No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for January 23rd, 2008

More from Rep. Zipperer – State of the State and Earmark Transparency part 2

by @ 21:25. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

I know, Rich Zipperer isn’t my Assemblyman (Mark Honadel is; I wish I could’ve stayed longer at the hearing yesterday so I could talk to him), but his staff passed along a press release on the State of the State (which I didn’t watch; Patrick took care of that for me), and a guest column on the Earmark Transparency Act set to appear in the Waukesha Freeman in a couple days. Since I don’t want to spoil the Freeman’s readership, for now I’ll simply point out the new bit of news between the original column posted below and the one to be published – 28 Assemblymen and 11 Senators, all Republicans, have signed on to co-sponsor the bill, which is now in the pipeline. I’ll repost the column once it’s published (or if it’s not published by Saturday, I’ll do it then).

I will, however, post Zipperer’s response to Governor Doyle’s State of the State address:

"Rather than accept responsibility and offer real leadership to help move Wisconsin’s economy forward in these difficult times, Governor Doyle tonight passed the buck by blaming others for the challenges facing our state.

With the economic concerns at the national and state level, it is clear that fixing the economy is the top issue facing this state. That is why we should be focused on helping families and businesses by lowering the tax burden, not worrying about filling the government’s coffers or growing state agencies.

After he spent last year pushing for record tax and spending increases, Governor Doyle tonight finally announced support for some economic growth initiatives that Assembly Republicans have long advocated. He should also advocate for immediate tax relief measures that will put money back in the hands of families and businesses throughout Wisconsin.

Bills that I’ve authored such as the Higher Education Tax Credit, the Internet Tax Freedom Act, and reducing the state income tax through an across-the-board income tax cut, would go a long way toward getting our economy moving again by putting money back in the hands of hardworking Wisconsinites.

Our economy, our families, and our small businesses need help, but Governor Doyle fell far short tonight. While his tax increases and increased spending over the last several years have pushed Wisconsin into these tight times, his speech tonight didn’t lay out any plans on how dig us out of the financial hole."

The Asian Badger has some more on the Internet Tax Freedom Act, specifically its 10-0 bipartisan approval by the Assembly committee on Energy and Utilities yesterday. That means that the bill, which will eliminate taxation on internet access charges and thus bring Wisconsin into compliance with federal law prohibiting taxation on internet access charges, will go to the floor of the Assembly.

Comment of the Year nominee plus Condi going squishy on Iran?

by @ 19:34. Filed under International relations, War on Terror.

No, it’s not here, and it’s definitely not from me, but Wineaholic left this gem about Paul-Nuts on a Hot Air thread on a Condi-endorsed “grand compromise” in Iran:

Siren song? Come on, it’s not like people are going away anytime soon"¦ once the rEVOLution is over, they’ll just shift back from whence they came. Like white-power groups, the Democratic party, mental hospitals with liberal policies about internet usage. These people (and their message) are here to stay, bless their delusional little hearts.

Since this post is likely going to generate a trackback there, I may as well throw in my two cents on that “grand compromise. I wish I could believe the Iranians would be honest, but we’ve been burned before.

Could Fred be 2nd right now?

by @ 18:51. Filed under Politics - National.

Jim Geraghty lays out the case from a Louisiana pro. I’ll bet you didn’t know that Louisiana had a convoluted caucus last night, but they did, and “Undecided/Pro-Life” took a plurality of the caucus portion of the slate. Louisiana’s system is a bit more-complicated than that, with a combination of an Iowa/Nevada-style caucus to determine who goes to the state convention to decide who goes to the national convention (held last night) and a primary to be held on February 9. Like Iowa and Nevada, all of the delegates are supposedly “uncommitted” (at least at this point); however, not only are they expected to follow the will of the caucus-goers, but should a candidate get a majority in the primary, 20 of the 47 delegates are bound to support the primary winner, with the other 27 still officially “uncommitted”.

As an aside, both “Undecided/Pro-Life” (largely FredHeads, according to multiple sources in multiple campaigns, important because Thompson did put at least some resources in Louisiana) and John McCain (who did nothing) did better than Ron Paul (who did make a last-minute appearance).

Wacky endorsements continue unabated

by @ 16:40. Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – Michelle)

Here we go again with the whacked-out endorsements. Fresh from dropping out after getting 2% in a state where only he and 2 other candidates put any significant resources, Duncan Hunter has endorsed open-borders advocate Mike Huckabee. The wide speculation is that the Huckster has offered Hunter a spot in a Huck administration. Allow me to throw another thing on the wall; Huckabee is the only “Republican” left in the race that supports the “Fair”Tax, a 23% 30% sales tax designed to replace every other tax. Hunter supported the “Fair”Tax as well.

I have to echo JibThe respect I had for Hunter and his doomed campaign is pretty much in shambles right now.

Let this be a lesson to Fred Thompson; do NOT endorse any third of the Rudy McCabee axis.

Does the conservative/libertarian blogosphere have any influence?

by @ 12:39. Filed under The Blog.

I know, I promised another look at the “Is conservatism out of gas/dead” question, but I have a bit more groundwork to lay before I get there. With the spectacular failure of the Thompson campaign, with its dependence and major source of support in the conservative blogosphere, I have to answer the question of whether we have any actual influence.

The question is properly answered with, “…with whom?” It is painfully obvious that, though we are by and large “Average Joes”, we have no influence with the larger populace of “Average Joes”. Because we are willing to put thoughts to electrons, we are by definition now different than the larger populace. It is an over-generalization, but we pay closer attention than the non-blogging Joe, and we put different weights on the various opinions and bits of news. Morever, we do not have nearly the reach of either the dead-tree/video media or the talk-radio media. Some sites may well reach beyond the “circular-fire” of like-minded bloggers to a larger audience; this place isn’t one of them.

The prime example of our, and the libertarians’, lack of influence with the larger populace is the 2008 elections. Without a doubt, the two candidates that have received the most blogger support are Fred Thompson and Ron Paul. However, neither candidate received more than 14% of the vote in any primary or caucus, and Flip’s unweighted average vote share for both of them is 18.1% (Thompson 11.2%, Paul 6.9%).

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention a basic difference in blogging philosophy between my end of the blogosphere and the liberal end. We, by and large, see blogging as a way to vent our frustrations. The left, by and large, sees blogging as another means to the political end of total domination.

That leads me to the influence we do have with politicians and others in the political process. It is not, by and large, the reason behind the blogging. If it were, we’d be calling Ned Lamont “Senator”. Rather, the very things that make us different from the larger populace are the things that allow us to have influence. Specifically, the fact that we pipe up is why the pols and pros listen. On a given issue, there is surprisingly-little comment from the populace to the pols, and though we are by definition a bit different than the larger, silent populace, we’re closer to that populace than just about anybody else likely to get a politician’s ear, be they media or lobbyists. I don’t like to brag, but I know both from my stats and conversations I’ve had, I do have a not-insignificant readership in both Madison and Milwaukee’s courthouse.

The prime example of that influence was the torpedoing of amnesty. I have no doubt that, in a vacuum, we’d have something north of 10 million freshly-minted “Americans”. Most of the pols were for it, most of the pros were for it, outside of talk-radio media, the media was for it. Normally, that would be more than enough to have made it happen, even with 70% public opposition. However, we bloggers and talk radio climbed that wall, raised a ruckus, and knocked amnesty down.

I could also easily cite the end of President Bush’s dream to put Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court. Indeed, that was among the first things I blogged about, and that was the first “theme” I had.

Revisions/extensions (1:14 pm 1/25/2008) – Dean Barnett answers it far better than I could, only his focus is talk radio (H/T – Charlie).

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