A Great Look at the Clark vs Olsen Race.

Fox 6 in Milwaukee has put together an outstanding series of reports around the state detailing the recall elections. There's more to come. This one examines the race between Rep. Fred Clark and Sen. Luther Olsen:

 

Disgraced Former Assembly Speaker Jensen Helping Children Pick the Right Private Voucher School. Nice start Racine.

I remember when Scott Walker expanded the voucher system to Racine, the sh** hit the fan:  

AP-School leaders in Racine are urging Republicans who control the Legislature to remove a provision from the state budget allowing voucher schools in that city. Racine Unified School District Superintendent Jim Shaw said that vouchers in his city will result in the defunding of public education, raise property taxes and make it harder to balance the school budget without cutting positions.
 

Now parents are trying to adjust their comfort level with the new voucher reality. Parents now have to figure out how to interpret promotional fliers that claim that each of their choices are the best school around. Trust, but verify, right? But parental worries are justified when you consider who organized an informational meeting recently at a local sports complex.

RACINE: About 100 families stopped in during the first couple of hours;

“There are some parents who came with their applications filled out,” said Scott Jensen. He is senior adviser to the American Federation for Children and a former speaker of the state Assembly. The federation helped organize Sunday’s event and helped put together a similar application and information session for tonight.

Yes, that Scott Jensen. The one you’d trust your child’s education with? The same Scott Jensen, and former assembly speaker, who was:

Jsonline: convicted of three felonies and a misdemeanor in 2006, but the felonies were overturned on appeal. Jensen, who was convicted of a misdemeanor for using state resources to campaign … prevents him from running for future office because of a state constitutional provision that bars people from appearing on ballots if they have been convicted of a violation of the public trust.

He wants to help parents send their kids to private voucher schools, the new refuge for scoundrels.  

Debt Deal...Deals bad Hand to Military Benefits and Health Care.

The debt deal is starting to shudder through the our economy, as bits and pieces, representing specific cuts, are beginning to materialize. The flag waving Republicans and the tea party costumed freaks have only themselves to blame. 

(AP) — Cuts in health care, retirement and benefits for the military are all potential targets for cuts as the nation struggles to rein in spending, the top U.S. military officer told anxious troops on two warfronts. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more than half of the defense budget is spent on personnel issues, ranging from pay and benefits to bonuses used to recruit and retain needed expertise. In Washington, the Pentagon had no immediate comment Tuesday on how the debt ceiling measure would affect defense operations.

Conservative Blogger posts Hitler and Gun Site Photos of Scott Walker- Miracle Worker!!!

Funny thing about conservative bloggers, they’re the ones posting Nazi and gun site photos of their own conservative politicians, and not the liberal Democratic blogs, like my own.

Check out these two pics from adjoining CONSERVATIVE sites: 

The Miracle in Wisconsin!!? That's the theme from writer Gary Wickert, who's article featured the pictures above at both conservative sites. Unlike Weasel Zippers, Pajamasmedia included the Hitler picture. Here's what Wickert wrote about Walker's miracle:

Over the past six months, Wisconsin has been nothing short of a miracle.  Wisconsin residents witnessing the miracle may well vote to keep the state solidly conservative. And with other states witnessing the miracle in Wisconsin, states across the country could …

Who is Gary Wickert? He's your everyday far right wing zealot, leading a "normal" life. We're all entitled to our own opinions, whether based in reality or fabricated from a bunch of unrelated stories like the ones in his article above (not included). But check out the last line in his bio:

Gary Wickert is a board-certified trial lawyer, living in Cedarburg, Wisconsin and currently serves as supervisor in the town of Cedarburg. In 1980, Gary finished second to Mr. T in NBC's nationally-televised "America's Toughest Bouncer" hosted by Bryant Gumbel. 

A real Dog Tale.

I couldn’t help find this story interesting, not for the “dog eats ring” topic, but the other contents of the dogs stomach, and the length of the local coverage and happy talk that followed. WEAU:

Bizarre, yes.

The real question is; did the anchors spend way to much time having fun with it. No.

I especially liked the “investigative” nature of the report. They made a dog that puked up a ring, half a tennis ball and hair clip actually sound...newsy.

JB Van Hollen's 49 Page Concealed Carry Department of Justice Handbook

How will we ever know what the rules are when we have to read through a whole 49 pages of rules and regulations...? 

Brookfield Patch: Saying the concealed carry law has raised significant questions under review, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen today answered frequently asked questions on his state web site. The 49-page resource is available on the state Department of Justice web site here. 

I'll bet anything that this handbook weighs a lot too...

State Sen. Bob Cowles; "I don't take any pleasure in the pain...but..." what the hell, huh?

Is it just name calling referring to Walker's Republicans as sociopaths? According to the Post Crescent:

State Sen. Robert Cowles, R-Allouez: 

"There is pain out there, and I don't take any pleasure in the pain," Cowles said. "But it had to be done for the greatest good for the greatest number…”

Let’s spread the pain, and end Cowles career by choosing Nancy Nusbaum, Cowles' Democratic challenger in the recall election Aug. 9th.

The Dumbest Guy in the room, Johnson, wants to go back 100 years.

Politifact must have had some time on their hands when they decided to grade this statement by Ron Johnson, Ayn Rand character actor pretending to be a Senator.

Johnson, in an appearance on CNBC’s "Squawk Box," argued "The federal government is spending 25 percent of our entire economy versus 100 years ago, we spent only 2 percent. The problem is the size, the scope, all the regulations and the cost of government."

It doesn’t take a genius to see we're a larger country now, with a more complex economic system, global competition, and larger population.

But Johnson is really going after our safety net programs, the real reason we're spending 25 percent of our economy. Without them, a more desperate public will work for near nothing, so long as they can sustain life and can hold a neighborhood car wash to help pay some bills.

Politifact said it best:

The largest part of the growth since the 1950s, the Office of Management and Budget reports, came from a category that includes Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, deposit insurance, and means-tested entitlements such as Medicaid, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, the refundable portions of the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits.

"A big part of the difference is that as the U.S. got richer, a lot more services were demanded, and a whole layer of protections unknown in 1910 got assumed by the government," said Gary Burtless, a Brookings Institution economist.

Tea Party Simpleton Kim Simac looks to simplify total authority over state..."we don't have to have a permit for a permit...!

Kim Simac is pretty simple, so life to her should be...simple. So she's targeting all those rules and regulations, a kind of Madison fancy talk, as something that needs to be simplified.

Simac: "It's pretty simple, you we don't have to have the permit for the permit, we don't need the assistant to the assistant to the head of the office."

You know, it's pretty simple, and so is Kim Simac. Recalled Sen. Jim Holperin vs Kim Simac, WPT's Here and Now:



As for her simple authoritarian tea party motivations, it couldn't be simpler; don't hold things up by legally leaving the state like Holperin did, when there's a whole agenda to cram down everyone's throat in less than a week. Just vote, and get over it.

Simac: "I was actually doing stalls, in my horse stalls, and had the radio going and hear that they left. I was flabbergasted. Couldn't believe it. Then I became just...just...irate that that's the way that our elected officials would deal with the serious problems that we're facing tight now... that's not what we want out of an elected official. " 

'If only Holperin had just voted no, she could be enjoying her summer.' I thought this letter to the editor in the Lakeland Times said it all:

Jim Holperin is my senator ... And you know what? He WAS representing me when he took off for Illinois.

If he and the other senators had not fled to Illinois, we would never have known what our governor was planning to do. Because he was representing me and thousands of other people, we were made aware of the union busting legislation that Scott Walker was trying to pass in the name of balancing the budget. 

State Saves Money by not Paying Unemployed for first Week. You're not going to defend the lazy jobless are you?

How is it possible...to propose the end of safety net programs for seniors, bash teachers, lower wages and benefits, oppose universal health care, accuse the unemployed of being lazy, shorten unemployment benefits, put a lifetime cap on public assistance and accuse those in poverty of "having it made" because they have refrigerators and TV's...and still get people to vote for you?

Hey I know, let's make the jobless wait one week before they can get unemplolyment so the state can save some money...yea, that's the ticket. Why are we even having these costly recall elections?

WKOW 27 News:

Walker's Tax Credits Benefit Wealthy 1 to 2 Percent in State.

Guess what, the corporate tax cuts in Wisconsin aren't really that helpful, if at all. In some cases, individuals with no employees get the most benefit. Wow, what a shocker. And now that Scott Walker has opened his door to the corporate welfare office, those cuts can "help," but surprisingly just aren't enough...!

From WPT's Here and Now:



Gee, tight credit and third world country wages are tough to compete with. If only we could be more like them....

Kimberly-Clark CEO not shy about using Disaster Capitalism for more Corporate Welfare.

We the people have already lost the battle against the corporate takeover of our country. I wrote about it here. The battle now, is how much farther down the ladder do we want to be in society, and in the workplace. With the help of the GOP and Tea Party movement, pushing for the freedom to fight the battles against our business hierarchy alone, wages, unions, health care, safety nets and tort law are all on the endangered species list. We've already been told, and many believe, that Medicare and Social Security won't be there for us. A total fabrication.

Disaster capitalism is a simple concept explained by Naomi Klein in the book "The Shock Doctrine." Klein's description precedes the Great Recession, but that event could easily be included:

“Countries are shocked — by wars, terror attacks, coups d’état and natural disasters.” Then “they are shocked again — by corporations and politicians who exploit the fear and disorientation of this first shock to push through economic shock therapy.” People who “dare to resist” are shocked for a third time, “by police, soldiers and prison interrogators.”

So imagine my surprise when a corporate fat cat like Kimberly-Clark's CEO and Chairman Thomas Falk, unaware of Klein's book, offers up disaster capitalism at a Senate finance hearing, as a solution to tax reform. Not one eye brow was raised:

Sen. Olsen's Rumored Baby Story...part 2.

Politiscoop is still doing the hard work trying to confirm what is still hearsay, the Sen. Luther Olsen baby. Again, nothing confirmed. Here's the previous story.

Sly in the Morning interviewed Paul, from Politicscoop.com, here are the highlights:

Americans for Prosperity Committing Election Fraud and Blitzing TV Supporting Republicans against Middle Class Prosperity.

When will this classic election misdirection play see its way into a court room near you? Will this be prosecuted? How more blatant does election fraud have to be before someone nails these bastards?

Seriously, AFP's name is right on the absentee ballot, along with the wrong election date of Aug. 11th. Check out the image below:

Here's part of the Politico report:

Politico: Americans for Prosperity is sending absentee ballots to Democrats in at least two Wisconsin state Senate recall districts with instructions to return the paperwork after the election date.

The fliers, obtained by POLITICO, ask solidly Democratic voters to return ballots for the Aug. 9 election to the city clerk "before Aug. 11."

A Democrat on the ground in Wisconsin said the fliers were discovered to be hitting doors in District 2 and District 10 over the weekend. The absentee trickery comes just as AFP has purchased $150,000 in ad time in Green Bay, Milwaukee and Madison to boost GOP candidates. 

I loved this from the jsonline:

Matt Seaholm, state director of AFP, blamed the mistake on a typo, saying his group was not trying to mislead anyone.

"This just went out to our members," Seaholm said. "I'm sure the liberals will try to make a mountain out of a molehill in an attempt to distract voters' attention from the issues."

No Balls!! Republicans win through intimidation again. Cowed DA Ozanne Requests Special Prosecutor to prevent “appearance of Political Motivation.”

We wouldn’t want to agitate the agitated conservative radio talkers, would we?

Democrats gave up again. Ozanne just proved liberals really can't be impartial, thank you very much. Let the bully on the playground control the playground. What does it take to get any fight out of these Democratic wieners? I am so tired of this.

What we’ve entered into now is a convoluted, long drawn out affair that will let our victimized conservative justice off the hook. We’ve entered the second phase of our dismantling; low or no expectations.

jsonline: Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said Monday he will request a special prosecutor involved in the litigation the justices were arguing over during the incident The people of this state deserve to feel confident in the rule of law and the exercise of discretion by their constitutional officers. I take this action not because I feel this office wouldn't be fair, but so that any decision can be free from accusations to ensure the public's trust in the system and to allow the incident to be reviewed on the merits with no appearance of political motivation for any decisions or outcome." 

Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't we get an impartial conservative special prosecutor?

Here's WKOW 27 News' Tony Galli:

Taxpayer Money Turns Magically into the almighty…Free Market? I’m seeing a pattern here.

Isn’t the private sector supposed to be private? I thought government didn’t create jobs?

The above assumptions are “Humpty Dumptyisms.” From Through the Looking Glass:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

 “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master that’s all.”

The private free market sector is whatever we choose it to mean apparently.

It’s just like our supposed “free market” charter and school voucher programs, that rely on taxpayer money to stay alive, the telecommunications industry wants a piece of that action too.

GBG: AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and four other telecom companies are offering a proposal to overhaul the $8 billion federal phone subsidy program to pay for high-speed Internet connections in rural and other underserved areas.

You read that right; four telecom companies want our federal tax dollars to pay for their free market expansion into those “unprofitable” rural areas. Humpty Dumpty would be proud.

The Universal Service Fund subsidizes phone service for the poor and pays for Internet access in schools, libraries and rural health clinics … half the money goes to pay phone companies that provide voice service in rural places where phone lines are unprofitable.

While AT&T whined, complained and eventually sued to keep the state of Wisconsin out of providing internet service to “unprofitable” area’s, they’re working behind the scenes to drain the public coffers to make it profitable.

For an industry claiming the free market will service hard to reach areas of consumers, the evidence says something else:

The FCC now wants … a new Connect America Fund that would underwrite the cost of building and operating high-speed Internet networks in places that are too sparsely populated to justify costly corporate investments.

Up until now, I guess it was difficult to justify such costly corporate investments.” But now with taxpayer money:

Republicans complain that the program promotes waste by subsidizing multiple rural phone companies in places where the free market doesn't support even one… The telecom company plan would provide subsidies for only one provider in an area and target funding at places where there is no business case for companies to provide service on their own. 

Hey, little monopolies!!! Now that's competition.

Conservative Talker McKenna Blows up over Small Tea Party turnout for Picnic, and Low Ad Sales at Station due to Walker Policies.

Suffering from a bad case of runny mouth syndrome, WIBA's Vicki McKenna let it slip her stations advertising department may be losing sales due to the climate of "uncertainty" created by the Walker Administration policies.

That "too much information" moment fell out into the public domain due to McKenna's frustration over the small turnout of Tea Partiers at a Saturday picnic. WTDY's Sly in the Morning and guest John Nichols had a little fun with it.

Kim Simac's Northwoods Patriots Tea Party Radicalism. The Senior Citizen Militia Spouts Anti-American Dogma.

I think it’s time once again to reflect back to a compilation of Kim Simac videos I posted back in May. Simac is challenging Sen. Jim Holperin, in what is now Twin Peaks country, where the tea party’s Northwoods Patriots gained a following.

I wrote this: 

The Delusional Kim Simac: A Tea Party's Front Line Soldier Against the Liberal Enemies Within.

I continue to be fascinated by the Republican challenger to Democratic Sen. Jim Holperin, Kim Simac. Can the leader of the fringe Northwoods Patriots tea party energize enough voters with trash talk like the following? And I thought professional wrestling was over the top mindless exploitation. I have even more Simac video coming to this post, in what I think is not only a perfect example of reverse Amercanism, but a strange movement to make real an illusionary world of one mindedness.  

Check out all the videos here. The jaw dropping commentary from Simac would have killed anyone else's run for the state senate. Not when you're dealing with the listless tea party drones.

Business Certainty in Wisconsin? A Tale of Two Numbers.

It’s not getting near enough attention, for whatever reason (conservative media?), but maybe we should open the discussion up sometime. Ya think?

The Political Environment pointed out the recent story from John Nichols:

Cap Times: In recent months, Wisconsin’s unemployment has ticked up to 7.6 percent. It’s up three-tenths of a percent since April.

But Nichols story is an isolated incident. Like only a few other articles buried in the business section and never referred to again, it’s only dumb luck that I ran across the following examples. On June 17th, I wrote and posted this:

The unemployment rate went up from 7.3 to 7.4 percent. If we were to use the same spin applied to Obama’s uptick from 9.0 to 9.1 percent unemployment, then Walker’s “Open for Business” plan is a failure. As Walker’s corporate friendly plan kicks in, jobs creation is hitting the just now hitting the skids:

The state added 3,000 jobs in April, including 2,800 manufacturing job, but lost 1,700 construction jobs. The May figures showed a net gain of 1,600 manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin but those gains were offset by a loss of 1,300 jobs in the professional and business services area and 900 job losses in the financial sector.

I wrote this June 23th:

While Gov. Scott Walker was given a pat on the back by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for a “successful state strategy for job creation and economic growth,” reality was hitting many Wisconsinites directly in the pocketbooks.

Business Week: “Unemployment rates increased in most Wisconsin cities in May. Unemployment increased in 25 cities with a population of 25,000 people or more. Racine had the highest at 13.4 percent. The city of Wausau’s seasonally unadjusted jobless rate rose from 10 percent in April to 10.7 percent last month.  

While conservative leaning Politifact concentrates on Scott Walker’s promise to create 250,000 jobs, we’re intentionally sidetracked from the job losses many predicted would result from the administration’s policies.

One Wisconsin Now highlighted this harsh realtiy:

Wisconsin Senate Republican are expected today to cut $56 million yearly from benefits for newly-unemployed Wisconsin workers just as figures show Wisconsin’s unemployment rate under Gov. Scott Walker has jumped higher than most states in the past two months.

Far Right Tea Party Authoritarians have Small picnic celebrating Government Regulations limiting our freedom to be in Unions and Vote.

Far Right Repubican/Tea Party members never stop whining about Big Government, except when they use it to limit everyone else’s right to certain freedoms.

These extremist tea party militias have been taken way to seriously. If we acted like adults from the beginning, we would have never given these school yard bullies a platform. But the media seemed fascinated by these barbarians at our gate.

Tea Party membership requires every Borg like follower to make wildly ironic generalizations.  

JUDY NEWMAN-WSJ: About 125 Tea Party members gathered at Badger Prairie Park on Saturday (in Verona) to share a picnic and politics.

"We support the Constitution," said Stacy Horne, Monona. "It means that the people are the government; the government doesn't tell us how we are to live." 

But three of the bills being celebrated by this anemically small crowd of tea party picnickers did exactly that; 

…cuts in collective bargaining rights for public employees; voter ID requirements; and allowing citizens to carry concealed guns. 

Big Government Republicans telling us how to live? Of course. We got more regulations, bureaucratic paper work and wasted taxpayer money so they could take away our freedom to be in unions, jump through government hoops to vote, and forced us to live in fear around trigger happy paranoid strangers carrying guns.  

But like everything down their rabbit hole, this tea party picnic celebrated the Mad Hatter’s "moderate" political voice:

Tea Party members are not Republicans or members of the "far right" but are "just concerned citizens ... ordinary folks from all walks of life who share a common view that big government is not the answer to their problems; big government is the problem," said Brad Smith, Oregon. 

It is now.