Union violence at Wisonsin's capital cost at least $13 million

Wisconsin has a big budget problem. Its teachers, state employees and union members ran wild throughout the capitol grounds and in the capitol building for weeks.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

It cost at least $2.23 million to bring Wisconsin State Patrol officers to the state Capitol to provide security during weeks of protest, bringing the total security bill to nearly $5.5 million.

The costs from the Wisconsin State Patrol include actual costs between Feb. 11 and March 5, as well as estimated costs from March 6 through March 10.

Phil Boehmke at American Thinker adds up the costs:

The $2.23 million paid to the State Patrol comes on top of an estimated $3.2 million in expenses owed to local, county and other law enforcement agencies who dispatched officers to Madison during the recent crisis. The $5.5 million in security costs is expected to increase as additional claims for compensation are submitted.

When combined with an estimated $7.5 million to repair damage done to the marble by the union mob as they attached banners, signs and posters to the historic capitol building, the figure reaches an astounding $13 million.

For a state which is already running a deep deficit due to the reckless spending of the Doyle Administration, the additional costs created by the public sector union protesters during their fight to retain their favored place at the public trough is adding insult to injury.

Senator Kyl unmasks Durbin's show trial

Senator Dick Turban aka Durbin of Illinois held a show in the Senate Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - a hearing about discrimination against Muslims. But Honorable Dick hid the data.

How do Muslims compare to other groups as victims of crimes? Last, according to Senator John Kyl of Arizona. [I don't have the data source, but Sen. Kyl gave the detailed numbers.]

D/Turban scripted a show about how Muslims are just ordinary Americans like the rest of us. So his star witness is from an organization that tells people to resist law enforcement. CBS News

He questioned whether Khera's organization was committed to helping root out extremist elements of Islam, given that its website advises Muslims to consult a lawyer before speaking with the FBI about violent extremism.

The Daily Caller said that the lead witness protected known Islamic extremists:

The number two Senate Democrat, Richard Durbin, has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday to highlight claims of anti-Muslim discrimination, but his primary Muslim witness has publicly excused a U.S. imam for revealing an FBI investigation to a Muslim suspected-terrorist.

US has the highest energy reserves in the world

The US has the highest energy reserves in the world. Congressional Research Service did a study of energy reserves: added up our and compared to the world. They give full value to proven reserves and partial value to unproven (undiscovered) reserves. The unproven reserves count because it is in places known to have oil (or coal or natural gas) but are only partially known because they won't be completely explored until they are going to harvested. For example, oil washes up on Southern California beaches from shallow water oil deposits. The oil is there, but is not being used, so it counts as "unproven recoverable."

The US has "only 28 billion barrels" of oil (based on the somewhat misleading figure of ‘proven reserves’) according to the CRS in reality it has around 163 billion barrels. As Senator Inhofe’s EPW press release comments, “That’s enough oil to maintain America’s current rates of production and replace imports from the Persian Gulf for more than 50 years”.

The US by itself is the OPEC of coal with 28% of the world's reserves. More and more natural gas is being found each year.

The US has more total energy reserves than #3 Saudi Arabia, #4 China and #6 Canada combined. Russia is a fairly close second.

The story: Energy Tribune

See the full report at Congressional Research Service (PDF)

See also Sen. Inhofe

Uhhh... We have the resources to be energy independent. Not that we would put up walls to the world market. But we can produce much more than we are and buy much less, indeed, choose who we want to buy from. Who would notice Libya without its oil?

One-year anniversay of ObamaCare

The Demos were sure that ObamaCare would be instantly popular. And for the few doubters among them, they assured them that popularity would grow as the first benefits kicked in last summer.
But it started out with a narrow lead, but lost it. After transportability of children's coverage started and one year it is unfavorable to more people. FireDogLake:

According to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 42 percent of Americans hold a favorable view of the law while 46 percent view it unfavorably. This is a slightly drop from April of last year when 46 percent viewed the law favorably and only 40 percent viewed it unfavorably.

Here is the strategy team celebrating their victory last year. Caption provided by some wise guy.

Shirley Sherrod and 80,000 phantom farmers

Black famers were discriminated against for loans in late 20th century. So there was a lawsuit on behalf of the 18,000 black famers. So 97,000 claimants were paid $50,000. Uh... why pay more than the 18,000 farmers? Or the subset of them who didn't get loans?

Because... Shirley Sherrod is behind this and got a check for her community organizing group. Fraud. Maybe this is why she so quietly bowed out of her plum federal job when stuff hit the fan.

John Stossel at Fox Business

Black farmer Jimmy Dismuke says it’s fraud. He said lawyers went to black churches and told people who had never farmed to file for the money.

“People say well, how do I qualify?” Dismuke told us. “And then [the lawyers] started talking about potted plants. They said if you had a potted plant, you can be a farmer. And if you have a yard and you fertilize it, you're a farmer.”

Just about anyone can say that they “attempted to farm.” And the USDA – which did not keep all its loan records--has no way to refute that. So the taxpayers pay, and pay.

Jimmy’s former lawyer, Othello Cross, helped thousands of people file claims. He told us that, years afterwards, he concluded that some cases were fraudulent. People came up to him in the street and told him:

“Lawyer, you know -- John never farmed in his life. … when I went back and looked at it, it was true.”

American Lung Association gets partisan

The American Lung Association is using our tax money for partisan politics.
Rep. Fred Upton is now chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. He is doing his job and acting to stop the EPA from doing an end run around Congress. The "government should control everything" people couldn't get their cap and trade passed into law, so Obama told them they should violate Congress and just do it. The US Supreme Court told them they could regulate CO2 - not that they should, but that they could. Upton says "stop." Congress is acting to stop using the Clean Air Act for Al Gore's man-made global warming agenda - to return the act to its intended purpose: clean air!! Investors Business Daily
The EPA is funding the Am Lung Association and the Lung Association is running attack billboards against Rep. Upton in his district in Michigan.
Billboard photo from MLive Kalamazoo Gazette

"Rep Fred Upton
Protect our kids' health.
Don't weaken the Clean Air Act"

She lost two championship games so make Gorlick coach

Jamie Gorlick caused two big losses, so Obama wants to make her the coach - Director of the FBI.

One of the big problems that allowed the 9/11 attacks was that top-level law enforcement and intelligence agencies were not allowed to share information. There was a wall between them, that is, a wall was erected between them. Due to Jamie Gorelick while she was deputy attorney general in the Clinton Justice Department under then-Attorney General Janet Reno from 1994 to 1997

Wikipedia

"At last week's hearing, Attorney General John Ashcroft, facing criticism, asserted that 'the single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents' and that I built that wall through a March 1995 memo."

Read the original of her 1995 memo [PDF] and you will see that Ashcroft was right. See also C. Edmund Wright at American Thinker.

The Democrats protected her from the light by making her a member of the commission that investigated 9/11.

How could her sins be larger than 9/11? She helped to cause the overheated housing market and the meltdown that resulted.

She announced a policy that caused the Subprime mortgage mess. In her own words at CNS News:

“Fannie Mae will buy CRA loans from lenders' portfolios; we'll package them into securities; we'll purchase CRA mortgages at the point of origination; and we'll create customized CRA-targeted securities,” she said in 2001. “This expanded approach has improved liquidity in the secondary market for CRA product, and has helped our lenders leverage even more CRA lending. Lenders now have the flexibility to use their own, customized loan products.”

In remarks before the American Bankers Association on Oct. 30, 2000, Gorelick explicitly how the procress would work and what Fannie Mae would do to make it feasible for banks to lend to low-income applicants.

“We will take CRA loans off your hands--we will buy them from your portfolios, or package them into securities--so you have fresh cash to make more CRA loans,” she said. “Some people have assumed we don't buy tough loans. Let me correct that misimpression right now. We want your CRA loans because they help us meet our housing goals.”

And she was paid $26 million for six years work at Fannie Mae. It appears that a prime objective of Fannie Mae was to pay $ millions per year to already influential Democrats.

Now Obama wants her to weaken the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI. That's what she will do if she "leads" it.

----

Where is she now? Representing BP, formerly British Petroleum, in negotiations regarding the Deepwater Horizon blowout, deaths, and oil spill. Wikipedia

Economic Liberty and the Constitution - an online townhall - Update

Economic Liberty and the Constitution:

Economic liberty was revered by the Founding Fathers, who enshrined its principles in the Constitution. A hundred years ago, those tenets were attacked by the Progressives, who saw property rights as the protection of special interests, and our Constitution's structure as an impediment to progress as they defined it.

Economic liberty can be restored as decisively as it has been lost, but a restoration of constitutional principles cannot happen without citizen understanding and vigilant defense of the principles of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

Hillsdale College in Michigan is having a one-day online town hall April 16, 2011 from 7 am to 9:30 am Pacific Time.

You need to sign up in advance. Sign up
Update April 22: The event is preserved in a video archive. It requires free registration - the same as for the event.
Constitution Townhall archive

Looting in Japan

Just one big case: $500,000 from a bank.

Fox News

Violence and threats against Gov. Walker and Republicans continue in Wisconsin

The threats are continuing in Wisconsin. First, there were death threats against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans before the unions flooded the capitol and made the national news. I posted that on February 17, 2011.

Those of us reading conservative sources saw daily reports of threats, violence and vandalism in Madison, Wisconsin. Law professor and blogger Ann Althouse made daily reports with photographs and videos.

The threats continue.  Ann Althouse posted the following threat against her and her husband on March 17, 2011.

We will picket on public property as close to your house as we can every day. We will harrass the ever loving shit out of you all the time. Campus is OCCUPIED. State street is OCCUPIED. The Square is OCCUPIED. Vilas, Schenk’s Corners, Atwood, Willy Street – Occupied, Occupied, Occupied, Occupied. Did you really think it was all about the Capitol? **** the Capitol, we are the CITY… We have the numbers and we don’t back down from anyone. We all know each other. We all know each other. We know each other from Service Industry Night at the Orpheum, because we’re regulars at the same coffee shops, restaurants and bars, we know each other from the co-ops, we know each other because we’ve had a million jobs each (and we all worked at CapTel at least once), because we live in every shitty townie house in ever-changing groups of 2 – 7 people, because we are ***** *** ***** and screw each other incessantly, because we’re all on facebook, and because we aren’t anti-social, life-denying, world-sterilizing pieces of human garbage like the two of you. WE WILL F*** YOU UP. We will throw our baseballs in your lawn, you cranky old pieces of shit, and then we will come get them back. What are you gonna do? Shoot us? Get Wausau Tea Patriots to form an ad hoc militia on your front lawn? That would be ******* HILAROUS to us. You could get to know the assholes on your side in real ******* life instead of sponging off the civil society we provide for you every single day you draw breath.”

That is just one of four pages. The source she links to has been removed, but at this time the full source is at http://www.scribd.com/doc/51055085/Lefty-Troll-Threats

Big Journalism documents 20 days of threats with links, photos and videos. They include:

• Wisconsin State Rep-D Gordon Hintz Shouts ‘You Are F***ing Dead’ to Female GOP Rep.
• GOP State Senator Grothman mobbed by union protesters at State Capitol
• Teachers disrupt WI Representative meeting
• Live ammunition found at WI Capitol
• Death threat emailed to all WI State Senators
• Vandalism in Capitol building - day after day
• Police, Fire, and Teachers Unions threaten WI businesses with boycotts if they don’t oppose Governor Walker. Economic Freedom
  
• Windows on Senator Dan Kapanke’s car were broken in Madison and his wife reported nails strewn on their driveway.

Wildlife on the inland sea

I enjoy seeing wildlife I hadn't seen before or (often) had seen before but hadn't identified. And new behaviors are even better. Our cabin on Case Inlet, a branch of Puget Sound, is a great spot - being on salt water it has a great variety and it has a 180-degree view. It is so close to the water that I could watch for wildlife when sitting at a window when I required crutches to walk. Actually, I still see things while inside.

Two weeks ago I saw a bald eagle catch a fish. Eagles don't dive into the water like ospreys; they only grab fish that are at the surface. He hovered just above the water for about 30 seconds then grabbed one.

We also saw a group of marine mammals feeding on the surface. Harbor seals? I don't know: I always see them solitary. Or if not alone separated like neighbors not tight like a team; this was a group of at least 3 or 4 swimming together along the same line. Sea lions? I don't know: They group together like we saw. But they are very noisy. This group was quiet. They were easily spotted by a noisy group of birds seeking scraps to grab. My guess is that it was sea lions who were quiet because they were concentrating on their meal.

A few days ago my wife was watching a water foul. I was guessing a loon. But she said he was near a red and white mooring buoy. Such a buoy was out there but he wasn't close to it?? Resolved. The loon's throat was white and a very bright red vertical stripe. Our Peterson's guide showed it to be a red-throated loon in breeding plumage. They breed and nest farther north. But I have seen loons in breeding plumage here before - common loons whose breeding plumage is a spectacular pattern of black and white.

The photo: A red-throated loon at Bird Watching Alaska.

During war and natural disaster our leader fiddles

Obama's, I mean, President Obama's priority is basketball.

White House

While people are suffering, risking their lives and dying in Japan and Libya. A child occupies the most important office in the world.

Contrast him to the "Fukushima 50" and to our US Navy personnel in Japan

Clarice Feldman at American Thinker

Earning a million in NFL is slavery

Earning a million per year in the NFL is slavery. So says the representative for the players Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings.

American Thinker

The players are getting robbed. They are...The owners are making so much money off of us to begin with. I don't know that I want to quote myself on that....

It's modern-day slavery, you know?...The owners are trying to get a different percentage, and bring in more money. I understand that, these are business-minded people...But as players, we have to stand our ground and say, "Hey, without us, there is no football. "

Peterson earned $10.72 million this year. Slave.

Michigan Demos on trial for false tea party candidates

The Demos in Michigan couldn't compete with the Republicans, so in Pontiac (Oakland County) Michael McGinnis & Jason Bauer decided to pad the ballot with false "tea party" candidates in three races. Caught. Also filing false documents. Criminal trial.

In that state it is not a crime to file as a candidate for a party you are not a member of and do not support. But they filed people as candidates without their permission or knowledge. Both charges are felonies!

Breitbart Video

Tax, tax and spend, spend and get booted out

The mayor of Miami, Florida (also Dade County) was ousted from office in a recall. By a margin of 88% to 12!

This is a major case of ignoring the people's needs and serving the "public servants."

Contentions Blog at Commentary Magazine

Although Miami has been especially hard hit by the meltdown in property values in recent years, Alvarez pushed through a 14 percent property-tax increase and then gave public employees fat salary increases in contract negotiations. He also championed a new baseball stadium publicly funded at the cost of $600 million, despite 12 percent unemployment in the area

.

Obama must think he is king

President Obama just wants to wear the crown and be the head of state - the king. Smile and get all the glory. The job of President of the US combines the head of state with the head of government, which is the prime minister in many countries.

But he has a real job to do - lead our government and he is failing at it. He simply is not doing the job.

John Podhoretz in Commentary Magazine says Richard Nixon did a good job. But Barrack H Obama is not performing the job.

He is largely notable by his absence, which is itself the result not only of not knowing what to do but also apparently believing it is better for the world if he remains a minor player as a bloodbath approaches in the Middle East and something more ominous seems to be approaching in Japan. When he talks, as he did in Friday’s press conference, he only makes matters more confusing; there is little reassurance that there is a hand anywhere near the tiller.

Obama’s defiant unwillingness to take the measure of the world’s multiple crises and to act as a world leader in response to them in the eyes of the public indicates a fundamental disconnect in the Oval Office. We’ve heard all kinds of talk about how his new team in the White House is so much better than the old, but at least the old team recognized there was a crisis underway in the United States in 2009. It reacted too gleefully, and with wild overreach. But it acted.

My generation paid for our Social Security benefits

It was the great-grandparents, not us grandparents, who recieved far more than they paid into Social Security. I, who started collecting during 2010, paid a lot of SS taxes for over 40 years. It was a bad deal for me; I could have done much better putting that 12% into my own retirement savings account.

Some academics calculated it. It was the people who retired from 1950 to 1990 who are collecting far more than they paid in. In the chart the negative territory is those who got a lot for paying little. For those retiring now the number is around zero = getting what they put in. (That's the average; I paid the maximum SS tax in most years.) The sad news is what we all know; the next generation will pay more because the politicians spend the tax receipts every year.

Andrew Biggs at American.com

Click to enlarge the graphic.

Threats by fire fighters and police?

In Wisconsin the police and firemen are putting the heat on businesses. That is, they are threatening businesses. I thought their job was to preserve the peace. The are putting their union power first:

Michelle Malkin quotes part of a threatening letter:

In the event that you cannot support this effort to save collective bargaining, please be advised that the undersigned will publicly and formally boycott the goods and services provided by your company. However, if you join us, we will do everything in our power to publicly celebrate your partnership in the fight to preserve the right of public employees to be heard at the bargaining table.

Michelle has the image of this letter.

Mob rule in Wisconsin - climbing the building

Union thugs climbed the outside of Capitol building and harassed officials inside. They tell us the protesters are state employees and teachers. What do you call a teacher who is shown on video to be vandalizing property?

Gateway Pundit has video.

How can we get a state budget?

There had better be serious people trying to get state expenditures to match actual revenues. But where are they?

I attended a district meeting held by my two state representatives and senator this morning. I got there late and just heard "we can't cut this" and "we can't cut that" plus an update on local development.

I asked people who were there for the full event and that's what I missed: "we can't cut here/there" plus "how can we close loopholes and get more tax revenue?" One representative admitted that closing loopholes is raising taxes and cannot be done without 2/3 majority and that won't happen. But that was the only budget reality in the two-hour session.

They had negative words for every proposed cut in spending that was mentioned. Did they have ideas for the huge cuts needed? They did not try to prepare their constituents for today's reality for the budget.

So they are not part of the solution. Who is?

Chris Gregoire? She led the increase in spending for the 2009-2011 budget when revenues had already decreased!! And she hardly got an inch in controlling the cost of benefits for state employees represented by unions when she knew she needed 10 yards.

The ball is in the Democrats' hands. But their team is not helping.

Wisconsin progress

The Wisconsin Senate and Gov. Walker finally found a way to get some progress on their budget deficit. Despite the Democrats who refuse to do their jobs.

They removed the elements that had fiscal impact which required the super-majority which required at least one Demo. They waited a long time for the Demos. They could have done this after two days and knew it.

It's shameful that elected reps fled the state rather than do what they promised to do. "Fleebaggers."

Washington Workers Compensation Reform

Washington Workers Compensation system is a mess. It is $360 million in the red and still digging. Christine Gregoire proposed some reasonable changes. Some got dropped, but the bill would still improve the situation greatly.

House Majority Leader Frank Chopp should let it go for a vote. It has already passed the Senate with about half the Demos voting for it.

The key changes that remain: - There is to be a state-managed network of doctors, so that the state can cull out the ones who run their practices as disability mills.

- There is to be a program subsidizing the wages for workers who go back to work on light duty, which will reduce permanent disability claims.

- And an option for certain workers to take their benefits in lump sums, which in the long run will save the state money.

Seattle Times

Without changes it will dig deeper and deeper in debt. Opponents only offer a tax increase - a tax in every job. Such a tax discourages job creation. Fewer jobs! No, pass this bill.

Sebelius admits double counting in Obamacare

We saw this before Obama's monster passed Congress. It spends $500 billion twice. When asked, the most powerful woman in the US, Sec. Kathleen Sebelius, admitted the lie, I mean, error.

Big Government

Yesterday [Friday] the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee heard testimony from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Representative John Shimkus (R-IL) asked about the double counting of the $500 billion of savings which seemed to still helping the bottom line of Medicare and contributing to the funding of Obamacare.    He asked Sebelius which program was supposed to receive the benefit of that Medicare cut, she answered, “Both.”

WOW ! Maybe Obama is “the one” he can spend $500 Billion Dollars, and the spend the same exact money on something else, that is magic of biblical proportion. ...

Libya blocked internet traffic

How do we know Libya blocked internet traffic? A New Hampshire company continuously tests for internet connectivity:

Renesys Blog

Update 00:00 UTC Friday 4 Mar 2011

After a quiet week, we received reports tonight that Libyans in Tripoli were suddenly unable to use various Internet communications utilities. Examining the BGP routing table, we saw nothing unusual --- all Libyan routes up and stable.

But our traceroutes tell a different story (no responses from Libyan hosts). All of the Libyan-hosted government websites we tested (i.e., the ones that are actually hosted in Libya, and not elsewhere) were unreachable.

Google's Transparency Report seems to confirm that their Libyan query traffic has fallen to zero as well (click for latest):

The Youtube plot is interesting, suggesting that Google's Youtube traffic from Libya has grown steadily all week. Tonight, however, we suspect that someone has turned off the tap on the Libyan Internet again, this time leaving the routes in place.

Judge tells Obama to stop ignoring order to stop Obamacare

Mark Levin says the order by Judge Vinson in Florida is a reprimand to Obama's lawyers. Obama has refused to obey Judge Vinson's order of January 31. Vinson says "get moving."

Mark Levin

The Obama administration got a well-deserved rebuke today from Judge Roger Vinson in the Florida lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare (aka the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as big government types insist). Judge Vinson issued a new order in response to a bizarre and obtuse “motion to clarify” that the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed on February 17.

Vinson’s original order on January 31 could not have been clearer: He declared the entire law unconstitutional and specifically said that because he presumed that officials of the executive branch would adhere to the law as declared by a court, his declaratory judgment striking the law down was the functional equivalent of an injunction. Judge Vinson wrote then that he presumed that the executive branch would follow his order, which any lawyer (including a lawyer President) would know requires them to cease implementing Obamacare with respect to the 26 states that are plaintiffs and the National Federation of Independent Business. That turned out to be a faulty presumption, indeed.

So Vinson said "don't try to stall. Get moving."

John Hayward at Human Events

Thursday was a tough day for ObamaCare.  In the most spectacular news, Judge Roger Vinson clarified his earlier ruling on Thursday, explaining that he did indeed strike down the entire law as unconstitutional, so it can’t be implemented against any of the 26 states that were party to the suit he ruled on.  Vinson was brutally dismissive of the Administration’s delaying tactics, and their attempts to ignore his ruling, questioning their comprehension and legal skills with dry wit.  He gave the Administration seven days to file its expected appeal.

Testing line breaks

My posts were the victims of blank line insertion; most of the time one extra blank for every paragraph, but sometimes two. And if I modified the post more were inserted.

Illiminex product support responded to my request for help. I changed a setting in Blogger - not in Ecto.

Looks good. And I feared older posts being messed up. But they look good also.

Wisconsin is out of control

Wisconsin is allowing adults who act like children to prevent elected representatives from entering the capitol building.

Why does the government of Wisconsin allow this lawlessness? Watch the mob:

YouTube

No right to public-employee unions

Don't fall for the "Constitutional argument" of those saying mean Republicans are violating the right to union representation. It is not a right, but a privilege endowed by legislation.

State employee unions arrived in Washington in 2002 by an act of the legislature. Did public employees have a right to unionize before then? No, they didn't have that privilege before and never had a right.

If it is a right then why didn't FDR protect it?

Pres. FDR opposed public unions. Even ace labor organizer George Meany opposed it. Source: Heritage in NY Times

“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”

That wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was George Meany -- the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O -- in 1955. Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movemen thinkers once thought the idea absurd.

The founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers, however, don’t generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money. When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”

So ignore claims it is a right. No, respond that it is a privilege we can't afford.

This entry looks so terrible because I am using Ecto from Illuminex to write it. They decided to enter lots of blank lines.