Why destroy statues?

Destruction of public property and historic statues of abolitionists and liberators is definitely serious business. Taking the perps and vandals seriously (except to arrest them) is just stupid. It's appalling to hear city leaders, state governors, and pastors of conservative churches this naïve. They are paying blackmail to the mob. Where is their common sense? Are they truly riddled with guilt or just trying to buy some time?

This has never been about the Civil War, the Confederate flag, who fought on which side, what 15th century explorer worked for which European nation or which politicians weren't perfect 75 years ago. It's not even about the police.

This is a revolution. READ THEIR WEBSITES. It isn't a secret. They are far more transparent than Pelosi and Schumer. It is about bringing the country down, destroying loyalty, ridiculing values, and infecting young people with the virus of hate.

As some other pundit has noted, you don't see the HVAC installer attacking statues, it's the dumb and dumber graduates of Yale and Harvard.

"Crowds outside the Wisconsin State Capitol tore down two statues, attacked a state senator and threw a Molotov cocktail into a government building amid protests following the arrest of a black man who shouted at restaurant customers through a megaphone while carrying a baseball bat. Officers inside the Capitol used pepper spray to repel protesters who were trying to gain entry into the historic center of state government, Madison police said. Gov. Tony Evers (D) on Wednesday said he was prepared to activate the Wisconsin National Guard to protect state properties." CLG Update June 25

One of the statues was of Civil War Col. Hans Christian Heg, an anti-slavery activist and leader of an anti-slave catcher militia in Wisconsin who fought for the Union and died from injuries suffered during the Battle of Chickamauga. So you see it has nothing to do with good guys vs. bad guys. 

One rioter engaged in destruction defended it saying slavery really hadn't ended in Wisconsin, despite its progressive image because blacks were imprisoned in the penitentiaries (njb: usually for crimes against other blacks).

Remembering oleo margarine

Was the Wisconsin dairy lobby the reason we had to buy white margarine and mix it with a blob of color when I was a child? Then it came in a plastic bag and we mixed it by squeezing (still a child's job). Then finally it looked like butter and you could buy it that way. Now, they were right, it was pure garbage, and I'm happily back on butter, but that's the power of an industry. Artisan butter? Might try it. There are law suits.

http://blog.pacificlegal.org/minerva-dairy-challenges-wisconsins-anti-competitive-artisanal-butter-ban/

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/ohio/articles/2017-04-20/ohio-butter-maker-sues-wisconsin-over-enforcement-of-law

http://fortune.com/2017/04/13/kerrygold-butter-wisconsin-lawsuit/

https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/09/22/the-politics-of-yellow/

The Electoral College has voted--Trump will be president

It got wild the last few days, didn't it?  Wasn't sure the Electoral College system for protection against mobs and cabals was going to work.

I saw this clip several times. . . "This is my America," a 40-ish woman kept screaming giving the Hitler salute (what it is called when Republicans raise the fist) when the electors did the legal and moral thing--respected the voters of Wisconsin. I'm guessing that will go viral. Hope her mother wasn't watching. Or her kids. Not sure why she thought her one vote mattered more than all the rest of the Wisconsin voters.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBTAN3VlADA

The Left is really ramping up the Russia paranoia.  The Democrats are getting all prissy about Russia without knowing how the Russians will respond to strong leadership by our country. I would have guessed Putin would have preferred Clinton--it's been proven she can be bought.  Trump is probably too rich.  Obama seems to like Cuba and Iran--any others?

 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/18/obama-democrats-decry-trumps-ties-to-putin-after-o/


As a blogger, I get the strangest offers and announcements. "To many the election of Donald Trump brought confusion and despair, but it also roused new energies of political engagement. Convinced of the power of poetry to shape the way we understand and intervene in political life, Boston Review is proud to announce the publication of "Poems for Political Disaster." Sweet. So if you've been writing poetry in your safe space, here's a place to send them.

"Thirty percent of Democratic women reported cutting off online communication with someone for political reasons since the Nov. 8 election, according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll published Monday. They are more than twice as likely to blot out dissenting points of view from their social media timelines as Democratic men, who reported doing so at a 14 percent rate." Washington Times, Dec. 19, 2016.  Of course, if they've blocked me, they can't see this. My female Democrat relatives beat the rush--blocked me in 2015. I don't mind dissenting viewpoints, but it really bothers the soul of some people. Of course, I was a Democrat for forty years and understand the mindset.

Iowa Freedom Summit 2015 Scott Walker Speech

Talks about the death threats he and his family were getting from leftists, Marxists, progressives and Democrats four years ago.  If you were there protesting and helping, shame on you. I’m so glad he didn’t back down; Wisconsin is a better place today because of Governor Walker.

Governor Scott Walker makes Wisconsin—a winner

Look who has a $900 million budget surplus. Wisconsin. That's why the left hates him. He's fiscally responsible. Can we get him in Washington?

Richard says, “My Wisconsin liberal friends hate him with froth coming out their mouths when they talk about him. They tend to bring up all sorts of stories about him that are printed in Milwaukee and Madison papers that no one else will write.”

http://fox6now.com/2014/01/22/preview-of-gov-walkers-state-of-the-state-address/

Tonight, we have some really great news about the economy and our fiscal situation. The non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau recently verified that the state will have $911 million more than previously projected. These new revenues are not a one-time windfall, or budget gimmick, but come from a strong economic recovery, where more people are working, more employers are hiring, and personal income is going up. They also come from good stewardship of the taxpayers’ money.

What do you do with a surplus? Give it back to the people who earned it. It’s your money. I propose that we deposit a portion of these new revenues in the state’s rainy day fund and use the remainder to provide much needed tax relief to you—the hardworking taxpayers of Wisconsin.

Job creation, prudent fiscal management, tax credits for manufacturing and agriculture, international trade, tourism, lower property taxes, new education and training programs.  Didn’t see anything about teacher’s unions, but we know the individual communities are saving a lot of money. Teachers in Wisconsin are no longer forced to join the union.

http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/09/governor-scott-walkers-teacher-union-busting-act-10-law-continues-upheld/

Book burning in the 21st century

University of Wisconsin at Madison has caved to pressure from atheists.  It has removed the Gideon Bible from hotel rooms.  Apparently, atheists become apoplectic and panic at the sight of one.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/university-removes-bibles-guest-rooms-complaint-article-1.1582450

On antenna TV I can get 4 different channels in Arabic, all evangelizing Islam.  Should I complain or change channels?

Wisconsin schools save millions

Wisconsin schools are saving millions on health insurance after their governor stood up to the unions. Act 10 took health insurance off the collective bargaining table and allowed school boards to select insurance companies. Formerly they had to deal with an insurance company owned by the union.

http://eagnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/First-Years-of-Freedom-report.pdf

http://walker.wi.gov/Documents/Act_10_Success_Recap.pdf

http://watchdog.org/78127/wis-act-10-leads-to-lower-school-premiums-new-report-finds/

Three lessons from the Wisconsin recall

“There are three important lessons from the Wisconsin collective bargaining battles over the past eighteen months:

1. The power of the government-sector unions and their impact on elections is greatly overestimated. With a victory for Gov. Walker, Wisconsin Government employee union will have suffered their fifth major defeat since March 2011.

2. When given a choice, government employees will quit their union in large numbers.

3. Government employees' salaries and benefits, particularly pensions, are financially unsustainable in most states and collective bargaining reform is needed.”

Read more: http://www.statebudgetsolutions.org/publications/detail/why-government-employee-collective-bargaining-laws-must-be-reformed-now#ixzz1x9ezwKiI

The right not to join a union

Scott Walker's reforms in Wisconsin--limiting bargaining to cost-of-living salary increases; increasing workers’ contributions to their pension and health-care plans; eliminating unions’ ability to automatically collect dues from all members; and requiring unions to re-certify each year--have saved the state a ton of money.   People who contribute to Social Security are probably scratching their heads about what they are so unhappy about.  It’s still a better deal with a better pay out at retirement. Wisconsin now has a surplus instead of a debt. What about the RIGHT NOT TO JOIN a union? When given a choice, workers leave in droves, and this is why unions are shipping people in to vote in Wisconsin today. http://thespeechatimeforchoosing.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/breaking-union-thugs-allegedly-busing-in-voters-from-michigan-to-vote-in-wisconsin-recall/

http://quincyjournal.com/union-membership-dwindles-in-wisconsin,-u.s.1328195259.html

http://nation.foxnews.com/scott-walker/2012/06/04/scott-walker-reforms-create-budget-surplus

Glenn Beck provides the genealogy of Days of Rage

If you don't subscribe to GBTV, you missed Glenn Beck's monologue on the Days of Rage this past week-end (it fizzled miserably), back, back way back to the Weather Underground of 1969. He updated us on Jeff Jones, Mark Rudd, Tom Hayden, Carl Davidson, and of course, Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine, and what they're doing today. Noted that Tom Hayden is teaching at Occidental in California, where the Obama transcripts are being held hostage. Here's a web site that will do about the same--it's a good read.

Guest Post: Tracing the Origins of the Days of Rage Protest « RickMick

However, don't discount the Days of Rage--which ended up on the steps of the Smithsonian instead of Wall Street, I think he said. The Weathermen started small too, and four of them managed to bomb a building of the University of Wisconsin and kill and injure people. And have you ever read a more apologetic marker for violence? If I were the family of that dead grad student, Robert Fassnacht, I'd sue for such a limp, vacuous account of this tragedy.

This article updates what happened to the dead, injured, and perps.

Delusional Democrats and Union Thugs in Wisconsin

Kathleen Vinehout, a Wisconsin state senator who fled to Illinois to avoid her duty to her constituents said this after an improbable naive and hopelessly pious statement about honor and harmony too bizarre to even quote:

On March 9th, Republican Leaders invented a new process of passing a bill, without warning, without a hearing and without even a bill on the Senate floor. Republican Leaders engaged in legislative trickery to deny us the democratic process; seeking only to advance their national agenda.

James Lindgren offers another view at "SSRN, Social Science Research Network" which probably state Democrats routinely ignore, just has they ignore the national one.

This essay takes a brief and preliminary look at the remedies available to the Wisconsin Senate to enact its 2011 proposed budget legislation without Democratic senators who fled the state in February 2011. Article VIII, §8 of the Wisconsin Constitution requires a three-fifths quorum only for statutes that are fiscal, that is, statutes that actually appropriate money, impose taxes, create a debt, or release a claim owed to the state. Even then, these categories have consistently been interpreted in the most limited form conceivable.

Wisconsin union protestors spoil the day for Special Olympians meeting with the governor

This is the "progressive" political philosophy that has brought about the death of over 90% of children with Down Syndrome aborting them before they catch their first breath. This is the thoughtless political philosophy that allows the President of the United States to yuck it up about their abilities, and late night comedians left wing bloggers to ridicule Sarah Palin's son. Did these young (and probably paid) "zombies" have any idea what they were doing? Maybe not. Brains of mush. The Olympians are much smarter, kinder and happier than this crew brought in by the unions.

Democracy can be a messy business

I Googled that line to see if I could get the full text of the Badger State Bungle story that appeared in the WSJ today, and "Democracy can be a messy business" turned up 109,000 matches. My, is it that messy? I mean worse than National Socialism, Communism, or Anarchy, or any of those other systems being demonstrated at our state capitals in Wisconsin and Ohio by union members?

"Democracy can be a messy business, but it shouldn't be as big a mess at it's been this week in Wisconsin. A nail-biter of a state supreme court election turned into a political uproar on Thursday with the discovery of 14,000 previously overlooked votes in conservative-leaning Waukesha County. The new totals gave incumbent Justice David Prosser a lead of some 7,500 votes over challenger and union favorite JoAnne Kloppenburg and guaranteed weeks if not months of more political heartburn. Democrats pounced on the new totals, claiming the error must be evidence of partisanship, and state assembly minority leader Peter Barca suggested that Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus's long-time Republican affiliation made the incident "troubling." He's right on competence grounds, though perhaps not on the partisanship. One of Ms. Nickolaus's Democratic colleague attests that overlooking all of the votes in Brookfield, a Milwaukee suburb, was a computer mistake, not a fraud, and that the vote count is accurate."

The original WSJ article is locked, but can be found here.

Virginia's governor supports Governor Walker of Wisconsin

HT Bob Kirchman, a Virginia blogger, Christian and conservative. Also a great photographer. Check out his web site.

Michigan Boosts Power to Intervene in Cities - WSJ.com

"DETROIT—Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law a measure that broadens state powers to intervene in the finances and governance of struggling municipalities and school districts, giving these local bodies a stronger hand in renegotiating labor contracts.

The law also requires local government to send financial projections to Lansing, the capital, which could lead to the state stepping in earlier in hopes of averting a crisis."

Michigan Boosts Power to Intervene in Cities - WSJ.com

Democrats are of course objecting. Public employees have 3 forms of representation--their unions, their Democrats, and their elected representatives. The people who pay their salaries and benefits have only elected representatives, who need to be very, very strong.

Printed prayers

The older I get, the more I appreciate a well written prayer. Yes, written, as in published. I find prayer books very useful, and enjoy the little short prayers included in the daily meditation booklets I use from Concordia. Usually, they contain passages of scripture or basic theological concepts. Today I came across a published prayer for Christians on strike in the 1957 My Prayer Book by Concordia Publishing House (Lutheran). In quoting I've somewhat modernized the pronouns thee and thou. Somehow, I don't think workers in King James era were going on strike.

"Owing to disagreements between my labor union and my employer, I am now on strike and out of work. I know you love all, and it is your will that I love all men as brothers. Therefore help me, my fellow workers, and my employer to overcome all selfishness and pride and to seek a fair solution of our difficulties. . .

Protect the property of strikers and employers during the conferences between them. Give our employer a sympathetic understanding of the problems and needs of his workers. Likewise give me and the other workers a proper insight into the problems and resources of our employer, that we may not ask more than is reasonable. Prevent bitterness and strife, and where ungodly strife is present, grant your healing and peace. Guide the negotiations toward an early agreement whereby both employer and worker may profit. May fairness and justice prevail for all concerned. . .

Give your blessing to honest labor everywhere that the needs of mankind may be supplied and that your kingdom may flourish; through Jesus Christ. Amen."

In 1957 there were no unions representing government employees--it was practically unthinkable. Wisconsin, the "progressive" state, was the first to allow state employees to bargain with their employers. In 1957, both public and private workers knew the basics of negotiating and that if you negotiate with yourself, you, not your neighbor [employer], always are the winner because of self-interest. It's like going into a ballgame where the final score is already determined. Home team wins every time. Public sector unions are negotiating with "self," i.e., the workers' union representatives are negotiating with the workers' elected representatives, and often with their own political party representatives [Democrats]. Therefore, this 1957 prayer sounds archaic--from a long distant past--and it is.

There is no "justice to prevail" at the state houses of Ohio or Wisconsin or New Jersey where one group of workers doesn't pay for their benefits at the expense of another group of workers who pay the salaries of the other group. A public sector worker employed for 35 years will pull out thousands of dollars more a year in her retirement check than a private sector worker who worked 50 years to receive Social Security. The school teacher who retires at 55 may get $80,000 a year (or more), and the real estate broker or small businessman who can't retire until 66 will get $28,400. And the businessman has contributed more! Both have elected representatives, but one has double the representation.

The disgraceful behavior of the Wisconsin teachers (and their friends)

So you thought the Communist/Islam link was just a parnoid threat by Glenn Beck? How do you like the Cairo to Madison link?

Sorry Mr. Krugman, you flunk unionizing 101

Paul Krugman, left wing journalist and Nobel prize in something, has really stepped into it now. He claimed that Texas children were doing more poorly than Wisconsin's who have the benefit of all those rich, well-pensioned, unionized teachers with collective bargaining rights.

However. . .

Texas students beat Wisconsin in every category when ethnicity is taken into account. See Iowahawk, who usually writes a humor column, but in this case is very serious.

"So how to compare educational achievement between two states with such dissimilar populations? In data analysis this is usually done by treating ethnicity as a "covariate." A very simple way to do this is by comparing educational achievement between states within the same ethnic group. In other words, do black students perform better in Wisconsin than Texas? Do Hispanic students perform better in Wisconsin or Texas? White students? If Wisconsin's kids consistently beat their Texas counterparts, after controlling for ethnicity, then there's a strong case that maybe Texas schools ought to become a union shop.

Luckily, there is data to answer this question via the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The NAEP is an annual standardized test given to 4th and 8th graders around the country to measure proficiency in math, science, and reading. Participation is fairly universal; if you've had a 4th or 8th grader in the last few years, you're probably familiar with it. Results are compiled on the NAEP website, broken down by grade, state, subject and ethnicity."

State says damage to marble at Capitol in Madison could hit $7.5 million

When has anyone from the Tea Party damaged a public building? They are always cleaning up after themselves (see 9/12 and 8/28), whereas the lefties on the dole always want someone else to clean up their messes--like ruining companies or towns after a strike, or moving labor off shore, or setting bad examples for school children, or like talking green but leaving trash. I wonder what $7.5 million could have bought for Wisconsin's school children?

State says damage to marble at Capitol could hit $7.5 million - JSOnline

The comments are very telling. Conservatives know costs; liberals know only ridicule and hype.

HT Another Black Conservative

Way beyond pot and kettle

This is a Communist tool accusing patriotic, elected Americans of being tools of the capitalists. Hello! The unions tried but failed to destroy capitalism, so they've gone after our government--at all levels, including the teachers who control our children.
Trumka

“After the events of last night, I should say this is an absolute corruption of democracy,” said Trumka, who was the keynote speaker at liberal summit in Washington, D.C. “Last night, Scott Walker and his Republican tools in Wisconsin showed just how far they’re willing to go to pay back their corporate sponsors.”

The day-long Summit on Jobs & America’s Future featured several panels with high-profile names, such as former White House adviser [and avowed Communist] Van Jones.