Who is Footing Wisconsin Fleebagger’s Bills?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The expenses for the Fleebagging Wisconsin Democratic Senators are mounting. It’s been about a week’s worth of expenses since they’ve gone on the lamb. So, who is paying for all this? There has been rampant speculation that third party donors and union lobbyists have been slipping these Wisc. State Senators some money to pay their fleebagging costs. If they are this is clearly illegal.

The relevant Wisconsin statue is from Subchapter III, Chapter 13, Wisconsin Statutes (13.625), the prohibited practices section.

(1) No lobbyist may:
(a) Instigate legislative or administrative action for the purpose of obtaining employment in support or opposition thereto.
(b) Furnish to any agency official or legislative employee of the state or to any elective state official or candidate for an elective state office, or to the official’s, employee’s or candidate’s personal campaign committee:
1. Lodging.
2. Transportation.
3. Food, meals, beverages, money or any other thing of pecuniary value…

There is also a chance that these senators are using their campaign cash to pay their expenses. And if they are, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board says that this is OK.
Continue reading


Who is Footing Wisconsin Fleebagger’s Bills?”


Oh, There’s Something Going On, But It’s Not ‘Union Busting’

-By Frank Salvato

I was driving into Annapolis the other day when it struck me. I now understand why the Progressive Left is adamant about pushing the artificial inflation of our children’s self-esteem. To paraphrase Col. Kurtz, a character from the film Apocalypse Now, “It struck me like a diamond bullet right between the eyes. I thought ‘The brilliance!’” And then I thought, “The horror!…The horror.” It was at that exact moment that my steadfast confidence that our Republic would endure was rocked. It was at that split second that any question about our nation being under siege from an ideological movement, so well planned; so potent and so destructive, disappeared forever. So, what does the artificial elevation of self-esteem have to do with the destruction of the nation? Everything.

When we falsely elevate the self-esteem of a child, of a group of children; when we teach them that “everyone’s a winner” and “there are no losers,” we are teaching them a lie. Any honest person must have the courage to admit that in life, no one ever gets everything that they want, ergo, it is impossible for someone to always win and to never lose.

Imagine the bitter dose of reality experienced by a little leaguer who has been allowed to play the game where no score is kept and everyone was deemed “a winner” when he played in his first organized league where the score did matter. It is happening today.
Continue reading


Oh, There’s Something Going On, But It’s Not ‘Union Busting’”


Government Union Collective Bargaining 101

-By Warner Todd Huston

Are you a bit hazy on why government employee unions are a problem? If so the Heritage Foundation has made a great video to help you understand the deal. It’s a sort of Government Unions 101.

The Heritage Foundation also has a great fact sheet to help you learn more.

Here are some of the points on that list:
Continue reading


Government Union Collective Bargaining 101″


Left-Wing Union H8ters Update

-By Warner Todd Huston

Today we have two examples of union thugs acting like, well, union thugs. We have two examples in Ohio and one in Wisconsin, two hotbeds for union whiners of late.

The first one is the tale of a leftist protester arrested for calling in a bomb threat to an aviation business in Eu Clair, Wisconsin a few hours after Governor Scott Walker appeared there to give a speech.

The Chippewa Herald reports that local resident, Patrick J. Knauf, 43, of Eau Claire, called in the threat. Knauf has been involved in the union-sponsored protests of Republican Walker and himself appeared for a recent protest held at the Chippewa Valley Regional Airport which is right next to the company in question.
Continue reading


Left-Wing Union H8ters Update”


Teacher Thugs Cause $7.5 Million in Damage to Wisc. Capitol Bldg

-By Warner Todd Huston

Not only are they ripping off Wisconsin’s taxpayers through their lavish salaries, pensions, and benefits, now government employees and their supporters are causing even more expenses born by Wisconsin’s working poor and middle classes because they have caused $7.5 million in damages with their protests at the Wisconsin State capitol building in Madison.

According to reporting by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the damages to the capitol and its grounds have been estimated at $7.5 million.
Continue reading


Teacher Thugs Cause $7.5 Million in Damage to Wisc. Capitol Bldg”


Another Unhinged Wisconsin Teacher’s Obscene Hatred Forced on the Kids

-By Warner Todd Huston

UPDATED: Teacher sends his hate down the memory hole, deletes blogs

Racine middle school teacher Jack Senzig is exactly the sort of person that makes all Wisconsin teachers look bad. His selfishness and hatred is so palpable that it seems his very existence is now dedicated to disgorging it all upon his family, friends, and, worse, his students. In fact, his hatred for everyone that disagrees with him has gotten so bad that he cannot resist forcing images of torture, murder, and evisceration onto his students.

This cretin has major issues, folks, and he’s a teacher of children.

Thanks to Real Debate Wisconsin we find the disgusting imagery that this “teacher” is disgorging on the various websites he operates, sites that his students and friends visit.
Continue reading


Another Unhinged Wisconsin Teacher’s Obscene Hatred Forced on the Kids”


I Want To Join A Union

-By Nancy Morgan

Until I saw the thousands of loyal union members expressing solidarity by their courageous protests in Wisconsin, I had no idea of the great perks union membership entailed. Now that I do, I want in.

And not just any union – I want to join either a teacher’s union or the government workers union. Imagine – if I belonged to either of those unions I would never be able to be fired. Not only that, no-one could complain about my work, or lack of work. And even if they did, the grievance process is so long that it wouldn’t impact me for several years. My union brothers would stand beside me, no matter what. Even if they found out about that old felony conviction. (That conviction was totally unfair!)

In Arkansas, they’re even paying a teacher to do nothing after they found out she had been convicted of prostitution. It’s called “paid leave.” How cool is that?
Continue reading


I Want To Join A Union”


RIFs, Grifters and Reality

-By Larry Sand

Excessive teacher hiring invariably leads to layoffs; teachers need to understand this trap and protect themselves.

We are now in the midst of RIF season. In California and elsewhere, when the economy is unstable, Reduction in Force (RIF) notices must go out to teachers by March 15th. These notices apprise teachers that they may be out of a job come June. School districts don’t know in March what their budget will be for the next school year, so they typically plan for a worst case scenario. It’s almost unheard of that all teachers who get the notices actually get laid off, but some will, and teachers must be notified if there is any chance they will lose their jobs.

When the school districts send out the notices, the teachers unions angrily point fingers at the district, insisting that they cut the bureaucracy instead and suggest that taxes should be raised rather than cutting back teachers. What the districts and the unions don’t say is that they are the problem; they are complicit in the process whereby teachers lose their jobs.
Continue reading


RIFs, Grifters and Reality”


Greed Before Prudence

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Wisconsin syndicalists are prepared to destroy organized government, if necessary, to continue looting the public treasury.

The spectacle of concerted strikes by teachers, other public employee unions, and by Democrat/Socialist Party legislators in Wisconsin is a throwback to the syndicalist origin of mass industrial unions in the United States. Such actions aim at forcing the state into financial ruin, if necessary, to keep and to increase the hugely disproportionate and unmerited flow of public funds channeled to public employees’ unions.

Wisconsin historically is dead center in the American syndicalist history of industrial union violence and extortion. Milwaukee’s Victor Berger was a founder of the American Socialist Party and the first Socialist Party candidate to be elected to Congress. Berger’s co-founder, Eugene V. Debs, also was a founder of the IWW (see below).
Continue reading


Greed Before Prudence”


Left-Wing Group Takes Down Conservative Website — Petty Little Children Affecting Nothing

-By Warner Todd Huston

The left-wing Internet-based group calling itself “Anonymous” briefly took down the website of the conservative activist group Americans For Prosperity on Sunday, Feb. 27. Yet all the sturm und drang signifying… what? Me thinks that “Anonymous” is reading too many comic books.

Amusingly, with the Denial of Service (DNS) attack “Anonymous” imagines themselves striking a blow for the oppressed, or something. “Anonymous hears the voice of the downtrodden American people,” they sonorously tell us on their website. The amusing thing to me is that they imagine the oppressed are government employee union members. Only, here is the thing… people that work for the government are on average the best paid people in America. They have the best benefits, the earliest retirement ages, and the cheapest healthcare in the entire country — cheapest to them anyway, not to us the taxpayers. It is a fact that government employees are the new elites in America today. It is also a fact that they live high on the hog off the backs of the working poor.

So who the heck do these fools in “Anonymous” think they are come to the aid of?
Continue reading


Left-Wing Group Takes Down Conservative Website — Petty Little Children Affecting Nothing”


Government Employee Unions Undemocratic, Unfair, Unsustainable

-By Warner Todd Huston

A lot has been said about the thuggish behavior of these teachers in Wisconsin and other union toughs across the country who have been caught on tape calling people Hitler and dictators, and attacking peaceful Tea Partiers. The behavior of union supporters has been ignorant to say the least. But as we’ve focused on the behavior of these ignoramuses, we’ve also neglected to explain just why their unions are illicit in the first place.

To start with we should remind everyone that government employees have not always been allowed to unionize. Collective bargaining for pubic employees only started in 1958 after New York Mayor Robert Wagner signed what came to be called “the Little Wagner Act” allowing city workers to unionize. In fact, collective bargaining itself was only legalized even in the private sector in 1935 when Wagner’s own father, New York Senator Robert Wagner, sponsored the National Labor Relations Act, or the Wagner Act. Nationally, collective bargaining for government employees began in 1962 when President John Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988 allowing federal employees to unionize and gain collective bargaining.
Continue reading


Government Employee Unions Undemocratic, Unfair, Unsustainable”


New Tone: After Budget Vote, Wis. Democrat Tells Fellow Rep. ‘You Are F***ing Dead’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Democrat’s “new tone” rolls ever onward… into the ditch. After the latest vote on the Budget Repair Bill last Friday, Democrat State Representative Gordon Hintz (54th District) turned to fellow Representative Michelle Litjens (R, 56th District) and said: “You are F***ing Dead!”

Nice “new tone,” isn’t it? But it fits well with his pals in the teachers unions sporting Walker-is-Hitler signs not to mention how it fits with all the videos of union thugs committing violence against Tea Partiers that we’ve seen over the last week.

This Hintz creep is a piece of work, too. Earlier in February he got swept up in a prostitution ring in Appleton, Wisconsin.
Continue reading


New Tone: After Budget Vote, Wis. Democrat Tells Fellow Rep. ‘You Are F***ing Dead’”


VIDEO: Calif. Union Goon Pushes Tea Partier While Yelling About ‘Fascists,’ Another Attacks Man in Georgia

-By Warner Todd Huston

Union animals escalating violence across the country…

BigGovernment.com has the startling tale of a Teamster Jacket-wearing union goon attacking a Tea Party member at a protest held in Sacramento, California.

Naturally, even as this union scumbag was manhandling a Tea Partier, he was yelling through a bullhorn that Tea Partiers are “fascists.”

The union thug was later issued a citation by Sacramento police for his physical assault.

I hate to say this, but I am afraid that these union thugs won’t be happy until someone is seriously injured at one of these protests. Unonistas cannot restrain the abject hatred they feel for Americans and the union left’s long, violent history augers that someone is going to get hurt sooner rather than later. I dearly hope that my fears are never realized, but it’s certainly hard to deny the distinct possibility. I certainly don’t want anyone hurt, here, not on any side of this budget debate.

SecularStpidest also has posted what it is claiming is an interview with the another guy that got manhandled in Atlanta, Georgia by a union thug…

Continue reading


VIDEO: Calif. Union Goon Pushes Tea Partier While Yelling About ‘Fascists,’ Another Attacks Man in Georgia”


Absurd: Leftists Fool People Into Fearing That Wisconsin Budget Bill is Crafted to Kill People

-By Warner Todd Huston

Wisconsin’s MacIver Institute reports on how left-wing radicals are fooling sick people in Wisconsin into imagining that Governor Walker’s budget proposal is meant to kill all sick people.

Here is one of those poor people that have been bamboozled into imagining that they are going to be killed by the state of Wisconsin because Governor Walker is attempting to instill some fiscal sanity in the Badger State.
Continue reading


Absurd: Leftists Fool People Into Fearing That Wisconsin Budget Bill is Crafted to Kill People”


VIDEO: Union Thugs Say Gov. Christie Will ‘Shoot Them’ Like Gadhafi

-By Warner Todd Huston

At a rally in New Jersey, we see more teachers that don’t deserve to be allowed near children for their ignorance of history, their wild-eyed hatred, and their outright stupidity.

In this video we see “teachers” who don’t feel bad about parading around in the streets while their children are left without teachers. Worse, we see this historically ignorant, fact starved fools that think that Governor Chris Christie will start murdering them in the streets like Libyan strongman Muammar Gadhafi has been doing in Libya.

People like this should be immediately fired. There is NO comparison between the current anti-union sentiment being evinced by the majority of Americans today and the murderous oppression being perpetrated by Islamicists in the Middle East and northern Africa.

A so-called teacher that equates Gov. Christ Christie to a Gadhafi-like monster is too stupid to be allowed to teach our children.
Continue reading


VIDEO: Union Thugs Say Gov. Christie Will ‘Shoot Them’ Like Gadhafi”


Union Admits It Hates Voters And Loves Communist Imagery With Help of Dropkick Murphys Band

-By Warner Todd Huston

Proving that there seems to have been a good reason that in many eras of American history the “Irish Need Not Apply,” a bunch of drunken morons calling themselves the Dropkick Murphys have added their off key voices to American union thuggery by writing a protest song that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has glommed onto.

The song’s title is Take ‘Em Down and in it they claim they want to “take the bastards down.” But shall I just point out who “the bosses” are for the SEIU and the workers in Wisconsin that the Murphys are direct their song to? That would be you and me.

You see, the SEIU and the workers in Wisconsin are made up of millions of public employees whom we pay with our taxes. So, when the Dorkdick Murphys are telling the SEIU to “take the bastards down” they are telling our public employees to take we the people down!

This is the stupidity and disconnect of the halfwits that support public employees. These people are tax leeches, not aggrieved workers being oppressed by eeeevil corporations. These thieves want to take money from you and me, the taxpayer.
Continue reading


Union Admits It Hates Voters And Loves Communist Imagery With Help of Dropkick Murphys Band”


Video: Stop Obama and His Union Bosses!

-By Warner Todd Huston

Courtesy of the Republican National Committee…

This is exactly right. While every state is drowning in debt, Barack Obama and the billions that unions have spent on him and his Democrat Party is being put toward thwarting the will of the voters and to making the state’s and the federal government’s debt far, far worse.
Continue reading


Video: Stop Obama and His Union Bosses!”


Wisconsin Union Facts

-By Warner Todd Huston

Thee has been a lot of confusion over just what the heck is going on between Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the unions in the Badger State. Who is doing what to whom is information that seems to be a bit hard to come by. What does Walker plan to do? What does his bill mean?

For those that want a good wrap up of exactly what is going on no better post than that of Brian Fojtik’s over at Pundit League can be found.

Please do take a quick jump over to Wisconsin Union Wars: The Facts and read all the details.

Also, if you want a pretty good review of Walker’s record, take a look at www.TheHispanicConservative.com.
Continue reading


Wisconsin Union Facts”


All Teachers Unions Must Fall, Not Just Wisconsin’s

-By Warner Todd Huston

The lies that have been peddled by the unions in Wisconsin are legion. They are claiming that Walker has a budget surplus he’s hiding, he isn’t. They have been claiming that it “isn’t about the money,” but it is. They have even claimed to be “sick” by having real doctors issue falsified sick letters so that they can play hooky from school, shutting down both Wisconsin’s government and its schools. These lefties have also claimed that Governor Walker has surprised everyone with his anti-union drive.

On the that last one, nothing could be further than the truth. Governor Walker’s entire political career has been filled with similar pronouncements, policies, and attempts at policies.

But there is one more lie that is universal across the education establishment: more money will fix everything. A singular fact is that more and more money being pumped into education is not fixing anything. To prove that, we can turn to Central Falls school in Rhode Island for a little morality play.
Continue reading


All Teachers Unions Must Fall, Not Just Wisconsin’s”


Hate is What Unions Sell

-By Warner Todd Huston

This situation in Wisconsin has brought out the truth about unions: they peddle hate. Unions are exactly what Democrats try to claim the Tea Party is, a hate-filled, uncivil, mob of name callers. Unionistas use hateful and violent rhetoric, they call everyone that opposes them Hitler and they lie about their ultimate goals.

Many of you out there may be saying that we shouldn’t hold the obscene actions of a few bad Wisconsin teachers against the whole of uniondom. But we don’t have to restrict ourselves to Wisconsin to see this sort of hateful, violence themed rhetoric.

Yesterday, for instance, Massachusetts Democrat Representative Michael Capuana told a union crowd that sometimes the protesters have to “get a little bloody” on the streets to prove their fealty to the unions.
Continue reading


Hate is What Unions Sell”


Wisc. and Ind. Democrats: Union Cash Driving Democrats to Run and Hide

-By Warner Todd Huston

With Democrat state legislators in Wisconsin and now Indiana fleeing their states so that they don’t have to do their job — just call them fleebaggers — it would be easy to assume that Democrats are cowards. If not cowards, then petulant children throwing temper tantrums because voters did not give them a power-lock majority. But while cowardice and petulance both factor into these running donkeys their main motivation is greed. You see, if public employees lose their power then they will have no more money to give Democrats for their campaign coffers.

By far unions are the largest donors that Democrats have all up and down the line from local and state to federal. Unions spent over 50 million dollars on Barack Obama’s campaign back in 2008 and they spent another 50 million for the 2010 midterm elections.

Most specifically pubic employee unions are Democrats biggest supporters. In the last week of the 2010 election, for instance, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) spent over a million dollars to help elect Democrats. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) spent almost $400,000.
Continue reading


Wisc. and Ind. Democrats: Union Cash Driving Democrats to Run and Hide”


Wisconsin Teachers: Putting Kids at Risk

-By Warner Todd Huston

Why do these teachers hate Wisconsin’s kids?

A reader named Tom from Des Moines, Iowa, emailed me and asked some pertinent questions of these recalcitrant teachers. I have asked some of these questions here myself and I have heard a few of them floated on Twitter, Facebook and the radio, but it is good to have them all in one post.

The teachers, says reader Tom, keep claiming that it’s all “for the kids” yet their actions here prove that the kids are last on the list as teachers worry more about safeguarding their unions, their high salaries and lucrative benefits.
Continue reading


Wisconsin Teachers: Putting Kids at Risk”


Nervous Time for the Teachers Unions

-By Larry Sand

Teacher union legal teams gear up for battles all over the country as union power is threatened.

With the recent changing of the political guard in statehouses across the country, teachers unions appear to be in for a rough ride. As one state succeeds in passing reform legislation, another state is encouraged to follow suit and perhaps go one step further.

Last week, the New York Times reported “Governors in Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada and New Jersey have called for the elimination or dismantling of tenure. As state legislatures convene this winter, anti-tenure bills are being written in those states and others. Their chances of passing have risen because of crushing state budget deficits that have put teachers’ unions on the defensive.” Mike Petrilli, Vice President for National Programs and Policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute adds “These new Republican governors are all trying to outreform one another.”
Continue reading


Nervous Time for the Teachers Unions”


No Truth In Left’s Wisconsin Union Support or Its State Budget Surplus Story

-By Warner Todd Huston

First came the disgrace of supposedly intelligent teachers in Wisconsin sporting hundreds of signs calling Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker “Hitler” and now comes the entire liberal blogosphere and it’s echo chamber in the left-media establishment claiming that Gov. Walker has “ginned up” a budget shortfall when he actually has a budget surplus. One wonders when the childish hyperbole and lies will ever stop for the left?

Lefty TV yakker Rachel Maddow, ever hooked into the most goofy left-wing talking point du jour and always ready to dutifully regurgitate same, recently made a big point about Walker’s mythic surplus, sneeringly saying that, “Wisconsin is fine… I am not kidding.” On her Feb 17 show, Maddow breathlessly informed us that Walker is just using the claim of a budget problem in a cynical attempt to destroy unions. Because, well, unions are so innocent, right? I mean they are just gently joshing with all those Hitler references, you know?
Continue reading


No Truth In Left’s Wisconsin Union Support or Its State Budget Surplus Story”


Wisc. Union Thug: ‘First They Take Away Unions, Then They Take Away The Jews…’??? Unions Want Legalized Theft, Plain and Simple

-By Warner Todd Huston

Every so-called teacher in Wisconsin needs to be removed from the classroom and should not be allowed to return until she can prove that she’s become educated enough to understand that no politician in Wisconsin is “just like Hitler.”

These thugs latest claim is that “it’s not about the money” but the facts speak pretty clearly that it is all about the money. The union thugs want more of yours, Wisconsin, and your Republican legislators are telling them that the wallet is empty.

This has become ground zero for the fight against the thievery that public employee unions have perpetrated against the people for 50 years. This is day one in the fight to end the abuse.

… and make no mistake about it, folks. The unions are in a war against YOU, the taxpayer. They think YOU are the enemy. YOU are their target. YOU are their sugar daddy. Tell them you’ve had enough of their abuse.
Continue reading


Wisc. Union Thug: ‘First They Take Away Unions, Then They Take Away The Jews…’??? Unions Want Legalized Theft, Plain and Simple”


Wisconsin State Senators Hide in IL to Prevent Voting

From the Chicago Tea Party…

Stand with Governor Scott Walker This Saturday in Wisconsin

What is happening in Wisconsin right now could prove to be a turning point in the fight against big government. Democrat State Senators in the state of Wisconsin have decided that the public sector unions are more important than representative democracy and the consent of the people. The voters in Wisconsin elected a Republican Governor, U.S. Senator and state legislature in November, but the Democrats don’t appear to think elections matter. The public sector unions are proving they are only interested in one thing: power.

Increasingly all over the country, Democrats and the unions are trying to create mayhem and disorder in hopes that hardworking taxpayers will just give up. But we’re not going to give up. We need to stand with Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
Continue reading


Wisconsin State Senators Hide in IL to Prevent Voting”


Great: One of the Most Violent Union Thugs Now Appearing With Thug Teachers in Wisconsin

-By Warner Todd Huston

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has decided to flock to the side of thug Wisconsin teachers on Friday. This should not be much of a surprise. Trumka understands that this battle could serve to galvanize anti-union sympathies all across the country, and rightfully so. With the hate and “violent rhetoric” being employed by these thug teachers with very little legitimate provocation these teachers are quickly proving that they aren’t sympathetic figures. In any case, Trumka hopes to turn the sliding sympathies back in his favor.

It should also not surprise anyone that Trumka, one of the most vile, violent thugs in upper echelons of uniondom, has flocked to the side of unionistas that have employed some of the most vile rhetoric and characterizations of their enemy, the people of Wisconsin.
Continue reading


Great: One of the Most Violent Union Thugs Now Appearing With Thug Teachers in Wisconsin”


These Hatemongers Are in Control of Our Children!

-By Warner Todd Huston

In Wisconsin teachers are calling everyone that opposes them a Nazi, they are creating signs with crosshairs over the faces of their political enemies, like the grown-ups they are they are calling political foes “dicks,” calling Republicans “terrorists,” and saying that they “hate people.” And why all this vitriol from the Party whose president wants more “civility” in politics? Why because they are being asked to pay a few dollars more into their own healthcare each month, what else?

Doug Ross has a compilation of some 15 of the most egregious signs being toted around by the union thugs in Wisconsin.

Here are a few of them:

Check out Ross’s post for more.

These public employee unions need to be eliminated. They are entirely undemocratic and antithetical to good government.
Continue reading


These Hatemongers Are in Control of Our Children!”


Teachers Union Thugs Comparing People to Hitler, Shutting Down Schools, Losing Their Argument

-By Warner Todd Huston

One cannot be a leftist without being a hypocrite. It really is just that simple. The last several days in Wisconsin has again born that truism out, too, as teachers union thugs in the Badger State have indulged every manner of behavior that they have constantly condemned the right for engaging in — even as no one on the right has actually done the things the left charges them with doing.

With the protests that swept down upon the State Capitol in Madison we are seeing the sort of behavior that is the antithesis of democracy. These teacher thugs are flooding into the capitol disrupting the state senate chambers, these teacher thugs are sporting signs with Governor Walker depicted as Hitler, these teacher thugs are attempting to thwart the will of the voters that put a Republican Governor into office to do exactly what he is trying to do, these teacher thugs are even making a pig sty out of the capitol grounds with piles and piles of garbage.
Continue reading


Teachers Union Thugs Comparing People to Hitler, Shutting Down Schools, Losing Their Argument”