Quote Of The Day - RoJo Edition

If you hadn't heard yet, the Republicans are desperate to try to salvage this election season after having had Hell Toupee.  They are so desperate that they have not only stopped running away from George W. Bush, they are pulling him out of the brush to help their vulnerable senators, including RoJo.

Which leads us to the quote of the day:

“All the Bushes are people of integrity,” Johnson told the newspaper.

Yeah, the same Bush that lied to us to start an unjust war, not paying for either of the wars he started and leading the country into the Great Recession.

Now you know why we call him Our Dumb Senator.

Senate's Day of Shame

The United States Senate yesterday had a chance to vote on a UN disability treaty that has been negotiated starting with George W Bush.

WASHINGTON — Led by Republican opposition, the Senate on Tuesday rejected a United Nations treaty on the rights of the disabled that is modeled after the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act.

With 38 Republicans casting "no" votes, the 61-38 vote fell five short of the two-thirds majority needed to ratify a treaty. The vote took place in an unusually solemn atmosphere, with senators sitting at their desks rather than milling around the podium. Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, looking frail and in a wheelchair, was in the chamber to support the treaty.

The treaty, already signed by 155 nations and ratified by 126 countries, including Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, states that nations should strive to assure that the disabled enjoy the same rights and fundamental freedoms as their fellow citizens.

Including our own Senator Ron Johnson, who voted against it "believing it could interfere with U.S Law"(It doesn't).  

Lawrence O Donnell had his own take it on it, and he lays it on the line.  The new batch of "tea party" republicans continue to hurt America.  The question to ask is, do they actually bring anything positive to the table?  

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Paul Ryan Sells Out Janesville

Again!!

We know recently that Paul Ryan(with help from Scott Walker) tried to blame President Obama for the Janesville GM Plant closing.  We also know that Paul Ryan is an habitual liar. 

Despite being proven incredibly wrong on this issue, it did not stop the RMoney/rAyn campaign from putting out this disgusting video! 

Well we know that this attack not only is not true, it really shows that ryan is willing to use his friends and neighbors as political pawns.  Shame on him.  

One last thing about the video, Then candidate Obama had this to say.  

"If our government is there to support you, and give you the assistance you need to retool and make this transition, that this plant will be here for another 100 years.".  

Well it turns out then candidate Obama was correct,   had they gotten support from their government (like the way Toyota and Honda do), they might still be open today.

 However, that was the Bush era and no help was coming to anyone(who was not a defense contractor anyway) from the Government. 

Let's also not forget, that while the 1st congressional district of Wisconsin was once a thriving manufacturing district, it has lost every single auto job while it has been (poorly) represented by Janesville's own Paul Ryan.  

"Mission Accomplished" Walker-Style

Image courtesy of First Draft

I'm sure that the gentle reader remembers President George Walker Bush's major "Mission Accomplished" gaffe, when in 2003, he declared victory in Iraq, only to have the war go on for another eight years,  costing us the lives of thousands of America's finest and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Scott Walker, emulating his hero, Bush, has had his own "Mission Accomplished" moment when he declared that his "budget reforms" (read union-busting), has worked, especially for the schools and that they are as good or better than before and that there was no massive layoff like the rest of the world had predicted.  But instead of flying out to an aircraft carrier on Lake Michigan, Walker settled for bragging about his alleged success on a taxpayer-funded website hosted by the State of Wisconsin.

Well, that should show them recallers that they are in the wrong.

But not so fast.

In an annual survey of the school districts around the state, we find out where the truth lies. And it's not with Scott Walker.

The results of the survey show that 3,400 teachers, administrators and other school professionals were laid off this year because of Walker's budget.  The survey also showed that:

• ˆA much greater number of jobs were lost in the K-12 sector than in previous years of budget cuts.
• ˆThe depth and breadth of losses of experienced educators statewide is large. Nine out of ten students attend a district that had a net loss of staff in one of four staffing areas surveyed.
• ˆReplacement teachers and staff are younger, less experienced, and face higher student teacher ratios than the educators they replaced.
• Fewer staff leads to class size increases with four in ten students attending in a district with increased class sizes in elementary grades.
• Fewer staff leads to cuts in essential support and learning programs with three in four students attending in a district that reduced staff in at least one such program and one in five attending in a district that reduced more than five such programs.
• ˆDifferences between districts that had contracts compared to those without union
  contracts were not statistically significant.
• Half of all districts reported that they used one-time federal funds to off set even;deeper cuts - funds that will be unavailable next year.
• ˆTwo out of three districts reported that they expect to have as deep or even deeper cuts next year. Only one out of 10 expect to have fewer cuts next year.

In other words, not only did the state lose 3,400 teachers, aides and other educational staff, but the only reason it wasn't worse was because they used money from President Obama to bail them out. But next year, when that money isn't available, the flood of layoffs will be much, much higher.

Furthermore, the "tools" that Walker claims to have given the school districts had no significance whatsoever in preventing layoffs.  My good friend, Jay Bullock, points out that the districts that did not have contracts actually had their class sizes grow bigger and faster than those with contracts.

Laughably, Walker tries to defend this losing position by stating that most of the layoffs happened where there were contracts, and specified Milwaukee, Janesville and Kenosha.  This is laughable for the simple fact that Milwaukee has the highest population, so that even if they had a lower percentage of laid off faculty than other communities, the numbers would be higher anyway.  He is just trying to spin his way out of an ever-deepening hole and it's not working.

But despite this overwhelming sea of evidence that not only are his reforms harming our children, and the fact that this is only the prelude to the real pain they will be feeling in years to come, Walker is claiming that this is a success.

This can only mean one of two things.

One possibility is that  Walker is a bigger fool and idiot than we've given him credit for.

The other is that he really does mean that this is a success.  That would mean that his goal is to reduce the number of teachers and hobble the ability of any and all school systems to meet their duties.  This would fit his patter of sabotaging various programs or services for the single purpose of privatizing said program or service.  And with close friends like Scott Jensen being enmeshed in the private school business, this would also make a credible possibility.

Oh, I'm sorry, I just realized that those two points are redundant.

In all seriousness, when we go forth next week to rightfully recall Scott Walker, we aren't doing it just for ourselves.  Our kids, who are otherwise defenseless to Walker's assault, rely on us to get this job done.  If nothing else, we owe it to them to give them the best future we can, and that is contrary to Walker's agenda.

Best Photoshop Of The Day

Did someone order an accomplished mission?

Did Texas, George W. Bush Kill An Innocent Man?

While I can see the need for the death penalty on rare occasions, this story shows why we have to be damn careful before enforcing the ultimate penalty:

Claude Jones always claimed that he wasn’t the man who walked into an East Texas liquor store in 1989 and shot the owner. He professed his innocence right up until the moment he was strapped to a gurney in the Texas execution chamber and put to death on Dec. 7, 2000. His murder conviction was based on a single piece of forensic evidence recovered from the crime scene—a strand of hair—that prosecutors claimed belonged to Jones.

But DNA tests completed this week at the request of the Observer and the New York-based Innocence Project show the hair didn’t belong to Jones after all. The day before his death in December 2000, Jones asked for a stay of execution so the strand of hair could be submitted for DNA testing. He was denied by then-Gov. George W. Bush.

A decade later, the results of DNA testing not only undermine the evidence that convicted Jones, but raise the possibility that Texas executed an innocent man. The DNA tests—conducted by Mitotyping Technologies, a private lab in State College, Pa., and first reported by the Observer on Thursday—show the hair belonged to the victim of the shooting, Allen Hilzendager, the 44-year-old owner of the liquor store.

Because the DNA testing doesn’t implicate another shooter, the results don’t prove Jones’ innocence. But the hair was the only piece of evidence that placed Jones at the crime scene. So while the results don’t exonerate him, they raise serious doubts about his guilt. As with the now-infamous Cameron Todd Willingham arson case, the key forensic evidence in a Texas death penalty case has now been debunked.

1972

No, not the year.

It's the budget gimmick that Scott Walker is using to make himself look like a fiscal genius, but will only end up costing Milwaukee County tax payers tens of millions of dollars as he racks up a deficit that makes George Bush look like a miser.

Cue The Bush Excuse in 3...2...1...

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that Scott Walker received a report warning of the dangers of not performing required maintenance on the Courthouse. Said report specifically mentioned the cornice which came crashing down last month because Walker ignored the report.

Full story at Milwaukee County First.

Illy-T notes that the County is not releasing the reports for fear of lawsuits. Isn't that against open records request laws?

James Rowen sees it as a perfect advertising opportunity for Tom Barrett's campaign.

I'm just waiting for Walker to copy his hero, President George W. Bush by saying, "There's no way anyone could have anticipated that happening."

Now, That's A Rebuttal!

Supervisor Theo Lipscomb does much better than his colleague, Johnny Thomas, did in offering a rebuttal for Walker's State of the Campaign address. The whole thing can be read on the BizTimes blog, but here is a juicy excerpt:

No longer content to simply pretend that he has frozen the tax levy, when it has actually increased by nearly $45 million during his tenure, County Executive Scott Walker upped the ante during his State of the County address Tuesday by making an arbitrary and irresponsible bet when he promised to lower the tax levy next year.

This may say more about his perception of his political prospects than his management ability. Given the state takeovers and service deterioration that Milwaukee County has experienced, it’s clear that the County Executive’s managerial track record is lackluster.

There is no need to propose a responsible budget if you plan to skip town for a new job. The impending fallout will not manifest until later when taxpayers suffer the increasing consequences of service cuts, deferred maintenance and broken promises.

Walker’s $200,000,000 check to taxpayers, an insincere metaphor about savings, is really an example of “Enron-like accounting” since it is based on paper gains not yet realized but projected forward and multiplied for effect. When this check bounces, the rhetoric will fall flat.

The rest is good reading as well, but the Lipscomb really nails it at the end:

It is good to hear the County Executive singing positively about Milwaukee County, but citizens must look beyond the rhetoric to see the peril of short-term promises. Simply put, it must be an election year.

Of course, Lipscomb's reference to "Enron-like accounting" reminded me again of the similarities between Scott Walker and George Bush.

Guess Who's Living High On The Hog Because Of The Swine Flu

Yep, that's good old Rummy:

The Rumsfeld connection to Tamiflu and its parent company Gilead Sciences is an eyebrow raiser which has caused bloggers to raise suspicious alarm bells. But the push to use Tamiflu over Relenza begs the question, why is the Obama administration pushing that one drug over an alternative? It can't possibly have an interest in padding the pockets of George W. Bush loyalists.

The reasons for the Tamiflu push may have been established long before Obama was calling the shots. As part of George W. Bush's 381-page Pandemic Influenza Strategic Plan the US amassed a stockpile of anti-viral medications to combat a future H1N1 pandemic. Starting in 2006 the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) collected Tamiflu and Relenza at a ratio of 80% Tamiflu, 20% Relenza. Total bill to the US taxpayer, $731 million (in 2006 dollars).

Ten months gone, and we're still paying to clean up Bush's messes.

It also explains why the right wingers are mocking the H1N1 vaccine. If more people actually get sick, the better off it is for Rummy.

Godwin's Law Explained

George (Scott) Walker Bush: Redux

Shortly after 9/11, George W. Bush was able to "take advantage of a good crisis", and got the Congress and a majority of the population to back him on his unjust and poorly planned war in Iraq. He also took advantage of people's hate and fear to cause all sort of mayhem, violating people's civil rights, violating people's human rights, and doing just about anything else he damn well wanted to do. He justified these horrendous behaviors by hiding behind his claim that he was doing it all in the name of national security, which he alleged was being threatened by a country that didn't attack us.

During his tenure, he had such stupendous blunders such as partying with Senator John McCain while people were dying in New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina. We found that most of his appointees were cronies and/or wealthy campaign donors who were grossly unqualified for their jobs. Throughout Bush's time in office, he was consistently awarding large no-bid contracts to his buddies, like Blackwater, Halliburton, Big Oil and Big Pharma.

When he left office, he left us with two major wars and an economy that had already been spiraling into a deep, deep recession (maybe even a depression). People are losing their jobs and their homes in records numbers.

Meanwhile, he refused to accept any responsibility for the consequences for his actions. And during and after his terms in office, if anyone dared to call him out on his failure of a presidency, they were called names like unAmerican and much worse, and other forms of verbal abuse, including death threats.

In other words, when he left his office in disgrace and with very low approval ratings, he had left the country in much, much worse shape than it was when he was sworn into office.

Here in Milwaukee County, Scott Walker took advantage of the failing economy to create his own crisis. He purposely and intentionally created a ghost budget year after year. By doing so, he was able to claim that there was a financial crisis and call for a state of emergency in the County. (Just how is a projected 1% deficit a crisis anyway?) He then used this artifice to take control of the county and rewrite policy, much like Bush tried to rewrite the Constitution. We found that many of his appointees were cronies and/or wealthy campaign donors who were grossly unqualified for their jobs.

During his tenure, Walker has had such stupendous blunders such as failing to deal with the pension crisis. Walker has been traveling the state and the Midwest, partying with wealthy campaign donors and special interest lobbyists, while here in Milwaukee, people were being denied services such as food stamps and health insurance. Other people, like the chronically mentally ill, were also denied proper services, and some died as a result of Walker's neglect. Through out Walker's time in office, he was consistently awarding large no-bid contracts to his buddies, like he did with the destruction of the courthouse annex, the free give away of the county grounds and the proposed move of the mental health complex.

Whenever we will be able to get Walker out of office, he will have left us with a crumbling infrastructure, a failing transit system, hundreds of millions of dollars of debt and a local economy that had already been spiraling into a deep, deep recession (maybe even a depression). Business are closing and people are already losing their jobs and their homes in records numbers.

Meanwhile, Walker has refused to accept any responsibility for the consequences for his actions. And during and after his terms in office, if anyone dared to call him out on his failure as county executive, they were called names like a union thug and much worse, and other forms of verbal abuse.

In other words, when he finally leaves his office in disgrace and with very low approval ratings, he had left the county in much, much worse shape than it was when he was sworn into office.

The biggest difference is that where Bush had, at best, a spineless Congress (with the exception of Senator Russ Feingold) and at worst several hundred lapdogs, Walker has to contend with the County Board, who is increasingly able to see through the malicious lies that he is trying to tell them. Even more important is the fact that the Board is increasingly willing to take actions to stop him from doing more damage.

The biggest concern is if enough people in Milwaukee County have learned the lessons from the Bush administration. Otherwise, we will continue to have our very own version of George W. Bush in the county courthouse.

See the original George (Scott) Walker Bush post here.

A Gaffe Regarding A Gaffe

This sounds like it should be from the Onion, but it is too plausible:

Remember during the presidential primaries when Joe Biden described Barack Obama as "articulate and bright and clean?"

According to Renegade: The Making of a President, President Bush didn't understand the resulting controversy.

"Bush was so taken aback with the public criticism of Biden that he called in his African American secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. 'I don't get it,' he said. 'Condi, what's going on?' Rice told him what everyone else had said: that white people don't call each other articulate."

And people wonder why the country is still cleaning up from the last eight years.

Another Example Of Right Wing Hypocrisy

When President Jimmy Carter criticized George W. Bush for his inept and corrupt presidency, the right wing was outraged. Just this one example will give you the flavor of their mood:

Disgrace?

Carter's a disgrace.

He was a miserable failure when he was in office. Absolutely miserable!

There's no question that Carter was an embarrassment as a president.

Jimmy should stick to building houses. His persistent criticism of Bush is unprecedented. Past former presidents have not made a habit out of openly bashing the sitting president.

As usual, Carter is misguided in his ideas about what's right for the country. Now, in his old age, he has become as insufferable as he is wrong.

So why is that I only see right wingers now either ignoring, if not agreeing with (yes, the same blogger), Dick Cheney when he slanders President Barack Obama?

Hopefully, their hypocrisy and hate will have a strong backlash, and the country can continue to move forward again.

The George W. Bush Librarium

Origen & Golan Architects are proud to unveil the plans for the George W. Bush Presidential Librarium!


Tip of the crown to Caffeinated Politics (I would love to know how he finds all this good stuff).

Quick To Damn, Slow To Praise

During the recent pirate incident, the right were all over President Obama, condemning him for not blowing up everyone, pirates and hostages alike, or mocking him for not being a cowboy like Bush was.

I am still waiting for one, just one, to give the credit to him and apologize for speaking out of turn now that the last hostage has been freed unharmed, through the use of force as ordered by President Obama (emphasis mine):

Navy snipers on the fantail of a destroyer cut down three Somali pirates in a lifeboat and rescued an American sea captain in a surprise nighttime assault in choppy seas Easter Sunday, ending a five-day standoff between a team of rogue gunmen and the world's most powerful military.

It was a stunning ending to an Indian Ocean odyssey that began when 53-year-old freighter Capt. Richard Phillips was taken hostage Wednesday by pirates who tried to hijack the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama. The Vermont native was held on a tiny lifeboat that began drifting precariously toward Somalia's anarchic, gun-plagued shores.

The operation, personally approved by President Barack Obama, quashed fears the saga could drag on for months and marked a victory for the U.S., which for days seemed powerless to resolve the crisis despite massing helicopter-equipped warships at the scene.

I also can't help but believe that if this had happened a year earlier, Bush/Cheney would have found this as the excuse they were seeking to invade Iran and get us stuck in yet another quagmire.

And The Winner Is...

The results for the March Badness is in, and the winner is:

There Are Worse Things To Receive

In the news today, it was reported that President Obama gave Queen Elizabeth an iPod, among other things.

Predictably, the echo chamber jumped all over this (even sometimes getting their facts wrong). Said jumpers include Peter DiGaudio, Charlie Sykes, the Prozak Playground, Ol' Broad, James Harris, and the whole WISGOP.

But before they keep going on like this, they would do well to remember that the Queen would probably prefer getting an iPod, rather than assaulted:




UPDATE: Media Matters is reporting that the Queen actually asked for the iPod. How rude of Obama to give a requested gift like that!

How Obama REALLY Got Elected

In response to John Ziegler's warped attempt to defend the GOP:




From the fine people at One Wisconsin Now

Marine General Wants To Cut And Run

I saw this story over the weekend (emphasis mine):

Iraq is stable enough to allow the roughly 22,000 U.S. Marines there to withdraw, the service's top general said Friday.

"The time is right for Marines in general terms to leave Iraq," said Marine Corps Commandant James Conway.

This is good news. Now, maybe, we can start going after the people that caused 9/11.

But, it strikes me that just a week ago, even has Bush was about to be relieved of his duties as POTUS, we were being warned that pulling out of Iraq would be too dangerous.

It either means that Obama is the deity that the right keep insisting that he is, and was able to change Iraq around in four days, or that Bush was lying. Again.