I just…can’t….resist….

Admittedly, the gloating really needs to end.

I’ll stop highlighting stuff like this……….

…..

….tomorrow.

—–

Wishful thinking?

Or is this some form of self-hypnosis, like a kid trying to convince themselves there aren’t any real monsters residing under their bed?

Only one thing is for sure: the Good Guys are getting waaaay faster at ads like these.

.

——-
Whatever the reason, they know the truth, and it doesn’t bode well for their boyfriend in November.

From Via Meadia blog:

The American left as we have come to know it suffered a devastating blow in Wisconsin last night. The organized heart of the left gave everything it had to the fight against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker: heart, shoe leather, wallet and soul. The left picked this fight, on the issue and in the place of its choice; it chose to recall Walker because it believed it could win a showcase victory. That judgement was fatally flawed; it is part of a larger failure to grasp the nature of American politics and the times in which we live.

The left gave this fight everything it had. It called all the troops it could find; it raised all the money it could; it summoned the passion of its grassroots supporters, all the moral weight and momentum remaining to the American labor movement and every ounce of its strength and its will.

And it failed.

—-

Voters in Wisconsin didn’t reject a role for the state in regulating the economy and easing the harshness of life in a market economy. But they turned decisively against the argument that well-paid armies of life-tenured bureaucrats can produce enough good government to justify the cost. And the lesson of the election isn’t that the right has too much money; the lesson is that while the left still has plenty of passion and fire, it has, thanks in part to the power of public sector unions, largely run out of compelling ideas.

So take a victory lap; enjoy a beer; ….and get back to work. The other side will soon be done licking their wounds, and will redouble their efforts. Which means they’re scared.

Let’s keep ’em that way.

CAUTION: Excessive Gloating Ahead

Good morning, everyone: it’s a truly beautiful day………

Let’s start off with a quote from Jim Geraghty at NRO:

Believe it or not, by winning his recall election, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has done his foes – the Wisconsin Democratic Party, the public sector unions, the progressives and angry leftists – a favor.

He has liberated them from the soothing illusion that they are popular, and that the public agrees with them.

Although the final count got a bit closer by the end, Scott Walker crushed Tom Barrett last night in the Wisconsin recall election by about 170,000 votes, 53% to 46%. And if you aren’t aware, yes, that’s a lot. Especially when CNN was saying that the exit polls looked like it was going to be a coin-flip and go far into the night.

There’s also an excellent post in the Daily Caller:

If you pause and listen carefully, you might be able to hear the despair  coming from Jim Messina, President Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, and David  Axelrod, Obama’s top strategist and communications director, as the meaning of  Wisconsin’s recall election becomes clear.

In the final hours before Governor Scott Walker’s victory, with the writing  on the wall, President Obama and his campaign could only muster a tweet and a last-minute video for challenger Tom Barrett.  But do not let that tepid support fool you: Democrats and their union allies  spent an astronomical amount on a judicial election, four state legislative  recalls and the recall of Governor Walker, only to lose.

Democrats, Big Labor and Team Obama initially put all their chips on the table, organizing  a massive get-out-the-vote effort to unseat Walker. The day before the recall, Wisconsin’s MacIver Institute illustrated  just how much money Big Labor has spent: more than $21 million. Earlier in the  month, the MacIver Institute put up a matrix to “put an  end to any stories that Big Labor, the Democratic Party and other left-wing  organizations aren’t going all out to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.” The spin aside, Team Obama, Big Labor and Democrats were heavily invested and  suffered a huge loss in Wisconsin.

Almost never reported fact: the union political operatives are paid, boys-n-girls, yet money paid to them doesn’t get counted as money spent on the campaign. Not realizing that is what allows displays like this……..

——

That’s classic; I’m gonna have to save that clip….

———–

Last point: for over a year, the media covered the recall effort, telling us over and over that it was vitally important, and then just within the last couple of weeks told us not to worry about Wisconsin anymore: it was just a local election. Yeah, NO implications for the general election to be found there.

Nope, nope, no sir. Nothing to learn from Wisconsin at all.

Well, does THIS face look like last night’s election had “no national implications“? I don’t think so…

Unions vs. Reality: “This state ain’t big enough for the both of us”

I never, ever do two posts in a row about anything, but since this IS the day of Wisconsin’s recall election….I kinda gotta do this now.

One of the outcomes of the battle in Wisconsin was over the funding and viability of public sector pensions. Walker was trying to save them AND not bankrupt the state simultaneously. This was figured out by the voters, who seem to like what they see, so far. This may be the biggest reason that Walker is expected to survive the recall effort against him today.

From Rick Moran over at pjmedia.com:

Scott Walker tried to address one small part of this crisis by asking public employees to contribute more from their paychecks to the state’s pension fund. The way the unions reacted, one would have believed that Walker was trying to take their pensions away. The effort to require public employees to contribute the same amount to their pension fund as most private citizens is going to be duplicated nationwide once pension bombs begin exploding.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, “Nationwide, state pensions were underfunded by $600 billion in 2009. That accounts for about half of the $1.26 trillion gap in overall retirement benefits owed to public employees that year.” The article notes that “states have only set aside $31 billion to cover the health care of its retirees – just five percent of the $635 billion they already owe.”

And his conclusion?

Even at the brink of bankruptcy, public unions balk at taking the necessary medicine. How will the pension bomb be defused and ever-rising health care costs for retired public workers be successfully managed if the unions don’t cooperate?

Eventually, whether they want to or not, unions will be forced to give in. And this is the final reason why unions have already lost regardless of the outcome in Wisconsin. Their ideas are outmoded and unsuitable for a modern society with problems relating to an aging population and shrinking work force to support them. This final reason for their defeat might do them in entirely unless the unions wake up and work with state and local governments to pull back from the abyss and find reasonable common ground to save what can be saved from this fiscal nightmare.

Read the whole thing. The author actually highlights 4 other reasons that the Unions have ultimately lost the argument up in Wisconsin, and are in danger of losing the whole argument nationwide.

Two Wisconsin Recall stories you DIDN’T hear about

The Wisconsin recall election is today. If you live in Wisconsin, please be sure to vote!

**Unless you’re voting for Democrat Tom Barrett: his election is tomorrow.

—————

Story #1: I heard about this from Mark Belling over the weekend, but didn’t think about it again until now. A former Marine by the name of David Willoughby  was at an anti-Walker rally. Willoughby is a Walker supporter, and from what I can tell wasn’t causing a disturbance, other than being the recipient of barbs, threats and yelling from the anti-Walker crowd. And for his troubles, he got arrested.

Why, you ask?

“During a political rally, subject raised a protest sign above his head in a manner that created danger to the public. Subject’s actions caused a disturbance during a political rally.” The citation carries a $185 fine and has a July court date.

Check out the story and video here. If this guy was deserving of being handcuffed, jailed, and fined,….then just about everyone deserves to be handcuffed, jailed and fined.

—————

Story #2: This is from over a week ago, but it didn’t get ANY oxygen the first time around in the media. Ever since Scott Walker began to follow-through on his campaign promises to save jobs & money by abridging some of the public sector union’s bargaining rights, we’ve all witnessed the union’s Sturm und Drang. You know the spiel: Walker’s measures would shut down the state; towns would lose their teachers and their schools; Walker hates children; Walker wants working people to starve. You know, the normal stuff said about Conservatives.

Well, a little cited poll came back in May and guess what?

“….now that they have seen its benefits—most Wisconsin voters want to keep it. By a 53 percent to 38 percent margin, independent voters favor the limits on collective bargaining in government. It turns out that closing a $3.6 billion deficit without raising taxes or laying off teachers is popular after all.”

—————

Just remember: this election is a battle between the oppressed and the powerful: