Rebecca Kleefisch bashes Obamacare after her own government health care saved her life. Ironic isn’t it.

Never missing a chance to politicize even cancer to get elected, Republican Lt. Gov. candidate Rebecca Kleefisch never quite gets the irony of her thoughtless comments, in this email press release.

I researched my disease and the treatments available. I found the best colorectal cancer surgeon around … internationally renowned and taught others how to remove colon cancer laparoscopically. He was at Froedert Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin…amazingly, just 30 minutes away.

My story also illustrates how dire my future might have been if we had socialized medicine. What if the government had told me I had to wait in a 6 month line to get a CT scan? Or that I couldn’t have Dr. Ludwig perform the surgery? That’s unacceptable to me and my family.
And please join me in fighting for healthcare reform that keeps us in charge of our choices. After a hard-fought primary and cancer, Tom Barrett doesn't seem very scary.
Forward,
Rebecca Kleefisch

At Blogging Blue, they thought a few holes in Kleefisch’s story needed to be expanded on:

Thank God for Rebecca that her husband is State Rep. Joel Kleefisch, which means that she has a 100% covered by the taxpayer Cadillac health care plan. That allowed her to get treated successfully by the best doctor in the state at our expense. Having caught her cancer early and getting it treated surely has led her humble and thankful. But wait! She is using her cancer story, to make sure others who have cancer are unable to get treated…

…from the government. If Rebecca had been at the mercy of the private sector, she might not have had insurance, and most certainly be turned down if she ever had to change insurers.

WISN TV did her entire story without ever thinking to ask her about her health insurance, a big issue in the upcoming election. Another media pass.

Kleefisch’s old “government rationing” story flies in the face of reform that has actually done the opposite, requiring insurers to cover everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions. Just like the government health care that saved her clueless life.

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Conservative Bull-shitter and radio host Mark Belling Lied about Feingold ad

I know, the title contains pretty strong language, but Belling is smearing excrement all over the business I once loved.

Jsonline: Mark Belling, WISN-AM (1130), now says the Russ Feingold "Garage Door" television ad is not a fake.

No kidding! Having lived in the area for years and having seen the actual ad myself, Belling could have asked almost anyone in the media if the ad was real or not, before just MAKING THINGS UP.

What is it about conservative who BS and pass out back hand mea culpas, like this:

"It may be phony and disingenuous, but it's not a fake," Belling writes in a post on his web site.

What could possibly be phony or disingenuous about Feingold’s old political campaign ad? His "correction" makes about as much sense as the crap Belling belched out on his radio show about how Feingold created the ad. You’d have to be on an hallucinogen to come up with this convoluted tale of fiction:

On Tuesday, Belling declared on his drive time show and web site that Feingold's ad was made using a "green screen," and that Feingold filmed his portion elsewhere and had it superimposed over an image of his Middleton home. Belling's take on the ad was the subject of a PolitiFact Wisconsin item in Thursday's paper. Belling later admitted he had no proof that a green screen technique was used. Feingold and several witnesses say he was filmed at the house.

I can say without equivocation, having been a radio host myself for 25 years, that there is no longer a community standard or ethical responsibility by program directors or broadcaster of conservative talk to put out a quality product.

Republicans vote to RAISE cable/internet fees to Americans. What a way to spend your tax cuts!!

Whose side are free market conservatives on? It’s not the people’s side. Our corporate republic isn’t much of a secret anymore. We lost control a while back, and with a little more help from “small government” conservatives, we’ll lock it in place forever.


When the public fights for an industry to make a profit from treating the sick and dying, or making money educating our kids, there is no turning back. Like this small unnoticed story below you’ll be complaining about in a year or two, but won’t remember how and when it happened, leaving Republicans off the hook for picking your pocket:

AP: House Democrats have shelved a last-ditch effort to broker a compromise between phone, cable and Internet companies on rules that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or degrading online traffic flowing over their networks. House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman abandoned the effort in the face of Republican opposition to his proposed "network neutrality" rules.

Those rules were intended to prevent broadband providers from becoming online gatekeepers by playing favorites with traffic.

The communications companies also argue that after spending billions to upgrade
their networks for broadband, they need to be able earn a healthy return by offering premium services. Burdensome net neutrality rules, they say, would discourage future investments.

Now you know what to do with your tax cuts.
The free market will be anything but free to consumers.

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Sick Sex Plot to Embarrass CNN reporter Foiled. It was conservative slimeball James O'Keefe, who Else?

Because James O'Keefe is a right-wing scum bag, and conservatives love him for it, I'll let CNN tell the latest sleezy O'Keefe gotcha attempt in this promo clip from Abbie Boudreau:

(CNN) -- A conservative activist known for making undercover videos plotted to embarrass a CNN correspondent by recording a meeting on hidden cameras aboard a floating "palace of pleasure" and making sexually suggestive comments, e-mails and a planning document show.

James O'Keefe, best known for hitting the community organizing group ACORN with an undercover video sting, hoped to get CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat filled with sexually explicit props and then record the session, those documents show.

The plan apparently was thwarted after Boudreau was warned minutes before it was supposed to happen.

Prosecutors in New York and California eventually found no evidence of wrongdoing by the group ACORN, and the California probe found the videos had been heavily and selectively edited.

O'Keefe's next big splash ended with his arrest after he taped associates entering Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans posing as telephone repairmen. He ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of entering a federal office under false pretenses and is now on probation.

For months, CNN had been following a group of young conservative activists, including Christian Hartsock, the director of the music video. The activists will be featured in a documentary, "Right on the Edge," that will air October 2 and 3.

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Old Muppet Song all about Ron Johnson's political philosophy-Business, Business.

In the good old days I spent a lot of time recording songs and TV audio with alligator clips hooked up to a speaker. Below is an early Muppet audio clip (I think it was the Muppet's)with a song called "Business, Business" from the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. With some bad cut and pasting, I thought Ron Johnson pic and croaky voice would have come very close to the sound of a Muppet.

For Johnson, everything is business, business.

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Sensenbrenner will investigate Obama's Green policies and disprove Climate Science via witch-hunts.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner gets the once over, at last, for his extreme views on climate change and his strange use of power once the Republicans take the House...maybe.

The committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will be used by Sensenbrenner to investigate the conspiracy surrounding climate change science and environmental fascism. Keith Olbermann and Mother Jones reporter Kate Sheppard have the extremist plan and details promised by Sensenbrenner.

Sensenbrenner: "And at worst it's junk science and its a part of a
massive internatonal scientific fraud."

Those greedy nerdy scientists.

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Ron Johnson featured on Olbermann for opposition to the Child Abuse Victims bill. Costs too much.

Finally getting the national attention it should be receiving, Ron Johnson's rabid concern for the bottom line at the expense of child abuse victims is not only pathetic, but just what the tea party ordered. Keith Olbermann interviews one very recently shocked conservative victim (found out the night before), Todd Merryfield, who might just be changing his vote.

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Who Shouldn't be Allowed to Vote? Uninformed Fox News Viewers?

Are you too dumb to vote? This shouldn't even be a question, much less an actual topic, but Fox News host Bill O'Reilly and John Stossell posed the question anyway again.

It's not the first time conservatives have brought up the issue of "dumb voter exclusion." But it seemed particularly relevant ever since Obama appearances at the University of Wisconsin's Library Mall in front of hoards of "unqualified" student voters.



As I mentioned, the idea of excluding dumb voters isn't new, it's just that it would snare in its traps most Fox News viewers.

During the war in Iraq, the University of Maryland conducted a study: The polling, conducted by the Program on International Policy (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and Knowledge Networks also reveals that the frequency of these misperceptions varies significantly according to individuals’ primary source of news.

Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely to have misperceptions (emphasis added), while those who primarily listen to NPR or watch PBS are significantly less likely.

So here's a trip down memory lane as State Sen. Glenn Grothman, Stossel, Frank Luntz and others explore weeding out the stupidly bad citizen.

Republicans Vote against Second Biggest Concern of Conservative Voters, Outsourcing. Ready for a Revolt?

It’s a “down the rabbit hole” year of tea parties zanies, extending tax cuts for the wealthy, and votes against business tax breaks by...the GOP. After a year of tea party Americans angrily protesting cuts to Medicare and pulling the plug on granny, tea party candidates are now demanding we do away with Medicare. My head is spinning.

So how is it possible during an election year focusing on record unemployment and job creation, that the Republican Party can get away with voting against outsourcing American jobs? It’s front and center for conservative voters who made suggestions at the House GOP website America Speaking Out a supposed new way to get Americans involved in the democratic process.

Wonk Room at Think Progress: The proposal receiving the most “interest” (and the second highest number of overall votes) in the job creation section is to “Stop the outsourcing of jobs from America to other countries that do not pay taxes into the U.S. and stop the tax breaks that are given to these companies that are outsourcing.”

But outsourcing never made it into the Lemon “Pledge for America.” And for good reason:

Huffington Post: Senate Republicans beat back an effort by Democrats Tuesday to end tax breaks for companies who send jobs offshore only to import products back into the United States. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents businesses in the United States, has aggressively battled the effort to reduce outsourcing.

During the debate over the stimulus, the U.S. Chamber fought efforts to include a provision that would encourage taxpayer money to be spent on products made by domestic companies. It opposed the outsourcing bill, arguing in a letter to the Senate that "Replacing a job that is based in another country with a domestic job does not stimulate economic growth or enhance the competitiveness of American worldwide companies..."

Job creation here doesn’t add a thing to our local economies?

In 2004, Chamber head Tom Donohue made the case that outsourcing shouldn't be a concern because only "two, maybe three million jobs, maybe four" would be lost.

That’s all really…for now. Can you take any more complete illogical bullshit?

Republicans argued that revoking the tax breaks would punish American companies and make them less competitive with foreign firms.

So how onerous was the Democrat bill for promoting American businesses?

The bill included a payroll tax holiday for companies that bring jobs back from overseas, ended tax breaks for plants that shut down to go elsewhere, and blocked companies from deferring their tax bill year to year by keeping money out of the U.S.

Are you ready to vote Republican yet?

A Question of Character? Govenor Paladino...and his band of thieves? Tea Party Hitches up with "junkyard dogs, not pedigree poodles."

How is a candidate for governor like Carl Paladino possible? For a guy willing to "convert state prisons into workhouses for New York's poor and unemployed where they would be given jobs and taught basic hygiene,” is it any surprise the authoritarian tea party movement has backed him and his criminal accomplice’s? Yes, criminal.

NY Times: As he mounts an outrage-filled campaign for
governor of New York, Carl P. Paladino has vowed to forcibly rid Albany of the wayward officials and misbehaving bureaucrats who he says have demeaned state government, promising to “take out the trash.” … His campaign manager failed to pay nearly $53,000 in federal taxes over the last few years, prompting the Internal Revenue Service to take action against him.

An aide who frequently drives Mr. Paladino on the campaign trail served jail time in Arizona on charges of drunken driving.

Another adviser has been indicted on charges of stealing more than $1 million from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s re-election bid last year.

And Mr. Paladino’s campaign chairwoman left a local government position amid claims that she had steered $1 billion in public money to a politically connected investment manager.

Their backgrounds could raise questions about the kind of cabinet Mr. Paladino, a Republican, would assemble … Rather than dispute the troubled past of his advisers, or distance himself from it, Mr. Paladino’s campaign appears to be embracing it, adopting a warts-and-all approach that has defined his insurgent candidacy from the start.

In an interview, Michael Caputo, the campaign manager who ran afoul of the I.R.S., said, “This is a campaign of junkyard dogs, not pedigreed poodles.”

A “campaign of junk yard dogs?” What a campaign slogan. That’s like saying, “Sure we’re crooks, we can’t be trusted, and that admission should count for something, right? Elect us.”

Like the Times article clearly states: “…the issue highlights a growing problem across the country for the Tea Party, which has backed Mr. Paladino.”

What that says to me is that tea parties are backing likeminded ideologues that morally and ethically believe in resorting to criminal activity while being politically rewarded for it by being elected to public office.

What a game changing movement.

Angle is on government health care...Hypocri...I'm getting tired of writing the word.

The amazing thing about this story is that it took so long to find out the obvious. Didn't anyone think to ask her where she gets her insurance?

Amazing "Morning in America" ad by right wing propagandists Blames everything on Obama. Have they no shame?

A group by the name Citizens for the Republic, a Darth Vader splinter group, put out this appalling ad blaming Obama for job losses and the end of America. This is jaw dropping propaganda. The ad unintentionally does an amazing job of explaining the horror unleashed on Americans by the previous Republican administration and Congress. Oops.

As they say in the ad: "There's morning in America, under the leadership of President Obama, our country is fading, and weaker and worse off. His policies were a grand experiment, an experiment that failed."

Kathleen Parker: "This is a smart ad, created by Fred Davis of Strategic Perception Inc, one of the GOP’s favorite admen. Davis produced commercials for George W. Bush and John McCain but is perhaps best known for his “Demon Sheep” ad for Carly Fiorina."

Truly brain dead ugly stuff.

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Obama, Feingold and Barrett in Madison Rally.

This incredible picture of Air Force One over the capital appeared on the State Journal's live blog of President Barack Obama's rally on Library Mall.

Here's the coverage from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Sam Stein.

I didn't see this get much coverage, but Obama had a suggestion for students at a local high schoo,l on how they could beat the Bears next time:

AP: President Barack Obama is making time for unscheduled campaign-style stops in a day already packed with events in two states.

Obama surprised the football, volleyball and girls' tennis teams at LaFollette High School in Madison, Wis., by visiting their practice fields Tuesday. Students squealed in delight and jockeyed to shake the president's hand.

White House spokesman Bill Burton said Obama urged the football players to work hard in sports and school and to avoid the types of mental errors that caused the Green Bay Packers to lose Monday to his favorite team, the Chicago Bears.

Feingold Opponent Ron Johnson: Self Made Image a Self Made Image.

I'm confused. Fact checkers have basically given the Ron Johnson campaign a pass on a long past, low interest, government backed business loan. Splitting hairs they say, defending the "self-made" millionaire who married into money.

WPT's Here and Now looked a little bit closer...

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Walker wants to limit Badgercare, doing the uninsured people's business in Wisconsin.

After Scott Walker and Tom Barrett had their first debate, WPR state government reporter Shawn Johnson received a Scott Walker campaign "fact check" clarifying his position on the states Badgercare program, and that he didn't want to cut it in any way.

Parsing his words again, Walker doesn't want to "cut" Badgercare, just LIMIT who qualifies.

Johnson Opposed Child Victims Bill...too Costly.

For a party using child predator fear mongering to argue against early release, some child predators long past are okay, and maybe too costly for religious organizations to deal with.

Or so says Ron Johnson, always looking out for the bottom line.

From Uppity Wisconsin:

Earlier this year, Ron Johnson, testified before the Wisconsin State Senate on behalf of the Green Bay Diocese Finance Council, which has ultimate decision power in deciding whether to settle abuse law suits and can even overrule a diocese's bishop decision in how to proceed.

Johnson was there to oppose the so-call Child Victims Bill, which would have made it easier to go after child predators. Under current law, many children do not come forward until after the statute of limitations has expired-- this law would have made exceptions in such circumstances.

From the Green Bay Diocese Finance Council perspective, this meant that many more child victims of predator priests would come forward and that they would be forced to deal with more law suits. And more law suits mean spending more money, which Johnson and the Finance Council obviously opposed.

America just...loves...boos Sarah Palin.

Big surprise?



Trying to save face, Dancing with the Star's producers fabricated the story below, blaming the judges scores for the boos. Funny, the crowd has never booed before, so loudly. Hmm, just a coincidence?

AP: Producers contended that the boos were in response to the score of three eights the judges had given to first-place couple Jennifer Grey and Derek Hough. Ten is the highest score judges can give. Chatting with Grey and Hough on Tuesday, co-host Brooke Burke introduced a clip from Monday's episode that showed the judges bantering with the audience and defending their scores as the crowd booed. Then Bergeron introduced Palin.

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David Brooks on pro-market progressivism, California style.

I personally didn’t know that much about what happened in California to produce the prosperity David Brooks writes about here, until I checked out this article at NewGeography.com. It's pretty much a conservative hit piece on progressives. Notice the decline in income from the graph on the right during the Reagan years. Isn't that odd?

What Brooks does write about, the attitudes people had back then, rings true in some ways from what I remember. In the meantime, it should be a wake-up call for anti-government tea party libertarian extremists.

NY Times: Between 1911 and the ’60s, California had a series of governors — like Hiram Johnson, Earl Warren, Goodwin Knight and Pat Brown —who were pro-market and pro business, but also progressive reformers.

They rode a great wave of prosperity, and people flocked to the Golden State, but they used the fruits of that prosperity in a disciplined way to lay the groundwork for even more growth. They built an outstanding school and university system. They started a series of gigantic public works projects that today are seen as engineering miracles. These included monumental water projects, harbors and ports, the sprawling highway system and even mental health facilities. They disdained partisanship. They continually reorganized government to make it more businesslike and cost effective. “Thus,” the historian Kevin Starr has written, “California progressivism contained within itself both liberal and conservative impulses, as judged by the standards of today.”

Most important, California progressives focused on the middle class. By the end of these years, California enjoyed the highest living standards in the country. The core of the state’s strength was in the suburbs. Between 1945 and 1950 alone, the San Fernando Valley doubled in population.

California’s progressive model has been abandoned … Both parties helped kill off California’s pro-market progressivism ... In the 1960s … activists arose — hostile to suburbia, skeptical of capitalism.

Another assault on California progressivism came from the right. Conservatives refused to acknowledge the public sector’s role in creating the state’s prosperity. With Proposition 13 and other measures that cut taxes, they cut off revenue and pushed through structural reforms, making it hard for future administrations to raise funds. Many on the right became unwilling to think creatively about using government to promote prosperity. The result is a state in crisis.

The answer is to return to the tradition of pro-market progressivism that built modern California in the first place. The antigovernment conservatives and the unions have built institutions and bases of support. The heirs to the pro-market progressive tradition have not. What’s needed is not a revolution, but a restoration and a modernization of what California once had.

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Does School Choice Work? It Hasn't.

Frederick Hess, with the American Enterprise Institute, recently wrote about the unrealized improvements brought about by the charter and voucher school movements.
Hess offers ways to change the system and expectation level of voucher advocates to more closely match the difficulty of improving education. I don’t agree with many of his suggestions, but I do agree with his admission that private involvement hasn’t done much to bring about change. Here’s his opening paragraph:

These would seem to be dark days for the school-choice movement, as several early champions of choice have publicly expressed their disillusionment. A few years ago, the Manhattan Institute's Sol Stern--author of Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice--caused a stir when he backed away from his once-ardent support. Howard Fuller, an architect of Milwaukee's school-voucher plan and the godfather of the school-choice movement, has wryly observed, "I think that any honest assessment would have to say that there hasn't been the deep, wholesale improvement in [Milwaukee Public Schools] that we would have thought."

Earlier this year, historian Diane Ravitch made waves when she retracted her once staunch support for school choice in The Death and Life of the Great American School System. "I just wish that choice proponents would stop promising that charters and vouchers will bring us closer to that date when 100 percent of all children reach proficiency," she opined in her blog. "If evidence mattered, they would tone down their rhetoric."

Harvard professor and iconic school-voucher proponent Paul Peterson has characterized the voucher movement as "stalled," in part by the fact that many "new voucher schools were badly run, both fiscally and educationally," and in part because results in Milwaukee were not "as startlingly positive as advocates originally hoped." Likewise, Peterson argues, "the jury on charter schools is still out."

To many who hold out hope that choice can help fix what ails America's schools, these hedges and reversals have been startling. And yet, looking back, it is hard to see how they were not inevitable. For decades, school-choice advocates have seemed bent on producing this hour of disappointment. Particularly problematic is how this way of thinking has caused school-choice proponents to ignore crucial questions of market design and implementation--especially the extent to which reforms have, or have not, created a real market dynamic in education.

The chief promise of choice, after all, was that it would displace ossified, monopolistic school bureaucracies or at least inject into them a degree of flexibility, competition, and quality control.

Frederick M. Hess is director of educational-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. His next book, The Same Thing Over and Over, will be published in November.

With Tea Party Courage, Republicans Bravely back Corporate Insurance, Wall Street, Inheriting Wealth, and New Deal Repeal.

The one effect the tea party movement has had on Republicans is that it has moved them over the line of reason, down the rabbit hole, and outwardly advocating their unpopular intentions. Doing away with safety nets, unemployment insurance of all things, and a return to their wealth fare agenda. Here, Rachel Maddow outlines for everyone to see, including Politifact and Factcheck, how they will start dismantling Social Security.



Below, conervatives are attempting to "normalize" the idea that inheriting wealth is as American as apple pie:

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Bill Maher's latest O'Donnell Clip and Parody

Here's the latest Christine O'Donnell brain burp!



Maher put this togother with a cast of stars...



O'Donnell on legislating sex...

Delegitimizing the Supreme Court, the third branch of government, for Politics.

Is conservative judicial activism okay if conservative Americans don't complain or mind the outcomes? Should conservatives stop complaining about liberal activism is they're going to allow that privilege for themselves? I know, it would be liberal projection to assume conservatives would even consider the possibility of a little self introspection.

But two Supreme Court decisions recently resolved for conservatives the fight over buying elections and fulfilling the gun lobbies centuries old push to interpret the Second Amendment as a personal right to bear arms. One Justice recently came out with a warning:

NY Times: During interviews about his new book, Justice Stephen Breyer has spoken … about the court’s legitimacy, or the respect it relies on. In his dissent from a decision striking down the District of Columbia’s gun-control law, he showed why. “In my view,” he said, “there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas.” So would his view of how the court should decide cases.

As he puts it in the book, “Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge’s View,” the court “must thoughtfully employ a set of traditional legal tools in service of a pragmatic approach to interpreting the law.” Pragmatic means reckoning with a law’s words and history and the precedents interpreting it, but also its “purposes and related consequences, to help make the law effective.” The goal, he says, is “to apply the Constitution’s enduring values to changing circumstances.”

In academic circles, conservatives and liberals alike have called for term limits for justices, because life tenure and long service could lead them to do the job less well than they should.

The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin points to the judicial activism of Chief Justice John Roberts and the conservative majority as a major source of apprehension for Justice Breyer … Toobin describes Justice Breyer as “unskilled in the art of the poker face” and says that he used last January’s Citizens United decision “to take a shot at Roberts” in the book. Justice Breyer said they disregarded “a traditional legal view that stretched back as far as 1907,” and had recently been affirmed.

The message of Justice Breyer’s book is that the court jeopardizes its legitimacy when it makes such radical rulings and that, in doing so, it threatens our democracy. That message is powerful, ominous…

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Tough on Crime Republicans Continue to Help Criminals Terrorize Public. Then Push Open Carry Gun Laws.

The funny thing about being tough on crime, where Republicans always put on a good show, is that it doesn't take care of the root cause of the problem. It's always after the fact. Republicans and the NRA continue to advance the very reason crime is flourishes, thus creating a need for their solutions like concealed and open carry laws to protect ourselves.

Conservative ideololgy avoids the easy answers, creating a phony public need for Republican leaders to be our overlords. They create a public dependency on conservative government. If a solution is thought to be liberal, it's not an answer. Take guns for instance.

NY Times: A study due to be released this week by a coalition called Mayors Against Illegal Guns uses previously unavailable federal gun data to identify what it says are the states that most often export guns used in crimes across state lines. It concludes that the 10 worst offenders per capita, led by Mississippi, West Virginia and Kentucky, supplied nearly half the 43,000 guns traced to crime scenes in other states last year.

The study also seeks to draw a link between gun trafficking and gun control laws by analyzing gun restrictions in all 50 states in areas like background checks for gun purchases, policies on concealed weapons permits and state inspections of gun dealers. It finds that, across the board, those states with less restrictive gun laws exported guns used in crimes at significantly higher rates than states with more stringent laws.

“There are 12,000 gun murders a year in our country, and this report makes it perfectly clear how common-sense trafficking laws can prevent many of them,” said Mr. Bloomberg, who is the co-chairman of the coalition. “For mayors around the country, this isn’t about gun control. It’s about crime control.” Among the targets will be closing the so-called gun show loophole.

Here's where the NRA steps in with a bizarre excuse that could easily apply to themselves:

Chris W. Cox, the National Rifle Association’s chief lobbyist in Washington, dismissed the upcoming report as “a cute little P.R. stunt.” “It’s completely bogus for a group with a clear political agenda to release some study based on selective statistics,” he said.

Not really a fact based comeback, is it? Of course the NRA doesn't have a political agenda "based on selective statistics" (for conservatives, this is a true statement).

Authors of the study, however, said they had conducted a careful analysis of reams of gun “trace” data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — showing the path of guns confiscated at crime scenes — in reaching their conclusions. They said the study provided the deepest look to date at how states export guns used in crimes and how that relates to gun restrictions in those states. The findings suggested that gun traffickers had sought out states with less restrictive gun-purchase laws.

“What this really shows is that bad laws really do equal more gun trafficking,” said John Feinblatt, Mr. Bloomberg’s chief policy adviser, “and that gaps in the law
really do make a difference.”

“Do I think Mayor Bloomberg and his group are desperate for relevancy in a debate where they have no legitimate role? Sure,” Mr. Cox said. “Do I think their approach will continue to be rejected by the American people and Congress? I do.”

Think about the NRA’s clearly stated position that mayors have no legitimate role in crime control. Ask yourself if that makes any sense.

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• Federal Restrictions on Our Gun Rights (lewrockwell.com)

To the Conservative Hypocrite Bully: We are listening...and we think your self serving radical intimidating whiners, trying to strong arm America.

This video features Gov. Chris Christie browbeating a voter in California of all places, exemplifying the two faced lying bully tactics of conservative hypocrites, having it their way or no way. Watch Democrat Rep. Tim Bishop deal with blustering tea party protesters as they shouted him down and laughed at climate change, supported keeping up with Chinese coal plants, want to leave health care gouging and rationing the way it is and weren't demanding bipartisanship like phony party leaders.

Christie, to a town hall attendee: "You know what, it's people who raise their voices and yell and scream like you, that are dividing this country. We're here to bring this country together not divide it."

Family Safety takes back seat in Open-Carry debate: Yet 45% want stricter gun laws/26% fewer, split on open-carry & 55% against concealed carry.

The conservative leaning Wisconsin State Journal (no link yet) suggested it had a pro-carry bias, and that guns were “safe” in its recent series, “Open carry: Safe v discomfort.”

Another words, carrying guns in public is safe, and a separate issue from feeling “discomfort” around strangers with loaded guns? But there was this moment of honesty in the piece:

But it’s also created a backlash against the open-carry advocates from some unlikely sources: other gun owners.

“I don’t think (open-carry advocates) represent ordinary family-oriented fun owners,” said Adam Schesch of Madison, a 68 year-old target shooter and deer hunter…Schesch said he and his wife frequently eat out with their teenage grandchildren at places like Culver’s.

“If we came into a restaurant and saw people with guns, we’d turn around and walk out,” he said. “I would feel really unsafe.”

You can either buy into Schesch's family values logic or believe this:

But open-carry advocates say they feel unsafe without their guns, and other should, too. “At the moment you’re getting your head beat in, you probably wouldn’t mind someone being on scene with a gun.” Auric Gold said.

That’s just third world scary, and why this letter to the editor takes the issue to its final conclusion:

When the Madison Police responded to the call at Culver's restaurant with eight officers, they were looking for trouble, and one of the men stated the police officers had an attitude problem.

Law enforcement, those guys on the front line ensuring our public safety, are the real danger!

As Ammoland’s Executive Director Shaun Kranish writes: Latest on Madison Police Chief Noble Wray’s Open Carry Debaucle.
That’s…debacle! But beside the spelling mistake, Kranish continue to ignore the plight of parents and their kids:

Rather than educating the public that open carry is legal and there’s no need to call the police unless something suspicious or threatening is happening…

WE need to be educated, so WE aren’t afraid of people carrying guns in public? WE need to change basic human behavior and our natural sense of detecting danger for a small contingent of immature, insecure paranoid adults? For open carry bullies, they feel victimized by the concerns of fathers and mothers everywhere:

Open Carry can be considered disorderly conduct, because someone may not like it…

No, actually, someone may feel fearful around STRANGERS with loaded guns. But gun goons feel we need to be reeducated, and reprogrammed, to ignore our sense of self preservation? Kranish mocks that instinct:

Disorderly conduct doesn’t require a disturbance to take place, just a “perception” that one’s actions could possibly cause a disturbance.

…or death? Instead of understanding the general public’s fear of guns, they resort to calling us names because we disagree:

You give power to imbeciles incapable of critical thinking … They open their mouth, or write their name and their foolhardy ideas on paper, and freedom goes out the window.

The graphic above tells us something completely different. Check out the reactions of a few citizens asked by the Capital Times about open carry: HERE

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Humorless Pundit Class on Colbert: Offended, Damages Democrats, Why did they (politicians) sit there?

I don't mind people who have a different perspective than myself, and welcome a healthy debate of the issues, but Chuck Todd? What an asswipe.

The GOP's Lemon Pledge Sound Familiar? When Old Idea's Fail, Repackage them!!

The Pledge. What's old is new again.

Great video: Johnny Cash-God's Gonna Cut you Down

Great film work and a surreal appearance by Brian Wilson.

Walker Blocks probe into Mental Health complex Mismanagement to sidestep his complete incompetence in office.

The ad below sums up an issue that is little known statewide, but could affect Scott Walker’s run for governor in a very bad way.



Political ad's like the one above are notorious for stretching the truth, but in this case, the truth required no drama and no exaggeration. Here’s the how Walker is blocking the public’s right to know, and the horrific details of County Executive incompetence.

jsonline: Lawyers for Milwaukee County have refused to turn over a 2008 consultant's report on safety issues at the Mental Health Complex - the first time in 30 years that county officials have stonewalled a county auditor investigation, the current auditor said Thursday. Jerry Heer said he was seeking the report as part of his probe of safety issues at the complex … following Journal Sentinel coverage of a federal inspection of the complex that found multiple instances of patient sexual assault and the pregnancy of a patient.

Supervisor Lynne De Bruin was critical of the county lawyers' refusal to turn over records to Heer. "What this tells me is they have something to hide that is so egregious that they don't even want to show an auditor," De Bruin said. She called it an expansion of a disturbing trend of secrecy in county government.

A Journal Sentinel series, "Patients in Peril," found a predatory patient was housed in an acute care ward with vulnerable patients, was allowed to roam at will and is the presumed father of a baby born to another patient in April. Omowale Atkins faces sexual assault charges involving a second female patient.

The paper also reported that a county psychiatrist who treated Anczak had also supervised the care of the patient who became pregnant last year. The pregnant patient's guardian was not informed of the pregnancy until weeks after it was confirmed, the woman was not given birth control injections contrary to the guardian's wishes and the patient was continued on medication that was potentially harmful to her baby, the paper found.

County lawyers told him the report was subject to attorney-client confidentiality and that as auditor he wasn't the client, Heer said. De Bruin called that a legal dodge. Heer represents the county, she said, and county taxpayers paid for the report.

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• You: Walker seeks extra $5.5 million for mental health [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel] - Behavioral Health Central (news.google.com)
• The SEIU and Its 'Extreme' Election Shenanigans (redstate.com)
• SEIU Union Hack Admits that Local TV Stations Help 'Get Our Message Across' (chicagonow.com)

Colbert’s immigrant labor message soars over the heads of bored Republicans

What promised to be an interesting appearance, Stephen Colbert did not disappoint the crowd, offering a comedy laced perspective of immigrant labor.

CNN: Colbert appeared before Congress the day after "The Colbert Report" showed video of him packing corn and picking beans on a farm as part of a challenge from a pro-immigrant-labor group.

"I'll admit I started my work day with preconceived notions of migrant labor," Colbert said. "But after working with these men and women ... side by side in the unforgiving sun I have to say -- and I do mean this sincerely -- please don't make me do this again. It is really, really hard."

United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez, whose group over the summer launched "Take Our Jobs," a campaign that challenged U.S. citizens to replace immigrants in farm work … says only seven citizens or legal residents have taken it up on the offer, argues that immigrant workers aren't taking citizens' jobs, and is pushing for a bill that would give undocumented farm workers currently in the United States the right to earn legal status.

Colbert: "My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants," he declared. "He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor."

Republicans on the subcommittee were not impressed or swayed by Colbert's appearance. "Maybe we should be spending less time watching Comedy Central and more time considering all the real jobs that are out there -- ones that require real hard labor and ones that don't involve sitting behind a desk," said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

Maybe King should watch more of the Daily Show and Colbert so that he might have a better understanding of the issues. Through humorous criticism, King might actually learn something.

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• Colbert goes to Capitol Hill (cnn.com)
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Are Schools failing Kids who hate School?

No one wants to talk about the "non-learners."

Onion News probes deeper into the question of whether bad students can ever really be helped. Maybe they're just bad uninterested students. (offensive language alert)


In The Know: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit?

The Hurting "Small" Businesses Lie

What will be the one piece of ammo the Democrats can point too when accused of hurting small businesses with a repeal of the Bush tax cut for the wealthy. Keith Olbermann did the research and report.

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• Olbermann reveals small businesses 'in name only' (msnbc.msn.com)

Renee Ellmers GOP candidate at bottom of barrel.

Renee Ellmers for Congress is running on the promise she will stop the mosque near ground zero.

Years from now, we may still laugh at this stuff.

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California Beer Drinkers betray Pot Smokers, Embarrass themselves nationally.

Insane fearful thoughts of being replaced in social circles by pot heads has driven beer guys and distributors to act irrationally. Is it possible they don't know how thirsty smoking marijuana can make people. This is so sad...Proposition 19 would allow adult to grow and own cannabis, and probably have a beer. Is this the sign of the apocalypse?

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What are the independents thinking? Taking it out on Democrat Feingold.

CNN takes this look at the Feingold/Johnson matchup.

Missile defense in GOP Lemon Pledge?

The Republican Lemon Pledge for America includes restarting the "cold war." That's just one of the startling promises the Republican Party is offering angry anti-government voters. It seems the folks responsible for the Great Recession chose to forget that they and their policies of borrowing and spending caused the great wave of unemployment and rise in poverty. Proof?

"The land of opportunity has become the land of shrinking prosperity ... Our government has failed us," Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California declared. "We will take back our country. We will restore for a better future. This is our pledge to you."

But fully funding the outrageously expensive Star Wars missile defense system is...nuts. Chris Matthews is rightly amazed.

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Angle: "We want to get rid of" coverage for autism and maternity leave.

Here's a message on a sign we should have seen at the tea party events; "It's all about me."

Sharron Angle exemplifies the movement more than anyone running for office. Here she asks an audience to reject health care coverage for autism and maternity leave. Sharron believes that maternity leave is somehow a part of her health care insurance policy. Ed Schultz reports:

ANGLE: "I'm not going to have anymore babies, but I sure get to pay for it on my insurance. Those are the kinds of things we want to get rid of."

Rep. Paul Ryan was only kidding about hating reconciliation. Really!

Republicans came down hard on the Democrats for using reconciliation to pass health care reform. Rep. Paul Ryan was one of its biggest critics. Guess who's promising to use reconciliation to pass the GOP agenda? Keith Olbermann has Wisconsin's next worst person (what, not Scott Walker again?):

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Health Care Reform Changes would Be tough for Americans to Repeal, if their smart.

I’m posting this because it’s important to remind everyone what could be repealed in the next congress if tea party mania catches on. Email:

Health Care for America Now: The Republican "plan" along with the 60 Plus Association ads are a reminder that there are two clear sides in this fight, insurance companies versus consumers. The Republicans are hoping that voters won't figure out which side the GOP is really on. The new health care law has many benefits, including:

• Requiring that insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions.
• Making it illegal for insurance companies to drop coverage for people who get sick.
• Cracking down on unjustified premium hikes.
• Placing a cap on out-of-pocket health care costs.
• Providing free preventive care.

When the Republicans say they want to repeal the health care law, they're talking about giving health care back to the insurance companies so they can deny our care, drop us when we get sick and jack up our rates whenever they please.

Their repeal proposal is as coldhearted as it is unworkable3 and would add $143 billion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years according to the Congressional Budget Office.

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Barrett opponent Walker sings his way “out” of the hearts of Women Voters…

I do like love these revealing conservative musical interludes.

(Here’s) Planned Parenthood's new online video highlighting Scott Walker's extreme stance on women's health. As noted in the video, while in the state Legislature:

Scott Walker voted to allow pharmacists to deny birth control prescriptions.

Scott Walker voted to eliminate prevention-based family planning health care.

Scott Walker voted to deny insurance coverage of birth control.

Scott Walker has pledged to advance policies restricting access to birth control, sex education and abortion access for Wisconsinites. He supports outlawing abortion across the board—even in cases of rape and incest, or if a pregnant woman’s life is in danger. He supports Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth and other extreme politicians who work to keep lifesaving information about preventing teen pregnancy and STDs out of Wisconsin public schools.