Looks like Cong. Tiffany jetted-off to a warmer swamp Friday

What would lead Wisconsin's northwoods congressman to jet off to West Palm Beach Friday? 

Spring break with the under 25-crowd congesting Florida's beaches in defiance of COVID19 logic?

A chit-chat with the failed ex-President holed up at his Mar-a-Largo resort which COVID19 had already partially shut down?

Thanks to Politico.com's sharp-eyed "Playbook" newsletter contributors and readers for the lead in its Friday "Playbook" newsletter's PLAYBOOKERS Column:

SPOTTED: Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) at DCA waiting for a flight to West Palm Beach on Friday afternoon. Pic

Oh, by the way, the weather is still much warmer there than here.n

✓

  SAVED TO MY LOCATIONS

72

°F

FEELS LIKE72

Partly cloudy

FRI EVENING

MAINLY CLEAR

79

°F

FEELS LIKE79

FRI OVERNIGHT

PARTLY CLOUDY

73

°F

FEELS LIKE73

SAT MORNING

A MIX OF SUN AND CLOUDS

73

°F

FEELS LIKE73

 

Awash in public benefits, WI man blocks healthcare for others

As I recently predicted, WI GOP Assembly Speaker and fake fiscal conservative Robin Vos renewed his #never stance against expanded Medicaid health care coverage for low-income state residents - even though it would save the state treasury more than a billion dollars and keep tens of thousands of Wisconsinites alive, well and productive.

This is the slogan-and-talking-point nasty pant load Vos left behind at the State Capitol Thursday to justify his falsely compassionate-but-truthfully-cold-hearted campaign to keep poor people in Wisconsin poor- and certainly in poor health:

"I think the State of Wisconsin has enough resources to be able to utilize, to make sure we have all of our priorities funded and we're not going to do it by expanding welfare," said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester.

"Trapping people in the life of poverty is not something that there's ever the right amount of money to do."

And as a matter of fairness and honest framing, no one who leads one-half of what has been called the least-active-and-laziest state legislature in America...and who gets state-subsidized medical care and pension contributions, and state-provided telephones, parking, computers, and constantly-expanding staff...and repeatedly can hire taxpayer-paid lawyers to pay for self-serving and partisan litigation, and easy access to state aircraft...and can accept and raise the level of automatically-dispensed and receipt-free meal, mileage and lodging reimbursements for his colleagues and himself...and collects a monthly taxpayer-paid paycheck - whether campaigning, working or vacationing - 

Oct. 25th opposition TV ad image

 - should be permitted to demonize health care coverage as 'welfare', let alone deny that coverage which will save and improve the lives of those who do not enjoy Vos's extensive levels of 'welfare.'  

Here are my remarks just nine days ago about Vos rejecting newly-available federal Medicaid funding to which Wisconsinites have already contributed their share, by the way:

Robin Vos and Republican fake rationality refuseniks have consistently said 'no way, never' - even though Wisconsin taxpayers have to make up the lost hundreds of millions of dollars through state taxes.

But will Vos and the rest of his counterfeit conservative caucus continue their war on public health, the poor and the state treasury now that Biden's economic recovery bill specifically adds so much new Medicaid funding that states like Wisconsin will actually make money if they take the newly-available funding?

Medicaid expansion. Twelve states have still refused to accept the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid, leaving huge numbers of poor citizens without health coverage. The ARP boosts the federal contribution to Medicaid so that holdout states will actually make money if they accept the expansion.

I'm betting that Vos's answer will remain #never, because in the little state capitol world where he rules, ideology is everything and the rest is #never.

'Forever chemicals' require toughened WI water programs

I had hoped that Scott Walker's eight-year war on the environment which I spread out across a blog series in 2018 would come to an end with his defeat.

Shame on me.

Take a look at the Wisconsin GOP's habitual and now deepening disregard for clean drinking water

as explained in a Wednesday newsletter distributed by UpNorthNews about why 'forever chemical' pollutants in state waters may be 'forever-and-ever' in Wisconsin: 

Republicans Are Using an Obscure Rules Process to Undermine the Original Intent of Laws in a Variety of Ways Affecting WI Life

• This week...legislative Republicans put forward proposals that would...bar the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) from enforcing a law passed last year to prevent industrial chemicals from entering waterways....But instead of legislating on the issues themselves, all of this action would happen through the rule-making process for bills that have already become law.
   
• An obscure but powerful panel known as the Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR) oversees how rules are written and implemented. In December, JCRAR held a hearing in which it killed the rules put forward by the DNR to enforce the "PFAS" law passed last year, effectively making the law unenforceable. PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, do not break down easily and are linked to causing cancer and other health problems. 

Look: this is not complicated: people in Wisconsin - and everywhere - need, want and deserve clean water to drink, and in which to fish, swim, and bathe.

They don't need, want or deserve to drink, fish, swim or bathe in water that carries industrial chemicals, heavy metals or animal waste. 

So Wisconsin needs stronger, not weaker groundwater and drinking water standards and enforcement practices; a multiplicity of evidence statewide is publicly-available, longstanding, widespread and incontrovertibly damning.

Which means that this absolutely is the wrong time for public health agencies like the Wisconsin DNR to capitulate to political and special-interest pressures by even thinking about stepping back from effective and assertive clean water policies.  

It's too bad the 2013 words and wisdom of West Bend business leader John Torinus which I grabbed off his blog in 2013 remain unheeded, especially after the 'forever chemical' threat emerged on top of so many other threats to state waters:

Business and media veteran John Torinus - - appreciating clean water and the many benefits it confers - - poses the right observations about the Right at the end of another of his fine essays:

I have always had a hard time figuring out why conservatives in the GOP have gone anti-conservation. Conserving valuable resources, like our drinking and recreational waters, is a conservative thing to do. It should be looked at as an investment, not spending.

Conservation is also good politics. All polls show that a large majority of Americans, including hunters and anglers, are pro-conservation.

The GOP shouldn’t let short-sighted accountants drive the bus.

Will links to Giuliani allies muddy Johnson re-election bid?

Ron Johnson has gone out of his way in recent weeks to drag himself along with Wisconsin's good name through the mud with a series of post-2020 election moves and remarks that range from false, to corrosively nutty

to flat-out racist, as Washington Post Pulitzer prize-winner Eugene Robinson concluded:

Opinion: Ron Johnson’s racism is breathtaking

Exactly why Johnson has chosen this path is as murky as his mindset; I've said it looks to me like a re-election strategy based on corralling every far-right conspiracy-addled Republican rightwing voter who doesn't care about - or perhaps enjoys - the turmoil Johnson is inflaming even though Johnson publicly pledged during a 2016 interview that he would limit himself to two terms only:

Sen. Ron Johnson says he won't seek 3rd term if reelected in November. 

But Johnson had served for the previous six years as chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and a just-unclassified and released report by the federal umbrella  Intelligence Council may make Johnson's re-election bid even more fraught.

You can read the report released March 10, here.

Foreign Threats to the US Federal Elections

And because of this finding - 

"A key element of Moscow's strategy this election cycle was its use of proxies linked to Russian intelligence to push influence narratives — including misleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden — U.S. media organizations, U.S. officials, and prominent U.S. individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration," report says. -

- the report may reignite a still-simmering 2019 storyline that Johnson should not welcome if he were to run for re-election: 

Sen. Johnson, ally of Trump and Ukraine, surfaces in crucial episodes in the saga

Sen. Ron Johnson met in July with a former Ukrainian diplomat who has circulated unproven claims that Ukrainian officials assisted Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, a previously unreported contact that underscores the GOP senator’s involvement in the unfolding narrative that triggered the impeachment inquiry of President Trump.

In an interview last week, Andrii Telizhenko said he met with Johnson (Wis.) for at least 30 minutes on Capitol Hill and with Senate staff for five additional hours.  

Props to Bruce Murphy at Urban Milwaukee for staying on the story well before the release of the Intelligence Council's report:

Johnson Tainted by Ukrainian Official?

Telizhenko and the other six Ukrainians “have made repeated public statements advancing malicious narratives that U.S. Government officials have engaged in corrupt dealings in Ukraine,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday. And those malicious narratives were soon taken up by Johnson.

“Telizhenko sparked U.S. officials’ concern in early 2019 when he began promoting pro-Russian, anti-Biden narratives by sharing information with GOP lawmakers,” the story noted. “He told The Post last year that he cooperated extensively with an investigation” by Sen. Johnson. The two met to discuss the issue back in July 2019, as an earlier Post story revealed.

The information from Telizhenko was a key part of the the investigation by Johnson’s Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee, which recycled the dirt peddled by [Trump lawyer] Giuliani in an attempt to smear Joe Biden. The report was widely condemned by the media as a “hatchet job” whose 87 pages amounted to “little more than a rehashing of unproven allegations” and “contained no evidence that the former vice president improperly manipulated American policy toward Ukraine or committed any other misdeed.”

But it did contain lots of stuff from Telizhenko. “Chairmen Johnson…cited Mr. Telizhenko 42 times in the letters sent as part of this investigation, and ignored repeated warnings to not give credibility to disinformation,” noted Oregon’s Democratic U.S. Senator Ron Wyden in a statement he released yesterday. “Johnson and his staff even met with Mr. Telizhenko for hours in person… By imposing sanctions on Telizhenko, the Trump administration confirms that Senate Republicans’ year-long investigation was based on Russian disinformation.” 

Johnson has vigorously defended his committee's investigation:

GOP senator subpoenas FBI over Russia, defends Biden probe

“As always, almost all of the documents we are seeking and will make public are from U.S. sources,” Johnson wrote in the letter. 

Foxconn to disclose WI product in month 48. (Psst: it's a secret.)

For the Foxconn record, (and a broken one at that, for those who remember what a broken vinyl record sounded like...), please remember: 

Foxconn never made any promised big-screen flat-panel devices and TVs at its vast Mt. Pleasant site, though some COVID19 masks have been produced.

It also never created its promised ventilators.

Or airport coffee kiosks.

Or any whiz-bang item, or battalions of high-paying jobs it promised in exchange for billions in state and local public funds - committed and spent - that have helped pave and plow under hundreds of acres of prime agricultural acreage, substantial amounts of wetlands and many homes which had been occupied, improved and enjoyed:

By the time Trump, Ryan, Walker, and Gou convened for the groundbreaking ceremony in Mount Pleasant on June 28th, 2018, Foxconn had already begun to waver. Days before, the company admitted that rather than building the Gen 10.5 Fab specified in its contract, it would instead build the smaller Gen 6, but still create 13,000 jobs. 

Two months later Foxconn executive Louis Woo told the local press there was another change: rather than manufacturing jobs, 90 percent of the roles would be researchers and engineers, a number that would mean Foxconn was creating a research campus in Southeastern Wisconsin three times the size of MIT. 

That was the spin in July, 2017:

Foxconn announces $10 billion investment in Wisconsin and up to 13,000 jobs

And this is the spin today about July, 2021 - as Foxconn did again what it has done repeatedly - touting and teasing its presence in what Scott Walker pathetically called "Wisconn Valley" which, like Narnia, is found on no map other than the one created by his 2018 campaign scheduler:

Foxconn said it will announce what will be made at the Wisconsin facility by July 

The New York Times reported that Foxconn's chairman and chief executive Young Liu said during a news briefing that the company is deciding between the Wisconsin facility or one of its plants in Mexico to make electric cars. 

Wow. This iteration of 'Whither Wisconsin Valley' comes with added drama - like possible outsourced production and cross-border wage competition:

Liu said that the company will announce what it will make in Wisconsin before July. It could be electric cars, or something else, he said.

Might there be additional, perhaps Federal incentives in the mix? Does one level of subsidy deserve another?

As I'd written a couple of weeks ago, I'm all for electric vehicles, and if I ever buy another car it will definitely be an Electric Vehicle, (EV). But as I noted in the same piece, the EV market is already crowded with high, established vehicle manufacturers like General Motors, Ford and others in China and Germany, and transportation startups in Wisconsin have fared poorly. 

So stay tuned on your flat-panel TV, made elsewhere, as it's wait until July, Bucky - though we are reminded that July hasn't exactly been Foxconn's best month:

     From NBC Nightly News, 7/21/19

And while we're looking forward and looking back, too, do you realize just long it's been since Walker rolled out in July, 2017 the Foxconn surprise he hoped would seal his third term?

* In July, 2017, Christian Yelich was still playing outfield for the Florida Marlins.

* And after July, 2017, Jordy Nelson would go on to play another full season for the Green Bay Packers and make 53 receptions before being released in March of 2018.

* Heck, former MTV performer Sean Duffy was still Wisconsin's Northwoods Congressman.

And would get re-elected again in 2018 before he left for greener pastures so Tom Tiffany could get promoted to the seat

Anyway - we've got four more months of suspense, and God only knows how many Foxconn news releases to go, until July rolls around and Foxconn's secret is might be revealed.

Maybe by that time UW-Madison will see some of the other 99% of the $100 million Foxconn pledged it years ago.  

A full, four-year Foxconn archive is here:

[Updated continuously from June, 2017]  

This archive with close to 400 posts has tracked, explained and provided context and commentary for Wisconsin's publicly-awarded and record-breaking environmental favors, legal privileges and $4.5 billion in state and local funds to subsidize and assist a Taiwan-based Foxconn factory in rural Racine County, Wisconsin. 

And one more thing: if the Electric Vehicle factory falls through, I propose that some of the unused Foxconn land be converted into The Charlie Brown Recreation Center with regulation baseball diamonds, basketball courts and football fields, bleacher seating and a concession stand.

All home teams would be called "The Mt. Pleasant Peanuts," and there'd be regional Lucy and Linus Leagues.

Then we'd have the truth in advertising that "Wisconn Valley" never achieved.

Ron Johnson - 45's apprentice - goes deeply to the dark side

Despite a wasted decade in the US Senate that wrapped up with an all-night bill-reading-stunt-that-failed -

Sleep-deprived Republicans were late showing up the next day, debate was drastically shortened and the bill went on to its anticipated passage.

- an unaccountable and unshameable Ron Johnson appears to be rolling out a cynical game plan to extend his tenure: 

Step one: 

Continually assure all Former Guy's Wisconsin 2020 1,160,065 voters  - a number that exceeded Johnson's 2016 total of 1,479,471 and his 2010 turnout of 1,125,999 - (Johnson's data from Ballotopedia, here) - that he's the rightest of the right to wear FG's crown across the state.

(Yes, that would have Johnson break a promise that he would not seek a third term, but you can't be surprised by anything he says or does. After all, Johnson was still promoting false and dangerous conspiracies to undermine Biden's win two months after the Nov. 3rd elections, and then went on to say that the catastrophic, fatal January 6th Capitol Hill insurrection wasn't an armed riot.)

Step two:

Further lock down the Former Guy's Wisconsin vote by continuing to imitate FG's behaviors and bombast - from sucking up to Putin to promoting bogus medicine  to more recently adopting FG's racist memes and themes in a disgusting bet that regrettably will find appeal at the fringes. 

Step three: 

Promote a manipulative flip of a 'race card' allegation he fabricated for himself into an equally self-serving 'well-I-declare-plea-for-sympathy' victim card.

Which explains Johnson's 'principled' resolve to remanufacture his faceless foes' fake unfairness into an equally phony and completely undeserved underdog's identity.

And that has two benefits:

1. Hey, who doesn't like an underdog?

2. More importantly, flipping the narrative would conveniently remake the re-election bid he pledged he wouldn't make from a referendum on his record (and broken promise) into a run against other, anonymous scary people's behaviors: 

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson Says Comments About Capitol Insurrection Were Not Racist

“I completely did not anticipate that anybody could interpret what I said as racist. It’s not....I’m not deterred by this,” Johnson said of the reaction to his statements. “I think people need to understand that. This just, if anything, fires me up more.'”

Former Guy tried and failed to turn the 2020 election away from his repulsive record into a referendum on Karl Marx, Hunter Biden and the Green New Deal, but don't put it past Johnson to try and become Sequel Former Guy for Wisconsin's MAGA crowd.

As Yoda might have said echoing himself in "Phantom Menace" had he seen Former Guy and RoJo in the Dojo: 

 “Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice.” 

Johnson's open racism wins 'Worst WI Senator' trophy

It's hard to keep up with Ron Johnson's worsening words - but I'm awarding him, and retiring, the 'Worst Wisconsin Senator' trophy for this unforced racist rant on a rightwing radio program.

American Bridge 21st Century

@American_Bridge

Blatant racism from

@RonJohnsonWI

here. He says he wasn’t worried on 1/6 because the majority-white insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol “love this country,” but says if they were Black Lives Matter protestors he would’ve been concerned for his safety. #WISen

He needs to be run out of the Senate, now, as he's been covering for weeks - despite evidence that the entire world saw live on television -  

for white rioters and the damage and deaths they caused on January 6th. 

Reality check: NY Times says WI COVID deaths exceed 7,000

I've noted the reporting differential many times, so while the Wisconsin Department of Health Services says the COVID19 death count in the state Friday is a jaw-dropping 6,525, The New York Times, citing Johns Hopkins University data and other tallies puts the count  at 7,167.

Bottom line: Wear a mask, get vaccinated, respect your neighbors, honor the dead.

And demand better data; it helps fight complacency. 

Contrary to MJS, there is no 'war over voting.' It's a 1-sided attack.

This story is behind the paywall, but the headline conveys some irritating blame-free whitewash:

Revisiting Wisconsin's record-breaking 2020 turnout, as the post-election war over voting heats up here and around the country

There is no war over voting in Wisconsin and across the country. 

There is a one-sided attack on voting rights in 43 states because Republicans lost recent elections and are scheming to again use state state power to tamp down [Democratic] turnout and tilt outcomes to GOP candidates. 

The story has a lot of great data and analysis compiled by Craig Gilbert. A headline like "Flawed GOP voting bills based on fears, not facts" would have better served the piece and the public interest.

I know: dream on.

Former GOP moderate Alberta Darling 

and self-appointed voting exclusionist Duey Stroebel are leading this new Wisconsin voting suppression movement that is based on no known evidentiary need.

RoJo displays fresh odd, self-destructive inscrutability

One sure sign of digital era crack-pottery that's blown past minor eccentricity: incomprehensible tweeting by a high-profile politician set up by a grammatical mistake that suggests basic editing along with fact-checking are now among other standards and expertise the politician has jettisoned.

To wit: 

Senator Ron Johnson

@SenRonJohnson

·

2h

Does

@joebiden

wants us to continue living in a state of fear? This pandemic could have been defeated months ago & tens of thousands of lives saved if courageous frontline doctors and early treatment had not been censored and silenced as we awaited a vaccine.

Say what?

I assume Johnson is referencing discredited COVID19 treatments he tried to sell to the public, but which were proffered more as an attaboy to his discredited and defeated Golden Idol.

But, seriously, who knows?, as Johnson's words - and motives if there are any he's thought through - -  are getting more and more indefensible and inscrutable:

"He has been saying and doing things that just can't be justified," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "I think a lot of people have been stunned that he would go as far as he has."

Johnson's comments [whitewashing the January 6th attack on the US Capitol] also come as he is considering a campaign for a third term in the U.S. Senate, at a time when Trump remains the Republican Party's standard-bearer.

"I know the senator," said A.B. Stoddard, an associate editor and columnist at Real Clear Politics. "He is smart enough, and I know that he knows this stuff isn't true."

We can say, however, that Johnson right now is in a dead heat - 

- with Glenn Grothman in the contest for the 'WI Sends Its Worst' trophy which any normal politician would never hope to take home.

I'd say Johnson as a Senator still has a lead on Grothman, but it's a crowded field, so don't count out Fitzgerald or Tiffany - et al.