Man MKE's blog

Dave Obey spoke to activists at Fighting BobFest in Chippewa Falls last year in the midst of Scott Walker's "we're broke" rhetoric:

“How has Wisconsin changed since I left the Legislature (to go to Congress)  in 1969?” Obey asked. He said the bottom level tax rate is up by 70 percent and  the top rate is down by 22 percent.

“If all the governor did was change the top rate to the 1969 level, that would mean $600 million in the next biennium,” Obey said.

Van Hollen unretouchedAll you need to know about how Republicans think and talk is summed up this morning by a quote from J.B. Van Hollen, the highly partisan attorney general of Wisconsin.

Reacting to the federal judicial panel's order overturning the GOP redistricting of Milwaukee's traditional Hispanic voting district into two, and requiring it be un-done and re-drawn, Van Hollen acted like the decision was a big victory for Republicans. Never mind that the court also lambasted GOP secrecy in its work, called the redistricting highly partisan, noted that it would disenfranchise many Wisconsin voters for two years, and openly derided some Republican staff testimony. For Van Hollen, it all came down to this:

"The judgments made by the Wisconsin Legislature have largely been vindicated," he said in a statement. "No constitutional defects were found and what began as a scattershot attack on every aspect of these laws has come down to a single finding that one line between two districts should be adjusted."

KonopackiMadison's The Progressive magazine has a piece on how the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is backing editorial cartoonist Mike Konopacki, who is facing a felony-level complaint from Republicans for a parody news release he issued. Konopacki issued a fake new release from State Rep. Steve Nass (R-La Grange) after the legislator pushed the University of Wisconsin School for Workers into canceling an art exhibit about the historic worker protests last year.

According to the magazine:

Republican male lawmakers reacting to the ethics charges against State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, as quoted in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Some Republicans questioned why the commission filed a complaint against Prosser but not Bradley.

"It seems this organization is on a partisan mission as opposed to a fact-finding one," Rep. Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said of the Judicial Commission.

Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette) also questioned the group's motives and said he feared it was trying to discredit a member of the court's conservative majority.

"I'm kind of shocked they're filing a complaint against Prosser but not Justice Bradley," he said.

Frequent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel guest columnist Rick Esenberg, a conservative lawyer and think-tank boss, is once again busy constructing false equivalencies.

In the newspaper Thursday morning (see link below), Esenberg writes that the political left persistently claims that Gov. Scott Walker's reforms "are not working because Wisconsin's economy was sluggish for the first few months after they were implemented."

First few months turning out to be, if you actually look at the data, the remainder of the year that followed. And if, by "sluggish," you mean the worst and mostly negative job creation performance in the nation.

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a fake Democrat who is actually a Republican in every respect except by self-chosen, official designation, had this to say about crime today:

"It's foolhardy to think someone commits burglary because they couldn't find a job."

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Clarke went on to call Milwaukee County Supervisor Eyon Biddle Sr. "a soft-on-crime gas bag."

Pour me anotherWisconsin's dismal economic and job-creation performance during Scott Walker's first year in office -- worst in the nation, actually -- doesn't mean a damn thing. At least not if you're Scott Walker, who is working overtime to hang onto his own job. Because he's doing it to us again.

Remember the original June 2011 estimate that the state had created 15,000 jobs in that month? The job creation spike that Walker loudly touted over and over? Turns out, according to adjusted state figures, the actual number was near zero. Whoops.

Royally screwedAfter a tough day on the job, it's always nice to come home to some laughs. No sit-coms or newspaper funnies for me, this time, however. Rather, I dove into the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. And there I found Gov. Scott Walker's declaration that he has already ordained a Voter ID law in Wisconsin, so those of us who are supporting legal action to overturn it should just shut up and let him rule as he pleases.

You can read his not very trenchant but quite entrenched thoughts at the URL below. I was skimming the piece minus alacrity until I got to the LOL moment near the end, where Walker (or one of his PR minions) clumsily penned: