Shame on Big Labor Bosses! For years they have used the tactic of “shame” in an effort to pressure, bully and demonize employers who might stand against their efforts. They have used “shame” in their efforts to misinform the public – to create a misperception that their target is guilty of an unconscionable act and should bear the scarlet letter of these acts. These attacks have been not just against the targeted employer, but against anyone who might oppose them, including the employer’s customers and advertisers, non-union employees, even their own membership if it suits their purposes. Recently, Big Labor has taken the weapon of “shame” to the political arena, both in Wisconsin and now in Indiana.

“Shame” was the word of the day when the SEIU ran one of its Corporate Campaigns against EMS across the Midwest in 2005-2007. The Big Labor bosses never shirked from using the phrase to intimidate loyal EMS employees and customers as they attempted to cross SEIU picket lines. With banners in hand they would publicly attack EMS with incorrect statements and half-truths.

“Shame” was on display constantly last year when Big Labor bosses poured millions of dollars and thousands of foot soldiers into Madison, Wisconsin in an attempt to intimidate Governor Walker and the General Assembly into withdrawing the needed measures to restore fiscal responsibility to a state deeply in debt (see America at a Crossroads! As Wisconsin Goes, So Goes America!). Now, as we approach The Most Important Non-Presidential Election of the Decade, Big Labor bosses are at it again, attempting to “shame” the electorate into replacing Governor Walker via a recall election and then reversing the bills that have arguably put Wisconsin on a path to solvency.

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Obviously, the American Conservative Union (ACU) didn’t get the memo. After all, Governor Palin is irrelevant, donchaknow. At least that’s what the mainstream media told me, and the mainstream media never lies.

Was that the sound of Katie Couric’s head exploding I just heard … from the set of the old Geraldo show?

The other news is that this will be the Governor’s first ever appearance at the annual three-day DC gathering of thousands of grassroots conservatives from all over the country, and the timing couldn’t be better. ACU Chairman Al Cardenas sums up why perfectly in today’s announcement:

“Few national conservative leaders in America today energize and inspire our grassroots activists like Governor Sarah Palin. Her strong record of leadership, championing of our shared principles and magnetic personality have made Sarah Palin a hero to millions of conservatives across the country.”

It would be hard to argue that the Governor’s tireless championing of the Tea Party movement combined with her presence on the campaign trail didn’t have an energizing effect on the turnout that helped to deliver the GOP’s record gains in the crucial 2010 mid-terms. No one doubts that we’re going to need that energy again in 2012 — and then some. February 9 – 12 at CPAC is where so much will begin and Governor Palin is an excellent choice to close the conference and send the grassroots home fired up and ready to go to work.

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Four of the six Republican State Senators up for recall elections in Wisconsin won on Tuesday, thwarting Democratic efforts to gain control of the State Senate.

MacIver News’ Bill Osmulski reports from Milwaukee

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of Governor Scott Walker and the state’s legislators who passed the controversial union law that captivated the nation last February and March. Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi previously ruled that the Legislature violated the state’s open meetings law in approving the bill. The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Judge Sumi’s decision, ruling she had no authority to interfere with the legislative process. But this matter is about much more than a controversial state-level law and its meanderings through the court process. The original law itself, and its ultimate victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, has everything to do with elections.

In 2010, millions of Americans went to the ballot box and handed Democrats across the country election defeats at all levels. The GOP took control of the U.S. House of Representatives, won 29 gubernatorial elections, and established Republican majorities in several state legislatures. Exasperated with out-of-control spending and busted budgets, among other reasons, people wanted a change. The 2010 elections gave the GOP the mandate to effect change from the top down and laterally across the states.

In early 2011, Gov Scott Walker lived up to his campaign promise of pushing for legislation that would finally slow down the public sector union gravy train and empower local governments to negotiate with unions.  We all know the results: tens of thousands of well-organized protestors and union thugs descended on Madison while a dozen or so Democratic lawmakers fled the scene of the crime to stall the legislative process. The law passed in March, and it was quickly struck down by a County Judge.

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For months the public employee unions have been orchestrating daily events in Madison to keep the media attention on their battle with Wisconsin Governror Scott Walker (check out #wiunion on twitter). You’ve seen the Entitledtown tent city, you know about the marches, the sing-a-longs and the other stunts. Well, on Wednesday the stunt of the day was supposed to be having students dress up like zombies and hold a ‘die in’ at the Capitol. Before that happened however, these pro-union protesters picketed and disrupted the Governor’s appearance at a Special Olympics ceremony.

Words escape me.

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[Madison, Wisc...]  At a hearing Monday morning, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board certified the recall petitions for Senators Olsen, Kapanke, and Hopper.

Some insiders consider these three Senators to be the most vulnerable in a recall election.

At the hearing legal counsel for the three Republican Senators stated the petitions were not valid. The lawyers argued that the individual who signed the statement of intent to recall should also be the person who filed the official recall committee registration paperwork. GAB rejected that argument.

The counsel also attempted to challenge a number of signatures on the petitions.  They argued some of the signatures were duplicates, did not include an address, or were added after the deadline on May 2^nd. However, even had GAB tossed all those signatures, there would still have been enough to certify the petitions.

Now that the petitions have been certified, GAB will file the petitions between May31st and June 3^rd. GAB will also hold a hearing on six more recall petitions on May 31^st.  Those involve Republic Senators Cowles, Darling, and Harsdorf, and Democrat Senators Holperin, Hansen and Wirch.

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If you want to take a pulse on the political vibe in this country, one need only look at Wisconsin.  The state has become the barometer for judging not just the public’s appetite for political battle, but the competitive landscape as well.  The spotlight on anything that has six degrees of separation from a Koch brother has been great drama for Wisconsin’s ongoing soap opera, but audiences in the state and nationwide might get a better show by turning their attention leftward.  Few have examined the strange pattern of money and favor trading that’s been pervading Wisconsin’s beloved circle of progressive politics.

The activity in Wisconsin over the last few months becomes crucially pertinent as the state gears up for the 2012 Wisconsin Senate race.  It’s worth looking at the financial innards  of the Supreme Court race and the protests against Governor Scott Walker in order to assess what the fight for the Wisconsin Senate seat, soon to be vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Herb Kohl, will look like.  What many don’t realize is that this race could have broader implications – not just in national politics, but in specific policy areas, like health care and your personal medical records, for example.  Lots of money, fueled by liberal business interests and an ever-growing progressive movement in Wisconsin, has already been freely flowing.

But is anyone watching? Who are some of these donors?

Let’s start by looking back at the recent Wisconsin protests and the Supreme Court election, and then dissecting some of the money trail.

The hostility stemmed from the union reform bill signed by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on March 11^th as a stand-alone portion of the overall budget repair bill.

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From WTMJ, Wisconsin:

The AFL-CIO is cutting ties to people who do business with Governor Scott Walker.  On Thursday, the union withdrew more than $100,000 from M&I Bank.  Union leaders are upset bank executives contributed to Governor Walker’s election campaign.

Wisconsin is the birthplace of American public-sector unionism. In the 1930s the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) first organized in Madison. How ironic then that Wisconsin may also be the burial ground for public-sector unionism. Governor Scott Walker and the state legislature confront implacable and intractable union opposition as they struggle to bring Wisconsin’s finances under control. The Badger State has become ground zero in the battle between unions intent on expanding their health and pension plans and state governments determined to avoid bankruptcy.

In 1932, a small group of Wisconsin state workers organized in depression-stricken Madison to “promote, defend and enhance the civil service system,” and to spread the gospel of civil service throughout the country. Their creation, the Wisconsin State Employees Union/Council 24, was soon rechristened the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and in 1936 it received a charter from the American Federation of Labor (AFL):  Public-sector unionism was born.

Times are not as tough these days as they were back in the 1930s, but Wisconsin in 2011 is nonetheless in dire fiscal shape, facing an immediate $136 million deficit and a projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall over the next two years. (Wisconsin has a lot of company: forty-four states and the District of Columbia face shortfalls of $125 billion for fiscal year 2012, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.)  Simply put, the costs of governing Wisconsin are unsustainable, and one of the primary reasons, according to Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, is the cost of state employee health plans, which have risen 90 percent since 2002.Page 2 Labor (more…)

Apparently, the Big Labor-related death threats aren’t limited to Wisconsin.  Or to lawmakers.

This following email is just in from our friends at The Mackinac Center for Public Policy:

<start email>

“The Mackinac Center for Public Policy received numerous death threats and bomb threats in the aftermath of national publicity about a Freedom of Information Act request it sent to three public universities.

The messages were left on the Center’s voice mail Thursday night and early Friday morning, but it is unclear at this point if one or two women were responsible for the threats.

Mackinac Center President Joseph Lehman said the Mackinac Center has contacted law enforcement about the threats.

“We, along with the authorities, are doing everything necessary to protect ourselves,” Lehman said. “No threats will prevent us from showing the public how universities spend tax dollars.”

There were five messages left containing death or bomb threats. Four of them appear to be from the same caller. A fifth message was from a woman who left a death threat and, unlike the previous caller, left her name and indicated she lived in a neighboring state. It was unclear if the second caller was the same as the first caller.

A female voice said:

“Scotty Walker is dead. So are you. We know where you live.” The woman then recited the Mackinac Center’s address and said, “We are coming up to destroy you.”

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One of the big unspoken fights in Wisconsin over these past few weeks has been Scott Walker’s proposal for the state to stop collecting union dues for the unions. The other has been to make paying union dues voluntary, as opposed to requiring payment as a condition of employment. To unions, that is like cutting their oxygen off. Unions cannot survive without the millions they pull in from workers and, if they had their druthers, union bosses would rather see workers fired than have them refuse to pay union dues.

Generally speaking, there are three ways for unions to collect union dues. The first is that union bosses can chase their members down on payday with their hands out; the second is that members can send the union its dues (or pay it in person); and, the third is that unions can convince employers to withhold the union dues from the members’ paychecks (employers then send the money to the unions). In this last case, which known as “dues check off,” employers becomes the unions’ dues collection agency. It is very common and, of course, union bosses love not having to spend the resources going to collect their own dues.

Well, earlier today, the Florida State House voted to stop the state from being unions’ dues collection agency. (more…)

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and legislative Republicans say Senate Democrats, led by Mark Miller of Monona, are being ridiculous and not honest with them or the public. Walker blames Senator Miller for the stalemate over the budget repair bill and suggests that the 14 Democrat senators remain in Illinois at the request of national labor union officials.

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Public school teachers are at the forefront of protests against state budget cuts and restrictions on collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Ohio, and elsewhere.

Teachers have a lot to lose. According to Department of Education statistics, in 2007-2008 (the latest year available), full-time public school teachers across the country made an average of $53,230 in “total school-year and summer earned income.” That compares favorably to the $39,690 that private school teachers pulled down.

And when it comes to retirement benefits, public school teachers do better than average too.According to EducationNext, government employer contribute the equivalent of 14.6 percent of salary to retirement benefits for public school teachers. That compares to 10.4 for private-sector professionals.

Those levels of compensation help explain why per-pupil school costs have risen substantially over the past 50 years. In 1960-61, public schools spent $2,769 per student, a figure that now totals over $10,000 in real, inflation-adjusted dollars. Among the things that threefold-plus increase in spending has purchased are more teachers per student. In 1960, the student-teacher ratio in public schools was 25.8; it’s now at a historic low of 15.

Among the things all that money hasn’t bought? Parental satisfaction, for one. Despite public teachers’ much-higher salaries, parents with school-age children in public schools report substantially lower satisfaction rates than parents with children in private schools. In 2007, the percentage of parents with children in assigned public schools who were “very satisfied” with the institution was 52 percent. For parents whose children attended public schools of choice, that figure rose to 62 percent. Parents sending their children to private schools, whether religious or non-sectarian, were “very satisfied” 79 percent of the time.

It’s little wonder that parents with little or no choice report the lowest-levels of satisfaction (about 90 percent of K-12 students attend public schools). Despite all the extra resources devoted to public school teachers and students, student achievement has been absolutely flat over the past 40 years. The National Assessment of Educational Progress is “the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas.” When it comes to 17-year-old students (effectively, high-school seniors), nothing has changed since reporting began in the early 1970s. In 1971, 17-year-old students averaged 285 points (out of 500) in reading. In 2008, that had risen to 286. For math in 1973, the average score was 304 (out of 500). In 2008, it was 306.

Public school teachers make about $14,000 a year more in straight salary than private school teachers; when you add in benefits, the gap widens even more. They teach fewer students than ever before and taxpayers at all levels spend increasing amounts of money on education. Yet for all that, the best you can say is that we’re spending more than three times as much money as we were 40 years ago for exactly the same outcomes.

The National Governors Association says that states are looking at $175 billion in shortfalls over the next two years. Local governments are in the red too. As legislators look for places to cut or reduce spending, there’s no question that public school teachers have a lot to lose in terms of compensation.

And there’s no question that, even if there were no budget emergencies, the nation’s public school system is failing to return much of anything on an ever-growing pile of tax dollars.

“To Surly, With Love” was written and produced by Nick Gillespie and Meredith Bragg. Go toReason.tv for downloadable versions of all our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

“If there are doctors and teachers doing that sort of thing, abusing the system, that’s outrageous.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker

Governor, you are absolutely correct. Sadly, it’s not a question of “if”, but rather, HOW MANY?

Dr. Adam B. is one of twelve Wisconsin doctors who have been accused of or have admitted to such actions. How do I know? Not only did he sign his name and medical license number to a form which allowed me to miss the work week of 2/21 to 2/25, he even helped me come up with a sickness and explained why I wouldn’t get in trouble. There was one problem: I used a false name, birth date and willingly acknowledged I wasn’t sick. He didn’t care about the truth, however. He had a political agenda.

I am not an investigative journalist in the mold of James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles. It’s just not my thing. I don’t even own a camera…

So how did I end up on the corner of Mifflin and Hamilton playing the role of an elementary school custodian looking to join the “sick” teachers in protest?

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Administration officials estimate that securtiy costs for the first two weeks of the protests could be as high as five milliion dollars.

Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch announced that figure when testifying in a court hearing Wednesday. Union leaders have gone to court to force the state to remove the securitiy measures put in place this week.

The $5 million figure is for the period before enhanced security measures were established this week–measures that have been of little help to lawmakers like Senator Grothman, who speaks from experience when talking about the unruliness of the protesters.

It’s nearing two weeks since unions and their cohorts on the Left have thrown a nationwide fit over Scott Walker’s solution to what is ailing Wisconsin. Unions and Democrats have made Wisconsin their cause célèbre by deploying OFA astroturf, the big talking heads, as well as recruiting just about every known Grateful Dead concert attendee on their mailing lists into Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Democratic state senators (now humorously known as fleebaggers) comically continue to hold the state hostage over an issue of union power, politics and money—nothing more and nothing less.

Despite unions’ long hatred of Scott Walker, the new governor is moving to address both the symptoms of the disease and the disease itself—the public-sector union scheme that has molested Wisconsin’s taxpayers and their children by gaming the system. Unions like Wisconsin’s teachers’ union [WEAC] (which was Wisconsin’s biggest-spending lobby in 2009) have been extraordinarily adept at fixing the system through spending millions to elect politicians who, in turn, reward the unions at the expense of the taxpayers.

Now, in response to Walker’s proposals, the Left has gone overboard in their attempt to protect their stranglehold on Wisconsin taxpayers. Even though unions have made clear that their fight is not about their wages or benefits (they’ve offered concessions), they’ve made the fight all about their “right to be unionized” and the fictitious right to “collective bargaining”—which makes their cause even more despotic.

In making Madison into something reminiscent of the spectacle of the 1960s, unions, Democrats and their liberal cohorts are attempting to make the Wisconsin union battle into a civil rights battle, when it is not.  In fact, the Wisconsin fight, when compared to private-sector negotiations is about: 1) the Scope of Bargaining, 2) Union “Income” Security [Right-to-Work vs. Forced Dues], 3) whether Wisconsin should be the unions’ dues collection agency [payroll deduction of dues], and 4) whether public-sector unions should be ‘recertified’ by holding elections every year.

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Long before Gov. Scott Walker watched Democrats flee Wisconsin last week, a similar scenario played out in Texas when another first-term governor faced a contentious political debate.

In 2003, Gov. Rick Perry was only beginning to make his mark on the Lone Star State. Eight years later, the experience gives him a unique perspective on Walker’s situation. During an interview Friday in Washington, D.C., Perry had nothing nice to say about the 14 Wisconsin senators who ran for Illinois to prevent a quorum in the state Senate.

“Instead of respecting the democratic process, they run off and somehow or another think that’s going to be productive,” Perry said. “I don’t think it is. I think people, they look at this like, you know, the kid who takes his ball. I can’t win, I can’t play, then nobody else is going to.”

He added: “That is immature, is juvenile and at the end of the day, I’ll betcha the folks of Wisconsin, they punish those senators rather than heralding them as heroes.”

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