Political Heat

Criticisms are unwarranted, and miss the point: recalls serve democratic purpose With yet another article describing how lawmakers are calling for a change to Wisconsin's recall law , it's time once again to argue in defense of the current system. There's no doubt that a majority of the state is suffering from recall fatigue. And exit polls from the election indicate that a majority of voters only want a recall to occur when "official misconduct" occurs. Yet that wasn't the true foundation of recalls in our, nor any other, state. Recalls serve as a check for citizens to have on their representatives , to ensure that their interests are being promoted and that outside interests are limited -- especially those of a corporatist nature. "Fighting Bob" La Follette, who championed the idea of a recall in Wisconsin at the start of the 20th century, expressed it best when he stated : Whenever a representative government fails, it fails because the represent...

Rights of individuals diminished when heads of corporations are allowed twice the speech rights of everyone else Corporations aren't people. This shouldn't have to be said, but according to a majority decision of the Supreme Court in 2010, corporate spending in elections cannot be restricted. The rationale? That corporations, because they are made up of individuals who have interests and stakes in various elections across different levels of government, are indeed people. That rationale is skewed, however, because it assumes that those individuals don't have the ability to express their interests without use of the corporate dollar. But CEOs making millions of dollars a year don't need to use their company's profits to promote a certain candidate for office -- they can simply contribute their incomes, the same way every other person who doesn't run a company does. In fact, that's the main difference between a real person donating to a campaign and a corpora...

Conservative candidate for senate uses history's worst campaign tactics for political gain Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Eric Hovde is gaining traction. This past week, he gained the all-important (though not necessarily exclusive) endorsement of Wisconsin Right-to-Life , seen by many as necessary for any GOP candidate to obtain in order to have a chance in the primary this fall. Yet Hovde, whose political resume is almost non-existent (but claims to be qualified for office based on his business career), has had some problems with recent comments. Recently, Hovde stated he was sick of the media too frequently portraying poor people's woes as "sob stories." Stop always writing about, 'Oh, the person couldn't get, you know, their food s tamps or this or that.' You know, I saw something the other day - it's like, another sob story, and I'm like, 'But what about what's happening to the country and the country as a whole?' That's...

Gains in May come primarily from public sector File this month's jobs report under "at least we're moving forward" (even if it's at a snail's pace). May's jobs report (PDF) shows that Wisconsin gained jobs during that month, and revised numbers from April also show some gains as well. Unfortunately, those gains are barely worth taking note of, and in the end the state's unemployment rate went up by a tenth of a percent . From April to May, Wisconsin gained 2,600 jobs . Those gains represent about 0.095 percent of the total number the state now currently has, barely a significant gain. In total, Wisconsin has about 2,736,300 jobs -- about 4,300 jobs LESS than what we had when Walker assumed office . When you look at private sector job growth, May's report sounds even worse. Wisconsin only gained 900 private sector jobs from April to May. Walker needs significantly more than that to reach his jobs pledge of 250,000 jobs before his first term ends ....

Walker needs to show he's serious about compromise before he's to be believed UPDATE : Others have now signaled that they intend to skip the brat-and-beer summit , including legislative members from both Democratic and Republican persuasions. --- Assemblyman Mark Pocan announced today that he doesn't intend to attend Gov. Scott Walker's "beer and brat" summit. Walker's invitation came following his recall victory last Tuesday: "I'm going to invite all the members of the state legislature, Republican and Democrat alike, and what better way to bring people together than some brats and burgers, am I right?" Amid cheers, he continued, "And maybe a little good Wisconsin beer as well." But Pocan remained skeptical of the invite, deriding the event as nothing more than theatrics for a governor with a real problem of being anti-cooperative : I welcome the spirit of bipartisanship and I am prepared to sit down with the Governor and my frie...

Governor, DWD hid evidence of losses during last half of 2011 There is some great analysis over a couple of spreadsheets obtained by the blog site Badger Democracy from the Department of Workforce Development. Apparently -- and this is a shocker, I know -- Walker lied about those job numbers he kept saying would vindicate his first year in office. The numbers Wisconsin DWD sent to US BLS shows an anemic gain of 19,248 jobs in 2011 – not the 23,000+ (later revised to 26,000+) the Walker Administration/Campaign heralded. ... Scott Walker claimed he created 23,608 jobs in 2011. Based on the source of QCEW data, which he is citing, that number is only between 19,248 and 19,535. An overstatement of 16-20% . Those numbers are only accurate if the inconsistent data from the state’s own reporting is accurate. That is why this early data release was so misleading and misstated – nothing has been verified . Emphases added. So the unverified data showed that Walker's assessment of 2011 was ...

The work must go on if we're to remedy the situation in Wisconsin It was admittedly difficult to get out of bed this morning. With the full understanding that Scott Walker would continue to sit comfortably in the governor's office (at least for now), that a majority of Wisconsinites either approved of his "reforms" or were so vehemently against the "other guy" that they were willing to look past Walker's obvious shortcomings, it's difficult to see how a brighter future in our state could can about. But we cannot mope for too long -- we must re-group, assess what went wrong, and prepare ourselves for the challenges that are ahead of us. We need to keep in mind that only 11 out of every 20 voters wanted to keep Walker in office. 11 out of 20 does not a mandate make. Furthermore, independents, mistakenly convinced that the recall process was only reserved for certain circumstances, won the election for Walker...but not necessarily because they support h...

Even by his own, unverified numbers, Walker's performance a dismal comparison to his predecessor's A couple of job graphs to remind you that Walker didn't save the state, that his reforms aren't working for Wisconsin, and that any way you look at it things are worse under his watch. First, some background. When Walker took over Wisconsin, the state was in the midst of a recovery. Like much of the nation, Wisconsin had been hit hard by the effects of the global economic recession, and had lost a lot of jobs as a result. Gov. Scott Walker, in defending his record, wasted no effort in pointing this out, stating in no uncertain terms that his predecessor had lost 150,000 jobs during the three years before he (Walker) took office. Again, to reemphasize the point here: during a catastrophic, global economic recession, Walker erroneously placed the blame solely on the governor's office . That isn't just spin -- it's irresponsible campaigning. But Walker's point...

Political Heat posts put into perspective the destructive nature of Walker's time in government Recent comments made by Walker imply he's John Doe Walker's tenure as governor has hurt Wisconsin's values Scott Walker lied to Congress Even from conservative perspective, Walker no good for Wisconsin Who is John Doe? Walker involvement a high possibility The "politics of need" versus the "politics of greed." By any standard he picks (including his own) Walker's job numbers are STILL a failure Water wells of SE WI communities potentially contaminated Scott Walker: "Not what we wanted" (Video) "Divide and Conquer" -- the Walker plan for Wisconsin Scott Walker blames Barrett for job losses despite mayor's limited role Walker fails Packers' history, compares self to Vince Lombardi Education will play a significant role in the recall election On job creation, "CEO Walker" would be fired Governor uses "Walker Mat...

"Right to bear arms" doesn't mean restrictions don't exist In an effort to ensure I don't get burned out the weekend before the recall...here is a non-recall essay on the 2nd Amendment. People always assume that liberals are against the right to have weapons. We're not -- we're for sensible regulation of weaponry , not an outright ban. There are a few fringe liberals who WOULD like to see weapons banned completely, but they're like the number of conservatives who protest soldier's funerals because of tolerance of homosexuality in America. But I digress. Is regulation of the 2nd Amendment bad? Consider this: no other amendment to the constitution is an absolute . There are limits on speech; there are limits on 4th Amendment protections. The 9th and 10th Amendments don't give me free reign to claim I have other inherent rights without proper reason. Yet many conservatives fight ardently for an absolutist approach to the 2nd Amendment. This isn...