Excellent article...the once proud Wisconsin Democratic Party has been trivialized by the antics of poorly chosen "leaders" Barca, Tate etc.....

1. Walker Campaigned to cut spending and suggested the changes contributions to pensions and health care. He did not know he would have the power in the the State Senate to eliminate the root cause, so he could not promise that. He tried to deal with unions they said this is WAR, complained they were being treated like slaves on a plantation. Given unreasonable unions he took them on head on. Walker exceeded expectations in limiting collective bargaining, cant get mad about that.

2, You are being dishonest with this point. Even the Democrats believed the projections showing a balanced budget. They did not account for the negative effect of the uncertainty from recalls. Budgets are always estimates, no issue here. Besides the Democrats wanted to spend billions more so no sane person would recall him to elect any Democrat based on the budget issue.

3. Not sure what you are talking about here.

4. Your opinion not really an issue.

5. Your poorly formed opinion with faulty reasoning.

1. Bryant, I do not agree with your explanation of the collective bargaining issue. Scott Walker is recorded as saying he would negotiate with unions and that the downside could be furloughs. Public employees had experienced furloughs under Doyle and a new round of financial concessions were made with Walker after he went on the offensive.
2. I asked a question. Information was presented indicating a balanced budget (not GAAP). The cash shortfall has been attributed to lower-than-estimated tax revenue, not recall anxiety. I am not sure what the billions are you mentioned so cannot respond to that.
3. I am specifically referring to the beginning of February 2011 when Scott Walker introduced the "budget repair" union stripping bill and the sudden appearance of anti-union ads funded by Americans for Prosperity/Koch.
4. Cathy Stepp is on record as criticizing the DNR. Again, this was a question.
5. Scott Walker is on record for traveling around the country and fundraising around the them that out-of-state union bosses are behind the recall. Again, this was a question.

I hope this provides clarification and look forward to your response.

Bren:

1) Before Walker even took office he was told by Marty Beil that the unions would not negotiate with him. It seems to me that Walker wasn't the one to take negotiation off the table.

3. I would be disappointed if a group like AFP did not respond to support the Budget Repair bill. If you fight for conservative principles and you have a real leader willing to take on the worst special interest group, that is destroying states and fighting for wasteful government, you better have his back. I have seen no evidence of corruption from Scott Walker, he appears to have the most integrity of any politician in the state right now.

2.) Bottom line all thought the budget was balanced including Democrats. They were pushing to spend the projected surplus. I said at the time that would be foolish as projections can be wrong. The lower tax collection is because the growth was lower than expected, which is no small part due to uncertainty of all the recalls.

2) The Assembly floor debate on the new budget was emblematic of Democrats’ and Republicans’ differing viewpoints on the direction of Wisconsin. While Republicans worked hard to engineer a budget that controlled costs for taxpayers, Assembly Democrats proposed over three dozen floor amendments that, by some estimates, totaled over $2 billion in new and increased spending.

http://menomoneefalls.patch.com/articles/finally-a-win-for-taxpayers

Bryant, you are attempting to "turn lemons into lemonade" here with apologist arguments that don't work in a mixed room.

Stop insulting someone because they have a different opinion than you. How little you have to debate if one of your points is the lack of "humanities and liberal arts". That doesn't even make sense. Every taxpayer was harmed by collective bargaining since there was little bargaining involved. The unions gave their requests and if denied an arbitrator gave them most or all of their demands. The WEA Trust was nothing more than cash cow for the union. Public sector unions are just money laundering operations for the democratic party; forcing all members to give up their earnings to fund democrat elections. That is immoral.

Rejecting Benthemism are we, now Lyle,,, ;~)

lol liberal arts. No wonder we need sweeping change in government if that is the type of person that should talk about politics. Kind of immoral to single out the non "liberal arts" mold.

@Jay Sykes...First of all I am not a pure utilitarian, not do I agree with Bentham that the motivational basis for human action is the pleasure/pain principle. Bentham never addressed, to my satisfaction, the justice imperative. However, Bentham was careful to modify his position concerning legislation and legislation must not held strictly to utilitarian principles. Bryant was using a hedonistic argument to justify his position and in my opinion completely misunderstood the basic principles attached to the utilitarian argument. I maintain action without justice is immoral.

@Lyle ... your propensity to insult others that have a different point of view is quite childish and does nothing to promote your point of view, other than portray you as an an arrogant bully.

You do owe this man an apology, and then certainly go at it in a spirited debate.

@Barbara Barnes...The precise reason for bringing up the humanities and liberal arts is that morality and ethics is the purview of those disciplines of study and thought. I was not insulting Bryant by pointing out that he was out of his element, just stating a fact.

You don't seem to understand that it was not all public unions that should have lost their collective bargaining rights. The governor and legislature agreed with that by allowing the law enforcement and fire fighter unions to remain intact with full collective bargaining rights. If collective bargaining is such a pariah on the state taxpayers, then the badge unions should have lost their bargaining rights also.

What abuses were present could have been dealt with in other means and through the process of negotiation.

By the logic that Bryant uses, anything can be justified by the majority against any minority.

The fact Collective Bargaining has harmed people is logic which goes well with my engineering background.

@Alfred...I see you're still hiding.

Alfred, Mr. Ruble has all of my respect. His knowledge is vast and his facts verifiable. We have all read your staccato bursts of guerrilla invective. I personally would appreciate reading some facts and well reasoned arguments appearing under your own user name.

In observing monkeys at the zoo, I reflect that throwing feces and scampering away requires less cognitive effort than forming a cogent response and sustaining a rigorous dialogue.

You guys forced an emotional recall causing Walker to raise funds. The one talking against the morality of that is the one that forced it.

@Tosa720 ... do you have a reference for the numbers you cite?

Obama has held over 100 political fundraisers that outmatch Bush 2 to 1, for the same time period measured.

Does that make the conduct of Obama and/or Bush immoral for devoting some of their time to political fundraising?

i love how you conservatives always change the subject from walker to obama, yet you can't even find a decent candidate to run against obabma because you conservatives can't even get along with each other!

jt, I find myself paraphrasing an old chestnut to describe today's "conservative" political campaigns, "Behind every Republican candidate, there's a billionaire."

; )

Bren the Moderate: George Soros, Ted Turner and Warren Buffett are republicans?

All I am encouraging is for people to think about the system and realize that it was wrong to ever allow it regardless of the popularity of allowing the corruption.

I assume you are kidding that Democrats are prone to listening. History in this state or anywhere says otherwise.

Bryant writes a series of universal statements that required embracing a foreign belief system to perceive his intent and rationale. Despite the intrigue in this exercise of intellectual re-orientation I was not rewarded by being convinced by Bryant's arguments, they are deeply subjective and given the number of assertions made, the piece should have included his information sources (my opinion).

@John Pokrandt... Yes, you can raise the tax levy. If you and the fine people of Wauwatosa want to pay higher taxes, for more/better services, put a referendum on the ballot;all it takes is you+50% of the voters to get your way. I live in the Nicolet District and we overrode the spending cap with the approval a $10million dollar 'operating expenses only' referendum.(no capital expenditures).

i agree! he has sold his soul to the divelbiss! devilbliss or whatever lucifer calls himself.

Why was WEA Trust overcharging for services to the taxpayers?

Dave:

What prevents the 87% (or so) of Wisconsin workers who are not members of a union from being 'mercilessly exploited' by our employers?

Are teachers working for 'profit minded robber barons' like the ones we saw back in the pre-union days?

@CowDung -- Nothing prevents Wisconsin's non-union members from being exploited. Nothing. There are some people who are very anxious to see to it that there's no one getting a better deal ( like paid health benefits and pension) to provide a contrast.

Considering that most professionals aren't being exploited, why are we so worried that teachers will suddenly be eating out of dumpsters, have no retirement savings, and no healthcare benefits if they are not represented by a union?

Ah, so we're talking about 'professionals' only. The thing is, downsized professionals have a way of finding themselves in non-professional jobs just to stay alive, and that would include teachers.

So we have an entire society of former professionals that are all doing non-professional jobs to stay alive because we are all being exploited by our employers?

@CowDung -- Hardly an entire society. But we have a society of people being expected to work for less and less. "Take this pay cut or your job goes to China."

My job can't be done from China

Somehow I can't quite believe that it is the presence of the union that is preventing all the teaching jobs from being sent to China...

@Randy
And it has nothing to do high taxes or hyper-regulation. It is only evil business men wanting more money for themselves. They probably want more money for bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger rings for their trophy wives and in order to do that they move their companies to china. That seems completely logical.

Oddly enough while you libs cry out about outsourcing, until 2009, the job market continued to grow. How is that possible if all these jobs are going over seas?

Doing the right thing is why Walker is so impressive. The old system was unfair to taxpayers and all were treated badly except the unions. Now things are fairer to taxpayers, and the public employees have more protections than the vast majority of employees in this state. Recent labor history also shows that unions reduce quality, increase costs, protect worthless employees, it is not a pretty picture Look at the auto industry.

Steve, Cow, it's interesting to observe your narrative writhing at opposing statements that challenge you. E.g., twisting statements or parts of statements and attempting to tangentialize the discussion.

I have found this to be a popular self-defense tactic of individuals who are underprepared for meetings/projects/discourse. Someday I shall self-indulge and attend a meeting completely unprepared to learn if I will react in a similar manner. (Of course this will only work if it's not "my" meeting!) ; )

@JB - Morality is not just in the eye of the beholder. How convenient to anyone that wants to behold a selfish view of anything. As our Founding Fathers declared, and Lincoln repeated, there are truths which are self-evident. They appear to be innate in the 96% of us that have a conscience. For examples of some self-evident truths we the moral supermajority have noted being violated:

Considering causing trouble at a protest rally to make the protesters look bad.
Employing perpetrators in your office of Veteran fraud, campaigning on the job while taking tax money as salaries, expensive junkets, etc.
Trying to enact mining legislation written by/for a mining company billionaire, and not compromising to make it less rapacious of our soverign homelands.
Promising 250,000 more jobs. In other words, telling a lie to get elected.
Giving business tax breaks, and having nothing to show for it job or economy wise, but cutting health care as a tradeoff.

It is very difficult to turn an argument 180 degrees and accuse the other party of all your own sins. Bryant has failed the impossible task. Why he even ventured forth with this attempt is highly questionable. Walker is so very flawed, we can see easily his lack of character through the cracks.

@Ron
You hypocrite. You only prove my point, thanks. You have established for the state what morality should be. Your attempt to prove me wrong has been nothing but an accusation against Walker based on your personal opinion. An opinion you are saying is morally superior to Bryant's. If you wish to make an actual case (something liberals are usually incapable of doing) try telling me which specific idea of the founding fathers Scott Walker has gone against. You have chosen a subjective phrase that could work just as well for Obama. The difference is I am not trying to suggest my morality is superior as you are.

@J.B. Schmidt...Funny how you twist and turn in an attempt to justify Bryant's flawed logic and misuse of moral imperatives. I remember that not to long ago you were arguing that greed is moral. Your general interpretation of moral principles are rooted in a system that is a mixture of religion, political myth and social inaccuracies. It does take an awakened intellect and deep contemplation to understand the complexity of the interplay between belief, values, folkways and social justice. A problem for a number of conservatives is a lack of vision beyond pocket book issues, resulting in "pocket book morality".
They also seem to be incapable of seeing the "big picture" and reject that which they don't understand. Finally, morality for conservatives are cut out of blocks of granite, hard and immovable.

@Lyle
Yes, I have morals established by God and you derive your morals from men that other men have propped up into a position of intellectual authority, but have no actually authority.

Morals are only movable to those that wish to break them or justify the ones own behavior. A society that creates morality based on its whims, doesn't actually create anything, it degrades what it was.

@JB - Your situational ethics come through in spite of your obfuscation attempts.
What even our secular Founding Fathers were alluded to are universal truths, not just Judeo Christian, but the other major religions as well. It's a violation of universal truths to tell lies, treat others as you damn well like, take from the poor and give to the rich, not give to Caesar what is Caesar's, deny healing to others, be beholden to the moneychangers, etc.

Situational ethics works no matter what the situation, just twist and spin and justify anything.

@Ron
My situational ethics? I have yet to lay any ethics regarding Walker out here. Please explain.

Your, however, are situational in your attempt to condemn Walker against what the founding fathers said and not bring your true angst against a president making unconstitutional mandates.

J.B. - You either 1) endorse Scott Walker because of his behavior, 2) you endorse him in spite of his behavior, or 3) you do not even endorse him, but would hold your nose and vote for him. From all your writing, you seem to be in the first camp. I think you are an advocate of his m.o.,, the m.o., of course, that is getting him into a recall election, forcing him to hire criminal defense attorneys, and seek recall campaign funds and funding of his defense fund on a national scale, from billionaires.
What a fine piece of work Walker is, and you unflinchingly advocate for him.

@Ron
Which am I to object to, the policies or the man? The blog is drawing morality from policy only and you are confusing (or more likely evading) that discussion with trying to bring up the morality of the man. No man is perfectly moral.

As for his policy, you would have to then condemn the entire republican legislature as being immoral. If that is your attempt, then you are loon. Also, most recall supporters look back with glee to a time when Doyle ran the government. The same administration that actually conducted itself in defiance of the state constitution (something most of us with real morals would find immoral). In comparison, a moral governor is one that obeys the constitution and doesn't run up deficits.

As for the morality of the man. Walker asked for the probe into the men he had hired. If we compare that to Blago (who by the way was liberal) I doubt he asked for an investigation. The hiring of defense attorneys is not odd, many innocent people hire attorneys to deal with legal matters.

Again, as recall supports remember the Doyle administration with a tear in their eye, we see he took money from out of state also, http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/31873009.html. You, I assume you will also not be voting for Tom Barrett or Kathleen Falk in the recall for that same reason, http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1683&dat=20020501&id=UDIqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UkUEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3395,74564

Let me repeat, you are a hypocrite.

@JB - You call me a hypocrite. Hmm...I would not call you a hypocrite. The blog is trying to deflect Walker's immoral methods,intents, and results upon the opposition, and call them immoral if they should oppose his laws, and even, if Walker is somehow, god grant us the mercy, recalled, rescind those laws.

You advocate for Scott Walker 100% in all your comments. You are backpedalling , perhaps if he is found to guilty of criminal activity. You do imply that he is less than a moral character. But I give you that no person can be perfect. As to the entire Republican contingent in the Legislature and their morality, four of them are facing recalls, of course from their own constituents. I do not condemn the four, let their constituents decide. You would advocate that they are morally strong and correct, even if they go down to ignoble defeat at the hands of their constituents? No hypocricy there.

As to Doyle, I hear few endorsements of the man. However, if he defied the Constitution, as you state, my god, why did someone not win the argument in the Republican dominated Supreme Ct. Are conservatives missing opportunities when Constitutional matters are in play? Perhaps, they are being too nicey nice and forgiving? As for Walker asking for the probe of his own staff, that sounds lame. "I hired them, Your Honor, but they were corrupt,and despicable, and I was just too naive and boy scouty to know."
You are not a hypocrite, you believe in Scott Walker 100%!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nda_OSWeyn8

@Dave Koven
Those poor teachers. If the job sucks so bad they should quit, then we could hire people that cared about students and not copays. If your job sucked, could you demand that your boss pay you more and reduce your benefits cost, regardless of performance. My guess is, no.

oakie - That is what we are saying, Walker is so incompetent that he sells out to business, and he is at the same bad for business, at least in wanting to hire more workers. He IS making businessmen wealthier, they are keeping the gains from less taxes.

I am a business man. I make myself more wealthy. The more money I make the more I spend growing my business because I am greedy and want it to be huge. The more money I make the more I am taxed. The more taxes I pay the more teachers are employed. The more teachers I keep employed the more they complain about how much money I make.

Ron you obviously don't understand how the economy works.

Steve - One concern about you and the persona you try to cultivate online, i.e., successful businessman, a growing business, a Cadillac Escalade, mortgaged house, wealthy clients, etc.
Why do you waste your incredibly valuable time commenting ALL day and sometimes at night, and with unconvincing arguments that fall flat?.
Get out there and get that business growing...create some jobs and prove a point. And offer some proof of your profound success to us, not b.s. You sound like your enhancing your profile for an online dating service.

The liberals here are unconvincable, that is why they continue to be liberals. If we wern't here it would be the daily patch kos.

Apparently you missed my real life example above.
Gov. Walker is supposed to create the jobs, not me.

Steve - Lame. Tell us how you are out there in the real world giving 100% or more, fighting for small business's needs. It is actually a Democratic objective to advance small business against the international megacorporation trying to monopolize your segment of the market. How does your advocacy of the superrich help those in your predicament as a small business owner? Are you being a fool by believing that you too will be mega-rich? Very few businesses become successful long-term. Are you looking out for your real interests, or just venting after listening to the Rush? A real business man would not get hyper over ideaologies, they would be pragmatic to their particular business situation. You seem to be an idealogue. Bad for your purported business.

oakie - Can you give us a glimpse of your world in oak creek, and how you claim to know so much about how the economy works? In the past, you have commented using nasty name calling about "liberals", to the point that other ultraconservatives have told you to pipe down, you are hurting the conservative cause.
I also wonder what you think about Jeff Foxworthy.

Steve - OMG, you, in your online persona as a super cool, successful businessman peeling around in a Cadillac Escalade, have violated the sacred sacrements of the current brand of Rush conservatism. YOU, the businessman create the jobs, .not government. Government may enable you by changing the laws, but Walker can only hire government workers. And he is firing them en masse, but you are now enabled. Get out there and build your business and hire unemployed Americans. Make us proud! Submit evidence, however.

Why would Walker be spending ANY of his time doing legislative business? He's a governor, not a legislator...

@Tosa720 ... sorry, but a "blog" post [chart or not] on www.onewisconsinnow.org is not a credible reference. What else do you have?

The site sources Scott Walker's schedule which is acceptable evidence to me. I would also like to see the Lt. Governor's schedule. Her predecessor traveled around the state advocating, from Ms. Kleefisch I've seen an opinion piece with MJS, some photos with Gov. Walker, some tweets and posts. Since it's now fashionable to hold the feet of public employees to the fire, how about those of our elected officials as well.

Cow, Scott Walker is the Governor and should be in Wisconsin doing his job unless he is attending meetings or conferences that advance our state. Personal fundraising, the talking head circuit, etc., do not advance our state, only embarrass it (in my opinion).

Yes, Bren the source is Walker's schedule and compares the hours of 'legislative business' on the calendar with 'personal time'. Somehow it seems that the governor should be spending more time on 'legislative business' rather than governing and/or executive business (even when the legislature isn't even in session), or 'personal time' (which somehow gets spun to mean 'out of state fundraising'). How many states did Walker actually visit for fundraising trips?

Besides, even if we was truly spending so much time fundraising, it could be argued that raising money to fend off this recall and stay in office IS advancing our state...

"approval of state budgets and appropriations; "
Considering that the budget has already been approved for many months, he wouldn't be spending much time on that.

"enactment of state legislation; "
OK--how much time do you expect for him to spend signing bills into law?

"confirmation of executive and judicial appointments;"
Has anyone been appointed lately? Are there any open positions in need of an appointment?

"legislative oversight of executive branch functions."
Not quite sure what this all involves, but again, how much time should a governor set aside on the calendar to do this?

The claim that he doesn't spend much time on 'legislative business' is a bunch of cowdung.

Besides, how can you claim that Walker is passing so many terrible policies and then claim that he isn't doing anything? It's got to be one or the other, doesn't it?

Scott Walker can fundraise all he wants, it won't change the minds of anyone committed to the recall. The John Doe probe and the July 2012 budget hits, and the bad mining bill could well turn more people against him.

The Walker administration is an embarrassment to our state and its rich history.

Hey Bren

Here is a lovely thought to start out the weekend with:

America United ‏ @Progress2day

The Federal Judges Could Send Redistricting Back To A 50-50 State Senate http://bit.ly/AlLN8U #wiunion #p2 #wirecall #wiall via @jer45

That is good! Redistricting should be an apolitical process in my view. In clicking through your link, I also noted the posting of Walker's Politifact history and found this reminder nugget: http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/feb/22/scott-walker/wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-says-he-campaigned-his-/

Scott Walker campaigned on his budget repair plan/union busting? False.

The folks who "remember" Scott Walker campaigning on these issues are examples of successful "truth factor" advertising via AFP's virtually unchallenged media blitz in February/March 2011. Here's an interesting article that touches on the subtle power of advertising, "Advertising and the Mind of the Consumer," http://www.aef.com/on_campus/classroom/book_excerpts/data/1504

Advertising is a very successful business. Political campaigns (and now super PACs-thanks Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts!) spend a fortune on focus groups and advertising.

This is why I DVR everything and blast through the commercials unless I am specifically analyzing it. I do not want my perceptions manipulated.