Paul Ryan Can Kiss My Ass!

With the Supreme Court affirming the Constitutionality of Obamacare recently, it has now been passed by a democratically elected congress, signed by a president who was overwhelmingly elected by the American people AND reaffirmed by the Supreme Court with Justices appointed by presidents of both parties.   the republicans reaction:

The country has an unemployment rate of 8.2%(which the republicans continually complain about) and yet they run to the floor 33 times to try and repeal a healthcare bill that, while not perfect, makes sure millions of people have access to healthcare that did not before.  No interest from the republicans in any job bills, whatsoever.   (Quick aside, when the republicans say repeal and replace, they mean just repeal, that have no replacement plan whatsoever). 

Now the republicans strategy is to ru around the country and attack Obama(they have elections to win, not a country to help).  Paul Ryan is one of the foremost ones on the front lines. 

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan tells The Weekly Standard that Republicans will be able to "effectively repeal" Obamacare with a simple-majority vote in the Senate if they control Congress and the White House in 2013. By using the budget reconciliation process, repeal of Obamacare would not have to get the standard 60 votes needed to break a filibuster in the Senate.

"I feel very confident we can effectively repeal the law through reconciliation. Whether we can get every line and subsection of the bill will be a question up to the Senate parliamentarian at the end of the day," Ryan says. "But the guts of this bill are all fiscal matters, which are clearly included in reconciliation."

"There's one more chance, just one more chance, to get at this law," says Ryan. "And it's this election." If Republicans hold the House of Representatives and take the Senate and White House in November, Ryan says Republicans clearly will be able to repeal "all of the spending, the subsidies, the taxes, the mandates" in Obamacare. "That effectively repeals the law."

While this is nothing new, Paul Ryan (R-Wall St.), This particular story caught my eye today!  

Two teenagers have been attacked by alligators in a five-day span while swimming in Florida, one of them losing the bottom half of his right arm in the nearly fatal encounter.

Kaleb Towles, 15, was spear-fishing with his grandfather last Thursday at Keaton Beach near Tallahassee. The teen was reportedly swimming in water 3 feet deep when a 10-foot-long gator came out of nowhere.

"The alligator came from my left and bit me across my chest," Kaleb said.

The alligator released his grip. Towles has recovered from the attack, as will Kaleb Langdale, who lost his lower right arm in an alligator attack Monday but not his spirit.

A 911 call made seconds after a different 10-foot alligator attacked teenager Langdale reveals the quick thinking made by the teenager and his friends, whose split-second decision-making helped save his life.

Langdale and two of his friends were swimming in the Caloosahatchee River in Moore Haven, Fla. Monday when temperatures were hitting triple digits. Langdale was swimming ahead of his friends, about 30 yards from the bank, when one of them yelled, "There's a gator."

At that point, Langdale turned around to find an alligator only a few feet away from him.

"When the gator's about right here from me, I grabbed that skin up underneath him trying to control him, and he just kept going," Langdale told ABC News. "I pulled his head up and I wrapped my legs around him and then he just went and dove while I was just trying to hold onto him. But he did a death roll and knocked me off."

The gator then dragged the teen under the water, but Langdale managed to break free and start swimming away. It wasn't long before the gator caught up to him, again.

The gator pulled him down another time, and Langdale was ultimately able to pull himself free, although he lost the bottom half of his right arm in his struggle for his life.

"He came up out of the water like Superman or something, waving to us saying, 'Hey, my arm's gone, call an ambulance," Langdale's friend Matt Baker said.

On the 911 call, Langdale's friend is heard explaining the emergency.

"Fred. Are you all right, Fred? I'm calling," his friend can be heard shouting. "A gator just got my friend in the water. ... Ma'am, we need an ambulance on the other side of the river."

After Langdale was able to get out of the water, he tried to use anything to stop the bleeding -- including spider webs found along the river bank -- while he made his way back to his car.

The teen's mother, Felinda Langdale, rushed to the scene, where she was soon told by the police that Langdale was "fine, really fine."

While Langdale was being treated at the hospital, authorities caught and killed the alligator to retrieve the teen's arm. By the time the arm arrived at the hospital, however, too much time had passed to reattach it. Surgery to close his wounds was successful.

Langdale was fitted for a prosthetic arm Wednesday, and this morning, his family is raising money for his medical expenses, launching a fundraising site.

"I'm just happy that I'm still alive and my buddies are still alive," he said.

The family of Kaleb Langdale has started an account to accept donations on his behalf. Click here to donate.

 So what caught my eye?   This line is in every single story of something like this happening everywhere in the country:

and this morning, his family is raising money for his medical expenses, launching a fundraising site.

When will America get sick of a coffee can health care system and actually fix the problem.  When will America tell the republican party to kiss their ass and vote out the people like paul ryan who have no problem telling Kaleb Langdale, tough shit?    

We need to do better and a repeal and no replace strategy is NOT it!    

The Evidence!

Mitt Rmoney is out with a new ad claiming that President Obama is lying about his record. It turns out, that there is plenty of evidence:

Government documents filed by Mitt Romney and Bain Capital say Romney remained chief executive and chairman of the firm three years beyond the date he said he ceded control, even creating five new investment partnerships during that time.

Romney has said he left Bain in 1999 to lead the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, ending his role in the company. But public Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed later by Bain Capital state he remained the firm’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.”

Also, a Massachusetts financial disclosure form Romney filed in 2003 states that he still owned 100 percent of Bain Capital in 2002. And Romney’s state financial disclosure forms indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain “executive” in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings.

As Capper says, "wait there's more":

According to a statement issued by Bain Wednesday, “Mitt Romney retired from Bain Capital in February 1999. He has had no involvement in the management or investment activities of Bain Capital, or with any of its portfolio companies, since that time.”

A former SEC commissioner told the Globe that the SEC documents listing Romney as Bain’s chief executive between 1999 and 2002 cannot be dismissed so easily. “You can’t say statements filed with the SEC are meaningless. This is a fact in an SEC filing,” said Roberta S. Karmel, now a professor at Brooklyn Law School.

It turns out that the evidence that Mitt Romney was in charge of Bain Capital long after he said he was not is just that. When Mitt talks, the truth is nowhere to be seen.

Lying on Federal Documents, makes impersonating a police officer pale in comparison!

Why I Endorse President Obama!

If you think there is no difference between the two candidates or parties, and you are thinking of sitting out this election, please give me two minutes of your time! 

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B: One candidate/party mocks firemen and wants to cut back on them and the other calls them heroes AND helps make sure they get insurance!

On a a recent trip to Colorado Springs, the president was apparently moved by the men and women firefighters he met, senior administration officials said in an interview.

When he returned to Washington, he told his cabinet that he wanted to "find a solution" for the hundreds of workers toiling in dangerous conditions without the option to buy in to federal insurance

The 15,000 or so temporary seasonal workers who descend into fire zones are usually young people who work sundry outdoor jobs, depending on the time of year. Some pick up contract work removing trees in the fall or they work at ski areas in the winter.

Many are college students. But because they are not full-time U.S. Forest Service employees, before Tuesday's announcement they did not have the option of purchasing federal health insurance.

Under a directive that will be made in the "near future" from the Office of Personnel Management, this group will get that option by the end of this month, White House officials said.

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part CXXVII (Educator's Edition)

Last month, I shared a story from one of our state's finest members of the education field, who was having problems with filing an unemployment claim even though they had been clearly laid off and told that they would not be returning to their school in the fall. From their story:

She told me that in spite of working for [some time in each of the four quarters for calendar many calendar years, including going into this year], that in spite of a letter from my employer that I no longer had a position at the end of the 2011-2012 year due to what amounts to economic reasons, that in spite of all that, my case and the case of any one working for a school district AUTOMATICALLY goes to adjudication.

What does that mean, AUTOMATICALLY? It means that because of the case load, I can not expect to have an adjudicator start the process for at least 3 weeks. I don't mean have a determination, I mean have them send out a questionaire to start the initial gathering of facts for the adjudication process. That means no sooner than 10 days after June 22 will I be receiving the munificent sum of [less than $200 per week]. In the meantime, according to the harried Maureen, my benefits, if I'm entitled to them, will be piling up and I'll receive a tidy sum, if I am determined to indeed be entitled to them. She explained that " of course you'll have to make 2 contacts a week and file reports by phone or internet on your job search." How pray tell will I be able to do that, Capper? How will I make phone calls if the phone is cut off, go to interviews living in rural Wisconsin without money to put in the tank, let alone make the car payment?

The latest job numbers looks like the state is finally getting around to processing the educators' unemployment claims:

The number of people filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits in Wisconsin last week spiked nearly 47 percent from the prior week, according to the latest estimate released today by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

Initial claims for unemployment insurance grew to 14,558 in the state last week, up from 9,926 in the previous week and 13,547 in the same week a year ago.
Last week’s total for claims was the highest in Wisconsin since 15,045 filed for claims in the week of Jan. 28.

An economist at the Department of Workforce Development declined to comment on the new data.

That is 4,632 people added to the list of the unemployed! In just one week! Helluva way to stimulate the economy and turn things around.

And Walker couldn't even bring himself to say one word about it?!

 If Walker had been a Democrat, you couldn't have made it ten minutes without someone screaming about it, over and over. But outside of that one article, I haven't seen one mention of it anywhere else. And you know for sure Charlie Sykes, MacIver Institute, Media Trackkkers or any of the other Koch/GOP sockpuppets aren't going to touch it.  They don't want people to know the truth lest there be another uprising.

But that's where I come in.  I write a blog.*

*Bonus points for anyone who can guess where those lines come from.

Walkergate: Following Russell's Revelations Down The Rabbit Hole

On Tuesday night, I said that I thought Wednesday would be an interesting day for the ongoing saga of Walkergate. I am pleased to say that I was again proven to be correct, but not in a way I would have imagined.

As the regular readers (all 4.3 of them) already knows, Tim Russell's defense attorney, Dennis Krueger, had filed two motions, one to dismiss the case outright, and failing that, to suppress the evidence against his client. I thought the chances of these to succeed were laughable.

I found them even more laughable after Assistant District Attorney filed his responses to Russell's motions.

And, of course, I was correct.

The Honorable David Hansher found the defense's motions to be without merit and dismissed them.

The next official event will be on September 1, 2012, when both the state and the defense present their proposed questions and proposed instructions for the jury. The actual jury trial is scheduled for September 10.

Judge Hansher also ordered the prosecutors and Attorney Krueger to meet in the near future to have a discussion on whether a long laundry list of things taken from Russell, including 16 computers, an iPhone, financial records for the Republican Party of Milwaukee County (Russell was their treasurer), and assorted documents dealing with Operation Freedom as well as emails from John Hiller and Jim Villa (This is important! Remember this!).

Steve Schultze, who covered the hearing for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, gave the story his usual level of incompetence and misleading reporting.  From Schultze's original report:

In an unusual twist, prosecutors disclosed that Michael Maistelman, Russell's original lawyer in the case, was "a person of interest" in connection with the John Doe investigation. The judge did not clarify why Maistelman was a focus of that investigation, which began more than two years ago and has been broadened at least seven times.

The judge has ordered that documents filed on the Maistelman matter be kept secret.

The issue came up because Russell's current attorney, Dennis Krueger, is Maistelman's law partner. That raised a question of whether Krueger had a potential conflict of interest in representing Russell, Hansher said. Russell said he was satisfied with keeping Krueger on his case.

Maistelman leaked information about the investigation to radio talk show host Charlie Sykes, according to a court filing by Landgraf last month. Maistelman tipped off Sykes in January that two other Walker aides at the county - Darlene Wink and Kelly Rindfleisch - would be charged in the John Doe investigation, Landgraf wrote.

Wink and Rindfleisch were charged four days later with doing campaign work while on their county jobs.

Attorney Michael Maistelman

When I first read this, I was taken quite aback. Schultze was making it seem like Maistelman was one of the corrupt Scott Walker's henchmen! That was hard to swallow since Maistelman has always been very upright in all of my dealings with him. And I know for a fact that Maistelman has the respect of many of Wisconsin's top officials and is one of the go to attorneys, especially when it comes to election laws. Furthermore, it was unlikely behavior for someone who was just named one of 2012's Leaders in the Law.

Indeed, by the time I got online and pulled up the story, I see that Schultze had to correct his story by adding these lines (emphasis mine):

District Attorney John Chisholm said Maistelman was not a target of the investigation. Chisholm said he couldn't reveal the reason prosecutors had an interest in Maistelman.

Maistelman said: "A person of interest is someone who may have information related to any investigation."

Sadly, some wannabe citizen reporters didn't get the message. Sites like "Voices Newspaper Blog" took Schultze's misreporting of the facts and actually found a way to make it look even worse.

As Schultze was forced to correct his report, Maistelman is NOT a target. Got it?

And he is not a leak. There are no leaks in this investigation.

The email to Sykes was to tweak his nose. And the information in it, such as the fact the Kelly Rindfleisch was up to her armpits in the corruption, had already been reported by yours truly - five days before her arrest and the day before Maistelman's email.

And what information came from Maistelman or Krueger where done with Russell's blessings. Most likely, it was in an effort to get the heat off of him as well as to stick it to Scott Walker, who left Russell to twist in the wind.

So why would Maistelman be labelled a "person of interest?"

Well, gentle reader, I'm glad you asked.

As District Attorney Chisholm pointed out, Maistelman is not a target. The only remaining reason for him to be a person of interest is that the DA believes that Maistelman might have some information to an ongoing aspect of the investigation.

And we already have a few clues on what that area of the investigation is.

Throughout Russell's trial, there have been a few mentions that Maistelman might have an unwaiverable conflict of interest.  I hadn't written about this before now because I couldn't imagine what it might have been about.  I think I do now have an idea on why the court kept saying this.

Two months ago, we learned of a most curious immunity which was given to Attorney David Halbrooks. At the time, I wrote this:

That said, because of his vast experience and storied past, he was/is a bit of a mover and shaker. He was appointed to the Milwaukee 7, a group consisting of civic leaders, business people and politicians whose mission is to draw businesses to Southeastern Wisconsin. And some of the board members that Halbrooks worked with include Michael Grebe, Walker's campaign chair; Republican money man Jim Kreuser; and someone named Scott Walker.

A more tangential connection is that he apparently had the support of realtors. We all know that the realtors were in deep with Walker and a shady deal regarding the renting of a section of the Reuss Federal Building has been reported as being part of the Walkergate investigation.

Without further information, it is impossible to know with any certainty how Halbrooks is involved with Walkergate. It could be the land deal. It could be another part of it. It could be something altogether new.

I also noted that Halbrooks was "Of Counsel" to Maistelman's law firm, which means that while he was not working for Maistelman, he would, at times, collaborate with Maistelman on a case.

I have also learned since that article two months ago that one of Halbrooks' clients was John Hiller, who is a realtor and was Walker's campaign treasurer for 18 years. In fact, Halbrooks and the realtors guild were apparently very close since they would hold fundraisers for him when he was a judge.  Hiller is also a name which has surfaced in the Walkergate investigation for his role in the reported pay for play bid-rigging regarding the housing for the Milwaukee County Department of Aging

Seeing how the DA gave Halbrooks immunity, it would not be a jump of faith to believe that he had information regarding this sordid affair which might have incriminated him in some fashion.  The most logical presumption is that Halbrooks has some knowledge, having worked for Hiller, of some of Hiller's possible illegal dealings.  And since Halbrooks has worked with Maistelman, there is a strong chance that Halbrooks gave the DA a reason to believe that Maistelman might have further information regarding all of this.

In other words, as opposed to what Steve Schultze or that Voices blog might want you to believe, Maistelman is not in cahoots with Walker or his gang of thugs.  If anything, he might now play a role in taking them down.

What all of this also tells us is that the Walkergate investigation is far from over and that the stuff that we have seen so far is nothing more than just the tip of the iceberg.  

Whenever they do get around to indicting Scott Walker, it looks like they'll have him trussed up like a Christmas goose.

The "Tea Party" Won - updated!

The astroturf tea party first started as what they felt was an offshoot of the Founders vision when they dumped the Tea into the Boston Harbor.   Then they found out that a group founded by the Koch Brothers and run by vermin like Dick Armey and Tim Phillips, could not have been further from the vision of the Founders.

They followed that up with calling themselves "tea baggers", of course they have never been very up with what is actually going on in the country.    So after a short time of fake outrage and pretending they never called themselves that.   After a few good laughs, the left pretty much stopped calling them that also.

Which leads us to the next re-invention of the "tea party"...where they said it now means T-axed E-nough A-lready. (TEA). Party.

Well whatever they are now, the current version of the "tea party" won.  They were "taxed enough already", and President Obama heard them.  

Under President Obama, taxes have hit a 30 year low!! 

According to the latest data from the Congressional Budget Office, tax rates under Obama hit a 30-year low in 2009, in part because of the tax cuts he implemented in response to the country’s economic downturn:

Americans paid the lowest tax rates in 30 years to the federal government in 2009, in part because of tax cuts President Obama sought to combat the Great Recession, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday. [...]

During Obama’s first year in office, the average tax rate paid by all households fell to 17.4 percent, down from 19.9 percent in 2007, according to the CBO. The 2009 rate was significantly lower than the previous low of 19.4 percent in 2003 and well below the 30-year average of 21 percent.

Congratulations and be sure to thank President Obama for helping keep your taxes low and your money in your own pocket!!

I just have one final question since the "tea party" was so successful,  why are republican legislators denying their affiliation with them?

For WATF and anyone who thinks the "tea party" did not originally come up with the term Teabaggers!

Chris Christie - Still an Ass!

We found out the other day that Scott Walker's good friend and Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, likes to whine about being obese.

The Republican governor said, "I've been living with it for a long time, and I'm going to try to get better." He added, "And if I can get better, that'll be great for me and for my family and for the public who likes me ... it's something that's not easy. If it were easy, I'd already have it fixed.”

Well we found out that he does not like difficult tasks and now we find out that he is attacking his weight problem the same way he attacked budget problems, completely backwords and doomed to fail.
 Recently Governor Crisco, was caught on camera working on his diet, while eating an ice cream cone. A passerby yells at him to "take care of the teachers" and that sets the ice cream cone wielding governor off. No one stands up for teachers when Gov. Christie is around, so the big guy went on the attack!

 H/T Daily Beast:

Eating ice cream cones to lose weight is akin to cutting public employees salary to balance the budget! While the rotund Governor from New Jersey might not be losing weight, we see he is still an ass! People in New Jersey must be proud!

 David Letterman tried to bring some levity to the situation and lighten the embarrassment of the New jersey people who are stuck with this lunatic.

Mitt Fires Up The Crowd!

It has been a tough week for Mitt Rmoney, first the word got out that he likes to hide is money(and he has lots of it) in the Cayman's to avoid paying taxes in the country that he wants to be president of. While he keeps trying to duck the issue, the only thing we know for certain is that he has no intention of releasing his tax returns so we can see just how extensive this problem is. Then he took his show on the road and addressed the national NAACP conference in Boston and he was definitely not a hit! Lucky for Mitt the audience did not have a gong!

Mitt Romney had an uphill climb in winning over the NAACP in an address their annual convention Wednesday. That was put on prominent display when Romney endured a loud, sustained round of booing after repeating his promise to repeal President Obama’s health care reform law.

“I will eliminate expensive non-essential programs like Obamacare, and I will work to reform and save Medicare and Social Security, in part by means-testing their benefits,” Romney said, according to prepared remarks.

No wonder the GOP does not want African Americans to vote!

Just To Make Republican Heads Explode

Terry Bean and Nancy Pelosi dancing to ZZ Top at the Barney Frank wedding reception:



It's like a Republican's nightmare come true.

And That's Why It's Called Walkersha County

Un-freaking-believable:

Sometime after final testing of Waukesha County's election software - but before the April election - County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus mysteriously changed something in her office's computer programming, according to a consulting firm's report released Tuesday.

Only Nickolaus knows what she did. The consultants can't figure it out, and she's not talking.

But whatever she did, it caused a breakdown in reporting election results that will cost county taxpayers $256,300 to fix, the report says.

And that's not the only money that Waukesha County will have to spend to get its election systems operating properly, County Executive Dan Vrakas said Tuesday.

Aging hardware is out of compliance with federal standards and nearing the end of its useful life, the report says. That equipment was supposed to be replaced in 2009, but Nickolaus killed the project because county purchasing officials wouldn't let her award a no-bid contract, said Norm Cummings, county director of administration.

Now Vrakas and the County Board will need to spend unknown amounts of money in the 2013 and 2014 budgets to replace that equipment before the 2014 gubernatorial election, Cummings said.

The whole report, all 93 pages of it, is here.

So while Van Wanggaard and the Koch Media has been spreading their lies insinuating massive vote fraud in Racine, even though they have no substantiated proof, and whining and mewling about the expense of democracy, they apparently have no issues whatsoever with a Republican County Clerk tampering with voting machines in some way only she knows and it's going to cost them a fortune to fix it.

This has gone beyond being solved with her losing her position. There needs to be a full federal investigation (because who can trust J.B. Van Hollen to do anything honestly either?).

And I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that Scott Walker finds her a comfy, high-paying job somewhere in his administration. After all, he's renowned for rewarding people that helped him when his two elections and he's also well known for associating with people who have no regard for the law or democracy.

Misleading Report Is Misleading, No Matter How Many Times It's Echoed

The Wall Street Journal, aka The Daily Republican, had a report that is titled, I kid you not, "Political Spending by Unions Far Exceeds Direct Donations."  They breathlessly say unions spent four times the money than what was reported on political activity.

What they did was count everything from lobbying to holding rallies (and protests) to cookouts and called it political activity.

The brain-dead zombie echo chamber dutifully parroted this "astonishing" report.

But what none of them did was show a comparison to anyone else and their spending, say like Big Business.

But Open Secrets does:

So while the right wing zombie nut jobs whine about $4.4 billion over years five years, they are suspiciously mum about Big Business spending more than 14 times that much money.  Of course, at least one of the zombies is a known employee of the Koch Boyz, so you can't expect anything like integrity from them.

Romney is Running from his Returns!

"Mitt Romney says he doesn't manage his own money, doesn't know where his money is. THIS is the guy to manage the economy!" David Letterman

So Mitt feels that John McCain deserves information that no one else in America does? Or is he just that desperate to be in the White House? When will America demand more out of their political candidates besides just the letter you want after their name?

Walkergate: What Wonders Will Russell Reveal Wednesday?

At the end of May, Tim Russell's most recent attorney, Dennis Krueger, filed two motions for Russell's defense.  One was to dismiss the charges outright and the other was to suppress the overwhelming amount of evidence against Russell.  At the time, I thought the motions to be laughable.

Then at the end of June, Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf filed his responses to rebut the defense's motions.  The revelations which came out of those responses were a treasure trove of information that gave us a better insight to how deep the corruption ran in Walker's administration.  The revelations included things like: Russell was looking for a plea deal, but might have blown his chance with his filings; Charlie Sykes, who has been constantly haranguing about supposed leaks in the investigation, knew all along that the leaks were coming from the defense attorneys; and despite Walker's claims of ignorance (talk about plausible denials!), he knew all along that the Walkergate investigations were so much more.

These motions are going to be heard on Wednesday afternoon.  While I still expect that the Honorable David Hansher will dismiss the defense's motions, I also expect that there just might be some more interesting things to come out.

There were two more filings made Tuesday, according to court records.

One was a petition for Subpoena Duces Tecum and a supporting affidavit.  A Subpoena Duces Tecum is defined thus:

[Latin, Under penalty to bring with you.] The judicial process used to command the production before a court of papers, documents, or other tangible items of evidence.

A subpoena duces tecum is used to compel the production of documents that might be admissible before the court. It cannot be used to require oral testimony and ordinarily cannot be used to compel a witness to reiterate, paraphrase, or affirm the truth of the documents produced.

Although frequently employed to obtain discovery during litigation, a subpoena duces tecum may not be used for a "fishing expedition" to enable a party to gain access to massive amounts of documents as a means of gathering evidence. The subpoena should be sufficiently definite so that a respondent can identify the documents sought without a protracted or extensive search. Moreover, a person ordinarily is required to produce only documents in her possession or under her control and supervision. A subpoena duces tecum may be used to compel the production of the papers and books of a business, however.

A subpoena duces tecum is not limited to parties to a lawsuit but may also be used for others who have relevant documents. In the absence of a valid excuse, an individual served with a subpoena duces tecum must produce the items sought, although a subordinate may comply instead. A subpoena duces tecum may be challenged by a motion to quash, modify, or vacate the subpoena or by a motion for a protective order. The subpoena might not be permitted if alternative methods for obtaining the information sought are available. Determining whether a subpoena duces tecum should be enforced is a discretionary matter within the judgment of the court.

The problem is that the court clerk didn't write down who filed that petition and supporting document.  This opens the door to a wide spectrum of speculation.

Did the DA's Office file the petition?  If they did, who did they file it against and what are they looking for?   Is Russell withholding evidence? Or does someone else have some incriminating evidence?

And if Russell's attorney filed the petition, who was it against? Do they believe the DA is withholding evidence that might clear Russell?  Or do they think that there might be documentation in someone else's position that will mitigate the embezzlement charges - say, a letter or email giving tacit consent for Russell to raid the veterans fund he is accused of stealing from?

Oh, the possibilities abound!

But there is a catch.  We might not find out anything, at least not right away.

Another motion was filed on Tuesday.  This was a motion to seal.  So they might not release that information until the trial in September.

We will just have to wait and see what happens on Wednesday.  But if there is anything, you know where to tune in to find out, same Cog Dis time, same Cog Dis channel.

They Just Do Not Stop....

We posted about republican crazies recently, 
and you would think that their pure stupidity would be enough to shame them to thinking before they speak, you would also be wrong. It seems like everyday a republican somewhere has to outcrazy everyone from the day before. Today's example is republican congressman from California David Dreier.
H/T Think Progress....

On Monday evening, Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) said that insurance companies should be allowed to discriminate against people with brain tumors during a House Rules Committee debate of the GOP’s bill repealing the Affordable Care Act. The law, which Republicans will vote to eliminate on Wednesday, includes a provision prohibiting insurance companies from turning away sick people.

But Dreier suggested that these individuals would be better off enrolling in state-based “high-risk insurance pools,” that could offer coverage to the individuals who are turned away from the individual health care market because they are too costly to cover:

DREIER: And I believe my state of California has a structure in place to deal with pre-existing conditions. It’s a pooling process, which I think is one worthy of consideration, because while I don’t that think someone who is diagnosed with a massive tumor should the next day be able to have millions and millions and millions of dollars in health care provided, I do believe that there can be a structure to deal with the issue of pre-existing conditions.

Hey David F&*K YOU!

 Who votes for these guys?

Wisconsin's Fiscal Conservatives

Thank Goodness we have elected a group of fiscal conservatives to office in Wisconsin. Led by Governor Scott Walker have brought a new day of fiscal responsibility to our great state!  Of course if this is your view of Wisconsin at this time - STOP READING RIGHT NOW! 

For the rest of us, let's take a look at some of the Republican's fiscal "successes":

1. Republican State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen decided to stop using taxpayer money to try and suppress democratic votes.  Unfortunately for the taxpayers JB's decision came too late:

 State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen reversed course Monday by dropping an appeal of a decision on legislative boundaries and agreeing to pay the plaintiffs more than $185,000 in taxpayer money.


Just over two months ago, the Republican attorney general insisted the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was essential and said he would be personally involved in overseeing it. But on Monday, he gave up on trying to have the nation's highest court overturn a decision that set different boundaries for two Assembly districts than what legislators who initially drew the lines wanted.

Under the deal filed in court Monday, the state will drop its appeal and pay $185,500 to immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, which sued the state over the maps. The group prevailed in March before a panel of three federal judges in its arguments that newly drawn boundaries for Assembly Districts 8 and 9 on Milwaukee's south side violated the federal Voting Rights Act.

 2. From the same article, we are starting to get a preliminary number at how much the secret redistricting will cost the taxpayers of Wisconsin.  

The payment will bring taxpayer costs for the maps to over $1.5 million, and that number could yet climb.

"I guess the taxpayers should be holding onto their wallet," said Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha).

For those in need of a refresher course on this topic( there are soooo many), the republicans all signed secrecy agreements with Michael, Best & Friedrich(yes your elected officials signed agreements vowing to never tell anyone what they were doing or how they did it- a new era of "transparency") while redrawing assembly districts in Wisconsin(a process that has to be done by the legislature every ten years).  They denied access to ALL democrats in this whole process(and by default any citizen of Wisconsin who the elected democrats represent).  It was even to the point, where they had to draw up talking points so the less intelligent members like Robin Vos would know what to say in public.  Their little attempt at gerrymandering  our state has cost the Wisconsin taxpayer over $1.5 million dollars and counting!

3.  Comes to us from Walkersha County and everyone's favorite hard core republican - Kathy Nickolaus!

A consultant's report traces problems in reporting Waukesha County election results directly to mistakes by outgoing County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus - mistakes that will cost county taxpayers more than a quarter of a million dollars to fix.

Nickolaus had promised to post timely results online and update them periodically for the April 3 election. But the public didn't learn the results of contested local races for hours, while reporters and election reporting service representatives were forced to tabulate the vote totals themselves from long paper tapes hanging on the walls of a meeting room.

The embattled county clerk was already under scrutiny because of her role in the 2011 state Supreme Court race, when she left the entire city of Brookfield out of countywide vote totals. When those 14,000 votes were added in, two days after the election, Justice David Prosser had won by 7,000 votes, instead of narrowly losing to Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, as the original count showed. But the uncertainty over the Waukesha County vote led to a statewide recount that confirmed Prosser's victory.
Nickolaus, a Republican, agreed to withdraw from directly overseeing this year's gubernatorial recall election after County Executive Dan Vrakas, a former GOP legislator, threatened to call for her resignation if she didn't hand off her election duties. She also announced she would not seek re-election in November.
After the April election, Vrakas told the county Department of Administration to hire a consultant "to get to the bottom of what the problems were," said Norm Cummings, director of administration.

The full report from SysLogic Inc., a Brookfield consulting firm, was not immediately available Monday, but some of its findings are briefly summarized in a funding measure being considered by the County Board.

SysLogic linked the April problems to an upgrade that Nickolaus ordered in the county's election software before the balloting. The firm found that Nickolaus was the only person trained to program the upgraded software, but she "did not follow the proper protocol, resulting in the failure of the functionality to compile election results," the fund transfer ordinance says.

At the time, Nickolaus had said that when her staff tried to upload results from voting machine memory packs into the reporting program, it wouldn't work.

"We were shocked," she said, because she and her staff had tested the reporting program "many times."
Both in the April election and in the 2011 high court race, the problems were compounded by the lack of backup for Nickolaus and her system, the firm found. That echoes long-standing complaints from Cummings about the way Nickolaus has managed her computer systems.

"She didn't allow anyone to help," Cummings said. "With every election, there's a huge risk that something will go wrong."

Nickolaus and Vrakas did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

After Nickolaus stepped aside, Command Central LLC, the Minnesota election software vendor, wasn't able to arrange training for other county staffers until late August, Cummings said. That led the county to hire Command Central to program the software itself for the May 8 recall primary, the June 5 recall general election and the upcoming Aug. 14 primary, at a cost of $237,300, he said.

Later in August, Command Central will train Deputy County Clerk Kelly Yaeger and a county information technology staffer in programming the software, for $4,000, the funding measure says. Without that training, the county would have to spend another $67,600 for Command Central to handle the programming for the Nov. 6 general election, the measure says.

"We can't take the chance with only one person knowing it (the programming)," Cummings said.
Cummings stressed that the consultant report found only errors and poor procedures, with no evidence of fraud. The problems are confined to how vote totals are compiled by the county clerk's office, and have nothing to do with how voting is administered by municipal clerks' offices, he said.

The SysLogic report cost $15,000, for a total of $256,300 to investigate and fix the election reporting problems, the funding measure says. That money will come from the county's contingency fund, if the County Board agrees.

Good job Waukesha, keep voting for anyone with an R after their name!   By the way, I could have saved you the $15,000 consultants fee andjust charged you a tank of gas and a good meal.  I could have diagnosed the problem immediately, republican incompetence.   Here is some free advice for November:    Staff from really bad politicians MAKE really bad politicians!  Afterall, Nickolaus spent 13 years working for David Prosser and had to get immunity from the original caucus scandal to keep from going to prison!

 4.  They passed Act 10 strictly because they were told to, and as a way to punish people who voted democratic, because they tried to pass it it through so quickly, they had no idea what was in the bill!  

Wisconsin's controversial 2011 collective bargaining law may add $87.5 million to state retirement system costs next year due to a little-noticed change that will boost employee benefits.

The unanticipated costs aren't a back-breaking amount for the massive retirement fund, but they illustrate why laws that alter the complex retirement system should be examined carefully before enactment, said Robert Conlin, secretary of the Department of Employee Trust Funds.

For those of you still scoring at home, the total cost that the fiscal conservatives have needlessly spent  $89,256,300.  In other words voting democratic will save the state at least $90 Million dollars!   

This is just the tip of the iceberg!