Are we not men?No, you're a bunch of sycophants to special interests who have bought you along with your integrity. You are fleebaggers and democracy busters. There's nothing you can say about Scott Walker or tea partiers that doesn't make you look worse, both comparatively and absolutely. James Taranto notes the difference between "standing with" the teachers union and "takin' [their employers] down." And Ann Althouse has photographed the generally rude and nasty way the protesters in Madison have behaved. I just wonder if they'll clean up their trash and signs when they finally decide to pack it in. I think that Gov. Walker has been quite restrained in his response to the provocations of these "professionals" who are seeing the end of the control of politicians coming to an end.

Krauthammer discusses the battle over public employees unions and the unsustainable pension and health benefits which will surely be the toughest part of balancing budgets at both state and federal levels.

The news media are mostly unionized and thus give friendly coverage to union issues, but thanks to the internet, we're seeing more of the ugly face of union protests. This was what Obama promised with his "hope and change" slogan, but I don't think it's what most voters understood was coming. It's hard to imagine a more inept, bungling performance that Obama's first two year. The financial crises caused by the burst of the housing bubble should have warned anybody with a brain that this was not the time to be overspending, let alone adding a huge new budget-busting entitlement program. But, unable to resist the lure of unchallengeable power in both houses of Congress and the White House, the Democrats rushed in.

It quickly became clear that the uncertainty created by these vast changes and their effect on businesses would make a tax increase in the form of letting the Bush tax cuts expire would make the economy even worse, meaning that the huge deficits could not be covered as the Democrats had anticipated. Now they're going through a disingenuous and phony drama of trying to jawbone employers into hiring more workers just out of patriotism.

The Republicans took back the House of Representatives with a promise of cutting spending and shrinking the size of government, and in looking for places to cut, the labor costs for cities, states and the federal government, including pension and health benefits way out of proportion to the private sector, stuck out like a sore thumb. Since most states have constitutional requirements that they balance their budgets, this became the focus of spending cutters.

The Dems failed to show leadership and tell the hard truth to the unions. Instead they let themselves be pushed out onto very thin ice by the unions and let the world see who really controlled that relationship.

The unions live in a state of paranoia, keeping their members full of fear, dissatisfaction and a feeling that their employers were exploiting them. The public employee unions are the last of a dying breed, and the traditional strike accompanied by traditional demonstration of their employers have demonstrated how little they understood of reality, i.e. that their payment plans were threatening the financial stability of the governmental units that were paying the freight. So now all their attacks and personal slurs of governors, majors and managers amounts to an attack of the voters who elected these people on the platform of cutting spending.

Entitlements have long been the growing Anaconda in the room, but we are now realizing that public employment compensation and retirement and health benefits are eating up ever larger chunks of public budgets. To see the behavior of these
demonstrators is be be disgusted by them and their rowdy, disrespectful behavior.

I think we're just waking up to how far into the grip of dictators we've fallen

Democrats are planning on government closure and blaming the Republicans like 1995. But I think the Repubs are ready for them, arguing that their cuts don't necessitate shutting down the government. When you see what's going on (or not) in Wisconsin, I don't think the left understands how things have changed. They've been living in the past and I don't think Americans are going to have much patience with tactics that oppose cuts in spending, even if it costs some federal employees some benefits or even their phony baloney jobs.

Of course, maybe I'm wrong, since I get all my news via the internet, like Ann Althouse, whose blogs have been informative and offer a unique point of view and a huge number of photos.

Somali pirates have killed four of the people seized aboard a yacht.

I'm thinking it might be a good tactic to use some "bait" ships bearing squadrons of Marines using deadly force. The yacht in this case was trailed by a Navy vessel which caused the pirates to kill their hostages. You have to take them out before they gain control of the victim vessel.

To all those who want to become President, watch Chris Christie and Scott Walker and emulate their straightforwardness and toughness. The future of this nation depends on confronting the special interests who drain us of our economic vitality, including corporations and unions and lobbyists, and anyone else who gets subsidized. I you can't cut spending, size of government and taxes, don't run.

And they call HER a balloon head! Michelle Bachmann deserved more respect, and the MSM deserve a lot less. Their contempt for the rest of us is nauseating.