Chris Rockwood @ Jefferson County Fair

  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 8, 2014

Contact: Robert Hansen, Campaign Manager

414-688-8226 • media@rockwoodforcongress.com

Jefferson—Progressive candidate Chris Rockwood invites the voters of the 5th Congressional District to celebrate the opening night of the Jefferson County Fair with him, Wednesday, July 9th. He’ll greet fairgoers at the Jefferson County Democratic Party booth in the East Exhibit Building. 

Rockwood, who’s challenging long-time Washington insider Jim Sensenbrenner, encourages voters to stop by and discuss their concerns with him one-on-one. He’ll arrive at 6 p.m. and plans to stick around until the hall closes, so he’ll have plenty of time to learn how he can help the citizens of Jefferson County.

That’s essential to Rockwood’s governing philosophy. While, according to recent news reports, the independently wealthy Sensenbrenner caters to special interest groups that offer him expensive trips and other lavish perks, Congressman Rockwood will only serve his fellow citizens in the 5th CD. Therefore, he knows that it’s essential to hear their concerns.

EVENT: 5th CD candidate Chris Rockwood @ the Jefferson County Fair

DATE: Wednesday, July 9, 2014

TIME: 6:00 p.m. to closing

LOCATION: Jefferson County Democratic Party booth

East Exhibit Building, booth 14

Jefferson County Fairgrounds 

503 N. Jackson Ave., Jefferson, WI

For Fair admissions and other details, see jeffersoncountyfairpark.com/fair. To contribute to the Rockwood campaign, visit actblue.com/contribute/page/rockwoodforcongress.

For more information, visit RockwoodForCongress.com. Follow the campaign on Facebook.com/RockwoodForCongress, and on Twitter @Rockwood4WI.

Sensenbrenner Said What?!

Michele Bachmann (R-Batshit Crazy) has been spouting off her latest rant of right wing nuttery by making the accusation that the Muslim Brotherhood has "penetrated" the federal government.

At a recent townhall meeting, one of the wingnuts in Wisconsin's Fifth Congressional District asked Rep. James Sensenbrenner about supporting Bachmann's version of McCarthyism. His response is jaw-dropping:



Part of the transcription between Sensenbrenner and the wingnut, as well as the background story, can be found at Think Progress, which is also the source of the video.

I do believe this might be the first time Sensenbrenner actually made sense and took the correct stand on any issue. Which is probably why I have not seen this in any of the right wing blogs. Making sense and doing the correct thing is just an embarrassment to them.

Maybe They Should've Worn Tea Bags On Their Hats

Last night, I told you about a town hall meeting being hosted by Leah Vukmir and her guest Frank James Sensenbrenner.

The turn out was excellent, with several hundred pro-Wisconsinites showing up to protest Vukmir's support of stripping the rights from hard working men and women, not to mention stripping health care coverage from the vulnerable and selling state assets in no bid contracts.

But unlike Russ Feingold, who was confronted by angry Kochian Teahadists, and listened to their grievances, Vukmir and Sensenbrenner took their gavels and went home:

U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Menomonee Falls) ended a town hall meeting Monday night after about 30 minutes after repeated interruptions by opponents of Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill. 

Interruptions in the form of shouts and jeers were in response to the presence of state Sen. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa) and her support of the bill, which would largely strip away the collective bargaining rights of public employees in Wisconsin. 

Attendees packed a meeting room in the Wauwatosa Public Library while an adjacent hallway was filled with the meeting's overflow. Budget bill opponents hoping to recall Vukmir gathered signatures in the lobby of the Wauwatosa Civic Center while outside about 75 protesters denounced the bill and called for Walker's recall.

The rest of the article is statements from frustrated attendees who feel they weren't being heard, much less listened to, by their elected leaders.

Team folbum also had their correspondent there, with their own accounting of the night's activities.

Well, I thought to myself, surely those morally upright defenders of truth and honesty will condemn Vukmir and Sensenbrenner for not listening to the tax payers and the voters, just like they did to Feingold (even though Feingold actually stayed and listened, not once, but 72 times).  Right?! Yeah, not so much.

Monday Night Rally: Tosa Version - A Must Attend!

Monday night, Leah Vukmir, along with James Sensenbrenner, will be having a town hall meeting at the Wauwatosa Public Library, located at 7635 W. North Avenue.

There will be a pro-worker rally in front library, starting at 6 pm, to hold Vukmir accountable for her shameful vote to attack the middle class and her support for the war against workers.

But if that is not enough incentive, go there to support Representative David Cullen, who will also be in attendance.

Show up to support Rep. Cullen, who stands with workers.

Let's fill that place up!

Wisconsin Republicans Create Their First Job

State Republicans, most notably Goobernator-elect Scott "Train Wreck" Walker, has been taking a lot of flak for their anti-high speed rail posturing. Walker, as the reader is probably very well aware, made his anti-rail stance one of the main planks of his campaign platform.

Since the election, the people are starting to realize that the Democrats were correct and that Walker's grandstanding could get very expensive. Despite growing concern and repeated warnings, Walker continues his act of bravado with our jobs and money and states that he won't allow HSR to go through Wisconsin, but would rather use the money to fix roads and bridges. (This is the first recorded incident of Walker caring about maintenance of anything, by the way.)

Then, last Friday, as I predicted, Walker started to backtrack on his position, saying he was "in no hurry" to push for the rail funding to be used otherwise, in order to prepare for the inevitable flip flop. You could start seeing the concern growing in his base by then.

The following Monday, reacting to a rally held outside of the Talgo plant and increasing pressure from the state's Democratic Party and groups like One Wisconsin Now, Walker caved in a little bit more, saying he was now willing to allow that money to go to fixing current rail lines. Even the Wisconsin State Journal, which had originally endorsed him, appeared to be having some buyer's remorse. The flop sweat from the right was becoming quite noticeable.

On Tuesday, the desperation from the right was palpable as three of Walker's allies, Congressmen Jim Sensenbrenner, Paul Ryan and Tom Petri said that they would introduce a bill that would change the law so that if states like Wisconsin and Ohio, who made terrible blunders in their elections, wanted to forgo jobs and a large influx of money, it would go to back to pay off some of their debt and deficits.

But the chances of that bill going anywhere is somewhere between slim and none. The problem that these three stooges face is that they are not the only members of Congress. To get the bill passed, it would need the support of the representatives from Illinois, New York and now California, as well as any other state that would be more than glad to bring jobs and a recovering economy to their fair states.

To add to the job-killing Republicans disconcertion is the fact that U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has again emphatically repeated the fact that if Wisconsin, Ohio or any other soon-to-be backwater state wanted to reject the HSR funding, he would move swiftly to make sure the money is responsibly and fairly redistributed to states that want to actually grow their economies.

And just to pile on more bad news, Walker's idiot ideology won't be cost the state $100 million as previously reported, but might actually be closer to $135 million.

With all of the backtracking, moving of goal posts, and attempts to throw up red herrings, it is easy to see that Walker and his Republican allies have actually created one job. That job is a massive snow job which they are trying to pull over on the state's citizens.

The only real question is which promise Walker going to break - creating jobs, stopping the train or both?

Was Sensenbrenner Violating Campaign Rules?

Todd Lohenry, of the website "Party of KNOW" (or No or Know-Nothing, if you prefer), has an interesting post up regarding a conversation that allegedly took place between Terri McCormick and Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R- Liechtenstein).

The intent of Lohenry's post is obviously to discredit McCormick, who is running for the honor of running against Congressman Steve Kagan. I don't know much about that race and don't really have much to say in support or against McCormick.

What I do find interesting is the document Lohenry provides for his readers. Said document is supposedly some notes that were transcribed by McCormick, or at least by someone using her computer, which detail the course of their conversation.

The document is dated October 3, 2009, which was a Saturday, which was the date the notes were transcribed. Reading further down Lohenry's post, it shows that the notes were written at 5:50 am on that Saturday morning, but the meeting actually had taken place on October 2, 2009, which was, of course, a Friday. Furthermore, the meeting took place from 10:05 am to 10:35 am that Friday, which is safe to assume it was during work hours.

McCormick also notes that the meeting took place in Sensenbrenner's district Congressional office.

So why are the date, time and place relevant? Well, if you read through the notes you can see that McCormick started talking about her bid to run for the 8th Congressional District seat and Sensenbrenner responds in a very negative way, informing her in no uncertain terms that the NRCC will never support her campaign in any way, shape or form.

Now, I don't know all the ins and outs of election laws, but I do know that it is illegal to be campaigning on the government's time or in a government office.

Since Sensenbrenner was talking about campaign issues (even though not his own) and he was on the clock in his office (albeit the local one), it would appear that this was in violation of the law as I understand it.

Perhaps some political wonk could either tell me I am correct in this, or why I am not.

Procopis Out, Kolosso In, And Other News From GAB Land

I told you last week that a challenge was filed with the GAB regarding the signatures for Paris Procopis, a Republican candidate for State Assembly's 13th District. A press release from Maistelman and Associates show that the challenge was successful and Procopis won't be on the ballot, although he can always run as a write-in candidate.

The same press release from Maistelman shows that James Sensenbrenner's senseless challenge to Todd Kolosso's signatures was thrown out. A press release from Kolosso's campaign puts it pretty clearly how silly Sensenbrenner is getting:

“Today’s outcome was not a surprise for my campaign or for the Congressman,” said Kolosso. “It was obvious to anyone who saw the complaint that many of the challenges were completely baseless and were founded on ridiculous claims, such as the idea that anyone who signed their name in print instead of cursive should have their signature thrown out.”

The GAB dismissed a challenge against 51 signatures that were made in print rather than in cursive, as well as challenges based on the claim that certain signatures were dated in the years 2011 and 2016.

“Penalizing someone for poor penmanship is insider politics at its worst,” said Dan Kyle, who collected signatures that were challenged based on dates. “Unless you think I have a time machine, the idea that any of my signatures were dated 2016 and should therefore be invalidated is just silly. The real shame, though, is that taxpayers had to pay GAB staff to review such frivolous claims.”

In other news, a challenge from the Young Republicans of Dane County, who was trying to keep Representative Tammy Baldwin off the ballot was thrown out. It also is another example that the Republicans, are not only a tacky bunch, but also they appear to be more desperate than they want people to believe:

The Board also dismissed a ballot challenge against Baldwin brought by the Young Republicans of Dane County ,saying she should be disqualified for running for re-election because she had listed her campaign office rather than her home address on her nomination papers.

The Board said Baldwin could continue to list her office address because, as an openly lesbian member of Congress, she had received threats.

Baldwin has had permission to use her office address for years. Didn't these Young Turks bother to do any research?

And finally, a bit that included a double surprise. Ieshuh Griffin, running for the Assembly in the 10th District, will not be allowed to use a rather unique label below her name to identify her.

What is surprising is that the GAB actually had to waste their time considering this, and that the vote was as close as it was to allowing her to put that on the public ballot.

Yes, there is a First Amendment which protects our right to free speech, but that is clearly being abused in this story.

Is Sensenbrenner Feeling Nervous?

Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-Police State) must be feeling a tad bit nervous. Or should I say, a "Todd" bit nervous?

Having been in Congress for 32 years, Sensenbrenner is an old campaign warhorse and knows all the tricks of the trade, obviously.

However, this year it seems that his Democratic opponent, Todd Kolosso, might have him more than a wee bit nervous.

Sensenbrenner has filed a challenge to the signatures that Kolosso has filed. That in itself is nothing out of the ordinary for a politician to do, regardless of the party.

Kolosso is so confident that he sent out a press release this morning pointing out Sensenbrenner's actions:

In a sign that a Congressional seat Republicans have held for 32 years may not be safe in the current anti-incumbency climate, the Wisconsin GOP mounted a nomination paper challenge against Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner’s opponent, Todd Kolosso, hoping to remove him from the ballot.

“Sensenbrenner’s camp can try using political shenanigans to knock me off the ballot, but it’s not going to work,” said Kolosso. “I have the signatures. I’m in this for long run, and I know I can win. Apparently the Congressman agrees.”

My good friend, and beaming new father, Jason Haas, points out that for Sensenbrenner's challenge to be successful, they would have to eliminate almost 200 signatures. Unless Kolosso's campaign is totally incompetent, that seems unlikely. Jason also points out that Sensenbrenner also has an opponent running as an Independent, but he has nothing towards this person's campaign, making it seem even more so that Sensenbrenner is nervous about Kolosso.

Driving this point home even further, is Kolosso's response to the GAB, as written by his attorney, Michael Maistelman, regarding this challenge. Sensenbrenner's challenge is based on things easily addressed, such as a missing date or a missing address. But the most intriguing complaint was that Sensenbrenner was arguing that signatures should be eliminated because they weren't written in perfectly legible cursive.

Really? Because he didn't like how someone signed their name? And he is supposed to be representing these people? Really?

Ah well, Sensenbrenner can look on the bright side. When he is unseated, it will give him lots of time to use up those frequent flier miles he's accrued over the years.