Email from bh: Can’t give that good of a report because I was doing a bunch of grunt work (driving people, getting food for volunteers, etc) and couldn’t hear the speakers over the opposing protesters when I was there. The opposing crowd surrounded us, kept walking through our group to disrupt the rally and/or provoke a confrontation and tried to drown out the speakers. A few people I spoke to

RCP: “The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service,” Roosevelt wrote in 1937 to the National Federation of Federal Employees. Yes, public workers may demand fair treatment, wrote Roosevelt. But, he wrote, “I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place” in the public sector. “A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to

Two words: Imperial presidency. Two more words: Bring it on. (Yeah, I know. But for symmetry!) **** h/t TerryH, geoffB

“Bipartisan ‘Gang of Six’ in Senate developing framework for deficit reduction”. Hey, here’s an idea: How about we just cut, and let the Dems either get on board, in which case Obama can veto the spending cuts — and we pin his refusal squarely to him in 2012 — or else they don’t, and we pin it on the Dems and Obama? Christ.

House Republican leadership votes against $22 billion in additional cuts. Cantor among those who voted against. 90+ Republicans bail. Would have taken the cut total to $83 billion. And still left a $1.5 trillion deficit. Tone deaf.

Support Governor Walker. Event information here. (via bh, whose work here we should all appreciate)

Symbolism. Somewhere, a grown man holding a red velvet cupcake stamps his feet and weeps.

You don’t say! James Pethokoukis: President Barack Obama’s much-trumpeted move to the center? Apparently, it doesn’t go much beyond using buzzwords such as “innovation” and employing CEOs as stage props. His 2012 budget introduction and Wisconsin incursion make that clear. This was the week for the president to show that he had really learned the lessons of both the 2010 midterms and the shortfalls of his own economic policies. Instead,

Jay Nordlinger: Randy Hopper is a state senator in Wisconsin. A Republican. He is now holed up with his colleagues — his Republican colleagues — in the capitol. The Democratic senators have apparently fled the state. Hopper says, “None of my colleagues from the minority party decided to come to work today.” The Democrats are denying the Republicans the quorum necessary to vote on key fiscal legislation. Hopper says, “I

“For the sake of America, the judicial branch and powers of the state need to be made equal again to Congress and the President. Otherwise these current years will go down in history as when America voided out the Constitution for the sake of a health care law.”