Here's Charles Krauthammer summing up "Rubicon: A river in Wisconsin."
We have heard everyone - from Obama's own debt commission to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - call the looming debt a mortal threat to the nation. We have watched Greece self-immolate. We can see the future. The only question has been: When will the country finally rouse itself?When Krauthammer writes about "famously progressive Wisconsin" I can't help but think back to super-liberal Massachusetts replacing Ted Kennedy with Scott Brown. There's been a tipping point somewhere where Americans realize the status quo of public policies erected 50+ years ago cannot stand anymore.
Amazingly, the answer is: now. Led by famously progressive Wisconsin - Scott Walker at the state level and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan at the congressional level - a new generation of Republicans has looked at the debt and is crossing the Rubicon. Recklessly principled, they are putting the question to the nation: Are we a serious people?
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Fox News’ Shepherd Smith talks about the lie of the Wisconsin budget crisis being worsened by the public unions:
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/02/fox-host-wisconsin-clash-is-about-busting-unions-not-budget/
Smith on Walker's "recklessly principled" stance: “It's 100% politics... a budget crisis of their own making... Bust the unions, it’s over, that’s the whole thing... People don’t want to hear the facts... Facts are troublesome creatures from time to time... The Koch Brothers, among others, were organizing to try to bust labor. It’s what big business wants to do, bust labor. This isn’t a new concept... But to pretend that this is about a fiscal crisis in the state of Wisconsin is malarkey. That’s not what this is.” Oooohh, somebody's gonna be getting a memo!
As for Massachusetts, it’s possible that getting just under 52% in a special election against a legendarily terrible candidate signals a sea change in Bay State politics... but you have to peer really, really hard.
Since then, no-longer-super-liberal Massachusetts has gone to the polls to elect its House of Representatives (128 Democrats, 32 Republicans) and its Senate (36 Democrats, 4 Republicans). Adios, status quo!
Senator Brown has continued to run to the left of his colleagues in Congress. If Scott Brown represents the tipping point of the new Republican revolution, Democrats will sign up for that in a heartbeat.
Let's say that Walker is playing politics. So? Are you saying the Dems are NOT playing politics with this "crisis"?
And if Walker is "recklessly principled" at least he has principles. The Dems have none, simply refusing to participate in Democracy AT ALL. I hope a few get recalled. It would serve them right.
Well, I don't know whether to attack the credibility of Raw Story or Fox News.
As for Scott Brown: yeah, everybody saw it coming. That's how I remember the news coverage the next day.
Scott Brown wasn't expected to win, of course. But as a New Englander, if you didn't see the many, many "Brown surging" / "Coakley campaign floundering" news stories in the final 2-3 weeks, you were comatose.
PPP called the race a "tossup" with two weeks to go. Daily Kos had it dead even. The Cook Political Report, ARG, and SuffolkUniversity picked Brown outright. Gallup's managing editor endorsed the Suffolk poll, calling it a "wakeup call" to Democrats. The conventional wisdom was that Coakley would eventually hang on to win by a few points. But that was entirely because no one had been paying attention to the race until January and couldn't grasp (or in some cases, accept) that she'd collapsed.
The fact remains that Senator Brown is, and is running to remain, a Massachusetts Republican (which is basically the same thing as a Georgia Democrat). And he *should* play for the middle. It's not as if that hasn't repeatedly been a winning strategy for the Governor's seat in Massachusetts since 1991, despite the supposedly game-changing special election two decades later.
The Brown-Walker comparison is rubbish. If Sen. Brown pulled 5% of what Scott Walker is doing, he'd be out on his ass next year even if Martha Coakley's lawn gnome were the opponent.
That's a sad comment on most of MA. Of course, this is the same state that keeps sending John "I'm to good to pay taxes on my yacht" Kerry back to the senate.
Must be something in the water...
Big Business wants to bust labor? How's the weather in the 1920's?
Big Business could not care less about labor. They learned long ago to avoid. Move your operation offshore or down south. Never sign a labor contract - closing the plant is cheaper, like Toyota did in CA. Only the fools running GM, Chrysler, and Ford are still trying to make a profit while dealing with the unions.
This is about the immoral practice of public employee unions. They collect their members’ dues by force, then buy politicians - and bargain with their bought Governors and Legislatures and our current bought President. It’s nothing but a conspiracy to defraud the taxpayers. We caught on and the jig is up.
Close, Bram. Only the fools running GM, Chrysler and Ford are MAKING profits while dealing with the awful, terrible, demonic unions. GM is one more good year away from reclaiming the title of world's largest automaker from Toyota. How's the weather in 2008?
Ford seems to be muddling along without government help. If we really wanted them to succeed, the EPA would allow them to import their European diesels.
Chrysler was given, by our federal government, to an Italian company that utterly failed in the American market decades ago.
GM? Where's my f*cking money? They were bankrupt and will be bankrupt again. I used to work for them - they earned their failure.
A simple "we were wrong, and the bailout was right" would have sufficed.
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