On collective bargaining and the public unions

Collective bargaining is indeed a problem in the hands of public sector unions:

It enables unions rather than citizens to set the price of government. It is, thus, a direct assault on republican democracy, and it needs to be destroyed. Unlovely as they are, the Greek rioters and the snarling thugs of Madison are the logical end point of the advanced social democratic state: not an oppressed underclass, but a spoiled overclass, rioting in defense of its privileges and insisting on more subsidy, more benefits, more featherbedding, more government.

Big Unions fund Big Government. The union slices off two per cent of the workers’ pay and sluices it to the Democratic Party, which uses it to grow government, which also grows unions, which thereby grows the number of two-per-cent contributions, which thereby grows the Democratic Party, which thereby grows government… Repeat until bankruptcy. Or bailout.

[Hat Tip: Memeorandum]

In solidarity against the mob

The Wisconsin State Assembly voted on and passed Governor Walker’s budget bill early this morning.  This is what happened after the vote was tallied:

Democrats erupted after the vote, throwing papers and what appeared to be a drink in the air. They denounced the move to cut off debate, questioning for the second time in the night whether the proper procedure had been followed.

“Shame! Shame! Shame!” Democrats shouted in the faces of Republicans as the GOP lawmakers quietly filed off the floor and a police officer stood between opposing lawmakers.

“Cowards all! You’re all cowards,” yelled Rep. Brett Hulsey (D-Madison) as another Democrat tried to calm him down.

Here’s the video:

This is how the Democrats and their union overlords  roll–intimidation, heated rhetoric, etc.  We’ve seen it play out all week long.  And they’ve taken it to the statehouse.

To the extent that the left now considers the Koch brothers the face of their opposition, they should be wary as the Kochs won’t be intimidated by the amateurish actions of the unions and their protesters.   No, the Kochs aren’t backing down:

“With the Left trying to intimidate the Koch brothers to back off of their support for freedom and signaling to others that this is what happens if you oppose the administration and its allies, we have no choice but to continue to fight,” says Richard Fink, the executive vice president of Koch Industries. “We will not step back at all. We firmly believe that economic freedom has benefited the overwhelming majority of society, including workers, who earn higher wages when you have open and free markets. […]

“This is part of an orchestrated campaign that has been going on for many months. It involves the Obama administration, the Center for American Progress, aligned left-wing groups, and their friends in the media.

Here’s the deal.  The union bosses are thugs, plain and simple.  But they can be simple-minded.  They’re used to getting their way and will throw a tantrum when they feel opposition.

Here in New Jersey, for example, the NJEA have had their way with Trenton for years until Governor Christie was elected.  They were used to demanding previous governors to jump and the governor would happily oblige.  When Governor Christie pushed back–and hard–the unions immediately started with the demonstrations, the in-your-face tactics, etc.–the typical nonsense.  They’re used to getting their way.  They’re spoiled.

So far Governor Walker is standing his ground and I would like to think that once the State Senate takes up the legislation, that Wisconsin’s Republicans stand firm.  It’s the only way  to reverse the unions’ ruinous cycle of fiscal destruction.

[Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin and Memeorandum]

“Unions, it seems, attract personalities that approve of violence”

That’s a bit from this IBD piece, which is well worth reading, of which I was thinking when I saw this thread over at Memeorandum.

This is video of Tabitha Hale, conservative activist at Freedom Works, getting assaulted by yet another union thug:

There’s the new civility for ya.  Jim Treacher has had enough:

I know Tabitha. She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I’m sick of this crap. We get months of “Teabaggers are violent” — hell, years — when in reality, Tea Partiers have been the recipients of violence. Meanwhile, these union guys are ratcheting up the violent rhetoric and now actually assaulting people in broad daylight.

For the record, I’m in total agreement with Treacher.   Unfortunately there will be no coverage of this story outside of Fox News, and will soon be forgotten I’m sure, so that the media can focus on more important things like how many calories were in Michelle Obama’s ancho-chile braised short ribs dinner or how the Koch Brothers run the country.  And I would be shocked if anyone in the liberal blogosphere is writing about this.

This act of thuggery comes a day after a Tea Party Democrat congressman said this to a crowd of union supporters:

“I’m proud to be here with people who understand that it’s more than just sending an email to get you going  […]

“Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary.”

So you have a pro-union, liberal Democrat from Massachussets egging on a crowd of frothing union hate-mongers, and less than twenty-four hours later, a union protester with a deranged look in his eye, decides to take the congressman’s words to heart, and assaults someone for standing up for themselves.  That’s not to say that this goon actually heard Congressman Capuano’s statement, but union thuggery appears to be more the rule, and not the exception.

But this is a world of biased inference.  A place where cable news apologizes for a guest using the word “crosshair”, because Sarah Palin put some on a map once, and a Congresswoman was shot months later by an anarchist, so it is of course, Sarah Palin’s fault.

To wit, mission accomplished Congressman Capuano.  Who knows what you’ve started.

UPDATE. Bravo! Ace nails it with a excellent post on the left’s reaction to the Tabitha Hale story, specifically Oliver Willis’ assertion that the attack was a stunt:

“Manufactured” is a slippery term indeed because it embraces a very fat range of meanings. It can be a literal term — something can be literally manufactured, created in whole. It can be more figurative — we say something is “manufactured” if it’s incited by craftiness. In baseball, they speak of “manufacturing” runs, by which they mean relying on less-spectacular methods of run production such as the combination of a walk, a steal, and a sacrifice fly.

Or “manufactured” may refer to the outrage over an incident, which is postulated to be false, and not the actual incident itself.

So a fat, dull, talentless hack like Oliver Willis can offer a general denial of an incident without really specifying in what particular way he denies it. He claims it’s “manufactured.” What does this mean? We don’t know, and in all likelihood, neither does he. Being obese of mind as well as body, he is lazy and hasn’t bothered to figure it out.

But he knows that his job relies upon him vomiting a steady stream of propaganda (as well as half-digested Filet O’Fishes), and so he obliges with a meaningless statement that pleases the leftist lunatics he preaches too and dissatisfies anyone with a working intellect.

[Via: Robert S. McCain]

NJ public employee unions to screw Jersey taxpayers on Friday

Anything to get a day off from work.  Paid for by New Jersey taxpayers of course:

The largest state employee unions are organizing a rally at the Statehouse on Friday to express support for workers rallying in Wisconsin.

The Communications Workers of America, which represents most of the state’s employees, will participate in the rally at noon, and National AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will address the crowd. The rally is organized by the AFL-CIO and supported by the Change to Win unions and the National Education Association.

“We are all Wisconsin public workers this week,” Hetty Rosenstein, CWA state director, said in a statement. “They’re trying to blame middle class workers for the financial mess that Wall Street caused. It’s more politics as usual and we’re ready to fight back.”

It’s all for the kids, I’m sure, but I wonder how much this will cost taxpayers?

New tones and such

More of the new civility from the compassionate and tolerant left:

More evidence that progressives and liberals are hypocritical and motivated by hate and anger.

[Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit]

Breitbart speaks truth to power

Blatantly swiped straight from Robert S. McCain’s blog, video of Andrew Breitbart at today’s Tea Party rally:

I’ve said it before (I’m too lazy to dig up the post right now), but Breitbart is one of the true heroes of  the Tea Party movement, defending the cause in the light of some of the most blatant and ugly attacks from the left in the past several years.

Probably the most important part of this clip is Breitbart pointing out without any hesitation the disturbing truth that none other than the President of the United States is implicit in his support for the left here.   The President is siding with special interests and 15% of the country’s workforce vs the citizens of Wisconsin.   Disturbing stuff.

The public union worker freak-out in Wisconsin

Break their back:

Why are national liberal groups treating Wisconsin as if it were their last stand? Partly for reasons of symbolism. Historically, Wisconsin “embraced the organized labor movement more heartily than any other [state],” notes liberal activist Abe Sauer.

[…]

Labor historian Fred Siegel offers further reasons why unions are manning the barricades. Mr. Walker would require that public-employee unions be recertified annually by a majority vote of all their members, not merely by a majority of those that choose to cast ballots.

In addition, he would end the government’s practice of automatically deducting union dues from employee paychecks. For Wisconsin teachers, union dues total between $700 and $1,000 a year.

[…]

“Ending dues deductions breaks the political cycle in which government collects dues, gives them to the unions, who then use the dues to back their favorite candidates and also lobby for bigger government and more pay and benefits,” Mr. Siegel told me. After New York City’s Transport Workers Union lost the right to automatic dues collection in 2007 following an illegal strike, its income fell by more than 35% as many members stopped ponying up.

Like I wrote yesterday, their way of life is at stake and they’re going to defend it to the bitter end.  The public sector unions have literally bankrupted the states.  The job for conservatives is to bring this to an end sooner rather than later. 

 [Hat Tip: Memeorandum]

Marching to the wrong tune

This piece by Joe Klein is garnering plenty of attention in the blogosphere, primarily because it ticks off all of the right people. 

The bottom line:

Revolutions everywhere–in the middle east, in the middle west. But there is a difference: in the middle east, the protesters are marching for democracy; in the middle west, they’re protesting against it.

I mean, Isn’t it, well, a bit ironic that the protesters in Madison, blocking the state senate chamber, are chanting “Freedom, Democracy, Union” while trying to prevent a vote? Isn’t it ironic that the Democratic Senators have fled the democratic process? Isn’t it interesting that some of those who–rightly–protest the assorted Republican efforts to stymie majority rule in the U.S. Senate are celebrating the Democratic efforts to stymie the same in  the Wisconsin Senate?

An election was held in Wisconsin last November. The Republicans won. In a democracy, there are consequences to elections and no one, not even the public employees unions, are exempt from that. There are no guarantees that labor contracts, including contracts governing the most basic rights of unions, can’t be renegotiated, or terminated for that matter. We hold elections to decide those basic parameters.

Robert S. McCain:

…[T]he anti-Obama, anti-Democrat tide is still running high. This tide is still quite strong enough to overwhelm the government-employees unions in Wisconsin and by 2012 may yet be strong enough to wash Obama himself out of office.

[…]

Organized labor is leading liberalism on a lemming stampede toward a cliff, and it’s probably too late for Klein or anyone else to stop them.

If you read any of the liberal blogs or watch cable news, you would think that there is a mass populist revolt going on in the Midwest.  This is not the case.  Public employee unions are protesting and, as numerous as they are, do not represent the majority of Wisconsin’s citizens. 

This is not an “uprising”, it’s not a “revolt”.  It won’t be considered a revolt until you see everyday Americans, for lack of food, for lack of representation, for whatever, take to the streets and demand that their voices be heard.  But then again, we’ve already seen true uprisings recently, and those only come around once a generation.

These lawbreaking teachers and union thugs are protesting because their way of life–the fleecing of taxpayers, the bankrupting of state governments, the hubris, the sense of privilege, all of it–is hopefully about to come tumbling down. 

The fact that Richard Trumka rolled into Wisconsin today, that President Obama is directing OFA to astroturf the protests, that the SEIU is busing in thousands of malcontents, speaks volumes about how serious they consider the threat.  As well they should.

UPDATE.    Part of today’s reach-around at Stacy McCain’s place.  Thanks!

More incitement to violence from the left in Wisconsin

Via Big Government, a “Wanted Dead or Alive” poster for Governor Walker:

More hatred here.

POTUS lends solidarity and support to Wisconsin’s lawbreaking teachers

The message is clear to Wisconsin’s public school teachers and union thugs–we got your back:

The Democratic National Committee’s Organizing for America arm — the remnant of the 2008 Obama campaign — is playing an active role in organizing protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to strip most public employees of collective bargaining rights.

OfA, as the campaign group is known, has been criticized at times for staying out of local issues like same-sex marraige, but it’s riding to the aide of the public sector unions who hoping to persuade some Republican legislators to oppose Walker’s plan. And while Obama may have his difference with teachers unions, OfA’s engagement with the fight — and Obama’s own clear stance against Walker — mean that he’s remaining loyal to key Democratic Party allies at what is, for them, a very dangerous moment.

OfA Wisconsin’s field efforts include filling buses and building turnout for the rallies this week in Madison, organizing 15 rapid response phone banks urging supporters to call their state legislators, and working on planning and producing rallies, a Democratic Party official in Washington said.

Apparently, the rest of Wisconsin’s citizens can go to hell.