From 
Mismatch of Support in Wisconsin
Republican Stars Stump for Gov. Walker in Recall Election, While Most Democrats Steer ClearBy COLLEEN McCAIN NELSON
When Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker found himself fighting for his political life, many of the Republican Party’s rising stars had one thing to say: How can we help?
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana hopped on a plane to urge Wisconsin voters to support Mr. Walker in a recall election, coming up on Tuesday. New Jersey’s Chris Christie, South Carolina’s Nikki Haley and Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, also visited. A planned trip by Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia was thwarted by storms; he went on TV to praise Mr. Walker.
And the Democrats? Their eagerness to enter the contest has been noticeably more muted. Though former president Bill Clinton visited Friday to energize the party base, few other Democratic luminaries have shown up, and the White House has been restrained in its show of support.
The stakes are high in Tuesday’s expensive and bitter recall vote, triggered by a union-led backlash to Mr. Walker’s law limiting collective bargaining by public-sector unions. But the paucity of top Democratic figures standing by Mr. Walker’s opponent suggests what independent polls have indicated—that the tide may have turned the GOP’s way.
Much more at the link. And here’s another story:
What happens when a state no longer forces workers into a union?
posted at 10:41 am on June 1, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
Popquiz, hotshots*: You have public-employee unions that force public-sector employees to pay dues and make the state act as their bagman. The state refuses to collect dues and changes the law to make dues and union membership entirely voluntary. What do people do?
That’s easy … they quit paying the dues:
Public-employee unions in Wisconsin have experienced a dramatic drop in membership—by more than half for the second-biggest union—since a law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker sharply curtailed their ability to bargain over wages and working conditions.
Wisconsin membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees—the state’s second-largest public-sector union after the National Education Association, which represents teachers—fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011, according to a person who has viewed Afscme’s figures. A spokesman for Afscme declined to comment.
Much of that decline came from Afscme Council 24, which represents Wisconsin state workers, whose membership plunged by two-thirds to 7,100 from 22,300 last year.
A provision of the Walker law that eliminated automatic dues collection hurt union membership. When a public-sector contract expires the state now stops collecting dues from the affected workers’ paychecks unless they say they want the dues taken out, said Peter Davis, general counsel of the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission.
In many cases, Afscme dropped members from its rolls after it failed to get them to affirm they want dues collected, said a labor official familiar with Afscme’s figures.
That’s the reason that the PEUs hit the panic button in February 2011. They knew that the law would severely cut into their membership once the state refused to force dues payments as a condition of employment. This also undermines the credibility of union leaders who claim to speak for public-sector workers, as it shows a significant number of them don’t support the union at all, especially in the literal sense now.
More at the link.
So, does the power of labor unions come from the unity of the members, or from the dollars taken in in dues? There can be many reasons why a union member might choose not to pay dues, and in tough economic times like these, having those dollars in the members’ wallets rather than the union bosses’ coffers might well be seen as a very rational decision by the members. Or, perhaps the now-former union members really did support the work of their union, but figured that, heck, it’ll only be a few people who don’t contribute, so they’ll never notice that I’m out, never guessing that union membership would drop by over half. It could be that many of the workers figured that, with Governor Walker’s policies, their unions were essentially useless anyway. And perhaps, as Mr Morrissey implies, many of the members never wanted to be members at all.
But, whatever their reasons happened to be, one thing that can be said is that for whatever reasons they had, the employees who dropped out valued something else more than they valued continued union membership. From the first story again:
While unions have grumbled about Mr. Obama’s detachment from the recall, they will return to the fold in the fall, the Democratic strategist said.
“Would they prefer that Obama come? Yes,” the strategist said, but added that they won’t defect.
Really? While the union leadership has been firmly in the pockets of the Democrats — or do I have that backwards? — from time immemorial, how the rank-and-file union members actually vote has not been exactly monolithic. For example, in 2004, President Bush won the votes of 38% of union members, compared to 54% of non-unionized workers, certainly not a majority, but a far more substantial minority than the union bosses would like to have seen. That’s pretty much on a par with the union percentages received by John McCain in 2008 and Ronald Reagan in 1984. Why, it’s almost as if union members might have concerns other than just their labor union.
The big labor unions will, of course, all back President Obama in the general election. But the important part is that a solid percentage of their members will vote for Mitt Romney. Perhaps with unemployment rising to 8.2% for May, American workers, including union members, might not see President Obama as doing all that much in helping businesses to create new jobs.
In spite of Mr Morrissey’s opinion, which means little, the fact is that the Republican Party has in effect succeeded in killing the union movement, as the last battle has just occurred in the fine state of Wisconsin. So you Righties should all be happy and cheering with vigor! It seems that money is about to win out over reason. I hope I am wrong, but doubt it. I’d like to be surprised.
I’m not happy, because I observe that the American worker has been suffering for no good reason, due to the dominance of powerful employers, which began in earnest with the emergence of the power of the Republican Right under the auspices of Ronald Reagan.
There is no question that the power of unions has been excessive at times, but now it is the reverse, where the American worker is the most exploited in the developed world. Our work week is longer, our vacation allocation is much less, our workers benefits, be they from employers or government, are weaker, especially regarding health care, our health care costs are higher, expect for our elderly, and our rewards for workers who exhibit the highest productivity in the developed world are poor compared to the rewards for their bosses. Worse than the economic hardships, our families are being torn apart, and our politics continue to be radicalized, apparently beyond repair.
It is as if the American worker has become a little bit like a slave, and the employer a bit like a slave owner who grabs most of the wealth generated for themselves.
And worse, our government is being purchased and run by an unelected elite, while the average American, as on this very blog for example, has been turned into his/her own worst enemy, by blindly supporting the rhetoric and actions as being perpetrated by extremist Republican Party cronies.
Talented people like John Hitchcock are left scrambling, clawing, and confused, and those like koolo, left shrieking in pain, and like our Editor, left rationalizing away the discordant melodies.
I understand that this sounds like radical language to those who still believe in the American Dream, by faith. Sure, these words are indeed radical, because the American landscape is becoming radical, in my view spanning over a half of a century of watching and experiencing as these trends materialize.
I feel personally fortunate, because my personal trajectory was launched in the post WWII 1950′s, when there really was an American Dream unfolding, which I have lived. Starting with Reagan, with a context of strife, that trajectory changed, too late to drag me and my spirits down, but a completely different story for those born in the 1980′s and beyond, the first of whom have reached the age of launch, already buried in debt and desperate for a job. There is no American Dream left for these young people, or for those who are fiftyish and being thrown out with the trash, as we are being choked by greed, ego, and misinformation!
Actually, this only affects government unions, private sector unions are not affected by Walker’s actions.
I think you are romanticizing a period in time that was unique in American history, the postwar years where there was almost no foreign competition for American industry. So Big Governmemt and Big Business and Big Labor could all coexist as one big, happy family with no pesky foreigners to upset the apple cart.
Needless to say, there was no way this was going to last forever.
Good thing we have Passive-Aggressive Perry to “care” for us, just like he “knows” the average black person, eh?
Every day it becomes more and more clear, the majority of Wisconsin voters approve the job they elected Governor Walker to do and they reject greedy Public Employee Union thugs and their totalitarian requirement that State government agencies collect mandatory union dues as a condition of employment. It’s clear, Americans prefer individual freedom to the Democrat Party’s brand of union enforced indentured servitude.
Down with greedy Union thugs and their misuse of government to pick the pockets of working men and women.
Democrats will line up to march in the streets to protect their so-called choice to murder partially born babies, but when it comes to money grubbing nest feathering, Democrat leaders and their union thugs have no qualms about using the power of government agencies to usurp the wages of working men and women.
It looks like the voters of Wisconsin have had just about enough of greedy Democrat thugs and their systemic institutional corruption.
Citation please!
Ropelight, I do believe you have lost it!
The legal position is: For a partial birth crisis, if there is a choice between saving the mother or saving the child, the decision has to be for the mother’s life to be preserved.
Perry, it isn’t the mother’s life that’s being extinguished in a partial birth abortion. But you know that.
And there’s a reason only a part of the baby is allowed to be born, the baby is roughly rotated in the womb so only the body from the neck down protrudes from the birth canal, that’s so a murdering butcher masquerading as a physician can shove a pair of scissors into the back of the baby’s skull twisting the cruel steel methodically well up into the infant’s brain to make sure the life struggling to be born is snuffed out before the unwanted baby becomes even more of an inconvenience.
Another few inches and that baby would be born alive and immediately have the rights to life and liberty you enjoy Perry. Another few inches and everyone associated with that so-called partial birth abortion would be subject to prosecution for premeditated murder. Just a few inches Perry, just a few inches is all that separates a baby from the right to life and the abject callousness of institutionalized murder.
WW wrote:
If the pregnant woman dies, her unborn child dies with her. However, partial birth abortion is never medically necessary. If the woman must have her child delivered early, which can occur, it is actually more traumatic for the woman to stop the procedure most of the way through, to kill the child while he is still partly in the birth canal. In a case where the woman had to have her child delivered early, at the gestational age in which partial birth abortion would be performed, it would be physically easier on the mother to allow the child to be delivered alive.
Partial birth abortion is performed for only one reason: to kill the child.
I think you may be confused here, ropelight. First of all, Roe prohibits “late-term” abortions, in other words, those which would be performed in the second or third trimester. There is one exception, which was covered more clearly in a law passed as an adjunct to Roe, prohibiting late term abortions, but with the following exception:
It is this exception to which I referred. It turns out that I was wrong. If you read further, it is claimed that later law eliminated the above exception, a fact that I had forgotten. So the bottom line is that a partial birth abortion is illegal, even if the mother’s life is in danger, assuming I am understanding what is written here in Wiki.
So the horrible procedure you described is illegal! I stand corrected!
PS: Our editor’s post appeared while I was writing mine. He is correct.
The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes, 6/2/12, reported on Obama’s 6 fundraisers in States all around Wisconsin. Air Force 1 crossed over Wisconsin twice, but the President couldn’t be bothered to stop in to help out his labor union pals.
In Wisconsin the chips are down in the Recall Election and Barack Obama has clearly turned his back on his 2007 campaign promise and slapped the face of the public sector unions that helped put him in office. Why? Either he was too busy money grubbing or he just didn’t want his picture taken standing on the losing side. You decide.
[Italics deleted per Ropelight's request; link added by Editor. No changes made in text. -- Editor]
Correction. I intended only to put Obama’s 2007 promise in italics. Would someone with access please fix it for me. Thanks and thanks for previous corrections as well. I do appreciate your efforts.
Dems are about to lose in Wisconsin so the usual last minute smear campaign suddenly surfaces. An excerpt 6/3/12 by Staff @twichy.com
follows:
Desperate Dems: Vote against Scott Walker because according to an unconfirmed rumor published on some left-wing website, he fathered a love child 24 years ago
This thinly-sourced rumor looks to most people like a last-minute smear job, but that didn’t stop the Daily Kos and other anti-Walker loons from jumping all over it:
I’m sure Passive-Aggressive Perry is OK with this. After all, Gov. Walker is a “dictator” and hence “deserves” this smear.
According to the original story concerning the alleged illegitimate child, “She says Walker eventually had to concede that he was the father, after the birth and paternity test.” However, this was supposedly 1988, when a more time consuming, more expensive form of paternity testing was the only thing available, and it would have required Mr Walker to have provided a DNA sample. Since he, allegedly, wanted nothing to do with the alleged child, he wouldn’t have provided a sample voluntarily, which would have meant a court order, which would be a matter of public record. Further, no one has alleged that, following the establishment of paternity, that Mr Walker was ever required to provide child support.
I’m guessing that about a week before the November election, we’ll find an exposé telling us that Mitt Romney has had a long term homosexual relationship with some guy.
This “love child” falls right in line with the character flaws we already knew that Dictator Walker, the current darling of the GOP, has. Consider these:
* “Since he, allegedly, wanted nothing to do with the alleged child, he wouldn’t have provided a [DNA] sample voluntarily, which would have meant a court order, which would be a matter of public record.” He must have known he was the father, or he would have readily supplied the DNA sample to exonerate himself.
* “Further, no one has alleged that, following the establishment of paternity, that Mr Walker was ever required to provide child support.” A man worthy of the title “of good character”, at age 24, would have stepped up to his obligation of providing child support! He did not, and he has not changed up to this day.
* Dictator Walker revealed to his political benefactor, a female billionaire, Diane Hendricks, who has already donated $500,000 to support his political positions, that he planned to employ a “divide and conquer” strategy in his governor. No wonder the GOP extremists like him so much!
* Dictator Walker’s goal is to finish the 80 year war which the GOP has waged against rights of the working person’s unions.
* Dictaror Walker, for his opposition to his own recall, has raised $30.5M, 59% of it from out of state compared to $3.9M raised by his opponent Tom Barrett, only 26% of which comes from out of state.
* This recall election of a governor is only the third in the history of the nation, thus indicative of how seriously the citizens of Wisconsin have reacted to the behavior of their newly elected dictator, er, governor.
Not only is Dictator Walker a cad, he is a ferocious enemy of the working men and women in his state, sadly characteristic of the national politics of the GOP, as well.
According to Thomas Mann, coauthor with Norm Ornstein of the book: It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Cnstitutional System Collided with the Politics of Extremism, said the following this morning on the UP with Chris Hayes show. The Republican Party:
* Has become an insurgent outlier,
* and is contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime,
* and is scornful of compromise,
* and is unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science,
* and is dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
I think there is a lot of truth to this statement, well exemplified by the right wing bloggers on this very blog!
The Citizens’ United decision has given this corrupted GOP an important vehicle by which they can press their agenda, above, forward and successfully. Add to that, the icing on the cake, voter suppression, and we have our government about to be taken over by an alien force uninterested in nothing for us American citizens, and everything for their own power and self aggrandizement. They are driven by suspicion, paranoia, hatred, racism, and outright political war against the American middle class and the poor.
Wisconsin voters have the opportunity to divert these people this coming Tuesday, and American voters likewise have their opportunity in the upcoming general election. You better believe that I am going to be on the front lines fighting.
PS: Another book recommendation now: The above listed Mann and Ornstein tome, now published and available for purchase. I have not yet read it myself, but I have heard the authors talk about it on several occasions.
I played Shattered Kingdoms since prior to Y2K. (I still do on occasion.) Anyone who wrote a tome was a respected member of a religion, speaking on religious matters that may or may not have entered the political sphere. With a pantheon of gods, there have always been people writing tomes.
But seriously, does anyone politically aware actually pay attention to MessNBC or CNN? They have what? 12 viewers between them? Nobody with any common sense considers either outlet to be of any real value.
I see that Wagonwheel has bitten deeply into the poorly sourced story, not because there is any particular evidence, but because it’s something he wants to believe. I’ll repeat what I said at the end of my last comment: I’m guessing that about a week before the November election, we’ll find an exposé telling us that Mitt Romney has had a long term homosexual relationship with some guy.
Again, just keep the “dictator” nonsense in mind the next time PAP whines and cries in here about “civility.” It’s all just so much equine excrement.
Also keep this “love child” story in mind the next time PAP whines and cries about some story in Obama’s past that has [extremely] shaky foundations.
Koolo wrote:
Remember this cover from an extremely reputable magazine?
Now, why shouldn’t we believe it? After all, President Obama has now come out — so to speak — for same-sex “marriage.” Isn’t that all the proof we need?
If we use WW’s “standard,” then yes indeed Mr. Editor!
For one, Mr Editor, I think this story, poorly sourced or not, fits in consistently with the behavior I have seen emanate from this dastardly governor of WI, hopefully soon to be removed.
Nevertheless, I said a lot more in my post than just the part you lit into, so please reread the post.
Thankfully, the polls are against you. Let’s hope they hold true.
And so, based on this WW “standard,” we can theorize that based on Obama’s past behavior that the stories about him “fit in consistently.”
Just using the standards WW uses. Only fair.
Mr Editor, continuing on the Walker love child story, I wonder if you followed my link all the way to the original source.
If you did not, please do. I am curious about your reaction.
WW wrote:
Had you said “dastardly dictator,” that being your favorite title for him, t’would have been more alliterative!
However, with the standard you have just enunciated, why shouldn’t conservatives believe anything that “fits in consistently with the behavior (we) have seen emanate from this pathetic President of the USA?” I never gave much credence to the “birtherism” stuff, but, hey, it does fit right in with the behavior we have seen from him.
But, regardless of your opinion of Mr Walker, it will be the voters of Wisconsin who decide whether he is a dastardly dictator or a good governor. If the voters decide to retain the Governor, would that not be solid evidence that they have approved of his policies and his record thus far?
Not only that, Obama was the first Birther — right up until 2007 when he decided to make a run at the presidency. He, like Elizabeth Warren, played up their “exotic” so-called backgrounds to placate the academic left that runs elite universities. Warren has been called on it; Obama may, but the revelation that he used “born in Kenya” right up till ’07 certainly lessens the sting of attacks against people like Donald Trump.
Looks like PAP’s dream story has been debunked. Surprise that, eh?
WW wrote:
I read it, and the part that jumps out is that it has not been confirmed by any second source. The possibility exists that it is true: he was 20 years old at the time, and it wouldn’t be very surprising if a 20-year-old male university student had a girlfriend with whom he was having sexual intercourse. It is also possible that a pregnancy resulted. And it is possible that an immature young man would try to deny paternity and responsibility; all of these things happened in 1988, in 1998, in 2008, and every year not ending in an eight as well. The story is perfectly plausible in that it relates behavior that is well known to have occurred in the past.
But being plausible, and a tale of far-too-common occurrences isn’t evidence in any sense of the word that a particular individual engaged in it. Rather, it comes across to me as a rather pathetic attempt to target one political candidate in a manner which almost certainly cannot be refuted in the couple of days before the election. The article presents no positive support, but it becomes virtually impossible for Governor Walker to prove a negative, that it didn’t happen.
Real evidence would consist of court orders for Mr Walker to produce a DNA sample, or to pay child support, or a DNA test, currently, which would prove that Mr Walker is the father of the thus-far unidentified child. Thus far, none of that has been provided. Given that the alleged events took place 24 years ago, and the supposed source knew about them for all of that time, I find it curious that, if this is true, she didn’t come forth earlier, when there would have been time to find the supporting evidence.
And, quite frankly, it strikes me as an act of desperation. The polls indicate that Governor Walker will be retained, based on his economic record and his policies, so his opponents have to find something, anything! to try to stave off defeat.
I don’t see it as an act of desperation regarding political considerations. Here is what strikes me regarding Bernadette’s comment which was:
I suggest, were you in Bernadette’s shoes, having witnessed what she did, that you, in spite of your politics, would feel exactly the same way that she feels. True?
I know you will assume that my politics influences my view of this revelation about Walker, but I don’t think so. The story, although not corroborated independently, rings perfectly true to me.
Moreover, Bernadette’s revelation timing does not seem politically motivated to me, rather, emotionally motivated. She was greatly angered by the utter lie by Walker which she perceived, based on her own first hand knowledge of a friend, “Ruth”.
Koolo, questioned, yes, but hardly debunked!
Ye gad. Break it out for PAP, please!
Forget yesterday’s ugly smear. Wisconsin Democrats are now out to inject fear and intimidate voters in their get-out-the-vote campaign. Madeleine Morgensters at The Blaze posted her report 6/2/12. Excerpt follows. (bold added)
Liberal Wis. Group Sends Voters Names and Addresses of Their Neighbors to Shame Them Into Voting in Recall
[Edited to close open html tag; no changes made to text. -- Editor.]
WW wrote:
If her story is true, you’d be right. But, quite frankly, I don’t believe it is true. If it were true, she should have come out months ago, if not during the 2010 election, and provide the time to get the story verified. By holding onto it until two days before the election, by trying to make it an
OctoberJune surprise, she made it unverifiable.Scott Walker is a public figure, facing an important election: it is wholly irresponsible — at best — to have that kind of information, and deliberately hold onto it until two days before the election. She has turned a story that even if true, into an unbelievable smear.
The woman who related the story is (supposedly) a college professor now; she cannot not know about evidence and verification. She had to know that her story, released when it was, couldn’t be either verified or refuted before the election.
Bummer. Democrat’s Walker Love Child Story Falls Apart… In About an Hour.
Koolo’s link, which goes to the honest and truthful Conservative site Gateway Pundit, links The Lost Kos for its source of investigative journalism. That’s right, boys and girls, a reporter did his due diligence and posted it at The Lost Kos! The Lost Kos debunked its own dishonest myth.
The “love child’s” mother declared Governor Walker is not the baby daddy. And did so after the story came out that he was. And it only took about an hour of honest work to debunk the desperate Democrat/Union lies about Walker (which were distractions from the truth: Walker’s work took WI out of red ink and into stability, while reducing WI taxes and providing the biggest improvement in economic forecast of any of the 57 states).
For those who decline to click on Koolo’s link, and you know who you are, here’s the money quote: (bold added)
Thus does extremist Perry smear his political enemies. And “Enemy” is the operant term, contrary to his claims of wanting “Compromise” and of “Bridging the Gap”, extremist Perry wants nothing less than Total War on Republicans, even to the point of using discredited sex smears against them.
Of COURSE it rings true to you, you political extremist! If some kook reported that Walker sacrificed virgins at midnight while drinking their blood, you’d believe that too. That’s because you’re a political extremist motivated by hate for any Republican.
WW wrote:
Assuming for the sake of argument that the woman making the charge actually believed it, why would her emotional motivation not have occurred earlier than two days before the recall, or even before Mr walker’s election in 2010?
It’s easy enough to see: just substitute Barack Obama for Scott Walker, and you’d have been denouncing this as an unverifiable clap-trap story designed to deny Mr Obama re-election.
Mr Hitchcock wrote:
And that raises yet another point. Dr Bernadette Gillick, a 2010 nominee for the National Institute of Health’s Early Investigator Award, allowed a story which bore no investigative traits at all, to be presented in a manner which allowed for very little time for investigation and corroboration, or debunking, before the recall election of the man she slandered, and violated the privacy of her former roommate and her family.
If Scott Walker was the biological father of “Ruth’s” child, and “Ruth” had wanted that information made public, it should have been up to “Ruth” herself, not a one-year roommate from her freshman year in college. That “Ruth” chose not to make such public means that either Dr Gillick’s story is not true, or, if it is true, “Ruth” was choosing to keep the matter private. In either case, Dr Gillick is in the wrong.