Trump is still working on Vos...

 

Still getting used to inflation.

 

Kleefisch complains she has bad internet after she and Scott Walker ignored Rural Broadband for 8 Years!

Rural MAGA Republican voters won't likely reward Gov. Tony Evers for bring high speed broadband to their communities and farms. They have to stop totally made-up issues like CRT and "wokeness.". 

But Evers finally put rural community's businesses online, eventually pumping millions into their economies. And Republican candidates will try to take credit, but too late: 

Gov. Evers' Task Force on Broadband Access recently released its annual report - highlighting its success in getting 387,000 homes and businesses new or improved internet access.

Read more:https://t.co/yp5b2lSdK4

— UpNorthNews (@UpNorthNewsWI) July 26, 2022

Kleefisch whines she has bad Internet Access? Imagine ignoring rural broadband for 8 years as Lt. Governor, and then blaming the Democratic Governor for her bad internet connection at home? It happened, captured on video, while also complaining about the garbage taught in schools. Our national educational curriculum is garbage? I have two college grads that say otherwise. Our Vos-legislative OBGYN's will also split their time guiding "exceptionalism" through our school curriculum. Big government anyone? 

Kleefisch and Walker refused federal broadband money, abandoning WI rural communities for 8 years. Now she has the gall to complain about bad internet access at home, like it's Tony Evers fault who spent nearly $300 million on broadband helping red rural communities? pic.twitter.com/0VGOJj3gYf

— John Peterson (@democurmudgeon) July 28, 2022

Kleefisch and Ramthun sticking to 1967 Dragnet argument Marijuana is a Gateway Drug!

There's this on recreational, LEGAL marijuana, that our 1849 Republicans refuse consider:

Illinois's tax revenue from marijuana product sales jumped 50% to $445.3 million for its fiscal year ending June 30, up from $297.7 million in the prior fiscal year, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Monday. Cities and counties also benefited from the state's adult-use cannabis program, Pritzker said.

Revenue from marijuana sales has surpassed revenue from alcohol sales but .@wisgop is owned by the Tavern League so...#wiright #wipolitics #wiunion https://t.co/xFWcVPbsb9

— Wisconsin Strong (@WisconsinStrong) July 26, 2022

Then there's this crazy "pledge" from Wisconsin MAGA Republicans Kleefisch and Ramthun, who were also dead set against hemp production because it looked a lot like pot...

Koo Koo Kleefisch: "We know that marijuana is a gateway drug because this is what law enforcement says." Journal Sentinel: Kleefisch/ Ramthun pledge they won't legalize pot... lieutenant governor candidates — five say they support medicinal cannabis.https://t.co/8DYiIsFJVh

— John Peterson (@democurmudgeon) July 28, 2022

Law enforcement Says Marijuana is a Gateway Drug? It's a Joe Friday thing: Kleefisch will accept law enforcements age old lunacy about marijuana because their union backs her campaign. But going back to Dragnet '67, Joe Friday's gateway drug argument loses to a pot smoker who predicted exactly what is happening today (oddly, actor Jack Webb wrote and approved the debate below). 

Kleefisch and Ramthun appear to have a fondness for the 60's. 

As for Tim Michels, you know the drill, he won't say until he's governor and has taken a look at the bill. Yawn. 

MAGA Republicans won't clarify Treatments for At-Risk Expectant Mothers after Roe, and no comment from "pro-like" groups either.

These so-called "pro-life" Republicans have yet to act, they're on vacation. They have put at-risk expectant mothers in danger by not defining what medical procedures would be left to a physician's discretion. Without that clarification, medical care is being withheld for fear of lawsuits (tort reform is so 1990's for GOP). This is what happens when politicians play doctor.

Kleefisch's Empty Vision: The vacationing Republican Legislature isn't even thinking about a special session to define permissible treatments due to the abortion ban. Just as scary; if they did, they would be giving medical advice. Let that sink in. Kleefisch's appeal below means nothing, and she knows it:

Kleefisch thinks Vos Republicans might approve medical procedures for pregnant women. Ain't happening. Get used to the "patient/politician" relationships. And doctors, sue them. pic.twitter.com/w506a8bwW0

— John Peterson (@democurmudgeon) July 26, 2022

On NPR a few mornings ago, add another expectant mother's nightmare story that Christian nationalist politicians and the Supreme Court have unleashed on our huge population: 

When politicians practice medicine, and MAGA WI GOP governor candidates brag they will make this worse...Because of Texas abortion law, her wanted pregnancy became a medical nightmare https://t.co/v46UFDkLmI

— John Peterson (@democurmudgeon) July 26, 2022

The ad below would have been considered outrageous once upon a time, not anymore: 

This new commercial from Mothers Against Greg Abbott is one of the best political ads I’ve ever seen. pic.twitter.com/Eva1A8kTJG

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) July 25, 2022

MAGA Republicans have fully implemented "government-controlled health care." To be clear, it's not like government provided health insurance, the kind of reform Democrats have pushed for the last 80 years. MAGA's big government takeover and intrusion on health care, education, and business is now oddly applauded by supposed "small government voters" drooling over these power grabs.   

Republicans call this "the future?" Seriously.

A Marquette Poll just came out that concluded there has been no change in Democratic voter enthusiasm after Roe was overturned. Crazy huh? That would seem odd knowing that Roe wasn't the only thing being threatened by radicalized Republicans. 

Justice Clarence Thomas gave Americans a heads up, but thanks to Nancy Pelosi's immediate House passage of a string of important bills, we now know what the midterm MAGA election agenda is all about:

I forgot to mention, one candidate for governor is a woman, and she saw her lead disappear when a man decided to challenger her. She's taking on the Republican men's club. Meet "Meme" candidate Rebecca Kleefisch, shooting her way into governor's mansion. 

Remember when all of Wisconsin's Republican House members never even bothered to debate their Democratic opponent, well, we're finally finding out why, and getting a taste of their male superiority. The men have spoken. This isn't just an attack on 200 years of women's rights, it's an attack on all of us. This is as bad as it looks: 

Democrats are the "radical" ones? Remember these names and faces. They're saying they don't need women voters. Test that theory. 

While other Republicans tried to pass this nonsensical reason off to the press, ignoring Clarence Thomas recent threat:

One of the principal GOP arguments this morning was that there’s no need to pass the Right To Contraception Act, since no states have tried to ban it in recent decades. As with the Respect For Marriage Act, today’s bill was inherently preemptive and intended to address a potential threat, not restrictions that have already been implemented. Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly condemned the ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that struck down a state law that restricted married couples’ access to birth control, calling for it to be “reconsidered.

And yet Democrats have the radical agenda:

Contraception part of Dem radical agenda, who knew.? https://t.co/uA7e4zT97N

— John Peterson (@democurmudgeon) July 21, 2022

WI motto updated...

 

WI governor candidate Tim Michels loves his AR-15 enough to lie about it. That goes for Right-to-Work, A Gas Tax, Supported Immigrantion...

Extreme Trumper and Governor candidate Tim Michels can't pretend he doesn't have an opinion on stricter gun laws targeting buyers under 21 and assault rifles like the AR-15. His first reaction? Blame BLM for the mass shootings based on "cultural change" and disrespecting law enforcement: 

Michels: "And a lot of it is a byproduct of the whole 'defund the police' movement, where cops became bad guys. I don't have that answer today."

No, that's his answer.

On WKOW's Capital City Sunday, host AJ Bayatpour tried like hell to get a simple answer to what should have been a softball question by now. Finding an opening, Michels slipped in and bragged about his military service, a point that has nothing to do with governing a civil society unless he wants to solve a few state problems with his assault rifle.

Here's the con; Michels said he entered the service in the early 80's when he was around 21, and "thoughtfully" pondered why we didn't have all the assault weapon mass shootings back then:

Michels: "We had AR's back then, why did we not have the problems back then we have today?"

Why? Remember we're talking about no AR-15 problems back in the mid 1980's? Tim is either not a smart guy at all and unqualified for the job as governor, or a bullshitter. I say both:

Bayatpour may not that bit of history but did press Michels to answer the question on background checks. We got the "no answer until he's governor" line.  Seriously, Michels is a Trump Republican, he'll do anything to please the base. That's what passes for "leadership." Here's his sleepy eyed, barely interested low-key interview:

So, all we have to do now is change the culture in the US, and gun massacres will end? How easy it that.

Michels Would Overturn Biden Election Win: Michels can't say yet. Right. AJ Bayatpour again doesn't let Michels off the hook when it comes to the 2020 election. Again, he has to become governor first, then see the actual proposal. Oh sure...

"He'd need to see more details when asked Tuesday if he'd sign a bill that sought to reclaim Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes."

________________________________________________________________________________

Then there's this...

"Misrepresenting our ratings or our position in any election contest does a disservice to you and all our members, as well as other gun owners to whom protection of their liberty and firearm freedoms is a factor in how they vote," the NRA wrote in a statement posted on their website.

Michels List of Clueless Issues he's Flip Flopped on: It'll be hard to pick from one governor candidate running on Twitter memes (Kleefisch), and the other (Michels) who has no idea what his own business and lobbying groups have supported:

1. Opposed Bill that prevented companies that employ "illegal aliens" from getting government contracts, tax exemptions and loans: Even though he was head of the group's board, the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association, Michels — who critics say was recruited to run by prominent Madison lobbyists — didn't know what its lobbyists were doing. He hadn't a clue. 

2. Supports Gas Tax: The two groups with which Michels has long ties, the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association and the Transportation Development Association, have advocated for higher gas taxes. 

3. Opposed Right-to-Work: Michels has said he supports the state's right-to-work law, which places a ban on requiring non-unionized workers to pay dues to their workplace union. But the Michels Corp. was part of the Wisconsin Contractor Coalition that opposed the state's right-to-work law. The construction company's employees were also a part of protests against the proposed right-to-work law at the time.

In short, Michels is staking out a hardline conservative platform. As for what his company, his employees and even his trade groups have done in the past, he hasn't a clue.

One Note Republicans and Wisconsin Manufacturing and Commerce again falsely claim "tax cuts" will attract Millennial Labor to the state.

Wisconsin's labor shortage really took off during former Gov. Scott Walker's two terms, mainly because he thought a manufacturing renaissance was a good idea (before the Foxconn debacle), and because he ignored the rising tech and clean energy industries that other states gladly promoted. Pair that with the standard low minimum wage, ACT 10 vilification of teachers, the anti-union "right-to-work" law, and penalties for being unemployed, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out. 

No one will know if out-of-state job seekers found any of this out? But with a record like this, there's not a lot to brag about.  

Wisconsin Manufacturing and Commerce Survey sings the blues: Because Republicans have abandoned the notion of solving any of the state's biggest social and infrastructure issues, they want us to go back to 2015 and put out another bunch of "work in Wisconsin" lies.

  

On WKOW's Capital City Sunday, host AJ Bayatpour brought the issue up again with WMC's Nick Novak. Wait for it...more tax cuts. Novak seemed to think if we "tell our story," that would be a good thing? 

WMC Communications & Marketing Vice President Nick Novak said, "We have to attract more people to Wisconsin. To do that, we need to tell our story. 

Does WMC want to tell this story...

Novak said the business lobby also called on lawmakers to pursue further cuts to the state income tax rate. But the legislature has already been cutting taxes.

Skeptics have argued that if tax cuts to date haven't addressed the workforce issues, the solution cannot be more tax cuts and additional marketing.

Novak said, "Unfortunately, while we were cutting taxes here in Wisconsin, other states were doing the same thing, or more. And if you're not doing more (tax cuts) than what other states are doing, you're falling behind."

Advertising BS, Scott Walker Style: This was a disaster, and it sounded like pure bullshit too:

Gov. Scott Walker’s announcement of a $6.8 million marketing and advertising campaign aimed at Midwestern millennials, returning military veterans and alumni of the state’s public and private colleges … promote the state’s industry mix, recreation, education, arts, health care.

Walker has had only one agenda; push a manufacturing renaissance and not an “industry mix.” Just as bad, he's defunded state parks and deregulated hunting (“recreation”), cut “education” especially the “arts,” and opposes a right to “health care.”

Walker's Wisconsin's Shrinking Middle Class: This is what happened in 2015:

WSJ: Despite a new report showing Wisconsin has the fastest-shrinking middle class in the U.S., the Gov. Scott Walker administration says the state is headed in the right direction.

March 24, 2015: Wisconsin ranks worst among the 50 states in terms of a shrinking middle class, with real median household incomes here falling 14.7 percent since 2000, according to a new report. The Pew Charitable Trust report showed Wisconsin with the largest decline in the percentage of families considered "middle class."

Labor Steering Clear of Republicans Punishing Invite: In their Bizarro World vision, the following makes perfect sense. Evers vetoed everything:

Republicans say it is geared toward addressing Wisconsin’s ongoing workforce shortage by
restricting access to state unemployment benefits and forcing more people back into the labor pool. 

1. One bill would change the maximum number of weeks a claimant could receive benefits based on the state’s unemployment rate. Claimants would have received 26 weeks if the state unemployment rate was greater than 9%, while the number of weekly benefits would be reduced to as few as 14 weeks if the rate was at 3.5% or lower.

2. A bill would require the state Department of Health Services to determine a person’s Medicaid eligibility every six months.

3. Another bill will remove an individual’s Medicaid eligibility if they knowingly fail to accept an offer for legal, paid employment or an increase in paid hours

4. Another beauty would require DWD to consider reports of an individual declining a job offer or failing to attend a scheduled interview when determining a claimant’s eligibility for benefits.

5. Yet another would require DHS to enforce a federal work requirement, including drug screenings, for able-bodied adults without dependents in order to take part in the state’s FoodShare program, which helps people with limited money buy food

Raise your hand if you think that would sound mighty tempting to out-of-state job seekers concerned about what would happen if things didn't work out. 

On the other hand, Democratic Gov. Evers has an alternative:

Evers has pushed for increased spending on training and recruitment, as well as efforts to reduce employment barriers some individuals face to address workforce challenges in the state.

The Terrible Thomas's

 

Wacky Rebecca Bradley, Worst WI Supreme Court Justice (next to Michael Gableman)!

Why did conservative voters think Rebecca Bradley would make a competent Supreme Court justice? Her documented background was a dumpster fire of cranky political name calling and gay bashing. I wrote this back in March of 2016:

She hasn't changed since 1992. What she said 24 years ago about queer loving, flag burning, radical, socialist, pot smoking liberals who voted for Bill Clinton when she was at Marquette University... 

"...We've just had an election which proves the majority of voters are either totally stupid or entirely evil..."    

...applies today. The "vicious" lies against Bradley mentioned in the ad below by crazy Sheriff Clarke were direct quotes from her own writings.

Bradley: "The PC movement is entirely the agenda of feminists, gays, liberal extremists and 1960's radicals who never left school and consequently are largely ignorant of the real world.

Rebecca Bradley's affair? What happened to conservative values?

As a private attorney, Rebecca Bradley represented in a child placement case the former chief operating officer of the law firm where both had previously worked — and with whom she acknowledged having had an extra-marital affair, according to court records.

Few candidates bring along this much baggage, as exposed by this Upfront interview:

After 6 years, we now know she was lying. Justice Rebecca Bradley now wields that power with cruelty and finality, using right-wings memes and fantasies instead of actual legal arguments. She boasts the court has the final say on everything. 

__________________________________________________________________________________

Tyranical Bradley fears the "Tyranny" of Liberals. In a little discussed major decision this last week...

The shocker was not just the courts approval of local health measures during COVID, but their frustration with Bradley's incoherent rantings about tyranny, writing it into their decision:

The majority also slammed the dissenting bloc for disparaging Dane County public health director Janel Heinrich as a "tyrant, an autocrat, a dictator, and a despot." They said the characterization of her work was a poor substitute for legal argument and damaged the public's perception of the court. Hagedorn wrote that the case centered not on whether a particular health order was out of bounds but whether the law allowed public health orders at all.

Proof is in the Video: This is a classic Bradley fear of tyranny moment, questioning the power of the state's health secretary during COVID...

Tyranical Drop Box Use (Note: Question, who is that "one man" having all that power?):

The majority opinion of the 114-page ruling quotes William Shakespeare and hip-hop artist Kanye West to make the case that the state elections commission overstepped its bounds. "No one man should have all that power," Bradley wrote, quoting West's lead single for his 2010 album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy." Bradley also suggests the ruling will prevent Wisconsin elections from becoming the rigged contests found in totalitarian regimes like Iraq, Cuba, Syria and North Korea.

"Throughout history, tyrants have claimed electoral victory via elections conducted in violation of governing law. 

Bradley Purely Political: It was no secret how she'd rule on the court..."goals and ideals that support Republican policy, agendas and candidates":

She has served as president of the Milwaukee chapter of the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyer's group, and has belonged to the Republican National Lawyers Association and the Thomas More Society, a Catholic legal group.

Bradley NOT Qualified: Surprised?

Lying about Campaign Coordination as Candidate for Court: Seriously, Bradley did everything she could to lose the election, yet still won the hearts of conservative voters: 

A conservative political action group, Wisconsin Alliance for Reform, is running an online issue ad in support of Justice Rebecca Bradley's Wisconsin Supreme Court bid using film footage shot by the Bradley campaign. It uses footage the Bradley campaign uploaded more than a week ago of the justice talking with police officers and other judges. The identical footage suggests Bradley's campaign is coordinating with the Alliance. However, both the campaign and the Alliance deny they're working together.

So I edited the Bradley campaigns stock "candid" footage of her acting judicial, to prove there was coordination. And that if she's willing to lie about this...seriously folks.

Notice the music beds are identical, with the Wisconsin Alliance for Reform ad featuring full orchestration, and the campaign footage featuring just a piano (you can hear faintly in the background):

_____________________________________________________________________________

Bonus Insanity. The Chief Justice Patience Roggensack proved that clueless politically motivated Justices make very bad public health decisions: 

The corrupt and openly activist State Supreme Court's Chief Justice just gave us this opinion based on a deadly belief, not law. Thank god she's retiring:

JS: Supreme Court Chief Justice Patience Roggensack dismissed the idea that the outbreak was community-wide and could be replicated elsewhere. "(The surge) was due to the meatpacking — that's where Brown County got the flare," Roggensack said. "It wasn't just the regular folks in Brown County."

The working class aren't "regular folks," according to Wisconsin's Republican chief justice, who is content to let them die. pic.twitter.com/JvnwdXJsPF

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) May 5, 2020

The Tyrannical WI 2020 Election Drop Boxes-Banned!

The shocking but laughably illegitimate Wisconsin Supreme Court couldn't look more radical when it decided against ballot drop boxes. 

Absentee ballot drop boxes have been used in the state for years, but came into prominence during the 2020 election season

Three half-crazed Justices ignored the 3 states that already use drop boxes exclusively for voting, and instead used the nonlegal right-wing memes claiming tyranny and the kind of corrupt employed by Saddam Husien in Iraq, Syria and other despotic countries.  

The majority opinion of the 114-page ruling quotes William Shakespeare and hip-hop artist Kanye West to make the case that the state elections commission overstepped its bounds. "No one man should have all that power," Bradley wrote, quoting West's lead single for his 2010 album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy." Bradley also suggests the ruling will prevent Wisconsin elections from becoming the rigged contests found in totalitarian regimes like Iraq, Cuba, Syria and North Korea.

"Throughout history, tyrants have claimed electoral victory via elections conducted in violation of governing law. For example, Saddam Hussein was reportedly elected in 2002 by a unanimous vote of all eligible voters in Iraq (11,445,638 people). Examples of such corruption are replete in history. In the 21st century, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was elected in 2014 with 100% of the vote while his father, Kim Jong-il, previously won 99.9% of the vote. Former President of Cuba, Raul Castro, won 99.4% of the vote in 2008 while Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was elected with 97.6% of the vote in 2007.” - Justice Rebecca Bradley

If we're just using the political mess offered up by Trump and lapdog Vos, and not the actual language of the law (something the 3 wacky Justices used to make their case), they missed a few revealing Republican actions: 

In September 2020, while the city of Madison was preparing to host a series of “Democracy in the Park” events, a lawyer writing on behalf of the Legislature’s Republican leaders — who were questioning the legality of the events — pointed to drop boxes as an alternative way to collect votes.

“Wisconsin law already provides numerous, readily available methods” ... citing returning ballots by mail or at secure absentee ballot drop boxes as appropriate alternatives for returning a completed ballot, wrote the lawyer, Misha Tseytlin, on behalf of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and then-Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. “We wholeheartedly support voters’ use of any of these convenient, secure and expressly authorized absentee-ballot-return methods,” he wrote on behalf of the GOP leaders.

But Vos folded under pressure from right-wing primary candidates and Trump's big lie.

Vos faced blowback at the Capitol for his perceived support of absentee ballot drop boxes. Rep. Timothy Ramthun, a conspiracy theorist and GOP candidate for governor, falsely accused the Republican leader of coordinating with Hillary Clinton’s lawyers to authorize the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in 2020 ... a handful of states that vote completely by mail, returning a ballot via a locked drop box is among the only ways to cast a vote. Those states include Washington, Utah and Colorado.

The ridiculously activist Supreme Court also, unashamedly, did the following:

In November, the court created a “least changes” standard for legislative redistricting that would apply to the gerrymandered 2011 map drawn by Republicans. The move locked in another decade of near supermajorities for Republicans in the State Legislature, even though the state is among the most closely divided in the country.

The court’s conservative majority also ruled last month that Walker appointees could stay in their posts after their terms expired, until the Republican-controlled State Senate confirmed replacements selected by Mr. Evers — which G.O.P. senators have often declined to do.