Wednesday, June 6, 2012

If Only My Washing Machine Spun as Fast as the Media Spin Machine on the Wisconsin Recall Election.


One would have thought June 5, 2012 was Nov. 6, 2012 by all the media hysteria over the Wisconsin recall election of Gov. Walker. Clearly, the hype was super charged and at a feverish pitch because the Wisconsin recall election was a voter referendum on big spending Democrats and public sector unions vs. the taxpayers and a governor who claimed to wipe out a multi-billion dollar deficit that he inherited from his Democrat predecessor.

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire reported, here:
CNN exit polls show a dead heat between Gov. Scott Walker (R) and challenger Tom Barrett (D), 50% to 50%....

The AP reports that those who made up their minds in the final month of the campaign broke for Barrett by nearly 30 points....

A second round of exit polls show Walker opening up a four point lead, 52% to 48%....
Politico is reporting that Walker decisively defeated Barrett 53.2 to 46.3, or 1,334,430 votes to 1,161,870 votes. It wasn’t even close, at least not close enough for the Dems to call in the heavy artillery of the Obama Department of Justice and Eric Holder.

Earlier in the day the Huffington Post ran a headline suggesting that Republican vote fraud was a relevant issue. Well, there was no vote fraud and while the media probably did hang out at solidly Democratic precincts to document its spin machine exit polls, Walker won because the voters in Wisconsin turned out in massive numbers to reject higher taxes for the pampered overpaid public sector.

But the media spinmeisters refused to hang their heads in shame for an overtly sleazy act of unprofessional journalistic incompetence. Instead, the media opted to re-spin the spin by churning the gubernatorial election results into a presidential poll! Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire reports, here.
Despite indications that President Obama's re-election campaign thinks Wisconsin is a swing state, exits polls in today's gubernatorial recall election shows Obama leading Mitt Romney by six points, 51% to 45%.
Update: The final release of exit polling found Obama leading by an even wider 12 point margin, 54% to 42%. He won the state in 2008 by 14 points.
OKAY, so Obama may win Wisconsin but that’s a November 6 event that has nothing whatsoever to do with the reasons why Walker easily won re-election.  While the shameless media was relentlessly campaigning for Barrett and actively engaging in electioneering, some shocked and seasoned political observers took notice. Election guru Larry Sabato tweeted "Hope everyone will insist news orgs not only explain bad WI exit poll but make sure better job is done in Nov. So far, silence is deafening".

I’m certainly no fan of Gov. Walker who has been praised to the hilt in Republican circles nor am I a Republican or Democrat (just a Ron Paul supporter who endorses peace, liberty and prosperity). But one thing is perfectly clear. The taxpaying voters in America are indeed sick and tired of being plundered by Fedzilla in the District of Crime, their governors and their state legislatures, especially considering that most folks are finally and angrily rejecting the burden of higher taxes when they are monumentally suffering because of a busted economy.

There just comes a time in every voters life when the two bit whore is just too darned expensive, and I do indeed apologize to whores who engaged in a far more honest and honorable profession than the plundering political class.

Americans are simple basic folks. They want to go to their neighbor Thai dive where they find real value for their money. Government at all levels no longer even harbors the delusion of a decent bang for the buck.

What precisely did Gov. Walker do to earn the wrath of public sector employees and Democrats? That question is best explained by a Democrat, albeit a solid card carrying Dem who actually supported Gov. Walker. Democrat Policymic.com journalist David Asche writes, here.
It is no secret to people who know me, and to people who read my articles, that on many issues I am a democrat. I am socially liberal, support higher taxes on the top earners in the country….So it may surprise people that in today's recall election in Wisconsin, I will be pulling for Republican Gov. Scott Walker to keep his job.
If there is one thing that really annoys me about democrats, it is their love affair with unions who I believe have run their course in this country. …
Here is what is at the heart of the Wisconsin recall: when Gov. Walker came into office, Wisconsin was facing a $3.6 billion budget shortfall. Walker believed that one of the solutions to this problem was to force members of the state's public employee unions to put 12.6% of their paycheck towards their health care and 5.8% towards their pensions (far less than what private sectors pay into theirs). Prior to Walker's reforms, public union members were paying next tonothing for their health care and pensions and it was being funded primarily by the taxpayers of Wisconsin. Walker also eliminated collective bargaining rights for all public employee unions with the exception of firefighters and policemen.
These reforms were absolute no brainers. Why should public employee unions be exempt from paying into their own health care and retirement while everybody else in the state (and in the country) has to pay into theirs? Democrats love to talk about a shared sacrifice, but they certainly do not apply it to their union allies.
David Asche makes perfectly sane and valid points. Heck, I remember reading about New Jersey toll collectors who were earning $100,000 a year. Taxed out and tapped out New Jersey voters in a solidly blue state elected Republican Chris Christie as governor and he ran on a campaign platform to slash the spending and reign in out of control thieving public sector unions.

While Republicans may have anointed Gov. Walker the second coming of Ronald Reagan, that claim has been questioned by some, including Forbes who alleged that Walker balanced the budget by fudging the numbers.

Will Gov. Scott Walker Ever Come Clean On Wisconsin's Budget Deficit?

All things considered, Gov. Walker did succeed is limiting the bargaining rights of public sector employees and they will now being paying at least a small portion of their benefits. This will not only benefit Wisconsin taxpayers but will also guarantee that benefits of public sector employees will be strengthened. In recent years, it's been disclosed that most states have massive shortfalls in public sector pension and healthcare reserves.

The State and Local Pension Crisis
Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said last month, "Today, public pension debt stands at an alarming $4.4 trillion with outstanding state and local municipal debt at nearly $3 trillion. The public pension crisis plaguing our nation demands a real solution." Politicians, being deviously sneaky creatures, have been courting public sector labor unions for decades and have promised them everything they ever demanded. But what the politicians failed to so was to adequately fund those benefits.
In California alone, the public sector pension shortfall is a staggering half a billion dollar, here, and possibly even high according to other estimates.

Politicians, being the deviously sneaky and self-serving power mad creatures that they are, have been courting public sector unions for decades by promising them everything they ever demanded. Unfortunately, the politicians who bought their votes never bothered to fund the gargantuan promises. Accordingly, a whopper of a crisis now exists. What Gov. Walker did in Wisconsin had the full support of the taxpayers and the primary beneficiaries will ultimately be public sector employees.

What's the alternative? To continue the lie? At least now this problem is disclosed and on the table for other states to solve. While it may be perceived as painful for public sector employees, it won't be nearly as painful as a public sector employee retiring some day and finding out that their state or city has no money to pay the benefits they were promised.

With so much suffering in America, it's downright arrogant and selfish of public sector employees to demand a perpetual license to steal from the taxpayers, many of whom are suffering profoundly themselves from the loss of jobs and benefits.  They don't have a taxpayer funded slush fund to plunder.

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