Democracy in action, baby. Peacefully and without violence, Wisconsin protesters made their voices known to Wisconsin State Rep Warren Petryk, keeping him from an Americans for Prosperity (read Koch brothers)-funded rally for Gov. Scott Walker. Video and story courtesy of local Eau Claire station WQOW: . Representative Warren Petryk was scheduled to speak at the Americans for Prosperity rally in support of Governor Walker Saturday morning. But he didn’t make it there. The 93rd Assembly District Republican was stopped in a nearby parking lot, as protesters asked him questions. He didn’t make it inside the Eau Claire hotel in time for the rally. Emotions ran high in that parking lot. One retired school teacher was visibly upset, as she told Petryk she felt workers’ rights were being taking away without proper debate. “I felt like he listened to me,” said Rozanna Bejin, of Eau Claire, afterward. “He said he was going to call Scott Walker. My request was that Petryk talk to people in the assembly and the senate, all of his colleagues, to people sit down and talk to the 14 Democratic Senators who are in Illinois.” The conversation ended with a hug between Representative Petryk and Bejin. Despite the bravado of Walker and State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald that it is the missing Democratic Senators who are close to caving, I think these protests are truly making the Republicans sticking around far more wobbly …especially since even the most right-leaning polls show they are not getting the support from voters . Yet another poll in Wisconsin, this time commissioned by a free-market think tank, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute , shows voters disapproving of Gov. Scott Walker, and saying he should compromise on his budget proposal and its anti-public employee union provisions. Furthermore, the key groups with whom Walker is jousting — Democrats in the state legislature, public employee unions in general, teachers’ unions in particular — all have significantly better favorable ratings than he does. Eight of the Republican Senators have been targeted for recall efforts. Since the focus on union-busting has everything to do with marginalizing the Democratic vote and therefore aiding Republican control of the state and most politicians’ first and foremost priority is to stay in office, it should be interesting to see who else falls by the wayside.
Continue reading …
The Media Research Center is out with another edition of our bi-weekly Notable Quotables newsletter, a compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media. Highlights from this issue include: Network reporters contrasting left-wing union protests in Wisconsin with recent uprisings against brutal Middle Eastern dictators, and journalists suggesting a “coordinated” Republican “assault on unions,” with MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski badgering Governor Scott Walker: “How this is not an attempt to crush the unions.” In other NQ news, we think we’ve finally fixed the problems that have plagued MRC’s e-mail newsletters over the past few weeks, so if you’d like to subscribe (or unsubscribe) to Notable Quotables or any of the MRC’s other fine newsletters, click here . Now, here’s a sample of our best quotes from the past two weeks, including six video clips — for the full edition ( Web page or full-color, printer-friendly PDF ), visit www.MRC.org . A “Coordinated” “Assault” on Unions — “Have Governors Gone Too Far? ” “What began as a battle over one state budget is now being billed as a national assault on unions.” — CBS’s Cynthia Bowers on the February 18 Evening News . “Is there a coordinated Republican political agenda to this attack or this effort, this pointed effort at unions?…There are many states that have denied collective bargaining rights that also have very large budget deficits. So in some ways, it doesn’t sort of make sense, this idea that the unions really are to blame.” — Fill-in co-host Ann Curry to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on NBC’s Today , February 23. “We’ve seen the public employees say, ‘We’ll pay more for our health care and pensions, but you can’t take away our rights.’ Have the governors here gone too far?” — ABC’s George Stephanopoulos to Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Good Morning America , February 23. Fighting Dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya — and Wisconsin “Today, we saw America’s money trouble meet a reality, a human reality, as teachers, nurses, tens of thousands of state workers took to the streets in this country protesting cuts by the governors, saying to these governors, a promise is a promise. One lawmaker looked out at the crowds gathered in the Wisconsin capital today and said it’s like Cairo moved to Madison.” — Diane Sawyer opening ABC’s World News , February 17. “This week: people power making history. A revolt in the Midwest and a revolution sweeping across the Middle East….Populist frustration is boiling over this week — as we’ve said, not just in the Middle East, but in the middle of this country as well.” — ABC’s Christiane Amanpour opening This Week , February 20. “The images from Wisconsin — with its protests, shutdown of some public services and missing Democratic senators, who fled the state to block a vote — evoked the Middle East more than the Midwest. The parallels raise the inevitable question: Is Wisconsin the Tunisia of collective bargaining rights?” — New York Times reporters Michael Cooper and Katharine Seelye, February 19.
Continue reading …Scott Walker Hates Anything That Helps The Little People. Here’s Another Example
March 7, 2011 No CommentFrom the Cap Times (via First Draft , a blog that’s done an amazing job cover the Madison movement). This insurance plan is something that doesn’t cost the state government anything — but doesn’t profit any of Walker’s friends, so it has to go: If you need a prima facie example of how this extremist Republican governor is taking the side of the big guys against the little guys, I’ve got one for you. Hidden in the 1,300 or so pages of his 2011-13 budget is the dismantling of Wisconsin’s little-known State Life Fund, a small state-operated life insurance plan that was enacted 100 years ago this year by progressive Republican legislators in the wake of insurance scandals that rocked the state back then. The fund costs Wisconsin government nothing, but operates off investing the premiums paid by the 30,000-plus state residents who hold policies with face values ranging from a minimum of $1,000 to a maximum of $10,000. The fund, which isn’t well-known because it is forbidden from doing any advertising, nevertheless earns dividends that substantially reduce the insureds’ premium costs plus build cash values that policyholders can cash in if events in their lives make it prudent to do so. In 2010, the State Life Fund sold 146 new policies with $69,000 in new premiums. The plan is totally self-supporting and continually runs a surplus. It requires no extra workers in the Office of the Insurance Commissioner. It’s a good deal for young families who want to have at least a little life insurance protection. Some cash in their policies and use the cash value to help pay for their children’s college. Older folks are known to purchase a policy to cover funeral expenses. Yet Walker wants to freeze it in place come July 1 and close it to further purchases. It’s a blatant giveaway to the private insurance industry, which has long bristled at the existence of the fund, insisting that it is “socialized insurance.” It has tried without success for several decades to get it killed. The most recent attack on it came from dishonored former state Rep. Scott Jensen of Waukesha, himself an insurance industry shill . Even Tommy Thompson’s Republican administration wouldn’t go along with Jensen’s scheme to close it down. But now comes Walker, who received substantial campaign contributions from insurance interests in his race last fall. And because of the acquiescence to his machinations by the Republican majority in the Legislature, the threat to the fund is much more serious. Walker will get his wish unless the proposal is removed from the budget bill before it passes.
Continue reading …
On Sunday's Face the Nation, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman denounced the proposed White House plan to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to curb rising gas prices: “That would rank in my top five worst ideas of 2011 so far…. one thing we should finally be doing is using this opportunity to have a credible energy policy that begins to reduce our addiction to oil.” Friedman's idea of “credible energy policy” was to force Americans to continue to pay higher gas prices: “Gasoline is almost $4 a gallon. We know that's a red line where people really start to change their behavior. At a minimum, I'd be talking about a tax that basically says we're going to keep it at $4. If it goes below we'll true it up, if it goes above that we're not going to touch it.” As TimesWatch's Clay Waters earlier reported on NewsBusters, for years Friedman has been obsessed with the idea of implementing higher gas taxes.
Continue reading …On Sunday's Face the Nation, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman denounced the proposed White House plan to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to curb rising gas prices: “That would rank in my top five worst ideas of 2011 so far…. one thing we should finally be doing is using this opportunity to have a credible energy policy that begins to reduce our addiction to oil.” Friedman's idea of “credible energy policy” was to force Americans to continue to pay higher gas prices: “Gasoline is almost $4 a gallon. We know that's a red line where people really start to change their behavior. At a minimum, I'd be talking about a tax that basically says we're going to keep it at $4. If it goes below we'll true it up, if it goes above that we're not going to touch it.” As TimesWatch's Clay Waters earlier reported on NewsBusters, for years Friedman has been obsessed with the idea of implementing higher gas taxes.
Continue reading …
Click here to view this media Michele Bachmann of course refused to walk back her comments that the Obama administration is a “gangster government” on Meet the Press this week, but as Steve Benen noted , she also seems to have a great deal of trouble with any consistency to this argument. Of course not. Bachmann started using this line nearly two years ago — it never really caught on with anyone else — so she obviously isn’t prepared to walk it back. Indeed, it’s part of a larger case the hysterical right-wing lawmaker has pushed repeatedly: this White House reminds her of an organized crime syndicate, using ruthless, Chicago-style hardball tactics intended to intimidate anyone who gets in the president’s way. It’s absurd, but it’s a picture Bachmann has tried to paint. What’s interesting, though, is that Bachmann has also made the exact opposite argument , just as often. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) launched a verbal assault on President Obama this weekend, claiming that his foreign policy stance was so weak that it made “Jimmy Carter look like a Rambo tough-guy.” I can see one argument or the other, but both at the same time? President Obama, we’re told, is both too tough and too weak. He’s overly aggressive and overly passive. He’s a ruthless mobster and a feeble pushover. Is it too much to ask that right-wing personalities pick one or the other? They can’t both be true. He’s correct but consistency and telling the truth aren’t exactly Michele Bachmann’s strong points, are they? As long as she’s never punished by the electorate for her nonsense, she’s got no reason to stop. Transcript below the fold. GREGORY: Let me ask you about 2012. There’s talk that you’re considering a run for the presidency. And I wonder what you make of how people react to you. A lot of people think that you are an extremist, somebody who, you know, as you’ve done in the past, called the administration “a gangster government,” is far more interested in fueling anger than becoming something of a consensus politician who can attract widespread support. How do you react to all that? BACHMANN: I haven’t made a decision either way about plans for 2012. What my concern is, is that our country move forward and that we regain a sound financial footing. I don’t believe that Barack Obama has done a good job as president of the United States. I think that’s beared out statistically on everything from anemic job creation to the out of control spending and deficits. The economy is simply not improving. Just consider, the day before the president took office gasoline was $1.83 a gallon. There are places today in the United States where it is over $4 a gallon. It didn’t help that the president had the Interior secretary cancel 77 oil leases as soon as the president came into power. We can do so much better. And that’s what I’m talking about with people in the next few months. We need to think very strongly–a second administration of Jimmy Carter wouldn’t have done this country any favors. We need to make sure we don’t have a second Barack Obama administration. GREGORY: You’ve referred to the Obama administration as a gangster government. You’ve said that this President has anti-American views. Do you believe that still? BACHMANN: I believe that the actions of this government have– have– been emblematic of ones that have not been based on true American values. Just consider Obama Care. Over 900 waivers have been given out to unions and protected special interests that are linked to the president. GREGORY: Is it appropriate to refer to the government as a gangster government and to question whether this President loves America? BACHMANN: Well, I said I do believe that actions that have been taken by this White House, I don’t take back my statement on gangster government. I think that there have been– actions that have been taken by this government that I think are corrupt– GREGORY: And you think the President has anti-American views? BACHMANN: Well, it– I’ve already answered that question before. I said I had very serious concerns about the President’s views. And I think the President’s actions in the last two years speak for themselves.
Continue reading …
Click here to view this media Michele Bachmann of course refused to walk back her comments that the Obama administration is a “gangster government” on Meet the Press this week, but as Steve Benen noted , she also seems to have a great deal of trouble with any consistency to this argument. Of course not. Bachmann started using this line nearly two years ago — it never really caught on with anyone else — so she obviously isn’t prepared to walk it back. Indeed, it’s part of a larger case the hysterical right-wing lawmaker has pushed repeatedly: this White House reminds her of an organized crime syndicate, using ruthless, Chicago-style hardball tactics intended to intimidate anyone who gets in the president’s way. It’s absurd, but it’s a picture Bachmann has tried to paint. What’s interesting, though, is that Bachmann has also made the exact opposite argument , just as often. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) launched a verbal assault on President Obama this weekend, claiming that his foreign policy stance was so weak that it made “Jimmy Carter look like a Rambo tough-guy.” I can see one argument or the other, but both at the same time? President Obama, we’re told, is both too tough and too weak. He’s overly aggressive and overly passive. He’s a ruthless mobster and a feeble pushover. Is it too much to ask that right-wing personalities pick one or the other? They can’t both be true. He’s correct but consistency and telling the truth aren’t exactly Michele Bachmann’s strong points, are they? As long as she’s never punished by the electorate for her nonsense, she’s got no reason to stop. Transcript below the fold. GREGORY: Let me ask you about 2012. There’s talk that you’re considering a run for the presidency. And I wonder what you make of how people react to you. A lot of people think that you are an extremist, somebody who, you know, as you’ve done in the past, called the administration “a gangster government,” is far more interested in fueling anger than becoming something of a consensus politician who can attract widespread support. How do you react to all that? BACHMANN: I haven’t made a decision either way about plans for 2012. What my concern is, is that our country move forward and that we regain a sound financial footing. I don’t believe that Barack Obama has done a good job as president of the United States. I think that’s beared out statistically on everything from anemic job creation to the out of control spending and deficits. The economy is simply not improving. Just consider, the day before the president took office gasoline was $1.83 a gallon. There are places today in the United States where it is over $4 a gallon. It didn’t help that the president had the Interior secretary cancel 77 oil leases as soon as the president came into power. We can do so much better. And that’s what I’m talking about with people in the next few months. We need to think very strongly–a second administration of Jimmy Carter wouldn’t have done this country any favors. We need to make sure we don’t have a second Barack Obama administration. GREGORY: You’ve referred to the Obama administration as a gangster government. You’ve said that this President has anti-American views. Do you believe that still? BACHMANN: I believe that the actions of this government have– have– been emblematic of ones that have not been based on true American values. Just consider Obama Care. Over 900 waivers have been given out to unions and protected special interests that are linked to the president. GREGORY: Is it appropriate to refer to the government as a gangster government and to question whether this President loves America? BACHMANN: Well, I said I do believe that actions that have been taken by this White House, I don’t take back my statement on gangster government. I think that there have been– actions that have been taken by this government that I think are corrupt– GREGORY: And you think the President has anti-American views? BACHMANN: Well, it– I’ve already answered that question before. I said I had very serious concerns about the President’s views. And I think the President’s actions in the last two years speak for themselves.
Continue reading …Krugman’s Economic Fix Isn’t Education – It’s More Unions and Universal Healthcare
March 7, 2011 No Comment
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman doesn't believe education is the key to solving America's economic woes. Quite the contrary, in his recent article ” Degrees and Dollars ,” the Nobel Laureate argued that the path to a more prosperous nation is for unions to have increased bargaining power and for everyone to have “free” healthcare: It is a truth universally acknowledged that education is the key to economic success. Everyone knows that the jobs of the future will require ever higher levels of skill. That’s why, in an appearance Friday with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President Obama declared that “If we want more good news on the jobs front then we’ve got to make more investments in education.” But what everyone knows is wrong. Krugman then laid out the major flaw in this premise: technological advancements are diminishing the value of education. With each new piece of software being created, some workers are becoming obsolete: [A]ny routine task — a category that includes many white-collar, nonmanual jobs — is in the firing line. Conversely, jobs that can’t be carried out by following explicit rules — a category that includes many kinds of manual labor, from truck drivers to janitors — will tend to grow even in the face of technological progress. And here’s the thing: Most of the manual labor still being done in our economy seems to be of the kind that’s hard to automate. Notably, with production workers in manufacturing down to about 6 percent of U.S. employment, there aren’t many assembly-line jobs left to lose. Meanwhile, quite a lot of white-collar work currently carried out by well-educated, relatively well-paid workers may soon be computerized. So, technology, in Krugman's view, is destroying the marketplace for well-educated, well-paid, white-collar jobs. The problem is what's left won't be able to make enough money to really prosper. But Krugman has a solution: We need to restore the bargaining power that labor has lost over the last 30 years, so that ordinary workers as well as superstars have the power to bargain for good wages. We need to guarantee the essentials, above all health care, to every citizen. The end of that first sentence deserves repeating: “so that ordinary workers as well as superstars have the power to bargain for good wages.” And therein lies the real truth. Folks like Krugman aren't interested in prosperity. Frankly, they loathe it. Instead, they want to make sure that the less-skilled in our society make as much as the “superstars.” This is why they advocate unions and shun things such as merit increases and employee evaluations. People making more money because they work harder offend folks like Krugman as does the idea that “ordinary workers” might be terminated for below average performance. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” That's what Karl Marx wrote in his infamous “Critique of the Gotha Program,” and Krugman couldn't agree more. Scarier still is that this is how most of the media think as well as today's Democrat Party and White House resident. This should tell you why the Left have made Wisconsin a battleground, for the preservation and expansion of unions is the next step in “solving” our economic problems after forcing ObamaCare down the throats of the citizenry. And they wonder why a movement has formed to take back America.
Continue reading …ABC, NBC Highlight Huckabee Comments on Unwed Pregnancy and Natalie Portman
March 7, 2011 No Comment
Continue reading …
It's certainly not surprising that the New York Times would publish a hit piece on Glenn Beck, but coming hours after CNN's Howard Kurtz spent almost ten minutes bashing the Fox News commentator makes me smell a rat. Add to this the increased pressure Beck has come up against from MSNBC personalities since Keith Olbermann surprisingly left America's most liberal television news network in January, and one has to wonder what Times author David Carr had in mind with his Monday piece ” The Fading Power of Beck’s Alarms “: Since last August, when he summoned more than 100,000 followers to the Washington mall for the “Restoring Honor” rally, Mr. Beck has lost over a third of his audience on Fox — a greater percentage drop than other hosts at Fox. True, he fell from the great heights of the health care debate in January 2010, but there has been worrisome erosion — more than one million viewers — especially in the younger demographic. He still has numbers that just about any cable news host would envy and, with about two million viewers a night, outdraws all his competition combined. But the erosion is significant enough that Fox News officials are willing to say — anonymously, of course; they don’t want to be identified as criticizing the talent — that they are looking at the end of his contract in December and contemplating life without Mr. Beck. On Thursday, Beck garnered almost two million total viewers. Not only is that more than his combined “competition” on CNN, HLN, and MSNBC, it is more than any show on those networks gets at any time of the day. Frankly, no one is even close. Within his own network, Beck's numbers are consistently higher than Shepard Smith's and Greta Van Susteren's while typically being on par with Bret Baier's and Sean Hannity's. Only Bill O'Reilly consistently bests Beck. Is that the kind of commentator you want to get rid of? Consider, too, that Beck and O'Reilly seem to have a solid working relationship with the former a frequent program guest of the latter and the duo going on a nationwide tour last year. Clearly, Fox's number one star shows no concern for his colleague across the hall. For his part, Carr offered not one named source inside or outside of the Fox organization claiming the top-rated cable news network is even considering dumping one of its top-rated stars. Instead, Carr offered innuendo: What had been a fast and loose assault on all things liberal has grown darker and less entertaining, especially with the growing revolution in the Middle East, a phenomenon Mr. Beck sees as something of a beginning to some kind of end. He’s often alone in the studio with his chalkboards and obscure factoids, a setting that reminds me of an undergrad seminar on macroeconomics with an around-the-bend professor I didn’t particularly enjoy. Part of Mr. Beck’s appeal is that he seems as if he is about to lose his marbles. But recently, he acts like he’s a little tired of the game. He can still draw a huge crowd, but he looks lonely in that studio all by himself. As NewsBusters has been reporting for weeks, many MSNBCers – including Beck's competition at 5:00 PM Chris Matthews – have been aggressively attacking him since Olbermann's departure. In a period from late January to early February, the “Hardball” host bashed Beck six nights in a row . Matthews went after him twice last week. Compounding the intrigue, as NewsBusters reported Sunday, CNN's Howard Kurtz did an almost ten minute segment on “Reliable Sources” bashing the Fox News star with the help of conservatives David Frum and Jennifer Rubin. Kurtz teased at the top of the show, “Glenn Beck is drawing sharp criticism these days from the right. Some conservative commentators speaking out against the Fox News star, saying he's hurting their cause, which raises the question, has Beck finally gone too far?” This coming hours before the Times published a lengthy hit piece on Beck has to make you wonder if the liberal media have finally had enough of him and are beginning to mount a full-scale assault to get Fox to not renew his contract. As we learned from last year's JournoList scandal, nothing is beyond these people.
Continue reading …