It now appears to be Trey Gowdy’s turn to come clean. He’s the republican congressman who is by default in charge of the Benghazi committee. And he just admitted to a game changer. Gowdy and the republican Benghazi committee have been attacking by using a variety of government documents which have been heavily redacted to the point that it’s never been entirely clear just what context they would be in if not for all of the redactions and blackouts. After democrats asked the CIA to declassify the documents so that the public could see what was really being presented, the CIA responded by stating that it had never asked for anything to be redacted. When questioned under pressure, Gowdy admitted that he himself decided to redact large portions of the documents based on his own personal judgment of what information he did or didn’t want the public to know.
Last night on All in with Chris Hayes, Huffington Post reporter Jennifer Bendery humorously revealed this outrageous Trey Gowdy blunder:
Bendery: "...the CIA said, 'oh no, that wasn't classified information,' and Trey Gowdy said 'yea well, we need to protect it, and he put it up on the committee website and outed the name of a CIA source...in the subject line."
With the backing and blessing of Scott Walker, Republicans are about to get rid of the Government Accountability Board, the state elections and ethics watchdog. And the reasons for doing so are baffling:
Many Republicans say the legislation is needed to ensure ethics laws are enforced fairly and people's free speech rights are protected.
Walker and the Republicans are striking out against the John Doe probes, investigations they thought victimized conservatives and were politically motivated. After stacking the courts with conservative activist judges willing to support their claims, Republicans have successfully suckered in their emotionally invested voters. And what about former Gov. Jim Doyle's travel gate fabrication, and Hillary's Benghazi and private email attacks? They're completely different, as one Walker supporter told me the other day. It's a disconnect I see a lot from the hypocritical right wing.
It's all about "liberty" and "free speech," and not about investigating what appeared to be illegal activity by Republicans during the recalls. They're essentially saying Democrats should have been investigated too, you know, just to make things equal.
NAZI TACTICS: Republicans say the John Doe probes of politicians remind them of Nazi Germany. Oddly, that same comparison doesn't apply to John Doe probes of anyone else suspected of illegal activity. WPR's Shawn Johnson noticed that, and unlike other media outlets, played the audio proof in his report:
Sanfelippo: "You're okay with the tactics employed by the SS and the Nazi's in WW2?"
Keeping these more radical statements out of the public eye and their local news reports only emboldens the Republican authoritarian takeover of our state. Like this segment from WISC, featuring Republican Dave Craig pushing bullshit like protecting our constitutional liberty's and being fair prosecuting crimes, blah, blah, blah...:
One of the few Republicans that gets it, but still votes the wrong way, Sen. Luther Olsen, highlighted the most glaring problem with the new partisan oversight board, filled with 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats. Seriously, reporters never once asked about this?
Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon) said he had concerns about
eliminating the judges and about putting equal numbers of appointees from both
parties on the new commissions. In controversial cases, the two boards could
deadlock and end up doing nothing, he said. "If it's set up so they never agree on anything, then
nothing gets investigated," Olsen said.
Here's Common Cause's Jay Heck with what this all means, and a marker when voters were warned about what would happen...and it has already. From the Mitch Hank Show:
It's become evident watching Scott Walker scramble to restore cut transportation, that he wasn't just lying about running the state remotely during the budget debate process, but he really did have Wisconsin in his rear view mirror running for president.
Instead of making his arguments against road building delays during budgeting, he's now begging his pirate hoard to change their minds. This is charge card GOP budgeting at its most obvious, leaving the bill to the next generation to pay for.
Democrats like State Sen. Jon Erpenbach are relishing the fact that Republicans now need their vote to pass funding. But like Erpenbach said below, they'll only consider the idea if the funding problem is solved by adjusting the gas tax for future budgets.
"They knew this day was going to come and they didn't
do anything about it on finance and now they're going to say the Democrats are
going to bail us out. Well yeah, we will help if it's a good fair plan that not
only deals with the bonding situation but also possibly looks at a gas tax or a
long-term solution where we can get on a road where we'll know we have X amount
of dollars to pay for roads."
Another words, restore the old indexed yearly gas tax increase and deep six the Grover Norquist no tax pledge, a gimmick that has no place in the budget process. I also back a toll for traffic coming in and out of Wisconsin (no tolls within the state) with federal approval.
It's telling and embarrassing to watch Walker now making the case for running up debt and trying to solve a problem he didn't have time for just a few months ago. From WISC's Jessica Arp and WKOW:
And oh by the way, there's already lots of money in the transportation fund to pay for a few of these delayed projects: Jakes Economic TA Funhouse
In a WKOW Digging Deeper investigative report by Greg Neumann about withheld emails by the Walker administration, Wisconsin voters learned a valuable lesson about those Republicans sham "listening sessions." Listening sessions, like their attack on Common Core, that never seemed to change their minds.
One of the most unashamed bottom feeding lobbyists, Bill McCoshen, arrogantly pulled back the curtain on Republican listening sessions in a just released email. Hat tip to Rock Netroots for pointing it out:
GOP lobbyist Bill McCoshen advised the administration to
take a step back: "Delay the collective bargaining changes until the
recalls are over. Maybe even hold some listening sessions so it give the
appearance the administration is reaching out."
That's right; the "appearance" of "reaching out." Would you believer there wasn't one word of outrage in the comments section by conservative viewers duped by their own party's scam? It's not a surprising development either, from this outwardly authoritarian Republican administration.
Awhile back I featured McCoshen's jaw dropping ads that clearly admitted to Wisconsinites that money does the talking now at the state Capitol:
Just as obvious is this graphic at McCoshen's lobbying firms website, where he brags, "He has since become the capitol's quintessential insider lobbyist, in a good way." Go ahead laugh, it really is that openly crass and surreal:
I'll be darned, it looks the party of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is really the party of "it's who you know" crony appointments.
After appointing her twice before, Scott Walker could have let Judge Rebecca Bradley earn her place on the State Supreme Court, by running a competitive campaign and convincing voters she was qualified for the job. Nope, we're talking Scott Walker here after all. Credit Bradley too, her taste for free rides to the top of the legal ladder was just too tempting.
Another thing. After hearing how the ex-judges at the nonpartisn GAB couldn't hide their obvious political biases...
...Walker claims Judge Rebecca Bradley has no such inclination, and Bradley agrees. After all, why would anyone question her impartiality with a resume filled with the following...
She has served as president of the Milwaukee chapter of the Federalist
Society, a conservative lawyers group, and has belonged to the
Republican National Lawyers Association and the Thomas More Society, a
Catholic legal group.
What's so biased about the libertarian Federalist interpretation of the law, or pushing conservative orthodoxy via the National Lawyers Association? Am I just being partisan?
But Bradley clearly differentiated herself from those other judges overseeing elections at the GAB, on Upfront with Mike Gousha. Despite her activism, she has been able to put all that aside...?
But as we've heard from other Republican legislators, judges are not impartial, but in fact partisan with an agenda:
Speaker Robin Vos: "The notion that people are nonpartisan is difficult for people to accept, every human being has partisan inclinations." State Rep. Joe Sanfelippo (R-New Berlin): "It's impossible for the GAB to be entirely nonpartisan in its current form … make the agency completely partisan." Scott Walker: “More so than an investigation, I think it’s appropriate just to get rid of (the board) and replace it,” The day after the state Supreme Court ruled to end the (John Doe) investigation, Wisconsin Club for Growth — the conservative group at the center of the John Doe investigation — led the charge to abolish the GAB.
“GAB was a bad idea whose time has gone,” the group’s director, Eric O’Keefe, told radio host Charlie Sykes. “They need to eliminate it.”
So if ex-judges can't separate their partisan beliefs on the GAB, why would we think "Justice" Rebecca Bradley wouldn't be just as partisan a conservative activist Supreme Court Justice?
The Affordable Care Act is about to get repealed via reconciliation, needing only 51 votes in Senate. Republicans will tell you the cut in ObamaCare taxes will spur on new jobs and increased federal revenues. Like everything based on supply-side economics, it's a false assumption that will toss tens of millions of Americans of their insurance.
If Congress establishes this year that it can fully repeal ObamaCare via reconciliation, and the next president is willing, Congress could repeal ObamaCare for good in 2017.
But don't worry, supposed "patient centered" reform will create competition, lowering brain and heart surgeon fees dramatically. Maybe we'll see their services offered on Groupon someday too.
Republicans have asked CBO to score their proposed repeal of ObamaCare, and all the tax cuts they say are slowing the economy with "dynamic scoring." Supply side-macroeconomic-dynamic scoring: It goes by different names but the end result is the same; a failed theory that has never worked. But fear not, Republicans are making a
valiant effort to breathe life back into dynamic scoring, by forcing the CBO to use their trickle down, macroeconomics formula based on the belief in fairy dust, hoping for a different result this
time around:
(The) opening salvo for the 114th Congress, in a “largely
party-line vote of 234-172,” Republicans in the House adopted a rules package
that included a provision asking the CBO, and the Joint
Committee on Taxation, or JCT, to use so-called dynamic scoring in their
evaluation of a proposed legislation’s budgetary impact. This move would
make it easier for policymakers to enact more tax cuts based on the
conservative trickle-down mythology that tax cuts for the rich grow the
economy. A growing body of empirical
research undermines the conservative economic mantra that tax cuts for the rich
grow the economy.
As an interesting aside, the article suggested this possible safe guard:
Given this, CBO and JCT should develop a macroeconomic
model that considers how a proposed bill would impact inequality—and therefore
economic growth.
What Repeal would do: GOP dynamic scoring will cover up the devastating effects of repeal with dreamy theories of job creation and cheaper health care costs. In reality, tens of millions will lose their health care coverage:
CBO and JCT estimate that repealing the ACA would have
several major effects, relative to the projections under current law: Including the budgetary
effects of macroeconomic feedback, repealing the ACA would increase federal budget
deficits by $137 billion over the 2016–2025 period. Excluding the
effects of macroeconomic feedback—as has been done for previous estimates
related to the ACA (and most other CBO cost estimates)—federal deficits would increase by $353 billion over the 2016–2025 period
if the ACA was repealed. The uncertainty is
sufficiently great that repealing the ACA could reduce deficits over the
2016–2025 period—or could increase deficits by a substantially larger margin
than the agencies have estimated. However, CBO and JCT’s best estimate is that
repealing the ACA would increase federal budget deficits by $137 billion over that
10-year period. Repealing the ACA would cause federal budget deficits to
increase by growing amounts after 2025, whether or not the budgetary effects of
macroeconomic feedback are included. Repealing the ACA also would affect the
number of people with health insurance and their sources of coverage ... the number of non-elderly people who are uninsured would
increase by about 19 million in 2016; by 22 million or 23 million in 2017,
2018, and 2019; and by about 24 million in all subsequent years through 2025. In
most of those years, the number of people with employment-based coverage would
increase by about 8 million, and the number with coverage purchased
individually or obtained through Medicaid would decrease by between 30 million
and 32 million.
A few things to keep in mind when reading the following; GOP insurance plans include government subsidies, and a few of their plans roll back employer exemptions, which could see workplace coverage dropped:
How Would a Repeal Affect the
Budget and the Economy Over the Next 10 Years? Repealing the ACA would increase deficits by $353 billion over the 2016–2025 period, excluding the budgetary impact of macroeconomic feedback. An end to the ACA’s subsidies for health insurance coverage would generate gross savings for the government of $1,658 billion over the 2016–2025 period. Those savings would stem primarily from eliminating federal subsidies for insurance purchased through exchanges and from reducing outlays for Medicaid.
But....
Those gross savings would be partially offset by the effects of eliminating several ACA provisions related to insurance coverage that are projected to reduce federal deficits. In addition, increases in employment-based coverage stemming from a repeal would reduce revenues because most payments for that coverage are exempt from income and payroll taxes. In sum, those effects of repealing the ACA would increase federal deficits by $502 billion over the 2016–2025 period, and the net savings from repealing the ACA’s coverage provisions would thus be $1,156 billion.
The net savings of $1 trillion results from doing away with the insurance subsidies, which Republicans said they would continue (but smaller) in their "plans." And most importantly, the figures here don't include the net savings from the ACA, just expenses:
The estimates discussed elsewhere in this report do not
include any savings or costs associated with changes in discretionary
spending.
While the Affordable Care Act has given 16 million more people (marketplace and Medicaid expansion) the ability to get health insurance, that's not good enough for Republicans and right wing think tanks. Yet they would never think to compare the old system that shed as many sick people as possible for higher profits, with the Affordable Care Act.
Criticism of a GOP plan, renamed ObamaCare, by Republicans is crazy enough, but saying the whole thing has failed because it wasn't perfect suggests to me that trying anything would be a waste of time. And yet their own chaotic "plans" use huge parts of ObamaCare as well.
The ACA marketplace signed up 10 million people. That was the initial rush. That now expected to become more of a trickle. But is that failure?
So here's the deceptive meme now that's as ridiculous as ever. That's because the ACA is nothing but a marketplace of private insurance plans. If it's failing, blame the private sector, not the government that simply gave them a national mall for Americans to shop in.
Two nonprofit health insurance co-ops that were established under the ACA announced on Friday that they were going out of business for financial reasons ... the latest in a string of eight such coops that have closed their doors in recent months ... That means that only 15 of the original 23 co-ops will remain in business next year.
Some ideas work, and some don't work so well right? But 15 workable coops is still pretty good. Republicans are also not exactly touting the fact that because the Obama administration is playing hardball with the coops to rein in spending, some have been forced to close.
The benefits are clear (click to enlarge):
The GOP plans all have one huge flaw in common; they would allow Americans to buy stripped down plans with little coverage but high monthly premium payments and deductibles. Sure junk insurance policies will be cheaper, but the risk of bankruptcy and death increases dramatically, not a good trade-off. And that's American exceptionalism at work?
Here's how ObamaCare is paid for, meaning it isn't adding to the deficit, but reducing it. True freedom and liberty for all by the way is a single payer system where not one dime is spent on bills by individuals and not one doctor is excluded, ever:
...guess who would have carried on that tradition?
This was a desperate guy who wanted it all....
Photographer Andrew Snow, assigned to trail Walker at events and snap images of the candidate, collected $11,700 a month -- on pace to make $140,000 a year. Alyson Higgins, a personal aide to Tonette Walker, the governor’s wife, was allocated a salary of $89,000. At the helm was communications director Kirsten Kukowski, making $18,000 a month for an annual salary of more than $220,000. AshLee Strong, Kukowski’s communications deputy, was to make $164,000. And even Walker’s own children got into the campaign casino
windfall. Twenty-one-year-old Matt Walker and 20-year-old Alex Walker, who
indicated they would take time off from college to campaign for their father … Each
drew monthly stipends of $1,542, placing them on pace to draw $18,509 annually.
Still my favorite line comes from Rick Wiley, Walker's campaign manager:
"We didn't have a spending problem. We had a revenue problem."
Just like my conservative friend in Milwaukee who's always sending me videos and news stories form right wing sites, Scott Walker and his band of Republican pirates that have taken command of the state Capitol are shaping actual governmental policy based on the fictions and fabrications created by these propagandists.
One of the worst, the MacIver Institute, is about to help take down the nations election oversight model, the Government Accountability Board.
Never mind that the idea of something like this ever happening is crazy, Republicans and in-the-tank voters tend to believe without question the more sensational "attacks." Say it enough, and it must be true...but still isn't:
On Dec. 18, 2011, we looked at this claim from MacIver’s video: "Wisconsin election officials to accept Mickey Mouse, Hitler signatures" on recall petitions. We rated itMostly False. The claim stems from a comment made by GAB elections specialist David Buerger during a Dec. 13, 2011 meeting of the board. Buerger was asked about Mickey Mouse and Hitler and responded: "We will flag them, but we will not strike them without challenge." The MacIver video said the board decided to "accept" the fictitious signatures, as in counting them toward the total of about 540,000 that was required to force a recall election. That was not the case. Indeed, Buerger noted explicitly they would be "flagged" for more review, just not automatically stricken.
The final verdict?
But there’s no evidence to support that. The process would not have immediately struck them. Rather, it would have flagged them for review. And there were numerous layers of scrutiny before it would have been determined valid. Walker took a Mostly False statement and embellished it. We rate his claim False.
Letting "partisan behavior to run rampant," here's ALEC member and State Sen. Leah Vukmir play up this complete fiction. For anybody else, this would normally be really embarrassing stuff:
Funny thing, even when Republicans are caught and found guilty of breaking the law, conservative politicians, right wing think tanks and hapless in-the-tank voters will still deny laws were ever broken. This perceived infallibility is a bit on the frightening side.
On WPR's Joy Cardin Show, Rick Esenberg, president the right wing lawsuit mill The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, nonchalantly broke the news that convicted Scott Walker aide Kelly Rindfleisch was innocent, and that she committed no crime. Yes, even after the State Supreme Court turned down her appeal. It was a confident declaration that conservative voters need to believe, and hearing it on the radio helped support their delusions (audio):
Esenberg: "It amazes me that people in Wisconsin on the left, were apoplectic because a handful of staffers in Scott Walker's administration had a private email system to conduct not government business, but political business which they were perfectly free to do..."
In this conversation about Walker's hypocritical comments about Hillary Clinton's emails, the reality based world saw things quite differently. jsonline:
Rindfleisch pleaded guilty in 2012 to doing campaign work at
her Milwaukee County government job. Walker's campaign and government
teams used a secret email system or private email accounts to deal with the
bread-and-butter issues of county government: personnel, budgets and buildings. A trove of previously
sealed documents released last month provides a rearview mirror look
into Walker's world and the push to take county government off the official
grid. Using private emails for official business can make it harder for the
public to find out what its government is doing. Emails from private accounts
show the Walker campaign and county government teams discussed such varying
issues as problems at the Mental Health Complex, the death of a teen at the
O'Donnell Park parking structure, reaction to moves made by county supervisors,
the attempt to ease out the head of the medical examiner's office, the handling
of public records requests, repair estimates for buildings, capital projects,
and updates on storm damage and the federal response.
The Progressive's Ruth Conniff responded to Esenberg, calling into question his and congresses credibility on the subject.
Sadly, I don't even think this irresponsible juvenile comment will move the needle with conservative voters who have invested their identities in their party. WPR:
The Republican speaker of the state Assembly says he's fine with people carrying concealed guns in university buildings, and likened it to carrying smartphones.
"I don't have a problem with people carrying a smartphone or carrying anything else. It's a tool. It's who uses the tool and how they use it."
A story that's just bubbling up now looks like it could be big, finally exposing Scott Walker's inability to tell the truth to the media and voters alike. How much more is he trying to hide?
WKOW's Greg Nuemann: Governor Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) has been
extremely critical of Hillary Clinton's use of personal email … despite the
fact that two former aides in his Milwaukee County Executive's office were
convicted of crimes for using personal email to campaign on county time. But a 27 News investigation into the use and disclosure of
personal emails by the Governor's office is raising questions about just how
those records are handled. On May 28, 27 News asked Gov. Walker if he knew
whether former Chief of Staff Keith Gilkes, former Department of Administration
Secretary Mike Huebsch or other members of his administration had used personal
email for government business.
"I don't know," said Gov. Walker. "I mean, not that I'm aware
of."
But we now know the Governor was aware of it at the time that exchange took
place … in the first year of the Walker administration, state business was
conducted through more than 300 personal emails. Some of the emails were sent
to or from Governor Walker's own personal address. But dozens of the emails 27 News received were never sent to
an official state account until they were forwarded to the government email
address of Gov. Walker's Chief Legal Counsel Brian Hagedorn on July 31, 2015.
That date comes four years after the emails were originally written and two
months after our open records request.
"Yeah, I think it's an issue to be sure and apparently and potentially a
serious one," said Bob Drechsel, director of the UW-Madison Center for Journalism Ethics, who believes that delay and lag time raises
questions about whether 27 News even got all of the personal emails that ever
existed, or if some were permanently deleted from personal accounts long ago.
Over at Cognitive Dissidence, I thought this amazing fact stood out, high lighted in red above:
The reason that the emphasized section should raise a red flag for the gentle reader is that on the very same date that Hagedorn had received these emails is the same day that Walker announced that he was politically appointing Hagedorn to an appellate court seat despite that Hagedorn had no experience or qualifications for that position. Was that appointment made to reward Hagedorn for his political operations, as a form of hush money to buy Hagedorn's silence or both?
There are times Scott Walker can't hide from the truth, no matter bizarre his answers get.
Remember when Republicans claimed the states debt was a result of over spending?
Now that it's clear Scott Walker overspent during his campaign for president, his $1 million debt has a different explanation. And spending wasn't it. jsonline:
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker raised $7.4 million for his short-lived presidential bid but spent his cash as quickly as it came in, leaving the campaign with a debt of at least $1 million once all the bills roll in, according to sources and a report filed with federal elections officials Thursday. The campaign burned through about $90,000 a day without even running major broadcast ads, doing so months before the first votes are cast.
Nope, the Walker campaign's answer takes us right down the rabbit hole. Ready for it...
Rick Wiley, Walker's presidential campaign manager ... pushed back criticism that he and the governor presided over an ill-advised spending spree for the campaign.
"We didn't have a spending problem. We had a revenue problem."
After cutting public funding to the state parks and reducing DNR staff to save taxpayer money, Sen. Tom Tiffany wants to give taxpayer money away in the form of a grant to the private timber industry. And don't even get me going about Democrat Janet "what was she thinking" Brewley's sell out, giving Tiffany cover.
So much for all the talk about the free market, smaller government, not picking winners and losers, and opposing corporate welfare like at the EXIM Bank.
This is big government, Republican style. You gotta wonder why Wisconsinites even vote anymore, since they're getting anything in return. Maybe voting, which like labor laws, civil service exams, public schools and university's, is also just a relic of the past.
A bipartisan bill would allow public money to be used for manufacturing rail cars to ship wood. The bill requires the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to award a $4.8 million grant to the Northwoods Rail Transit Commission from the state's Freight Rail Infrastructure Improvement Program, which provides loans to private companies to improve transportation efficiency and connections to the national railroad system. The money would be used by the transit commission to purchase the log cars. Sens. Janet Bewley, D-Ashland, and Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, introduced the measure. Bewley said that currently, there's a shortage of cars that needs to be addressed. "The railroads are devoting most of their cars over to sand, and we need to come up with the cars we need to haul wood products."
And while we've given up the state parks, we are now the proud owners of rail cars:
(Brewley) said the cars would be publicly owned and available for use by any railroad.
And the rugged timber industry, plugging away in the free market paradise created by Scott Walker, can't wait to stuff their pockets with taxpayer cash:
Northwoods Rail Transit Commission Chairwoman Wendy Gehlhoff said they’ve been applying for a federal grant and state money to fund construction of 40 to 50 new log cars. She said many log cars currently in use are set to reach the end of their life expectancy. "In the next few years, we stand to lose more than half of the log cars that are out there," she said.
And while taxpayer freely lend out rail cars, maintaining them along the way as well, you won't be surprised by this last insult by private industry...Canadian at that:
Canadian National operates rail lines in northern Wisconsin that traditionally carried logging freight and were once owned by Wisconsin Central Limited. Gehlhoff said CN isn't investing much in new cars because it’s not profitable for them to haul wood.
...so they can just go to the taxpayers? Well isn't that a great business model.
but... He told Milwaukee radio host Charlie Sykes, “Instead of doing what a lot of candidates do and sit back and whine
about this, that or whatever, to me, I accept it for what it is. It is what it is.” but... “They claim that they want substance, they claim that they don’t like fighting and yet that’s exactly what they put on air.” but...“The Republican debate the last go-round, it was a little bit like watching a Jerry Springer Show. They are much more interested in the personality battles.”
This is what I think every Democratic voter has been waiting for for years, taking it to Republicans, putting on an offensive that clearly defines where their party stands.
A bill circulated by three Madison Democrats in the state
Assembly— Chris Taylor, Terese Berceau, Melissa Sargent, would make carrying a dangerous weapon on public college campuses a felony. The "college campus dangerous weapon ban" bill
proposed Wednesday by three Madison Democrats — Rep. Chris Taylor, Rep. Melissa
Sargent and Rep. Terese Berceau — would make carrying a dangerous weapon on
campus a Class I felony. It would codify existing Administrative Code
provisions and practices of public and private colleges and universities in
state statute.
There is a clear choice. As a parent with a son heading off to Madison in a couple of years, there's no way I want him in a class filled with firearms...even one. Because it's not really about mental illness. Wouldn't you know it, Republicans have us chasing down another rabbit hole to nowhere.
The real problem is out of control anger, or "Intermittent explosive disorder" (IED).
That's why Democratic legislators are pushing to reinstate the 48 hour cooling off period. WISC/WKOW:
Families of victims of gun violence argued that repealing the waiting period should not have been about the time it takes to do a background check, which is what Republican authors argued earlier in the year. The groups said a "cooling-off period" was needed, especially in cases of suicide.
Violence is not a product of mental illness. Nor is violence
generally the action of ordinary, stable individuals who suddenly “break” and
commit crimes of passion. Violent crimes are committed by violent people, those
who do not have the skills to manage their anger. Most homicides are committed
by people with a history of violence. Murderers are rarely ordinary,
law-abiding citizens, and they are also rarely mentally ill. Violence is a
product of compromised anger management skills. In a summary of studies on murder and prior record of violence, Don Kates and Gary
Mauser found that 80 to 90 percent of murderers had prior police records, in
contrast to 15 percent of American adults overall. In a study of domestic
murderers, 46 percent of the perpetrators had had a restraining order against
them at some time. Family murders are preceded by prior domestic violence more
than 90 percent of the time. Violent crimes are committed by people who lack
the skills to modulate anger, express it constructively, and move beyond it. The
one relevant diagnosis is intermittent explosive disorder, a disorder of anger
management. Violent crimes committed by people with severe mental illnesses get
a lot of attention, but such attacks are relatively rare. Paolo del Vecchio of
the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has said, “Violence by those with mental illness is so
small that even if you could somehow cure it all, 95 percent of violent crime
would still exist” ... with significant encouragement from the gun
lobby, the public has begun to seize on the wrong explanation for tragic,
violent events. They focus not on the IED-diagnosed patients but on those with
other diagnoses, schizophrenia in particular, ignoring the fact that what the
perpetrators have in common in every single one of these cases is a loss of
control of their anger.No
effort is being made to address the much broader cultural problem of anger
management. This broader problem encompasses not just mass murders but violence
toward children and spouses, rape, road rage, assault, and violent robberies.
We are a culture awash in anger. Uncontrolled
anger has become our No. 1 mental health issue. We have sought
scapegoats in minority cultures, racial groups, and now the mentally ill.
The "college campus dangerous weapon ban" bill is similar to laws in 9 other states. While Republicans have taken the hopeless position that "there's nothing anybody can do, good luck," Democrats are trying to solve a problem no other industrialized country has. jsonline:
(It's) in
response to one proposed earlier this week by Rep. Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum)
says current law is not stopping those who want to cause mayhem from doing so
on and around campus. The co-sponsorship memo the three Democrats sent to
lawmakers Wednesday referred to a recent Stanford study that concluded more
guns lead to higher rates of aggravated assault, robbery, rape and murder.
Having a firearm present in a domestic violence situation also increases a
woman's risk of dying by homicide by 500%, the memo said.
It didn’t take long for Wisconsin media to act oblivious to Scott Walker’s outrageous partisan behavior again. Remember, the only reason this guy is governor is because news outlets kept letting Walker off the hook for every obvious blunder, bad policy decision and flat out failure since he was County Executive. Criticism is “liberal.”
In the case of appointing Judge Rebecca Bradley to the Supreme Court bench, red flags and jaws should have dropped, and accusations of cronyism should have been flying, knowing what Walker had done for Bradley career in the past.
In fact, Bradley would have not much of a career if it wasn’t for Walker:
Walker appointed Bradley to the District 1 Court of Appeals in Milwaukee in May. Before her stint as an appeals judge, Bradley spent three years on the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, after Walker put her on that court in 2012.
Really? 3 jobs, 3 Walker appointments, and no one thinks that's odd? So the media didn’t feel duped again when Walker pretended to “consider” other candidates?
The final insult was this additional media quick mention, and pass. WKOW:
AP: Rebecca Bradley's campaign for Wisconsin Supreme Court reserved the website domain name "justicerebeccabradley.com" the day before applications were due for an appointment to the state's highest court she eventually received.
Nothing? Which leaves the truth about Walker’s actions up to the “left,” allowing right wingers to discount out of hand this troubling expansion:
One Wisconsin Now, says reserving the website name that early is "further proof the fix was in from the start." Melissa Mulliken, campaign manager for Appeals Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg, said, “It gives the appearance of the kind of cronyism that has defined Scott Walker’s administration.” Claude Covelli, a Madison attorney who sought the appointment but lost out to Bradley, said it appears that Walker may have instigated a “sham application process.”
I hope Republican voters are watching...and getting angry. Scott Walker is no friend of Wisconsin taxpayers after all.
After losing $50 million ditching high speed rail because Scott Walker didn't want to pay around $80.000 a year in train/track maintenance, not to mention the jobs and economic development that would have jacked up state revenues, add iron ore mining to the list of taxpayer waste. WPR:
State Reimburses Communities For Scrapped GTAC Mine: Iron, Ashland Counties, Towns Of Morse And Anderson Splitting $200,000.
Despite all the warnings; the iron ore market was slowing dramatically, bad location, to big a project and too much waste, the Walker administration couldn't wait to tear up environmental standards. GTAC was their ticket to rape the countryside.
I'm betting the $200,000 price tag for taxpayers was worth weakening environmental law:
Northern Wisconsin communities surrounding a site where mining company Gogebic Taconite scrapped plans for an iron mine this year are being reimbursed by the state.
Still, Republican voters are feeling pretty good about their $1 savings in property taxes.
September 11th triggered a weird reaction in the American psyche. The insatiable need to protect ourselves with guns.
But there's a new movement rising up...
Next August, Texans will be allowed to carry concealed
weapons on public university campuses. In the wake of a spate of shootings on
campus, a new group is planning a unique protest … planning to strap on sex
toys in protest of the state’s new campus carry law, which goes into effect August 1, 2016.
Note: In Wisconsin Republicans have gone even further, with a bill called "Campus Carry," and it should make any parent sending their kid to the Badger state shudder; CC students will be able to carry a gun in class.
Apparently University of Texas students don't like the idea:
Ammoland: The 24-year-old UT alumna added, “You’re carrying a gun to
class? Yeah well I’m carrying a HUGE DILDO. Just about as effective at
protecting us from sociopathic shooters, but much safer for recreational play.” The organizer, Jessica Jin, wrote. The protest organizer,
Jessica Jin, said, “You would receive a citation for taking a DILDO to
class before you would get in trouble for taking a gun to class. Heaven forbid
the penis."Jin urges any and everyone to join the cause, "Come one dildo, come all dildos."
Gun rights trolls have been
leaving their comments on the "Campus (DILDO) Carry" Facebook page, proving once and for all their amazing maturity. Daily Beast:
Facebook page, do little to quell Claudia Garate, 27, a graduate student at UT Austin’s fears about the law. “The arguments that are pro-gun carrying...so many are
centered around hate, misogyny, and racism. It’s a lot of hate from
these people trying to defend this law, and that’s the scariest part. Because on one hand, they say they want to defend people
and are obsessed with this idea of being a vigilante. [On the
other], the young woman who organized this is receiving death threats.” Indeed, the sex-toy brigade’s social media has been
inundated with abuse. “I’m guessing that the organizer of this event is a huge
slut. Should be funny to watch!” wrote Ron Cox, a Facebook commenter from
Mississippi. “I'm going to post all of your pictures on Facebook so your
fathers can see how their daughters act at a liberal college,” a Texan named
C.W. Cooper wrote. “Skanks all of them,” a commenter named A.J. Hands wrote. “I
think the guys should all walk around with rubber boobs on and crying
everywhere, no problems with that huh ladies?” Garate told The Daily Beast her pals are already talking
about buying of burnt orange dildos in support of the campus’s colors. “It’s
really telling about our society and the way we glorify violence but then
vilify sex and sexuality. How can you be outraged about the idea of people
carrying dildos, but not all the people getting gunned down and the violence we
see day in and day out? I thought [the protest] was a pretty brilliant move.”
Is this really Wisconsin anymore, or just a backwater state of
thugs? Will travelers be afraid to even drive through America’s Dairyland
paradise? Correction, make that “Carryland” paradise.
I swear, if “Stand with Walker” voters don’t react to this,
it’s all over. WSJ:
Campus Carry: GOP lawmakers want to allow concealed weapons
in public college buildings: Analysis by the Legislative Reference Bureau This bill
exempts any college or university in the University of Wisconsin System and any
technical college from the law that allows a university or college to prohibit
a person from carrying a firearm in any building on its grounds if the person
holds a license to carry a concealed weapon.
You won’t even believe this mind numbing and irresponsible inclusion:
This bill also repeals the provision in the administrative
code in which the University of Wisconsin System generally prohibits persons
from carrying, possessing, or using any dangerous weapon on university lands or
in university buildings or facilities.
Seriously? It's a WTF right wing moment of shear hostility.
The bill … comes less than two weeks after a gunman
killed nine people at an Oregon community college.
This same GOP action is taking place in Texas, and students are holding a "Cocks not Glocks" protest, carrying dildos to class. (I'm posting this soon.)
Blame the same guy trying to vilify and keep transgender
kids out of restrooms in our schools; State Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum. Along for the ride, state Sen. Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg.
Elections have consequences, agreed, but I don't believe anyone expected this:
Kremer (said) that allowing students and others to carry
weapons would be a "deterrent" to crime on and around campuses.
The worst way to respond to this outlandish idea? God this
is so disappointing and so typical of the Democratic Party:
State Rep. Melissa Sargent, D-Madison, whose district
includes the Truax Campus of Madison Area Technical College: “I don’t see how
this adds to the safety on campus,” she said. “Having folks walk around with
concealed carry doesn’t make me feel safer.”
