From Rasmussen:

…The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 27% of American Adults believe Reagan should be chosen if there were another federal holiday celebrating a past president. Twenty percent (20%) pick Kennedy. Fourteen percent (14%) say Thomas Jefferson should be recognized with a holiday, while nine percent (9%) think Franklin D. Roosevelt deserves it most…

Just from the sheer fun of making MSMers and liberal school boards work out ways of honoring President Reagan once a year, this would be worth it. And we should continue this effort. We should put Reagan on the $20 bill, so that every liberal out there will have to see his smiling face every day. Put a “Reagan Blvd” somewhere in DC – preferably which ever street has the most liberal lobbying groups located on it. And put statutes up to him on whatever federal land we can find in San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Monica, Martha’s Vineyard, etc. We should also see about carving his likeness on Mt. Rushmore (I believe there is room). In short, shove Ronnie in their faces until they get so mad they finally carry out their 2004 threat to move to Canada…

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=politics/2011/02/18/bts.wi.gov.walker.protests.wisn

Meanwhile, the union thugs running amok in the Capitol forced the closure of the State House due to security concerns…imagine if it were a TEA Party group which had done that? The MSM and the left would go ballistic. But, of course, the TEA Party wouldn’t do that – that is undemocratic. It is the left – the very anti-democratic left – which is causing the problem here. They don’t want votes – they want intimidation, sabotage and back room deals…

Keep it up, liberals…you’re digging your own political grave.

UPDATE: And the TEA Party shows up to back Walker.

UPDATE II: NRO’s The Corner has an overhead shot of the pro-Walker (well, really, pro-People) crowd in Wisconsin…pretty good size…you see, we had to wait for Saturday for our side to show up because we can’t call out sick on the taxpayer’s dime…

UPDATE III: A bit more fraud from the public sector unions in Wisconsin…passing out fake doctor’s notes for the “sick” teachers. Arrests really should be made. This has got to be a crime under some Wisconsin statute.

You know, this is a bit brazen – if you go to the link, you can see the actual videos of this going on…completely fake notes put out without an examination of the “patient”…and which they’ll fill out covering you not just for the past couple days, but for the next week. The MSM, naturally, will not cover this…but one has to assume that this sort of criminality isn’t new, that this sort of thing has been done before. Just how many laws do our liberals break in their political actions? From illegal campaign funding to fake doctor notes – is there any law they haven’t violated?

I think everyone knows that I’m not in favor of a truce of any sort with the left, but I’m also not about to say that my word is law – not even on this little blog. Honest people can reasonably disagree with me – and Jay Cost puts together an able argument in favor of the truce. Reviewing the 1896 election, Cost points out that the GOP was able to stop an insurgent Democrat party under William Jennings Bryan on the strength of William McKinley’s moderation, this allowing him to appeal to a section of Democrat voters turned off by Bryan’s populism.

This is a good analysis, as far as it goes – but in 1896, both Bryan and McKinley were not the President. No one knew what either man would do once in office; as is true of most men who aspire to be President, they were a bit of a blank slate for the larger electorate. In 2012, Obama will have been President for more than 3 years, and people will know full well what another 4 years of Obamunism will bring. Given this, the analogy with 1896 as a watershed election doesn’t hold true, in my view.

The election of 2012 will not be about the Republican, it will be about Obama. Sure enough, Obama and his MSM allies will try to make it about the Republican because they won’t be able to defend Obama’s tenure – even more so if, as I expect, the economy takes a further turn for the worse as 2012 approaches. It doesn’t, in a large sense, matter whom we nominate – anyone we nominate will be accused of being a racist, homophobic, anti-immigrant tool of corporate interests and the bitter clingers of Bibles and guns. Anyone we nominate will be portrayed as stupid, ignorant and not up to the job of President. Obama will receive endlessly glowing praise in story after story in print, on TV and over the internet. A billion dollars will be spent by Obama, directly, and probably at least half a billion more by groups coordinating illegally with the Obama campaign. It will be the nastiest, hardest fought political campaign at least since the Civil War, and probably of all time.

In such a fight, appeals to a moderate middle will be drowned out. There will be no moderate middle in 2012 – there will be an attempt on the part of the Democrats to so badly smear the Republican that people will hold their nose and vote Democrat (and/or just stay home out of disgust for the process) while the Republican will attempt to keep reminding everyone that a vote for Obama means four more years of Obama. Who will win depends on who is most successful in getting the battling message out – and trying to tack to the center and appear to be all things to all men will mean less time spent reminding people that Obama is trying to be re-elected.

While there is no upside for the GOP in inflaming passions further than current (in contrast to the Democrats who can only win by generating ever more hatred and anger), there is also no upside for trying to pry a gay voter away from Obama by muting opposition to gay marriage, or a pro-abortionist by backing off support for life. And, of course, if any GOPer does try that and manages to get 1 such voter to switch, 5 pro-family/pro-life people will sit it out, or vote for a Third Party. The GOP needs enthusiasm in the ranks to go toe to toe with Obama and his minions…enthusiasm which can only come from a robust social and fiscal conservative agenda…certainly with fiscal issues predominating, but no retreat from social issues.

At least, that is how I see it.

Quite a lot:

For the first time in history, the average annual compensation for a teacher in the Milwaukee Public School system will exceed $100,000.

That staggering figure was revealed last night at a meeting of the MPS School Board.

The average salary for an MPS teacher is $56,500. When fringe benefits are factored in, the annual compensation will be $100,005 in 2011…

And that was posted on March 3, 2010 – and thus wasn’t generated just for this current controversy.

Its not like they are starving out there – and its not like Governor Walker is cutting their pay and benefits to the bone. Just a little adjustment, given that the State is broke…and they go on a rampage.

In the Really Good News file for today:

The House just approved Rep. Mike Pence’s amendment to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, checking off a hot-button social issue even as it set up a bigger showdown over defunding the health care law.

The vote was 240-185 with 11 Democrats voting for the amendment, and seven Republicans voting against. One member voted present. A group of Republicans on the floor applauded when the vote hit 218.

And…

The House voted to defund President Obama’s health care overhaul on Friday during a sustained burst of floor activity on a temporary spending bill.

The House passed the health care measure, 239-187, as an amendment to a bill that would keep the government lights on through the end of the fiscal year but also impose deep cuts on domestic programs…

So, some clear advances to counterbalance the failure Friday to add an additional $22 billion in cuts to this year’s budget. We can’t get too upset if the House GOP flubs it from time to time – though, of course, we must keep extreme pressure up on them to do the right thing. Better if we can leap ahead ten steps at a time, but if we make two steps forward and one step back then we’re still one step ahead.

Since this Greek comedy-tragedy has been playing out in my old stomping grounds of Madison, Wisconsin and throughout The Dairy State, I’ve corresponded with a lot of friends and acquaintances–some who have been backing the Republican-led legislature and Governor Scott Walker; and others, most of them fellow union members, who believe that Wisconsin’s actions will portend a dead-end to collective bargaining; some going so far as to defend runaway democrat Wisconsin state senators, stating they are merely buying time until ‘cooler heads’ can prevail.

Yes, I’m a member of a union–but I can also see the fact that the taxpayers cannot sustain carte blanche bankrolling of never-ending union-based benefits. Even when Ronald Reagan broke the Air Traffic control union back in the early 1980s, it wasn’t the end of collective bargaining. Far from it.

There does comes a time, however, when the rights of public sector workers needs to be balanced against the rights and the well being of those whom they serve. This, in my opinion, is a long-awaited correction in a bubble of unsustainable growth in spending.

BTW–correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the majority of Wisconsinites vote for the Republicans to balance the state budget and to end runaway spending?

And yes, the democrat Senators ARE being derelict in their duty. Of course they don’t want legislation that will halt the union gravy train–the union is for all practical purposes a political arm of the democrat party that contributes hefty financial resources to its workings, not to mention nearly limitless footsoldier hours to help in their favored party’s re-election efforts.

Again–I’m a union member. I know that in the long term this will likely have significant repercussions in my now-home state of Minnesota, but the fact of the matter is that we are spending our great-grandchildren’s inheritances for present-day opulence, and it just has to stop, somewhere.

One of the long-loved mantras on the left during progressive rallies has been the time-honored favorite song by John Lennon called, “Give Peace a Chance.”

To my union brethren, the time is now indeed nigh to pay heed to another one of Lennon’s words of wisdom, “Let it be.”

This admission demonstrates that the President knows he’s just full of it – and he doesn’t care. Why doesn’t he care? Because he fully expects that he’ll be able to put the GOP on the spot in the upcoming budget battle…and today’s cave in by the House GOP over a mere $22 billion in additional cuts to this year’s budget indicates Obama may be on to something.

We did a lot of good in 2010, but we’ve still got a long way to go. The plain fact of the matter is that you could cut $500 billion from this year’s budget and not touch a single benefit check, nor cut a penny off of defense spending. Obama and his Democrats so bloated government spending over the past two years that massive cuts will be necessary just to get back to the profligate years of 2007 and 2008. But as long as we have RINOs, we’ll have this trouble – the rank, nauseating fear on the part of some GOPers that if they cut, they’ll be punished at the polls for it.

It is time for the TEA Part to reappear in DC – time to get our House GOP back up to scratch and let them know that they’d better fear us a lot more than they fear a hostile leading article in the Washington Post.

UPDATE: Over at NRO’s The Corner a bit of an explanation for the failure on additional cuts. Supposedly, we’re better off going for specific cuts rather than across-the-board (as the defeated amendment proposed). Me? I’m not sold on that argument, at all – to me it is irrelevant what actually gets cuts in non-defense discretionary spending as all of it is massively over-funded. But we’ll hold fire and see what happens in the GOP budget to be released in the spring…

From PT Tatler:

…Yesterday House Speaker John Boehner made it clear he would not accept another temporary fix in the federal budget that did not include major cuts. According to Politico, his comments “triggered an immediate and fierce response from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who ramped up a cross-chamber fight Democrats have been waging against House Republicans for weeks over whether the GOP spending-cut demands could culminate in a shutdown on March 4, the date the government runs out of money. ‘”

As House leaders have repeatedly noted, only Democrats have been talking about shutting down the government, not Republicans. But it appears Democrats are in the mood for a show down that they hope will change the political calculus in their favor…

Remember that Obama’s Organizing for America group is behind the Wisconsin antics – it seems that our liberals are spoiling for a fight. The thinking seems to be that what rescued a Democrat President in 1995 was a fight over spending; that at the end of the day, the people don’t really want substantive cuts and will thus rally to the Democrats if government is shut down. Wisconsin is just a test of this – as this unfolds, Democrats will check polling and figure out if its working and if it needs to be tweaked. But the plan does seem to be to force a show down.

Our tactic should be to patiently but firmly keep repeating the obvious – we’re bankrupt. We can’t spend as much as some people would like. Everything has to be cut in at least some manner. Failure to do so is a betrayal of the United States. This is not, by the way, a sure-fire way to victory – maybe, in the end, the people will abandon us. Maybe so many have become hooked on Big Government that there is no ability to reduce spending. If that is the case, then so be it – once the complete collapse comes, they will turn back to us…but, meanwhile, there is no upside for us in compromise.

With that said, I do believe that firmness will lead to victory; things have changed mightily in the United States since 1995. First off, we’re vastly more in debt than we were back then. The economy is worse. America has suffered intense relative decline in the world. The New Media has arisen to provide alternative sources of information, thus breaking the 1995 near-monopoly on information the MSM had (really, back then, it was Rush, a few other talkers and a few small, conservative magazines; that was all we had to counter balance the networks, CNN, almost all the major dailies and scores of other outlets). The left will not be able to write a script and keep to it – already, because there is a New Media, the reality of those union stooges in Wisconsin is being shown to the people…and people aren’t liking the sight of taxpayer-funded union workers calling out sick to create a workday ruckus…nor the sight of Democrat Senators fleeing the State to avoid a fair, up or down vote.

So, let’s have this knock down, drag out; I’m ready for it. It’ll be fun, educational and, in the end, victorious for conservatism.

Sure, its DOA in conference, but its a nice touch, none the less – from The Hill:

The House GOP approved an amendment to a government-spending bill that would block funding for the Obama administration’s so-called policy “czars,” appointed advisers to the president that have been much-criticized by Republicans…

This is the kind of thing we must do – continually press Obama and his Democrats on their profligate spending and unconstitutional ways. Not with a mind towards getting them to agree, but with contrasting the differences between the party. We can only get a little done while Obama wields the veto pen and Reid has a hammerlock on the Senate…but if we use this as an opportunity to educate the public about who stands for what, we’ll reap the benefits in 2012. Force the Democrats, day after day, to defend their policies…let the people know who in politics is for America, and who is for corruption, waste and fraud.

The people are on our side – things like what happened in Wisconsin yesterday will just more clearly define that Democrats are the party of bloat and waste…as long as he keep highlighting this we’re on the right track. Victory beckons, if we just show the courage to take them on, every where and every day.

From Al Arabiya:

For the first time since he was banned from leading weekly friday prayers in Egypt 30 years ago, prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi will lead thousands in the weekly prayers from Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday…

I wonder if they’ll pause to offer a prayer for Lara Logan?

Anyways, this is the Moslem Brotherhood writ large in Egypt…bad news for Egypt, bad news for the world.