The RNC Convention is Over, and WOW!

“President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans. And to heal the planet. My promises to help you and your family.” — Mitt Romney, Acceptance Speech, RNC Convention, August 30, 2012.

What a difference a speech makes. As Ari Fleischer noted on CNN, the same media that was cool with the shallow vapidity of hope and change in 2008 is now demanding specifics from Mitt Romney. Last night in Tampa, he gave the one set of specifics he needed to give — a course correction.

The Democrats are screaming that it is a return to the 1950′s, when unemployment was less than it is now. That is a talking point. Mitt Romney made a very simple case for himself last night: the President promised the oceans and the earth. He’s just promising to help Americans. It was a modest plan with bold implications.

The speech was the best speech Mitt Romney has ever given. The material might not have been the greatest, but Romney himself delivered it with more substance than the text. The story of the rose will resonate. The desire for parents to have their kids piled up back on the bed will resonate. Mitt Romney will resonate.

Last night on MSNBC, viewers were treated to a spectacle akin to animals flinging poo in a zoo. They were unhinged. It was like Baghdad Bob had taken over. That the left is in such a meltdown is a very good sign for the GOP.

Speaking of MSNBC and CNN I would like to make this observation before continuing. I watched the last night of the RNC convention, on the Fox News Channel, with my daughter at her house. When the convention concluded and the balloons and confetti began descending on the crowd the talking heads appeared. First there was Brett Bair and Megyn Kelly with some very positive remarks. Then Chris Wallace cam on camera and began his thoughtful analysis. As Chris began speaking you could hear the strains on America the Beautiful being sung in the background. Mr. Wallace immediately interrupted his commentary and said he would continue when the song was finished. The Camera then switched to a Black male vocalist singing out “For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America!”

I asked my daughter to quickly switch to CNN and MSNBC, which she did. On MSNBC the talking heads were babbling with their opinions over the song and on CNN they held a shot of the falling balloons while the commentators were bloviating about something or other. We then went back to FNC to hear the remainder of the song and eventually watch Chris Wallace.

Chris Wallace has Class (with a capital “C”). Whether you always agree with his analysis or not the man was respectful enough to allow the viewers to hear this beautiful song. On the other hand, the left-wing jerks on CNN and MSNBC could not wait to begin spouting their meaningless opinions. After all they believe themselves to be masterminds and no dammed patriotic song will get in their way. I looked at my daughter and she smirked a smile and said’ “I get it now.”

One of the left’s favorite attacks on the Republican Party is that it is the party of old white people, devoid of diversity and probably racist

If you were watching MSNBC’s coverage of the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Tuesday night, you might believe those assertions, since missing from the coverage was nearly every ethnic minority that spoke during Tuesday’s festivities.

In lieu of airing speeches from former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis, a black American; Mia Love, a black candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Utah; and Texas senatorial hopeful Ted Cruz, a Latino American, MSNBC opted to show commentary anchored by Rachel Maddow from Rev. Al Sharpton, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes and Steve Schmidt. So much for the free flow of information from Obama’s network.

Now to my thoughts on the Convention.

My first thought is governors, governors, women, women, and minority women in elected power. If the Republican Party has a war on women according to what I saw they sure are losing it. Nikki Haley, Susana Martinez, Mia Love, Condi Rice, and Lucé Vela, First Lady of Puerto Rico. All minorities. And then there were more women including:

• Marsha Blackburn, United States Representative for Tennessee's 7th congressional district.

• Janine Turner, actress and Tea Party activist.

• Cathy McMorris Rodgers, United States Representative for Washington's 5th congressional district.

• Kelly Ayotte, U.S. Senator from New Hampshire

• Mary Fallin, Governor of Oklahoma.

• Pam Bondi, Attorney General of Florida

• Kerry Healey, former Lt. Governor of Massachusetts

• Sher Valenzuela, candidate for Lt. Governor of Delaware

• Jackie Walorski, former Republican member of the Indiana House of Representatives for the 21st district and Republican candidate for US Representative for Indiana's 2nd congressional district

• Barbara Comstock, member of the Virginia House of Delegates for the 34th district

• Rae Lynn Chornenky, president of the National Federation of Republican Women

• Lisa Stickan, Chairperson of the Young Republicans

• And, of course Ann Romney

For a complete list of all the speakers at the RNC Convention please click here.

As you can see the GOP has been thoroughly infiltrated by attractive, powerful, and smart elected officials at every level of government. Too me this along with the high percentage of young people, especially women, shown on the convention floor was one of the highlights. Conservatism is alive and growing.

Elise Cooper quotes Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (my former Representative until redistricting) in a recent article in American thinker entitled “The Women of the RNC:”

“Congresswoman Bono Mack summarized it best: "I will tell you what women's issues are -- the same as men's. They want a prosperous and safe country. They want government to get out of the way to allow our economy to become prosperous again so they can have the economic opportunities to make choices. They want their children to have a better tomorrow than they have today." This will show female voters that Republicans are the party of the future, not the party of the past.”

Now a word on Clint Eastwood.

It was entertaining, but it was weird. Many Democrats are scratching their heads wondering what the heck that was. I’ll tell you what it was. It was the unscripted conversation of an independent voter coming to terms with the end of the Obama love affair.

That speech may not resonate inside the beltway, but it resonates in Ohio and Florida and Wisconsin and other swing states. Clint Eastwood made people comfortable laughing at the President and Joe Biden, the great intellect of the Democratic Party, a smile with a body behind it.

I thought it was bizarre. Lots of politically astute people thought Carly Fiorina’s now infamous demon sheep ad was bizarre and it turned out to resonate with people because the bizarreness and unfamiliarity with what they were seeing made them pay attention.

I thought Eastwood was funny, I laughed, more than that I laughed at Obama. I bet a lot of independents had the same reaction, I did and if you are comfortable laughing at Obama — you'll be ok not voting for him. I am not surprised, that the liberal democrats in the national media don't have a sense of humor.

Clint Eastwood did that and it worked.

But let’s be honest. By the time Marco Rubio was a quarter of the way through his speech, Eastwood didn’t matter too much. Rubio hit it out of the park. It was the perfect set up to Mitt Romney.

Here is what Doug Schoen, a Democrat pollster, had to say about Romney’s speech, words I totally agree with:

“Accepting his party's nomination for president Thursday night in Tampa Mitt Romney delivered a solid speech. It succeeded in beginning the process of humanizing the former Massachusetts governor. It demonstrated his commitment to women and his view of government. It gave us more insight into him personally, into his family and it made him more empathetic.

The high point of the speech came when Romney made it clear that after nearly four years in office President Obama has failed. He explained to America that we are not better off than we were 4 years ago. And his message was delivered in a compelling way.

Romney also succeeded in making it clear that it is all right for Obama voters to swing over to his team this time around. He gave those voters permission to admit that the candidate they chose in 2008 didn't succeed. In other words he told his audience that four years later it's okay to have buyer's remorse.

Another high point came when Romney talked about believing in America and American exceptionalism. That was a theme he hit particular strongly.

Where Romney wasn't as strong was on the issues: his plan to create energy independence and 12 million new jobs if he becomes the next president was not as strong as the overall thematics in the speech.

There's no doubt that in Tampa Romney took a giant step forward with his speech to the convention. He did not, in my judgment, close the deal. But he has now begun the process of turning around a favorable rating that is currently moribund.

Clint Eastwood ultimately doesn't matter; Mitt Romney ultimately does.

Tonight, Mitt Romney took a giant step in the right direction.”

I wonder who this Democrat and dormer supporter of Hillary Clinton will vote for — I don’t think it will be Obama.

Another conservative columnist Rich Lowery had this to say about Romney:

“On the biggest night of his political life, Mitt Romney delivered.

“His address accepting the Republican nomination won't be long-remembered. It was a workmanlike speech. It didn't soar, and wasn't intended to.

After the savaging he's taken from President Obama's re-election campaign, and with the public impression of him still foggy, Romney set out to deliver a simple message: "I'm okay. You can trust me. I can do a job, and I want to put America back to work."

The speech mostly lacked ideology. If you missed the opening bit where he hailed Paul Ryan, you might not have guessed that he had selected the House budget committee chairman as his running-mate in a choice emphasizing deep philosophical and policy differences with the president.

Instead, the speech ran on biography and can-do optimism. It pleased the crowd in the arena, but was pitched to the TV audience beyond its walls, and especially to voters disappointed with President Obama but not outraged by him.

Much of the first part of the speech was spent explaining Romney's family background, often affectingly. He was clearly moved when he explained how his dad used to leave a rose for his mom on her bedside table, and how she found out something had happened to him the day he died when there was no rose. Romney obviously felt it deeply, too, when he described raising his five boys. He said he and Ann would give anything "to break up just one more fight between the boys, or wake up in the morning and discover a pile of kids asleep in our room."

It would take a heart of stone, or an implacable opposition to Romney, not to be impressed by his sincere devotion to his family.

In another passage, he talked of his work at Bain Capital, casting it as risky endeavor, shot through with uncertainty at the beginning. He mentioned sympathetic companies like Staples and a successful steel concern as its fruits. And he leavened it all with some humor, saying he didn't get the Mormon Church to invest with Bain at the outset, worried he might lose its money and "go to hell."

It was the best defense of Bain of the campaign. This discussion gave way to a familiar attack on President Obama for denigrating success. But Romney always spoke of the president's failures more in sorrow than in anger.

"I wish President Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed," Romney said. He credited him with good intentions: "The President hasn’t disappointed you because he wanted to." He invoked the thrill of the president's election and the subsequent letdown: "You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him."

He deflated the president rather than excoriated him. In one of the signature lines of the night, he quoted a famous bit of Obama overpromising to sustained laughter: "President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet." Then, he pointedly contrasted that with his more down-to-Earth goal: "My promise...is to help you and your family."

Romney criticized Obama's policies from the right, but set out a pragmatic mission in very prosaic terms: "What America needs is jobs. Lots of jobs."

His policy agenda was presented only in a sketchy outline. The main thrust of his argument was more thematic: to take the change, hope, and unity that Obama evoked so powerfully in 2008, and leverage them to the end of reversing an Obama agenda that has only brought economic stagnation and political division.

At the end of the night, Romney had done the job he set out to do. After this speech, you might not fervently believe in him, but you might hire him. And that's enough.”

Perhaps Mr. Lowery will not remember the speech, but I will. Romney’s focus on family values and the American Dream are values that will resonate with enough voters to kick Obama out of his job — it worked for Reagan. Positive always outranks negative.

In contrast President Obama campaigning at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio last week stated:

“The question of where one should turn for help in pursuing one's happiness. The answer: government, "applause"; family, "booo."

Making a pitch for greater government control of student loans, Obama cited himself as an example of the value of education, saying, "I got an education and it worked out pretty good.

You can read more on this family vs. government issue in Daren Jonesco’s article in American Thinker.

If Romney and Ryan can stay on message of helping rather than changing and family rather than government we will as Michael Moore stated; “Get used to calling him President Romney”

Jeff Lipkes writes in American Thinker that it was Mitt’s Night.

“Don't expect the campaign to stray from the economy. Jack Cashill speculated here a few days ago about Romney confronting O during a debate about the President's shadowy past. Mitt is not going anywhere near the subject.

Solyndra will be mentioned, but not Fast and Furious. You're not going to hear much about the Constitution, and there will be no mention of abortion, gay marriage, illegal immigration, or Islamic fundamentalism. The policy of the federal government that probably claims the most victims, Affirmative Action, is completely off the table.

Romney will even tread lightly about ObamaCare. The President will be rapped for robbing seniors, taking $713 billion from Medicare to fund O-Care, and for imposing what the Chief Justice has declared to be a massive new tax. ObamaCare will be represented as something that harms small businesses, tout court.

There will be a relentless focus on the economy. Expect to hear over and over about our 42 weeks of over 8% unemployment, and the 23 million unemployed.

Obama will essentially be indicted as a bad manager who needs to be replaced

Let's hope this is right formula, and that Republicans will be able to get their message across to an electorate schooled by the media, the film industry, and the public schools to loathe the rich and to believe that wealth comes from exploitation of the poor.”

Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s speech to the RNC Wednesday night was addressed in no small part to the segment of the population that supported President Obama in 2008, but who were turned off enough by the last four years to consider an alternative in the upcoming election.

One of the most vivid lines in Ryan’s speech – and one which conveyed that message very effectively – was the following:

“We are four years into this presidency. The issue is not the economy that Barack Obama inherited, not the economy as he envisions, but this economy that we are living. College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.”

That was an excellent extended hand to those young voters who entered the political world on a wave of belief in the Hope and Change that one man could provide, and it has spawned an excellent – and equally vivid – ad from Crossroads Generation.

Now it’s on to Charlotte and the DNC’s version of the Vagina Monologues.

Positives and Negatives From Tampa

“Before I ran for district attorney, two Republicans invited my husband and me to lunch, and I knew a party switch was exactly what they wanted. So, I told Chuck, “We'll be polite, enjoy a free lunch, and then say good-bye.'' But we talked about issues -- they never used the words Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. We talked about many issues, like welfare, is it the way of life or hand up? Talked about size of government, how much should it tax families and small businesses? And when we left that lunch, we got in the car and I looked over at Chuck and said, “I'll be damned, we're Republicans.'' — New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, Republican National Convention, August 29, 2012.

I have always been a big fan of Governor Susana Martinez and in 2010 I devoted my blog to her. On May 21, 2011 I also blogged about her and the Hispanic vote. So I am not a newcomer to the conservative leadership of Ms. Martinez. In fact I have friends who live in Albuquerque who absolutely love her and say she is the best thing to come to the New Mexico State House in years, especially after the failed and corrupt administration of Democrat and Clintonista Bill Richardson.

Last night Susana Martinez showed the rest of America who she is and the delegates at the convention loved it. Martinez, like Mia Love, Nikki Halley, and Condoleezza Rice, all women of color or Hispanic ethnicity showed the American Public that the Republican Party is not a party of old white guys as the Democrats and media like to portray it. In fact these women, along with Marco Rubio, Brian Sandoval (Governor of Nevada), Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin, Rand Paul Allen West, and Paul Ryan are the future of the GOP. The days of the Rockefeller eastern Republicans are fading into history. We can thank the Tea Party for this as each of the people mentioned were supported by the Tea Party and had to primary out RINO Republicans. This was definitely a positive development from Tampa.

Negative:

Los Angeles Democratic Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday dismissed GOP efforts to reach out to Hispanic voters.

"You can't just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname and expect that people are going to vote for your party, or your candidate," he said during a press conference. Villaraigosa, a philandering, corrupt adultery, who runs Los Angeles by virtue of the demographics in the Los Angeles just doesn’t get it. These people were elected as governors and senators, not “trotted out.” Oh, how low you have to stoop when your party is a corrupt failure.

Also the Media Research Center reported ABC hosts GOP-bashing Univision anchor over airing Susana Martinez's RNC speech:

“Instead of airing Latina Governor Susana Martinez's speech at the Republican National Convention, ABC chose to host liberal Univision anchor Jorge Ramos who had dire words for the Republican Party.

"I think Republicans have a real, real challenge trying to get Latinos. Because just a few words in Spanish from Susana Martinez over principle is not enough," warned Ramos while ABC showed video of Martinez speaking. "[I]if they insist on talking about immigration, they're going to lose even more of the Hispanic vote," he also said.

Ramos has been an immigration advocate while appearing as a journalist with Univision. He begged for immigration reform in a Time magazine interview.

Yet ABC aired his liberal screed against Republican immigration policy while one of the party's prominent Latino politicians addressed the convention.”

How bad can it get?

Positive:

Condoleezza Rice’s speech was a big hit. Her theme of the American Dream covered everything from foreign policy, trade agreements, and national security to welfare and school vouchers. Probably the most memorable, and I am sure to be replayed, was her reference to her personal story when she said:

“And on a personal note, a little girl grows up in Jim Crow Birmingham. The segregated city of the south where her parents cannot take her to a movie theater or to restaurants, but they have convinced that even if she cannot have it hamburger at Woolworths, she can be the president of the United States if she wanted to be, and she becomes the secretary of state.”

As an educator Ms. Rice had this to say about education in the United States:

“And your greatest ally in controlling your response to your circumstances has been a quality education. But today, today, when I can look at your zip code and I can tell whether you're going to get a good education, can I honestly say it does not matter where you came from, it matters where you are going? The crisis in K-12 education is a threat to the very fabric of who we are.

My mom was a teacher. I respect the profession. We need great teachers, not poor ones and not mediocre ones. We have to have high standards for our kids, because self-esteem comes from achievement, not from lax standards and false praise.

And we need to give parents greater choice, particularly, particularly poor parents whose kids, very often minorities, are trapped in failing neighborhood schools. This is the civil rights issue of our day.”

Once again you see a conservative black woman with talent and brains standing tall in the GOP tent. Condi Rice is no “token trotted out” for eye candy. She is an accomplished concert pianist, served as national security advisor and secretary of state for the eight years of the G.W. Bush administration through some of the most dangerous times in our nation’s history, and is now a dean at Stanford University.

Negative:

Rising Republican star Mia Love's Wikipedia page was vandalized overnight with racist and sexist epithets.

The attack comes as Democrats and liberal media outlets criticize or downplay the GOP's effort at showcasing diversity at their convention in Tampa.

Love, a Utah city mayor and congressional candidate who is black, delivered a brief but rousing address Tuesday night at the Republican National Convention. The daughter of Haitian immigrants told her family story, throwing in some jabs at President Obama's "divided" America for good measure.

Bloggers were quick to spot some inflammatory changes to her Wikipedia page that night. Though the changes have since been removed, screen grabs posted to various websites show one section called her a "dirty, worthless whore" who sold out to big business. Another section again called her a "sell-out" to the "right wing hate machine," before accusing her of being exploited "like the House N----- she truly is."

The Wikipedia page changes came as the party's other non-white stars in Tampa were either criticized or played down this week.

On Tuesday, MSNBC appeared to gloss over much of the minority politicians' addresses.

Rich Noyes, research director for the conservative Media Research Center and senior editor with Newsbusters.com, said the only minority speaker who got significant air time on MSBNC from 7 p.m. until the end of the lineup was South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is Indian-American.

He said he understands the media have to cover Tropical Storm Isaac but suggested there should be a priority on highlighting minority speakers at the RNC.

"There's been this undercurrent in the media that the Republican Party has a diversity problem, that they're not reaching out to minorities," he said. "It's been something you've heard about for months. Well, this is the Republican Party reaching out. If they're reaching out and nobody covers it, who's seeing them do it?"

Of course I am not surprised by these vulgar statements by liberals. Do we not — all of us — know full well what the Democrat Party has become? Seriously, I thought it was pretty well established that the mainstream democrat is a vulgar, hateful hypocrite who projects his/her inner contradictions and self-deceptions on his/her enemy.

Positive:

Paul Ryan’s speech was a home run. He did what he had to do — convince independent voters that it is okay to like Obama, okay to have voted for Obama, and okay to want to replace Barack Obama. His speech was not for the GOP. His speech was for independents.

Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney know that as the Democrats amp up the negativity, they have to give independents an incentive to keep independents in the race and for them. Paul Ryan succeeded.

Back in 2009, Rush Limbaugh addressed CPAC. The media covered it live, hoping it would damage the GOP. Instead, his off the cuff remarks put the Democrats on defense for months. He made the case that we have to support individuals over the collective, small government over big government, and choice in life (outside of killing kids) over one size fits all mandates.

Republican leaders shied away from those themes until the tea party came along and seized them. GOP leaders still shy away from them. Remember, the weekend Paul Ryan was picked, the GOP leadership was apoplectic that they’d now lose because of Medicare.

Instead, the GOP is now winning on the issue.

Last night, Paul Ryan brought Rush Limbaugh’s CPAC themes full circle into the next generation with a youthful, smiling face that makes it hard for the Democrats to attack. He related to women, to moms, to small businesses, and to families. Paul Ryan made multi-generational points that it is time for a change. He used his personal story to introduce himself and bolster his claims. He made the argument that we must support individuals over the collective. He made the point that we must cut the federal government. He made the point that people should not be dependent on one size fits all federal programs and mandates.

He appealed to independents and the base. He remains one heck of a pick for Mitt Romney.

Paul Ryan is a winner.

Barack Obama’s campaign had several weeks to define Paul Ryan and failed. Now Paul Ryan just defined himself in a way that resonates with swing voters.

Negative:

Within minutes the Obama media were all over Ryan for his reference to the closing of the GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, Ryan’s home town when he said:

“President Barack Obama, came to office during an economic crisis, as he has reminded us a time or two. Those are very tough days. And any fair measure of his record has to take that into account. My own state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it.

Especially in Janesville where we were about to lose a major factory. A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that G.M. plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said, “I believe that if our government is there to support you, this plant will be here for another 100 years.''

That's what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that's how it is in so many towns where the recovery that was promised is no where in sight. Right now, 23 million men and women are struggling to find work. 23 million people unemployed or underemployed. Nearly one in six Americans is in poverty. Millions of young Americans have graduated from college during the Obama presidency, ready to use their gifts and get moving in life.

Half of them can't find the work they studied for, or any work at all. So here's the question, without a change in leadership, why would the next four years be any different from the last four years?”

Sally Kohn authored a hit piece disguised as fact checking on the Fox News opinion page:

“Fact: While Ryan blamed President Obama for the shut down of a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, the plant was actually closed under President George W. Bush. Ryan actually asked for federal spending to save the plant, while Romney has criticized the auto industry bailout that President Obama ultimately enacted to prevent other plants from closing.”

Monday, Feb. 2, 2009 the Wisconsin GazetterXtra.com reported:

“The concerned relative had it partly right.

Too bad about the GM thing, but I hear the Janesville plant is getting a new medium-duty truck,” the relative told a salaried employee of the auto plant in Janesville at a holiday gathering.

Full-size sport utility vehicle production has ended at the local General Motors plant, but medium-duty truck production is continuing—not starting—in Janesville.

And it likely will continue into May, when the lights finally go off in the facility that has been producing vehicles since 1923.

When GM officials announced last June that SUV production would cease in Janesville, they also said that medium-duty truck production would conclude by the end of 2009, or sooner if market conditions dictate.

Orphaned by the loss of its big brother in December, the Isuzu line and its 50 or so hourly and salaried employees continue to build about 25 trucks four days a week in what has become a nearly empty plant.

The Isuzu line is operating in the north end of the 4.8 million-square-foot plant, an area that was once the plant’s tire building.

In a partnership with Isuzu, local workers build the NPR truck, which is commonly used as a delivery vehicle.”

So it seems workers at that GM plant in Janesville were indeed working in February of 2009. In fact, they worked on that joint GM/Isuzu project producing new vehicles until May 2009, under President Barack Obama.

The media is declaring Paul Ryan’s speech full of half-truths when they rarely do that to Barack Obama’s campaign speeches? Seriously, this was a campaign speech of big ideas and the media would denigrate it by screaming that Paul Ryan left out key details when, in fact, they weren’t really relevant to the big ideas or themes and some just weren’t added because of time. Meanwhile, Barack Obama claims ObamaCare will solve our national debt problems and the media goes blind to his flat out lies.

Perhaps Ryan should have noted when it comes to jobs once again Obama has failed with his GM bailout. One of Obama’s big lies was that by pouring money down the rat hole of General Motors he saved thousands of good paying jobs in the auto industry. This is pure baloney.

According to TradeReform GM producing 70% of autos outside U.S. Dan Akerson (GM CEO) states that seven out of ten GM automobiles are built outside the U.S. they have 11 joint ventures with Chinese government controlled auto manufacturers. Also they are moving their R&D to China.

The truth of this election is that it is showing just how in the tank for Obama the vast majority of the media really is. They should be embarrassed, but first they have to get their messiah re-elected. It’s time for the fact checkers to check the fact checkers. Ryan had it exactly right, and the fact checkers have made a mockery of their own profession by stepping all over their own biases to refute Ryan. You can read more on this issue in Ed Morrissey’s column in Hot Air.

Negative:

Among the plethora of negative and racists attacks on the Romney, Ryan and other GOP speakers — attacks that were not unexpected nor a surprise — one of the more egregious attacks came from Juan Williams. Williams is a regular commentator on Fox News and a person fired from liberal NPR and vilified by his compatriots on the left. It was the conservative element at Fox that got him hired as a regular at a much higher salary.

On Tuesday night, as part of a panel consisting of Charles Krauthammer and Britt Hume, Williams labeled Ann Romney as a “corporate wife who hasn’t struggled in her life” when he said:

“Romney’s wife, Ann Romney, on the other hand looked to me like a corporate wife. And, you know, the stories she told about struggles, that’s hard for me to believe. I mean, she’s a very rich woman. I know that and America knows that.”

Consider the fact that Juan Williams said he had a hard time believing a woman with five children who has overcome breast cancer and is currently fighting M.S. – both of which are conditions that affect women more than men – simply because she has money is appalling. If a conservative commentator had made such a comment N.O.W. would probably be marching outside their studio right now.

A ‘corporate wife’? What exactly is a ‘corporate wife’? I guess it might make sense if Romney got remarried after his business success and one wanted to attack his spouse as a trophy wife, but the Romneys have been married for 43 years, long before the days of Bain Capital. And while the Romneys are indeed very wealthy now, and Mitt Romney was the son of a millionaire governor, he donated his inheritance and built his success on his own — with Ann Romney alongside him every step of the way.

Did Williams have trouble believing that Teresa Heinz Kerry, a woman of rather extensive wealth, too had suffered in life? Not exactly. In May 2004 Williams stated:

“The senator’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, also offers a strong link to independent older women, especially widows and divorcees. In her interview with Barbara Walters, Heinz Kerry revealed that a doctor once recommended she have an abortion because of medical problems, but a miscarriage ended the pregnancy. That personal revelation cut a clear path for her husband to the abortion rights position central to the concerns of so many single women voters.

Regardless of whether female voters are ultimately swayed by the women of the Bush or Kerry clans, one thing’s for sure: Their vote certainly isn’t being ignored.”

Juan, your agenda is really showing.

“I don’t care how much money you have, would you rather have a good healthy life or all the money in the world? I think she would rather be poor than have MS and breast cancer. My wife suffered from breast cancer some twenty years ago and I know how that terrible disease affects women. I also have a very close friend who is suffering MS and, again her life is far from being a picnic. She struggles through life each day combatting this crippling disease. Perhaps if Mr. Williams had a loved one close to him suffering these diseases he might take a different view.

Plain and simply put, Juan’s comment was insulting and fit in lockstep with the Democrat’s talking points to paint Mitt Romney as a corporate CEO’s that must be evil because he worked his way to the top.

What they’re saying is, here’s a guy who’s had everything handed to him, you know, he’s just this corporate CEO, this cold, calculated person, and they can’t understand your struggles because they’ve never had them.

This is the entire approach to the election from the Democratic Party.

Yesterday Williams wrote a weak defense of his comments as a Fox News opinion piece. He attempted to clarify and excuse his vulgar remarks by stating:

“Last night on Fox’s special coverage of the Republican Convention, I said that Ann Romney reminded me of a corporate wife during her speech. In the hours since I made that comment, I have gotten a lot of static and a flurry of negative feedback through Twitter and Facebook.

Many people took offense to that criticism so I think it is worth explaining exactly what I meant.

First, I was making a criticism of the speech-- not of Mrs. Romney.

….

My reaction was to the political speech. It was intended to help the presidential candidate with women voters. The goal was to let the audience know he is a caring person and not a hardened businessman lacking a heart.

Where the speech lost me was in her representation that the Romneys could understand the struggle of the average American family because they, too, had struggled. Those comments felt to me as if this was something she had often expressed in formal settings while representing her husband. This representation was not at all persuasive to me because their “struggle” is vastly different than the economic struggle of most Americans.

My criticism is about the economic angle of the speech.

The most effective political approach to me -- as a political analyst— would have been for Mrs. Romney to say that she knows she is fortunate, knows she blessed and she wants the best for others too.

That message is the perfect counter to any thoughts that her husband is out of touch with the lives of average Americans. It would have put the issue of their wealth in proper perspective as the American Dream and conveyed that they feel blessed to be in position to help others.”

Okay Juan I understand Teresa Heinz Kerry, a women who was once married to a billionaire Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, who made his money from selling ketchup, is good and Ann Romney is a phony for raising six kids into responsible adults and suffering through two major illnesses. Shame on you Mr. Williams! And, if Sean Hannity, you buddy and protector, on Fox News does not take you to task for your comments he is a phony too.

Finally the last and perhaps the most egregious attack on the Romneys came from the media — in particularly Yahoo News. During live coverage of the Republican National Convention here in Tampa, Yahoo News Washington bureau chief David Chalian provided the perfect example of the pervasive anti-Republican bias Mitt Romney faces in his bid to unseat President Barack Obama.

In video broadcast Monday night by ABC and Yahoo over the Internet, Chalian can be heard claiming that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife Ann are unconcerned about the fate of residents of the New Orleans area who are currently being hit by Hurricane Isaac.

“They aren’t concerned at all,” Chalian can be heard on the live broadcast. “They are happy to have a party with black people drowning.”

The anti-Romney joke was made while Chalian was on an active microphone, apparently unaware that his quips against the former Massachusetts governor were being recorded and broadcast live.

Unmentioned by Chalian was the fact that the Republican National Committee canceled the entirety of Monday's program or that President Obama did not cancel any of his regularly scheduled campaign fund-raising parties that night.

Too Yahoo News’ credit they offered an immediate apology and sacked Mr. Chalian. Yahoo News issued the following statement:

“David Chalian’s statement was inappropriate and does not represent the views of Yahoo!. He has been terminated effective immediately. We have already reached out to the Romney campaign, and we apologize to Mitt Romney, his staff, their supporters and anyone who was offended.”

The cast and management at MSNBC really, really want their viewers — all 20 of them now, I believe — to understand that the Republican Party is raaaaaaaaaaaacist, and that the GOP convention is nothing more than a bunch of white men talking and applauding. They are so desperate to sell their agenda of latent Republican racism that they simply averted their eyes every time a speaker that didn’t fit their lone talking point took the stage:

When popular Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz, the GOP nominee for Senate, took the stage, MSNBC cut away from the Republican National Convention and the Hispanic Republican from Texas’ speech.

MSNBC stayed on commercial through former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis’ speech, as well. Davis, who recently became a Republican, is black.

Then, when Puerto Rican Governor Luis Fortuno’s wife Luce’ Vela Fortuño took the stage minutes later, MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews opted to talk over the First Lady’s speech.

And Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval? Noticeably missing from MSNBC, too.

Mia Love, a black candidate for Congress in Utah, was also ignored by MSNBC.

Say, wouldn’t the practice of ignoring people of color be considered raaaaaaaaaaaacist? And what did MSNBC use as a replacement for all of these speakers last night?

In lieu of airing speeches from former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis, a black American; Mia Love, a black candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Utah; and Texas senatorial hopeful Ted Cruz, a Latino American, MSNBC opted to show commentary anchored by Rachel Maddow from Rev. Al Sharpton, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes and Steve Schmidt.

No doubt, they were trying to keep their 20 19 17 viewers up to date with all of the antics of raaaaaaaaaaaacist Republicans, and so had no choice but to block out Republicans like Mia Love, Ted Cruz, and Artur Davis. I’ve seen news reports from Communist countries that had less Orwellian message control than this.

Why did they just happen to block all of these speakers? Obviously, it’s not a coincidence. They’re afraid of two outcomes by showing these speakers, the first of which is the exposure of the intellectual vapidity of their repeated accusations of raaaaaaaaaaaacism. The second is the possibility of acknowledging that conservatism appeals to a broad, diverse section of the electorate, which might encourage more people of color to consider its policies, especially with the powerful personal stories told by Mia Love and Ted Cruz. Instead of dealing with that reality, MSNBC chose to deliberately misinform their 15 14 12 viewers. Fortunately, the MSNBC lineup (with the apparent acquiescence of Comcast) is so busy marginalizing themselves that it really doesn’t matter anymore.

Tonight the RNC convention will end with speeches from Marco Rubio and the nominee himself Mitt Romney. I am sure the puny little bloggers sitting in their underwear in their parent’s basement are warming up their computers as I write this and the so-called mainstream media journalists are gathering to compare notes as to how they can tear Romney down as they have done with the other speakers. This includes people like Brian Williams and that phony Tom Brokaw

News Busters reported that on NBC: Williams and Brokaw used Condi Rice’s speech to depict Republicans as narrow-minded:

“On NBC’s live Wednesday coverage of the GOP convention both Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw used Condoleezza Rice's speech to paint the GOP delegation as close-minded on immigration, education reform and Barack Obama’s background. Right after the former Secretary of State's speech, Williams snarked: "Portions of that speech could have been delivered at next week [DNC] gathering in North Carolina. Some candid talk to tepid applause on immigration." He then added that Rice made the "rare utterance at a GOP convention of the American truism that zip code determines education in our country."

For his part, Brokaw took a shot at the GOP crowd as he chided: "What was so striking to me was one other line that she had: 'It does not matter where you come from it matters where you are going.' Well to a lot of delegates, on this floor, it does matter where President Obama came from. Because they've been very critical of his Kenyan father, who had a different faith than many of them would embrace and they've raised lots of questions about where his ultimate loyalty is.”

You can read more about the biased coverage of the RNC Convention at News Busters, if you have the stomach for it. And for a history of the media’s biased, and sometimes vulgar, reporting on Republicans check out the Media Research Center’s report; The Media vs. the GOP: Intolerant, Anti-Women, and Always Too Conservative.

That’s enough for now. It’s on to Charlotte, North Carolina for the Vagina Monologues.

Christie Hits It Out Of The Park

“It takes leadership that you don't get from reading a poll. You see, Mr. President, real leaders do not follow polls. Real leaders change polls.” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Republican National Convention, August 28, 2012.

Last night New Jersey Governor Chris Christie gave the American Voter a good dose of reality during his keynote address. His theme — that it is better to be respected than loved — was what we needed to define the issues in this year’s Presidential Election. Christie said:

“You see, I believe we have become paralyzed, paralyzed by our desire to be loved. Now our founding fathers had the wisdom to know that social acceptance and popularity were fleeing, and that this country's principles needed to be rooted in strengths greater than the passions and the emotions of the times. But our leaders of today have decided it's more important to be popular, to say and do what's easy, and say yes rather than to say no, when no is what is required.

In recent years -- in recent years we as a country have too often chosen the same path. It's easy for our leaders to say, ``Not us, not now'', in taking on the really tough issues. And unfortunately we have stood silently by and let them get away with it. But tonight, I say enough.

Tonight, I say together, let's make a much different choice. Tonight, we are speaking up for ourselves and stepping up. Tonight, we're beginning to do what is right and necessary to make America great again. We are demanding that our leaders stop tearing each other down and work together to take action on the big things facing America. Tonight, we will do what my mother taught me. Tonight, we are going to choose respect over love.”

…..

“Now we ended an era of absentee leadership without purpose or principal in New Jersey. I am here to tell you tonight, it is time to end this era of absentee leadership in the oval office and send real leaders to the White House. America needs Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and we need them right now.

We have to tell each other the truth, right? Listen, there is doubt and fear for our future in every corner of our country. I have traveled all over the country, and I have seen this myself. These feelings are real. This moment is real, and it is a moment like this where some skeptics wonder if America's greatness is over. They wonder how those who have come before the before us had in the spirit and tenacity to lead America to a new era of greatness in the face of challenge, not to look around and say “Not me'', but to look around and say “Yes, me.'' Now, I have an answer tonight for the skeptics and the naysayers, the dividers and the defenders of the status quo. I have faith in us. I know.

I know we can be the men and women our country calls on us to be tonight. I believe in America and her history, and there's only one thing missing now. Leadership. It takes leadership that you don't get from reading a poll. You see, Mr. President, real leaders do not follow polls. Real leaders change polls.”

Of course not everyone was thrilled with Christie’s remarks. Some thought he did not do enough in attacking Barack Obama by spelling out his failed record and tyrannical policies. Other thought his respect vs. love theme did not fit well with Ann Romney’s remarks. As an example of this Ed Malloy, the mayor of Fairfield Iowa stated in an opinion piece on Fox News:

“As an elected official I also know that you can’t more a city, state or country forward without compromise and bi-partisan leadership. Governor Christie knows that as well and cited accomplishments in New Jersey that were made in that way. He knows that one of his challenges of governing in a “blue state” is to work with leaders of the opposite party. So I was pleased to hear Governor Christie let his tough guard down during the speech and admit to conciliatory politics and shared accomplishments. We need more of that from both parties.

A powerful speaker, Governor Christie can move people with his oratory style to embrace his themes and point of view, but his attitude and demeanor in this speech was too aggressive and overbearing. Ann Romney told us the most important thing she wanted to convey tonight was love — love of country, love of family and her individual love of her husband. Chris Christie followed with the statement that as a nation “I believe we have become paralyzed by our desire to be loved.” No room for love in a tough guys world.

The truth about this speech in my opinion is that Governor Christie means well and is an effective executive for his state. His message to the country though about being tough and telling the truth misses the point that our problems are complex and the truth about them is more nuanced. They deserve our resolve to work together within the framework of our constitution and the government it outlined to find solutions through compromise and commitment. We can’t bully our way to solving our problems. We need to inspire the greatness of our citizens and challenge our leaders to produce results for our nation.”

I think Mayor Malloy misses the point. Ann Romney was talking about the values, compassion, and greatness of her husband. Her job was to give Mitt Romney a more human face to the electorate, as job she did very well. Her rating on Twitter’s Political Index poll was the highest in their history her Twitter Political Index, which tracks Twitter favorability, rose from 45 to 83. Of course you must remember that Twitter’s social networking is biased towards younger people and children who tend liberal and Democrat. But, a boost of 28 points is still something to consider. Will these Twits vote for Romney? Probably not – that’s for the adults in the room who do vote.

The following best indicates Ann Romney’s theme of love:

“And I want us to think tonight about the love we share for those Americans, our brothers and our sisters, who are going through difficult times, whose days are never easy, nights are always long, and whose work never seems done. They're here among us tonight in this hall. They are here in neighborhoods across Tampa and all across America.

The parents who lie awake at night, side by side, wondering how they will be able to pay the mortgage or make the rent.

The single dad who is working extra hours tonight so that his kids can buy some new clothes to go back to school, can take a school trip or play a sport so his kids can feel, you know, just like other kids.

And the working moms who love their jobs, but would like to work just a little less to spend more time with the kids, but that is just out of the question with this economy.

Or how about that couple who would like to have another child but wonder how they will afford it? I have been all across this country and I know a lot of you guys.

And I have seen and heard stories of how hard it is to get ahead now. You know what? I have heard your voices. They have said to me, I am running in place and we just cannot get ahead.

Sometimes, I think that, late at night, if we were all silent for just a few moments and listened carefully, we could hear a collective sigh from the moms and dads across America who made it through another day, and know that they will make it through another one tomorrow. But in the end of that day moment, they are just aren't sure how.

And if you listen carefully, you'll hear the women sighing a little bit more than the men. It's how it is, isn't it? It's the moms who have always had to work a little harder to make everything right. It's the moms of this nation, single, married, widowed, who really hold the country together. We're the mothers. We're the wives. We're the grandmothers. We're the big sisters. We're the little sisters and we are the daughters.”

From above the snippet Ann Romney’s speech it’s not hard to see what even the left-leaning Twits on social networking loved her remarks. They were right up their alley of peace and love. Please do not think I am criticizing Mrs. Romney, I am not. Ann Romney had a job to do in bringing a human, compassionate face to Mitt Romney and she did it very well.

But, when it comes to leadership and governance it was Governor Christie who told us the truth, however uncomfortable it is. Love will not reduce the size of government. Love will not curtail the selfish interest of the public sector and teachers unions. Love will not reduce our national debt or deficit. Love will not reduce the size of government and solve out illegal immigration problem. Love will not get 50 million Americans off food stamps or create the millions of private sector jobs needed to grow the economy. Love will not better educate our children or get us back to two parent families.

To accomplish all of the above we need Christie’s tough love — a love based on leadership and telling the American People the truth. Love alone will not get a person addicted to drugs or alcohol off of substance abuse. Our addiction is to government hand-outs and relying on Washington, D.C. or the state capitol for our daily needs. To get off this addiction we need Christie’s tough love. Only this will restore the American Dream.

There were other speakers at the Republican Convention; many were women who are rising stars in the party. There was Nikki Haley (the governor of South Carolina), Susana Martinez (the governor of New Mexico), and Kelly Ayotte (Senator from New Hampshire). All are conservatives and all are smart and attractive. But one of the upcoming stars of the Republican Party, who spoke last night is Mia Love, the mayor of the mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah.

Mia’s profile and backstory alone have made her a compelling presence in the conservative movement. She is a first-generation Haitian-American, a Mormon and a small-town Utah mayor. Love, who is black, is also running for Congress in mostly white Utah. If elected, she would be the first black Republican woman ever to serve in Congress.

In her address Tuesday night, the mayor of Saratoga Springs presented herself to the nation as the embodiment of the American dream — and touched on themes of self-reliance, small government and fiscal responsibility.

"My parents immigrated to the U.S. with $10 in their pocket, believing that the America they had heard about really did exist," Love said. "When times got tough they didn't look to Washington, they looked within. So the America I came to know was centered in personal responsibility and filled with the American dream."

The 36-year-old mayor, who is in an uphill race against popular incumbent Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson, described President Obama's vision for the country as a "divided one" that she said is "pitting us against each other based on our income level, gender and social status."

"His policies have failed. We are not better off than we were four years ago, and no rhetoric, bumper sticker or Hollywood campaign ad can change that," she said. "Mr. President, I am here to tell you we are not buying what you are selling in 2012."

Convention organizers sought to put the spotlight on Love's personal story by airing a short video before her remarks.

This is Love's story: Her parents left Haiti for the U.S. 39 years ago. Her father worked several jobs to support the family, including paying for his daughter to attend the University of Hartford, where she graduated with a degree in fine arts.

"I remember taking my dad to college with me on the first day of orientation and he looked at me very seriously, and he said, 'Mia, your mother and I have done everything we could to get you here. We've worked hard. We've never taken a handout. You're not going to be a burden to society. You will give back,'" Love said in an interview Tuesday with Fox News.

"It actually stayed with me," she said.

Love, who was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and raised primarily in Connecticut, moved to Utah in 1997 and married Jason Love. She converted to Mormonism and served on the Saratoga City Council for six years before running for mayor.

Love, a favorite among the Tea Party movement, champions fiscal responsibility and limited government. Her chief mission, she says, is to run a "fiscally sound city."

"It's not rocket science," she told Fox News. "The most I've done is really step out of the way and allowed the economy to thrive, allowed businesses to come and add resources."

I hope Ms. Love makes it to Congress, we need more conservative women like her. You can watch the compete video of Mia Love’s speech by clicking here.

In two weeks, if you have the stomach for it, you will watch a convention that I can only describe as the Vagina Monologues. Last night in Tampa, FL, Ann Romney wowed the crowd. She was personable, personal, and did her best to make her husband relatable. At the same time, the Democratic National Convention was rounding out its list of speakers. While Ann Romney, Chris Christie, and the rest of the Republicans are focused on the future of this country and the way to create jobs, the Democrats are turning their convention into a celebration of the right to kill babies.

Hiding behind the euphemism of “women’s health” and the “war of women,” the Democrats intend to trot on stage all manner of radical abortion supporters, from Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood to Nancy Keenan of NARAL to Sandra Fluke who still insists tax payers subsidize the sexual habits of Americans.

The Democratic Convention has turned into an abortion fest where speaker after speaker will try to convince Americans that Mitt Romney wants to send women back to the fifties, as Barack Obama’s campaign website claims, and will try to distract from terrible economic news that will be pouring out as third quarter economic results begin rolling out.

But here’s the most galling part — a media that has spent weeks portraying the Republican Party as fringe because of its nominee’s position on abortion, will totally ignore that more Americans agree with Mitt Romney than they do the abortion on demand position of Democrats.

The Speakers at the Democratic National Convention have opposed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, and even mild efforts to ensure sanitary conditions at abortion clinics for those who do decide to kill their children. But the media, I have no doubt, will dance around the fact that the Democratic Convention will pull out all the stops to convince women their vaginas are in danger as they celebrate their ability to kill kids and lament restricts on doing so.

As J. Robert Smith writes in American Thinker the Democratic Party is a party of factions:

“The Democratic Party is the party of factions-as-claimants. Democratic factions are all unified around big government. What they want -- be they gays, feminists, movement blacks and Hispanics, academics, the upscale leftist white inbred, among others -- is ever bigger chunks of the big government pie.

Another way of putting it: the Democratic Party is the party of bands of jackals and vultures, all ripping at taxpayers' caresses -- and one another, if they can't carry off enough meat.”

America has an 8.3% unemployment rate, a $15 trillion dollar national debt, and escalating energy costs but don’t expect to hear much about that.

Public Sector and Teachers Unions are Bankrupting America

“All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt, letter to Luther C. Steward, President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, of August 16, 1937.

In his August 19, 1937 letter to Luther C. Steward, the president of the National Federation of Public Employees F.D.R. went on to say:

“All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.

Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that "under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government."

In 1955 George Meany, considered by many to be the father of the labor movement in the United States, said this about public sector unions:

“Nothing could be further from the truth. The main function of American trade unions is collective bargaining. It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government. Unions, as well as employers, would vastly prefer to have even Government regulation of labor-management relations reduced to a minimum consistent with the protection of the public welfare.”

That wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was George Meany — the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O — in 1955. Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movement once thought the idea absurd.

The founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers, however, don’t generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money. When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”

Government collective bargaining means voters do not have the final say on public policy. Instead their elected representatives must negotiate spending and policy decisions with unions. That is not exactly democratic — a fact that unions once recognized.

George Meany was not alone. Up through the 1950s, unions widely agreed that collective bargaining had no place in government. But starting with Wisconsin in 1959, states began to allow collective bargaining in government. The influx of dues and members quickly changed the union movement’s tune, and collective bargaining in government is now widespread. As a result unions can now insist on laws that serve their interests — at the expense of the common good.

In 1977 State Senator Ralph C. Dills (Democrat-32^nd California Senatorial District authored the infamous act bearing his name authorizing collective bargaining for public sector unions in California. The bill was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown in 1978, and as Frederic Bastiat stated; the unseen consequences began.

California is the nation's shameful example of what happens when Democrats influenced by big-government labor rule the statehouse for forty years. Jane Jamison wrote a very comprehensive article of the effects of the Dills’ Act in American Thinker in 2010:

“With 12.5% unemployment (up from 4.5% a mere three years ago) and a "recognized" budget deficit of $21 billion, California has just found that out it is in much, much more financial trouble than anyone, especially a Democrat, really wants to admit.

California's governor Schwarzenegger commissioned a study by Stanford University, which has found that California's three public employee pension funds (The California Public Employees' Retirement System [CalPERS], California State Teachers' Retirement System [CalSTRS], and University of California Retirement System [UCRS]) lost $109.7 billion in portfolio value in one year (June '08 to June '09) and are currently in shortfall of "more than half a trillion dollars."

By law, California taxpayers are required to pay the public employees' pensions shortfalls that may occur. Local governments cannot "print money" as the federal government does to cover budget deficits.

What should have been considered a huge scandal in the state pension fund system in the past year got little attention but is more pertinent now: The two largest plans, CalPERS and CalSTRS, were reportedly near bankruptcy in 2009 after it was learned the funds had lost from 25%-41% of their value due to risky investments in real estate and the stock market. Former employees of the state plans were accused in January of getting huge fees to direct pension investments to certain banks or ventures.”

…..

“Since Brown gave them a green light in the 1970s, public employee unions have become a muscular, dominating force in California politics. State employee unions spent a whopping $31.7 million on state races just from 2001-2006, according to the California Fair Political Practices commission -- higher than any other group, including corporations. The majority-Democrat California legislature has voted accordingly.”

There is a great new book available that explores the effects of government workers unions on our economy and politics. In his book, Government Unions and the Bankrupting of America, Daniel DiSalvo explains how Government-workers unions have been political juggernauts in the U.S. since the collective bargaining rights revolution of the 1960s and 70s. DiSalvo exposes how these unions have created cartels with their political allies, mostly in the Democratic Party, to the detriment of the taxpaying public.

Daniel DiSalvo, a political scientist at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is worried that public employee unions upset the balance of power in a democracy. While the title suggests the topic is about unions bankrupting government, the actual focus of the book is on how unions give undue political power to public servants. The effects of generous retirement benefits and paychecks on state and local budgets are only one part of his argument. It is a thesis worth considering.

In brief, DiSalvo suggests that public employee unions differ from private sector unions (as did George Meany and F.D.R.) in that they have the power to elect their own bosses. This means that the adversarial relationship that characterizes private sector unions and businesses can be replaced by a more cooperative relationship. Moreover, government jobs do not include the same restrictions as private service jobs. If a union demands too much from a private firm, they may raise that firm's costs enough to force it out of business. As a result, unions in the private sector have some limits on what they can ask for. German unions have known this for years and have a saying; “Du sollst nicht töten die Gans, die goldene Eier legt” – “Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg.”

By contrast, in the public sector employees do not have to worry about driving the government out of business, though state and local budgets do provide some limits to their ability to bargain. And the elected officials who approve their contracts do not have to pay out of their own profits: the money comes from taxpayers. Finally, a portion of this money winds up as public service union dues, and is used to fund political activities and candidates who will continue to support the interests of the union. For the most part, DiSalvo argues, these candidates and causes are synonymous with the Democratic Party.

The following video, prepared by Declaration Entertainment gives a brief, but great overview, of the problem facing America today of the influence and dangers of the public sector unions.

Daniel DiSalvo exposes how these unions have created cartels with their political allies, mostly in the Democratic Party, to the detriment of the taxpaying public

Usually it takes a national government to spend itself into a debt measured in the trillions. Yet it comes as little surprise that the same profligacy that pervades the corridors of federal power infects this country’s 87,000 state, county and municipal governments and school districts. By 2013, the amount of retirement money promised to employees of these public entities will exceed cash on hand by more than a trillion dollars.

An April 23, 2010 Washington Times editorial states:

“The reason pension plans are headed toward financial disaster is simple. Ever-expanding public-sector unions have flexed their political muscle and larded up with lavish benefits to be be paid out decades from now. In a properly run, private-sector business, future retirement benefits are paid for using present-day contributions. This is not the case when lawmakers have the power to boost public-employee benefit packages while using accounting gimmicks to conceal and pass on the debt to future generations.

California’s public-employee retirement system stands in the most perilous condition, facing a half-trillion in unfunded liabilities. That’s not surprising when you consider a California highway patrol officer can retire at age 50 and collect up to 90 percent of his salary for the rest of his life. According to the agency’s website, a typical officer’s pay will reach $109,147 after just five years on duty - an amount that can rise significantly with overtime benefits. That means a fit and healthy 50-year-old “retiree” who began work at age 20 would receive $98,232 a year from taxpayers for the rest of his life, and nothing prevents him from taking another government job to collect two paychecks. This form of double-dipping is rampant.

While most private-sector firms have trimmed their work force during the recession to achieve more efficient and profitable operations, public agencies have expanded. State and local governments employ about 15 million individuals, a figure that has jumped up 40 percent from 1992. By 2016, the number of state and local bureaucrats is projected to reach 20 million. Too many of these people are being promised far too much money, leaving state and local systems as bankrupt as Social Security, Medicare and other multitrillion-dollar federal entitlements.”

Steven Malanga, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute, wrote in Real Clear Markets in February, 2011 why Collective Bargaining Doesn't Work In the Public Sector:

“Shortly after California voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978, open warfare broke out in the union movement between leaders of public and private worker groups.

In the Washington Post, an anonymous lieutenant of AFL-CIO president George Meany criticized the aggressive stance of Jerry Wurf, head of American Federation of State County and Municipal workers, in trying to defeat Prop 13, which capped property taxes. The problem, the Post pointed out, was that the AFL-CIO's members were the "taxpaying employers" of Wurf's workers and favored the tax and spending limitations of Prop. 13. "Jerry's big problem with the tax thing lies in convincing the rest of the trade union movement of the legitimacy of the positions he has taken," said the AFL-CIO official.

What a difference a few decades makes. Today, public sector unions dominate the union movement, including the AFL-CIO, and have become the chief lobbyists for higher taxes and more government spending in America. Meanwhile, defenders of government unions argue that any attack on them is an attack on unionization in general. So Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to trim collective bargaining for state workers has elicited a host of apocalyptic declarations from politicians heavily supported by government unions, including President Obama, who called Walker's agenda, "an assault on unions."

….

“George Meany himself once declared that "you can't collectively bargain with government,' and as government workers lobbied increasingly for unionization throughout the 1950s some private sector labor leaders resented the argument of their public sector counterparts that government workers were somehow oppressed and desperately in need of union protection. The period was one of reform, in which cities were already enacting civil service laws protecting government workers from being summarily fired, and employee associations rose to testify for public worker rights even, though these groups didn't have bargaining rights.

But the public sector union movement gained traction because of changing political currents. Unionization came to be associated increasingly during that period with the Democratic Party thanks to legislation like the 1935 Wagner Act, sponsored by New York Democratic Senator Robert F. Wagner, which gave private sector workers the right to bargain. As unions played an increasingly important role in the Democratic Party in the 1940s and 1950s, their political value became apparent to elected officials like Sen. Wagner's son, New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Mayor Wagner jolted the public sector union movement into life when in 1958 he gave city employees the right to collectively bargain, in the process making them valuable political allies in his reelection bid and igniting a series of similar moves by other politicians in cities and states across America.

What happened next confirmed the fears of many critics. The 1960s were a time of government strikes, including several dozen in September of 1966 by teachers that shut down school systems in some of our largest cities. When cities and states responded with laws outlawing strikes among government workers, unions developed a new strategy, concentrating their firepower in state capitals and city halls to elect leaders sympathetic to their cause. Over time they've become the biggest players in places like Sacramento, Albany and Madison, and such a permanent presence that every effort at reform is eventually undermined.

In the late 1970s, for instance, New York State enacted changes to its pension system for state and local workers after rich employee perks played a role in New York City's near bankruptcy. But over time public workers clawed back their benefits so that today, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during his election campaign, public pensions are unsustainable in the Empire State. In New York City alone pension contributions in one decade have gone from $1.5 billion annually to $7 billion, straining the city's budget.

California enacted pension reforms in 1991 which limited the impact of pensions on the state budget. But in 1999, Gov. Gray Davis and the state's Democratically controlled legislature wiped out those reforms, retroactively putting everyone who had joined the state's workforce in the 1990s into a new, richer system so that today California has unfunded pension liabilities ranging from $200 billion to $500 billion.

That's become a strategy of public worker unions. They fight reforms, but if they lose they wait 'till they can elect a new set of more sympathetic legislators and then reclaim their gains.

Public unions are bolstered by the fact that government never goes away, unlike private businesses where unions overreach. In the public sector, there are always taxpayers to turn to when a pension system or health care plan needs to be bailed out thanks to rich giveaways to unions.”

According to the laws of the federal government and most states strikes are illegal for federal workers and many state and local government workers, but that does not prevent strikes from happening. New York City transit workers, Tacoma Washington teachers, Detroit teachers, and postal workers have all gone on strike illegally. When the Professional Air Traffic Controllers struck in 1981, in violation of federal law, PATCO president Robert Poli snapped: “The only illegal strike is an unsuccessful one.” PATCO’s strike was unsuccessful because President Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers who refused to follow his order to return to work.

On August 3, 1981, the union declared a strike, seeking better working conditions, better pay and a 32-hour workweek. In addition, PATCO no longer wanted to be included within the civil service clauses that had haunted it for decades. In doing so, the union violated a law — 5 U.S.C. (Supp. III 1956) 118p. — that banned strikes by government unions. Ronald Reagan declared the PATCO strike a "peril to national safety" and ordered them back to work under the terms of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Only 1,300 of the nearly 13,000 controllers returned to work.[4] Subsequently, Reagan demanded those remaining on strike return to work within 48 hours, otherwise their jobs would be forfeited. At the same time, Transportation Secretary Drew Lewis organized for replacements and started contingency plans. By prioritizing and cutting flights severely, and even adopting methods of air traffic management that PATCO had previously lobbied for, the government was initially able to have 50% of flights available.[4]

On August 5, following the PATCO workers' refusal to return to work, Reagan fired the 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored the order, and banned them from federal service for life. In the wake of the strike and mass firings, the FAA was faced with the task of hiring and training enough controllers to replace those that had been fired, a hard problem to fix as, at the time, it took three years in normal conditions to train a new controller. They were replaced initially with nonparticipating controllers, supervisors, staff personnel, some nonrated personnel, and in some cases by controllers transferred temporarily from other facilities. Some military controllers were also used until replacements could be trained. The FAA had initially claimed that staffing levels would be restored within two years; however, it would take closer to ten years before the overall staffing levels returned to normal. PATCO was decertified from its right to represent workers by the Federal Labor Relations Authority on October 22, 1981. The decision was appealed.

Some former striking controllers were allowed to reapply after 1986 and were rehired; they and their replacements are now represented by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, which was organized in 1987 and had no connection with PATCO. The civil service ban on the remaining strike participants was lifted by President Bill Clinton in 1993.

But how would another federal worker strike transpire on President Obama’s watch?

According to Mallory Factor writing in Towhall.com National Security Unions represent a threat to America’s safety:

“Most people believe that while many other classes of government workers are represented by Big Labor, our military and national security employees cannot be unionized. But is that really true?

Could President Obama unionize our armed forces? Our active duty military, comprising about 1.5 million servicemen and women, cannot be unionized under current law. But our full-time national defense includes more than 700,000 civilians who are integral to our military. These civilian Defense Department employees are already almost 60 percent unionized. This means that our entire full-time military, including civilians, is more than 20 percent unionized. As former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld told me: “Even the Department of Defense has come under the influence of unions.” Government unions are on our military bases and inside the Pentagon, determining workplace rules and norms, filing grievances, and influencing personnel decisions in these sensitive job sites.

What about national-security workers? The 1978 Civil Service Reform Act explicitly bars collective bargaining among CIA, FBI, NSA, and Secret Service employees. But many staffers who work for other sensitive security agencies have already been unionized.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) baggage screeners could not bargain collectively until President Obama’s TSA Administrator, John Pistole, subjected them to unionization in 2011. Although less than 40 percent of TSA workers voted in the runoff election between two unions seeking to represent them, all 44,000 TSA baggage screeners today, and all future screeners hired will be spoken for by the winning union — the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) — absent an unlikely union-decertification election. That is how government unions work — once a union wins certification in a workplace, the union is the exclusive representative of that group of employees in perpetuity with no further vote required. Ever.”

….

“If national-security employee unions haven’t created enough policy concerns already, President Obama is giving government employee union unprecedented input into policies affecting the federal workplace. Early in his administration, President Obama issued Executive Order 13,522, which requires federal departments and agencies to consult with these unions before setting almost any workplace policy—even on matters over which these unions cannot lawfully bargain. Never before have government officials needed to first consult union officials before making workplace rules and personnel policies. It is hard to imagine what greater powers the president could give these unions over the federal workforce and workplace. The one certainty, however, is that greater union control will be on the agenda of a second Obama Administration.

As more and more sensitive civilian national security and military jobs are unionized, this sets the terrible precedent to change the law and unionize our active-duty GIs, CIA members, FBI agents, and any other federal security workers not yet captured by the labor bosses. While the government-employee unions would love to swell their ranks and dues income, Americans must resist the temptation to let any private interest, especially strike-happy unions, wrest control of our critical and sensitive government workplaces.”

While the power and influence of private sector unions decline in the United States due to outsourcing public employee unions are on the rise, and have been for the past 20 to 30 years. Industries such a steel, auto, electrical appliances, computers, and rubber tires have gone out of business or moved their operations to India, China, or Mexico. Foreign and domestic manufactures have moved their operations out of the traditional “rust belt” states to southern climes where there are right to work laws and they do not have to deal with unions and their demands. In essence the goose of our traditional manufacturing sector died years ago.

According to a new report Co-authored by former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and former Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection Robert B. Stephan From 2000 to 2011, nearly 66,484 U.S. factories closed, and millions of skilled manufacturing workers lost their jobs. We've lost capacity to make drywall, steel, concrete, antibiotics, high-tech circuit boards--the list goes on. Most of these were private sector union jobs,yet the union drones will continue to support the Democratic Party.

On the other hand a new goose was born — and this goose is named the American Taxpayer. The public sector unions have a goose with an unending supply of golden eggs – or at least until the nation or state goes bankrupt. They will continue taking more and more of these eggs and giving some to the politicians that will give more opportunities to plunder the taxpayer as long as the unions will keep them in power.

Unless the voters come to realize that this cycle of public sector unions and bureaucrats supporting politicians and politicians handing out golden eggs to the public sector unions can be broken we will continue to amass more and more public debt and unfunded liabilities. Scott Walker has shown us the way, but it will be tough row to hoe. If you have any doubts just watch the upcoming Democratic National Convention and see all of the special interest groups (including public sector unions) laying their claims on the Democratic Party.