posted 06-05-2012 09:20 PM                  

Big victory for the Tea Party.....

posted 06-06-2012 07:03 AM                  

quote:

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Originally posted by attyedhall:
....who are those people?

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Likely, the uninformed!!

Just read where IL teachers getting $65k in pension in 1995, is now receiving >$100k thanks to COL increases that "compound". Just from a show of hands, how many of us "regular folks" even GET a COL increase each year, let alone have it compound! Crazy.

posted 06-06-2012 07:48 AM                  

I have a school teacher client who is retiring this year at the ripe old age of 54.......Due to her 30 year tenure, she'll be receiving 90% of her $84,000.00/yr salary for the rest of her life....Guaranteed!...Makes no difference what happens to the stock market or our economy....

Meanwhile, Ohio taxpayers will also be paying a new teacher to replace her while she lives out her hopefully long, long life in retirement...

posted 06-06-2012 08:18 AM                  

quote:

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Originally posted by attyedhall:
the press is trying to spin the wisconsin election as a bellweather for the fall election....i am not sure i see that nexus or agree that the same voter sentiment is nationwide.

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Hey now,,,we'll take what we can get out of it!

Speaking of Hey-now, and spin, Robert is probably preparing his slanted, rebuttal post on the election results?

posted 06-06-2012 02:37 PM                  

2 California cities voters embrace pension cuts

"Public employee unions that aggressively fought the measures weren't able to overcome the simple message supporters used to attract voters in San Diego and San Jose:

Pensions for city workers are unaffordable and more generous than many private companies offer. The result is reduced public services in the form of such things as limited hours at public libraries and unfilled potholes."

posted 06-06-2012 02:38 PM                  

Published June 06, 2012

FoxNews.com

What happened in Wisconsin Tuesday night was not about an election or a politician. It wasn’t about collective bargaining or budget deficits. It was about something far more important and far more intangible. It was about who and what we are as Americans.

The people of Wisconsin had a choice. Would they, and in turn the rest of America, whose eyes were riveted on this small northern state, be a people with their hand constantly extended to the public trough shouting “give me, give me, give me”? Or, as the Tea Party has tried to exemplify, would we become the people pushing the plough, demanding, “give me liberty,” whatever the cost. It was about Barack Obama’s view of America versus the Tea Party’s. And once again, the Tea Party emerged victorious.

Those of us that came into Wisconsin over these past days and weeks joined with other activists in the state to deliver that view of America.

In the last five days, we reached over 125,000 people through door belling and phone banking efforts.

We talked not about elections, but about facts. We remained loyal to principles and not parties or politicians. It's why when we pointed out that the budget measures were not as great a cost as the anti-reform union bosses would have liked America to believe, people listen.

People, of all political persuasions, saw this to be true especially in light of a world view that includes a decimated Greece and collapsing global economy. And, far from being draconian changes, people in Wisconsin understood that state workers were asked to pay just under six percent of their salaries towards benefits, a little over twelve percent to their premiums. They saw those same employees could still collectively bargain for their wages but not for pensions and benefits, which had nearly bankrupted the state.

The reforms transformed Wisconsin’s $3.6 billion dollar deficit into a $154 million surplus. Nowhere was that felt more powerfully than in Wisconsin’s schools. The Kaukauna School District, near Appleton, Wisconsin, had a $400,000 deficit for the upcoming school year and was going to be forced to lay off teachers. By instituting the changes to pension and health care payments, Kaukauna swung to a $1.5 million surplus allowing class sizes to fall and was able to institute over $300,000 in merit pay for teachers.

Tying this type of fiscal reforms to the cause of liberty is never an easy sell, even for the Tea Party, but it’s a connection that must be made and permanently cemented if we are to continue down a path to prosperity.

Without exception, economic freedom is the basis of all political freedom. One’s freedom is directly tied to how indebted and beholden one is to the government. Throw off the yoke of bureaucratic bondage, and freedom and prosperity flourish. Wisconsin proved this. The unemployment rate is down well below the national average to 6.2%, the lowest it’s been since 2008.

It’s interesting then, to return to the Tea Party’s less than illustrious beginnings in light of the Wisconsin success. When the movement began in 2009, many people wrote it off as a bunch of tri-cornered hat nut jobs with some quaint version of a government beholden to its people and the Constitution. Arnold Schwarzenegger (a 2003 California recall interloper) once said the Tea Party was going nowhere. Former House Speaker, California Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi famously told America the Tea Party wasn’t really grassroots, but “more of an astroturf movement”.

But the left’s unanswered prayers of the Tea Party’s demise were very evident in Wisconsin. President Clinton and Rev. Jessie Jackson came to Wisconsin on separate days and couldn’t muster 2,000 people combined at their events. Meanwhile, the little Racine Tea Party, in Racine County, whose biggest names were Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and Rep. Paul Ryan, turned out a 4,000 plus crowd on the Saturday morning before the recall.

Together, perhaps what went down in Wisconsin on Tuesday took the left by surprise, but it shouldn’t have. Astroturf and the Tea Party share the same characteristic; they both last. And so it seems, does liberty.

Jennifer Stefano is a wife, mother and Tea Party Activist. She is the Pennsylvania state director for Americans for Prosperity and has been in Wisconsin from June 1 through June 6 talking about fiscal reforms. Follow her on Twitter @stefanospeaks.

posted 06-07-2012 09:20 AM                  

quote:

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Originally posted by heynow14:
Wonder if this had anything to do with it?
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/04/us/politics/money-spent-o n-wisconsin-recall-election.html

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Written by Rick Unger for Forbes.com

First who is Rick Unger

Richard "Rick" Ungar (born in Youngstown, Ohio in 1950) is a contributor to Forbes.com and the Washington Monthly where he writes on American health care policy and politics. He additionally appears weekly as the liberal voice of the "Forbes on Fox" television show and as a political pundit on other television and radio programs

Now his article

Requiem For A Recall: Money Likely Not Key To Walker Win

It had to be the money, right?

After all, how could Democratic candidate Tom Barrett ever realistically hope to defeat Scott Walker’s 7-1 spending advantage?

While we can expect any number of pundits and politicians to argue that the Democratic candidate in Wisconsin’s recall election will go down as the first true victim of Citizens United—and the millions of dollars that flowed into the Walker campaign coffers thanks to the questionable and controversial SCOTUS ruling—the data would indicate that money may very well not have been the key reason for the Walker victory last night.

According to exit data (to that extent that the polling can be trusted given some dodgy data that was reported early last night), approximately 85 percent of Wisconsin voters had their minds made up well before the Governor’s ads began plastering the airwaves throughout Wisconsin. It further appears that, despite the heavy ad campaign, the majority of voters who made up their mind during the final days of the campaign broke towards Mayor Barrett.

And yet, Scott Walker survived with a healthy 7 percent margin, pretty much repeating the election Walker ran against Barrett two years ago with far less money in the mix.

There was something else at work yesterday in Wisconsin. It is something that, with the benefit of hindsight, maybe should have been apparent all along—too many Wisconsin voters objected to the very notion of holding a recall election under these circumstances and voted accordingly.

When you see exit polls indicating that Wisconsin’s voters favor President Obama over his GOP challenger by 12 points and yet hand a 7 point victory to Governor Walker—the poster boy for today’s GOP philosophy—there is no question but that something quite unusual was going on.

Not to take anything away from Governor Walker, who certainly has his legions of supporters in the state as was proven last night, it is a very real possibility that the true margin of victory might belong to those who voted their anger with the process rather than their commitment to the Governor or objection to his challenger. And while I may not personally favor the outcome, I have to say that I kind of like that so many Wisconsinites stood up for what they believed was a principle of fairness and made their decision accordingly.

The Big Loser

There is no way to dispute that the biggest loser in the Wisconsin recall has to be the labor unions—in Wisconsin and beyond. Not so much because they picked a fight where they could not deliver a win—although that is certainly problematic—but because 37 percent of union households in the state voted for Scott Walker.

When the unions succeed in turning out their members to vote —as they did—only to find that over 1/3 of the union households voted against the union agenda, it is more than reasonable to suggest that the unions no longer are in tune with a large share of the membership. In an era where unions continue to decline in influence, this must be the most damning message of all.

At another time in our history, all the money in the world spent by a Walker campaign could not have shaken the solidarity in the union vote. So, while one might be able to attribute some of the defections to the heavy advertising blitz, the fact remains that a healthy chunk of union membership was either available to be persuaded or simply were not in line with the goals of their leadership.

Wisconsin is flashing a neon light in the direction of the union movement, warning that the time has come to reform the nation’s unions so that they can return to their real reason for existence—to further worker’s rights and wages in America. Yesterday’s election may be telling us that required changes that have been a long time coming must now be made if the unions are to survive. We should not underestimate the importance of union survival, although I realize that many would disagree. The American middle class is a direct result of the union movement and the continuing decline of the middle class is very much tied to the decline of the unions….but more on that in a later piece.

The night was also a bad one for Democrats everywhere.

While much of what I’ve heard today is suggesting that the GOP ground forces outplayed the Democrats in Wisconsin, I don’t think this is true. I have watched closely the efforts of the Wisconsin Democratic establishment throughout the recall campaign and I can tell you that nobody should fault the high quality of their work. Their ground game came through very well yesterday, certainly equaling the good work done by their opponents. The state Democrats, and the organizations working in their support, did not lose because they were outmaneuvered by their GOP opponents—they lost because of the number of Democrats, Independents and union members who voted for Governor Walker for the reasons discussed earlier.

The real loss to the Democrats comes in the guise of the weakened unions. Certainly, unions are a key source of money to the Democrats, something that has never been more important in the face of the billions that are being spent by billionaires and millionaires who tend to support GOP candidates. A weakened union movement means a real blow to the treasuries of Democrats everywhere.

And what about President Obama? Win, lose or draw?

It certainly could have been worse for the President. Had Mayor Barrett lost by only a point or two, Wisconsin Democrats would have been fast and furious in pointing the finger at the White House’s failure to step up and participate in their battle.

Still, there is a palpable anger among Wisconsin Democrats over the president’s decision to sit it out. While there is no telling if that anger will survive until November, there is reason for the Obama campaign to fear Wisconsin supporters—particularly among the young—who might not be sufficiently motivated to show up on voting day and cast their ballot for Obama should their memories be about 160 days long.

As I noted in an earlier piece, there is a larger issue at play when it comes to the President’s decision to avoid the Wisconsin race. Sometimes, you have to do the right thing even if the impact of doing so might be disconcerting. As the leader of his party, showing up to support Democrats in Wisconsin who were working their heads off towards their goal was, in my estimation, an imperative for the President. He should have been there. Would he have made the difference between victory and defeat? Unlikely. Would he have increased the critical Milwaukee vote? It appears they turned out in huge numbers even without the President.

But we all would have known that President Obama was willing to take a political risk to support those who support him.

As some readers may know, I enjoy references to the motion picture, “The American President”. Yes, I know it’s just a movie, but there are ideals expressed in the film that have always appealed to me. In the case at hand, I’m reminded of the scene where Michael Douglas (as the President) makes an impromptu speech at a press conference where he acknowledges that he has been so busy trying to keep his job, that he had forgotten to do his job.

As the leader of Democrats everywhere, it was President Obama’s job to show up in Wisconsin and take the risk of being attached to a loss. But he was so busy trying to keep his job that he didn’t do his job.

That is disappointing.

Still, the President has to be happy about the exit polls that show him in a pretty good place with Wisconsin voters.

In the final analysis, Scott Walker won the day and is entitled to our congratulations. It remains to be seen whether the election resonates around the country in terms of emboldening other governors to follow in the footsteps of the Wisconsin Governor. Either way, the rock star status of Scott Walker took an even larger step forward on the national stage where a prime-time slot at the GOP National Convention seems a sure thing.

Unless, of course, Milwaukee’s District Attorney and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have other plans for him.

posted 06-07-2012 02:14 PM                  

Say it ain't so,,,,,in Chicago?

posted 06-07-2012 04:15 PM                  

quote:

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Originally posted by ALLEY CAT:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, a Democrat, has been seeking to suspend the annual automatic cost-of-living adjustments for city retirees.

Say it ain't so,,,,,in Chicago?

http://www.cnbc.com//id/47719550

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First Global Warming, and now this ... who knew!

Reform HAS to happen, as the scale is severely tilted against the public sector, and families can't make ends meet as it is

posted 06-08-2012 12:37 AM                  

quote:

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Originally posted by ALLEY CAT:

How large of warche$t does BHO have ready to buy vote$
in November? Please, No Spin...

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I think Willard has $800+ mil and the President an estimated $1 bil. The kicker is that those figures do not include super pac dollars. That's where the "real" money is. How much did you give?

posted 06-08-2012 05:43 AM                  

You know Michelle needs new clothes to wear....

OMG, call the fashion police!

posted 06-08-2012 11:30 AM                  

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=56&load=7041