madison protests, by the way. They’re also been getting more and more radicalized as they cover it, which is hysterically funny when you think about it. Goodness knows, something about this tawdry meltdown by the Democratic party needs to be.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Continue reading An iconic Madison protester video.

#rsrh Well, that was almost… “exciting.”

I’d say that the Mob there was about… oh, about thirty, forty-five seconds away from smashing that Republican state legislator’s head with a brick.

Fortunately, a couple of members of the Organizer/Politician castes were able to start a chant in the Mob’s hive mind that caused the individual meat-units surrounding the legislator to resist the urge for violence for just long enough. Which is good, of course. Let’s hope that the Organizers can continue to keep their lesser castes under control, though. It won’t end well if they do not.

Moe Lane

PS: Watch the [expletive deleted] thing again and tell me that this contempt of mine is uncalled-for.

PPS: Rep. Brett Hulsey (D)? Ever read The Case of Charles Dexter Ward? No? Too bad: there’s a really good piece of advice in there for the would-be magician. It goes, “Do not call up what ye cannot put down.” This is of course somewhat tardy advice in your party’s case, but better late than never, huh?

#rsrh “Insatiable?” I dunno…

…is there a stronger word than that? Because ‘insatiable’ doesn’t have quite the right hunger to it.

…needless to say, after the left’s grotesque, groundless demagoguery of the Tucson shooting as some sort of indictment of Republican rhetoric, conservative media will happily grind their faces in each and every bit of incivility expressed by union protesters or their apologists. The videos and photos of protesters with incendiary signs are already old hat after two weeks, but for righties forever tarred with the worst excesses of cranks who show up at tea party rallies, the appetite for liberal hypocrisy is insatiable.

Fortunately, there’s a supply of the stuff that pretty much dwarfs the demand.

Moe Lane