WISN/WIBA host Vicki McKenna, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, Herman Cain
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.
March 7, 2009
Union protest FAIL
Despite issuing an action alert to come down to the Midwest Airlines Center to protest the Defending the American Dream-Wisconsin summit, the AFL-CIO and the SEIU could barely get a couple dozen to show up. After all, it’s not a workday.
(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.
Round 4
State Rep. Leah Vukmir (presenter), Congressional Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (national Defender of the American Dream winner), State Rep. Jim Ott (state Defender of the American Dream winner), WSAU host Jerry Bader Pat Snyder (media Defender of the American Dream winner; thanks for the catch, John), and Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke (last speaker before lunch)
Round 3 of pics
Apostle David King of the Milwaukee God Squad, Steve Moore from The Wall Street Journal and some booth pics before they get swamped…
Sign of the day
From my friends at Citizens for Responsible Government:
Second round of pics
AFP national director Tim Phillips, Phil Williamson (the man behind Wisconsin’s Drill Here, Drill Now movement last summer), Joe Wurzelbacher (Joe the Plumber), Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker
More DAD-WI live-blogging sources:
I’m glad I’m not alone on Bloggers’ Row. Also on the case today:
– Fred Dooley, both on Real DebateWisconsin and his Twitter feed
– Kyle Maichle on North Shore Exponent
– Jessi Olson on both Wake Up America and her Twitter stream
– James Wigderson on Wigderson Library & Pub
– Josh Schroeder on his Twitter stream
– Brian Fraley on his Twitter stream
Also, Patrick Dorwin of Badger Blogger is here with his videocam.
First batch of pics
Mark Block, AFP-WI state director, and the standing-room-only crowd
Live from the Defending the American Dream – Wisconsin summit
A lot of my stuff will be up on my Twitter stream, which you can find on either the right sidebar or here. I’m trying to get the others, like Fred, to use the #afpwi hashtag.
Busy Saturday
Whether you’re in southeast or northeast Wisconsin, there is something going on today:
– 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.
4-Blocking Lincoln and Obama
Tom McMahon has yet another instant classic 4-Block World up…
As per the usual when I borrow Tom’s stuff, I’ve turned off the comments here.
March 6, 2009
Phil Donahue Never had a Prayer
In the past few weeks we’ve been led to believe that greed, and greed alone, was our undoing and thus placed us squarely in this economic morass. And to some degree this account has merit, but as Mr. Friedman points out in this dated, yet timeless explanation, what society doesn’t run on greed? And to that end, the free enterprise system has no equal in the annals of history as an economic engine that powers prosperity for the people.
I actually feel sorry for the Gorebal “Warming” acolytes
I’m sure they’re warming up their voices to start chanting, “It’s all your fault!” right about now because we had a real nice day yesterday and will have another one today. They just can’t seem to accept that sometimes the weather gets far nicer than we deserve this time of year in the land of cheese and beer.
You Bet Your Life!
Hmmmm….This appears to be a trend in the making.
First, a choice by Treasury Secretary Geithner for deputy withdraws
then
Dr. Sanjay Gupta backs out of running for Surgeon General.
In less than two months, the Obama administration has become at best a cartoon and at worst, an example of hubris, ego and the Peter Principle on steroids. Is it any wonder that people who have real careers would have second thoughts about invitations to join the administration and take to heart the prophetic words of Groucho Marx:
I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like The Won as members.
March 5, 2009
Way-late mention – One-man Chicago Tea Party – Waukesha edition
Alexander just could not let Wisconsin not be represented in last Friday’s Chicago Tea Party. Wherever there is out-of-control government growth/spending/taxation, there will be resistance.
Roll change and bloat – Bag full of Burris….
If you haven’t met the Burri clan, they’re more fun than a barrel of cash wheeled around by prospective Senate candidates. Let’s open up the bags, shall we?
Bag #1 – Lance Burri has decided to flee the confines of Blogger, at least for himself (he’s still part of the Badger Blog Alliance), and open up The TrogloPundit. Do adjust your rolls and feeders accordingly.
Bag #2 – I seem to have forgot to add Grandpa John’s to that oversized roll to your right. That’s where the rest of the Burris are, with the occassional dose of “sanity” from Lance.
Roll bloat – Rule 2 version
Dad29 swears by him, and I saw, but didn’t actually get to meet, him at CPAC. Robert Stacy McCain, who is The Other McCain (i.e., the one who actually makes sense), deserves to be on your rolls and readers if you’re lazy like me and haven’t added him before now.
Speaking of rules, he explained the five rules to get into the 7 figures on hits. I hope I’m a better-than-average practitioner of Rule 2, even though I don’t have the temperment to follow Rules 1 and 5 (not to say that I don’t appreciate those that faithfully follow Rule 5A).
Late Open Thread Thursday
I’m so late with this, I’ll forgo the usual Scramble portion. I’ve just been buried pretty much since getting back from CPAC.
The thread is yours.
Future Attractions
The industry term for them is “trailers” but I’m old enough (no, none of my movie experiences included silent films) to remember when the previews of movies were called “Future Attractions.” Future attractions were put together to give people enough of an insight on the coming movie to decide whether they wanted to see, or “participate,” in the movie experience. Today, we have a “Future Attraction” of what the United States will be showing.
Venezuela’s dictator, Hugo Chavez, has announced that he will be nationalizing a rice production plant owned by Cargill:
“Prepare the decree, we are going to expropriate Cargill. We are not going to tolerate this,” Chavez said.
Just another rant of a Tyrant you say? An irrational act that is based on thuggery and emotion. An act that is devoid of rational thought or law? Au contraire! Chavez has a perfectly legal reason for his expropriation:
Chavez said he ordered the takeover because Cargill — one of the largest privately owned U.S. companies — avoids producing basic rice that is subject to government price controls.
Chavez set the rules that he thought would get the outcome he wanted. Cargill looked at the rules and said “we can’t make any money doing that,” so they looked at the rules, set by Chavez, and found a way to stay within them and make money. The problem is that Cargill’s “outcome” is not the “outcome” that Chavez envisioned. Thus, Chavez is crying foul and is threatening to take the plan over so that he can not only dictate the terms but dictate the outcome.
Huh, that’s funny. Not “ha ha” funny but “isn’t that ironic” funny.
In October the TARP plan was put into place. It was an “EMERGENCY” so one of the largest government interventions ever, was put into place with legislation that boiled down to “whatever the Secretary of Treasury says.” Nearly immediately following the implementation, there was citing of banks who had received TARP funds doing things that their new “investors” didn’t like. Annual recognition trips, purchasing of foreign banks, payment of “performance” bonuses, were some of the activities over which “foul” was cried. Of course, the problem, as with Chavez’s is that the rules didn’t preclude these activities so little other than shaming them, was able to be done.
Shortly after TARP, the auto industry knocked on Congress’ door asking for alms. Congress, having learned that providing money with no rules left them looking foolish, responded by providing a set of rules to go with the automaker loans. These new rules ran to the opposite side of the balance. The new rules boil down to “you will have a bunch of rules that we will have the right to change whenever and in whatever manner we choose to. You will have no input to these rules. The rules will not be based on any real business objectives but will be based on what we feel would be best for us.”
There’s no doubt that Congress’ new approach to dictating outcomes will have no greater success than their original approach. The issue isn’t whether Congress gets the rules right. The issue is that government never, ever, ever is able to dictate economic outcomes, the best they can do is provide a framework that allows capitalism to best work.
There’s one other lesson from this exercise. Government is never, ever, ever a benevolent overseer. Government in all forms, is far too susceptible to removing rational thought and believing that “because they say so” is a good enough reason for something to occur. The result is that the more Government is involved, the less likely the outcome will be one that is able to be accomplished without significant distortion or disruption of an economic enterprise. Also, Government’s response to not getting the right outcome is to further restrict economic options, even to the point, as with Hugo Chavez, of taking over companies who don’t comply with their vision.
Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, scenes of America’s Future Attractions.
Revisions/extensions (6:03 pm 3/5/2009, steveegg, who is slacking in his copy editing duties) – Fausta has more background on the Venezuelan end of this story. I’m shocked, SHOCKED that neo-Communists would have the same food-shortage problem the old-line Communists had.
Also, R.S. McCain has pretty much the same conclusion, as he takes a look at the exit of capital from the markets.
R&E part 2 (6:13 pm 3/5/2009, steveegg) – There’s a couple of updates in the Reuters story that bear mentioning:
– The Cargill plant that is causing Chavez to nationalize Cargill’s rice business is designed to specifically make parboiled rice and not the “basic” white rice Chavez wants made.
– Venezuelan nationalizations used to be paid for by cash, but are now paid for by debt. It seems Chavez is writing checks his treasury can’t cash.
March 4, 2009
Monopoly money isn’t covering this bill
Found in Duane “Generalissimo” Patterson’s Twitter stream – “Parker Bros prints $15,140 per set of Monopoly, 250 million games over 77 yrs, or $3.785T. BHO will have spent $2T more by this June #hhrs” (the #hhrs refers to the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show, where Duane is the senior producer)
Resistance points
Serious investors track four major indices: the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Standard & Poor’s 500, the NASDAQ Composite, and the Russell 2000 (a small-cap index). No matter how you slice it, the markets are doing just terrible. Not even President Obama’s call to buy stocks could keep the slide from continuing. Where are the next resistance points, at least beyond the arbitrary round numbers?
On the following pages, I decided to put up a few key historical closes. Two of the indices (the DJIA and S&P 500) have already gone below the Dubya-era lows. The other two aren’t all that far off them. The really-bad news is there’s still room to crater.
Your Lips Say Yes….
Within a couple of minutes, in the same press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, President Obama said:
"What you’re now seeing is, profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long term perspective on it."
And followed it up with:
“What I’m looking at is not the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market, but the long-term ability for the United States and the entire world economy to regain its footing. And, you know, the stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day to day, and if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you’re probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong.”
In his first comment, Obama spoke as if he had some inside knowledge and wanted to convey it. It was almost as if he was saying, “OK, I’ve done what I need to do and things will settle from here.”
In his second statement, Obama dispelled the notion that he has inside knowledge, or if he had, ever cared about the stock market value. “I don’t care what happens to the stock market, I”m moving forward, I know best,” was the implied statement.
Is it possible for Obama to utter the two statements and be consistent? Can he reconcile an attitude for the complete disregard of the major indexes and a bullish call for stocks? Yes he can!
I think we can safely put aside the nonsensical talk that occurred around Obama’s election, that speculated, perhaps hoped, that he would “govern from the center.” There is no doubt that Obama is implementing what previous to November of 2008, would have been completely unthinkable. Take overs of the major banking institutions and the auto industry, increasing debt by multiple trillions and by virtue of a “stimulus bill” and his budget, inserting government involvement deeper and wider than ever before seen. Obama is from far, far away Leftville and is intent on reshaping America to reflect his view of what America as Leftville, should look like.
The next question than is “What does Leftville look like?” Here again, we can quit with any nonsense of what some want Obama to say and go directly to his words. In nearly every major speech since his election, Obama has included the phrase “Shared sacrifice.” “Shared sacrifice” in the New Obama Dictionary, means that all should be equally dependent upon the government. The problem that Obama has is that in the 234+ years of the country, that hasn’t been the plan. The result is that there is a large class of folks who have accumulated levels of wealth that allow them not to be dependent on the government. When I say “wealth,” I don not mean people with millions of dollars. I’m referring to people who have saved, paid their bills on time and when they retire, will be able to do so not taking world tours each year but by continuing to pay their bills and perhaps, if they’re lucky, leave a small monetary remembrance to their heirs. At one time these people were considered “successful” but no more. With a desire for “shared sacrifice,” Obama needs to find a way to quickly remove the means that the “successful” have that allows them to be independent of the government. How to do it.
Here again, Obama and the folks around him have given us his exact plan. In the words of Rahm Emanuel, “never allow a crisis to go to waste.” Obama is continuing to exacerbate and fan a crisis to acheive his vision. Let’s go back and look at his comments from today in reverse order:
“What I’m looking at is not the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market, but the long-term ability for the United States and the entire world economy to regain its footing. And, you know, the stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day to day, and if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you’re probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong.”
Of course he’s looking at the stock market. Does anyone really believe that there is a day of 3%, 4% or greater drops in the market that he and his staff are not aware of it? Baloney! The only truth in Obama’s statement is that if he worried about it, he would get his long term strategy wrong. If your strategy is to erase wealth from a broad section of the population than you purposely ignore the market. You also sow fear, confusion and mistrust so that the market is unable to find footing. Do this long enough and you will erase huge amounts of 401Ks and other investments.
OK, so if you’re intent on erasing wealth why would you come out and tell people:
"What you’re now seeing is, profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long term perspective on it."
Simple. At the end of December, 74% of the markets value was sitting on the sidelines in cash. I would guess that that number has increased as the market as continued to drop. It’s hard to quickly erase wealth in the stock market if the money isn’t in the stock market. How do you fix that? As President you tell people that it’s OK to get back in the market. You do that while continuing to push forward with all the policies and plans that market has told you have no value.
Obama is the master of saying one thing and acting in a manner that is completely contrary. Remember, this is the man who said he agreed with the Supreme Court’s decision on DC handguns and is now trying to move gun restriction legislation forward. This is the man who said he was not supportive of late term abortions but has nominated the person singularly responsible for keeping “Tiller the Killer” in business. Believing Obama’s words without any evidence of action supporting those words is naive and ignorant.
The only thing we can say about Obama is that while his lips may be saying “yes” his actions almost always, will say something else.
March 3, 2009
Defending the American Dream – Wisconsin announcements
I truly hope you reserved not only Saturday, March 7, but the evening of March 6. AFP-Wisconsin director Mark Block just dropped me an e-mail with a couple of updates on the Defending the American Dream-Wisconsin summit:
– 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.
Roll bloat – striking out on his own
If you’ve followed VodkaPundit for any length of time, you have run into Will Collier’s posts. Stephen Green put out the general alert that he has struck out on his own again, so go and put one of the originals on your rolls and in your readers. If you doubt he’s THAT GOOD, Will already got an Instalanche and a NRO Corner mention.
Where does conservatism go from here?
I know I’ve been promising this since November, but sometimes procrastination is a good thing. I’ve been able to get the benefit of finding out the first almost-two months of complete Democratic rule in both DC and Wisconsin, as well as the initial Repblican and conservative reactions. Most of what I’ve seen has been, frankly, frightening.
First, what the Democrats have made their big push has been, as expected, a complete rollback of the last 28 years of conservative gains, be they economic, social or governmental. It was not a coincidence that one of the first executive orders signed was an overturning of the ban on funding of offshore abortions. It was not a coincidence that almost $800 billion plus interest was the as-signed cost of the Generational Theft Act, or that a stripping of the work-for-benefits rules adopted in the 1990s was a condition of it. It was not a coincidence that a full reversal of the “Drill here, drill now” moves at the end of the Bush Administration was a top priority of the Department of Interior. It is not a coincidence that a rush to adopt a business-crushing environmental regime that vastly expands the power and role of government is a priority in both Madison and Washington. It is not a coincidence that and the death of school choice and the Qualified Economic Offer (which mandates a minimum 3.8% annual increase in the total teachers’ compensation package in exchange for a no-strike rule) is a priority in Madison.
So, what have Republicans and conservatives do in the face of that? I wish I had good news, but the after-hours discussions around CPAC have disabused me of the hope that we’ve learned anything from the last 2 election cycles. Each of the factions are still trying to push the others out of the conservative coalition.
What made the Reagan and 1994 House revolutions successful was that it combined the economic, governmental, and social conservatives into something resembling a majority. I can’t call either a true majority because neither Ronald Reagan nor Newt Gingrich had both the Presidency and both Houses of Congress, but they had enough force to halt and reverse at least some of liberalism’s overreaches.
That force was singularily lacking in the George W. Bush era. While there was, for a significant part of the term, a Republican majority in both the Presidency and both Houses of Congress, very little of what could be called conservatism came out of there, especially on the governmental side. Consequently, the Republicans lost credibility with all the branches and got summarily tossed out the last 2 elections.
One could claim that the liberals and Democrats cribbed that winning formula of unity. They have, but only to a certain extent. They succeeded only because the conservative coalition got divided. Taken individually, the tenents of conservatism, be they social, economic or governmental, are still winners. In California (yes, THAT California), the voters ignored the intimidation from the Left to reject gay “marriage”. In countless communities, when the true cost of big-government/big-spending referenda was revealed, the referenda went down. This past week, on short notice, thousands showed up to protest the high-tax/high-spend/no-freedom moves of the Democrats.
I need to shift focus to Wisconsin for a moment. While there hasn’t really been a broad-based conservative revolution like there was nationally, both school choice and welfare reform did start here under Tommy Thompson. Like the national GOP slide, the Wisconsin one started with a rejection of governmental conservatism; unlike the national one, where big government slowly crept in, it was an explicit rejection of a clarion call by the party elite.
Speaking of the elite, there has been a lot of attacks on those that aren’t part of the Republican Party insider structure. Whether it was attacks on Sarah Palin for not being an Ivy Leaguer and for standing up to the Alaska pork machine, or attacks on Joe the Plumber for being a more-or-less Average Joe rather than a country-club Big Business owner, or attacks on Rush Limbaugh for trying to get the band back together outside the party power structure, they have distressed me, mainly because I am definitely not part of the structure. Nobody has all the answers, and when somebody is wrong, the wrongs do need to be pointed out, but we need to leave the personal attacks on our own to the Left.
I’ve intentionally ignored the notion that conservatives do a “Whigging” to the GOP. While that may well be the best course of action if we had unlimited time, we don’t. The half-looter threshhold is about to be crossed, the entitlement time bomb is rapidly approaching the point of no return, and the state legislatures that are seated in 2011 will (except in states where the courts usurped that authority) will be the ones that draw the districts for the following decade.
I know we’re not likely to get both the majority of the statehouses and majorities in Congress this time around. Therefore, we have to focus on one of those. Because the 2010 Census, which will be flawed, will decide the shape of the various legislative and Congressional districts and likely control of the various statehouses and Congress for the next decade, that focus must be on the state level.
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