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 February 18th, 2011

Right Wing News Blogger Poll – GOP 2012 Presidential Field, Feb 2011 edition

by @ 21:55. Filed under 2012 Presidential Contest.

Once again, John Hawkins took the temperature of a gaggle of right-of-center bloggers, and once again, I was one of the 63 who submitted their thoughts. This time, we had several questions on who we preferred in the GOP Presidential field.

The most-interesting answer was the combined first-choice/second-choice results. The supposed rock-stars of CPAC, Ron Paul and Donald Trump, netted a total of one (second-place) vote. Surprisingly, Chris Christie ran away with 30 votes (23 first-place votes to run away with that category, 7 second-place votes). My choices (Herman Cain as 1st, Sarah Palin as 2nd) finished, respectively fourth (tied for third in 1st-place votes, tied for fifth in 2nd-place votes) and second (a distant second in 1st-place votes, barely first in 2nd-place votes).

We’re still almost a full year from the primary season, so things can and will change.

End-of-the-day The People versus The Unions updates

by @ 21:20. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

There’s three of them:

  • First things first, Dave Westlake, American Majority and Americans for Prosperity will be having a rally on the east side of the Capitol at noon. They put together an all-star lineup, from Vicki McKenna to Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit, from Herman Cain to Andrew Breitbart, from AFP head Tim Philips to American Majority head Ned Ryun. I strongly suggest getting there early, bring your video cameras, and be nice. While some of the organizers of the lefty rallies have publicly told their supporters to not engage us, I don’t exactly trust their words (I’ll get to that in a bit).
  • Item #2 – Recalls have been announced against absent state Senators Jim Holperin and Bob Jauch. Those of you down in the Kenosha area and in northeast Wisconsin, expect to see recall petitions circulated shortly.

    The short version of how partisan office recalls work in Wisconsin for those of you who either don’t remember or aren’t from Wisconsin:

    • An officeholder who has held office for at least a year since the last election is eligible for recall. On the state partisan level, that means only the state Senators in even districts, who were last elected in 2008, are eligible to be recalled at this point.
    • Organizers have 60 days from the time they register with the appropriate election officials (in this case, the Government Accountability Board), to circulate petitions in the district and get signatures equalling 1/4th the number of people who voted in the last gubernatorial election (specifically, the 2010 election).
    • If a sufficient number of signatures are gathered, the Tuesday during the 6th week after the petitions are turned in, either a partisan primary (if more than one Democrat or more than one Republican files to run) or a recall general election (if a primary is not necessary) is held. The recalled candidate is automatically on the ballot unless he (or she) declines to run within 10 days after the petitions are turned in. If there is a primary, the recall general election is held 4 weeks after the primary.
    • If the recalled official survives, he (or she) is immune from recall for the remainder of the term. If not, the winner assumes the office upon certification of the results.
  • Item #3 – WisPolitics reported the reason the Assembly adjourned rather abruptly after attempting to take up the budget repair bill (in special sessions, identical bills are filed in both houses of the Legislature) was because enough credible threats to the security of the Assemblymen and their staff came into the Capitol Police to cause them to tell the Assembly leadership that their safety could no longer be assured. Quoting Mark Jefferson, executive director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, in an RPW press release:

    To willfully prevent elected officials from performing their official duties in order to circumvent the legislative process flies in the face of democracy and is an insult to the citizens of this state.

    Governor Walker was elected to fix a broken system. Walker and Republicans campaigned and won on that platform, and the will of the people will not be suppressed by intimidation. State government is broken and the time for reform is now.

Tomorrow’s going to be interesting. I just hope it’s not in the Chinese way, as I’ll be in Madison.

Revisions/extensions (9:36 pm 2/18/2011) – I have to thank the folks at Power Line for linking here on the recommendation of Patrick McIlheran. Things have been moving fast, so most of my updates have been on my Twitter account rather than on the blog itself. With the rally tomorrow, I expect more of the same high Tweet count/low post count tomorrow.

Friday Hot Read – Michelle Malkin’s “Apocalypse Now: Wisconsin vs. Big Labor”

by @ 10:06. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

I probably should have put this in with today’s Scramble, but I think I closed the books on that just before the expanded version went live at her blog. In any case, Michelle Malkin nails the essence of the argument once again:

The lowdown: State government workers in the Badger State pay piddling amounts for generous taxpayer-subsidized health benefits. Faced with a $3.6 billion budget hole and a state constitutional ban on running a deficit, new GOP Gov. Scott Walker wants public unions to pony up a little more. He has proposed raising the public employee share of health insurance premiums from less than 5 percent to 12.4 percent. He is also pushing for state workers to cover half of their pension contributions. To spare taxpayers the soaring costs of Byzantine union-negotiated work rules, he would rein in Big Labor’s collective bargaining power to cover only wages unless approved at the ballot box.

As the free-market MacIver Institute in Wisconsin points out, the benefits concessions Walker is asking public union workers to make would still maintain their health insurance contribution rates at the second-lowest among Midwest states for family coverage. Moreover, a new analysis by benefits think tank HCTrends shows that the new rate “would also be less than the employee contributions required at 85 percent of large Milwaukee_area employers.”

In addition to my open to today’s Scramble, where I outlined some very-recent history of The Union/Democrat Axis trying to grab the last of the loot and power on their way out the door, I’ll bring in the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association’s attempt to force the Milwaukee Public Schools to restore erectile dysfunction benefits. That’s right, back in 2002, MPS offered coverage for Viagra and that class of drug. By 2005, after a massive abuse of the privlege, MPS pulled it back, and the MTEA has been battling since to restore the benefit. By the summer of 2010, after arbitrators, administrative law judges and ultimately the state Labor and Industry Review Commission ruled in MPS’s favor, the MTEA filed suit rather than fight more vigorously for the teachers that had been laid off that summer.

Oh, did I mention that the MTEA shut down MPS today to set up a 4-day weekend?

The Morning Scramble – The People versus The Public Unions edition

I’ve been a bit under the weather the last couple days, so I’ve decided to dust off The Morning Scramble. Before we get to the fun stuff (i.e., what everybody else is saying), I do have a bit of recent-historical perspective to offer. Immediately after the implosion of the Democrat Party of Wisconsin in the November 2010 elections, then-governor Jim “Craps” Doyle (WEAC/HoChunk-For Sale) rushed negotiations on contracts with the vast majority of the state unions for the July 2009-June 2011 (do note the dates) to completion. As part of that, the work rules were changed to give the employees almost total control over the workplace. Meanwhile, tne “trend-setter” contract for SEIU-represented home health-care workers for July 2011-June 2013 actually raised their compensation by $622,000 per year.

The state Legislature, then controlled by Doyle’s fellow Democrats, then proceeded to head into a special December session for just the second time in the previous 40 years to ratify those 17 contracts. Other than a vacationing Republican Senator, which reduced their minority numbers to 14, and a missing Democrat Assemblyman, which reduced their majority number, everybody showed up on short notice, even though it was widely anticipated that the contracts would be approved. The Democrats even sprung a convict from Huber jail to provide the margin-of-victory in the Assembly on 16 of the contracts. Fortunately, because the ex-Senate Democrat leader had a moment of clarity, all of the ratification votes failed in the Senate.

Contrast the behavior of the Republicans two months ago to that of the Democrats now. All of the Senate Democrats ran out of state so the “Never Again!” vote coudln’t happen as scheduled yesterday. Let’s roll video of the Rockford Tea Party hounding absent Dems Jim Holperin and Bob Jauch out of Rockford (video courtesy Jim Hoft, identities courtesy Kevin Binversie) to start the Scramble portion of the post:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxKk3DSW6Sk[/youtube]

  • In Wisconsin Reporter’s coverage, Rick Esenberg has a gem of an idea; split the reductions of the union bargaining rights out of budget repair bill so only a simple majority is requried for action instead of 3/5ths.
  • Michelle Malkin has a lengthy series of posts from the last 2 days, including a counter-rally at the Capitol on Sautrday at noon.
  • Ace notes the #NewTone is the same as the #OldTone for the Übermenschen. I doubt they’re using the Nietzsche definition.
  • Back to Kevin’s previoiusly-linked post for a minite – he asks a few questions, such as who paid for the Dem run, and what happens to the high school sporting events.
  • Speaking of high-school sporting events, Charlie Sykes noticed the Edgerton High School students taunted Madison East (the first school to shut down on Tuesday afternoon) fans with a “”We got teachers. How about you?” chant at a high school hockey game between the two schools.
  • In case you missed how unspontaneous the Madison East “walkout” was on Tuesday, The MacIver Institute has a video reminder. Guess it’s time for a video break…

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cufj2d8Co5A[/youtube]

  • Da Tech Guy penned a not-so-short poem to the travels of the Senate Dems.
  • Stephen Hayes points out what it’s really about – the loss of money and power for the unions. To which, I say, “Break them!”
  • To close, I’ll remind everybody we’re not alone in Wisconsin. Maggie Thurber passed along this video of the unions trying to deny a similar effort in Ohio.

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7x28_5QphQ[/youtube]

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