Wisconsin Republicans play race card against black Lt. Governor!

I'm a little surprised no one else noticed this obvious use of race-baiting, a ploy I'm usually slow to pick up on. With terms like "push drug use" and "ripped families apart," I got the message.

Let's start with the premise that race-baiting, using racially-inflammatory issues or stereotypes, preys on the fears of black men’s supposed inherent criminality. Like using marijuana.

That's just what happened when Republican Representatives Robin Vos and Jim Steineke shamelessly went after a comment by Wisconsin's first black Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes. It was no accident. 

Under the ridiculous Vos hashtag #notsomethingtojokeabout, they feigned outraged over marijuana making Thanksgiving dinner more enjoyable:

Of course the only problem with pot is that people are still getting arrested for using it, which Vos and Steineke are okay with. Their position flies in the face of what Wisconsinites want, big time:

Like the GOP fear of hemp, despite Canada and US states legalizing recreational marijuana, they still see this;

Next Up, Republicans Limit Lt. Governor's increased Security! Well, we know why...because both our white governor and Lt. governor had so much to worry about: 

Security trimmed for a top Democrat: Their plan would prevent the State Patrol from spending more to protect Barnes than it did at the end of GOP Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch's term ... Barnes had nine times as many hours of security in two months as Kleefisch did in her last year in office.

Democrats criticized the limits on security for Wisconsin's first black lieutenant governor. Former Barnes aide Brandon Weathersby said it was not unusual to get hateful messages to Barnes' office when he was in the Assembly. "This is petty," Weathersby wrote on Twitter. "This is dangerous. This is wrong."

Brandon Weathersby@WeathersbyWI

Hate crimes spiked 17 percent last year, and the GOP is unconcerned with the safety & security of the state’s first black Lt. Gov. This messed up beyond belief. 1/3

You think THIS might have something to do with it too...

The paranoia that runs deep in the Republican Party were amplified by Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefisch, which was one reason Walker's book, "Unintimidated," was so ironically funny...

"Walker described the reasons he increased security in his book, 'Unintimidated.'”

Ya gotta laugh! Perhaps we should have insisted Walker spend as much on security as former Gov. Doyle? Here are a few of the old headlines that shocked fleeced taxpayers:

Taxpayers spent $2.23 million on security, including salary, benefits, out-of-state lodging and other expenses, in 2013, according to Walker’s office. That’s up from $657,457 in 2010, the last year Gov. Jim Doyle was in office. Total security spending has increased 41 percent since 2011, from $1.58 million to $2.23 million. Doyle had four primary agents provide security, whereas Walker had 10 primary agents starting in March 2011.

Senate Minority Leader Chris Larson called the increase in security spending “jaw-dropping” and said Walker’s campaign should reimburse the state for the increase over previous governors.

Republican AG candidate Schimel pronounces Waukesha County clean, not "Ground Zero" for Voter Fraud?

Wow, Brad Schimel's partisan aw shucks cluelessness is getting even more unsettling by the day.

It was a jaw dropping moment, and of course ignored by the media, even the Journal Sentinel who got the scoop. Schimel spouted what was clearly a race based, partisan centric comment about voter fraud.

Schimel: "As it turns out, we're not ground zero for voter fraud in Waukesha County."

After going on a rant about how hard it is to find fraud, and then prove it, this was said:

JS Reporter: "So you said Waukesha wasn't ground zero for voter ID and voter fraud, is there a ground zero for voter fraud?"

Schimel: "I don't know the answer to that, but I do know what happens in my county...we typically have a very large voter turnout in the big elections, and I think that helps."

But if you can't check and there's no real way to know...my head is hurting.

Lilly white Republican Waukesha County is clean. Why even look for fraud, when according to Schimel, so many other unspecified places are so questionable. He couldn't name them, but...well, you know where they are, right?

It wasn't so long ago ballot bags were found open in Waukesha County, late reported votes were counted, a private record keeping system based on "trust" was put in place by the areas star of incompetence, County Clerk Kathy Nicholaus. Click here for an entire history of stories Nicholaus generated over her botched handling of votes and elections in "clean" Waukesha County.  She even came back when she was reappointed temporarily to her old job as clerk last spring, even while running for board supervisor. You can't make this stuff up.

The Journal Sentinel editorial board didn't appear stunned by Schimel's over the top statement. Breathtaking:

Ryan fumbles, lies at Town Hall in response to question about recent attempt at Race Baiting.

How many more town halls will result in the following kind of confrontation between Paul Ryan and his fed up constituents about his recent attempt at race baiting? I've edited together 3 segments: Joy Reid's coverage on MSNBC, Luke Russert's more complete segment, and a clip where one constituent told Ryan he liked ObamaCare. Ryan then tried to sell him on taxpayer subsidies to insurers by paying for the sick, and leaving the profits to the insurers (transcript at bottom). 

Think Progress pretty much sums it up:

Black Constituent Confronts Paul Ryan Over ‘Inner City’ Remarks: RACINE: If you could pinpoint the moment when Paul Ryan lost control of his message on Wednesday, it was when he began explaining to an African American constituent why his recent comments about lazy “inner city” men actually had nothing to do with race.

“You said what you meant,” Alfonso Gardner, a 61-year-old African American man from Racine, told Ryan at a town hall meeting. “[Inner city is] a code word for black.”

Ryan remained defiant though. “There is nothing whatsoever about race in my comments at all,” he said. He admonished Gardner for drawing a connection between his “inner city” remarks and race. “I think when we throw these charges around, it should be based on something.”

ThinkProgress spoke with Gardner after the town hall to get his reaction. He said Ryan’s trying to have it both ways, saying different things to different people. “He’s out here shucking and jiving,” Gardner said. “He’s been in Congress eight terms and just now talking about poverty?”

Gardner isn’t the only constituent taking offense. ThinkProgress interviewed a number of Racine residents this week about Ryan’s statement. They were not amused with their congressman’s words.

In the video, Ryan told Gardner to read the next paragraph, which suggested some clarification. But PolitiFact offered up the entire transcript, in context, and nothing Ryan said changed his race baiting comments. Here's what Ryan said after his remarks:

Ryan: And produce. To just be -- I mean, achievement and accomplishment are so self-rewarding, it’s earned success, and that’s how people flourish when they feel the pride of succeeding and achieving a goal and they teach and pass those lessons on to their kids or to the kids they’re mentoring. And that is really what helps revitalize society and helps human flourishing, it helps people reach their potential. That’s the American idea. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote beautifully about this. We’re losing it in so many areas and we’ve got to get it back and each and every one of us has a role to play in that. (There’s a little banter between Bennett and Ryan.)

Ryan: What I find is the status quo is, right now, a poverty management system -- in many ways, to the benefit of the managers. And so when you question the status quo of the government’s poverty -- this war on poverty -- you get all the criticisms from the adherents of the status quo who just don’t want to see anything change. We’ve got to have the courage to face that down, just like we did in welfare reform in the late 1990s. And if we succeed, we can help resuscitate this culture and get people back to work and get people back to meeting their potential and so many things can get fixed and healed in our communities and in our economy, as well.

Here's the transcript of the somewhat muddy audio of the satisfied ObamaCare constituent, and Ryan's taxpayer bailout to insurers, otherwise known as "risk pools:"

MARTINCIC: What Obama did was get this law passed. Whether it’s good, bad, or not, it got passed. It’s actually helping some people grow, helped this other guy [with] medication. The Republicans….By myself…I could actually…get some kind of subsidy, which would help me…

RYAN: With the ACA, one thing I want to say is we didn’t have 51 votes to repeal it altogether 51 times. I think that’s sort of like this urban legend that we said, ‘let’s repeal it.’ It’s like we did a repeal vote on the whole law. There are many pieces of this law that we’ve gone after—several of them that were made into law, so please know—I think even Democrats would acknowledge that there are a lot of problems with this law. And so we passed a lot of things changing this law—several of which were made into law—but I really do believe there’s a better way to do it than with this health care law.My argument is that I think there are better ways at dealing with these extremely important and legitimate problems, like people with preexisting conditions—this is why I’m a big fan of risk pools. We had the [??] system in Wisconsin—it worked well, and then it had the federal government attached to it, so it was even more affordable for people with preexisting conditions. That was one of our proposals. So I do think that there are better ways of fixing this problem—affordable coverage for everybody, including people with preexisting conditions that’s a lot better than [this law]. It’s going to hurt our hospitals, it’s going to hurt Medicare, it’s going to make people buy things they don’t want to buy.

Ryan Race Baiting comment wilts his new image as concerned poverty fighter.

So "inner city" poverty was really all about the culture of rural joblessness?

Just to be clear, this is what Paul Ryan said the other day:

On Bill Bennett’s Morning in America Wednesday, (Ryan hinted) that he would focus on creating work requirements for men “in our inner cities” and dealing with the “real culture problem” in these communities. “We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.”

Today? (He's) saying the remarks had "nothing to do" with race. Ryan suddenly switches the subject to rural poverty, which wasn't mentioned in the audio clip:

“This isn't a race based comment it’s a breakdown of families, it’s rural poverty in rural areas, and talking about where poverty exists.

Yea, that's the ticket. Here's the audio with no mention of "rural poverty." When someone is "driving to the sports arena downtown"...oops:

“After reading the transcript of yesterday morning’s interview, it is clear that I was inarticulate about the point I was trying to make.”

Sykes continues to defend Racist Billboards.

Charlie Sykes doesn't like being corrected. He was caught lying and promoting the race baiting billboards posted mostly in minority area's throughout Milwaukee. He also knows the billboards were used to gin up anger and paranoia among conservative voters in outlying areas so they would be sure to go out and vote.

Sykes is scrambling to defend himself now that he's been exposed, just like Mark Belling was when he used the term "wetbacks." Milwaukee conservatives love their racist radio talk hosts because they legitimize and offer cover for their own deep seeded racist inclinations. Check out the map below of billboard locations warning voters they'll go to jail if they commit voter fraud. We're not stupid.

Sykes and his loyal listeners are claiming that of the 85 posted signs, a whole bunch of billboards were in outlying areas, offering them supposed political cover. Not a chance Charlie, only your listeners would believe that. Just look at the predominately red area below as proof;

Twisting and spinning, Sykes can't run from the obvious, though he tries:

The entire attack on the voter fraud billboards and the philanthropist who paid for them boils down to the charge that they were "racist" because they were only placed in central cities. But that charge is factually false ... the charge is based on an easily refutable lie. Here is the map of the sign locations. You can easily see that signs were placed in Ozaukee, Washington, and Waukesha Counties, as well as Milwaukee County suburbs.

To distract, Sykes is outraged at jsonline's Dan Bice for omitting a line in their paper version:

The phrase "though some were posted as far out as Waukesha and Washington counties." was edited out of the dead tree. Why? Who took it out??? Bice replied, saying that no one had taken it out, but rather that the print story had been taken from an earlier edition of his blog post.

What really rankles Sykes is that he's have been exposed. Sykes' rabbit defense of the Einhorn's is desperate and pathetic:

Here is what is disingenuous:
Your [print edition] subhead suggests that the Einhorns are racist;
You [the print edition] include(s) a quote that accuses them of racism.
Your editors highlighted that charge of racism in the pull-quote.
And the one phrase that is exculpatory [for the Einhorns] appears nowhere in your print-edition story.

Sununu big fat racist!!?

Take a look at this blatant racism: