“Wisconsin really is ground zero in the battle against the unhinged progressive left.”
“Health reform is still a BFD; I think that stands for Bad Financial Decision.”
“I can tell you about the war on women, and every woman in this audience can tell you about the war on conservative women.”
“As many of you who are first-, second- and third-generation Americans appreciate and understand, it is a privilege to be in this, the greatest country on God’s green Earth.”
“We’re united in defending the American dream. They are united in sabotaging it, destroying it, underminding it, and, to invoke their favorite word, transforming it.”
“‘Yes they can,’ they always say. You know what we have to say? ‘No you can’t. No you won’t.” And, pardon my French, ‘The hell you can’t.’”
“This is my most-important role. I mean, you see me on TV, you see me on Fox News and give these kinds of speeches, but the most-important role I can play, and each one of you can play, is as a parent shaping your child to be a productive, non-entitled job-creator and wealth-creator in this country.”
“I’ve said for the last couple years that if there’s a theme sound for this administration, it’s this – DOOT DOOT DOOT! Do you know what that is? It’s the dump truck backing up every Friday dumping new documents they don’t want the mainstream media talking about.”
“It is incumbent upon each and every one of you to stand up for yourselves, for your children, your grandchildren, your families, your communities, your leaders in this state who are acting like what we need in leadership, real adults, not whiny crybabies.”
“We’re proud to stand, not as Americans for entitlement, not Americans for grievance, but Americans, not hyphenated.”

I’ll have more, including from Sen. Ron Johnson, Rep. Paul Ryan and Rick Santorum, later as I can upload and more-imporantly, find quiet time to upload.

Under the new policy to be announced today, women will have free preventive care that includes contraceptive services no matter where she works. The policy also ensures that if a woman works for a religious employer with objections to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, the religious employer will not be required to provide, pay for or refer for contraception coverage, but her insurance company will be required to directly offer her contraceptive care free of charge.

Wow, that’s great! Religious organizations no longer have to pay for insurance that provides for contraceptive coverage! How magnanimous on the part of the President! In fact, the President who would be King, has fixed the problem by decreeing that all insurance companies must provide said contraceptive coverage in the plans offered to these religious institutions for FREE!

o Insurance companies will be required to provide contraception coverage to these women free of charge.

If I’m reading this right, Obama believes that the issue the Catholic Church had, was paying for the cost of contraception. I’m not Catholic but I do understand a fair amount of their doctrine. I’m pretty sure that the Church didn’t have a proviso that allowed for contraception if you could get someone else to pay for it! In fact, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops have already called out Obama for his ruse that he claims is a “compromise:”

And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer’s plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.

Beyond the theological issue, I’m having a tough time figuring out how exactly, Obama believes that forcing the insurance companies to provide something “for free” does not result in having the insurer pay for it? Does Obama really believe that by simply saying “it is free” that it actually is free? I’ve been a Southerner for nearly two years now. However, unless they’ve rewritten the rules of economics in that time, the only thing Obama’s mandate has done is shift costs and increase the costs for all of our insurance to pay for the contraceptive services for those who get it for “free”. In fact, some accounts have the costs for this “free contraception” as high as $2.8B, a portion of which will now be shared by all 60+ year old women and all males. Speaking of which, if we’re all so concerned about making sure contraception is free, where are my coupons for condoms?

Peek-A-Boo is a game played with young children. We’ve all likely played it at some time. In Peek-A-Boo we play on the young child’s lack of understanding about reality. We attempt to convince them that when we cover our eyes, we somehow disappear even though the child can still see us. it’s a game that loses it’s cuteness as the child grows to understand that reality is reality and that words or claims that reality isn’t so, doesn’t change reality.

Obama’s contraception “compromise” is in the end, nothing more than a game of Peek-A-Boo with the American public. Obama makes claims about insurance economics that simply are not born out by reality. Of course, you would have to have matured beyond the economic age of two to actually realize such a thing. An economic age that most on the left never approach, let alone grow beyond.

Peek-A-Boo seems so innocuous with toddlers, and it is. However, as adults, Peek-A-Boo is escapism and an inability to deal with the world in real terms. Unfortunately, it is this very game of Peek-A-Boo that most in DC would use to tell us that: Massive Deficits aren’t a problem, Every increasing debt isn’t a problem, growing numbers of people on the government dole is not a problem, fewer and fewer actual tax payers aren’t a problem, Iran isn’t a problem, increasing costs of energy aren’t a problem and 8+% unemployment is the new norm. To those people who want to continue to play Peek-A-Boo rather than solve problems I say:

“I see you!”

Boeing is opening the new facility for two reasons.  First, it wants the ability to manufacture its new airliner in a redundant facility giving it greater capacity.  Second, after several contentious years with the Union at it’s Washington State facility, Boeing was looking to find a location to mitigate the Union’s impact on production.  Enter South Carolina.

South Carolina is a right to work state.  Right to work means many things for employees and employers.  Amongst them is that an employee can not be required to join a union and pay union dues as a condition of employment at a particular business i.e. “closed shop.”  The benefits for Boeing are obvious.  The benefits for Boeing are those that any prudent business would seek given the troubled labor history of Boeing’s Washington State facilities.

In what can only be the missing chapter from Atlas Shrugged, the NLRB’s complaint is based solely on Boeing’s desire to mitigate it’s labor challenges:

The NLRB said its investigation found that the company violated two sections of the National Labor Relations Act in 2009 when it picked Charleston International Airport as the site of its second 787 assembly plant rather than expanding its existing factory in Everett.

Specifically, Boeing officials made “coercive statements” to its unionized employees starting in 2009 that the company would shift or had shifted production work away from the Puget Sound area because of labor walkouts, the agency said.

Wow! “coercive statements,” including their desire to move away from labor disputes are the basis for the NLRB complaint! Can anyone possibly imagine that there may have been some “coercive statements” from the union that may have included threats to shut Boeing plants down which the have done on numerous occasions?

With his desire to “spread the wealth around” and now his NLRB agents attempting to dictate business decisions as basic as where they will do business, I’m beginning to believe that Obama doesn’t view “Atlas Shrugged” as fiction but rather as a road map for full implemention of his socialistic desires. Does anyone really believe Obama would not implement an “Equalization of Opportunity” plan or Directive 10-289?

During his campaign stop on Wednesday with the AFL-CIO Executive Council, he pledged his commitment to rebuild the economy (I wonder if VP Biden knows this as he’s already told us we’ll have 500,000 new jobs each month and that this is “Recovery Summer”), that he was not  “giving up or giving in” and he was going to change the direction from:

at least eight years in which there was a profound animosity towards the notion of unions.

Well, if “profound animosity towards the notion of unions” is what kept our unemployment rate under 5%, a GDP that was the envy of the world, the ability if not to shrink the deficit, at least keep up with the ridiculous Washington spending, then I’d have to say, “bring it on!”

Instead of “profound animosity towards the notion of unions,” President Obama has shown himself to have profound animosity towards all forms of employment or enterprise that do not include unions.  When it came to the union shops i.e. GM, Chrysler et al, President obama rushed into the burning buildings to save his constituents.  In every other effort regarding the economy, you can determine President Obama’s position in advance by determining what would be the best solution in a free market, and take the opposite!

Even if it was proved true that George Bush had “profound animosity towards the notion of unions,” I would take that back in a hearbeat over the profound animosity that President Obama has shown towards the 87.7% of us workers who can manage employment without paying a monthly allotment towards protection money.

One experience that I remember is watching Art Linkletter do his “Kids say the darndest things” bit.  If you aren’t old enough, and haven’t seen one of the clips, Art Linkletter would get any number of kids together, all of whom were typically under the age of 10, and ask them questions.  Time and again, the answers the kids gave would leave the watchers in stitches.  The kid’s answers were innocent and top of mind.  While factual, they usually had a naive or certainly unnuanced view of the world.  Look at the following clip to get a sense of the fun that Linkletter had…all without paid actors:

The reason I bring Linkletter up is that I saw another video today in which a person was asked a question and the response left me in stitches. Like Linkletter’s kids, this respondent answered innocently with what was top of mind. In other words, the person answered honestly and without the bother of real world nuance. Here, watch the video and see if you don’t agree:

I’m glad we have free political speech in this country…at least for now. With free speech we get to see Pete Stark and people like him, lay out in simple, plain English, their contempt for the Constitution and for those who believe it actually has a purpose. He also lays out in plain English, why he and his ilk should be removed from office and offered a relocation package to the People’s Paradise of Cuba.

Thompson stressed that he is a conservative. In fact, he signed the Americans for Tax Reform no-tax-increase pledge just yesterday. He also touts his business credentials as a supper club owner.

He knows he has a hard road against him. The 31st has produced one Republican in the last 100 years, Ron Brown, and it was Vinehout that beat him after only one term. While that election was in the Democratic wipeout of 2006. In fact, he outspent Vinehout by roughly a 2-1 margin.

Of interest to everybody, especially to those not in the 31st, Thompson answered that he thinks his brother Tommy will run for Senate against Russ Feingold. He further said that Tommy does need to give an answer, one way or the other, soon.

While we wait for the conference to begin, I may as well upload a few photos (not necessarily in order) I took on my way in.

While most of the activities will happen on Saturday, there is an opening reception Friday night. The list of confirmed speakers is rather impressive:

Vicki McKenna – WISN Radio, WIBA Radio
Lord Christopher Monckton – Columnist, inventor, and Advisor to Margaret Thatcher
Honorable James Sensenbrenner – Wisconsin 8th District
Herman Cain – Author, Radio Talk Show Host
Steve Moore – Wall Street Journal
Grover Norquist – Americans for Tax Reform
John Fund – Wall Street Journal
Tim Phillips – President Americans for Prosperity
Mark Block – AFP Wisconsin State Director
J.B. Van Hollen – Wisconsin Attorney General
Joe Wurzelbacher – “Joe The Plumber”
Eric O’Keefe – CEO, Sam Adams Alliance
Linda Hansen – Wisconsin Prosperity Network
Tim Nerenz – The Oldenburg Group
Niger Innis – Congress of Racial Equality
Dr. David Gratzer – Author, The Cure
Debra Waller – Chairman & CEO, Jockey International
Phil Kerpen – Nat.l Policy Director, AFP
Paul Driessen – APR, Esq.
Pat Synder – WSAU Radio
Fred Kelly Grant – Author, Justice My Ass
Michael Reagan – National Talk Show Host and son of President Ronald Reagan

Be there.

Amen!

Revisions/extensions (10:53 am 12/15/2009, steveegg) - Let’s see if the semi-hidden embed code works…

Along with the rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution, there are a whole separate set of “rights” that have been established, not by the Constitution, but by the government.  This set of “rights” are no where to be found in the Constitution.  This set of “rights” are not even “rights”, at least not if you believe a “right” that you have doesn’t require anyone else to give up something they have.  Included in this set of “rights” are; the “right” to an abortion, a “Right” to government provided financial support and a “right” to an equal educational opportunity for every child.

It’s ironic that we have to fight to get the set of rights provided by the Constitution remembered and yet any number of people and groups are happy to increase the number of the unmerited “rights”.

Right now, Congress is debating the addition of another unmerited “right”.  While there are numerous rationals for the desire to implement health care reform, the core essence of the Left’s argument is that health care is in fact a right.  Can you find it in the Constitution?  No.  However, the Left is undaunted in this argument and believes “it’s the right thing to do.”

If you think health care as a right is offensive, get ready for the next “right” that is now germinating within the thinking of the Left; a right to housing!

In this video, Raquel Rolnik, a UN “special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing” (think “Special Investigator”), is coming the the US to make a determination about New York and six other cities, affordable housing.

If you have any questions about my concerns regarding housing becoming a  focus of “rights”, let’s look at Ms. Rolnik’s own words:

“I am representing the right of adequate housing as a human right.”

In past times a US President would have taken insult in a UN inspector nosing around the US when the UN’s record is one of support for Socialists and Marxists.  This time, Rolnik is likely to receive the Medal of Honor from President Obama.

Following her town hall in New Orleans, Ms. Rolnik made the following comments:

“Well, the feeling is that we definitely need to have a discussion, open discussion and re-appraisal of housing policies. I think a lot has been done in this country. This country has a history of intervening in housing sector, of building public housing, or intervening in the homelessness sector on innovating programs like rent subsidizing and other schemes. But in a way I think that was stuck in some point now. And I think the way forward need to be discussed.”

Just what Obama needs, support from the UN to completely take over yet one more industry!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I wish I had more, but those tech issues completely threw me off my game. However, Kyle Maichle picked up the slack.

Revisions/extensions (5:19 pm 10/5/2009) - Changed the link to the Hot Air post Ed put up. Thanks again, Ed.

(Pic from Fred’s camera; I had left the memory card for mine upstairs and his USB cable doesn’t fit my camera)

Revisions/extensions (12:58 pm 3/7/2009) - Fred ran with it…

R&E part 2 (5:39 pm 3/8/2009) - Kyle Maichle proved how big a FAIL that was by taking some video. Do note the drum that made it an official Leftist protest.

- Green Bay Tea Party (which got a mention on the Green Bay Press-Gazette website – H/T Berry Laker) – 11 am-noon, Titletown Brewing Company, 200 Dousman St., Green Bay

- Defending the American Dream-Wisconsin Summit – 8:30 am-6:30 pm, Midwest Airlines Center, 400 W. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee (just noticed they “borrowed” my summary of the mid-week announcements)

I wish I could be in both places at once, but there isn’t time travel or cloning yet. I’ll be in Milwaukee because it’s closer, but I’m sure that the gang around Titletown will have plenty of coverage.

- For the outstate folks, there will be a bus available, starting in Minocqua at Island City Lanes at 5 am Saturday, with stops in Wausau at the Holiday Inn on Imperial Ave. at 6 am and Stevens Point at the Holiday Inn on Amber Ave. at 6:30 am. Do call the AFP-Wisconsin offices at 414-475-2975 for reservations.

- For those that need a hotel room, the Hilton Milwaukee, right across the street from the Midwest Airlines Center at 509 W. Wisconsin Ave., will be offering special rates. Just mention that you are with Americans for Prosperity and are in town for the summit.

- AFP-Wisconsin has teamed with the Conservative Young Professionals of Milwaukee to have a pre-Summit Happy Hour at Bootleggers, 1025 N. Old World 3rd St., Friday at 5:30. The special guest will be Joe Wurzelbacher (better known as Joe the Plumber).

There’s still room, and the price is far better than CPAC at $36 for general admission and $19 for students.

Moving past the Messiah assignment that Julio is doing, Julio is the perfect example of your brain on stimulus!

First, where did the expectation come from that college students should have well paying, high benefit plans?   The purpose of college, if you choose to go, is to learn skills that will enable you to get well paying, high benefit jobs.

Second, note the mentality that says “because I am here, I should get paid.   In fact, because I am here a longer time I should get paid or benefited more!”   Julio obviously has never heard of “pay for performance.”   It’s a nifty little concept that says that your compensation is determined by the value you bring to the organization not the length of time you’ve managed to walk through the front door of the organization.  

Julio is a perfect example of the “I’m owed something” mentality.   He has already determined that he is a person who will be perpetually disadvantaged, not because of any choices he has made or skills he does or doesn’t have, but because “the system” is fixed against him.  

As we continue the full out run towards Socialism you can expect to see more Julios.   As the government spreads its net of benefits over more of the population, more and more people will become just like Julio, slaves of the state and unable to take responsibility or act without some action or provision from the government.   Of course, along with the net of benefits comes the governments ability to dictate how you live and work.   Doubt me, just ask the banks and the auto companies.

This country has always been about the taking and rewarding of risk.   There is little the the Founders of our Country, the folks who risked their lives and livelihood for a chance in the “New World” or those who spanned out to settle the West would have had in common with folks like Julio.  

It’s unfortunate really, Julio may have talent and ability but he’ll probably never know.    Julio and those like him, are waiting for the next drop from the government gruel bucket.    They’ll eat the gruel, never being fully satisfied but justifying their situation as  being “better than nothing.”

Guests include Rep. Paul Ryan, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, Wall Street Journal reporter Steve Moore, authors Herman Cain and Fred Kelly Grant, Judge (and candiate for Supreme Court Justice) Randy Koschnick, candidate for State Superintendent Rose Fernandez, and WIBA/WISN radio star Vicki McKenna.

Topics include the death tax, climate “change”, property rights, the upcoming state budget, and choice in education.

Do register for this great event as soon as possible.

- Crystal Clear Conservative
- Katy’s Conservative Corner

Since I doubt my coverage will even begin to cover it, there is also a Twitter hashtag set up – #AFP08.