Tag: recall

Tom Barrett (D CAND, WI-GOV RECALL) passes on honoring slain cops to… stump-speech the UAW. #recall

DOOM.

When it came out last week that Milwaukee mayor (and Wisconsin Democratic candidate for governor in the upcoming recall election) Tom Barrett had skipped out on two ceremonies honoring Milwaukee police officers, there was some questions about what Barrett thought could possibly be more important that going to, say, a memorial service for slain Wisconsin policemen. It probably didn’t help either that Barrett was so evasive about the answer, either – to the point of convenient memory loss. Well, it turns out that Barrett probably wanted to forget the answer of where he was doing instead of honoring fallen officers, given that the answer was… ‘making a stump speech:’

…Mayor Barrett was actually speaking at a luncheon for retired United Auto Workers in Oshkosh at the exact same time that the fallen officers memorial was taking place in Milwaukee. Barrett spoke to a room of about 50 UAW union members.

I acquired a link to the video of the event that Barrett spoke at: it is unpleasant viewing for those with both a basic ethical sense, and an awareness of the context.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amPW4UAkSLk
(Link.)

Continue reading Tom Barrett (D CAND, WI-GOV RECALL) passes on honoring slain cops to… stump-speech the UAW. #recall

“Who was that lady I saw you with last night,” Tom Barrett? #wirecall

…Oh, relax: it’s an old vaudville/movie routine.  You know: “That was no lady: that was my wife.”  Yeah, that one’s older than my parents, let alone me.  Still: why exactly did Democratic Wisconsin recall gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett shrug off ceremonies honoring Milwaukee policemen this week?  Including one on Wednesday that honored Milwaukee cops slain in the line of duty?  I ask… well, mostly because I figure that the answer is going to embarrass Tom Bartlett; but also because Barrett likes to talk a lot about how Governor Scott Walker is supposedly campaigning at the expense of his job.  Which makes Walker’s presence at a function that Barrett was absent from – we can all agree that honoring slain Milwaukee policemen is part of the job of Mayor of Milwaukee, surely? – somewhat, well, awkward.

Hey!  That describes the Wisconsin Democratic party’s current rhetorical position, too!  It’s all cyclic, isn’t it…

Continue reading “Who was that lady I saw you with last night,” Tom Barrett? #wirecall

#wirecall “WHAT DOES DEM-DESPERATION LOOK LIKE?” #rsrh

“THIS IS WHAT DESPERATION LOOKS LIKE!”

Vandals are torching pro-Walker yard signs, and now homeowners and neighbors are worried the crimes could escalate.

Someone set fire to at least five Walker campaign signs here in Fox Point.

Via Hot Air.

Moe Lane

PS: It’s not going to work, by the way.

The DNC seems to be sitting out the Wisconsin recall.

Alternate title: Eau de Flopsweat from #wirecall Democrats.

Alernate-alternate title: DOOM.

You know, when I saw this secondhand whine from Wisconsin Democrats upset that the DNC apparently wasn’t prepared to throw half a million dollars at the general recall election, I assumed that this would be resolved.  I mean, really: the Left has  already thrown away tens of millions of dollars; what’s a bit more?  Admittedly, not throwing utterly horrible money after bad (we’ve passed the ‘throwing good money after bad’ stage already) would be the right answer, in a strictly utilitarian sense; but the state party is in a bad way right now.  They sort of need an indication that the President cares for more than his own election, right?

Well… that’s apparently not going to happen.  MSNBC’s Chuck Todd asked Obama’s deputy* campaign manager Stephanie Cutter whether the DNC would be sending money earmarked for the recall, and Ms. Cutter said… nothing in particular. And definitely nothing that would commit the DNC to giving out money. Continue reading The DNC seems to be sitting out the Wisconsin recall.

The DOOM that came to Wisconsin Democrats.

Here are the final results of last night’s primary contest, and presumably a variant of this[***] will end up on Democratic political operatives’ desks across the breadth of Wisconsin:

Barrett 390,109
Falk 228,940
Vinehout 26,926
La Follette 19,461
Huber 4,842
Total 670,278
Walker 626,538

Note that that total does not include the almost 20K of ‘Republican’ votes accumulated by ‘Republican’ Arthur Kohl-Riggs, given that the use of square quotes in both cases is justified.: he’s not a Republican, and neither were his supporters. And let me make this one point: Kohl-Riggs demonstrates why I don’t really believe in strategic opposite-side voting and/or Operation Chaos-style shenanigans.  I am not convinced that such things worked, and yesterday’s results seems to back me up on that. Yes, I know that Republican spoiler Isaac Weix came in second in the LT-GOV primary recall (which is why nobody on the Left is bring that race’s total voters up); but I should note that he did not, in point of fact, actually win. Continue reading The DOOM that came to Wisconsin Democrats.

#rsrh WI-RECALL update: Barrett, Falk acting like… Wisconsin Democrats, actually.

The Democratic Wisconsin recall primary battle continues to show all of the dignity and maturity levels of a high school Prom C0mmittee slap-fight:

A prominent Democratic Party leader is warning gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Falk not to go negative in her primary campaign against her rival Tom Barrett. Falk says she won’t change her strategy.

Dave Obey served in Congress for 41 years, and now supports Tom Barrett in the primary. Wednesday, Obey reacted to published reports that Kathleen Falk, behind in the polls, is going to take aim at Barrett.

Seriously, here’s a thematic translation of all of this: Continue reading #rsrh WI-RECALL update: Barrett, Falk acting like… Wisconsin Democrats, actually.

WI-GOV Recall Democrats running on… property tax hikes?

Wait, what?

If states are really the laboratories of democracy, then apparently Wisconsin is the place where all the mad scientists go to cook up the latest abomination of science with which to terrify the populace. And one case in point is the way that the Democratic party in Wisconsin has decided to run with the novel platform of explicitly offering to raise other people’s taxes in order to maintain certain Democratic cronies’ current-but-threatened standard of living.

I simply cannot come up with a sarcastic comment worthy of that particular brainstorm.  Sorry.

But let me give you the background.  Believe it or not, average property taxes went down in Wisconsin last year for the first time in over a decade. This happened because Scott Walker and the state legislature – not being idiots – knew that if they didn’t impose strict limits on property tax increases then local governments would simply hike said taxes up in order to maintain their current (and quite unsustainable) budgetary spending. Good news, right? Continue reading WI-GOV Recall Democrats running on… property tax hikes?

#rsrh Now THIS is an entertaining anti-Falk WI-GOV recall ad.

Not so much for the ad itself, but because I’m blatantly not giving a courtesy link to PolitiFact for it.

PolitiFact has been stepping in it with regard to their blatant partisanship lately, and the only way that they’re going to learn better is if they start getting negative feedback.  So… no link.  Links are for honest sites.

Moe Lane

PS: I support Scott Walker in the recall election, of course.

PPS: Hey, quick question: does Kathleen Falk think that stay at home moms don’t actually work?  Tom Barrett, too, for that matter – after all, they’re both Democrats, so it’s a valid question.  And one that should be asked, preferably when there’s a camera right there to get their instant reactions.

Tom Barrett (D), biting the hand that saved his city.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is an ungrateful Democratic mayor.

Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee would like to have it both ways, it seems.

The background is this: Barrett is contemplating running against Scott Walker in the upcoming recall election, despite the fact that Walker beat him like a drum in 2010 and the governor of Wisconsin is in a pretty good position to do the same again.  Still, there’s always 2014 to consider, and goodness knows that there’s nobody as credulous as a Wisconsin progressive, so Barrett is actively fundraising off of his ever-so-principled opposition to Walker’s reforms.  The Journal-Sentinel excerpted this quote from Barrett’s fundraising email: “By his actions from his first days in office to today, Scott Walker has put special interests ahead of the common interest.”

“Special interests ahead of the common interest.”  Well, Brian Bolduc of National Review Online notes something interesting about that: which one of those two best describes Milwaukee residents? Continue reading Tom Barrett (D), biting the hand that saved his city.

Update on the Scott Walker recall shenanigans.

So, let me tell you of the wickedness of the world… or, more accurately, of the abject stupidity of the anti-Scott Walker forces in Wisconsin.  Which is really not the same thing, but it at least sounds good.  Or at least jovial.

Anyway, here’s the background: the Wisconsin Left, having managed to allegedly get enough signatures to force a recall election against a governor enjoying a 51% approval rating (and this, after several years of nigh-relentless demonization) is now trying to figure out how to actually win a recall election with the schlubs, has-beens, never-weres and other political detritus that would make up their, and I use the term loosely, ‘talent pool.’  In this particular case, it doesn’t help that there’s an important fault line within the Left being revealed by events.  One the one hand, you’ve got the public sector union leadership, who are even now starting to feel the first signs of withdrawal from not being able to directly mainline mandatory union dues into their veins; on the other, there’s the actual Democratic party leadership, who are still hooked in with their source of ‘free’ money, and so are able to think more clearly. Continue reading Update on the Scott Walker recall shenanigans.