Posts Tagged ‘wisconsin protests’

Over at the blog Mind Stain and Firedoglake they tell the story about a restaurant that choose to discriminate against a patron based on his political views :

Wisconsin blogger Naomi Houser reports tonight (via Howie Klein on Twitter):

The M******t [a restaurant] in Madison, WI confirms that on Friday night, ******* (one of the owners) politely asked Scott Walker to leave the establishment when other customers began booing him. A bartender at The M*****t said that ‘his presence was causing a disturbance to the other customers and management asked him to leave.’

Maybe he should have stayed home and ordered pizza instead? Okay, maybe not; there might be a long wait.

Houser adds regarding The M******t that readers might want to “give your patronage and thanks in person the next time you are in Madison.”

The restaurant in question is apparently The Merchant Restaurant and by the sound of what went on the trouble in question was not from Walker but from the patrons.

Lets play a game. Lets pretend a black man entered a restaurant and the all white patrons decided to boo and heckle him and the owner asked him to leave. Would you see the same love fest in comments at Firedoglake and at Mindstain over the denial of service. Look at the comments at both sites and see the civility of the left.

However there is yet another twist. There is a real debate if this actually happened or if this was a stunt to try to get attention as Badger blogger reports:

Well my friends, this is the case of a Madison restaurant trying to gain liberal credibility by making up a total lie about how they booted out Scott Walker out of their establishment. When BadgerBlogger called them to confirm the story, the staff refused to confirm or deny, and continued to obfuscate until they hung up the phone… But in fact, they didn’t hang up, it appears that they accidentally put the phone on speaker…. And BadgerBlogger tapes continued to roll.

Our audio captures the restaurant staff talking about how they have to take down the blog posting because people are starting to call about it, you can actually hear them logging into the blog and deleting it. Too late.

We confirm with Governor Walker’s staff that the Governor has never been to that restaurant, this was an attempted “punking” by employees of The Merchant Restaurant, but look who got punked… In the words of Joe Wilson, You Lie! Here is the audio:

Was he there or was he not? Apparently true or false the restaurant ran with it, got publicity and got burned.

It will be interesting to see how or if this plays out, but its more interesting to see the reactions of the left. Their cheering of the exclusion of a patron from a public place because of political views. As American Power puts it:

What gets me, if you go back to the Firedoglake entry, is that for progressives, discriminating against Governor Walker would be a cool thing to do — that they would applaud the kind of action they would vehemently denounce if done to a minority, or even a progressive Democrat. This is not how students learn about democracy in school. And frankly, this isn’t how politics should be conducted. Governor Walker is not an arch segregationist. His programs are not about to exterminate the sick and aged. Progressives know this but they’ve shown they’ll do anything to distract from the issues at hand: the sweetheart deals between the unions and the Democrats and the fiscal sinkhole the State of Wisconsin is facing. Public opinion doesn’t favor the Democrats. And refusing the governor’s budget will only delay the reckoning and further blemish the left’s reputation.

Unreal, in any case.

How civil!

My latest for the examiner notes the silence of the Media Hounds:

Last month after the shootings in Arizona where several people were murdered and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was severely injured there was a lot of talk about civility in politics. Members of congress, the president and news organization both print and visual bemoaned the lack of civil discourse and attempted (and still attempt despite established facts) to blame the Tea Parties and Sarah Palin for inciting violence.

Over the last few days several incidents have taken place nationwide that are contrary to the media’s wish for a new spirit of civility in public discourse.

You can read the rest here. The actions of the supporters of the public sector unions is the real untold story of this issue.

My latest for Examiner.com Anger and Loathing in Boston reports on the dueling Union/Tea Party rallies in Boston: a peek:

As the day progressed the Union forces got more and more agitated particularly when Radio Host Graham handed out fake “doctor of love” notes parodying the events of Wisconsin. His presence seemed to drive the union people wild, even stranger was the reaction to State Rep Rich Bastien (R Gardner) who mingled with the crowd to try to hear them out but was greeted by Nazi salutes by a self-proclaimed Jewish woman in between vulgar epithets.

The final irony of the protest is on display here:

I’ll have a post with all my videos from the rallies up before I leave the house today.

Four days ago Politico highlighted the involvement of the DNC was and OFA in Wisconsin:

The Democratic National Committee’s Organizing for America arm — the remnant of the 2008 Obama campaign — is playing an active role in organizing protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to strip most public employees of collective bargaining rights.

OfA, as the campaign group is known, has been criticized at times for staying out of local issues like same-sex marriage, but it’s riding to the aide of the public sector unions who hoping to persuade some Republican legislators to oppose Walker’s plan. And while Obama may have his difference with teachers unions, OfA’s engagement with the fight — and Obama’s own clear stance against Walker — mean that he’s remaining loyal to key Democratic Party allies at what is, for them, a very dangerous moment.

OfA Wisconsin’s field efforts include filling buses and building turnout for the rallies this week in Madison, organizing 15 rapid response phone banks urging supporters to call their state legislators, and working on planning and producing rallies, a Democratic Party official in Washington said.

The @OFA_WI twitter account has published 54 tweets promoting the rallies, which the group has also plugged on its blog.

During my interview with Andrew Breitbart on Sunday morning he commented on their presence saying the following:

I’ve sensed that any time when Obama’s Organizing for America gets involved they are up to no good. So when I see them go up against the people I try to be there.

Now in the surest sign that the White House has figured out where this is going to end up, there is some serious backtracking going on:

Administration officials said Sunday that the White House had done nothing to encourage the demonstrations in Wisconsin — nor was it doing so in Ohio, Florida and other states where new Republican governors are trying to make deep cuts to balance their budgets.

And, officials and union leaders said, reports of the involvement of the Democratic National Committee — specifically Organizing for America, the grass-roots network born of Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign — were overblown to start with and were being inflated by Republicans sensing political advantage.

Because we all know how Politico is really a house organ of the Republican Party, that’s why they are always being quoted on MSNBC

I think the White House has seen these polls and is getting cold feet BIGTIME:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters agree more with the Republican governor in his dispute with union workers. Thirty-eight percent (38%) agree more with the unionized public employees, while 14% are undecided.

And as Captain Ed Morrissey at Hotair reports the details are even more damning:

No one will be shocked to find Democrats opposed to Walker’s plan, 21/68, although the opposition seems a little weak, under the circumstances. Also, no one will be surprised to see almost the mirror image among Republicans, 68/15. Independents across the nation give a strong endorsement to Walker, 56/31. Among income demographics, only those earning under $20K per year support the unions (30/54), while Walker gains a plurality or majority in every other income demographic, including a 62/27 among the $60-75K demo. Interestingly, unions only barely edge Walker among government employees, 44/46. (bolding mine)

I put this down to Bill Daily. He is a man of the left and a big supporter of these same unions but he knows politics and sees where this is going. His job is to minimize the damage to the white house. He also understands that if Democrats shut down Wisconsin with the White House behind them it will be harder to blame republicans for a shutdown here.