Sunday Morning Sundries, 2-27-11

27Feb/112

Sunday Morning Sundries, 2-27-11

Thanks to Meep for the piece on new Chicago Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel. When you look at the administration's push for High-Speed Rail, remember that Chicago's still the number two rail hub in the US, and this is, in typical Obama fashion, an attempted means for paying off his backers there on the backs of the rest of the US. In all such national initiatives, there are winners and losers (think of the Eisenhower interstates), but given the slovenly application of "stimulus" funds, and the administration's hostility to Inspectors General and whistleblowers and the limiting of contracts to union outfits, there's a lot of opportunity for business as usual.

As I mentioned yesterday, the new meme being rolled out by the administration and its astroturf is that the Republicans are waging a "War on Women." Women, unions, whatever. The editorial in the New York Times was accompanied by signs at the demonstrations organized by MoveOn in support of the unions, though most of those summoned disappointing numbers, probably not so much given that it was a weekend as because it was a weekend.

(photo from Matt DeLuca via Gabriel Malor's post at AoSHQ)

The spectacle of off-duty Wisconsin cops demonstrating with socialists, anarchists, communists and other -ists has been disconcerting, but what happened yesterday in Madison is outrageous:

To the extent the policeman in the video above, while off duty, wished to participate in the political process, that was fine. But the policeman went much further, and suggested to the protesters that he would disobey the Governor. The announcement by the police union members that they would refuse an order from the legislature to evict the protesters from the building also went far beyond mere political speech.

It's unclear to me what the lines of command are in Wisconsin, and whether the departments in which these policemen work ultimately are under the control of the Governor and/or legislature. Clearly, the Governor does control the National Guard. Regardless, the police union members involved have actively advocated and offered to participate in insurrection against the legal authority in Wisconsin.

More than anything, this shows the dangers of public sector unions. Those who work for the state occupy a different position than those who work in the private sector because they carry the weight of state authority. When those state workers are in law enforcement, they carry special obligations not to use their positions for political purposes.

When an off-duty policeman wearing police insignia takes a megaphone and announces that he and his fellow police union members will disobey orders, that policeman -- at a minimum -- has dishonored his pledge to uphold the law.

The 14 Democrat Senators, by fleeing the state in order not to have to vote, have demonstrated that they work for the unions; so much so that they have cost Wisconsin taxpayers more than $10 million apiece in interest on debt obligations that could have been restructured had they been in Madison to vote. For the children. I don't know whether Wisconsin statutes provide for holding them in contempt of the Legislature, or what the penalties would be, but I do know that that's a mighty expensive vacation, though a small portion of it can be written off on Howard Dean's tab. If there were such statutes, it creates an interesting question: could warrants be issued, and if they were, would the Illinois State Police serve them, or stand firm with their brethren in Wisconsin?

Anyway, kind of makes the Oath Keepers movement seem a little less out there, huh?

This sort of behavior demonstrates, according to the judgment of most Wisconsinites, I am sure, that the unions need to be broken. Via Heather Radish, there's the question, too, whether union supporters in Kansas might be seen as somewhat hostile to women.

I have the story of a big financial scandal that I'm trying to get help rolling out, but for the moment:

A Goldman Sachs research report warning that austerity measures and a possible budget shut down would be a drag to growth is being seen as a covert piece of Democratic propaganda by some on the right.

Say it ain't so!

InstaGlenn:

FRIENDS OF ANGELO IN HIGH PLACES: Angelo Mozilo Skates. And there’s more: “Most of the other Wall Street bigwigs whose firms took unconscionable risks — risks that nearly brought the global financial system to its knees — aren’t even on Justice’s radar screen. Nor has there been a single indictment against any top executive at a subprime lender. The only two people on Wall Street to have been prosecuted for their roles in the crisis are a pair of minor Bear Stearns executives, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, whose internal hedge fund, stuffed with triple-A mortgage-backed paper, collapsed in the summer of 2007, an event that anticipated the crisis.” Well we know — some of — the people who got bargain loans from Countrywide as “Friends Of Angelo.” And we know who Wall Street gave money to in record amounts in 2008. So no big surprise here.

This is why Issa's investigations are so important.