Rivard 'Rape Easy' Story Getting Bizarrely Onionesque
How else to explain this Journal Sentinel online headline:
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Four Lightly-Armed Wolves Shot Dead In WI
Rifles carry day one of the hunt against paws, wiles.
Maybe someone got to break out one of those awesome $600 electronic call devices!
Maybe The Wolf Hunt-Obsessed WI Legislature Pushed Too Far?
[originally posted 4:23 p.m., Monday, October 15.] Was it the OK for leg traps? The long season, night hunting, threats to breeding pairs and alpha males, or the use of dogs (disallowed, for now, by a judge) that Wisconsin legislators demanded in its unscientific rush to kill wolves that now lands the wolves' status back in Federal jurisdiction?
Minneapolis - Two national groups have filed notice with the federal government that they intend to sue to restore wolves in the western Great Lakes region to the endangered list.
Ryan Is As Phony Does
Pretty much sums up the marathon liar and his boss, the severely conservative cum-freshly-moderate Mitt:
The head of a northeast Ohio charity says that the Romney campaign last week “ramrodded their way” into the group’s Youngstown soup kitchen so that GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan could get his picture taken washing dishes in the dining hall...
By the time he arrived, the food had already been served, the patrons had left, and the hall had been cleaned.
Photographers snapped photos and TV cameras shot footage of Ryan and his family washing pots and pans that did not appear to be dirty.
Monday, October 15, 2012
George McGovern Is Very Ill
Though we had a wonderful time with my father-in-law George McGovern two weekends ago - - talking politics and baseball at dinner, and seeing him give a short talk before a performance in Sioux Falls of Aaron Copeland's "Lincoln Portrait" Symphony, with George's taped narration - - things are changing in a worrisome way and he is in hospice, as various media are reporting.
Help us keep our fingers crossed for this good man.
Nice 2005 interview with this photo, here.
I get very angry at the Dick Cheneys and the [Donald] Rumsfelds and the George Bushes in this world who take us into these completely unnecessary and self-defeating wars. I felt that way about Vietnam; I feel that way about Iraq.
Ann Coulter Proves "G" In GOP Stands For Ghoulish
Argue all you want that she's just a cut-up, a book-pitching rascally
troublemaker with a big mouth and a flair for punch lines - - but Ann Coulter's tasteless, tacky snark at the expense of a just-deceased former Senator Arlen Specter proves my point the other day - - and right here, too - - that when it comes to the GOP, the "G" stands for "ghoulish.
Here is her Sunday, 10/14, 2:42 p.m. Tweet:
Add that to Jason Thompson's oh-so-hilarious "back to Kenya" birther wisecrack over the weekend about Barack Obama at a Kenosha appearance where GOP national chairman Reince Priebus was in attendance, or State Rep. Roger Rivard's inexplicable comment about girls who "rape easy," and you're left with a lot of Republicans with trouble explaining or conflating their behavior away.Arlen Specter has just switched to the Dead Party.
Ann Coulter Ann Coulter's Tweet = Jason Thompson's Classlessness
Arlen Specter has just switched to the Dead Party.
As we noted with Tommy's 38-year-old lawyer son, or Todd Akin, or Roger ('Rape Easy') Rivard, what has happened to these Republicans?
The Ryan Effect, With A Side Of Cheddar
The Washington Post says that, win or lose, Paul Ryan is ascending this campaign season - - so you might think about the Badgers whom Ryan could take with him, or push for DC appointments, if he ever gets the chance.
Here's my list - - based on experience and temperament:
* US Supreme Court: Associate Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices Annette Ziegler and Michael Gableman, both young enough to get on a High Court vacancy short list.
* UN Ambassador: A toss-up between Reince Pieibus and Scott Fitzgerald. Same duo for Secretary of State.
* Secretary of Agriculture: Perhaps farmer Tommy Thompson, though he'd be a strong candidate for Secretary of the Treasury, give his shekelmania, or Housing and Urban Development, with his DC-area property flipping experience. He's done his time at Health and Human Services, so the nod there goes to Alberta Darling, given her 180-degree turn on a woman's right to choose, and on supporting Planned Parenthood. Or to Glenn Grothman, for obvious reasons.
*Also for obvious reasons: Secretary of Education - - Sen. Ron Johnson.
* Secretary of Transportation: Robin Vos, based on having killed Wisconsin's regional transit authorities and the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter train.
* Department of Energy: current PSC chair and former GOP State Rep. Phil Montgomery. He brings along that critical 2005 ALEC Legislator of the Year credential.
* Department of Homeland Security: Could be State Capitol police chief David Erwin, could be Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke.
* Environmental Protection Agency: DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp has earned the administrator's jobs, but as a former home builder, like Mark Neumann, either one could slide right in at HUD. So many options...
* Secretary of the Interior: A slam-dunk: State Rep. Joel Kleefisch, resident expert on the wolf hunting and sandhill crane shooting, too.
* Secretary of Labor: Scott Walker.
* Attorney General: As this is the Department of Justice, there are no strong contenders.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
That Bluster Apple Doesn't Fall Far From The Tommy Tree
Nice talk radio-inspired anti-Obama Birther work by Tommy's surrogate, his lawyer son.
Jason Thompson, the son of former Gov. Tommy Thompson, was caught on video Sunday suggesting at a Republican event that voters this fall could send President Barack Obama back "to Kenya."
"We have the opportunity to send President Obama back to Chicago - or Kenya," said Thompson, an attorney at Michael Best and Friedrich, during a...fall brunch hosted by the Kenosha County Republican Party.
Sunday Crossroads Carried Most Of This Ryan Blog Posting
Here is the full item (The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel usually excerpts material from a couple of Purple Wisconsin bloggers for its Sunday Crossroads section.):
On inner city crime, Ryan can spare us the condescension
The media and Internets were buzzing the other day about Paul Ryan walking out on a Michigan TV interviewer when the questions about crime went where Ryan didn't want to go.
The interviewer asked about gun problems in the country; Ryan rephrased it as a crime problem - - back to right-wing and pro-NRA talking points - - and then went on to talk about life in the inner city, as he saw it.
Here is the YouTube posting from the TV station.Also - - here's one mainstream media account, and a parsing of the event by PolitiFact.I don't think Ryan's snippiness at the interviewer should be the takeaway from the exchange, though this Veep business certainly has ballooned his ego.Rather it's his remark about preventing violent crime in the inner cities - - "to help teach people good discipline, good character..." The full context is below:
"But the best thing to help prevent violent crime in the inner cities is to bring opportunity in the inner cities, is to help people get out of poverty in the inner cities, is to help teach people good discipline, good character. That is civil society. That’s what charities and civic groups and churches do to help one another make sure that they can realize the value in one another."Does Ryan make the same remark when he is campaigning in white, rural America, or suburbia, where there are incidents of school shootings, violent bullying, drug-and-alcohol violence?Are there only character and discipline problems in central cities?I remember a small-town Wisconsin school counselor telling me when I was writing a series for The Milwaukee Journal on rural drug use that when she encountered substance among her female students she knew that there was a good chance that incest would eventually come out as a factor.Ryan's preachiness undermined a decent message about the value of charities and civic groups because he pandered for a conservative audience far from the inner cities, and added nothing but stereotypes and fear to the campaign.
Cross-posted at The Political Environment,
Easy Call On WI Political Quote Of The Week
About whether to go ahead with its Saturday rally in Spooner to help promote local State GOP Rep. Roger ["Rape Easy") Rivard - - though leading Republicans and at least one business association were dropping their Rivard endorsements - - Washburn County Republican Party chairman Dan Hubin said:
"I don't know what the issue is here," he said. "I don't know why people are even making an issue of it."
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Another Solid Ron Seely Piece On The WI Wolf Hunt
The Wisconsin State Journal's Ron Seely continues to write authoritatively about the consequences of the wolf hunt about to begin in Wisconsin.
Seely also published data made available to the DNR about the extent and impact of human-caused wolf deaths:
...9 percent to 19 percent of the state's wolves are killed illegally each year, 10 percent are killed in depredation control programs, and 3 percent to 4 percent are killed by vehicles. Add those numbers to the 24 percent harvest quotas, [DNR wolf researcher Adrian] Wydeven said, and total, human-caused mortality is likely to be between 46 percent and 57 percent. Research has shown that wolves can tolerate up to about 29 percent to 35 percent human-caused mortality rates before populations decline...
Waukesha Water Supply Costs Overfloweth
A few days ago, I posted an item about how the costs of big projects can escalate.
Three years to the day yesterday - - on Oct. 12, 2009 - - Waukesha's water utility was quoted saying that construction for a Milwaukee hookup to bring in a new water supply would be $78 million.
More recently, that number had ballooned to $175 million, with the new Oak Creek connection hitting $183 million.Waukesha estimates cost of Lake Michigan water plan at $78 million
For The GOP, "G" Is For "Ghoulish"
Or at least, "gloomy."
It's fitting that the Presidential election comes just days after
Halloween, as Republicans absolutely heart doom-and-gloom and are
willing even to make hay of the attack on the US consulate in Libya that
left four Americans dead, including our Ambassador.
Notes a Washington Post election story today:
After trying for weeks to
portray the deaths in Benghazi as part of a larger failure of Obama’s
foreign policy, Republicans now sense their first real opening on
national security, an area that has long been considered one of the
president’s strengths.
Republicans want and need as much bad news as they can find this anti-Obama election season.
When official unemployment numbers continue to show consistent improvement despite the GOP's having killed a jobs bill this year, Republicans said the numbers were a lie created by administration conspirators.
If these bad news bears don't get the bad numbers their negative campaign needs - - regardless that higher numbers mean more worker and family suffering - - just make up a preposterous story that alleges there are some really bad people silently and malevolently working on our dime behind the scenes in government offices.
Somewhere Joe McCarthy is smiling: Washington, DC must be a really evil place.
That's the GOP meme these days. Everything under President Obama has already gone to Hell in that hand-basket.
Paul Ryan even said in Thursday's debate that Medicare and Social Security "absolutely" were going broke - - which they are not - - but when you're running a Friday The 13th campaign, the more fear you can generate, the more people you can fright your way.
Cross-posted at Purple Wisconsin.
Green Power On Epic Scale
Paul Ryan made light of green energy in Thursday's debate, but Judith Faulkner, Dane County's leading entrepreneur is creating massive wind power infrastructure to complement her software firm's commitment to sustainability and existing solar and geothermal systems.
Epic Systems in Verona, already the largest producer of solar power in the state, is moving to add more renewable energy to its Dane County campus.The turbines will on a high ridge in rural Dane County that is off-site from Epic's Verona campus, with electricity fed into Madison Gas & Electric Co.'s grid to off-set Epic's usage.
The developer of software for the health care sector plans to build six utility-scale wind turbines in Verona.
It is thought that the turbines will be visible from tall buildings downtown, the Wisconsin State Journal explains.
Perhaps the turbines' presence will work their way into the minds of fossil fuel champions like Scott Walker and switch on some green power acceptance.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Second Scott Walker Appointee Found Guilty This Week
Guilty, and guilty: Scott Walker's former appointees to Milwaukee County positions were 0-2 at the Courthouse over the last 24 hours in John Doe-related cases.
Something about the company you keep comes to mind.
An Unhappy Tommy Is Not A Pretty Sight
Hat tip, Cory Liebmann:
The New York Times reported the following today:Tommy Thompson: "I don't need this"
“Mr. Thompson, usually gregarious, sounds anything but upbeat as he talks about his reason for running now. Is he having fun? No, he says twice. “I don’t need this,” he said.”
LOL: Party Of Karl Rove Complaining About Lack Of Civility
Especially coming, post-debate, from Dick Morris, on Fox, of all places.
Spotlight On Waukesha Water Application Focused Here Long Ago
More attention is being paid to Waukesha's insistence it be allowed to push diverted Lake Michigan water into an expanded service territory that includes portions of four neighboring communities, and the problems that expansion could bring, if and when the other Great Lakes states begin their required application reviews.
Without the Great Lakes Compact Council unanimously approving the application, no water will flow.
The Milwaukee Business Journal puts it this way:
Great Lakes Compact interpretation could sink Waukesha water pact
While Waukesha specifically lays out its need for Lake Michigan water, the surrounding communities have not, which could be the deal-breaker.
Milwaukee officials and environmental organizers are asserting those surrounding communities must show they need Lake Michigan water, and those communities may have trouble proving that point...
Jared Teutsch, water policy advocate for Alliance for the Great Lakes, Chicago, said that is his biggest area of concern regarding Waukesha’s current application.
“That may be the poison pill that sinks the application in front of the compact council,” he said..."The municipalities in those service areas, they really don’t meet the definition of need.”None of this should surprise anyone, as the risk Waukesha was taking by including the surrounding communities (and without their consent in the first place) was pointed out years ago:
Nearly three-and-a-half years ago, here:
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
And here:Lake Michigan Water Could Flow Outside Waukesha City Boundaries; Some Questions
Thursday, July 1, 2010
As Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett noted in a letter yesterday to Waukesha officials:As I see it, the weakest link is not a fuller comparison of water supply alternatives, or the lack of side-by-side cost estimates for potential water purchases from Milwaukee, Oak Creek and Racine...
The weakest link in the application - - and what will raise questions all the way from the Town of Waukesha to the City of Milwaukee, and with reviewers and regulators in all the eight Great Lakes states - - is Waukesha's plan to send Lake Michigan water into parts of Pewaukee, Genesee and the Town of Waukesha.Expanding the current service territory land mass by 80%.
A veto of a diversion request using the proposed expanded service area is a real possibility based on the requirements set forth in the Great Lakes Compact. Alternatively, one or more the Great Lakes governors may send it back with instructions to revise the service area. Either way it will encroach on your timeline.
The Compact clearly indicates that a diversion request must demonstrate that the community is without adequate supplies of potable water, that no reasonable alternative supply exists and that the area to which the water is to be diverted and volume thereof should be minimized. The proposed expanded service area is in direct contradiction to those requirements.
The Milwaukee Water Works could provide your residents with a healthy and sustainable supply of drinking water at a rate that our competitors cannot even come close to matching...[and] save the average Waukesha residence up to $95 per year.
Taking action to revise the proposed service area now is likely to relieve you from the expense and time spent on challenges to your diversion request down the road. For the sake of your ratepayers and your timeline, I ask that you reconsider your position on the service area so that we can commence negotiations to serve Waukesha city residents with high quality water at the lowest possible cost.
Journal Sentinel Acknowledges Ryan/Stimulus Local Debate Angle
Ask - - as I did both on my blog and at the Journal Sentinel's Purple Wisconsin site - - "Always localize larger stories for hometown audiences" - - and ye shall receive, a half-loaf of sorts:
Biden raises Ryan's stimulus request during debate
And by the way, it's a national story, too.Here's the section of the debate, including comments from Biden, Ryan and moderator Martha Raddatz...
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