Training The Military In CCW

Recently there appeared an article on Fox News.com regarding Indiana’s Republican Governor Mike Pence using National Rifle Association trainers to train members of the Indiana National Guard on how to use concealed weapons. Pence directed the state's military bases and training centers to beef up security in response to recent terrorist attacks in Tennessee.

The Fox Report states:

“According to a survey by The Associated Press, Indiana is the only state to enlist the NRA's help in the training, which the gun-rights group says it will conduct free of charge for any guardsman who wants to carry a concealed handgun.

Although National Guard members traditionally have not been allowed to carry weapons while conducting most stateside duties, Pence is one of 14 governors who decided to arm them in the wake of a gunman's attacks last month on two U.S. military sites in Chattanooga that left four Marines dead.

Gun control advocates argue it's inappropriate for a state to involve a political lobbying organization in training members of the military, and even some National Guard officials from states that allow guardsmen to carry weapons question why a civilian organization is needed.

"This is a military problem to deal with, so we're going to deal with it with the military," said Lt. Col. Joel Lynch, a spokesman for the Arkansas National Guard, which is handling the training of its Guard members itself.”

The Article goes on to state:

“Guy Relford, an NRA instructor who recently trained about 65 Indiana guardsmen at an armory in Franklin, said his "basic pistol" course delves into safety scenarios on when and when not to shoot.

Without training, the National Guard has "dramatically increased the possibility that someone could hurt themselves or others with a gun," Relford said.

The AP survey of the 14 states that have armed their National Guards shows that most states had members of the military or law enforcement conduct the training. Only Indiana, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky and Oklahoma said they allow guardsmen to carry concealed weapons. At least seven others — including the largest state of California — allow Guard members to carry weapons in plain sight. Officials in Alabama declined to release information about their firearms rules for guardsmen, while the Texas National Guard wouldn't say if concealed handguns were allowed.

"The fact is, our folks are very comfortable in using weapons and using discernment in when they use those weapons, so having an outside agency involved is a little bit of a surprise," Capt. Will Martin, a spokesman for the California National Guard, said of Indiana's policy.

Eric Dietz, a professor at Purdue University who studies homeland security issues, said his research suggests causalities in some active shooter situations could be reduced if someone, such as a guardsman, has a concealed handgun.

Although more known for its role as an advocacy group, the NRA also frequently conducts handgun training programs for civilians. Relford says most Guard members don't get pistol training from the military, and those who do are taught using the standard 9mm. Pence's policy applies to a vast array of firearms ranging from a .22-caliber up to a .357 Magnum.

There are also legal and philosophical considerations because the military's overarching focus is on threats abroad, not at home, which is the traditional role of law enforcement.

Allowing different states to adopt different training methods also goes against the grain of military orthodoxy.

"You don't want to have the Indiana National Guardsmen trained a certain way that may be different from Illinois or Kentucky. There does have to be a standard across the board," said David Harris, a former adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard and now a Republican legislator, who supports the idea of arming guardsmen.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence criticized Pence for recruiting the NRA, suggesting the organization is "first and foremost" a "lobbying organization."

I wanted to present as much of the article as I have to set the context for what I am going so say.

There may be some validity to Lt. Col. Joel Lynch’s statement stating that the military should train these Guard Men and women on a national basis. But this only applies to how to shoot and basic handgun safety. Concealed Carry Weapons (CCW) laws and procedures are Complicated and different in every state.

For a ranking of the 50 states on their laws, regulations, procedures on concealed carry and the purchase of firearms click here.

In most cases soldiers, sailor, and airmen do not receive adequate handgun training. Even Marines are not very well trained in the use of their 9mm Beretta M9. My nephew, a former Marine, received a mere 4 hours of training in the use of the M9. Most other members of the military receive far less or no training in the use of a handgun. The primary weapon of soldiers is the M-16 or MP-4 rifle not a handgun. The military does not waste time or ammunition on handgun training. This does not apply to military members of security forces (such as embassy and base guards), Special Forces, and criminal investigators such as Army CID.

The photo shown above is of the 9mm Beretta M9 the official side arm of the United States Military. With its 5 inch barrel, all metal construction, and weighing 34 ounces unloaded it is not a preferred concealed carry handgun

Civilians get more training in the use of handgun safety than the military. As an example my daughter and I recently participated in a handgun safety course. It was 8 hours long and covered basic firearm safety, shooting, and maintenance. In order to obtain a CCW permit in most states the applicant is required to complete not only a handgun safety class, but also a class on laws and regulations pertaining to the concealed carry and use of that firearm. These classes generally include the use of the firearm, types of handguns to carry, the proper holsters to use (inside the waistband or outside the waistband), proper concealment, when to shoot, and what to do after you shoot. The latter is most important as when the police arrive they do not know who the bad guy is and might shoot anyone holding a gun.

For years the NRA has been educating and training adults and children in the proper use and storage of firearms. They also have comprehensive classes to train the firearm trainers. The NRA does many things for its over 4 million members besides firearm training. Yes they have a lobbying are (the Institute for Legislative Action – NRA-ILA), but they also offer education, on-line training, publications, and insurance. They are not, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence states; “a lobbying group.” That’s what the Brady Campaign is along with numerous other left-wing gun-grabbing organizations.

Recently Detroit Police Chief James Craig called for responsible, law-abiding citizens of Detroit to carry weapons in the city’s high crime urban areas. In a city plagued by chronic unemployment and crime and guarded by a dwindling police force, residents of Detroit are increasingly taking protection of themselves, their families and property into their own hands. Those who do so responsibly have the blessing and backing of Detroit Police Chief James Craig.

“When you look at the city of Detroit, we’re kind of leading the way in terms of urban areas with law-abiding citizens carrying guns,” Craig said recently

In a recent interview on Fox News Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee County in neighboring Wisconsin called for more CCW permit holders in support of his deputies. He believes that these responsible, moral, and law-abiding citizens cannot only help reduce crime but they can have his deputies back in light of recent budget cuts. In January 2013, Sheriff Clarke was featured on a series of public radio ads that said citizens could no longer rely on the police for timely protection and should arm themselves. Later that month Clarke appeared on the CNN program Piers Morgan, with Milwaukee Mayor and gun-control advocate Tom Barrett, who attacked the notion that citizens could no longer rely on calling 9-1-1. The appearance sent David Clarke into the national spotlight. I have heard this sentiment from other law enforcement officers.

Since 2002 Sheriff Clarke (a Democrat) has received on average 76.25% of the votes for his office. He receives phenomenal support from his community. Other police chiefs and sheriffs across the nation have taken a stand on concealed carry weapons as Chief Craig and Sheriff Clarke. They realize that a responsibly armed citizenry helps reduce crime. As CCW permits go up crime goes down. Criminals are fearful and wary of an armed citizenry. They don’t know who carries a firearm and who does not. This is a proven fact that the left-wing mainstream media and gun-grabbers either ignore or refuse to acknowledge. All they care about is their personal agendas.

You can take each example of mass shootings in the United States and ask the question “what would be different had a responsible gun owner with a CCW permit had been there?” This applies to Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Charleston, and Memphis. According to the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Units mass shootings have two things in common, 1 of course is a firearm, and 2 the profile of the shooter. The second being far more important and dangerous that the first. No matter what the anti-gun media like Mother Jones, USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other left-wing publications say guns are not the reason for mass shootings. Yes, they may be a tool like a knife or a bomb, but it’s the profile of the person behind that gun that is the problem — just like the terrorist getting on the plane. The media ignores the illegal immigrants that have committed many crimes and are still walking the streets of cities like San Francisco and instead take up the clarion call for more gun control. Keep in mind that Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez did not possess a legally obtained firearm but one stolen from an irresponsible federal officer. According to Beitbart.com 30% of the homicides in the United States are committed by illegal aliens.

According to Breitbart:

“The US Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Programs publishes an annual report on the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program; a report that includes data on the number of criminal aliens incarcerated each state prison system and each county jail. It takes some prodigious digging to find the data, but it is there.

But our mainstream media, our self-described guardians of the First Amendment, consciously avoids the effort and declines to put a public spotlight on the problem or demand public scrutiny and public accountability. Why?

The answer is that public debate on the problem of illegal alien crime does not serve the progressive political agenda. The issue is swept under the rug and anyone who raises it is called a racist.

This is media malpractice of historic proportions, and publishers and editors are the unindicted coconspirators in those 7,085 murders.”

We are a nation with a diverse population of over 321 million, with well over 100 million households with legal gun ownership, of somewhere between 270 – 310 million legal firearms of all types.

There’s no universal gun registry, and thus not a simple way to pin down the exact number of firearms in the U.S.

There are estimates, however. According to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey – the leading source of international public information about firearms – the U.S. has the best-armed civilian population in the world, with an estimated 270 million total guns. That’s an average of 89 firearms for every 100 residents — far ahead of Yemen, which comes in second with about 55 firearms for every 100 people, or Switzerland, which is third with 46 guns for every 100 people.

There are certain types of firearms that do require registration in the United States: those subject to the National Firearms Act, including machine guns, shotguns and rifles with barrels shorter than 18 inches, and silencers.

According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which handles that registration, there were more than 3.1 million National Firearms Act-registered weapons in the U.S. as of March 2012. That includes more than 488,000 machine guns and more than 2 million “destructive devices” such as grenades, which are also classified under the law.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau 64.9% of the population own their homes, (the highest in the world) — that’s 208.3 million people. According to a report by the Pew Research Organization an average of 33.5% of households report having a firearm in the house. Using these numbers it would appear there are 70 million households with one or more firearms in the homes.

It is very difficult to obtain accurate figures when it comes to firearm ownership. People will answer many questions regarding politics and life style, but are very reluctant to talk about their gun ownership. They just want to keep that information private as they don’t know how it will be used. I know that I would not answer the questions whether I owned a firearm or not. It’s just not anyone’s business.

With that the number growing it’s a wonder there aren’t much more gun-related homicides. The answer is simple. The vast majority of legal gun owning people are responsible, law-abiding citizens.

This debate will go on forever as long as the gun control lobby refuses to see or use the facts pertaining to gun ownership and gun crimes. They will report on an emotional basis using the latest gun-related tragedy to support their agenda. Mike Pence has taken the correct track to train his National Guard in the use and carry of a concealed weapon. This training must be comprehensive and cover all aspects of concealed carry including the carrier’s responsibilities, the laws of that particular state, the possibility of civil liability (something there will always be), insurance, and accurate close-range shooting and the protection of innocent bystanders. This is not what the military does, they train to shoot a rifle accurately. Not even law enforcement does this much training.

The Election Is Over, But The Spin Is Just Beginning

"The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time." — Ayn Rand

Last night I received an e-mail alert from the New York Times stating “Scott Walker, the embattled Republican governor of Wisconsin, narrowly survived a recall vote on Tuesday, defeating a union-led effort to remove him from office for pushing laws to restrict the collective bargaining rights of state workers.”

What caught my eye was the use of the adverb “Narrowly” in the lead statement of the NYT. I had just finished watching the Wisconsin recall election coverage and at the time I turned it off Walker was ahead by 10 points with 88% of the ballots counted and his opponent Tom Barrett had just given his concession speech. (Walker’s final margin of victory was 7%, pretty much as the polls predicted).

When I opened the link to the Times article I saw a different report on the election than the lead stated. In the article it stated that Walker “soundly defeated Barrett. How interesting that the Times headline writer thinks 7 points is a “narrow” margin. But, this is just the beginning of the spin the progressives will put on the election rather than looking at the plain and simple truth — the voters are feed up with large government union pensions and benefit programs.

In a related, but little reported, election the voters in California’s San Jose and San Diego Counties overwhelmingly approved measures to cut retirement benefits for city workers. In San Diego, 67 percent voted in favor of Proposition B while 33 percent were opposed. The margin in San Jose was even wider, with 71 percent in favor of Measure B and 29 percent opposed

Fox News Reported:

“San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed called the vote a victory for fiscal reform.

"The voters get it, they understand what needs to be done," he said in an interview.

Supporters had a straightforward pitch: Pensions for city workers are unaffordable and more generous than many private companies offer, forcing libraries to slash hours and potholes to go unfilled.

"We believe people are tired of having services cut back because of big pensions," San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican who is being forced from office by term limits, said recently.

Shrinking tax revenues during the recession are also responsible for service cuts, but pensions are an easy target. San Diego's payments to the city's retirement fund soared from $43 million in 1999 to $231.2 million this year, equal to 20 percent of the city's general fund budget, which pays for day-to-day operations.

As the pension payments grew, San Diego's 1.3 million residents saw roads deteriorate and libraries and recreation centers cut hours. For a while, some fire stations had to share engines and trucks. The city has cut its workforce 14 percent to 10,100 employees since Sanders took office in 2005.

San Jose's pension payments jumped from $73 million in 2001 to $245 million this year, equal to 27 percent of its general fund budget. Voters there approved construction bonds at the beginning of the last decade, but four new libraries and a police station have never opened because the city cannot afford to operate them. The city of 960,000 cut its workforce 27 percent to 5,400 over the last 10 years.

Opponents, led by public employee unions, say the measures deprive workers of benefits they were counting on when they got hired. Some workers decided against potentially more lucrative jobs with private companies, figuring their retirement was relatively safe.

"This is part of a broader effort to attack workers and to make their lives miserable," San Diego Councilman Todd Gloria said during a debate on the San Diego measure.

Thom Reilly, former manager of Clark County, Nev., and now a professor of social work at San Diego State University, said opponents face a difficult task. He expects the California measures may spawn similar efforts elsewhere if they pass.

"The ones who are actually paying the taxes will never see these benefits in their lifetimes, so there's not a lot of sympathy in the public," he said.”

The "it's gonna be a late night in Madison" notion was virtually over by the end of Happy Hour — which no doubt did cause some very late nights instead in Washington and Chicago. With little or no happiness at all. And naturally there were also the comparisons to the vibes of the night Scott Brown took down the Kennedy seat in 2009

The real story is: what happened this spring in Wisconsin was not a recall election at all. Pure and simple, it was a mulligan. A childish do-over. Moreover, it was a battle of government union members and their families against pretty much everyone else. And when that really crystallized in the minds of the voters, the unions' cause was doomed. The name Tom Barrett is irrelevant here. The biggest losers last night — and there were many — were big labor generally and public service unions specifically, and it’s about time.

Succinctly put, the petty, protected, pampered lefty government and teachers unions — still indignant over Scott Walker's 2010 win — simply threw a 75 million dollar tantrum as a third do over on that same election. And the unions' reward from the citizens of Wisconsin for a year and a half of hell was a resounding "go to hell" of epic proportions. And if anyone doubts that there is a God — and that He has a sense of humor — the Wisconsin State Motto is, yep, "Forward."

You can't make this stuff up.

Making stuff up, however, is what the entire leftist media-Democratic Party complex is doing today, blaming everything and everyone from the Citizens United decision, voter fraud, a bogus robo-call, George Bush — and probably even Brett Favre. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell even pretended the election did not happen, focusing on Mitt Romney's job creation record in Massachusetts instead. It's all very funny. And satisfying.

Now the losers:

Big Labor: Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell didn't want to admit it on Fox, but big labor was absolutely the huge loser last night and in fact, they have been losing ever since Walker took office. It was the behavior of the unions in the Madison riots that really started the general public's focusing in on just how much these "public servants" are now making in salaries, pensions and health care, and how damned entitled they feel to all of this. That is what started all of this mess. The public was also tuned in to the unseemly nature of public sector unions per se and their relationship with politicians they get elected. And perhaps most devastating of all is the fact that some government unions in Wisconsin have lost over half of their own membership during this protracted battle. And oh by the way, public sector unions started in Wisconsin —in 1959.

Democratic Party: It goes without saying that if big labor loses, the Democratic Party loses. Actually, we have Wisconsin to thank that this now goes without saying. The past 21 months have been a highly visible object lesson for all to see. Moreover, the Democrats have lost much of their built in fund raising via the union mechanism thanks to some of Walker's reforms.

MSM and their exit polling: As 9pm EDT rolled around last night, all media outlets were buzzing with word that the exit polls were 50-50 and Ed Schultz was settling in "for a long night." He had no idea at the time. These exit polls excited the same fantasies that these same media outlets had been feeding that "the race was tightening" in the final week. Actually, it was not tightening at all. One thing the exit polls showed was that almost everybody who voted had long made up their minds. And why not? You're either on the public sector gravy train or you’re not. What's to decide? ow this escaped the geniuses in the media is another story. But they lost last night in a big way.

Obama: This one is a no brainer, and was pretty much obvious when he decided to avoid Wisconsin this week like yellow in the game Twister. But it goes deeper than that. His failure to do more than send a last minute Twitter message in support of Barrett has to infuriate the unions, who have in the past done so much to get Obama and other Democrats elected. Looking ahead to November, their coffers are depleted, and enthusiasm for giving money to Obama, manning phone banks, and canvassing drives has to diminish not just in Wisconsin but beyond.

GOP Establishment: Setting Reince Preibus aside for a second, the GOP Establishment took a bit of a whipping last night — because Walker is exactly the kind of Republican the establishment constantly warns us is poison for the party. Preibus gets a lot of grief because he is RNC Chair and they normally deserve it. But Preibus was key to Walker's first win as well as Senator Johnston's defeat of Russ Feingold in 2010. We can only hope that now Preibus will have more influence in the halls of the RNC offices inside the Beltway.

GOP Consultants / Conventional Wisdom See above, but the consultant class deserves their own space in the biggest loser category. They have cost us many elections over the decades, and last night was a huge blow to their entire foundational template. This may be Walker's biggest gift of all to conservatives.

Bipartisanship / No Labels Crowd: The stunning vitriol and passion in this election, along with the results of the recent Pew Research findings, have dealt the notion of "getting along" and bipartisanship a huge blow. Actually, reality is the problem with bipartisanship. This is a nation divided on the role of government and government unions and all of the attendant spending and control in our lives. Many of us knew that already. Those that didn't surely should now, after seeing the last 21 months unfold in Madison and after perusing the Pew results as well.

Julia: The entire nanny state government dependency mindset — as demonstrated by the Obama 2012 cartoon character Julia — took a big whipping last night as well. The folks who pay for all of the government union members and for all of the Julias had a collective awakening and said enough is enough. If there's another installment of Julia, and I suspect there will not be, she would be very unhappy watching MSNBC in last night's episode.

Now, as pleasing as this result is, this is not an indication that Mitt Romney can necessarily come rolling into Wisconsin and win. While Walker,his Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch and several State Senators won last night, surveys indicate that even in this environment Romney would have lost. Besides, rarely has Romney shown the cojones on any issue that Walker has shown consistently.

Which brings us to the contrast with the Brown win in 09. The Walker win is even sweeter and more significant. Scott Brown campaigned on tea party principles, and while avoiding the term celebrated those principles in his victory speech. But he has not always voted that way — and will run against Indian Princess Warren as a moderate.

Scott Walker meanwhile campaigned outwardly as a tea party type in 2010, governed that way absolutely — campaigned again as a tea party candidate this year — and won an even bigger victory. Now, in his speech last night, Walker said that "he's committed to working together" and is determined to "put this election behind us." Of course he was sounding the obligatory good winner attitude, as he should have. We all know better. The liberals, their unions, their President, their media — all have to be defeated because there is no working with them. The word compromise only refers to conservatives.

Remember, the left was perfectly fine with money in politics when they thought Barack Obama was going to raise $1 billion with which he would bludgeon the GOP. Now that it is not happening, money in politics is again evil. It is no coincidence that the left seized on this talking point even before the polls closed. They think it sells well. But it doesn’t. Remember in 2010, they tried to claim the Chamber of Commerce was spending foreign money to help the GOP? Lot of good it did them then.

These are also the same people who once told us the Wisconsin recall was a harbinger of GOP overreach and voter retaliation would ensue. Suddenly, the recall means nothing according to these same people. The Chairwoman of the Democratic Party once called last night a “dry run” for the general election.

I maintain that special elections mean very little to general elections. The flawed exit polls were flawed because people who vote in recall elections vote in different ways from general elections. There was a massive union vote in Wisconsin last night. We can conclude that Scott Walker winning big with a big union turnout means even private sector union members hate public sector unions. But we should be careful not to over conclude things based on Wisconsin.

Republicans around the country should take note of that. While I maintain recalls and special elections are not really good indicators of anything beyond the dynamics of those races, there are a few things Wisconsin tells us that do bode ill for President Obama and that are easy to conclude.

The first thing we can conclude is that defense of public sector unions is now a non-starter even in the birthplace of American progressive politics. Union voters voted for Scott Walker. Republicans have a new battle tested issue that sells well even in blue states.

The second thing we can conclude is that the same winning coalition of disaffected independent voters, tea party activists, and Republicans held together in Wisconsin to keep Scott Walker. More importantly, and perhaps most importantly, the demographic shift that saw the Democrats lose their hold over the rustbelt in 2010 has continued to the Democrats’ disadvantage. Couple that shift away from the Democrats with the Republicans’ new found strengths in Appalachia and the Democrats who like to claim Republicans cannot win in New England will have an even harder time winning in the heartland. Both in North Carolina with gay marriage and in Wisconsin with the recall, a real silent majority stood up to be counted and heard.

For all the Democrats’ talk about their growing strength in the west, it is still going to take several decades for them to make up the votes lost in the rust belt and Appalachia. Wisconsin’s recall election shows that the demographic trends against the Democrats are starting to lock in, including losing blue collar white voters and even a number of private sector union workers. Scott Walker won by a larger margin last night than Barack Obama did against John McCain nationally. Nonetheless, some in the media would have you believe Walker only barely got by.

The third thing we can conclude from Wisconsin is that the Republican Party’s use of technology in its Get Out The Vote efforts really paid off. We should be thanking the Democrats for giving us an opportunity for a live test of our new GOTV tools and ground game. Scott Walker’s thumping of Tom Barrett showed the GOP, in a blue state, has the ability to pinpoint voters and get their voters to the polls. 2012 will be the first truly technology driven Presidential campaign, run on iPads and iPhones. The Democrats handed the GOP a marvelous gift of a recall that went on and on and on. By the time everyone got to the gubernatorial recall, the GOP had its GOTV tweaked perfectly.

It exceeded expectations.

The fourth thing we can conclude from Wisconsin is that Barack Obama is extremely nervous. He would not campaign for Tom Barrett. Only on Election Day did he tweet out his support for Barrett in 140 characters. Barack Obama has batted 1000 in seeing those candidates with whom he campaigns for statewide office go down in flames. Despite their bold prognostications that Wisconsin does not matter and all is well and Obama was just too busy, the Democrats know that they poured in a lot of resources only to lose Wisconsin while giving the GOP multiple recall votes to get their GOTV right. It should speak volumes to Democrats everywhere that Bill Clinton was happy to go campaign for Tom Barrett in a state Barack Obama’s campaign considers a swing state, but Barack Obama was not willing to get tied to a loss there.

The fifth thing we can conclude is that exit polling does not work well for recall elections. Consider that voters were evenly split going into the polls on whether they supported Scott Walker’s reforms or not. Likewise, roughly two-thirds of voters either were or were related to union members, which was a bit higher than in 2010. The presuppositions were therefore that this would be close. It’s not so much that the exit polling was wrong, as it was that the presuppositions that went into formulating the exits and, more importantly, into interpreting the exit polling was wrong. The presuppositions the media makes headed into November desperately need to be recalibrated. The media is still operating on FDR Coalition presuppositions in their formulation of and analysis of exit polling data.

The sixth thing we can conclude from Wisconsin is that Barack Obama is still the favorite there, but, while I hate to be repetitive, the Democrats’ continued recall efforts have made the state much more competitive for the GOP in that state.

Here’s one thing I don’t think we can easily conclude, but I would take away from Wisconsin. Anger does not win elections. In November, the GOP should be happy warriors, not angry. Let the left be angry. One of the things the left did in Wisconsin that has not been well reported is send mailers to voters documenting their neighbors’ voting history. Think about that. A leftwing group sent mail pieces to voters trying to shame them into voting by revealing how much or how little they choose to participate in the democratic process. How many voters turned out to vote mad as hell at the left for stooping to this level?

Lastly, I hope the GOP in Washington, which is often afraid of its own shadow is watching this. In Wisconsin, the Republican Governor was willing to pick a fight on a core Democrat issue, stick to his guns, and go through a recall process. And he won. Sometimes, Messrs. Boehner and McConnell, you don’t have to compromise. You can stick to your guns and still win. Perhaps with the overwhelming votes against the public sector unions on San Diego and San Jose counties and the defeat of Prop 29 governor Moonbeam will begin to get the message that Californian are getting ticked off at big government.

A Win For The Taxpayers Of Wisconsin

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." — Thomas. Jefferson

Justice has been served in Wisconsin, with the rebuke of a judicial activist judge, union dues taking a hit, and Democrats losing a source of coerced donations.

What happened in the streets of Madison and in the unruly, mob-packed Capitol there in February and March, when enraged public workers, mostly teachers, took over, despoiling the place, was to us ordinary tax-paying folks, plainly despicable.

Events then foretold of a potential ripping of both the rule of law and doing fiscal damage to the state's taxpayers, besides physical damage to the Capitol. Thankfully, the law and fiscal sanity and some measure of respect for others' rights and property, finally prevailed when the Wisconsin Supreme Court Tuesday, June 14, sided with the Governor Scott Walker-led bill to curb some, but not all, collective bargaining "rights" of public employees.

On June 15 Fox News reported that the controversial Wisconsin Union Law set to take effect after high court ruling:

“Wisconsin’s contentious union rights law is set to go in effect following a sharply divided ruling by the state Supreme Court.

The decision is a major victor for Republican Gov. Scott Walker after a long and dramatic battle that was met with heavy protests in the state’s capitol and across the country.

The high court upheld Walker’s law in a 4-3 vote Tuesday evening, determining that a judge overstepped her authority when she voided the governor's plan to strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights.

An avalanche of lawsuits is expected, because legal challenges couldn't be brought until the law took effect.

Walker says the legislation is necessary for Wisconsin to address its $6.3 billion budget shortfall.

"The Supreme Court's ruling provides our state the opportunity to move forward together and focus on getting Wisconsin working again," Walker said in a statement.

Union leaders blasted the court's decision. Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, called it "an affront to our democracy."

The law passed in March after weeks of protests that drew tens of thousands of people to the state Capitol. But the law has been tied up in the courts since a Democrat filed a lawsuit accusing Republicans of violating the state open meetings law during the run-up to passage.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court said the judge had no authority to interfere with the legislative process.

"We've done the best we can ... It looks like we've lost," Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, who filed the lawsuit, said after the ruling.”

In a 4-3 decision, the court ruled that Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi overstepped her authority when she said Republican lawmakers violated the state's open meetings statutes in the run-up to passage of the legislation and declared the law void.

The law, which also requires public employees to pay more for their health care and pensions, sparked weeks of protests when Walker introduced it in February. Tens of thousands of demonstrators occupied the state Capitol for weeks and Democratic senators fled the state to prevent a vote, thrusting Wisconsin to the forefront of a national debate over labor rights.

In a one-sentence reaction to the ruling, the governor said: "The Supreme Court's ruling provides our state the opportunity to move forward together and focus on getting Wisconsin working again."

Walker has claimed that the law was needed to help address the state's $3.6 billion budget shortfall and give local governments enough flexibility on labor costs to deal with deep cuts to state aid. Democrats saw it as an attack on public employee unions, which usually back their party's candidates.

The Supreme Court's ruling will likely be the precursor to an avalanche of lawsuits and legal challenges that couldn't be brought until the law took effect.

The decision came just hours before the Wisconsin Assembly was expected to begin debating the state budget. Had the ruling not come down, Republicans planned to put the collective bargaining provisions into the budget so the changes could take effect during the court fight.

GOP legislative leaders, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, issued a joint statement saying they always believed the bill was legally approved.

"We followed the law when the bill was passed, simple as that," the brothers said in a statement. "We're finally headed in the right direction by balancing the budget and focusing on jobs, just like Republicans promised we would do."

Ozanne filed his lawsuit the next week claiming Republicans didn't provide the proper public notice of the meeting in violation of state law.

Sumi, the judge who initially heard Ozanne's lawsuit, first issued a temporary order blocking publication of the collective bargaining law while she weighed his arguments and then last month declared the law void.

Attorneys for the state Department of Justice, representing the Republicans who control the Legislature, asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take the case directly, in part to speed the process. Walker counted on the law being in effect in the budget he put forward for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

In vacating Sumi's ruling, the Supreme Court said she had "usurped the legislative power which the Wisconsin Constitution grants exclusively to the legislature."

After the law was enacted and signed by Gov. Walker, you'll recall, Judge Maryann Sumi, a liberal activist judge, issued first a temporary restraining order, then a permanent injunction barring it from going into effect. In this she was doing the bidding of union attorneys. Legal experts en masse predicted this week's high court decision, so outlandish was Judge Sumi's orders. The new budget-fixing law limits certain collective bargaining for public employees, not including law enforcement and firefighters, and forbade their unions from tapping members' government paychecks for automatic dues withdrawal.

It was said by Madison insiders the automatic dues withdrawal feature going belly up was at the crux of union bosses' opposition. It was the inner-deeper-hidden-secret behind their implicit orders for the 14 Democrat state senators to flee the state rather than stand up and be counted. Shutting down the democratic process somehow held appeal for these pro-union senators. Do you think, just maybe, campaign contributions had something to do with it? Just wild speculation here.

Judge Sumi's action was a morale boost, at least temporarily, for the big-spending unions' special interests, and their army of attorneys, intending from the beginning to toss the issue to the Wisconsin Supreme Court where blame could be assigned to those dang "conservative" judges. Judge Sumi's injunction order was not given a snowball's chance in hell, but she held firm. Liberal judges, same as major league baseball umpires, are never wrong?

Gov. Walker, vilified by teachers and the ardent left (or am I being redundant here?) as Nazi-like, was magnanimous in his comments the day the high court struck down Judge Sumi's order, "vacating" it in legal terms. Gov. Walker said; "The Superior Court's ruling provides our state the opportunity to move forward together and focus on getting Wisconsin working again." But then what do the union bosses care about Wisconsin moving again as long as they can they can reap their dues money and increase their power. Public service and teachers unions have never given a damn about the public, the state or the nation they only care about their job security and money.

Anyone watching their TVs during February and March saw images of angry teachers and public service workers making a mess out of the state capital. They had supporters from the ranks of the left wing college students and out of state union organizers. They painted their faces, banged drums and made a despicable mess of the capital building and its surroundings — all in the name of free speech. The news media drooled over these demonstrations, after all wasn’t this an expression of free speech and American democracy — the First Amendment right to petition the government. They hung the governor in effigy, held up signs with obscene slogans and the MSM loved it.

But the MSM or even the more conservative outlets like Fox did not venture up to Green Bay, Oshkosh, Sheboygan, Racine or even Milwaukee where they could have gotten a good glass of beer. No, they hung around Madison getting interviews with Marxists professors, screaming union teachers and know-nothing lefty college students with painted faces. Had they gone to those other mentioned town they might have gotten a different story. Wasn’t it the people in greater Wisconsin the ones who elected Scott Walker with almost a 60% plurality, Senator Ron Johnson with over 60% and gave the state a Republican majority in the legislature? I guess no one wanted to talk with those folks. After all what does a meat cutter in Green Bay or a brewer in Milwaukee know all their interested in is the Green Bay Packers.

There were a few counter demonstrations outside of the capital but they got little coverage. The counter demonstrations were smaller, more civilized and cleaner than the Marxists inside of the capital building who had little respect for private or government property. You see the problem these supporters of Gov. Walker had was that they worked for a living, had mortgages to pay and families to feed. They were the folks who paid the bills. Richard Nixon called them, “the silent majority.”

The rouge Democratic legislators hiding away in Illinois were quite content to see the democratic process trampled on and see the turmoil they were creating. They were doing the bidding of their union supporters like good little Marxists who believed that chaos was the way to bring the system down following the playbooks of Saul Alinsky and Cloward–Piven.

Once Walker’s bill was passed without the involvement of the Democrats it took about ten minutes for the Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne to find a liberal judge and file his suit. This is how the left works — lose at the ballot box, find a lefty judge and file a suit. The hell with the people!

Now comes the good part. The chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, David Prosser, was up for reelection. The left ran an extreme liberal against him and then brought in the union organizers with their money to defeat him. They believed if they could replace Possner with the lib they would win the day in court.

But, as they say, “a funny thing happened on the way to the forum.” Those people, who work for a living, in Green Bay, Oshkosh, Sheboygan, Racine and Milwaukee got to vote. Even with all of the media support for the lib candidate for judge and all of the union support Possner won. The rest is history.

Predictably, the Associated Press's report of the high court decision subtly almost imperceptibly takes the side of the public employees.  It must be recognized, of course, that major newspapers and electronic media too, are staffed by card-carrying members of another union, the Newspaper Guild. Perhaps bias is inherent in their pro-union stories?

AP's Bauer is impressed with the minority chief justice's ornery dissent in the final 4-3 vote, calling her dissent "blistering" in one fawning reference, "fiery" in another. He quotes liberally (a-hem!) from Judge Shirley Abramson's dissent, calling her fellow jurists names, such as "storyteller." But Bauer does not quote from the strongly-worded majority opinion. Ah, but what does the majority opinion count for anyway? Not much it appears.

“In a fiery dissent, Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote that the majority decision was "hastily" reached and has unsupported conclusions. She said a concurring opinion written by Justice David Prosser, a former Republican speaker of the Assembly, was "long on rhetoric and long on story-telling that appears to have a partisan slant."

Not a mention in Bauer's tale about phony "sick leaves" taken by teachers to protest at the Capitol on full pay, closing schools in Madison and Milwaukee. Would they sanction that bogus excuse for their students? Those Get Out of Jail Free cards came from fellow public union activists at the Madison-based University of Wisconsin. Unions' collusion, anyone?

At the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, reporters Pat Marley and Don Walker side with the unions, deriding the Supreme Court as acting "with unusual speed." The judges, they wrote, "issued their order just one week after hearing oral arguments." Just think. One week! Tsk, Tsk.

Republicans, they add ominously, "run the Assembly," as if holding majorities in both houses is some sort of crime.

Finally, in a concluding paragraph, the Journal-Sentinel guys — omitting dirty details about the protests on "sick leave" and the hate-filled labeling of Gov. Walker as Hitler-like — their version of events gets something right by a quote from the high court order itself:

"In its ruling Tuesday, the Supreme Court said it took up the case because the lower court had 'usurped the legislative power with the Wisconsin Constitution grants exclusively to the Legislature.'"

State Senator Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) nails it when she said Judge Sumi "stepped all over the people of Wisconsin." Sadly, it's just the beginning of turf wars of the public employee unions using judicial activist judges as they try to wrest control of legislatures from We the People. Senator Darling is quoted:

"You think of all the chaos and discord and acrimony that's gone on in this Capitol as the result of Judge Sumi's decision for which she had no cause, no basis, no rule of law. She just did what she wanted for political reasons. To me, it was despicable."

Wisconsin is just one example of the marriage of the public service and teachers unions to the Democrat Party and the damage they are doing the nation.