Ron Johnson accused of GOP convention voter fraud

Terrence Wall has apparently told WTDY, a Madison talk radio station, that one GOP convention-goer admitted Ron Johnson (or his “people”) paid for a hotel room in exchange for an endorsement vote.

Terrence Wall may be a sore loser, but I don’t imagine him lying at this point. Although he could be trying to save face after the RPW endorsed an opponent who had been in the race only weeks, compared to Wall’s roughly nine months.

This rooms-for-votes scandal can only lead to further questions of the RPW’s wisdom endorsing a candidate they knew almost nothing about beyond the single most important attribute for a GOP candidate — he is rich. How rich? We can’t be sure exactly…he still hasn’t filed his required personal financial disclosure, originally due May 15th.

If it was Johson’s “people” and not Ron Johnson himself behind the alleged incident, what should we expect from a campaign that includes Darrin Schmitz, the man behind the most highly offensive and deliberately misleading ad in Wisconsin’s political history?

Check out Blogging Blue for more, Zach Greg beat me to this one. (Had to clear that up in case I’m on the CRG watchlist. No more drama guys.)

Long Live Capper

I’m a little late to this saga, but if you are too, the CRG idiots (they like Scott Walker and calling people Nazis) are accusing our good friend at Cognitive Dissidence of blogging on county time. The problem for them is they have no evidence. The problem for us is some people are dumb enough to swallow anything.

If you are interested, below is a very incomplete list of WI bloggers telling the whole story. The summary is: CRG accused capper of blogging on county time, their evidence consists of blogs posted mostly on Scott Walker imposed furlough days, and CRG is wasting county resources by forcing an investigation. For a better take on the story check out any of these WI blogs, in a not even close to complete list:

One Wisconsin Now

Haas414

Brew City Brawler

Folkbum

Emily Mills

Illusory Tenant

And while we’re at it, where was CRG when it was PROVEN a Scott Walker staffer Darlene Wink was commenting on JS online articles on county time? Funny thing is, conservatives are now going off on the “mainstream media” for not covering this enough. Despite the constant coverage of tea parties, those morons still rally around everything being a conspiracy to ignore them. If only we were so lucky.

Anyway, I know you’re going to hang in there capper. If a blogger died every time the right-wing lied we would have been in the negative category of existence long before our buddy Al Gore invented the internet.

I’m calling Chris Kliesmet at CRG tomorrow. Phone number 414-429-9501 or 414-801-0800. Can’t wait to ask them how they reconcile “responsible government” with government funded witchhunts.

Ron Johnson needs a campaign handler and a clue

Ron Johnson really needs to use his millions to buy himself some handlers if he wants to win his Senate campaign. In an interview with WisPolitics Johnson touts the  GOP “freedomfreedomfreedom” line, disputes a human contribution to climate change and calls the health care bill (that’s law Mr. Johnson) a budget buster. All typical Republican talking points, anyone could pick up and parrot those. What Johnson needs a handler for is statements like “I had nothing special” when referring to the insurance that allowed him to get life saving care for his daughter.

Before health-care reform passed, tens of millions of Americans could repeat most of Johnson’s statement — “I had nothing.”

Ron Johnson will run most of his campaign on the premise of repealing health-care for millions of the people who need it most. He is completely out-of-touch with the average citizen of Wisconsin.

Our current Senator Russ Feingold last ranked 95th in personal wealth out of the Senate’s 100 members. We don’t know exactly how rich Ron Johnson is because he filed for a 45-day extension to disclose his financial status, presumably because he couldn’t count all his money by May 15th. Johnson has already committed to throwing ten to fifteen million dollars into his Senate race so it’s clear which candidate most resembles the citizens of Wisconsin.

Further proving he just doesn’t get it, Johnson endorses drilling for oil in the great lakes, and calls nuclear power “the most cost effective way of providing energy.” Not installing a $500,000 piece of equipment was the most cost effective way for BP to extract oil from the gulf…until the well blew and began spewing oil into the ocean.

Jonson also used the interview to say Feingold has never accomplished anything for Wisconsin (an outright lie) and to voice his support for the Patriot Act. How’s will his endorsement of the Patriot Act play with his tea party supporters (or not-supporters, depending on the day)?  If teabaggers are of the same limited-government-except-when-it-offends-my-morality strain as the Republican party is, it probably won’t matter.

Wisconsin cannot afford a Senator with no vision except the repetition of GOP talking points. Ron Johnson slams Feingold’s maverick credentials while being nothing more than a parrot for the Republican party. Thankfully he’ll be back in Oshkosh by mid-November.

Republican Governors Association flip-flop on Barrett’s job creation record

Today the Republican Governors Association issued a press release attacking Tom Barrett as a job-killer. However, last week One Wisconsin Now pointed out that a Republican Governors Association ad accuses Colorado Gov. Hickenlooper of losing Frontier Airline jobs to Wisconsin, using clips from a Tom Barrett campaign ad on job creation!

From the Party of No Ideas comes another failure — establishing a coherent narrative. Should we put this party back in charge of our state? A national Republican organization can’t even keep from contradicting itself in a span of less than a month.

That shouldn’t be surprising, assuming the RGA is going along with the Republican Party of Wisconsin in supporting Scott Walker, they have nothing to go on. Scott Walker is a failure as Milwaukee County Executive. County spending has increased faster than state spending under Doyle. Services are in poor shape. And county spending has increased faster than state spending under Doyle!

Maybe the RGA got its flip-floping idea from Scott Walker, who just pulled another one, this time on concealed carry. We cannot let Walker fail Wisconsin the way he is failing Milwaukee County.

Russ Feingold’s line-item veto gaining traction amid debt concerns

Russ Feingold’s proposed line-item veto, or “expedited rescissions authority” got a link in Ezra Klein’s Wonkbook this morning. For the bill to pass Congress, Congress will essentially vote itself out of a bit of power. Not too much power however, as Congress retains the ultimate authority on the president’s line-item cuts on a straight up-or-down vote. That ultimate authority is why the bill will pass constitutional muster as a law, and also why I, as a line-item veto skeptic (and to a lesser extent, a veto skeptic) support the proposal.

According to a poll at the top of this morning’s Wonkbook, federal debt ranks equal with terrorism as “a threat to the future wellbeing of the United States.” The ability to eliminate wasteful spending will play well with voters, most of whom couldn’t care less about the constitutional implications of the 90′s line-item veto, much less the scaled-back version introduced by Senator Feingold.

Some bills are too important not to pass, and knowing this unscrupulous legislators attach what is best described as junk. When the junk is sent back to Congress, legislators will be far more scrupulous when voting on just junk. How is a senator from Florida going to justify voting for earmarks for Maine to constituents? They can’t, and they won’t vote for them.

The proposals line-itemed will not save much as a percentage of overall spending, but the millions to billions that could be saved is not nothing, either.

Planned Parenthood Advocates endorse Tom Barrett while WI Family Action and Craig Fletcher bleed hypocrisy

I’m a few days late on this one, but how about some good news regarding the anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut? (Cf: Pro-Life Wisconsin’s attack on freedom) Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin endorses Tom Barrett for Governor as “the only Wisconsin Gubernatorial candidate supporting birth control access.” The PPAWI release notes GOP candidates Walker and Neumann’s extreme positions of sponsoring and voting in favor of anti-women, anti-choice legislation.

Elsewhere, Craig Fletcher, running for the seat Tom Nelson will be vacating for his Lt. Governor run received the endorsement of the Wisconsin Family Action PAC. WFA has a history of advocating against freedom on many issues — marriage, education, and of course the right to make a decision regarding one’s own body. But the Fletcher campaign has issued another press release today: “Fletcher supports personal choice — auto title loans.”

Nice to see the Wisconsin Family Action and Craig Fletcher are willing to go so far to protect liberty and freedom — for the payday lending industry.  Fletcher’s release claims citizens “need to be concerned with this attack on businesses and personal rights” and laments the governor “can take away the consumers’ rights to use their personal property as they see fit.”

Fletcher bleeds hypocrisy. Wisconsin Family Action and the Fletchers of the state are not interested in freedom or liberty if the government is willing to regulate an issue that offends their moral sensibilities. Isn’t a woman’s self-determination with her body at least as important as “rights to…personal property?”

Despite their efforts to convince you otherwise, the GOP and anti-choice right do not have a stranglehold on liberty. Far from it.

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Also, just up is the PPAWI state legislature incumbent endorsements. List here.

Ron Johnson opposes Child Victims Act, Republican gov primary gets awesome

Check out Blogging Blue on Ron Johnson’s opposition to the Child Victims Act.

Jim Klauser wants his donation to Mark Neumann back, over Neumann’s statements on Walker’s Milwaukee County budget increases. Neumann says he’ll give Klauser’s money back if Klauser can prove the statements were false. So Neumann will be keeping his money. This primary is awesome!

Klauser is also calling on Neumann to quit the governors race. I wonder if Kyle over at the world’s new worst blog will be criticizing Klauser for subverting the electoral process and all that, like he’s done regarding the 7th congressional district seat being vacated by Obey. My guess? Unlikely.

Pro-Life Wisconsin concerned about environmental impact of birth control — Really!

Maybe you forgot how out of touch the anti-choice, far-right group Pro-Life Wisconsin was? Today they’re crying about the 45 year old Supreme Court ruling in Griswold v Connecticut that determined a state cannot prohibit contraception.

The limited-government-when-it’s-convenient crowd is actually lamenting self-determination. Don’t be surprised, in this case it’s convenient. But really, a little more access to health care is something that group considers an assault on liberty, but any access to contraception could (and should) be legally denied by the government. Right.

But it gets better — now the fringe-right, anti-choicers are doing it under the guise of environmentalism.

Though PLW both misspelled the domain and suffix of the URL in their press release (cf: thepillskills.com to thepillkills.org), the correct link goes to a site protesting birth control pills based on a supposed environmental impact on fish in bodies of water. If you were wondering, the movement doesn’t seem at all concerned with mercury in water, or anything else related to the environment…but you weren’t wondering.

Anyway the fringe-right radicals are going to protest that evil contraception that prevents unwanted pregnancies. What happens to unwanted pregnancies? Many are terminated, which the PLW claims to adamantly oppose.  Which leaves only one conclusion: the group, along with the rest of the anti-choice crowd is so stupid they discourage contraception at the risk of more unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

Vote for Zach

Blogging has been light, busy with other stuff, but here’s a link to send Zach of Blogging Blue to Netroots Nation. Zach was an early supporter of Pretty Important so go help him out. Voting for him is easy, and since some liberal is running it, fraud probably is too, right? Good joke. Go vote.

And for Steve from Uppity Wisconsin too.