"In the private sector, the capitalist knows that when he negotiates with the union, if he gives away the store, he loses his shirt."

"In the public sector, the politicians who approve any deal have none of their own money at stake. On the contrary, the more favorably they dispose of union demands, the more likely they are to be the beneficiary of union largess in the next election. It's the perfect cozy setup... Recognizing this threat to union power, the Democratic Party is pouring money and fury into the fight. Fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers are unionized. The Democrats' strength lies in government workers, who now constitute a majority of union members and provide massive support to the party. For them, Wisconsin represents a dangerous contagion."

Charles Krauthammer.

Did Scott Walker create Wisconsin's budget crisis as a means to the end of cutting the public unions' collective bargaining rights?

That's what the NYT thinks:

Just last month, [Gov. Walker] and the [Wisconsin] Legislature gave away $117 million in tax breaks, mostly for businesses that expand and for private health savings accounts. That was a choice lawmakers made, and had it not been for those decisions and a few others, according to the state’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state would have had a surplus.

Wisconsin is certainly not as bad off as California, Illinois, and several northeastern states that are making tough budgetary decisions without trying to eliminate union rights. Nonetheless, the union-busting movement is picking up steam, with lawmakers in Ohio, Indiana, and several other states. 

It really is odd that Wisconsin became ground zero, because we didn't have the budget disaster that was going on conspicuously in some of the other states. I'm really trying to understand this. Why Wisconsin? A distinctive thing about us is how good our public employees' benefits are. The cut we — I'm one of them — are being asked to take is severe. (I'm looking at a loss of more than $10,000 a year, myself.) But it's hard to complain and appear sympathetic, because we're only being asked to go from paying 0.2% of the payments our salary into our pension fund to 5.8%, which probably looks astoundingly low to outsiders. We're being asked to pay more for our health insurance, but the coverage is extremely good, and the annual hit will be about $2,500.

So maybe we public employees in Wisconsin are a great target — a great starting place for what is a national movement by the Republicans. I'm trying to understand the party politics. Tell me if this is correct: There are vast numbers of public employees, who vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Once elected, the Democrats create more and more public jobs with greater and greater benefits, and, consequently, more voters who are even more locked into voting for Democrats. This is a cycle that approaches political graft, and the Republicans, to win, must overcome all those passionate, self-interested Democratic voters. Why wouldn't the Republicans embrace a strategy hostile to the public employees? Why wouldn't they drive a wedge between the public employees and all the other citizens in the state?

So I see 3 questions: 1. Is this what the Republicans are really doing? 2. How good a political strategy is it? and 3. Is it a good idea to reduce the political and economic power of public employees?

The 3 questions are interrelated, but they should contemplated separately... but who is capable of doing that? I'm trying to be fair, and it's possible that I'm in as good a position as anybody. I voted for Walker and support many of the things the Republicans are trying to do, but this budget plan — as I said — will cost me more than $10,000 a year.

With the end of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," where will the gay rights movement go?

The New York Times reports on a Media Matters project called Equality Matters.

It will be run by Richard Socarides, a former domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton who has been deeply critical of President Obama’s record on gay rights. A well-known gay journalist, Kerry Eleveld, the Washington correspondent for The Advocate, will leave that magazine in January to edit the new group’s Web site, equalitymatters.org, which is to go online Monday morning.

“Yesterday was a very important breakthrough,” Mr. Socarides said... “But we will celebrate this important victory for five minutes, and then we have to move on, because we are the last group of Americans who are discriminated against in federal law and there is a lot of work to do.”

Yes, there's the obvious issue of marriage, and one might want a federal statute forbidding employment discrimination.  All right. Fine. But let's look a little farther into the future and think about the political repercussions. What would happen to the gay rights movement if the specific discrimination ended and ordinary legal equality were achieved?

Right now, gay people look to the Democratic Party (and to judges appointed by Democratic Presidents) to get these basic rights. The Democratic Party gets a political advantage by looking like a repository of hope. But would gay people continue to favor Democrats if the Democrats actually followed through and satisfied those hopes? There'd be some gratefulness, but — unless Republicans succumb to the temptation to say mean things — wouldn't gay people melt into the general population and, from that point on, vote based on what they thought about economic policies, national defense, environmental issues and so forth? Achieving equality would liberate gay people in may ways, but one of those ways would be that they could vote for Republicans if they agreed with them about issues other than gay rights issues.

Ironic, no?

"A vote of not much confidence in Nancy Pelosi."

Dana Milbank highlights the negativity:

The first rebuke of Pelosi by her colleagues came Tuesday, when Democratic dissidents forced a six-hour caucus meeting to vent their frustrations. The next blow came Wednesday, when the dissidents forced a secret ballot on whether to postpone a vote on Pelosi - and then won a larger-than-expected 68 votes. That essentially meant a vote of no-confidence in Pelosi by 35 percent of the incoming Democratic caucus.

And in yet another rebuke of the fallen speaker, 43 Democrats voted for her symbolic challenger, moderate Heath Shuler (N.C.) - even though few regarded Shuler as a qualified candidate and only a couple dozen of Shuler's colleagues in the moderate Blue Dog Coalition could vote....

[A]s the closed-door session dragged on, the soon-to-be-minority lawmakers grew restless. Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.), taking a break from the proceedings, told reporters that his colleagues were delayed because "they're having trouble spelling 'Murkowski' "...

LOL.

The face of the Democratic Party puts on a brave face:



"They know her will! Most important, they know her heart! And that was what was felt today: the heartfelt feeling of this caucus behind this great leader!"

I love that quote, from Rep. John Larson. Will, I mean HEART. Heart! Heart! Heart! That's so deeply symbolic of everything the House Democrats have been up to these last few years.

"President Barack Obama took steps on Wednesday to force a Senate vote on legislation that would begin to dismantle the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy..."

"... banning openly gay service members during the ongoing lame-duck legislative session, hosting a second White House strategy session with gay rights advocates and personally lobbying a key lawmaker who favors repeal of the ban."

I been worrying about the mischief the Democrats might make in the lame-duck session, but if this is the one they choose, I will be happy.

Why do the Dems win all the close races nowadays? It's uncanny!

"Am I crazy to think that close elections—the ones that are separated by a mere hundreds of votes, that go into overtime and threatened recounts well past Election Eve—almost always are won by the Democrat these days?"

"But the ousting of a wide swath of Democratic women Nov. 2 would chip away at a generation of female politicians inspired by the 1992 election..."

"... which saw a surge of Democratic women inspired to break up the boys’ club of Congress after Anita Hill’s testimony in then-Judge Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings the previous year."

Will you shed a tear for the departure of that generation of women politicians? What did they do, what did they change, and what will we think about women — what will the press say about women — when the women in politics are — gasp! — Republicans?

A question about the assumption that if more young people voted there would be more votes for Democrats.

I'm reading this in the Fiscal Times:

A CBSNews/New York Times poll conducted in mid-September found that only half the 18-29 year olds are registered to vote and just 55 percent of them say they will definitely vote in 2010. Moreover, a mere 15 percent of young people say they are paying “a lot of attention” to the election. By comparison, 84 percent of voters over 64 say they will definitely vote, and 50 percent say they are paying a lot of attention to the election.

Whereas young people favor Democrats by as much as 10 to 20 percentage points in most polls, among seniors, the most reliable of voters, Republicans hold an 11 point advantage over the Democrats.

One is tempted to think that if only more young people would vote, the Democrats would have it made. But the young people who say they favor Democrats also aren't paying attention. They have to get interested before they'll be motivated to vote, and we don't know what they'd think after they paid attention.

It's not surprising that young people who are floating along on the political periphery will say "Democrat" when asked which party they favor. What have they been paying attention to? Their teachers? Their friends? Presumably a lot of young people are for the good things the Democrats are supposed to be for. And so many nice celebrities seem to be Democrats. And there are those friends who go cold and sneer at the suggestion that anyone is an evil Republican.

When you're young, usually you want to get along. You want to be liked. But do you care about politics? Do you really know who to vote for? Apparently not, or you'd vote.

Now, if these young people got around to paying attention and studying the issues to the point where they really were interested and motivated to vote, would they still be Democrats? Would they still be young?

"If we learned anything tonight it's that New Yorkers are as mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore."

Said Carl Paladino. And if they don't feel quite so mad, they can have good old Andrew Cuomo as their governor.

Regardless of whether Paladino can pull off another upset, his victory Tuesday night served as a wakeup call to the state's Republican establishment.

"The old party leaders can do one of two things," he told reporters after his victory speech. "They can do what the people want - or they can quit."

Meanwhile, in Delaware, Christine O'Donnell is hearing that the National Republican Senatorial Committee isn't going to fund her campaign, because she's not sufficiently competitive with the Democrat, even though she just smashed Republican Party regular Mike Castle.

The story today is the complacency of established Republicans who imagined they could waltz in and take over after people got horrifically sick of Democrats. As if there were nowhere else to go. And maybe there isn't. (Are Paladino and O'Donnell suitable heirs to the immense power Democrats have been abusing?) But that doesn't make the Republicans any more enticing.

When you have to break up with your abusive, hot boyfriend, it's not as if you want to go out with the dweeb you wouldn't be seen with before. Or... no. That's a terrible analogy, because politics should not be that emotional or that big a part of our lives. The Tea Party seems to embody anger at government, but its candidates need to be serious and competent now.

The DNC uses George "can't get fooled again" Bush in its first 2010 TV ad.

Check it out.

How did you react to seeing George Bush in that ad?
	It gave real bite to the message that we must not go back to the past.
	If only Bush could pull us back to that past, which might have been bad, but not this bad.
	It distracted me from my dislike of Obama, because, man, do I hate Bush.
	Ah! George Bush! I really miss that guy.
	I pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday.
pollcode.com free polls

UPDATE: The DNC pulled its ad, so the embedded video above no longer works. But things don't die so easily on the web. Watch it here:

"Ann -- For weeks, Republicans have been tripping over each other as they rush to defend BP."

Emails Brad Woodhouse, the Communications Director, the Democratic National Committee

They've apologized to the oil giant, accused the President of a shakedown, and called for deregulation of the oil and gas industry. It's as if they've forgotten that they have a responsibility to the people of the Gulf who've seen their lives and livelihoods upended by this tragedy.

We've put together a site to help get the story out and show in a very pointed way exactly how Republicans are standing with BP. Will you check it out and share it with five friends?

Sure. I'll share it with 1,000 friends. Because I like to do things in a very pointed way.

While the site we've created is a parody, this isn't a laughing matter....

Don't worry. I've looked at the site, and I'm not laughing.

The NYT says Democratic governors "voiced deep anxiety" about Obama's lawsuit against Arizona.

When the lawsuit was filed, my main question was whether it would serve the political interests of the Democratic Party:

Assuming it's not legally ridiculous, is it politically wise? To make it work legally, won't [the Obama administration] have to own pathetically weak enforcement as a deliberate and important policy? Won't they have to be very clear that Arizona must shut up and accept the current situation? Who will get better political leverage out of this lawsuit — those who favor stronger enforcement of immigration law or those who favor leniency?

Now, it seems the Democratic governors are answering my question:

While the weak economy dominated the official agenda at the summer meeting here of the National Governors Association, concern over immigration policy pervaded the closed-door session between Democratic governors and White House officials and simmered throughout the three-day event.

At the Democrats’ meeting on Saturday, some governors bemoaned the timing of the Justice Department lawsuit, according to two governors who spoke anonymously because the discussion was private.

“Universally the governors are saying, ‘We’ve got to talk about jobs,’ ” Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat, said in an interview. “And all of a sudden we have immigration going on.”

He added, “It is such a toxic subject, such an important time for Democrats.”

Did the NYT use the word "anonymously" as some kind of anti-Bredesen joke? He's such a nonentity! Or were there 2 other governors who were ass-cover-y enough to demand anonymity as they breached the privacy understanding, and the NYT mentioned them just before quoting Bredesen to make Bredesen look indiscreet/bold? Or — this is awkward but most likely — were the 2 anonymous governors the ones who revealed that there was a lot of anxiety and simmering at the private meeting, and Bredesen's quote, technically, doesn't refer to the meeting. It's just his direct expression of the anxiety that was also expressed at the meeting.

(The Althouse blog, making reading the New York Times more annoying than it would be if you slogged though it alone. That's how I try to help — by heightening annoyingness. I hope you enjoy the pain.)

Meanwhile:

The lawsuit contends that controlling immigration is a federal responsibility, but polls suggest that a majority of Americans support the Arizona law, or at least the concept of a state having a strong role in immigration enforcement.

Republican governors at the Boston meeting were also critical of the lawsuit, saying it infringed on states’ rights and rallying around [Arizona Governor Jan] Brewer, whose presence spurred a raucous protest around the downtown hotel where the governors gathered.

They had to throw in that "raucous protest," didn't they? Was it, like, one guy? Because I notice there isn't a word about the size of the protest. Yet the polls only "suggest that a majority of Americans support the Arizona law." Why "suggest"? The polls I've seen show strong support for the law. Perhaps even raucous support.

“I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that almost every state in America next January is going to see a bill similar to Arizona’s,” said Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska, a Republican seeking re-election.

But the unease of Democratic governors, seven of whom are seeking re-election this year, was more striking.

“I might have chosen both a different tack and a different time,” said Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, a Democrat who was facing a tough fight for re-election and pulled out of the race earlier this year. “This is an issue that divides us politically, and I’m hopeful that their strategy doesn’t do that in a way that makes it more difficult for candidates to get elected, particularly in the West.”

Oh, shut up, Bill. The West... get over yourself. The proper term is "some of those states in the middle."

The White House would not directly respond to reports of complaints from some Democratic governors.

Indirectly, however, the answer is, as noted, shut up.

"Finally, Mississippi and Alabama get a room!"

Ha.

And: "Panhandle Alert." The epidemic spreads.

There's nothing Wisconsin-related in those New Yorker cartoons about state maps. I remember seeing a hand-drawn cartoon in that State Street liquor store window that used to be full of funny signs. It had a map of Wisconsin and writing that said something like: "The Upper Pennisula! WTF? Did we lose a war or something?" That was many years ago. It still makes me laugh. I mean look at the map:



That is ours, baby. It's like that mitten is reaching up there an yanking off our manhood. And speaking of manhood, I think, if we had that peninsula that is rightfully ours, the politics of Wisconsin might shift from Mommy Party to Daddy Party.

Do we have to talk about Alvin Greene?

You know if this had happened to the GOP, liberals would have a feloniously obscene orgy of mockery.

"When we have a terrorist attack, the Democrats always ask, 'What did we do to provoke it? Why do they hate us?'"

"Have you heard, any of them, ask the same for something they've imposed on us?  Have you heard the Democrats once ask, 'Why are they mad at us?  We need to understand their rage!'  We have to understand the rage of people who killed 3,000 Americans in terrorist incidents.  We're told, 'We have to understand the people in this country, minorities and whoever else, unhappy with whatever.  We gotta understand their rage. We have to expect it. We have to allow for it.'  Well, how come the anger that we feel, the Democrats aren't interested in understanding?  Why do they not ask, 'Why are they so mad?'" 

***

The Democrats immediately shifted into the theory that anger over the bill is simply not allowed. They merged that anger with actual violence, and they took whatever reports and threats of violence they could find and, in turn, merged them with the anger over the bill.

***

Can we identify neutral principles about anger and violence? How much free expression of anger do we accept in our opponents? When will we listen to it as part of a valuable debate? When do we stigmatize it as part of a system of violence? If the answer to the last question is whenever it serves our political interests to do so, then we are making propaganda.

Real problems of violence against members of Congress or self-victimization for the purpose of political argument.

I'm seeing all these stories about threats to members of Congress and wondering what to make of it. An unpopular bill was passed, and the protests continue. Obviously, those who voted for the bill would like to shut up the criticism and delegitimitize the political movement against them. For the last year, we've seen opposition to the bill portrayed as irrational anger, and this new theme sounds like more of the same.

Here's Politico reporting:

The threats against members of Congress who voted for health care reform have turned from a nuisance to a serious law enforcement issue, increasing security concerns as lawmakers prepare to head home for spring recess.

That's the lead paragraph. Let's see what turned the "nuisance" into a "serious law enforcement issue."

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Capitol Police and the House sergeant at arms on Wednesday were brought into a closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting, during which lawmakers expressed fear for their safety and the safety of their families.

So Democrats held a meeting, the press was excluded, and high-level security personnel came in to hear expressions of their fear. Is this political theater or something more substantial?

The Capitol Police, according to several in the caucus meeting, encouraged members to report any incidents to the department. They also offered security assessments of district offices and even members’ homes.

That is an unremarkable answer that police would give to anyone who expressed a nonspecific fear of violence. It's not the police alerting members of Congress based on something they have learned.

One Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Phil Hare of Illinois, said he knows several Democrats who have told their spouses to move out of the home districts while the lawmakers are in Washington.

“If this doesn’t get under control in short time, heaven forbid, someone will get hurt,” Hare said.

If what doesn't get under control?!

And House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland told reporters after a caucus meeting that members who feel in danger would “get attention from the proper authorities.”

I get it. Some of them feel afraid. And if anything actually happens, like anybody else, they'll be able to call the police. What is the story here?

Hare is holding eight town hall meetings in his district over the recess and requested that the Capitol Police coordinate with his local police department to provide security. His wife has pleaded with him to cancel the events.

He doesn't want to hear the anger. This looks like a trumped-up excuse to cancel the town halls.

“My wife is home alone, and I’m worried for her,” he said. “I am about to have my first grandchild. I don’t want to have to be worried.”

Ah, but you were so brave to vote for the bill. To be fair, the bill was passed to help women and children, and Hare would like to continue his beneficence to women and children by not having to account for himself to the people.

Incidents are sprouting up all over the country.

What are the incidents?

The gas lines were cut at the house of Virginia Democratic Rep. Thomas Perriello’s brother, near Charlottesville, Va., prompting an FBI investigation. Local police are making routine checks of the home. A tea party activist from southern Virginia posted online the address of Perriello’s brother, thinking it was the lawmaker’s.

I really want to know the details about this one. Who did it and why? Let me see the photographs. I want to know all about it. I don't like the home addresses being posted on line, and I don't like even peaceful protests at any individual's house. I can see why you'd be upset that your address is known. But anyone could commit an act of vandalism (including dirty tricksters on the Democrat's side). Is the press following up about what, exactly, happened? Or are they complacently passing this story on to be used to propagate the violence meme?

The only other "incident" cited in the article was a "brick... thrown through the window of the Democratic Party’s Cincinnati office." Did anyone see who did it? Was a note attached? Who did it and why? Again, this can be a dirty trick by someone on the Democrats' side.

Clearly, those who are angry about the bill should limit themselves to speech and apply pressure to others in their movement not to cross the line into any kind of violence or damage to property. Any incident of that kind will be greatly magnified in the press and used to undermine the movement. But we should all be vigilant about the way the Democrats and their friends in the press are leveraging these stories for political purposes, exaggerating and failing to check facts. We should closely monitor the journalism, the rhetoric, and the leaps of logic. Hare's remark "If this doesn’t get under control" has a chilling generality to it. Dissent and protest should not "get under control." It should be free.

UPDATE: House Republican Whip Eric Cantor criticizes Democrats for using reports of violence for political purposes. At the same time, he throws out a story about a bullet hitting a window at his campaign office. Is he doing the same thing he's criticizing others for doing? Perhaps, to some extent, but he doesn't make any insinuation about who did it. His point is that violence is serious, but it's random and somehow separate from the real political debate and should be dealt with in a neutral way, not exploited to make rhetorical points.

The Hispanic rebellion.

Why not? When health care reform hangs on every single vote, why shouldn't every single Congressperson perk up and call attention to what he/she wants? Once there's a breach in the wall of silent cooperation, it's every congressperson for him/herself in the dash for individual goodies.

Is it okay if I stand back and watch... or heckle with stuff like: Don't you know 100 human beings are dying every day because of you?

"Democratic insiders... said Massa hired a surprisingly large percentage of young gay men, and paid them so little that staffers were forced to live in the house with him."

"It's like he had people trapped."

The Democrats eat their own.

"The Democrats are giving birth to every movie monster you have ever seen, from Freddy Krueger to... Hell, I can't remember them all."

"Every movie monster ever, the Democrats are conceiving it. They are not happy with themselves. They're in a series of rapid divorces. They're angry. They're throwing the kitchen sink at each other — and to try to help themselves out, they are now conceiving a health care plan. Obamacare is an act of anger, it is an act of desperation, it is a law that soon-to-be-fired Democrats will abandon and leave on the doorstep of the rest of the country. It's a bill with no visible means of support. We're getting a total deadbeat offspring of the Democrats here. It has no visible means of support or love. Nobody's going to love this bill. Nobody's going to have any support for it. It's going to be an unwanted, unloved bill, dependent on the expanding bankrupt government. What could possibly go wrong here? What could possibly go wrong? This bill, while it is right now just an unviable tissue mass which has zero humanity in it, needs to be aborted. I've always been pro-choice. I've always chosen life, except in this case. This bill needs to die. This bill's being conceived by the most unhappy bunch of parents. It's a bill conceived in grievance and anger and desperation and defiance and an attitude of 'Screw you!' to us."

Rush Limbaugh gets a rant started and runs it to a "Screw you!" crescendo.

The jumble of images is truly weird: every movie monster ever; Democrats fucking each other and then getting into fights like a married couple and throwing not everything but the kitchen sink, but actually the kitchen sink; the offspring of this awful relationship, an abandoned baby who's unloved and a deadbeat; the unviable tissue mass that needs to be aborted; the Rush Limbaugh who has "always been pro-choice"; the unhappy, "Screw you!"-shouting parents who should abort their unborn child.

"Dem Consultants: Citizens United Ruling Not Such a Big Deal."

Hmm. Are they saying that because it's true or because it's strategic to say that?

Since the Supreme Court struck down limits last week on corporate-funded independent expenditure campaigns, Democrats and good-government advocates have been quick to warn of a flood of new corporate money entering American politics. But with campaigns already awash in corporate cash, some Democratic political pros doubt we'll notice much difference.

This is coming from TPM, which is a pro-Democrats blog.

"I don't think this is going to fundamentally change the way campaigns are done," said Mike Lux, a prominent Democratic consultant and operative who founded the Progressive Donor Network.

Steve Murphy, a Democratic consultant and former top aide to Dick Gephardt, agreed. "I don't believe this is a dramatic shift," he said.

Both men noted that corporations already move billions into entities that allow them to run hard-hitting "issue" ads. It's true that those ads couldn't directly advocate for the election or a defeat of a candidate. But they said that in their experience, issue ads are more effective anyway. In other words, corporations have long had a potent enough weapon at their disposal to influence elections when they've wanted to....

But the case itself — quite aside from its real effect — is an issue that Democrats might chose to exploit "to paint the Republicans as allies of corporations, and to tout Democrats' populist credentials."

But some in the consultant community see the issue as less than a political winner, arguing that voters don't care about process issues, and will judge Democrats by their substantive achievements.

"I wish Democrats would talk about this a little less," said Murphy. "We've got to produce."