Wisconsin Recall Fizzles

The Wisconsin Republicans held control of the Wisconsin Senate, keeping four of six seats against Democratic challengers in the recall election.

If I were a Wisconsin Union worker, which I am not, I would be asking why 30 million dollars of the pension was spent in this Recall effort? Did it save or create jobs? Did it make Wisconsin, and the United States a more pro-Union, pro-worker place?

Richard McEnroe, of Three Beers Later, said this:

Seriously, the entire labor movement of the United Freaking States focused its wrath upon one state and six Republican state senators… and the people of Wisconsin looked at all the money being spent, looked at all the screaming marchers, looked at what their state government had been hiring, looked at the goons harassing vote canvassers, and said, “Yyyyyeah… no.”

Richard might be on to something right there. Maybe holding the Capital hostage, and the Democrats running to Illinois to hide out for a couple weeks wasn't the best thing going for them? Not exactly a good PR move? 30 Million pretty well wasted.

War on Wal-Mart

Who's afraid of Wal-Mart, and why? You're against cheaper groceries? There might be a little more under the cheap veneer of the protests.

I give you Reason magazine's Nick Gillespie peeling off that surface, and figuring out who doesn't want to allow their neighbors to have a choice.

Dirty Cheese In Wisconsin Election?

A corrected "computer filing error" by Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus has given conservative judicial Supreme Court incumbent David Prosser a net-gain of over 7,500 votes.

With the new tally, Prosser appears to be the winner. His liberal opponent, JoAnne Kloppenburg, led by 204 votes after the first unofficial tally was concluded yesterday.

Unions and Democrats had hoped to replace Prosser with Kloppenburg, with the plan that a new liberal majority would rule in favor of Big Labor if the Republicans' budget-repair bill made it to the state's highest court--which would then reinstate collective bargaining to most of Wisconsin's state employees. Ta Da. Yeah, it's a long shot, but it's all they had left.

If Prosser's win holds up, it will be another devastating defeat for the Unions. They elevated this race, they threw all of their resources into it... and still lost.

WI Supreme Court: Incumbent trails union-backed candidate by a few hundred votes; summary of recent vote fraud incidents

Saturday Football

Well, it looks like I'll be keeping closer attention to college football this year.

After N.F.L. Talks Fail, Union Decides to Decertify

Because the plaintiffs are listed alphabetically, the lawsuit will technically be referred to as Brady v. N.F.L.

I think it's time to bring back the XFL, Oh Yeah!

Sunday Comics - The Week in Review

End of the week. Finish line.

Charlie Sheen is nuts - and that is the MOST important issue in America, nay, the world right now. Now, just so that no one forgets, everyone was caught up on what a nut job Anne Hache was the days before September 11th. So, just saying.

Meanwhile, Sheen is a master - he has successfully ended that vile steaming pile of sitcom. Let the man have a victory dance.
Libya isn't revolting, they're falling into full blown Civil War. The sooner that the Colonel "leaves" the better it will be for everyone.
Meantime, how's that revolution reverberating everywhere else? Well, all politics are local - as Uncle Tip O'Neil used to say.

I particularly liked this one...And the SCOTUS decided to read the First Amendment out loud, again, to come up with their decision. Not a popular one, to be sure, but it was the correct one.
We made it. See you here next time.

Oil and Water

For those of you who want to see some sparks fly this weekend....

Members and fellow travelers of George Soros' MoveOn.org will march on all 50 state capitols on Saturday to support the public-sector unions in the Wisconsin dispute.

In response the Patriot Action Network is calling for "boots on the ground" to counter their protest. That's a fabulous idea!

Meantime, 50 Tea Party leaders support Gov. Scott Walker. They write:

…like the federal government, [Wisconsin] has become too big, too expensive, too in debt, and it is not going to embrace change easily. However, we believe the results of the 2010 elections provided you with a mandate to implement change, so that Wisconsinites can have more jobs, more freedom, and more opportunity to pursue happiness now and for generations to come.

…When politicians bestow unsustainable benefits and pension plans on government employee unions (often overwhelming subsidized by taxpayers), and in exchange these unions use their financial power often collected through mandatory dues to systematically reelect these same politicians, there is a clear conflict of interest. This vicious cycle has led to a projected $3 trillion pension deficit nationwide, with taxpayers expected to foot the bill.

…We applaud the serious approach you have taken to tackle the challenges facing your state. We call on Wisconsin/s Senate Democrats to match your seriousness by returning to the jobs that Wisconsin voters elected them to do. It is time that Wisconsin Senate Democrats stop shirking their responsibilities and show up for work.

Click here for the entire letter.

Me? All I see is a bunch of children fighting over the sprinkles after the cupcakes are all gone. It's already over folks.

Wisconsin is Greece

Tens of thousands of state workers and their supporters have turned out at the Wisconsin State Capitol since Tuesday to protest the governor's proposal.

Walker wants to help shore up the state's projected two-year, $3.6 billion budget shortfall by increasing public employees' costs for pensions and health-care coverage. Firefighters and police are exempt from the measure.

In addition to eliminating collective-bargaining rights, the legislation also would make public workers pay half the costs of their pensions and at least 12.6 percent of their health care coverage - increases Walker calls "modest" compared with those in the private sector.

On Thursday, state Democratic senators left the Capitol to deny Republicans -- who control the state legislature -- a quorum to vote on the governor's bill. The bill is expected to pass. The same run-away-and-hide measure that the Texas Democrats used not that long ago.

Politico: The Politics of Education Upended

Question -at what point will it be enough? Will they just keep demanding more until there is a collapse - or a State bankruptcy? And if that happened, and they caused it, shouldn't they be the first to suffer? This isn't about the right to form a Union or to organize -- it's the plain and simple fact that there's no more money!

The funny part is, in the private sector - there's contraction. People lose their jobs. These people are on the streets demanding more. They're calling their Governor Mubarak and Hitler - so much for civility in politics, eh?

Well, on the bright side, the kids are getting a couple days off.

Union Hired Non-Union Workers to Protest Hiring Non-Union Workers

Need some picketers make your protest more legit? You can hire picketers – yes, demonstrators-for-hire that march wherever you want them to march and chant whatever you want them to chant.

That in itself may be a solution, but when you’re a labor union protesting the hiring of non-union workers, then that’s a level up of hypocrisy and irony wrapped in kosher bacon.

Billy Raye, a 51-year-old unemployed bike courier, is looking for work.

Fortunately for him, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters is seeking paid demonstrators to march and chant in its current picket line outside the McPherson Building, an office complex here where the council says work is being done with nonunion labor.

"For a lot of our members, it’s really difficult to have them come out, either because of parking or something else," explains Vincente Garcia, a union representative who is supervising the picketing.

So instead, the union hires unemployed people at the minimum wage—$8.25 an hour—to walk picket lines. Mr. Raye says he’s grateful for the work, even though he’s not sure why he’s doing it. "I could care less," he says. "I am being paid to march around and sound off."

Jennifer Levitz of the Wall Street Journal reports: Link, and I promise I'm going to try harder to show my sources...

Auto Bail Out

The press for a federal bailout of the auto industry increased over the weekend.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that the Bush administration should consider expanding the $700 billion financial rescue to include car companies.

"A healthy automobile manufacturing sector is essential to the restoration of financial market stability," they wrote.

Over the weekend I was presented with the following argument on why it is a good idea to bail out the failing American Auto Industry...

Consider the following:

Let's say a 2 pack a day, overweight man comes into the ER with a heart attack - the doctors and nurses will do everything they can to bring that guy back to life. However, afterwards, the medical team tell him that he has to change his lifestyle to be healthier and to prevent having to come back into the ER, or worse, just drop dead. Because we're not going to do this again.

I thought that over, and considered it the best argument for saving the Big Three American dinosaur auto makers. Of course, the consequences of allowing the market forces to knock Ford, GM and Chrysler completely out of business would result in an immediate 3 million souls on Unemployment and would knock this little 'down turn' in to full blown Depression 2.0. Reagan agreed to "bail out" Chrysler in the 80's with a loan from the Federal Government. Lee Iacocca reasoned that the number of people tied to the auto industry was enormous. Perhaps it was the first 'too big to fail' argument. In fact, it wasn't even a loan - but Congress lent Chrysler the money and only guaranteed the loans.

But who, exactly, needs the bail out now?

The Detroit bailout is exactly what it looks like: a huge subsidy to several remarkably inefficient but politically well-protected firms. As a matter of economic theory, there is no reason the U.S. needs to make cars at all. As it happens, the U.S has an incredibly skilled labor force good at making complex things like cars, and it makes a hell of a lot of them very well and very efficiently. It’s just that the companies mostly responsible for great US autos are not headquartered in Detroit. Look at the success of Toyota and Honda in 'right to work states'.

There are plenty of factors for the Big Three's failure - Bloated hulking infrastructure, lack of innovation in gas millage and green tech. There's a lack of a good sedan: SUV and trucks were the basis of the black in the balance sheet - and when those sales dropped due to gasoline spikes, there was nothing to fall back on. Executive compensation can be thrown in there. And there's more. But why, specifically is GM asking for 10 Billion to buy Chrysler?

General Motors and Cerberus Capital Management have asked the U.S. government for roughly $10 billion in an unprecedented rescue package to support a merger between GM and Chrysler, two sources with direct knowledge of the talks said on Monday.

The government funding would include roughly $3 billion in exchange for preferred stock in the merged automaker.

The U.S. Treasury Department is considering a request for direct aid to facilitate the merger.

An injection of $3 billion in equity to support a GM acquisition of Chrysler would be roughly equivalent to the current, depressed value of the top U.S. automaker.

The taxpayer is being asked to help with a buy-out, not a bail-out?

But a larger issue that no one has mentioned - is that the bail out isn't for the corporations - it's for the labor that works there. Why else would the Democratic President-elect and the Democratic Congress be falling all over each other to protect the Big Three in Detroit? It's not (just) a case of corporate welfare, it's a grab for votes in the rust belt.

I ask, isn't this just a subsidy to the UAW?