“Why is Scott Walker so afraid of collective bargaining?” asks Christian Schneider in the new edition of Wisconsin Interest. The answer, he writes, “can be found in the rise of the state’s teachers unions.”....
.....Gov. Gaylord Nelson radically changed Wisconsin in 1959 when he permitted public-sector unionization, but AN INFLECTION POINT NEARLY AS IMPORTANT WAS THE 1977 MEDIATION-ARBITRATION LAW THAT STEMMED FROM THE BITTER 1974 TEACHERS STRIKE IN HORTONVILLE. It ended public-sector strikes, but it also empowered a kind of pattern bargaining that let unions do a number of public budgets. That’s why the per-pupil spending line shifts to a radically steeper slope at that point.
Writes Schneider:
“Consider that in the 16 years prior to Hortonville, AVERAGE STATE PER-PUPIL SPENDING INCREASED 6.7% PER YEAR. POST-STRIKE, IT JUMPED TO 9.6% PER YEAR in the 16 years following the Hortonville clash.”
Schneider details the techniques, but the underlying reality is that collective bargaining has worked well for unions -- and wretchedly for taxpayers. They’ve slowly enriched the one at the expense of the other. He writes:....
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/118535169.html
Some interesting facts here. 6.7% increases will double what you spend in approximately 11 years. 9.6% increases doubles spending in 7.5 years. That is a huge difference which will break any system even a governmental one.
Tyranny of the Minority
Statehouse walkouts are not without precedent. In fact, they are a reasonably common occurrence. But they are largely symbolic gestures -- an attempt to demonstrate the minority's outraged disapproval of the majority's agenda. SELDOM DO THEY GO ON FOR DAYS, AND UNTIL NOW, NEVER HAVE THEY BEEN LEGITIMATE ATTEMPTS TO UNDERMINE THE ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS BY GRINDING THE OPERATION OF GOVERNMENT TO A HALT.
Yet that is exactly what the Wisconsin Democrats attempted, and what their Indiana counterparts are still shamefully perpetrating. What is taking place in the Indiana Statehouse is far from a mere regional or petty statewide issue; IT IS A DIRECT ASSAULT ON THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS THAT DESERVES NATIONAL ATTENTION AND COLLECTIVE, BIPARTISAN SCORN. For while the Wisconsin constitution allowed the Republicans a procedural recourse to rectify the stalemate (something they employed when it became apparent the Democrats could not be lured back by compromise), Indiana Republicans have no such option.
For those who may be unaware, Indiana Statehouse Democrats staged a walkout a month ago to deny the large Republican majority the ability to enact legislation opposed by public and private union bosses - specifically right-to-work and public education reform laws. THE DEMOCRAT CAUCUS FLED ACROSS STATE LINES TO ILLINOIS (WHERE ELSE?), AND HAVE BEEN HOLED UP IN A HOTEL DEMANDING CONCESSION AFTER CONCESSION TO EARN THEIR RETURN. But even after capitulating to their juvenile fit and pulling the right-to-work law off the table, Republican leaders have been unsuccessful in luring the Democrats back to work.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/03/democrats_tyranny_of_the_minor.html
Perhaps it is time to make the unexcused failure to attend a certain number of sessions an offense punishable by ejection from the elected office the lawmaker is in.
Gorelick considered to head the FBI
The Obama administration reportedly is considering former Clinton administration official Jamie Gorelick, among others, to become the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Perez first reported the news last week, citing “U.S. officials” familiar with the situation.
GORELICK SERVED AS VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION (FANNIE MAE) WHEN THE GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED ENTERPRISE BEGAN BUNDLING SUBPRIME LOANS INTO SECURITIZED FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS. Prior to that, she served as deputy attorney general in the Clinton Justice Department under then-Attorney General Janet Reno from 1994 to 1997.
http://nation.foxnews.com/fbi/2011/03/23/woman-tied-911-fannie-mae-obamas-fbi-shortlist
Here’s a Democrat who hasn’t shown much in the way of ethics or good judgment and she’s being considered to head the FBI. Somehow it doesn’t surprise me from this administration.
Is Libya a stalemate?
IT'S THE NIGHTMARE SCENARIO: A STALEMATE. THAT IS WHAT BARACK OBAMA AND HIS 'COALITION OF THE UNWILLING' ARE FACING IN LIBYA, A U.S. OFFICIAL HAS WARNED.
The prediction came as Western warplanes hit Libya for a fifth night last night - but still failed to stop Muammar Gaddafi's tanks shelling rebel-held towns or dislodge his armour from a strategic junction in the east.
GADDAFI'S TANKS ROLLED BACK INTO MISRATA UNDER THE COVER OF DARKNESS AND BEGAN SHELLING THE AREA NEAR THE MAIN HOSPITAL, residents and rebels said, resuming their attack after their guns were silenced in daylight hours by Western airstrikes.....
....As the killing went on in Libya, anxiety is growing in Washington.
Unless Western forces take some kind of decisive action WE COULD BE FACING A FIGHT TERRIFYINGLY SIMILAR TO THE ONE THE U.S. HAS FOUGHT FOR NEARLY A DECADE IN AFGHANISTAN: with the U.S. military bleeding billions, an incalculable cost in human life, and negligible results.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369444/Libya-War-Obama-needs-order-surge-Gaddafi-mission-stalemate.html#ixzz1HW73Fyk2
It is time to give back the “Peace Prize.”
Why the GOP is Obsessed with 'Leadership'
Leaders do not operate in a vacuum. When they make strategic adjustments, their opponents do too. President Obama has prompted just such a pivot by Republicans.
THEY'RE CRITICIZING HIM NOT FOR THE DECISIONS HE'S MADE BUT FOR THE ONES HE HASN'T, and the ones he delayed. They are attacking him not as a liberal ideologue but as a man in full flight from any ideological definition. IF THEY ONCE SAID HIS PLANS WERE TOO BIG, THEY ARE NOW ASKING IF HE HAS ANY PLANS AT ALL….
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/03/24/why_the_gop_is_obsessed_with_leadership_109333.html
EJ Dionne is missing the point. Obama is acting as was feared he would react: like an amateur. All those promises of resetting our relationships abroad, getting those “axis of evil” countries to come to the bargaining table have not simply not happened, but the opposite seems to have happened. Obama is a foreign policy disaster.
Obama’s Presidency Still Hangs By a Thread
What a difference nine days makes—or not. Because the Obama presidency is again hanging by a thread, but this time the thread is not the result of inaction. It is, rather, THE RESULT OF TAKING ACTION SO INCOMPREHENSIBLE AND INCOHERENT THAT EVEN OBAMA’S OWN PEOPLE ARE FINDING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO DEFEND OR EXPLAIN (thus the already notorious coinage yesterday of the term “kinetic military action” to describe the firing of 170 missiles and the destruction from the air of Libyan facilities).
As of now, there’s no reason anyone would cast a vote in 2012 directly based on what happens in Libya. But handling something this peculiarly means THE PRESIDENT IS ON THE VERGE OF CONVINCING ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE THAT HE’S EITHER NOT THE MAN THEY VOTED FOR (ON THE LEFT) OR THAT HE’S IN OVER HIS HEAD (not only people who dislike him already but independents who took a chance on him in 2008).
And there are other gloomy portents on the horizon. Rasmussen Reports revealed yesterday that 23 PERCENT OF AMERICANS THINK THE COUNTRY IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK. The right-track number is among the most important in all of polling; IF IT’S NOT AT LEAST ABOVE 40 AT THE TIME OF AN ELECTION, AN INCUMBENT PRESIDENT DOES NOT HAVE A PRAYER OF WINNING A SECOND TERM. It’s a very long time (in polling terms) till Election Day 2012, but without question, Obama has a climb ahead of him.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/03/24/obamas-presidency-still-hangs-by-a-thread-but-for-a-different-reason/
Unless Obama changes soon, the American public will be convinced that he is not presidential material and he will be voted out of office.
Obama locked out of Oval Office
President Obama had some unexpected trouble at the White House on Wednesday: HE COULDN'T GET INTO THE OVAL OFFICE.
After returning from a five-day trip to Latin America, President Obama returned to the White House to find that some of the doors to the Oval Office were locked tight.
Staff at the White House appeared not to have known that the the president had returned early from his trip and HADN'T UNLOCKED THE DOORS, ACCORDING TO AN ABC NEWS AFFILIATE IN WASHINGTON.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/151659-obama-locked-out-of-oval-office
If Obama and the democrats are superstitious, this is not a good sign for 2012.
Obama’s Libyan Intervention Has Lowest Approval of Any Military Op Polled by Gallup in 4 Decades
President Barack Obama’s intervention in Libya’s civil war has not only failed to win the approval of a majority of the American people, according to a Gallup poll conducted Monday, it also earned the lowest public approval rating of any U.S. military operation polled by Gallup over the past four decades.
In fact, IT WAS THE ONLY U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTION POLLED BY GALLUP THAT RECEIVED LESS THAN MAJORITY APPROVAL FROM AMERICANS.
“The 47% of Americans approving of the action against Libya is lower than what Gallup has found when asking about approval of other U.S. military campaigns in the past four decades,” said Gallup's analysis of the poll.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-s-libyan-intervention-has-lowest-p-0
Nothing this man does seems to go right.
Political insiders don’t think the public knows what it’s doing
When it comes to policy, the political class doesn’t have a lot of faith in the public’s IQ. In the latest National Journal Political Insiders Poll, A SOLID MAJORITY OF POLITICAL OPERATIVES—59 PERCENT—SAID THE PUBLIC DIDN’T “KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT THE ISSUES FACING WASHINGTON to form wise opinions about what should be done.” There was a sharp partisan difference between the two parties: By more than a 2-to-1 margin, Democratic Insiders believed the public didn’t “know enough,” while a slight majority of Republicans thought they did.http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/six-of-ten-political-insiders-believe-public-is-ill-informed-20110324
Doing some simple math, you can see the authors oversampled Democratic insiders (63%) to Republicans insiders (37%). If you do the math with the numbers mentioned that what it would take to have 59% be the percent that doubted the American public knowledge and wisdom at the polls.
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