Hey Hey, We're The Knotsies....

While there is much competition for silliest most ignorant group of right wing trolls in Wisconsin, between Citizens for a responsible government , Americans for Prosperity , Maciver , US Senator Ron Johnson and various tea parties, there is one group of republicans that stands out(even amongst that crowd) - knot my Wisconsin!

They fit the typical right hate group profile,  limited, local membership, maturity of a third grader, intelligence of a second grader, cowardly, likes to viciously attack people anonymously, takers on the system, mad at the world, well you get the drift.

Luckily for us and unluckily for the anonymous cowards, someone took the time to research them and expose who they are!

trolling is different though, in the last national election cycle we saw trolling taken to a new level as right wing groups had taken to paying individuals to sit on the computer day and night and harass people online and present false claims and information.  Some individuals have taken it upon themselves to up the stakes though and have developed tactics that take trolling even further, to something that borders on terrorism.  Here in the badger state a loose collection of such people formed under the banner of "knot my Wisconsin."  During the process that led to the recall election of Scott Walker, they began organizing themselves to impede the democratic process of recall.

They colluded together to harass people involved in the recall process online and launched attacks against elected officials as well.  Threatening violence against those people and in some cases carrying out those threats.  They killed family pets and threatened people's children. Employers and supervisors were repeatedly called in an effort to lead to termination of employment.  They organized and carried out efforts to trespass on people's property and destroy political signage.  Later they publicly posted online that they intended to beat or kill people on election day at the polls.  They likewise threatened to take carloads of people and perform drive-by shootings in largely minority neighborhoods to feloniously obstruct the election process which is key to maintaining a democracy.  Not everyone on this list of course was involved in every and all aspects of the activities listed, but they are all part of the same group.

If you want to know more about them check here, but my advice when you see them, just realize that they are little people, with little minds and ignore them.

Remember from here on out, they will known as the GNAT my Wisconsin, named after the annoying little bug! They are just an unnecessary distraction, which is truly all the potential for making a difference they ever will have.  

Swat them off your sleeve!

Now let's get back to WORK!!!

How To Beat The Teaparty

This is rather clever:



Now the question is: How do we do something like this?

The Tea Party Explained

'Nuff said.

Burnt Tea With A Twist

My dear friend and new favorite and favorite new blogger, Lisa Mux, of Waukesha Wonk fame, took it upon herself to go and see what the Burnt Tea rally was all about for herself.

Her take on it is interesting, to say the least, and with a fun twist.  Here's a sip, with the line of the day emphasized:

Also, it was easy to remember I was at a t.p. rally when the master of ceremonies said he was using his vacation time to travel with the Tea Party. Nobody else in the crowd appeared to get the irony of his statements. Um…he has Saturdays off and vacation pay because of UNIONS.

It was really hard not to shake these flag-draped people and tell them that the Tea Party Express is a corporate ploy to get rid of unions, so Repubs can win elections and corporations can rake in cash. I wanted to educate them, prove to them they’re being used, and that they’re willing casualties of corporations. I wanted to tell them how sad this makes me, and that it doesn’t have to be this way.

I was glad when the rally was over and I could go back to spending time with like-minded people…in Waukesha.

Do make sure you read the whole thing.

Burnt Tea

The outside agitators known as Tea Party Express is invading Wisconsin this weekend, spewing their racist message and sullying our beautiful state with their mere presence.

Or they would be if anyone bothered to show up for their rallies.

From their own Twitter feed, claiming they are "On fire!" they have the accompanying photo:

The teahadists have fallen so low that a one-person rally is now considered en el fuego.

Something's burning and it's not just Alberta Darling's britches.

Alberta Darling's Rotten, Miserable, Horrible Week Just Got A Lot Worse - And It Was Only Tuesday

Yesterday, we learned that Alberta Darling represents - well, we don't know who she represents. But we do know that she doesn't represent the working men and women or the small businesses in her district.

Today, her week just got a lot worse. And it's only Tuesday.

It started out when we learned that she's being sued by One Wisconsin Now because she has, for two months, refused to even respond to an open records request for any communications between her office and a number of conservative groups and their members, which are pushing for the privatization of our schools.  The only rational explanation for not even putting up a stall tactic with OWN is because there's been scads of contact between them, which would raise some serious ethical and legal questions for her. (This makes the accusations her campaign has been throwing around look all the more hypocritical and desperate.)

Later, she appeared at the Newsmaker Luncheon at the Milwaukee Press Club.  When she was asked to name one company, just one, that had created jobs because of the union busting and the draconian budget, she could only come up with that deer-in-the-headlights look.

Hours after this gaffe, her campaign called to list three companies that had added jobs, but with no mention of when or if how they were related to Darling's policies.  For all we know, they were added well before any of the GOP's malarkey got under way.

At the same luncheon, she was asked if she was going to win her election.

Her answer was, "I'm not sure."

Could you just imagine if the papers had asked someone from the Green Bay Packers if they had a shot at repeating their Superbowl win and Mike McCarthy or Ted Thompson said, "I'm not sure. It depends on how the other teams do."  Fans would be storming Lambeau Field with pitchforks and torches.

I tell you, if I was working or volunteering for a candidate that wasn't confident in her position or her chances, I'd be moving on immediately. Who wants to back someone when even they don't think they're a winner?

And to top off her already bad, miserable, rotten, no-good day, her own supporters put her in an untenable position.

The racist, hate-mongering Tea Party Express is coming to town to show their support for Darling.  Now she has to make a choice I'm sure she would much rather avoid.

On one hand, she can blow off these extremists and risk ticking off a large part of her base that she's been catering to for the past seven months, in an effort to reach the independents who she desperately needs to have a chance.at retaining her seat.

On the other hand, she can accept their invitation to attend their hatefest, at the risk of pushing even more independents, and not just a few Republicans, to the other side.

And this was just Tuesday. I can't wait to see what Wednesday brings, but I have an idea of what it might be.

Wisconsin's Own Michele Bachmann

Did you think that Minnesota had cornered the Midwestern market for crazy with Michele Bachmann? Well, Gentle Reader, before you put your money down on that, get a hold of Kim Simac in this clip courtesy of Zach at Blogging Blue:



I don't know exactly what rights the Constitution gives God, or why He would need a man-made rights to begin with, but our own Michele Bachmann apparently doesn't live in our reality either.

And if you thought that was bad, you should see the full clip, when Simac and the host, Dorothy Spaulding, try to out-crazy each other throughout the whole thing.

It also makes me wonder how desperate the GOP must be if this is the type of candidate they are putting up in these races.

Teahadists Behaving, Well, Like Teahadists

Or in other words, pretty f'ing disgusting.

Amy Myers, a 16 year old girl, spoke up for herself and for women in general and criticized Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann (R-Arkham Asylum).  Amy even challenged Bachmann to a constitutional debate.

So how did Bachmann's faithful teahadists respond? Not like the people they claim to be:

The reaction to Myers’ letter has been nothing short of terrifying.

“A lot of them are calling me a whore,” Myers said of anonymous. Amy and her father said the comments from conservative websites alarmed them most. Some commenters threatened to publish her home address. Others threatened violence. Some threatened rape.

Because she criticized the Tea Party goddess.

“They’re targeting me just because I’m challenging Bachmann,” Amy said.

It doesn’t matter that Bachmann won’t debate her. Nor are the facts pointed to by Myers important. It doesn’t matter that Bachmann, the Tea Party’s alleged constitutional expert is wrong about the constitution and that a 16-year-old high school student is right. What matters is that you can’t criticize the Tea Party.

The garbage that I and my fellow lefty bloggers have been catching from the teahadist types (read CRG) has been absolutely intolerable and shows how disgusting some of these people really can be. But at least we're adults. To act this way to a teenage girl should never have happened and those doing it need to be prosecuted to the full letter of the law, both criminally and civilly.

The Real Reason Palin Will Be In Madison

If she does indeed show up. You never can tell given Sarah Palin's record for no shows, no calls, but if she does show up in Madison today, we already know why:

Source

What If They Threw A Tea Party And No One Came?

From Think Progress:

With Fox News host Glenn Beck’s ratings down and the biggest tea party rally eclipsed by a recent pro-labor rally in Wisconsin, could the tea party be losing steam? One new sign: a big tea party convention in Tampa, FL this weekend — headlined by such conservative favorites as Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Fox News Judge Andrew Napolitano, and former GOP Congressman Tom Tancredo — attracted only about 300 people. The Save America Convention’s website lists 25 guest speakers, meaning there was one speaker for every 12 attendees. If one includes the 13 musicians and other performers listed as entertainment, that ratio drops to one for every 7 and a half.

It only makes sense. Negative emotions are hard to maintain for long periods of time. In fact, I'm a little surprised they kept their hate up this long.

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.

The Cookie

Ripped from the Internets:

An unionized public sector worker, a Tea Party member and a Koch brother were sitting around a table.  In the middle of the table was a plate with a dozen cookies on it.  The Koch brother reaches across and takes eleven of the cookies, then turns to the Tea Party member and says, "Look out for that union thug, he wants a part of your cookie."

The Workers Always Have And Always Will Have The "Solid" Advantage

Today, there will be two rallies in Ground Zero Wisconsin, otherwise know as Madison.

On one side will be the tens of thousands of teachers, nurses, social workers, police, firefighters, correction officers, clerks, secretaries, foresters, and other workers who have been there for six days now in peaceful protests of Scott Walker's tyrannical moves to suppress their rights.

On the other side will be a few thousand people, being sponsored by the multi-billionaire Koch Brothers and their neoconservative front groups like the wholly misnamed Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works.

But whatever goes down today will only be an event in a long, long historical chain of similar events.

In the 13th century, the barons rebelled against King John of England and eventually forced him to sign the Magna Carta, in which he conceded some of his power to the barony.

Fast forward five hundred years and you will find it repeated.  This time, instead of wealthy barons, it was colonial patriots, who were sickened by not having the right to have a voice in how they could live their lives. They gathered in Boston Harbor, in the definitive act of civil disobedience, dumped a boatload of tea into the water.

Contrary to how the modern day Tea Parties have bastardized the event, it was not about the taxes.  Money was important then, as it is now, but it was the secondary issue.  The real issue behind the real Boston Tea Party was that they were being forced to live under a monarchy with no voice in how they should be allowed to live their lives.

This was repeated in France just a few years later, when the people rose up against the tyrannical and harsh rule of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.  While the people suffered in abject poverty, the unfeeling king and queen enjoyed a  lavish lifestyle. Finding this system of the real haves versus the have-nots to be intolerable, the haves became the has-beens.

Back in the United States, we see how the fight for basic rights and freedoms continued throughout the history of this country.  There was the Civil War, which was fought so that a whole entire race could be delivered out of slavery.  There was the Suffragette Movement, in which middle class women fought for their voice and the right to vote.  There was the Civil Rights Movements, with great leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, which fought for minorities to be treated as equals to the ruling white population.

Another great movement, one with Scott Walker and his well-heeled endorsers would much rather have us all forget, is the labor movement.  Our forefathers in the labor movement fought for, and even died for, basic human rights in the work place.  They struggled and strove to win the things that people take for granted today.  Things like weekends off; eight hour work days; child labor laws; wages able to support a person and their family;  sick time; vacations; and safe work environments, just to name a very few of the rights they have won for all of us.

Which brings us back to today.

The Koch Brothers are channeling tens of thousands of dollars in an effort to raise a counter protest at the capital today. (Take a moment to appreciate the irony: They are using the union-won weekend to go protest against the unions.)

They are fighting for what comes to a few pennies per person, the solidarity movement is fighting for their and our rights.

The big-money special interests behind the Tea Parties are fighting for control of the state, the solidarity movement is fighting for their and our freedoms.

The Teahadists want to tear public employees and their families down, the solidarity movement wants to lift everyone up, even if it means that the millionaires don't make quite as many more millions as they might have otherwise.

As I finish this post, it appears that the Tea Party is pooping out already.  The Twitter feeds say that that the people fighting for the working families, for our rights and our respect outnumbered the special interest-supported groups by as much as 10-1.  The Teahadists are slinking back already while those fighting for our respect and our rights are preparing for going well into next week.

While the Teahadists have every right to be angry and scared if their money situations are like most peoples, they should not be doing the bidding of the uber-rich by tearing into their neighbors and even their family members.  They should be joining the unionists and middle-classers and demanding from Walker and his billionaire backers that they be allowed the same opportunities to have a good life.

The truth is, as history has shown time and time again, the only good tea is solidarity.

What? No Parties?

Gasoline is now over $3 a gallon locally, higher than it's ever been this time of year before. This does not bode well for future prices.

A former oil company executive is predicting that gas will reach more than $5 a gallon.

Yet not one word from the teabaggers who would be screaming their fool heads off if their taxes went up even a fraction of the amount gas prices are.

Oh, yeah, that's right...don't bite the hand that feeds you.

They are good little sheep, aren't they?

Unintended Consequences; or Poetic Injustice

This is a case of "be careful what you wish for, you just may get it."

Everyone has heard of the TEA Parties, the astroturf groups funded by the likes of the Koch brothers, who protest everything under the sun from taxes to spending to President Obama's skin color.

A good number of these people are older, 40% of them are over 55 years old. It spawned some derision and helped point out some of the hypocrisy of the Tea Partiers with the line about "Keep your hands off my Medicare."

As it turns out, the TEA-sponsored move of the nation's politics closer to fascism is already coming back to bite them in the wallet:

House and Senate Republicans on Wednesday thwarted Democratic efforts to award $250 checks to Social Security recipients facing a second consecutive year without a cost-of-living increase.

President Barack Obama and Democrats have urged approval of the one-time payment, saying seniors barely getting by on their Social Security checks face undue hardships without the COLA increase.

But most Republicans contended that the nation couldn't afford the estimated $14 billion cost of the payment, and that the COLA freezes in 2010 and 2011 come after seniors received a significant boost in 2009.

As the very people that they supported in the elections throw them under the bus, expect their hypocritical cries of outrage on this in 3...2...1...

Yoo Hoo, TEA Zombies! Yoo Hoo!

It's kind of funny that the TEA Zombies could make it out time and time again to protest their taxes going up a couple of bucks and threatening armed revolts, but when it comes to the actual problem, they have all seemed to have dried up and blown away.

The local paper is reporting that electricity rates have been climbing at shocking rates over the last two decades and having a marked impact on the state's business climate:

The price of electricity has shot up faster in Wisconsin than in all but five other states since 2000, which could pose a threat to the state's economic competitiveness, a new analysis by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance says.

Wisconsin businesses and homeowners are paying more than most surrounding states, as the state continues to pay for power plant upgrades that followed near-brownouts in the late 1990s.

That, coupled with rising natural gas and coal prices, has pushed rates up. The state's electricity prices, which ranked 11th-lowest in the nation in 1990, now rank 20th-highest, the report found.

"We need to recognize that energy prices really do have an effect on the competitiveness of the state," said Kyle Christianson, policy research analyst at the nonpartisan Taxpayers Alliance. "We're talking about trying to attract employers and adding new jobs, and particularly in a manufacturing-intensive economy like Wisconsin, energy prices are a major cost of doing business."

And despite what the radio squawkers or their echo chamber on the right side of the Cheddarsphere would have you believe, it has nothing to do with those evil unions, taxes, cap and trade or any of the other ecofriendly laws and regulations.

It has to do with one thing and one thing only. Pure unadulterated greed:

Wisconsin Energy Corp. said Tuesday its profit in the third quarter nearly doubled, as customers used record amounts of electricity during a hot, humid summer.

The higher profit for We Energies' parent company was also linked to an electricity price increase that hit customers in January, as well as completion of the utility's first new power plant in Oak Creek.

Net income from continuing operations was $112.3 million or 95 cents a share, up 93% from $58.2 million or 49 cents a share in last year’s third quarter. The results were 9 cents higher than the projection of 12 Wall Street analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call.

Sales in the third quarter rose by 19%, or $157.7 million, to $973.2 million.

But don't expect the TEA Parties, Americans for Prosperity or any of these other fools holding a rally in front of We Energies anytime soon. After all, these "grassroots" groupies are being sponsored and propped up by the likes of these very culprits.

The TEA Parties, AFP and the rest are nothing more than a very well executed exercise of misdirection and distraction. While they've gotten their base all riled up and mad as hell at the government, they continue to plunder and loot us even as they encourage their followers to howl even louder.

I just wonder if their followers will wake up and smell the coffee before they allow the country to be driven all the way over the brink.

Any GOP Candididate

This could be Scott Walker, Rebecca Kleefisch, Ron Johnson, or any other Republican/TEA Party candidate:



H/T Cory Liebmann

The Teabaggers' America

Read the first letter to the editor from Monday morning's newspaper.

Is this really what they want to do to us?

Why I Haven't Seen This On Any Right Wing Blogs?

Threats made at Dem Office in Washington County.

Have they questioned Owen yet?

At Least It Isn't Socialism

Is this where the TEA Partiers would take us?

A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground.

The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late. They wouldn't do anything to stop his house from burning.

Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton. But the Cranicks did not pay.

The mayor said if homeowners don't pay, they're out of luck.

This fire went on for hours because garden hoses just wouldn't put it out. It wasn't until that fire spread to a neighbor's property, that anyone would respond.

Turns out, the neighbor had paid the fee.

"I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong," said Gene Cranick.

Because of that, not much is left of Cranick's house.

They called 911 several times, and initially the South Fulton Fire Department would not come.

Beware of what you ask for. You just might get it.