We are coming down to the final week, 7+ days until Election Day 2010.
Though Blaska's Blog is tired of the waiting game, he will be with you every step of the way.
Cue Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson:
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn't got time for the waiting game
Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I'll spend with you
Let Blaska's Blog be your Guide to the Perplexed.
It will be the most historic non-presidential election since 1994. It is a day that Wisconsin and the nation will turn away from historic deficits, runaway entitlements, unrestrained spending, budgetary accounting tricks, and kowtowing to the teachers union.
Coming soon, Blaska's Blog fires up the Univac and predicts the winners on November 2. You won't want to miss it!
Outbreak of common sense
Hooray for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. It endorsed Scott Walker for governor Sunday.
Democrats have held the governorship and two legislative houses and have failed to demonstrate they could collaborate even among themselves to address problems that don't even rise to the level of systemic and structural.
The J-S notes that Scott was first elected Milwaukee County Exec in 2002 after Democrats looted the county to feather their own nests. That is what Democrats do. The voters reaction to the pension scandal there predicted the national tea party movement by six years.
Think of it: France is increasing the age of retirement benefits to 62 from 60 despite rioting in the streets. (One young man lamented that he now would have to work two extra years "if I can find a job." The poor garcon could not connect the dots between the two points.) The United Kingdom is cutting the size of government. Even Sweden has done so.
And now Ireland.
Liam Collins, editor of the Sunday Independent, believes that "we need a big bad boss to sort us out," CNN reports today.
Uh, someone like Ronald Reagan, Maggie Thatcher, and Scott Walker?
That's why we must send Ron Johnson to Washington.
The Obama Democrats have been growing government to the point that our national debt as a percentage of the GDP is now 63% -- compared to 40% when George W left office. In Madison, Democrats raided the Injured Patients Fund, the transportation fund (four times, for more than $1.3 billion), increased spending by $5.7 billion, or 31%, and added 10,300 more state employees.
Meanwhile you've got the likes of Paul Krugman and John Nichols urging still more deficit spending!
'Turn down the cussing'
"Deke Rivers" at Caffeinated Politics is as liberal as National Public Radio but he's a very fair and thoughtful human being. (Yes, your Squire does appreciate such values.) I thought his blog today was especially generous. Scott Walker, as the son of a preacher man growing up in Delavan, was asked to lead groups in prayer. Quoting the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel,
"I was happy to do it, but I remember thinking at the time, 'You know, this stuff isn't osmosis.'"
Then Deke Rivers offers this:
Say what you will about Scott Walker, and I have said my share, but there are not too many teenagers or young people who would get asked to say a prayer. More often, as at the mall this week, it was more like turn down the cussing. Something must be tuned to the correct dial inside Walker.
I know, I know, J.J. I'm supposed to get accustomed to teenagers spraying the M-F word in public places. But I won't. Refuse to do so. Deliver us, oh Lord, from such liberal relativism.
America's dropout factories
So, 2,000 of the nation's 20,000 high schools produce half of all dropouts and nearly half of the nation's black kids attend one of these "dropout factories."
Black children are funneled into the nation's worst public schools, where ... black boys in eighth grade read at about the same level as white girls in fourth grade ... Prisons are teeming with black men, a problem not unrelated to the dearth of decent educational choices for black families."
So, what is the NAACP worried about? The tea party movement!
Jason Riley in the Wall Street Journal [10-25-2010] nails it:
It's hard to understand how an organization that says it's devoted to "end(ing) racial disparities" finds the time to rail against tea-party populism until you grasp that the NAACP is, first and foremost, a Democratic Party organ. The NAACP is pretending that the tea party threatens the interests of blacks because the tea party in fact threatens the interests of the Democratic Left.
Not to mention the party's masters at the teachers unions.
Speaking of "dropout factories," finally saw "Waiting for Superman" Sunday at Sundance Theaters in the Hilldale shopping center. A great and powerful movie, as advertised. I could hear sobbing from many in the audience. It is a sad and tragic movie. Former Milwaukee schools superintendent Howard Fuller plays a central role in the documentary. Mr. Fuller remembers the bitter laughter that greeted his vow to fire bad teachers. He was still new on the job and had not reckoned with that immovable force called the teachers union.
Fuller describes the "dance of the lemons" -- the annual reshuffling of bad teachers among schools. Fuller was, quite simply, defeated by the all-powerful teachers union. No wonder he is a major champion of school choice in Milwaukee.
I said this well before the release of Waiting for Superman and now it is reconfirmed. Nothing is a predictor of success like academic achievement. People are NOT poor because of lack of jobs; they are poor because they are uneducated. I wrote about the documentary here.
Not so coincidentally, only Scott Walker is talking about real education reform.
He ... favors rating teachers, with bonuses for those with higher scores and licensure revocation for those rated "ineffective" two years in a row, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.
More straw grabbing
My old comrade, John Nichols, has given up on his quest to impeach George W. Bush, he being two years out of office and all. Casting his eyes about the landscape, he has chosen another make believe victim, and is sticking tiny pins into his fetish object even now. Yep, some backbencher from the state of Oregon that you rightly never heard of is "'investigating' [John's quotes] the prospect of impeaching Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts."
Investigating the prospects? Which House does he think will bring impeachment charges against the chief justice? The Republican House of Representatives? The Boehner House? THAT House of Reps?
Platinum subscriber bonus stuff:
- Who is buying elections? Mark McKinnon in The Daily Beast:
A record $87.5 million has been spent by one union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, to elect Democrats. ... the biggest spender of any outside group-all meant to protect the interests of unions, the new "privileged class." Paid not by voluntary contribution from its members, but by forced union dues from workers-who are paid by taxpayers.
- Obama-Pelosi's national health care is imploding. Citing health care law, Boeing pares employee plan.
- As evidence of the coming political tsunami, President Obama is promising $100 million in spending cuts. Wow! 100 million dollars! Let's visualize that, shall we?
- Sing it, Frankie Blue Eyes!
