The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.
Ben Howe has created a trailer for “The Socialist”, a story that has been given a good, solid B+ by the White House. Since I can, and since Ben’s a friend, here it is…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj-MpP5n3uE[/youtube]
Remember, we are the last, best hope.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6weDMH-SCOE[/youtube]
It looks like the fact that rationing will be the result of the implementation of Placebocare is getting more attention and more supportive statistics:
Doc Shortage to Worsen After Healthcare Reform
From the article:
By 2015 — one year after the majority of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will have taken effect — the nation will be short 63,000 physicians, a figure that includes both primary care doctors and specialists. Previous estimates put the shortage at 39,600.
Note that the study now shows a shortage of 63K physicians which is nearly double a previous study. The study goes on to state the obvious implication:
“Unless Congress supports at least a 15% increase in residency training slots (adding another 4,000 physicians a year to the pipeline), access to health care will be out of reach for many Americans,” the group said in its press release.
The problem will be most pronounced for people living in rural and underserved areas where finding a doctor can already be a difficult task, according to the report.
What will happen in areas where there aren’t enough physicians? Why of course, people won’t get their health care. But wait, Placebocare was supposed to provide the utopia of health care for all. Nope, just one more example of the fallacy of the “government can provide everything without implications crowd.”
What’s the most concerning part of this problem? That would be that this study is still understating the problem by about half. If you look at the numbers I showed you here, we will need approximately 144,000 additional physicians on the day Placebocare is enacted in order to maintain the same physician/patient ratio as today. The problem with even that number is that it doesn’t take into account physicians who choose not to continue in their profession or the increase visits driven by the fact that Placebocare, and health care in general, will now become free for a significantly larger portion of the US population.
Whether through death panels or the inability to access physician care due to a swamping demand of the system, Placebocare will create rationing of health care. Unless, of course, The One is able to point his magic wand and say “Poof, you’re a physician!”
The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes posted on Twitter that the latest Russ Feingold ad (note; I have not seen the ad, mostly because I don’t watch a whole lot of television) used footage from a Green Bay Packers-Minnesota Vikings game, and brought it to the attention of NFL officials, including league spokesman Greg Aiello, specifically asking whether the footage in question was licensed by the campaign. Aiello, on his Twitter account, said, “No. We did not license the footage and have contacted the Senator’s campaign about removing it.”
The full Weekly Standard story describes the footage in question, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel embedded a YouTube version of the ad (at least while YouTube still has it up; I suspect the NFL will issue a takedown notice momentarily).
Here is the Appleton Post-Crescent article I discussed on WISN today while filling in for Mark Belling:
“Federal law makes sewage overflows illegal. Yet they frequently happen and mostly without the public knowing.
In all, about 9.1 billion gallons of untreated sewage-contaminated water — enough to fill 457,000 backyard swimming pools — were released into the environment by 276 villages, cities, counties and sewage districts on 1,198 occurrences statewide since Jan. 1, 2006, according to data collected by the DNR and analyzed by The Post-Crescent. The wastewater overflows happened in 58 of the state’s 72 counties, including throughout the Fox Valley.
The state’s biggest by far came from one source: the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District, which provides sewage service for 28 municipalities, including Milwaukee, through a shared pipe system. The district reported nearly 8.5 billion gallons of overflows, mostly into Lake Michigan, since the beginning of 2006, when the DNR began organizing the data electronically.”
And here is the CRG news release mentioned on today’s program:
NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
October 3, 2010
For Further Information Contact:
Chris Kliesmet, 414-429-9501
Unelected Boards Create Campaign CashBarrett Example Yields Over $150,000 in Board Contributions
Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG) has long analyzed and reported on the drawbacks of unelected boards, particularly those with the power to unilaterally impose taxes. The CRG audit and online database of Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) Board spending and the well-publicized shortcomings of the Metro-Milwaukee Sewage District (MMSD) Board highlight a lengthy list of perceived problems with unelected boards given broad regulatory power as well as taxing power without direct voter representation.
CRG began an investigation and analysis of MMSD due to citizen outrage over recent flooding and basement sewage back-ups. Initial findings suggested that these failures are largely due to governance issues at the City of Milwaukee and on the MMSD Board level rather than operational issues at MMSD. Further investigation of political actions and involvement within MMSD revealed significant contributions from MMSD Board members to the politicians that appoint them.
For example, MMSD Board members contributed almost $10,000 to Tom Barrett campaigns with $4,000 being contributed in 2009-2010 election cycle alone. Every MMSD Board who contributed gave at least $100, six gave at least $250, five gave at least $500, and three gave over $1000 with one donor exceeding $2000 and another exceeding $3000.
As a result, a pilot project was undertaken to analyze and understand the relationship between political contributions and appointments to boards such as MMSD. The City of Milwaukee and Mayor Barrett were chosen as the initial study example based on the large number of appointed boards the City has jurisdiction over as well as the large number of mayoral appointees to those boards.
The study methodology required compiling a partial list of mayoral board appointees by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to 92 boards during his tenure as mayor (list is partial as a complete list of past appointees do not exist – spouses were included on list). This list was cross-indexed against contributions to Barrett campaigns from 7/1/2000 to 6/30/2010 obtained from databases maintained by the City of Milwaukee and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. The entire tabulated data set may be downloaded at www.crgnetwork.com/shared/Barrett Board Appointee Contributors Worksheet.xls.
The following are selected statistics from the analysis
| Total Campaign Contribution Dollars | $151,307.79 | |
| Average Contribution Per Donation | $330.37 | |
| Average Total Contributions Per Donor | $1,220.22 |
Project leader Chris Kliesmet commented, “The numbers yielded by our analysis were quite surprising and perhaps more than a little disturbing. Given that the total contributions are well into six figures and the average total contributions per donor crosses the one-thousand dollar mark, it does suggest at least a perception of impropriety that should be addressed, particularly when reviewing compensated boards. Additionally, one must not discount the imputed value of the regulatory power wielded even by uncompensated boards. For those seeking appointments, and there are many who covet such appointments, the regulatory power may be more highly valued than any monetary reward. Whether by design or sheer happenstance, it is safe to say that the power to make unelected board appointments can be used as a tool to raise campaign cash and creates yet another strong argument against unelected boards. CRG will issue updates to our investigations should our analyses continue to yield noteworthy results.”
UPDATE:While I was on the air today, Chris Kleismet of CRG tried to phone in, but couldn’t because the lines were jammed.He wanted to pass along important information.
CRG’s analysis of campaign cash contributions showed that one person, Ronald S. San Felippo gave six contributions on or about the 22nd of each month to Tom Barrett with the last contribution made on 6/22/10. Here are San Felippo’s donations to Barrett:
1/22/10: $1,500
2/22/10: $1,500
3/22/10: $1,500
4/22/10: $1,500
5/22/10: $1,500
6/22/10: $1,500
Note the last contribution on 6/22/10
Just six days later, San Felippo was appointed to the Business Improvement District Board #2 by Barrett.
A coincidence? I don’t think so.
Kleismet also offers that a video and transcript of MMSD Kevin Schafer’s remarks saying that 2 of 4 previous sewerage overflow dumps could have been avoided by a change to legislation can be found here.
Kleismet wrote to me:
“By law they (MMSD) must start dumping in ANTICIPATION of separated sewer flows IN CASE they MIGHT come in. That means they start dumping with the tunnel often less than half full. On two occasions the suburban flows DID NOT COME IN AS PREDICTED and they dumped sewage that didn’t need to be dumped.
Why are politicians like Barrett unwilling to crusade for this change? This is outrageous they COULD have eliminated half of the overflows last year without so much as the cost of the ink for their signatures on a piece of legislative paper.
This is a huge campaign issue that Scott Walker needs to hammer on. He could use your help doing so. Please consider sending a contribution.
Here are, in my view, interesting, noteworthy columns and articles from the past week that I highly recommend:
Compare and contrast: Karl Marx 10-point program of Communism and Democrat agenda
“No federal government has damaged the American free market more than this one. No federal government has stolen more employment, more freedom, more private property — from this and future generations — than this one. No government has created more regulations, more unconstitutional dictates, more — dare I say it — slavery than this one.”
“If all goes well for Republicans in the midterm elections, they’ll capture the House and maybe the Senate, having revealed few specifics of what they might do in the next Congress. This makes sense. It’s the Chris Christie strategy.”
When blacks attack Obama
“I am forbidden to critique BHO and his boys on anything they say or do. Yes, if I do utter anything derogatory regarding his holiness it is immediately dismissed because of four primary reasons. Herewith are the raisons d’être of why I cannot decry señor Hussein.
Reason #1: I am white. How do I know I’m white? Well, aside from my skin color, one telling mark of my Caucasian-ness is that I have Hall & Oates on my iPod (I always set the treble up higher than the bass) and, of course, my Florence Henderson tattoo. If that ain’t white, I don’t know what is. Since I’m white I’m not allowed to disagree with Obama because that’d be hatred. It’s true. It’s science.
Reason #2: …”
“What Republicans owe the American people is a hefty dose of plain-speaking, bold pragmatism that clearly articulates the GOP’s vision for America. Even I, your humble Motown guitar slayer, remain steadfastly locked on the vision of our Founding Fathers and am prepared to ride to their rescue with the Ted Pledge. My crowbar of logic and truth does not gently weep.”
The Five Biggest Lies about Liberalism
“Every now and then liberals like to claim that they’re patriotic. Usually around an election. Of course they’re not patriotic in the ‘wear a flag on your lapel’ kind of way. They’re more patriotic in the ‘point out everything wrong with your country and then threaten to move to Canada if you don’t win the election’ way. Which is fine. America has seen patriots like that before. They used to wear green coats and moved to Canada, right around the time the last British troops left New York on Evacuation Day.”
Quietly racking up the abortion toll
“While Planned Parenthood continues to sit on its annual report for 2008-2009, new documents found hidden on its labyrinthine website give taxpayers an insider’s look into the beleaguered abortion monopoly it is helping fund.
The shocking thing about these numbers is that they are finally dispelling the ubiquitous Planned Parenthood lie that the organization is about something other than abortion.”
Finding Reassurance for America in Baseball
“Anyone who says America is broken, dysfunctional and doomed hasn’t been to a ballgame lately. The people who come out to such sporting events aren’t just the superrich or the privileged few: They represent every economic and ethnic segment of the society. When 20,000 enthusiasts can still find the money to come out to cheer a last place team, it’s inappropriate to peddle apocalyptic visions of a nation made up primarily of the destitute and desperate.”
Toys from our youth that would be illegal today
“A while back I wrote about the Johnny Seven One Man Army rifle (a toy from the sixties that Chuck Schumer would personally ban). What other toys from our youth would the Party of Weakness outlaw in this politically correct day and age?”
When one paraphrases the end of the Declaration of Independence as part of the blog’s tagline, one earns an automatic consideration to be added to the overstuffed roll. When one makes sense, like Ben Froland, I’ll add it gladly, even if it takes beating me over the head to remember to do so.
A while back, I blegged for some help with a new logo. A couple of people stepped up and delivered what I consider ass-kicking logos. Here’s where I need your help in helping me decide which one.
First up, a design from J. Gravelle from The Daily Scoff:
Next up, a design from Mr. Tastic from Neo-Con* Tastic:
What should be the new logo of NRE?
Up to 1 answer(s) was/were allowed
Total Voters: 23
Loading ...I can’t promise to abide by the vote if it’s either close or sparsely voted upon, but the best way to make sure I do so is to vote for your favorite and get your friends to do the same. I’ll leave this up until the wee hours of October 13th, so you have some time to get them in line.
One side note – sorry to disappoint those of you who wanted the fedora as my Twitter icon, but the nuke is staying for a while thanks to Matt Kenseth self-destructing yesterday.
Revisions/extensions (3:27 pm 9/27/2010) –You’re not dealing with the Milwaukee Election Commission, the Government “Accountability” Board, or Chicago election officials here. I’ve already had to wipe out 4 “votes” that came from somebody who had already voted. No, I won’t tell you how I know the system was gamed.
The team found Jim Sullivan’s claims about his record so full of it, we’re recommending courtesy flushes. The first load:
“I have worked tirelessly to grow our local economy, bring new jobs and industries to the region, ease our tax burden,”
Fact: in 2007 Jim Sullivan voted for the largest state tax increase in U.S. History when he cast a yes vote for SB40S Vote Sequence 102:, the Senate version of the state budget.
Fact: SB40S included a $15 billion tax increase to fund Healthy Wisconsin, a government run health care program that would have meant an average of $510 in higher taxes for every Wisconsin worker.
Wall Street Journal. July 24, 2007Fact: Healthy Wisconsin would have increased payroll taxes on employers by $1,000 per employee.
Wall Street Journal. July 24, 2007Fact: Healthy Wisconsin would have put Wisconsin’s budget $4.79 billion further in debt.
Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. June, 2008. Vol 21, 4
This is just me talking, but we really need something stronger than “Total Crap” for stuff like this.
I know, I should have put this up when it went up over the weekend, but I was trying to enjoy a fall weekend here in Wisconsin. Aaron Rodridguez of The Hispanic Conservative took on Tom Barrett’s claims that he revitalized the Menomonee River valley:
Overall, what was Mayor Barrett’s role in developing the Menomonee Valley? Well, by the time Barrett came on the scene, most of the modern real estate had already been developed. However, Barrett’s campaign ad touts his role in bringing Ingeteam, Helios USA, Talgo, and Republic Airways Holdings to the Valley. So let’s look at these.
*Ingeteam received $1.66 million in clean-tech manufacturing tax credits from the federal government to build wind turbine generators in Milwaukee. Ingeteam followed the money and Governor Doyle took the credit.
*Helios USA received $1 million from the federal government to invest in green technology in Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Economic Development Corp. (a private firm) supported Helios USA with a $500,000 loan to build a 40,000 square-ft factory. The funding to make it happen did not involve Mayor Barrett.
*Talgo came to Wisconsin because the federal government awarded us $823 million in stimulus funds to build a Milwaukee to Madison high speed rail line, $12 million to improve service between Chicago and Milwaukee, and $1 million on a route between Wisconsin and the Twin Cities. Without a federal subsidy of $835 million, Talgo wouldn’t have considered the move. Antonio Perez, Talgo’s CEO, said the reasons for choosing Milwaukee were based on economic conditions, logistics, cost of living, training facilities in the area, and an available work force – none of which has anything to do with Barrett.
*Republic Airways received a sizable carrot of $27 million in state income and payroll tax credits through 2021. It was a considerable incentive, but the deal-clincher was that Republic Airways already owned hangar space in Milwaukee, which beats renting one in Colorado for $2 million a year.
Recently, Google and Verizon made an agreement-in-principle on what forms of new regulation on internet service providers they were willing to and unwilling to accept. The summary from Google’s and Verizon’s CEOs sound completely high-minded, but as always, the potential devils are in the details. Let’s take a quick look at each of the key elements:
On balance, the agreement could be a bit better, but leaving it solely in the hands of government would almost certainly make things a whole lot worse.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that Southwest will, pending regulatory approval, buy AirTran for $1.4 billion. While most people believe (well, hope) this means more flights out of Milwaukee, I have an alternate take.
AirTran currently has 47 daily departures out of its “second national hub” to, ultimately, only 3 “non-stop/first-stop” destinations not served by Southwest out of its Chicago Midway hub-in-all-but-name on a “non-stop/first-stop” basis in its roughly-210 daily departures – Atlanta (which is directly serviced by AirTran out of Mitchell 4 times daily and AirTran out of Midway 8 times daily), Washington-Reagan National (directly serviced by AirTran out of Mitchell 3 times daily – Southwest directly services “nearby” Baltimore/Washington International out of Mitchell 3 times daily out of 10 total departures from Mitchell, and out of Midway 7 times daily, and “nearby” Washington-Dulles out of Midway 6 times daily), Dallas/Fort Worth (directly serviced twice daily by AirTran; Southwest requires at least 1 stop between Midway and Dallas-Love Field). During the winter, AirTran does offer a daily non-stop flight to Sarasota from Mitchell.
Even though Midway is severely limited in the types of aircraft it can service because it is on a completely-landlocked one square mile plot of land, it is just large enough to service the Boeing 737s that make up Southwest’s fleet and just under half AirTran’s fleet and the Boeing 717s that make up the other part of AirTran’s fleet. Southwest already had the majority of gates at Midway; with the takeover of AirTran, the only non-Southwest service at Midway will be Delta service to their hubs in Atlanta, Minneapolis and Detroit (the latter 2 using contracted regional airlines), Frontier service to their hub in Denver, Porter Airline turboprop service to Toronto (their hub), and not-yet-launched service by Branson AirExpress to their hub in Branson, Missouri. Something tells me that, instead of a combined 57 departures, or even 47 that AirTran has now, the new Southwest/AirTran will have something far closer to the 10 departures the current Southwest has now.
Here are, in my view, interesting, noteworthy columns and articles from the past week that I highly recommend:
Velma Hart: Citizen Journalist
“Shaming the White House press corps, a regular American named Velma Hart recently asked President Barack Obama the toughest question he has heard since being elected to the Oval Office.
Devastating.
The president was taken aback ..”
Top 10 Failures of Obamanomics
“Simply put, candidates who propose job-creating policies and show how their opponent’s policies are killing jobs will win decisively in 2010……so let’s examine the top 10 job-killing policies of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid machine.”
“Let’s examine what the 111th Congress has accomplished so far. There was a $1 trillion stimulus bill that failed to jumpstart the economy. There was a $1 trillion health care overhaul that the public did not want. There was a financial bill that gave huge amounts of power to unelected regulators. And now, for their final trick, the Democrats who run Congress have decided to leave Washington without doing anything to prevent the largest tax increase in history. God only knows what they are planning for an encore.”
House Democrats Pass Bill to Grill School Children about Sexual Preference
“Introduced by Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), H.R. 6109 requires HHS to obtain, retain and analyze sexual identity information from patients who seek healthcare, including children.”
A two-step process to fight poverty
“Everybody wants to make themselves feel better by throwing someone else’s money at the problem, but what many people don’t seem to notice is that it seldom improves the situation. Yes, it will cost money to fight poverty, but there’s a smart way and a dumb way to do it. The dumb way to do it is our current system. Here’s the smart way to do it.”
“Green evangelists believe that recycling our trash is ‘good for the planet’ — that it conserves resources and is more environmentally friendly. But recycling household waste consumes resources, too.”
“These early autumn months are filled with some ‘holidays’ that are worth paying attention to.”
Because I’m a glutton for punishment, or at least alcohol, I’ll be drunkblogging the first Wisconsin gubernatorial debate between Republican Scott Walker and Democrat Tom Barrett. The fun will start somewhere around 6:45 pm, and C-SPAN will be taking it national on the main channel.
Since it’s a drunkblog, there is a blanket language alert. As usual, I will be using CoverItLive, so no refereshing will be needed. Reader comments on CiL are welcome, but will be published only at my discretion.
Author’s notes – I do have to thank Jeremy Shown for twigging onto this ad that has been running in northeast Wisconsin and Jo Egelhoff for including that twigging in Wednesday morning’s FoxPolitics.net roundup. Since I’ve picked up Social Security’s future as sort of a “hobby”, I decided to make that my initial contribution to PolitiCrap.
Also, since this is mine, I will post the entire thing here.
The ad and claim:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZAsDhg9-9M [/youtube]
U.S. Representative Steve Kagen’s (D-8th District) Social Security ad claims that his Republican opponent, Reid Ribble, wants to “…phase out Social Security, forcing Wisconsin’s seniors to fend for themselves”. It goes on to use a partial-sentence quote from Ribble made at a candidate forum: “…(S)omehow we have to establish a phase out of the current Social Security system…”.
The facts:
That partial-sentence quote came from a candidate forum hosted by the Fox Valley Initiative on 11/3/2009, and does not include either the end of that sentence or the preceding sentence. The parts that were omitted by the Kagen campaign prove the lie. The fuller quote, taken from the Appleton Post-Crescent taping of the forum, with Ribble’s answer beginning at the 1:33:00 mark and the question being answered at the 1:30:40 mark, is, “There’s been a promise made and for those of you that are in their retirement years, you lived and planned your life based on a promise by your government. And so somehow we have to establish a phase out of the current Social Security system to a new system, and that will have to happen over time.”
Scott Crevier, who recorded that commercial, also provided a more-recent video of Ribble on Social Security, taken at a candidate forum in Appleton on 9/7/2010. At that forum, Ribble said, “”Well, I never said I would privatize Social Security. I think its okay for them to make their accusations. They’re going to make those accusations anyway because honesty has never been part of the political spectrum in this country. We need to have is to have some people begin to speak honestly. I’ve not come out publicly in support of privatization, but I have come out publicly in support of personalization, and they are quite a bit different. Privatization is where you’re allowed to take some of that money and invest it outside the system. Now that’s okay unless you’re the guy that retires when the stock market crashes 4000 points and now the taxpayers on the hook for it anyway. And so, what I do believe is in personalization, and by allowing your investment in Social Security be yours, and invest it through the current system, we can now protect our seniors, and we can now protect our grandchildren. And that’s at the end of the day, our objective, is that we have to protect both, and there is a way of getting that done.”
FactCheck.org, as part of its look at the nationwide Democrat attack on Republicans on Social Security, said this about the ad, “But it is misleading to say Ribble would force ‘Wisconsin seniors to fend for themselves,’ and to suggest that Ribble would phase out the program without replacing it with a new plan.”
The rating:
Total crap
Revisions/extensions (1:06 pm 9/27/2010) –Two updates: First, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Charlie for making this the on-air PolitiCrap on Friday. I didn’t quite anticipate that.
Next, PolitiFact Wisconsin took a look at this commercial, including an element I hadn’t explored – Kagen’s attempt to call Ribble a “politician”. They came to the same conclusion and lit Kagen’s lying pants on fire.
Wendy from Boots and Sabers has fired the first Social Security-related salvo at FDR’s grandson’s and AARP’s claim Social Security is “solvent”. The analysis:
I admire Mr. Roosevelt’s family loyalty, but this graph from the very first page of the Congressional Budget Office’s “Long-Term Projections for Social Security: 2009 Update” debunks Roosevelt’s claim.
If the AARP study claims that the Social Security Trust Fund could pay UP TO 78% of benefits, it ain’t “sound.” “Sound” would be 100%, don’t you think?
Rating:
I could add to that by noting things got even worse since the 2009 CBO report, with the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance portion (the main part of SocSecurity) running primary (cash) deficits now, or that the Disability Insurance “Trust Fund”, which is now in the final stage of collapse as both tax revenues and interest are not enough to cover the costs, will be fully-exhausted well before 2020. Oh wait; I have been.
Ace linked to four five articles explaining how PlaceboCare is proving to be essentially what Sen. Jim DeMint said it would (though, it’s more Pyrrhic than Waterloo). While the articles are worth reading themselves, the way Ace linked the five, and especially the way he closed, is classic AoSHQ Moron:
You.
Really.
Should’ve.
Listened.
You exercised raw political power without regard to our opinions, just to show you could. We’re stupid animals, you thought; these stupid animals will all fall in line when we tug on the leash hard enough.
No. And we’re not just tugging back. We’re going for your fucking throats.
You exercised raw political power.
Our turn, bitches.
This one is so quick a hit, I can’t simply excerpt it. While I can’t make you go over to Sykes Writes to see the full take, I can at least make you go there to comment. As a bit of background, Patrick noticed these billboards popping up all around southeast Wisconsin.
Claim: Voting Fraiud is a felony.Analysis. It is. A felony for voter fraud carries a maximum penalty of up to 3 1/2 years behind bars and a $10,000 fine.
RATING:
WPRI’s Christian Schneider took a look at the northwest part of the state and state Senator and Democrat nominee for the 7th Congressional District seat Julie Lassa’s claim that the state budget deficit (which, BTW, just hit the $3.1 billion mark in biennial structural terms after starting off at $2.1 billion the day Jim Doyle signed it) is the sole fault of the national deficit. The close of a :
Recession or not, Julie Lassa repeatedly voted for budgets that left the state with large deficits – including the budget to which the NRCC ad refers. And her attempt to pull one sentence out of a lengthy report to obfuscate this politically damaging vote makes her claim…
Rating:
We took on a claim from the Oshkosh Northwestern that Republican Senate nominee Ron Johnson sought stimulus funds to the Grand Opera House when he was treasurer of the Grand’s board in March 2009. Let’s go to the quick:
Perhaps most revealing was the paper’s response to inquiries from PolitiCrap. We originally emailed the reporter, asking:
“Do you have any basis for your story on Ron Johnson and the stimulus funds other than the single email that you cited?”
The email was referred to the city editor, Karl Ebert, who answered with one word “yes.” We then responded:
Well, let me rephrase; In your article in which you report that Ron Johnson supported the use of stimulus funds for the Opera House, you cite an email… which does not say he supported the use of stimulus funds.. only that he inquired about it. What other basis for the the lede do you have and are you wiling to share/explain?
The response?
The word “supported” was not part of our reporting.
Karl Ebert
Cute. But not an answer.
The bottomline, as one of the team writes: The newspaper ran “a story based on a claim off of an email based completely on hearsay.”
Rating:
Christian Schneider explains why the Democrats are facing a wipeout of epic proportions in less than 6 weeks:
On the other hand, 2010 is a direct rejection of the incumbent ideology. Voters are going to punish liberal politicians for carrying through on what they actually believe.
Voters are tired of paying higher taxes for lower quality government. They’re fed up with the underhanded way in which policy is made by buying votes with pork projects. They strongly reject the notion that government has the wherewithal to manage their health care. (In a Rasmussen poll out this week, 61% of Americans believe ObamaCare should be repealed.) Voters recognize that putting government in charge of making something cheaper is a little like putting Roger Clemens in charge of baseball’s steroid policy.
The upcoming voter revolt isn’t going to happen because of superfluous issues. It’s not going to happen because people think Barack Obama was born in Stankonia. Or because Nancy Pelosi has had enough skin removed from her lips to create a spare Justin Bieber. It’s going to happen because liberals did exactly what they said they were going to do; and the results, as predicted by conservatives, have been disastrous.
As always, I recommend reading the entire thing, as it includes a reference to “Sixteen Candles” and explanations for 2006 and 2008.
Side note, that marks the second appearance of “wherewithal” on this blog today. I don’t know what that means.
You’re probably sick of these blegs, and I honestly don’t know how many of you have both the wherewithal and the need to advertise on a station based in Worchester, Massachusetts that reaches into Boston (WCRN does stream on the web), but in case any of you do, Pete DaTechGuy has an offer for you to get anything between 10-second live-read plugs and full 60-second commercials on a 1-hour Saturday night show he is pitching to the station. He needs to get 12 minutes’ worth of regular ads sold to make the show work, and trust me, he needs for this thing to get off the ground.
If you can help one of the most-fearless bloggers on the planet out, go on over and let him know.
The second edition PolitiCrap is now up. This time, George Mitchell looks at a story that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel a few days ago that characterized Feingold’s voting record as breaking to both the left and the right. Here’s the close of the analysis and the rating:
In radio promos for Journal Sentinel political coverage, Gilbert says the paper wants to give readers the information they need to evaluate statements by candidates. But in this case, the paper effectively has recast one candidate’s main claim. To Feingold’s advantage, Gilbert’s story reframes the major concern Johnson has with the maverick label.
Rating
Blended.
Jo Egelhoff of Fox Politics thinks highly enough of Jeremy Shown (not pronounced with “own” at the end) that he guest-blogs for her from time to time. She is a good judge of character, so it’s time to add Rhymes With Clown to the roll. Anybody who has “agitate” as part of their blog description is someone with potential, and someone who does it from the right side of the aisle is definitely worth reading.
WTMJ-AM’s Charlie Sykes and several of Wisconsin’s best right-of-center bloggers have launched a new fact-checking feature called PolitiCrap after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel showed typical liberal bias in the first several runs of its PolitiFact Wisconsin feature (done in conjunction with the St. Petersburg Times, which is consistently liberal in its “fact-checks”). In keeping with the theme from the (Almost-Somewhat-Not-Quite-Deep-Enough) Deep Tunnel Awards Charlie does every Friday just after the bottom of the 11 o’clock hour (or just past the middle of Part 3 of the podcast for those of you who can’t listen live), there are 4 classifications possible:
All graphics courtesy David Lunde of Lundesigns
Things are starting off with a bang, with a look at Tom Barrett’s pension comparo commercial suggested by Patrick from Badger Blogger. The cold-hard facts (emphasis in the original):
In the spring of 2009, Milwaukee County issued $400 million in Pension Obligation Bonds (POB’s). Before the bonds were issued, Milwaukee County had been paying off its pension liability over a 30-year period of time with an 8% interest rate.
In contrast the new pension bonds will be paid over a 25-year period of time with a 6.2% interest rate. This switch saved taxpayers $237 million. (Which may be why the plan was embraced not only by Walker, but also by many of Barrett’s own buddies on the County Board.)
Don’t just take our word (or Walker’s) for it: Moody’s, the bond ratings agency said that without the issuance of the pension bonds, the county’s unfunded liability could approach $1 billion, in just four years.
This will be a daily feature because there is so much material out there, not just from the campaigns, but from the media (some of whom act as though they’re part of certain campaigns).
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