Posted on 01/24/2012 7:29:58 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Former governor Tommy G. Thompson said Monday that he would not second-guess Gov. Scott Walker for taking steps to greatly limit collective bargaining for most public employees.
Thompson, who is running for the Senate seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), also indicated he would not support so-called right-to-work legislation in Wisconsin.
Right-to-work legislation forbids forcing workers to join a union or pay dues in order to get or keep a job. It has emerged as an issue in other states, including Indiana.
"I think that right now we do not need any further deterioration of labor-management relationships in Wisconsin. And I'll leave it at that," he said.
Asked at a Milwaukee Press Club Newsmaker luncheon about Act 10, the bill signed into law by Walker that curbed most collective-bargaining rights, Thompson said he supported the governor.
"I was not there when he was making his decision based on the facts and evidence that he had," Thompson said. "I'm not going to come now and Monday (morning) quarterback and say I would have done it different. Probably would have, but I don't know. . . . I was not privy to that knowledge base. You've got to realize, I'm not going to be up here and criticize another office holder who succeeded me as governor and say what he did was wrong."
Walker faces a recall election this year in large part because of Act 10, which was signed into law last summer after months of contentious debate and protests. Thompson did note that he abhorred the whole notion of recalls.
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
Wisconsin Tommy Thompson Supports Walker Ping
If you want to be on, or off, this Wisconsin interet ping list, just FReep Mail me.
And this guy is held up as conservative!!
Notice he also said that he wouldn’t second guess Walker (a sure defeat for his Senatorial aspirations) but that he probably would have made a different decision.
At one time I lived in Texas. Texas politicians are noted for their colorful language. A lady Alderperson that I knew used to talk about some of the men she served with as having “cratch rot” from sitting on the fence. Methinks that it is a wonder that Tommy hasn’t fallen to “crotch rot” yet. He wants to be on all sides of all questions.
Of couse I would never say that...;^)
Yet Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who decertified state unions and is pushing right to work legislation through the legislature, is accused of being a rino.
Don’t know a lot about Mitch Daniels. Do you? If so do you consider him a Rhino.
He had not changed his position on stem cell research over the years. "It is not so much a change in position . . . it's an evolution in stem cells," Thompson said.
He said he had been very active, while serving as President George W. Bush's secretary of Health and Human Services, in recommending to Bush that he approve limited funding for embryonic stem-cell research based on embryonic stem cells that had already been destroyed. But he said he had been in favor of a policy in which embryonic stem cells in the future not be destroyed.
Years later, Thompson said, science has found ways to use adult stems cells instead of embryonic stem cells in research, making the ethical question, in his mind, moot.
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No, Tommy. it is NOT a moot question. There has never been an advance in medicine credited to the use of embryonic stem cells which require the DEATH of the embryo (a person). There have been many medical advances credited to the use of adult stem cells, or to the use of umbilical cord stem cells. Adult and cord stem cells do not depend on the death of anybody. Big difference.
Maybe your insistance on pushing embryonic stem cell research (UW based) is the reason that George W. Bush cut you loose after one term in office. And your closing speech as HHS secretary sealed your fate. The very idea that you would castigate the government in a public speech for "not doing more to secure our food supply from terrorists because it would be so easy for them to [compromise] it". Really, Tommy. Did you think it was smart to say that openly?
Thompson only said he wouldn't "second guess" Walker.
(shrug) I guess he supports Walker.
Mandated Union membership is one of the biggest scams perpetrated on real american laborers ever. As if paying taxes is not enough insult for hard work - one has to pay off a union bureaucracy to work as well... and of course, those union dues go to pay off politicians, and to further erode freedoms and the very market that provides the jobs in the first place.
Daniels has been a very conservative Governor; his problem, imho, is that he tries to be civil to those who view civility as a weakness.
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