Uppity Wisconsin

Go, Big Red takes on a whole new meaning in the US Senate race.

David Sirota post on Open Left blog:

I never thought we'd see a Republican Communist - and certainly not one who is the nominee for U.S. Senate in a major swing-state...

We can thank Wisconsin Republican Senate nominee Ron Johnson for at least being honest about his party's extremist vision. While most Americans probably don't see Chinese communism as the way forward, Republicans clearly do - and we can thank them, at minimum, for letting us know how they see the world.

He's not actually the nominee yet, but that little technicality will be taken care of on Sept. 14, when those socialist-hating Republicans give him their seal of approval.

The LaCrosse Tribune:

 

 

We have a suggestion for how Scott Walker can best use his ubiquitous brown bag.

 

Whenever the Milwaukee County executive is ready to unveil yet another insensitive campaign message, he should follow these simple steps:

 1) Open bag.

2) Place around mouth.

 3) Blow vigorously.

4) Take a deep breath.

5) Repeat, if necessary.

 6) If all else fails, inflate the bag once more and pop it.

Maybe then, Mr. Walker will wake up and smell the baloney.

Read the whole thing.

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a Republican in Democratic clothing, is facing a primary challenge from Chris Moews (pronounced Mays), a Milwaukee police lieutenant who's actually a Democrat.

And since there's a big GOP primary, which means Democrats might actually decide who gets the nomination, Clarke, although still the favorite, is a little worried.

His campaign's strategy is an interesting one;  Trying to make Moews seem like he's not really a Democrat, or not Democratic enough, at least.   Talk about the pot calling ...

Here's some hot news:

Johnson heavily outspending Feingold on television.

Ya think?

And such memorable stuff, too.  The Johnson Way:  Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Free, Strong and Independent.

Did we forget Clueless?

Scott Walker's tasteless and thoughtless new TV commercial, in which he dons boxing gloves and promises to come out swinging and keep on punching at Tom Barrett until he knocks his block off (that's not the language but it's the image) has gotten him a heap of publicity -- the kind you don't want, unless you subscribe to the theory that all publicity is good.

The Associated Press, which first pointed out that Walker was threatening to beat up a guy who'd already been beaten up when playing Good Samaritan last summer, Tom Barrett, asked a political science professor for an opinion (who knew it was a science?):

The fighting metaphor is a common one in politics, but the Walker campaign should have thought twice before using it against Barrett, said University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin.

"The Walker campaign doesn't have any strategic or tactical reason to want to remind voters of Barrett getting into a fight," Franklin said.

Word is that the Journal Sentinel is about to launch a big new project, with several staffers, to fact check statements being made during this election campaign.

 

Ho hum.  It will, of course, be a pox on everyone's houses.  It's totally predictable that no political statement will completely pass the newspaper's test.

 

Here's hoping they start there fact checking with the columns and blog of one Patrick McIlheran, a JS employee who never lets an inconvenient fact get in the way of his  right-wing agenda.

 

His editors clearly aren't up to it.  Maybe the new team will be.

 

Wanna bet?

 

UPDATE: If Paddy's too close to home, they could always check Cousin Charlie's report on the Pelosi fundraiser that never was.

 

Best blog headline of the week, from former Madison Ald. Brenda Konkel: "Am I running for mayor?"

Reminiscent of the debate opener by James Stockdale, onetime admiral who was running for vice president with Ross Perot in 1992.

Asked LeMay: "Who am I am and what am I doing here?"

No one seemed to know.

Some big news in Sunday's Journal Sentinel:

Democratic candidates in Wisconsin have quit campaigning for office, apparently because August is too humid or something.

Scott Walker and Mark Neumann are campaigning and so is Ron Johnson.   Apparently their opponents are too lazy or have just given up.

Johnson, by  the way, is still telling the story about his daughter's health problem, and the newspaper is still reprinting it, even though it has nothing at all to do with the health care reform bill passed this year.

POSTSCRIPT:  Almost forgot.  Look for some political commercials and issue papers from candidates promising to stop the 'brain drain" from Wisconsin, now that a right-wing group has done a poll showing people think that's a problem.  What would be more useful would be a study to find out whether it really is a problem, like the study awhile back that showed the story about retirees leaving Wisconsin because of high taxes wasn't true.  But it's campaign season, so perceptions outweigh fact

" Say that quickly five times.

What Scott Walker's doing is not even mildly amusing, however.  It could mean taking away health coverage for as many as 350,000 Wisconsin residents.

For a year now, Walker's been bashing BadgerCare, one of Wisconsin's proudest accomplishments, which gives access to health care coverage for children, expectant mothers, and people whose employers don't provide health insurance coverage.

It's one of the state's real success stories.  But Walker has repeatedly attacked it, calling the program "an example of government waste," and callilng for time limits on how long people can be on the program.

He hasn't just said it once, and it was no slip of the tongue, as he tried to say after his debate with Msrk Neumann this week.  Here's what he said in the debate:

It was supposed to be a temporary safety net for people as they went from welfare into the workforce and it was [sic] be a temporary step up as they moved into permanent employment. Instead, under this governor, we’ve had the time limits go away and we see a permanent entitlement created, and that has brought about all sorts of fraud and abuse, and problems not only there, but with the childcare component as well.

Ron Johnson, the Senate candidate who says government should butt out and quit trying to help businesses create jobs, because "Government doesn't create jobs -- the private sector creates jobs" -- hasn't minded a little government help for his own business now and then.

WKOW-TV in Madison, which seems to own the exclusive rights to any investigative stories about Johnson, has another one. While the GOP gov candidates rail against high speed rail, Johnson found one rail line he liked:

A railroad line to Senate candidate Ron Johnson's plastics factory was built with the assistance of a federal grant.

According to documents from the Oshkosh city clerk's office, an Urban Development Action Grant in the amount of $75,000 was used to build a rail spur to Pacur, a plastics manufacturing company owned by Johnson.

The city resolution approving the grant was passed on March 15, 1979, the year the Oshkosh factory was built.

The money for the line went to Wisconsin Industrial Shipping Supplies, owned by Johnson's brother-in-law, Pat Curler.

WKOW-TV in Madison continues to lead the way in investigative coverage of US Senate candidate Ron Johnson, who must wish he'd never done an interview with the station's Capitol bureau chief, Bob Schaper. The latest:

A company co-owned by U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson received a government-issued loan to expand its factory in the 1980s.

In an interview with 27 News on Aug. 17, Johnson railed against government subsidies for businesses and products.

"I'm in business," he said. "I have never lobbied for some special treatment or for a government payment."

He went on to say, "When you subsidize things…it doesn't work through the free market system very well."

According to a July 19, 1985, article published in the Oshkosh Northwestern, a $2.5 million industrial development revenue bond was approved by the Oshkosh Common Council on July 18, 1985. An article in the same newspaper, dated Feb. 16, 1986, said Pacur Inc., co-owned by Johnson, used the money to build a 40,000-square-foot addition.

Industrial development revenue bonds are issued by local governments to spur growth.

Ron Johnson, in the Journal Sentinel:

Johnson’s most pointed comments were directed at Feingold, saying that when he and other senators “come out and start demanding a U.S. pullout and that kind of thing in public, it just undermines what our troops are trying to do.”

Said Johnson: “That’s not saying if you have real grave concerns as a member of Congress you should not be talking to the administration. It’s just extremely harmful to our nation when it’s all done in public.”

Asked whether he was saying it’s improper for Feingold or other senators to be speaking out publicly against the war, Johnson said: “I guess what I really object to is how quick and early he has been throughout his career (to criticize military action) . . . he has been carping about this from the sidelines forever.”

Johnson then repeated his suggestion that when there are troops in the field, lawmakers opposed to U.S. policy should be expressing their opposition in private rather than in public.

“There’s an appropriate way of opposing a policy and an inappropriate way,” he said. “The appropriate way if I’m a U.S. senator is going to be not public.

A Journal Sentinel editorial:

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker should fire John Chianelli immediately as part of the effort to eradicate problems at the county's Mental Health Complex.

But Walker should not stop there. He should insist that any Mental Health Complex employees who knowingly falsified documents or otherwise failed to do their jobs be shown the door. Their failures allowed a known predator, Omowale Atkins, to viciously sexually assault patients and impregnate one of them.

Even though the Journal Sentinel Watchdog team has shown a pattern of neglect and mismanagement at the complex, it appears very little discipline has been meted out. Heads need to roll, and that should begin with Chianelli, administrator of the Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division. He is in charge of the Mental Health Complex.

But it should not stop there, either. Walker, who points fingers in every direction but his own whenever there is a problem in county government, owns this one.

He needs to take some responsiblity himself for allowing this to happen. It did not happen overnight, but after an extended period of neglect on Walker's watch.  And he has defended the decision-makers.

The idea that he is running for governor on his record as county executive should make people laugh -- or perhaps cry.

His record on how he treats some of society's most vulnerable speaks volumes about his priorities and his character.

Shame on Scott Walker.

There's a little game of trivial pursuit being played by the right wing, trying to identify people who appear in a Feingold for Senate television commercial.

In the same spirit of good, clean fun we offer our own collection of ne'er-do-wells to see if anyone can attach a name.

 Hint: He was involved in a campaign law violation that resulted in the biggest fines and most severe punishment in memory, if not in Wisconsin history.

This bozo was caught testifying against child abuse victims trying to sue their abusers.

And this guy was convicted of three felonies for abusing the public trust and his elected office, but remains at large while cutting a deal with a political ally to get off virtually Scott (that's a hint) free.

No pr

Not long ago, right-wingers were all atwitter about a Feingold for Senate commercial which used the nameplate with the name Elizabeth Ackland to represent someone getting a job because of the federal stimulus program.

She's not a real person, they declared, as if there was something wrong with using symbolism in a television commercial.  Since Republicans often use actors instead of real people, -- and lie about it -- they had a hard time selling their phony outrage.

At the time, we were reminded that one reason not to use real people in commercials is that they are stalked by people like Michelle Malkin, who's likely to show up, interview their neighbors, poke through their garbage, and try to make their lives a living hell.

Now the state Republican Party is complaining that Joanne Ricca, who lobbies for the state AFL-CIO, is one of the real people in a Feingold spot that's currently on the air, criticizing Ron Johnson for wanting to end unemployment comp