Egypt, Bahrain...Wisconsin

[ptrain86]

privatizing all of education would solve this.

[lotus]

privatizing all of education would solve this.

[ptrain86]

privatizing all of education would solve this.

Come on now lotus. The public sector is always going to be run less efficient than the private sector. That way we can pay public employees truly what they are worth and people can pay for their own kids' education. This would make it comparable to college. You can subsidize some of the education into state schools and such. Why should I be forced to pay to educate other peoples' kids anyway? This should also carry on into many of the other public sectors as well, postal, fire, police, etc.

[miketheknife]

Hell yes! And if you don't pay the fire department and your shanty burns down, don't come crying to us about it!

[lotus]

Would you like to hear my rant about school vouchers and charter schools?

[rabb]

like any of us get a choice of what we get to hear from you

[lotus]

SCHOOL VOUCHER BAD

[ptrain86]

Free lunch for life!

[lotus]

Stay classy, Wisconsin

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolit ... 25369.html

Madison - A Republican effort to stall recall elections by forcing Democratic primaries to be held will cost taxpayers at least tens of thousands of dollars, a check of local election clerks shows.

Meanwhile, the top Senate Republican said Tuesday that all GOP recall targets were familiar with the plan to delay the recall elections by fielding fake Democrats in primaries. Earlier, some of those recall targets claimed they didn't know about the plan.

Recall elections for six Republican senators are scheduled for July 12. If there are multiple candidates from the same party in any of those elections, the July 12 election becomes a primary election, and a general recall election will be scheduled for Aug. 9.

Republicans are being recruited to run as Democrats in all six races so the general elections would be pushed back a month. That will give Republicans a crucial extra month to campaign, said Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau).

Fitzgerald said all six Republicans facing recalls knew about the plan. That differs from statements by Republican Sens. Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac and Luther Olsen of Ripon that they were not informed of it. Jennifer Harrington, the campaign manager for Sen. Dan Kapanke (R-La Crosse), has said she did not know of the plan.

"All of them were aware that this was taking place," Fitzgerald said. "Some were questioning the angles on it."

He said it was discussed at the state Republican convention in Wisconsin Dells in May.

After Fitzgerald made his comments, Olsen continued to insist he had no knowledge of the plan. Asked if he was sure he didn't know about it, he said: "Unless I wasn't paying attention, but I'm sure I was paying attention."

Hopper couldn't be reached Tuesday, but on Sunday he said he knew nothing about it. "My campaign and myself don't know anything about this," he said then.
Expensive process

Holding the primaries will not be cheap.

La Crosse County Clerk Ginny Dankmeyer estimated costs to the county and various municipalities would total $50,000 for a primary in Kapanke's recall election.

Dankmeyer said a primary election would cost just as much as the general recall election. The costs of the recalls would include paying poll workers, printing ballots, using supplies and other paperwork.

A spot check of other communities in the recall districts found municipal costs ranging from $2,000 in Kaukauna to $15,000 in Fond du Lac. For counties, the check showed costs ranging from $2,200 in Dodge County to $18,500 in Outagamie County.

Fond du Lac County Clerk Lisa Freiberg said the county alone would have to pay $10,000 to cover primaries in the Olsen and Hopper recall elections, and that the city of Fond du Lac would have to pay $15,000 for the two potential primary elections.

"This is going to be costly," Freiberg said. "We just keep spending, spending, spending on elections this year."

Marquette County Clerk Donna Seddon said having an additional election would put a strain on county budgets.

"It's going to double our costs," said Seddon, whose county is in Olsen's district.

Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) said she learned of the primary plan last week and was told Monday it would be implemented in all six Senate districts. She declined to say what she thought of it.

"I'm staying out of that," she said. "I'm not getting involved in the diversions of the recalls."

None of the county clerks associated with Darling's recall election immediately returned phone calls Tuesday for their cost estimates.

Fitzgerald downplayed the significance of adding to costs by holding primaries. He said he is not worried running fake Democrats would engender cynicism among voters.

"I think the cynicism comes from the recalls," Fitzgerald said. "Recalling senators for taking a tough vote is just wrong."

Recalls were launched against the Republicans because of their vote to curb collective bargaining by public workers. Attempts were made to recall Senate Democrats for leaving the state for three weeks to block action on the collective bargaining measure.

The Government Accountability Board will consider Wednesday whether recall elections should be held for three Senate Democrats - Dave Hansen of Green Bay, Jim Holperin of Conover and Bob Wirch of Pleasant Prairie. Those recalls would be July 19; if primaries were required, the primaries would be held July 19 and the general elections would be Aug. 16.

The other Republicans facing recalls are Sens. Rob Cowles of Allouez and Sheila Harsdorf of River Falls.

Daniel Bice of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

[ptrain86]

People need to get rid of all parties.

George Washington in his farewell address.

http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyameric ... /farewell/

Warns against the party system. "It serves to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration....agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one....against another....it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption...thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another."

How prophetic.

[Clem]

People need to get rid of all parties.

Agreed. The way both parties have behaved in Wisconsin (and nationally) is shameful. It's hard to say who started "playing dirty", but the moment one side starts acting that way, the other side has no choice. And the partisan downward spiral continues.

[lotus]

It just gets better and better in Wisconsin...

http://gawker.com/5826707/koch-bros-gro ... sin-recall

Americans for Prosperity, the political action group funded by right-wing billionaires Charles and David Koch, is patriotically mailing out absentee ballot applications for the upcoming Wisconsin recall elections against Republican state senators. But guess what? The registration forms that AFP has been sending out have... the wrong ballot submission date! Good heavens, how could they miss such a "typo"?

The AFP mailer, according to Politico, has been blanketing the homes of "solidly Democratic voters" and telling them to return their absentee ballots "before August 11." The election, however, is scheduled for August 9! AFP's state director, Matt Seaholm, claims that it was merely a typo. He added, "I'm sure the liberals will try to make a mountain out of a molehill in an attempt to distract voters' attention from the issues," but what he should have said instead was nothing and then tendered his resignation and then shut the fuck up forever.

And it just gets better...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/politi ... gop_i.html

Americans for Prosperity, GOP Implicated in Wisconsin Vote-Caging Plot
Colorado Pols 3:11 PM ET, 09/20/2010
The story just now coming out from Madison, Wisconsin, involving that state's Republican Party, conservative activist group Americans for Prosperity, and local Tea Party groups, isn't alleged to involve their counterparts in Colorado. That we know of, anyway--from the release we got:
A coordinated plot by the Republican Party of Wisconsin, Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin and organizations in the so-called Tea Party movement targeting minority voters and college students in a possibly illegal "voter caging" effort for voter suppression has been uncovered in evidence obtained by One Wisconsin Now, a statewide advocacy organization in Madison, Wisconsin.
"Based on what we have heard, the Republican Party of Wisconsin, the Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin and leading Tea Party organizations are in collusion in an effort to suppress the ability of minorities and university students in Wisconsin to exercise their right to vote this November," said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. "We will be providing all of the evidence we have received on this wrongdoing to federal and state authorities so that they can investigate to ensure justice and democracy prevail."

THE PLOT

According to the statements made on the recordings, Dake lays out the plans, detailing contact between himself and Reince Preibus, the Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair and Mark Block, state director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin:

The Republican Party of Wisconsin will use its "Voter Vault" state-wide voter file to compile a list of minority and student voters in targeted Wisconsin communities.

Americans for Prosperity will use this list to send mail to these voters indicating the voter must call and confirm their registration information, and telling them if they do not call the number provided they could be removed from the voter lists.

The Tea Party organizations will recruit and place individuals as official poll workers in selected municipalities in order to be able to make the challenges as official poll workers.

On Election Day, these organizations will then "make use" of any postcards that are returned as undeliverable to challenge voters at the polls, utilizing law enforcement, as well as attorneys trained and provided by the RPW, to support their challenges...

"Work with the media on this and district attorneys. Try to get them involved early and fired up about this and say look, 'We know you're shorthanded, we're hands, we're boots on the ground. We will help you, just bring the weight of the law behind us.'" [Pols emphasis]

"[Y]ou run into the racial thing. You have people screaming, 'Oh, you're denying the minorities the right to vote.' No., we're denying their right to vote multiple times." [Tim Dake, GrandSons of Liberty]

For more on the controversial--and depending on circumstance, illegal--practice of "vote-caging," read this primer from NYU's law school. And obviously, this will be a story to watch closely.

[Clem]

Sweet. I hope it works.

[lotus]

Sweet. I hope it works.

[Six Gun]

Instead we have behavior bordering on anarchy -- and the same party that recently was calling for civility is protesting with pictures of Gov Scott Walker with a crosshair on his face and calling him Hitler.

They must have learned it from the Tea Party

And it offends me there too. I'd like to think we are a better nation than that.

Ummm, no. We are not. We are lazy, spoiled, ignorant and selfish and our politicians are a direct reflection of us. In order to get this country back on track and strengthen our economy, there must be sacrifices. Unfortunately, you don't get elected on that kind of platform. When we run out of money, we just borrow it or print more of it. Were a nation of Lindsay Lohan's and no matter how bad things become and how much shit we get into, we just refuse to get it.

We suck. Fact.