Henry Wallace

Henry A. Wallace wrote this article on fascism in the New York Times in April of 1944. It is pretty relevant today in Madison, WI. I think that many Walker supporters would disparage this article as being alarmist, as many elements of the TEA Party and ALEC are described quite accurately.

“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." -Sinclair Lewis

arizona's immigration law---from ALEC!

Arizona's Immigration law was written by and fro the private prison industry. NPR did a nice story on this connection. Illegal immigration is a problem that needs to be addressed in this country. The solution is complicated; the ALEC is attempting to capitalize on the issue with a 'solution' that will benefit the private prison industry.

alecwatch

Here is a good report on the ALEC. I think that alecwatch.org is going to become one of my favorite websites. The Alec is launching a PR campaign. They have been in the new lately, and that is bad for them. The ALEC is currently launching a public relations campaign. Their message is essentially to say that their highly organized, secretive, and effective model is a form of free speech, that other people do the same thing, and it is really nothing to worry about. William Cronon has a great analysis which disputes this claim. This issue is addressed under the heading 'a cautionary note'

If the extent of their corrupting influence in known, the public will be angry. The funders of ALEC may be boycotted. Their ROC (return on corruption) will be negative.

Mark Pocan infiltrated ALEC

Mark Pocan Infiltrated ALEC a few years back, here are his observations.

That there are not socially conservative causes in ALEC seems to confirm the idea that they really are all about maximizing profits for large corporations. After the legislation comes out of the ALEC, it is then wrapped in a flag and couched in Christian values before it is sold to the American People.

The marketing of this stuff is amazing. Advertising is expensive, and it works. Plenty of people believe this stuff, who are otherwise nice normal people. I believe that once the lies are exposed, that these same people will look at the origins of this agenda, and realize that they have been used.

It is good to have family values, it is good to have personal responsibility and work hard. It is wrong for your elected government to tell you that their legislation is for the good of the people when in actuality it is written by and for the good of large corporations.

Glaxoclinesmith should not write medicaid prescription re-embursement legislation. Koch Industries should not write environmental regulations. Private charter schools should not write school reform. These things are wrong; wrong for every state that adopts these measures, and they are wrong for Wisconsin.

Even if everyone in the state joins the tea party and Walker becomes the president, I will still say this is wrong, because it is. The truth will out; maybe not today or tomorrow, but it will and when it does I am going to be on the right side of history.

a reason to recall

Here is a good reason to oppose the Walker agenda.

http://scottwalkerisgoingtokillme.blogspot.com

Even if nothing else, this story alone is reason enough to oppose the big business legislation that is taking over our state. This makes me sick, actually, it makes me really proud of the sunburn I got Sunday afternoon canvassing for the recall of Alberta Darling.

Prosser- Palin

I now know how Prosser was able to pull ahead in this supreme court election; sure he's the incumbent, and he is going for his 3rd term, the Americans for Prosperity launched a few new "nonprofits" that all funneled 2.2 million dollars for tv ads against Kloppenburg (Kloppenburg had around 1.4 million in outside support). Not to mention that a sitting justice hasn't been unseated in a LONG time.....
no, it was Sarah Palin's last minute endorsement. Palin also has an opinion on the national budget, which she recently shared with all of her twitter followers;

My new slogan for anything related to money will be "We can't AFFORD cowboy poetry & subsidizing abortion."

I am disappointed by the Kloppenburg loss, but I am not discouraged. I have done my homework, and this is a long fight. I feel strongly about my obligation to be politically involved in this. Even if all of the recalls fail, the entire state decides to repeal all environmental regulations, and the entire state votes to scrap public education altogether; even if the Koch industries succeed in their massive misinformation campaign. If everyone in the state learns about ALEC and says "so what" I will not dismiss this far- right agenda. I can not stand by and watch my state be destroyed.

"We will not remember the words of our enemies, but rather the silence of our friends" -Martin Luther King JR.

Prosser's 8,000 votes

Okay, so I was not going to call fraud on this one; but there is some really compelling circumstantial evidence;

An additional 14,000 votes were found in Waukesha county after election day. The computer analyst who made the discovery and is in charge of the county elections is a former employee of David Prosser. She was also part of another election-related scandal back in 2002, where she avoided prosecution by trading her testimony for immunity. She has been criticized for her management of the computer system, apparently she used her personal computer instead of county-owned machines, and refused to let the county IT personal ensure that it was properly backed up and supported. The discovery of the votes was not reported for 29 hours.
This discovery of votes occurred because she claims that the village of Brookfield's data was not saved in the totals, though she 'hit save several times '. This woman has been a data analyst for 12 years.
And, then there is this; the totals from the polling places indicate a huge wave of voters late in the day...

- 24 wards in Brookfield
- 1379 votes for 5 wards
- 276 votes per ward
TOTAL VOTES FOR EACH WARD AT 7:00..... 6,620
- that would mean 7,680 people voted between 7-8!!

I don't know if there was fraud, but if I was looking for someone to commit fraud, This is who I would pick. This warrants an investigation, which has already started. We should at least figure out why so many Waukesha voters can't stop at the polls until 7pm- does no one vote in the morning, during lunch or on their way home from work? What is it with the massive 7pm rush to vote? If people are in line at 8pm, they are allowed to vote, so an extremely long line might explain the odd numbers.

Here is what our Governor said about the discovery of missing ballots;

A recount could begin as soon as next week. “As long as the rules are clear, as long as there aren’t ballots somehow found out of the blue that weren’t counted before, things of that nature, as long as everything’s above board, I think that’s fair,” said Walker.

Kloppenburg

Joanne Kloppenburg has probably won a supreme court seat. If the recount confirms her lead, then she will have unseated an incumbent Supreme Court Justice, which she trailed by 20 points just 6 weeks ago.

I was at her after party tracking the ups and downs as precincts trickled in. Many polling places had a larger than usual turnout, some even ran out of ballots, which made the count slow, especially in urban areas. Early voting-which tended to favor Kloppenburg- also slowed the count I was there until 1:30am when she came out to tell us that the vote was officially too close to call, and the counting would resume in the morning.

The Kloppenburg victory, if it is upheld, is remarkable in this fete. I am a bit wary of declaring anything further, because Kloppenburg won on the "anyone but Prosser" ticket. David Prosser openly declared his support for Walker, and his intent to 'Complement' the Governor and GOP agenda. I also sincerely believe that Kloppenburg will uphold the law, and much of the actions of the current administration have been within the limits of the law.

I am absolutely sure that Prosser would be biased towards the GOP agenda. He has argued that it is not necessary for a justice to recuse themselves from cases involving campaign contributos, replacing the "if a reasonable person can see a bias" test with the "if I think I can be unbiased" test.

Kloppenburg has not won yet, even if her lead holds, it is not official until after the recount, which could take weeks. Even pulling 50% of the vote is a phenomenal accomplishment.
Prosser supporters, including the Koch-topus, outspent Kloppenburg supporters 3:2 on outside advertising. The unions and protestors were very instrumental in volunteering for Kloppenburg, however the Tea Party is also highly organized and they promoted Prosser. Both candidates took public financing, which probably prevented this from being as quite as nasty as the Gableman/Butler race a few years back.

I really think that we need to find a way to reverse Citizens' United, however that is less likely, as the Koch-topus has stretched its tentacles as far as the US Supreme Court. Open records for donors to nonprofits would also be a good step.

ALEC

The ALEC is trying to take over my country. They say it in their own words on the top of their public webpage "controlling the nation by controlling the state houses" I have a few articles that discuss these guys better than I ever could.
This even lists the members if the 'private enterprise board' remember, each of these companies sent their employees here, paid 1,000 to join ALEC, then another undisclosed amount of money to be on the private enterprise board. The model legislation drafted by this group is then proposed as law by the republican lawmaker side of the operation- the lawmakers' pay a token $100 to be a part of the group, they are then lobbied by ALEC at private conferences and conventions. I am sure that this model legislation will benefit the members of the private enterprise board- but it is not likely that it will benefit the public.