22. Who is John Galt?

If the Democrats think replaying 1968 is a good idea, they might want to re-think that. Beginning in 1968, the GOP won 5 of the next 6 Presidential elections (and arguably could have run the table, had Ford not pardoned Nixon). There are also enough vulnerable Senate Democrats down-ballot in 2012 to put the GOP in complete control of the government.

If the economy then takes off in 2013, the GOP is going to have quite an argument at its disposal: full GOP control=prosperity, full Democratic control=misery.

Let us hope and pray that the GOP ends up with at LEST 62 seats in the Senate come 2013.

Except that in 2008, they were essentially voting for Senator Stealth. In 2012, they'd have to vote for President Downgrade/Recession/Solyndra/Fast And Furious/Golf Dependency/whatever. Obama's got a record, and it's not a pretty one.

You only get to be a stealth candidate once. I think most Americans are smart enough not to be fooled twice by a latter-day William Jennings Bryan act.

Whoever gets the GOP nod needs to hammer the question: "If President Obama were out to DELIBERATELY ruin the country, what would he be doing differently?" The question answers itself, and the implication is self-evident.

Well, as the Drudge link said, It's on...and now Obamacare is as constitutional as Anthony Kennedy says it is.

If this case is heard in the upcoming term, the decision is likely going to be handed down smack dab in the middle of the 2012 campaign. Either way, the GOP is likely to come out ahead. How so?

If Obamacare is upheld, that is going to galvanize GOP voters, and would likely put independents squarely in the Republicans' camp. Independents do not like Obamacare, and if the Supreme Court upholds it, 2012 could look like 1984 (the election, not the novel). And with 21 Democratic Senate seats in play, the GOP could end up with a united Congress, a cloture-proof Senate, and a ready pen about sixteen blocks up the street.

If it's struck down, Obama is left with almost nothing to run on. He owns the economy, which isn't going anywhere. Gas prices could be a very effective cudgel if the GOP put them in play. Obama's foreign policy has been a joke, but the joke's sadly on us, as America's standing in the world has been greatly reduced. Absent Obamacare, his legacy could turn out to be Solyndra.

Finally, here's a good rhetorical question for GOP hopefuls: "If President Obama were out to deliberately destroy the United States of America, what would he have done differently than what he already has?"

You have to shake your head and marvel at this guy. He makes Cher Horowitz look worldly wise by comparison. But he still thinks he can invite himself up to the Hill to roll out another stimulus bill, petulantly demand, kinglike, that his decrees be passed forthwith, and arrogantly threaten to give more speeches if Congress doesn't give an appropriate curtsy. It would appear that Mr. Obama's comprehension of economics is inversely proportional to his elitism.

Really, what else can it be called? Ignore for a moment his penchant for hobnobbing with the glitterati, his vacations in the most hoity-toity corners of the world, and his incurable jones for the links. By giving a prime-time campaign speech to Congress, one consisting of tried-and-untrue proposals as far as the eye can see, he betrays an utter contempt for the intelligence of the American public. None of his proposals worked before, but he demands their immediate reapplication. How short an attention span does he think Americans have? How ill-informed on fiscal matters does he think the People are? How stupid does he think the average American is?

For any Americans who still don't want to get rid of this guy: He thinks you--yes, you--are stupid. Are you going to vote for a politician who has such a low opinion of your intelligence?

CHANGE IT BACK: NOBAMA 2012.

(Nifty "Brazil" reference on the nick: I like it!)

It's Orwellian. Literally. It's straight out of "1984." The Ministry of Truth was all about propaganda; the Ministry of Peace was all about war; the Ministry of Love was (this is for you, HT) Information Retrieval.

Orwell was a mere 27 years too pessimistic, it would appear.

Teachers in Wisconsin are about on par with other workers in the state: the average teacher makes a shade less than the median for the state. But their benefits package, the bulk of which is taxpayer-funded, is indeed lavish, when compared to the private sector. When your retirement is funded by the taxpayers, and you don't have to contribute all that much yourself, that's a much better deal than you're going to get in most of the private sector. Thus the backlash, which is even starting to include some non-government unions at this point, as per The New York Times.

Wisconsin's median household income went from $52,094 in 2008 to $49,993 in 2009. The people of Wisconsin are losing ground economically. Meanwhile, teachers' salaries went UP by 2.91% from 2008 to 2009, while the rest of the state was going the other way. And yet, when asked to contribute more to THEIR OWN BENEFITS, even at a lower rate than the private sector average, when their salaries are going up as the rest of the state goes down, and all of a sudden it's time to protest in the streets.

Laying aside my choice of individual adjectives--have you really nothing better to dispute than my choice of words?-- my point is that the pay and benefits, combined, are better than what is available to most private sector workers in Wisconsin. Teachers are almost impossible to fire, and they're making more when the rest of the state is making less. And private sector workers are paying taxes to support them, when they are making more (pay and benefits) than the taxpayers are. AND they now are collectively pitching one epic snit when the state has to inform them that they need to pitch in now, because the state has effectively run out of other people's money.

As for my "unseemly mobs" argument, I have to wonder why you think this mob scene is anything less. Illegal sickouts? Getting fraudulent doctor notes, a possible violation of medical ethics? Taking their students with them to protest, which could be construed by some as kidnapping? And all so they can keep their standard of living going up while the rest of the state tightens its belt? AND when two-thirds of the state's 8th graders are not proficient in reading as it is? That's not unseemly?

unseemly, adj. Not seemly; not in keeping with established standards of taste or proper form; unbecoming or indecorous in appearance, speech, conduct, etc. (h/t Dictionary.com)

You HAVE seen some of the signs in the crowd and some of the behavior that's been caught on tape in this bad 60's rerun, I trust?

The backlash from this is only getting started. The Left has badly--and almost amateurishly--overplayed its hand here. I stand by my remarks.

One of two things will be finished once Madison settles down: progressivism, or America.

If the mob tactics end up working, then elections will no longer matter: civic affairs, henceforth, will simply be decided by whichever mob caterwauls the loudest, regardless of actual electoral outcomes. If it gets to that point, America as we know it is over.

However, I believe Governor Walker and the Wisconsin GOP will eventually prevail. The key word is "eventually." This standoff will likely drag on for weeks, perhaps months, and I have to fear that blood will ultimately be shed at some point before it's over. However, if Governor Walker's plan ultimately passes, the Left will be crippled, perhaps irrevocably. How so?

Breaking the cycle of Democrats raising taxes so that they can grow government and hire more civil "servants" who will then turn around and keep Democrats in power so that they can raise taxes so that they can grow government, and so on, is a structural threat to the Democratic Party.

Go over to www.opensecrets.org and check out their Heavy Hitters list--the full list. Each heavy hitter is rated on how reliable it is for one side: fairly even, leans, strong, or solid. The first "solid" GOP listing is the Club For Growth...all the way down at #78. There are some lean GOP and strong GOP listings ahead of that, but the first solid GOP Heavy Hitter is all the way down at 78. The second such is at 88, and the third solid GOP listing is all the way down at 114; the fourth is at 118. Meanwhile, there are four Solid Democratic organizations in the top ten alone.

The #3 name on the list is AFSCME--a public sector union, which has donated over 43 MILLION dollars from 1989 to 2010, 98% of it to Democrats. That money is coming from public employees, who are getting paid with your tax dollars. That is 43 MILLION taxpayer dollars that have been spent to keep Democrats in power.

Look at that Heavy Hitters list--STUDY it--and notice how many Solid Democrat listings there have words like "Union", "Assn," "United," and "Federation" in their names. The Left knows that it cannot survive without the union gravy train feeding its war chest.

But the extended snit that organized labor is throwing in Madison could very well backfire, and spectacularly. Non-union and unemployed workers are probably not going to be very sympathetic to unionized teachers with overly cushy benefits packages paid for with taxpayer money.

And if a recent Rasmussen survey is any indication, the majority of independents are siding with Governor Walker. One other sentence in there which should give the Left pause: "Voters aren’t thrilled with the idea of letting states declare bankruptcy, but they're more supportive if told government employees might have their pensions reduced in the process."

The longer this spectacle continues, the more Democrats stand to lose with independents. Fugitive legislators; unseemly mobs; heavy-handed involvement from Washington; and all so that unionized teachers can continue to enjoy lavish benefits on the backs of people who make less than they do--is that REALLY what the Democratic Party stands for? If that perception takes hold, independents will likely have none of it, and 2012 could very well turn out to be the end of the world...for progressivism.

It must be asked: if this bag search regime has a serious purpose, then what is it serious about?

It's clearly not serious about catching bad guys. If it were, there would be far more inspections at every single station, at all times--not just an hour of inspections here and there at one or two stations.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: even if you inspected one bag of every three in the system, at all times, the bad guys luck out 66% of the time. Metro's not even doing THAT much, so the bad guys luck out even more often. So what are we up to? 75% in favor of the bad guys? 80? Worse than that? So this cannot be a serious effort to catch bad guys. If that really is the designed serious purpose--which I doubt--then Metro needs to either step it up dramatically, or bring the curtain down on this theater.

I don't think that's the serious purpose here, though. Honestly, I don't. I think the serious purpose here is to get us all conditioned to police state tactics.

What else can it be? The purpose cannot seriously be to catch bad guys, or the searches would be system-wide, and constant. Anything less than that, and it cannot catch bad guys, BY DESIGN. To be effective, a bag search program would have to be quite vast. Metro's effort here doesn't even seem to rise to the level of half vast.

Now, if I'm wrong about this--which I hope I am--and whoever came up with this half-baked idea sincerely thought that this would be an effective way to stop terrorists, they need to be let go for gross incompetence.

The only serious purpose I can see being accomplished here, is getting Metro riders accustomed to surrendering their freedom.

phanie, excellent question.

To elaborate, Metro lists 115 entrances for the entire system. Yes, I really did go through and count them all. And I also suspect that number is off, because I seem to recall Reagan Airport having one entrance at each end of the platform, even though Metro only lists one entrance. And some stations have several entry points that are only counted once. For instance, there are actually two entrances to Glenmont, but only one set of gates, and Metro only counts it as one entrance.

Even then, we still can't take that 115 listed entrances at face value, because of, correct, street-to-platform elevators. And in most of those, you're right, there's no room to set up a checkpoint between the elevator and the fare gate. Theoretically, they could set the checkpoints up at street level, but that would tip their hand.

And EVEN IF Metro could inspect every third bag in the system at all times--which seems like a logistical impossibility during high-traffic times--they're still looking at 2 chances in 3 that they'll miss something, right off the bat. And even THAT assumes the inspecting officers are perfect, and don't get bored or burned out, missing something they DO check.

Worse, what if a bomber doesn't even try to get past the checkpoint, and simply blows something up right in front of it? What if multiple attackers do exactly that, at every entrance of a major station?

Random bag checks WILL NOT SUCCEED against anyone determined enough to try something deadly. The only thing they WILL succeed at, is getting more riders furious at Metro, and giving them one more reason to get back in their cars.