Good Idea - Ignore The Tea Parties
 If the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has it right, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate is doing us all a big favor.
Tate downplayed the taxpayer tea party movement that convinced 10,000 ordinary people to spend a balmy and otherwise flawless fall Saturday listening to political speeches.
Good idea Mike. Downplay that. Ignore it. If you spin it hard enough it’ll go away.
Thank the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The newspaper has performed a genuine service by reporting what Mr. Tate, and presumably his organization, thinks about the people who attended Saturday’s rally in Milwaukee and similar events throughout Wisconsin.
"These are extremist elements pulling together, distinct vocal minorities that frankly don't believe in this country," Tate said. "They don't want to see more people have access to quality affordable health care; they don't want clean air and water. They fundamentally don't understand how the American government, economy and capitalism work."
Got that, dummy? If you show up at a tea party (or in any way doubt the beneficence of the Democratic Party,) you’re an extremist (read: bigot,) you’re unpatriotic, you want your neighbors to get sick and die without insurance, you want to breathe toxic air and drink filthy, polluted water, and by the way, you’re wasting your time if you think elected officials will listen to your protests because that’s not how American government works.
Thanks for wising us up, Mike. It’s obvious your party has a bottomless reservoir of this kind of strategic brilliance, so it’s probably naïve to think there could be much effective political competition.
For instance, the Journal Sentinel quoted Milwaukee County Executive and gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker offering up this hopelessly outdated vision of what the tea parties could mean:
"People have decided that if they do something, they can make a change."
Ignore that too, Mike. You’re on the right track.
Nuts to Acorn
(Affiliated Corrupt Organizations Ransacking Neighborhoods)
 Don’t assume anything permanent about last Thursday’s vote in the House of Representatives cutting off all taxpayer financing for ACORN. The legislation still has to clear the Senate. Things could change.
To see how abruptly things do change we need look no further than Wisconsin Representatives Tammy Baldwin and Gwen Moore, who managed to put a vote in each pocket that day. Baldwin and Moore were among the 75 House members who voted against the amendment to keep your money from flowing to ACORN.
ACORN finally achieved something previously thought impossible, namely, the embarrassment of the House Democratic majority. Videotape of employees in five ACORN offices on both coasts evidently willing to facilitate the prostitution of Central-American teenage girls was finally too much.
But ACORN’s legislative comeuppance is no stand-alone bill, but rather an amendment to the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009. The proposal, which subsequently passed the House 253-171, is yet another front in the Obama administration’s blitz against the private sector economy. In this case, the administration is aiming to suffocate student loans from private lenders and force all federally-guaranteed loans to originate with the government itself. The Wall Street Journal called it “Single Payer for Kids,” but it seemed to drop off the radar last week with everyone’s attention glued to the ACORN amendment.
To grasp the full significance, ask yourself how badly Democrats want this latest push to expand government and exterminate yet another outpost of the private sector. Here’s our best clue: With the amendment defunding ACORN attached to the bill, on the very next roll call, every single one of its 75 defenders threw ACORN over the side and voted for passage. Baldwin? Check. Moore? Check. Chicago’s own Bobby Rush and Jesse Jackson Jr.? Check and double-check. All 75.
Rep. Baldwin, identifying a fresh source of magical money, whipped out a press release calling the bill “the single largest investment in college student financial aid in history and at no cost to taxpayers.” In just one press release, Rep. Moore tells us the magic loans will be delivered both “at no cost to taxpayers” (paragraph 1,) and “at a lower cost to taxpayers” (paragraph 3).
The big lesson from the ACORN fracas? Democrats won’t hesitate to take casualties and shoot their own wounded in pursuit of establishing the mega-state. The Big Government Blob has been angered and frustrated by the tea party protests but it isn’t backing off. It’s playing for keeps and this, believe it or not, is only the beginning.
Tale of Two Counties
 Manitowoc isn’t so far up the road from Fond du Lac that news of the Mercury Marine situation couldn’t have reached there by now. Voting members of the machinists’ union at the big boat motor plant asked for a do-over this summer when they figured out that economic realities truly would cause the company to move their jobs to Oklahoma unless they agreed to modest wage and benefit concessions.
On a second vote, the concessions were approved and will likely bring more jobs to Fond du Lac, as opposed to the probable alternative of weeds growing in the streets.
In Manitowoc County it’s a different story. For one thing, a public sector union is involved.
Even with one local of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) appearing to follow the Mercury Marine example, requesting and, on Monday, carrying out a re-vote on its earlier rejection of concessions, there was to be no happy ending for Manitowoc County.
Sheriff’s Department support personnel reiterated their rejection. Sheriff’s patrol officers declined to vote at all.
To prevent layoffs broadly affecting county government, all six locals would have needed to accept five percent pay cuts and some reductions of county taxpayers’ contributions to health reimbursement and savings accounts. Four locals said yes.
County Executive Robert Ziegelbauer, who said he would cut his own pay if the AFSCME members would join him, told the Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter earlier this month he was “physically ill” at the prospect of having to lay off county workers.
A new round of layoffs will now take effect at the end of next week.
Brother Can you Spare a Dime?
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