It’s Thursday, June 7th, 2012….and once again the Commander-in-Chief has opted to grovel for dollars rather than recognize one of the most significant events in American history.  It’s like our nation’s history holds no significance for him….almost like he wasn’t bor….NAAAAHHHH!!!

Now, here’s The Gouge!

We lead off the Thursday edition with three different takes on the Wisconsin Ass-Whuppin’, courtesy of Peter Wehner, the WSJ and Steve Hayes; but first, a brief bit of commentary on why we believe Liberals screwed the proverbial pooch.  It begins with….

….and the old adage “Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.”  The Wisconsin public employee unions were hogs; they had ample opportunity to work with Walker, but opted for confrontation rather than compromise.  And the simple fact is they grossly overestimated not only their clout, but their support among the general population.

Over 60% of Wisconsin households families have no personal or family connection to unions, so it should have come as no surprise a majority of voters weren’t willing to essentially will a significant portion of their estates over to the progeny of Progressive public employees.

This doesn’t mean a majority of Cheeseheads became overnight Conservatives, registered Republicans or no longer support unions.  If Walker had been asking public employees to fund more of their pensions or health insurance than their counterparts in private industry, Barrett could have run him out of Madison on a rail.  But he wasn’t….so he couldn’t.  Walker received 2% more of the popular vote in the recall than he got in the general election.

Here’s the juice: Walker enacted the very policies on which he campaigned….and they WORKED!  Unemployment: DOWN.  Taxes: DOWN.  $3.5B budget deficit: GONE.  Public employee collective bargaining rights: RESTRICTED.  Seems to us Wisconsinites considered the results worth the cost.

For more on what Tuesday’s results mean, we turn now to Peter Wehner, writing in Commentary Magazine, courtesy of Speed Mach:

What Scott Walker’s Victory Signals

Governor Scott Walker’s victory last night – his seven-point win against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was by a greater margin than in 2010 – will have profound national ramifications. It was a historic defeat for organized labor, and most especially public sector unions. They chose Wisconsin as the ground on which they would make their stand and make an example out of Walker. Instead, they were decimated. In addition, Walker instantly becomes a dominant political player in the GOP, as well as a model to other reform-minded governors. The loss will also drive a wedge between President Obama and organized labor, which cannot be pleased at the indifference Obama showed toward this race. (Tom Barrett was one of Obama’s earliest supporters in 2007.) The president wasn’t there when organized labor needed him. They are likely to return the favor in November.

When combined with the dismal jobs report on Friday, the news Monday that new orders for U.S. factory goods fell in April for the third time in four months, and the downward revision of economic growth in the first quarter (to 1.9 percent) – all of which signal that our weak economy is growing still weaker – Democrats must feel as though the walls are beginning to crash down around them.

The epic 2010 mid-term election was foreshadowed by three races in particular – the victories by Bob McDonnell in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey in November 2009 and Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts in January 2010. They were clear signals of what awaited Democrats in November 2010.

Scott Walker’s crushing win in Wisconsin – which occurred only 154 days before the presidential election — has a similar feel to it. Wisconsin ain’t Utah; it is the home of Robert La Follette and a state with a strong progressive tradition. Barack Obama carried Wisconsin by 14 points in 2008 and it hasn’t gone Republican since 1984. For Governor Walker to win by the margin he did, based on the agenda he’s enacted, is a sign that the political currents in America strongly favor conservatism and the GOP. Even in Wisconsin.

Intelligent Democrats know that. Which is why panic is spreading throughout their ranks this morning. They see another huge wave forming and growing. And right now, they have no idea how to avoid it.

Two thoughts come to mind.  Obama wasn’t indifferent; he was scared to death.  He likely knew the truth behind the polls, and his lack of involvement was the political coward’s equivalent of voting “present” rather than risk associating himself with a losing cause.  Besides, contrary to Wehner’s assertion, the unions cannot afford “repay” The Obamao’s slight in November; they went all in back in 2008, and absent his continued occupancy of the Oval Office they’ve no seat at the table.

Next, the WSJ opines on what it describes as…

A Victory for Self-Government

In Wisconsin, voters defeat a campaign of union revenge.

The resounding failure by unions and Democrats to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on Tuesday is a significant moment for democratic self-government. It shows that an aroused electorate can defeat a furious and well-fed special interest that wants a permanent, monopoly claim on taxpayer wallets.

The crisis unfolding in Europe is less about the euro than it is about whether the union-dominated entitlement state can reform so it can pay its bills. In Wisconsin as in Greece and France, unions and the political left were trying to demonstrate that power and privileges once granted are eternal. They wanted to run Mr. Walker out of Madison as an object lesson that trying to limit collective bargaining and mandatory dues collection for government unions will end your political career.

One of the stranger analyses of the Wisconsin brawl has been that it could have been avoided if only Mr. Walker had sought “consensus.” We’re all in this together, yada, yada. Tell that to Governor John Kasich, who passed similar reforms in Ohio to much less fanfare, only to see unions use a referendum last year to repeal his collective-bargaining changes. Public unions are never going to cede their dominance over taxpayers without a fight.

And it’s worth recalling how brutally they fought. They occupied the state capital for weeks. They harassed GOP lawmakers and their families, tried to recall state Senators and defeat a conservative Supreme Court judge, while Democratic lawmakers abdicated their legislative duty by fleeing the state. They lost in the end because Mr. Walker and Republicans rode out the storm, passed their reforms, and are now able to show Wisconsin voters the beneficial results.

The longer-term impact of Mr. Walker’s vindication will depend on the lesson other political leaders take from it. Some 30 states allow collective bargaining for public unions, and removing that power is the kind of core reform that makes spending control, school choice and property-tax reductions easier. It should be a major goal of reformers who want to limit the size of government.

One disappointment is that Mitt Romney failed to appear in Wisconsin during the recall campaign. We doubt the recall vote is a prediction of what will happen in November, and Mr. Romney will have to make his own sale to Badger State voters. But the presumptive Presidential nominee could do worse than associate himself with the GOP reform Governors who were elected in 2010 and are turning around their states. If voters are in a mood to reward leaders willing to tackle hard problems, Mr. Romney should meet their expectations.

 Speaking of moods:

Progressives: even when they’re cryin’, they’re lyin’!

Finally, we complete our recall coverage with this from Steve Hayes, courtesy of the The Weekly Standard and Conn Carroll:

Why Scott Walker Won the Battle of Wisconsin

Don’t overcomplicate it.

Scott Walker won for a simple reason: He did what he promised to do as a candidate and it worked.

Walker’s 2010 campaign focused broadly on fiscal responsibility and balancing the state’s budget. One of the first things Walker did as governor, long since forgotten, was to return some $800 million in federal money designated for high-speed rail in Wisconsin. His argument was not complicated: The state doesn’t need it, and taxpayers cannot afford it. He was right on both accounts and his decision to return the money, even as Obama administration officials sought to force it on the state, sent a message that Walker was serious about doing business in a different way. The messy fight over high-speed rail in California, and the ever-increasing cost projections, suggest he was wise to avoid the headache.

Walker’s reforms expanded that effort. He has told me several times – and mentioned in his speech Tuesday – that he wishes he’d spent more time making the arguments about the need for reform before he set about formally proposing them. Fair point. And it’s possible some voters would have been persuaded by those arguments.

But the Democrats who fled to Illinois would have done so anyway. The protestors in Madison would have gathered and chanted and occupied just as they did. And the unions would have fought the same way.

They understood two things from the beginning: The reforms would work and they would thin the ranks of public sector unions. That is precisely what happened. Public sector employees, given a choice about union membership, are opting out.

Walker turned a $3.6 billion deficit into a $154 million surplus. Unemployment is down. So are property taxes. Businesses, even with uncertainty about the U.S. economy, are optimistic about the direction of the state. Even with the political divisions, it’s hard to imagine a more successful 16 months as governor.

Results matter. And that, more than anything else, explains why Scott Walker won.

Meanwhile, in a related item from the Left Coast, courtesy of George Lawlor and the New York Times….

Voters in California Approve Pension Cuts

In San Diego and San Jose, voters overwhelmingly approved ballot initiatives designed to help balance ailing municipal budgets by cutting retirement benefits for city workers. Around 70 percent of San Jose voters favored the pension measure, while 66 percent of San Diego residents supported a similar measure. “This is really important to our taxpayers,” Mayor Chuck Reed of San Jose, said Tuesday night. “We’ll get control over these skyrocketing retirement costs and be able to provide the services they are paying for.”

….Public employee unions, meanwhile, had fought hard against the two pension reform initiatives. The San Diego Municipal Employees Association brought an unsuccessful legal challenge in an effort to keep the measure off the ballot. Speaking to KPBS, a local television station, Michael Zucchet, general manager of the San Diego Municipal Employees Association, said last month that the ballot initiative would not save the city money. “This initiative doesn’t save anything,” Mr. Zucchet said. “You are basically cutting off your nose to spite your face for pension reform.”

Mr. Zucchet did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday night.

But the mayors of both cities pushed the pension reforms hard, arguing that changes to city worker pensions were essential to keep municipal budgets in the black. Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said he hoped the initiatives would provide models for other cities and for the state government, where pension reform efforts have stalled. “The appetite for pension reform in California is huge,” Mr. Coupal said.

All of which makes Tuesday remind us of a book we used to read to our boys:

Then again, come November 7th, the Left may well look back on June 5th as one of their better days.

Next up, a bit of insightful analysis from Jonah Goldberg:

The Upside of the Downside

One of my heroes, Irving Kristol, used to say that there’s nothing wrong with the country a bad recession couldn’t fix. Kristol (father of the more famous Bill, by the way) wasn’t hoping for a recession, he was merely making the point that so many of the problems with our culture, both popular and political, were the sorts of challenges that come with affluence.

Wealth makes it easier to abandon the old customs, rituals and habits of the heart that generated the wealth in the first place.

For instance, I always love reading about irresolute rich families that lose their mojo within a generation or two. When the illiterate shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt died, he had amassed a personal fortune larger than the U.S. Treasury. Within a few generations, his family had squandered it all. Vastly better educated and more refined than their tobacco-juice-spitting patriarch, they also lacked his entrepreneurial drive and financial thrift because they never needed it. It’s a pattern that repeats itself in countless families. Billionaires so often raise their children to be playboys or poets.

Edward Gibbon’s theory of the fall of the Roman Empire has come in for some revision over the years, but his basic thesis still has merit. The Romans became so wealthy they lost the civic and martial virtues that built the empire in the first place. They in effect contracted out the hard work of civilization that allows civilization to continue.

And then, of course, there’s the universally recognized lesson of Rocky Balboa, who learned the hard way from Clubber Lang (aka Mr. T) that success can make you lose the eye of the tiger more than failure can.

Anyway, you get the point.

And while I hope we can get back to having the problems of a rich country really soon, it’s worth pausing to appreciate America’s capacity for self-correction and the fact that many of the problems we had over the last couple decades were good problems to have.

Illegal immigration is a great example of a rich country’s problem. (For instance, no one but terrorists are sneaking into Somalia in search of work.) After years of screaming over what to do about it, the rate of illegal immigration has suddenly plummeted. Some say it has actually stopped entirely, as many illegal immigrants have started going home. Yes, there are other issues at work, but no one denies that if the U.S. economy were in good shape, we wouldn’t be seeing what we’re seeing.

In terms of self-correction, the examples are all over the place. In 2005, America had the lowest personal savings rate since 1933. In fact it was outright negative — i.e., consumers spent more money than they made. Today it’s at 3.4 percent.

For years intellectuals looked enviously at the way the Japanese live in multigenerational homes. Grandma and grandpa looked after the grandkids, and everyone looked after grandma and grandpa. From 2008 to 2010, American multigenerational households increased at a faster rate of growth than in the previous eight years combined, according to AARP.

In perhaps the most welcome news, laser tattoo removals have increased by 32 percent from 2011 to 2012 alone. “Employment reasons” are cited as the new No. 1 reason for the procedure. It turns out that in an era of austerity, having a Chinese-character tattoo that translates into “I have Kung Pao chicken pants” is an act of unnecessary self-indulgence rather than glorious self-expression.

It also turns out that our politics have a capacity for self-correction that few experts anticipated. When President Obama came into office, his administration’s mantra was “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” This little prayer to cynicism masquerading as an idealistic insight was used to justify vast expansions of government. The social scientists even told us this was to be expected. After all, they explained, during times of economic hardship, voters rally around the government.

Except that’s not true. Yes, it happened during the Great Depression. But ever since, liberalism has been a luxury thriving on prosperity, not austerity. The Great Society was a byproduct of the so-called Affluent Society.

Instead of a tsunami of political support for ObamaCare and government unions, we got the Tea Party and the rollback of public-sector collective bargaining. Instead of massive support for Obama’s green agenda, the air is thick with calls for more drilling, more fracking and more Keystone pipelines. It turns out the “new progressive era” was just too pricey.

Hopefully, the interminable winter of Obama’s “Summer of Recovery” will soon end. And when it does, I hope we take the lessons to heart.

If we don’t, we’ll only prove Einstein and Santayana once again correct.

And in today’s Money Quotes, two snippets that tell you all you need to know about the source; first, Nancy the Red:

“Bush, whom Pelosi called “really a lovely man” despite their disagreements, had discussed allowing individuals to invest their Social Security payroll taxes in personal retirement accounts, which Democrats dubbed “privatizing” Social Security.

Bush’s proposal was a “gift,” Pelosi said, adding that the key to Democrats’ success was resisting entreaties to offer their own plan to shore up Social Security’s finances. Without a Democratic plan to confuse the issue, the attacks against Bush’s plan had more resonance, Pelosi said.“

 Next, The Dear Misleader, commenting on the First Marxette’s fitness routine:

“Michelle outdoes me in pushups as well,” he said, after saying that she’s taken some criticism on her technique “because she doesn’t go all the way down” – a line that he let hang, naughtily, provoking laughter from the crowd.“

Any questions?!?

On the Lighter Side….

Finally, we’ll call it a day with another sordid story ripped from the pages of the Crime Blotter, courtesy of Bill Meisen and the Cleveland County, NC Shelby Star:

Woman charged with castration, urinates in police car

A 35-year-old Shelby woman is accused of squeezing a man’s testicle out of his scrotum this weekend, according to a Shelby Police report. Police charged Joyce Maxine Gregory with malicious castration and assault inflicting serious bodily injury.

Gregory and a 59-year-old Shelby man argued early Saturday morning at a home on Bowman Street, according to a Shelby Police report. The man told police he went outside to call 911 after the confrontation. The man said Gregory came outside and grabbed him by his scrotum before he was able to jerk away from her grip, the report states. Then, the man walked to the Shelby Rescue Squad building for help. He was taken to Cleveland Regional Medical Center. A hospital urologist told police stitches could repair the man’s injury, according to the report. (Yeah, stitches….and about 40 bags of frozen peas!)

Police officers on the scene went back to search the Bowman Street home. They found Gregory inside and arrested her. While inside an officer’s patrol car, Gregory removed her pants and urinated in the back seat, according to the report. She was taken to the magistrate’s office at the Cleveland County Courthouse after the incident.

At the risk of appearing ignorant, we never knew this could be done.  Then again, given the wonders of modern science and fitness technology….

….anything‘s possible.  Six minutes a day; you’ll be able to squeeze a man’s testicles out of his scrotum in NO time!

Magoo