MacIver Institute Strikes (Out) Again!

Just yesterday, I reported on how the MacIver Institute punked itself by exposing a spoof site showing the foibles of the maleficent mining bill.

Not being ones to rest on their laurels, they actually managed to surpass themselves in their inanity.

This time, their blockbusting scoop was that a woman had a dream!

These trolls went through people's personal Facebook pages looking for something, anything, that they could use to demonize the people opposed to the mining bill.  (Maybe the group should change their name to the McCarthy Institute of Wayward Stalkers.)

What they found was the Facebook page of Karen Tuerk, a staff member at the University of Wisconsin, who had stated that she had a dream that involved a tornado, Scott Walker and a knife.*

Nick Novak, the spokesman for the institute then tried to tie in this one random post about a dream and Ms. Tuerk's opposition to the mining bill, although he never does say why these two things would be in any way connected.

Well, not being a two bit hack like anyone at the MacIver Institute, I thought I'd do some real research and you wouldn't believe what I found!

Not only is Ms. Tuerk a self-admitted dreamer, she also eats food!  Namely fish, just like the kind one might find at the Solidarity Fish Fry.

Ms. Tuerk is the second from the left, holding up her fork.  Obviously, she is one dangerous woman!

I also noticed that Ms. Tuerk was breathing air that evening.  That can lead to only one conclusion - insert drama music please - she's a real person!

A couple of things should be noted here.

One, it's not surprising that Ms. Tuerk is opposed to the mining bill.  Most Wisconsinites are, by more than a 2:1 ratio.

The other thing is that Novak is a blatant liar.  In his post, he wrote:

MacIver News Service reached out to Tuerk to allow her to respond to her facebook [sic] post, but requests have gone unanswered.

Novak did indeed try to contact Tuerk, but he did get an answer.  Just not the one he wanted:

click to embiggen

There is something really disturbing about this though and I am truthfully afraid for Ms. Tuerk's personal safety.

Ms. Tuerk is an attractive, young woman. And here we have an obviously disturbed man who is stalking her on Facebook, knows where she works, knows what groups she belongs to and/or supports and then lies about her in order to try to make her change her behavior/attitude- signs of an obvious control freak.

I would strongly urge Ms. Tuerk to contact the police and file a report. There is no telling what someone like this might do.

I would also strongly urge Novak to seek out professional help before he gets into real trouble.

*I'm a little rusty on my Freudian interpretations of dreams, but with the presence of a tornado and the fact that Walker is from Colorado Springs, Colorado, I would say the obvious interpretation is that Walker is the Wicked Witch of the West.

Those Classy Walker Backers

There is no limit to what they'll do to interfere with an election:

A man wearing a gun in a holster and a T-shirt that said "Scott Walker for President" caused a stir after he voted in a small western Wisconsin village. 

Village of Merrillan Clerk Debra Green said Tuesday the man is a firm believer in the right to openly carry firearms. She says he came to the village hall to vote with a pistol in a holster, tied to his leg. 

She says that made some poll workers "very uneasy."  After voting he went across the street and was handing out yard signs supporting Walker. Green says the man left after he saw poll workers observing him.

The police should have arrested him for causing a public disturbance and illegal electioneering.  I'd add the crime of stupidity, but not only is that not illegal, that would put the entire Walker administration in jail instead of just most of them via Walkergate.

The Proprietorial Mindset Of Fitzwalkerstan

Like most Wisconsinites, the events of the past 15 months has set me aback, both financially and emotionally. As the unbelievably horrific events have unfolded, I have tried and tried to understand why and how people  could do this to other people. I have wondered what in the world could possess Scott Walker and Republicans in the state legislature to do the things they have done.

It's been all too obvious that their purported goals of creating jobs, improving the state's economy, lowering taxes and whatnot is so much hooey.  All of their actions have done anything but those stated goals.  So why are they doing what they are doing?

 A lot of people will banter about the terms greed and avarice, but they don't explain much more than the centralization of wealth that these malefactors have done.  Some have understandably accused the Republicans of being misogynistic, but again, that only explains one part of their misdeeds.  All the terms I've heard thrown about fit, but were not quite sufficient.

Then I was reminded of the old idiom of "What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine."  While it still doesn't cover everything, it does cover a lot.  The ruling class of Fitzwalkerstan has a proprietorial mindset in which they believe that everything belongs to them, or at least it should.

There have been three events, two recent and one that has gone on since the beginning of Fitzwalkerstan, which exemplify this very well.

What's yours is mine


The "bomb" that Scott Walker dropped on Wisconsin a year ago, the union busting law known as Act 10, is a prime example of the the proprietorial mindset.  Walker's lame excuse was that it gave the "tools" to governments, both state and local, to supposedly deal with the unconscionable cuts he was about to dole out with his cuts to school funding and shared revenue.

The common claim is that the legacy costs of pensions and health care were becoming unsustainable.  But was it?

Sadly, Walker was successfully able to portray public sector workers as the "haves" while the rest of the state were the "have nots."  But now that he has slashed the salaries of public sector workers - with the notable exception of his cronies who were each given tens of thousands of dollars in raises - we are all have nots.  The state's economy, which was actually starting to rebound before he took over, has been in a death spiral under his reign.  And projections for the future of our economy is bleak.

However, the public sector workers weren't even to blame for the mess he made. They had already been paying for their benefits in full.

On top of that, the pension system is fully funded.  There is no crisis to divert, except for allowing people like Walker in office, who only trash the economy.

And while health care costs are already exorbitantly high and  shooting up at astronomical rates, don't blame the public sector workers.  They don't control health care costs  Look more at the CEOs and board members of medical groups and insurance companies who are walking away with tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

All of Walker's manipulations were for two main goals.  One, to give workers a pay cut and give that money to his corporate friends and campaign donors.  The other was to give him an excuse to raid the pension fund - and don't think for one hot second that he's not drooling at the thought of getting his hands on that money - and again to give that money away to those who have given him so much already, like the Koch Brothers.

What's in the mine is mine

Another example of this proprietorial mindset is the recent imbroglio regarding Gogebic Taconite and the mining law changes the Republicans wanted to pass.

It was not, as the proponents of these changes claim, a simple streamlining of the permitting process.  It also included several exemptions to environmental laws that are in place to protect the waterways and wetlands from toxic pollution.  Gogebic Taconite, which Scott Fitzgerald recently admitted wrote the proposed law, wanted to get at the iron ore without having to cut into their profit margin with such pesky costs.

In fact, it has also come out that the company probably would not have been interested in opening up the mine anytime soon, due to the plunging value of iron ore.

And considering the mining business is doing pretty well in Wisconsin, at least according to their own association, it wasn't really going to destroy the mining industry in the state, so there's no need to go buy a new state flag, unless of course you wanted wanted one of those spiffy union flags. (As a point of interest, it was noted a few years ago that one of the best places to work was a mining company in Wisconsin that actually took care of its workers.  Rather a polar opposite of what Walker and friends are trying to do.)

Proving that they were never interested in doing environmentally-safe mining, or any mining in the near future, Gogebic Taconite went stomping off back to Florida, taking their bags of lucre with them.  Coincidentally, it is that last part - the leaving lucre - which has Walker and the Republicans pulling their hair and gnashing their teeth and hurling all sorts of curses and invective at Senator Dale Schultz and Democratic Senators.

In other words, even though the iron ore is an asset that belongs to the people of Wisconsin, Republicans were willing to give it away for next to nothing, just because some Florida-based company wanted it and had some love to spread around to the politicians who could make it happen.  It had nothing to do with jobs and if some people got sick or even died from the toxic pollution, well, meh, it's the price of being open for business.

What's yours is mine and you are mine

Perhaps the most egregious example of all is the maleficent actions taken by Walker and his Republican cohorts is the attack on women and the attempts to take away their rights, not only as women, but as humans.

First it was the defunding of Planned Parenthood.  Really, why would women need life-saving screenings anyway, right?  The right will literally scream murder and yell about the abortions services, which is just a small fraction of what they do.  But their holier-than-thou rantings are so much poppycock.  If they truly believed in the sanctity of life, they wouldn't abandon the child as soon as it was born.

Then it was the move to kill equal pay protection laws.  Why should women make the same pay for the same job? They're women!

Then we have Senator Glenn Grothman, who has never had a thought he thought was too stupid to utter, blaming single mothers for child abuse.  Just the sheer idiocy that could produce such a ridiculous and irresponsible left me speechless.  What in hell was he thinking?  Why not just say the act of giving birth leads to child abuse too?  I mean, is he really that sexually frustrated that he has to lash out at all the women who's had sex and none of it with him?

But just when I thought Grothman was the leader in stupidity, along comes Representative Pridemore.  This clown (no offense to clowns) thinks that women should stay in abusive relationships! How utterly clueless can a person be?!  Someone call the coroner, I think we can conclusively rule that Pridemore is brain dead.  Pridemore goes on to beat himself with the stupid stick by saying that women should stay with their abusive partners because the children need discipline and it's the man's job to be the disciplinarian.  (Yes, by now I'm spitting in rage!)

What this worm needs to understand is that if the ass is beating his wife/girlfriend, he's probably going to be beating the kids too!  And even if the father isn't abusing the child directly, being exposed to his parents' abusive relationship is just as damaging to the child's psyche as being abused directly.  This can lead to mental health issues (it can actually cause brain damage in a forming brain) and behavioral problems.

What he is suggesting would be akin to lighting the couch on fire to keep the couch from burning.

Obviously, the reasons behind all of these extraordinarily boorish moves can't all be explained by money or a purported believe in the sanctity of life.

What it does show is that they perceive women as something less than human and thus not deserving of the same consideration.  While the right is chock full of misogynists and sexist buttheads who objectify women and see them only as a means to meet their physical needs, it's actually a sign of considering them as property and not as people.  It might go back to the days where they thought women should only be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.  It might be just their own insecurity and subsequent need to bully someone they think is weaker.

I have news for them.  These are our wives, our sisters, our daughters, our girlfriends and our friends, who they are trying to control.  They are not chattel for them to push around and control.  They are as free as the rest of us to make their own decisions, especially in regards to what happens to their bodies.

In summary, too many people in positions of power in Fitzwalkerstan see our property as theirs for the taking, our natural assets as their own ticket to more money and the women of Wisconsin has so many possessions, as if they were pets and not people.

They act as if they feel, mistakenly so, that they have the right to these things and people just because they want them. If they haven't learned yet from the past year, the people are no longer intimidated by their titles or their personal wealth and that they don't own us or the state.

The People do understand these things and the People are reclaiming their state now.  And may we never let people like these regain control again.

Cowardly Attack Shows Right's Lack of Confidence in Walker

Monday, as the state was waiting in eager anticipation for midnight to strike and the recall of Scott Walker to start, some yet unknown cowardly miscreants used a Denial of Service attack on the United Wisconsin website, causing the site to fall..  United Wisconsin is the grassroots group that is organizing the recall efforts.

While the identities of the criminals are not known yet, there is no doubt that it was done in an effort to deny the people from reclaiming their state back.

Yet, just as with Walker's budget disrepair bill failed to break our wills, the hackers' attack failed to slow people down.  Thousands of people gathered at various stations around the state for their chance to be among the first to sign the recall petitions.

Not only that, but the United Wisconsin site is back up and operating!  There is also the Recall HQ website, which is another place that one can download their own recall petitions to get the signatures of one's family, friends and neighbors. (I'm printing my copies out even as I'm typing this.)  At the Recall HQ site, one can also download the petitions for Senators Van Wanggaard, Terry Moulton and Pam Galloway.

But not only did the act of these brigands fail, it also showed their hand.  And that hand was shaking in terror, since they have obviously have no confidence that Walker will be able to win a recall election without them resorting to illegal means.

And that's something that I can finally agree with them about.

Zombie Reagan Democrats

First there were the Reagan Democrats.

Then the Onion told us of Zombie Reagan.

Now the Republicans apparently have brought us Zombie Reagan Democrats:

Bill Pocan - father of state Rep. Mark Pocan - may have died long ago.

But that doesn't mean he can't sign the recall petition against state Sen. Bob Wirch of Kenosha.

Just check page 362 of the Wirch recall petition, and you will find the signature and address for Bill Pocan, also the father of Milwaukee County Judge William Pocan. The petition says Bill Pocan penned his support of the recall effort on March 3.

I just hope the Democrats up north watch the Lassa petitions closely. For all you know, Osama bin Laden signed one today.

Sacrilege

Regardless of one's philosophy, political leaning or theology, I would think that everyone can agree that one of the worst things a person could do is use a religion to commit horrible atrocities against other people.

The Problem With Trolls

Like many of the other progressive bloggers, I am having an issue dealing with some right wing trolls that have thought they would be clever by insulting me, my family or my readers.

I am pondering to turn on comment moderation, even though I am loathe to do so. I feel free speech is one of the greatest things about our country, and wish to honor that right to the fullest.

But while I agree everyone has a right to express themselves and their thoughts, I don't agree that this means that they can resort to personal attacks and gross vulgarities. After all, this is "my place" and I would expect my guests to show the same respect that they would if they were at someone's home in real life.

If you don't like what I have to say, you don't have to read it. If you want to argue the points, please, feel free. But if you insist on boorish behaviors, don't be surprised if your comment goes down the rabbit hole forever.

And if it becomes too bothersome, I will switch over to moderating the comments. If I have to take it to that level, I apologize in advance to the reasonable readers and commenters, on both sides of the political aisle. It's not me, it's not you, it's the trolls.

Conservatives Behaving Poorly

Zach at Blogging Blue shares the story of personal harassment the John Foust, author of the gigglefest of Boots & Kittens, in the form of repeated calls at his place of work. At least one of the calls John received was allegedly by the spastic and vulgar mickey/gus who is a frequent visitor to Badger Blogger and Real Debate Wisconsin:

I asked ATT about tracking the crank calls. There’s a process to follow. They start logging calls, you report the crank calls, then you file a report with your local police to get the info. The wheels of justice turn slowly, and thanks to ATT and my local police, the traps managed to catch just one crank caller. On the morning of June 5, he’d left a message that said “Hey bald man, your time is running out, bald man.” Later that same day, I was IP-blocked from commenting at BadgerBlogger.

I googled the phone number given to me by the police. It seems to belong to a Michael O’Leary, the parade director of the Shamrock Club’s St. Patrick Day Parade. Look at his email address, which happens to be mickeyoleary@yahoo.com. “Mickey.” Now where have I heard that before? Anyone know Mike? Of course, googling alone can be somewhat circumstantial, but the references to this number and this name are quite contemporary. I’ve verified the phone number by independent non-invasive methods. (This seems like a positive ID, right, Chief?)

Telling me my time is running out seems vaguely threatening and downright thuggish. I’m surprised such a prominent citizen would be the person behind the insulting “Gus” persona. My local police said they’d give him a call and encourage him to behave in a more civil fashion. I’m happy to leave it at that, even though it’s a clear Class B misdemeanor (punishable by “a fine up to $1,000, or imprisonment for up to 90 days, or both; however, for a repeat offender, the term of imprisonment increase up to 2 years”).

Now, this is not the first time that a liberal has had problems with people associated with these two sites, but it is by far the most egregious.

Don't get me wrong. I fully recognize the fact that neither Patrick Dorwin or Fred Dooley are responsible for mickey/gus' behavior. But I cannot help but wonder if the fact that they tolerate or even welcome these types of people who show such poor behavior, if this does not encourage more of the same, at these higher levels.