Recall Mania

I probably shouldn't be surprised given the NW's strong words for Randy Hopper last week, but the paper came out and endorsed Jessica King today. Anyone who thinks these recalls are anything other than a referendum on Scott Walker would do well to read it:

Gov. Scott Walker ran on a platform of asking government workers to pay a greater share of their health and pension costs. He told the editorial board in late October he would accomplish that through tough negotiations with union leaders, contrasting concessions with the need for large-scale layoffs of workers without cost savings. We think asking workers to contribute a greater share of costs was fair and justified, but disagree with the steps the governor took in February. In fact, when we endorsed Walker, we cautioned: "Walker's ultimate success as governor will depend greatly on his ability to work constructively with state employees. He must not fall into the trap of demonizing state workers."

Just days before Walker introduced his budget repair bill, we warned the governor about exercising the "nuclear option" of outlawing collective bargaining. The governor took that step without holding a single negotiating session with unions. Furthermore, the rollbacks enacted by the Legislature amid the drumbeat of protesters contain provisions that seriously undermine the ability of unions to collect dues and remain certified. Those steps, like others, were not taken to balance a budget, but to cripple the political opposition and guarantee Republican majorities for a generation. Consider what's happened since the recall drives were initiated, including:

» Drafting legislative and Congressional re-districting maps in secret that favor Republicans and passing the new boundaries and procedures to change the process in less than two weeks with a single public hearing.

» Rolling out a statewide expansion of private and religious school vouchers following a speech by Walker to a special interest group in Washington.

» Eroding local control of local governments and school districts with blanket restrictions on property tax rates.

» Passing a budget that gradually reduces taxes on agriculture and manufacturing profits to near zero while increasing taxes on the poor and seniors through the Earned Income and Homestead taxes.

» An ill-advised plan to break up the UW System and later in the state budget cutting $800 million from K-12 education, reducing aid to the Technical College System and maintaining large tuition increases at public university campuses across the state.

» Restricting women's access to health care and capping enrollments in BadgerCare, a health insurance program for the poor.

These are all measures championed by Hopper, who sat on the powerful Joint Finance Committee. Hopper's seat is one of three needed to switch to give Democrats a majority in the senate.

So far as I've been able to look, which admittedly hasn't been all that far, the NW is the first paper to wade into recall endorsements. They explain their rationale for doing so here. I thought most papers would let the recalls slide and still don't plan on hearing much from any others before Tuesday.

It's hard to say what's going to happen on Tuesday, especially up here in the 18th district. The last poll had King up by about 10 points (but take that with a grain of salt, since I sure as hell have never seen the polling company's product vetted publicly before). There were canvassers for We Are Wisconsin criss-crossing the city all weekend (they were hard to miss in the bright red shirts), but I'm reticent to put too much faith in an organization that's basically a ad hoc committee in charge of spending a ton of cash donated in a collective fit of pique. On the other hand, if this election is to be decided by Christian Schneider-penned lap dances at NRO, then King is done for (though Schnieder's latest still doesn't hold a candle to this piece of hagiographic dreck).

Aside from yard signs, I haven't seen much activity from Hopper in Oshkosh. I actually did see him at Waterfest several weeks ago. He was accompanied by a pudgy dude in what may have been penny loafers and khaki shorts who was thumbing through a Blackberry incessantly. I assume that was his campaign manager.

Then there's the mail ... all that fucking mail. It genuinely feels like I've gotten more campaign literature in the mail this time around than any other election season I can remember -- including presidential ones. Now that might be something of an exaggeration, but there's just a ton of it. And it's all really big -- like 10" x 14" -- and glossy and colorful and expensive looking. I don't have the pathological loathing for negative mailings that most people do, but even I have my limits.

The biggest surprise, however, has been the utter lack of TV ads for this race. I haven't seen one from either campaign and only a smattering of anti-Hopper ads from third parties, and nothing in several weeks (the Olsen/Clark race is another story). Ditto radio. It'd be nice to think that it will all be over on Wednesday, but the unfortunate state of affairs is that it will just be beginning.

So gird your loins and get ready for a long night.

The "New Look" Packers

This could be interesting [NYT]:

If you thought the N.F.L. lockout was tough as a fan, imagine being a head coach.

These men are accustomed to 20-hour workdays and sleeping in cots at team headquarters. They are not the kind of people who kick back with Angry Birds for an hour. Down time is not something they handle well.

For at least one coach, idle hands were the devil’s playbook. Green Bay’s Mike McCarthy added 47 new “schematic concepts” to his playbook during the lockout. Anyone who watched the Packers use everything from empty backfields to T-formations last year must wonder how many more schematic concepts there can possibly be: all that’s left is for receivers to stand on one another’s shoulders and fullbacks to dangle from trapezes.

"When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

From the Texas Tribune:

Organizers of The Response were thrilled to see more than 30,000 people join them at Reliant Stadium on Saturday, but the event billed as a day for praying and fasting made some concessions for those who were too hungry to get through the seven-hour revival.

Event spokesman Eric Bearse said the stadium required that concession stands remain open, so speakers told the audience early on they were welcome to eat between worshiping. Many took the advice to heart: Long lines of people waited for the chance to buy nachos, hot dogs, smoothies and beverages in the stadium's mezzanine.

Walt Landers of San Angelo was finishing up a hot dog when The Texas Tribune approached him for an interview. He said he made a last-minute decision to drive to Houston from West Texas this morning with no idea the event included fasting.

Landers said he skipped lunch, but by 4 p.m. he couldn't resist. He was starving. 

"That's the agreement I made with God earlier. I have fasted plenty of times in the past in exercising my faith," he said, adding that he believes in "giving up something up for God, so you can pursue him in a stronger way."

Photo via Dave Weigel.

See Matthew 6:16-18.

"A kids’ area was set up in the Jose Cuervo Cantina on the stadium’s south side."

Cuervo and kids: a winning combination.

"I really highly doubt the lieutenant governor is going to a bar where they don't wear pants on a night when they don't wear pants."

Pretty awesome.

Annals of Shitty Timing

Couldn't this kind of news waited, oh I don't know, like another week:

A state worker with ties to Senator Randy Hopper who received a 35% salary boost when hired in February is leaving her position.

[...]

Sources have identified Cass as a woman in a relationship with Senator Hopper (R-Fond du Lac).   Hopper,  45 ,  is involved in a pending divorce.   Earlier this year,  Hopper’s estranged wife stated Hopper lived primarily in Madison and was involved in an affair with a unnamed woman of Cass’ age.     Hopper bought a home near Fond du Lac last month,  after previously living in an apartment on the property of one of the employees of a radio station Hopper owns,  to satisfy senate district residency requirements.

So, just a reminder: RANDY HOPPER TOTALLY HAD AN AFFAIR AND THAT'S JUST ONE MORE THING YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU GO INTO THE VOTING BOOTH NEXT TUESDAY.

The Islamophobic Hard Right Really aren't any Different from 9/11 Truthers

This is a rather refreshing slice of sanity from Chris Christie:

At this juncture, it may be more efficient to highlight which interactions between New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and the media are not newsworthy. The Republican’s appointment of Muslim-American Sohail Mohammed to a state bench this week ruffled some feathers among some who fear the threat of Sharia Law, but when asked about those concerns, Gov. Christie made clear he had no patience for such “ignorance,” calling the complaints “crap.”

“Ignorance is behind the criticism of Sohail Mohammed,” he told a reporter asking about the complaints that he may be inadequate to be a judge because he defended Muslim Americans who were wrongly arrested post-9/11. “He is an extraordinary American who is an outstanding lawyer and played an integral role in the post-September 11th period in building bridges between the Muslim American community in this state and law enforcement,” Gov. Christie argued, adding that he was “disgusted, candidly, by some of the questions he was asked… at the Senate judiciary committee.”

But it was a follow-up question on the fear of Sharia Law that set the governor off. “Sharia Law has nothing to do with this at all, it’s crazy!” he cried. “The guy is an American citizen!” He concluded that the “Sharia Law business is just crap… and I’m tried of dealing with the crazies,” adding with disgust and frustration that “it’s just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background.”

(For those on the left who fail to see the appeal of Christie's bullying tactics, you have to admit it's kind of nice to see when he's making your point for you. That, and he is governor of a state known for its Darwinian principles of social management.)

Unfortunately, Christie's views are apparently the minority view in the GOP. Do check out Eli Lake's extended assessment of the current crop of GOP presidential contender's foreign policy philosophies. Among the more outlandish segments of the piece is this nugget from supposedly serious candidate Tim Pawlenty's camp:

“[Michelle Bachmann] really gets it that there is a stealth jihad by radical Islamists in this country,” says Sarah Stern, the president and founder of the Endowment for Middle East Truth. Stern recalls a conversation that she had with Bachmann in the congresswoman’s office in October 2010. Stern says Bachmann was talking about “the depth of radical Islam in Minneapolis.” (Minneapolis was the site of a longtime operation by Al Shabab to recruit Somali-Americans to fight in Somalia.) “She actually said, ‘Right here, coming to a theater near you, we have stealth jihad in Minnesota,’” Stern told me approvingly.

[...]

BACHMANN’S VIEWS on sharia are apparently popular enough that Tim Pawlenty—who planned to run as the conservative alternative to Romney, but has found himself eclipsed by Bachmann—has felt the need to nod in the same direction. In March, Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Pawlenty campaign, told Politico that the governor personally shut down a sharia-compliant finance program in Minnesota, because “the United States should be governed by the U.S. Constitution, not religious laws.” And, when I asked Conant whether his candidate believed there was a threat to the Constitution from sharia, he said yes. “He does think there is a threat from sharia or any religious law or international law of undermining U.S. law and the Constitution,” Conant explained. “The threat is the courts would look to sharia law instead of the U.S. Constitution, and the governor would vigorously oppose this.”

I have to give Conant, an ex-editor of the Badger Herald, a lot of credit for being able to utter such remarkable bullshit with a straight face, especially given just how much this nonsense is just how couched it is in race-baiting and xenophobia. I understand this is standard operating procedure to bring base voters to the polls by creating boogie men -- and both parties do it -- but this particular bout of chest-pounding is particularly strange given Bachmann and Pawlenty's Minnesotan origins.


It's fairly well-known by now that the Twin Cities have a large Somali ex-pat population. The numbers aren't necessarily huge, but the community tends to stick out in a largely homogenous state. Lake omits this detail in his story. It should come as little surprise that an organization in the homeland, especially a bad one, looks to recruit and fund-raise from ex-pats abroad--the IRA, after all, was raising money in New York and Boston up through the 1990s. Ipso facto, according to Pawlenty and Bachmann, sharia law is slowly taking over the North Star State.


Lake also reminds his readers of the Frank Gaffney, the Islamophobic nutcase whose rantings are quickly becoming more and more unhinged with each passing day. As Luck would have it, Gaffney is currently espousing the utterly unsubstantiated theory that the manifesto of the murder responsible for the recent mass killings in Norway was planted as part of a "false flag operation" by the Muslim Brotherhood.


I bring this up because the phrase "false flag operation" should trigger a few alarms among people, like myself, who have a morbid curiosity with how conspiracy theories evolve and travel among the 9/11 Truther lunatic jetset. "False flag operations" are the conspiracy theorists' equant -- the abstract construction Ptolemy used to prove the universe revolved around the Earth. It should seem a little odd that two camps with diametrically opposed views are now adopting the same tactics to advance their respective points.


Or should it? Since Osama bin Laden was killed earlier this year it seems like the folks who have spent the last decade screaming like Cassandra of the imminent takeover of Islam now seem wrong. But when crazy people are given evidence that demonstrates the wrongness of their convictions, they don't change their minds: they double down. The next step is usually to apply their twisted worldviews to other areas and thus construct entirely new conspiracy theories from whole cloth, something noted Islamophobe Pamela Geller did three years ago when she gave mankind the Barack Obama is really Malcolm X's bastard son theory. Pretty soon Geller, Gaffney, Robert Spencer et al. will have constructed an entire alternative world history filled to the gills with enough conspiratorial nonsense to make even Moulder and Scully roll their eyes.


When we went looking for the reasons why Kevin Barrett believed all the crazy shit he believed we found that the common denominator underlying each pillar of his worldview was antisemitism. Somehow or in some way, whatever point Barrett tries to advance all comes back to the Jews. For the Islamophobic right, it's the same story, only with Muslims and couched in the delicate language of a think tank white paper:

Ever since 2003, when the thrust of the War On Terror stopped being the defeat of America’s enemies and decisively shifted to nation-building, we have insisted—against history, law, language, and logic—that Islamic culture is perfectly compatible with and hospitable to Western-style democracy,” McCarthy has written. “It is not, it never has been, and it never will be.

That extract from the Lake piece was written by Andrew McCarthy. It appeared in National Review earlier this year and its the very sentiment Chris Christie denounced at the very beginning of the post. At best, McCarthy's statement is a willfully negligent of the history of Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan (not the best example, I know, but one whose variables do more to explain the why democracy has trouble taking root in the Middle East as opposed to other parts of the Muslim world) and, the world's largest Muslim country, Indonesia (see also Bangladesh, Mali and Senegal). At worst, it's a throwback to the kind of racist justifications used in defense of colonialism during the 19th century.

And it's an opinion pervasive among just about every GOP presidential candidate, except Mitt Romney, who perhaps better than any of his colleagues understands what it's like to be a religious minority whose faith is poorly understood by the rest of the country. One of the most important things George Bush did during his entire presidency was reach out to the Muslim community immediately -- and I mean without hesitation -- after 9/11 and then continue to make the distinction between radical and mainstream Islam. There's no question that prevented a deluge of suspicion and recriminations in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks. I seriously doubt that most of the GOP candidates running for President would have done the same thing.

Then again, maybe this burgeoning pillar of GOP foreign policy is a reaction to Bush's efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East, a way for the party to collectively wipe it's hands clean of the failure. It's the exact opposite of neocon theory that democracy would quickly flower in Iraq, all it needed was a push. But the current crop of GOP White House hopefuls seem to have taken away a stunningly simplistic lesson from the misadventure in Iraq: Islam and democracy don't mix. It's only a matter of time before we start getting a revisionist account about how the Iraq invasion would have worked if not for the stubborn Muslims who just couldn't seem to grasp the concept of freedom.

Again, I don't know if this is just an issue the GOP uses to whip the base up into a frenzy or if they actually believe this drivel (or even if there a difference between the two anymore), but if notion that democracy and Islam are incomparable is as influential an idea as Lake claims, it will not be long before wild-eyed nutters will be sounding like Kevin Barrett, only they'll be doing it from behind a lectern during a presidential debate. Maybe only then this idea will finally sound as stupid to their ears as it should.

“It takes balls to execute an innocent man.”

From Politico:

Veterans of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s unsuccessful 2010 primary challenge to [Gov. Rick] Perry recalled being stunned at the way attacks bounced off the governor in a strongly conservative state gripped by tea party fever. Multiple former Hutchison advisers recalled asking a focus group about the charge that Perry may have presided over the execution of an innocent man — Cameron Todd Willingham — and got this response from a primary voter: “It takes balls to execute an innocent man.”

 If you aren't familiar with the mind-blowing details of the Willingham case, best learn yourself here.

The Two Faces of Randy Hopper

As if getting bitch-slapped by the Northwestern earlier this week wasn't enough (and we should probably point out that the language used in the editorial condemning Hopper is the strongest the NW uses), Hopper is back in the saddle again today bragging about killing collective bargaining:

Further proof that the collective bargaining changes implemented in the budget are working, today the Fond du Lac School district announced that they will be able to eliminate an anticipated $4.4 million dollar deficit simply with the tools that they were provided in the 2011-2013 budget proposal. Following this announcement, Senator Randy Hopper (R-Empire) issued the following statement.

“This is great news for students, teachers, and residents of the Fond du Lac School District. They were able to eliminate a $4.4 million budget shortfall without laying off one teacher, without increasing the class size, and were able to replace 100% of teachers who retired (43). Parents will be happy to know that when their kids return to the class room in September, there will be no impact on their kid’s education.” 

I'm sure Hopper told the folks in the photo below the exact same thing the day this picture was taken:

Randy Hopper: He's lied to his wife, he's lied to voters -- is there anyone else out there he hasn't lied to yet?

Scott Walker's Free Fall Among Female Voters

We Ask America is one of those newish polling firms that shows up every now and then with a Wisconsin-related poll and it's most recent is probably the most interesting it's conducted to date. Here's a take-away from the poll:

As we’ve seen before, there are few sitting on the public-opinion sidelines when it comes to Walker or the president. However, there appears to be a pronounced gender gap, with men siding more for Walker and against Obama. This gap is wider than we’ve witnessed in presidential approval ratings in other states–but Wisconsin has always marched to it’s own drum beat. In past privately conducted Wisconsin-based polls, we’ve seen men’s shift of opinion precede those by  women, but there have been some exceptions to that trend so it is unclear that will happen here. Locals at least partially attribute the continued bad numbers among females to the governor’s war with unions representing teachers. [Emphasis in the original.]

And here are the numbers:

APPROVE	DISAPPROVE	NEUTRAL/UNSURE
Scott Walker	45.15%	52.62%	3.92%
By Gender
FEMALE:	36.70%	60.55%	2.75%
MALE:	53.72%	44.58%	1.70%

[Sorry for the crooked labeling -- copying and pasting these things are a pain.]

Walker is tanking with women and hard. This is an enormous problem for Walker since last fall he only lost Wisconsin women by 3% during an election when women accounted for only 50% of voters. (As we've noted before, women made up 53% of voters in 2006.) Walkers numbers with women are so bad that only a repeal of the 19th Amendment could give him a chance at surviving recall, even if the gender split among voters remains the same as it did in 2010.

We've been harping on the importance of women voters in Wisconsin for a few years now. We may have been wrong about specific female candidates, but we sure as hell haven't been wrong about female voters. If women show up to the polls, Scott Walker is doomed; as long as they don't, he has a better than fighting chance.

Randy Hopper's 18 Ways in 18 Days Campaign -- Day 1: I'm a Liar!

Here's a press release from the Randy Hopper campaign:

“With 18 days to go, I will call attention to the stark differences between me and my opponent each day through election day. The voters of the 18th district deserve to know the candidate’s position on the various issues facing their state and I look forward to providing the differences between me and my opponent."

Starting this gimmick on a day that the Milwaukee Jounral Sentinel calls you a "ridiculous" liar is probably not the best timing.

"Translation: You want to keep that national championship trophy and that $3 million-a-year job, big boy? Then stuff a wad of Bobby Lowder's cash in your piehole and shut up!"

I have very little sympathy for Auburn.

Proof that Juliane Appling is a Liar

"I love your country. The people are nice."

-- Juliane Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, to a reporter for the French daily Le Monde.

David VanderLeest: I Have Only Begun to Crazy!!!

DVL's dropped his last joint of campaign 2011 and it did not disappoint:

We received a higher percentage of votes in yesterday’s election than the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s endorsed candidate, in the 2008 general election against Hansen. We ran a clean campaign with no money to speak of. With these things considered, I am personally happy with the outcome of the general election results. Moving forward I am going to continue to work for the people of NE Wisconsin. I am going to launch a campaign to display the 10 commandments in the Brown County Courthouse. 

That last line was totally worth the price of admission. The good news is that we haven't heard the last from DVL. The better news is that he's decided to pick a fight that he knows full well he has no chance of winning, like Don Quixote tilting at courthouse-shaped windmills. That can only mean much more entertainment to come.


For those who need a reminder, a nativity scene displayed at the Green Bay city hall back in 2009 caused something of a stir (not to mention a lawsuit or two). The Supreme Court has also been explicitly clear this issue as well. Basically, DVL's press release is a pledge that he will remain a belligerent, cancerous barnacle on the hull of the ship of state.

Should be fun.

The Green Bay Police Department should Release it's Report into the Recall Hansen Office Break-in

Now that the charade up in Green Bay is over, the local press or, at the very least, the state Dems should push for the GBPD to release it's findings into it's investigation into the supposed break-in at the David VanderLeest-run recall office in April. DVL repeated tossed around wild accusations during his campaign that now make the break-in look dubious at best, such as this doosie:

As the election headed into its home stretch, VanderLeest made such statements as, "None of it's true. I don't smoke rocks, and that's the truth," and threatened to sue Hansen and various Democratic groups for slander. (He also claimed to have learned that there was an investigation against these groups for racketeering. The source: A complaint filed by a supporter close to his campaign.)

So he hasn't proved himself above planting controversies.

Dems are terrible when it comes to following up on shit like this. Every year there are hundreds of reports of voter intimidation and suppression that go unreported by the party because they simply throw their hands up after an election and say, "Well, it's too late now." The state Dems cannot let this type of bullshit slide anymore.

For the last decade the GOP has been peddling the falsehood about voter fraud in Wisconsin, and they've done it so well that it's basically become a teach-the-controversy-type issue for the state press. The state Dems need to attack these allegations with the same ferocity and aggressiveness with which they attacked suspect recall signatures these last few months. This will probably be a long and even expensive process, but it will be worth to bring attention to just how much dodgy nonsense occurs on a regular basis in Wisconsin.

I'm talking about mysterious fliers that show up on people's doorsteps informing them of the wrong polling place, rampant misinformation campaigns on every college campus in the state and God knows what else that occurs in minority voting wards in the greater Milwaukee area. In an ideal world, the robocalls sent out by Wisconsin Right to Life last week -- legal though they may be -- would still earn a strong rebuke from the GAB and guidance on how to avoid such stunts in the future. This never happens and it should start with the GB break-in.

Wisconsin Dems seem content with just putting "election protection" attorneys in targeted polling places. That's fine, and important, but the problem is that most of the shit elections need to be protected from occur outside the polling place. This out-of-sight-out-of-mind silliness, coupled with a general propensity to believe the statute of limitations that covers all the extralegal crap pulled during an election ends when the sunrises the day after the polls close, costs the Dems immeasurably. "Election mop-up" should be a full-time job at the party and it should be treated as just as important as communication or research, etc. This won't happen any time soon, of course, but it should.

And it should start with the break-in police report. The physical evidence at the scene -- that preposterous broken window -- and DVL's subsequent actions all suggest that this was less of a robbery and more of a sympathy stunt. I sincerely doubt the GBPD's report will point fingers at anyone given the sensitive nature of the incident, and an "inconclusive" conclusion is probably a safe bet, but casting further doubt on the original accusation is an important part of winning the message battle and it's a step that universally ignored by state Dems.

The Worst Candidate Since Tom Reynolds

Congrats, I guess, to Kim Simac on winning her GOP primary. For her troubles she will now receive unrelenting horrible press, nonstop ridicule and continuous condescending blog posts from the likes of yours truly.

Simac is just about the worst possible candidate imaginable and is the personification of just how unseriously the GOP have taken these recalls. Anyone who thought Dave VanderLeest got it rough these last few weeks are in for a wonderful surprise. Simac is a raving lunatic and is completely oblivious to her position on the fringe of American life. This should be a pick-up district for the GOP -- instead they're watching it pass by like a slow floater through the strike zone. Well played ... if you want to hear wife-swapping jokes for the next 4 weeks.

The District 22 race was also a race to the bottom of sorts: less than 10,000 total GOP voters came out to choose their nominee. The average vote total for the victorious Dems over the fake Dems in last week's bullshit primary was 19,200. Throw in the fact that Johnathan Steitz is basically a FIP and this district is essentially a lost cause.

Dave VanderLeest's thinks he's Elliot Ness in his Final Press Release

We might get a couple more, but if this were the last then DVL would be going out on top:

Thank you all for coming today,

Seriously, that's how it begins. I don't know if this was the script he used for a press conference that never materialized or what, but the statement thanks the reader for coming without providing any context.

False accusations have plagued this campaign. False slander Chicago style mob politics must stop in WI. The buck stops here. We are not going to allow these tactics to destroy tangible debates on real issues which face WI. The people will stand not for it, and neither will I. I truth is I was never found guilt of Domestic Violence in the State of WI. I was given primary care of my child in a messy divorce, and was never found guilty of abusing anyone. For these reasons I will be filling a slander lawsuit against Friends of Dave Hansen, DLCC, Greater WI Political Fund, We are WI, Politiscoop, The Green Bay Progressive, and One WI Now.

There's just so much to love from this. "False slander Chicago style mob politics must stop in WI." False slander? As opposed to the true slander? Chicago-style mob politics -- like the kind that seems to be tailing the candidate in an unmarked van with Illinois plates? Good stuff!

"I truth is I was never found guilt of Domestic Violence in the State of WI." Is DVL suggesting that there may be states in which he has been convicted of domestic violence? And way to capitalize domestic violence, as if we didn't understand just how serious the issue was in the first place. Now back to the good part!

I was given primary care of my child in a messy divorce, and was never found guilty of abusing anyone. For these reasons I will be filling a slander lawsuit against Friends of Dave Hansen, DLCC, Greater WI Political Fund, We are WI, Politiscoop, The Green Bay Progressive, and One WI Now. 

So this press release has little to do with DVL's campaign, but everything to do with his lawsuit. Now, I ain't got me none of that there fancy legal learning, so correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't one sue another party for libel when malicious statements are made in the press, not slander? And wouldn't one's lawyer make that distinction for his client before said client issued a press release? Something tells me this lawsuit isn't going to go very far.

Yet with such a commanding understanding of the law, DVL marches forward with this bold accusation:

We have also learned today Friends of Dave Hansen (Dave and Jane Hansen), Greater Wisconsin Political Fund, Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), We are Wisconsin, The Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Brown County Democratic Party, and One Wisconsin Now are being investigated by the Government Accountability Board, and The WI Dept of Justice for civil and criminal RICO violations stemming from coordinating campaigns, which violate campaign finance and election law in WI. For anyone to say all these slanderous mailings along with the various slanderous TV commercials ran against me were not coordinated would be a complete denial of the obvious. 

RICO? Really? Something tells me the GAB doesn't have much authority to investigate any entity under the RICO act.

Thank you, I will not be answering any questions, all questions can be directed to my attorney Robert Gerald Lorge. 920-739-8080 

Bob Lorge! His name is kinda like the Steve Holt of Wisconsin.

Anyway, it will be interesting to find out if this frivolous lawsuit is being paid for from DVL's meager campaign coffer's or out of pocket as a personal expense (there really isn't much difference, except for the important legal distinction, which actually makes the issue very important).

More to the point, this is now like the third asinine claim DVL's made since the infamous Recall office break-in back in April. I hope that Green Bay area Dems remain conscientious about that incident because the crazier that DVL's accusations get, the more likely it is that he was the one who committed the break-in to win sympathy.

MORE: Yup, totally right about the whole libel thing. TPM went to the state DOJ and actually got a copy of the complaint filed by DVL and it's amazing:

It is evidence [sic.] that these groups are working together, pooling resources, staff, and coordinating their efforts in Senator Hansen's recall race. I make this complaint in good faith, and will look forward to the outcome of your investigation into the matter. The coordination of these groups is not legal in WI. Any person with eyes can see after reviewing the material sent to homes, or from watching TV ads sponsored by these various groups, that a direct violation of campaign law has occurred.

Shorter Ron Johnson: What Should I Care if a Terrorist Kills Someone in New York? At Least it wasn't Me

Read the passage below, then, when you're done, read it again a little more carefully:


RoJo was recently on Bloomberg's "Political Capital with Al Hunt," a program that focuses on the federal government. Anyone who has followed Johnson knows the senator loves to say "Obamacare" is the single greatest assault on Americans' freedom in his lifetime. It is a Johnson classic; his "Stairway to Heaven."
For the record, in the senator's lifetime, America has endured segregation, the Cold War and the threat of terrorism. That fact was not lost on Hunt, who pressed Johnson about his oft-repeated refrain and asked him specifically about the threat of communism.
"I wasn't threatened under communism," Johnson countered.
"You weren't threatened by terrorism?" Hunt asked.
RoJo paused, then said, "I'm talking about things that are imposed on me by this, by our government in America."

So far, Chris Walker and Xoff have both pointed this exchange out. Walker points out the absurdity of the statement, something that Johnson clumsily tries to gloss over by restricting his statement strictly to domestic policy. But there's really something more astonishing about Johnson's tacit claim that he wasn't threatened by terrorism that worth exploring: namely, how unspeakably

Must be a Full Moon

Man, what a weird fucking day.

The returns are rolling in from Scott Fitzgerald's $500,000 Fake Primaries and it looks like the whole ordeal was a pointless as it was from the very beginning, despite a concerted effort on the part of the GOP to fuck with the Dems.

How to interpret the returns is anyone's guess. The closest race was in the 10th where Shelley Moore seems to be holding off Isaac Weix. This is also the district with the highest volume of voters and by a long shot. Unfortunately, that district is on the other side of the state from we here at the Chief, so it's hard to say too much about it. What we do know is that Weix ran for the Assembly in 2010, so all he had to do was pull his old campaign out of the mothballs and dust off some of his residual name recognition and he was off to a good start. The same can't be said anywhere else.

The lowest voter volume was about 20,000 ballots, which is enormous. Coincidentally, there were also six senate primaries last fall, but the vote totals weren't as consistent: ~32,700, ~14,700, ~12,800, ~17,200, ~13,100, ~22,100. So despite the fact that these elections are being held in the middle of summer, more people are voting this time around than last. That's either a testament to the various get out the vote drives being waged, the awareness of the voters or a combination of the two.

Given the deluge of advertising the state's in for in the next month, it's entirely possible (albeit unlikely) that we could see some districts cross the 100,000 ballots cast threshold, which would be extraordinary.

David VanderLeest is being Followed!!!

He may be dead in the water, but, boy, does VanderLeest put out some awesome press releases:

Once again I have been a victim of theft. Last night my car was broken into, window broke, etc. My Computer was stolen along with the list of recall circulators. My bet is, it was the thugs that have been tailing me with Illinois plates for the last three weeks. This is just one man's opinion. This is the second break in. I was a victim once during the recall, and now again during the campaign. [sic.]

Wow. This is just wonderful stuff. Thugs with Illinois plates? What an evocative image!

Technically speaking, the first "break-in" didn't actually target VanderLeest, but the Recall Hansen office; but it's still interesting that this guy seems to always have his lists stolen in rather dramatic break-ins a couple of days before some deadline or event.

Note how the the press release doesn't mention anything about a police report being filed.

TOTALLY UNRELATED ASIDE: This bit in a recall primer by Abe Sauer in the Atlantic:

District 2 Democratic Primary: Nancy Nusbaum vs. protest candidate Otto Junkerman to face Republican Senator Robert Cowles.

Trivia: A one-term Republican state representative in the 1980s, octogenarian Otto C. Junkerman called the police on his own son for drug use. Junkerman's wife promptly divorced him.

Fuck You, Jonathan Krause, Vol. XLVI

After reading Johnathan Krause's account of "dealing" with a local homeless person you will have nothing but contempt for this dickless swine. 

Is there any other way to Look at this other than the GOP Completely Absolving Itself from Deficit Reduction Responsibilities?

That's just an initial reaction, mind you:

Under McConnell odd plan, the President could get a clean, no-strings-attached debt ceiling increase of $2.5 trillion, but he would have to endure three politically treacherous votes that would allow upwards of two-thirds of the Congress to be on record disapproving of his actions. In other words, the President would get his debt ceiling increase and Republicans would score political points, but there would be no guarantee of any spending cuts.

In terms of actual budget reduction, how can this scenario possibly be preferable to the so-called "grand bargain"? Obviously, this makes a lot of political sense, but almost cravenly so. McConnell's plan completely absolves the GOP from any budget-cutting until after the 2012 election -- and the deficit is something that we're told we must address now!

It's almost ingenious how much buck-passing is going on here.

MORE: Well, shit: even the folks over at RedState seem to agree with me on this one:

Mitch McConnell is right now talking about making a historic capitulation. So fearful of being blamed for a default, McConnell is proposing a compromise that lets Barack Obama raise the debt ceiling without making any spending cuts at all.

[...]

And now Mitch McConnell wants to make it even easier by allowing Congress to go through a dog and pony show of feigned cuts that never get cut while allowing escalation of our national debt. So much for accusing Barack Obama of smoke and mirrors.

2014 cannot come soon enough to destroy the political future of this weasel.

EVEN MORE: Here are some more takes. Notice that each one of them ignores the possibility that Obama might not come back and ask for the second or third debt ceiling increases (for whatever reason). If that did end up happening, it could only be interpreted as enormous victories for the President.

Ron Johnson, the Laziest Senator

For a guy who's been bitching about how little gets done in the senate lately, this is embarressing:

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who defeated Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) last fall, has not brought any bills, amendments or resolutions forward for consideration. 

[...]

Meanwhile, Johnson, another Tea Party favorite, said, “I have spent a fair amount of time working with House members, in particular on the Cut, Cap, and Balance legislation that I hope will pass the House. It will actually cut spending, cap it over a period of years to lead to a balanced budget and lift the debt ceiling — contingent on us passing a constitutional amendment to limit spending and balance the budget.”

So he's working on legislation that doesn't mean shit unless a constitutional amendment passes first. Perhaps it would be wise to not put the cart before the horse and work on the constitutional amendment first.

A Fate Worse than Death

I don't know how this guy did it:

EVEN frequent flyers get their 15 minutes of fame. Thomas Stuker, a car salesman from Chicago, has just completed 10m miles of flying with United Airlines, an achievement for which he has been roundly feted ( see video). It took him 29 years and 5,962 flights, but he has a plane named after him, he will never have to queue and, most remarkably perhaps, his wife hasn’t left him. (They do go on four or five honeymoons a year.)

Mr Stuker admits to feeling restless if a week passes and he hasn't flown anywhere. His skill with plastic cutlery must be superhuman, and he once had 23 consecutive meals on planes. Fly as much as Mr Stuker does and you should get an invitation to join Global Services, the slightly secretive top tier of United's frequent-flyer programme. This gives perks only dreamt of by the average flyer:

Fliers like Stuker arrive at special check-in areas where agents greet them by name and whisk away their bags. Their boarding passes are already printed, and at some airports an agent simply opens a hidden door, leading them to the very front of the security checkpoint line.

Most people have seen these passengers boarding planes before everybody else. They also get first choice of meals before the airline runs out of either beef or chicken, and there is even a special team dedicated to finding and delivering their lost luggage.

This was, of course, one of the plot devices used in the fairly over-rated movie Up in the Air ... but the thing that impresses me the most about this milestone isn't the outrageous number of miles the dude's logged, but the fact that he did all of them on United Airlines, which exists on the Great Chain of Customer Service Being somewhere between the iron maiden and having electrodes from a car battery attached to one's genitals.

Maybe I just haven't flown enough miles on United for them to start treating me with an ounce of human dignity (I assume this occurs right around the 1,000,000 miles mark). I was, however, happy to learn that even United's high rollers sometimes get their baggage lost, which is evidence that the airline hasn't just been singling me out for some twisted, Kafkaesque mind game enjoyed by employees over the airport's security cameras.

"Beat Sweeteners"

Toby Herndon, the London Telegraph's chief America watcher, wrote a pretty spot-on assessment of the American press and it's relationship to power today:

A press like there is here in Washington, where reporters stand for the president and feel puffed up with pride when he calls on them to ask a question (very often a pretentious, look-at-me three-parter that has little to do with getting a decent answer).

How nice it would be if, like the US, the press would dutifully write “beat sweeteners” to ingratiate themselves, where stories are not written for fear of the journalist falling out of favour, where the political and media elites attend the same cocktail parties and envelope themselves in the same stultifyingly comfortable consensus about what is happening and what should be reported on.

No sooner had I found myself nodding in agreement to this piece then did I find this monstrosity of a "beat sweetener" on Sarah Palin in Newsweek. Go ahead, start reading and see how long you last.