xoff's blog

Tommy Thompson, onetime presidential candidate himself, now running for the Republican nomination for US Senate, in an interview with the Waukesha Freeman:

    FREEMAN: You haven’t endorsed yet in this presidential race?

    THOMPSON: No.

    FREEMAN: Do you intend to?

    THOMPSON: Nobody’s asked me to.

Is it because Tommy himself is suspect as a less-than-100% conservative, and his endorsement might cause problems for the receipent?  Or has he just become irrelevant?  The interview continues:

    FREEMAN: Do you have a preference?

    THOMPSON: I think that Romney’s the strongest candidate to win the State of Wisconsin.

    FREEMAN: And to beat Obama nationally?

    THOMPSON: Yes.

So there you have it, Mitt.  Use it if you dare.

When is Scott Walker going to fire Brett Davis and Cullen Werwie from their state jobs in his administration?

Both of them were up to their eyeballs in the illegal fundraising scandal for which a former Walker staffer, Kelly Rindfleisch, was charged with four felonies on Thursday.

A key finding in the charges against  Kelly Rindfleisch, who was Walker's deputy chief of staff in the Milwaukee County exec's office, is that Rindfleisch spent most of her time doing political fundraising at taxpayer expense.

She was, the criminal complaint says, raising money for Davis, who was then a state representative running for the GOP nomination  for lieutenant governor.  He was Walker's  preferred running mate, but lost the primary to Rebecca Kleefisch.

The complaint says that she sent some 300 emails to Davis during her working hours at the county, most related to fundraising.  She also sent or received some 1,380 emails related fundraising activities during working hours. 

In the wake of two more arrests of Scott Walker staffers, charged with abusing the public trust and campaigning and raising money on taxpayer time, a lot of people are poring over and parsing the lengthy complaints againt Kelly Rindfleisch and Darlene Wink, to see if the trail leads to their boss, who was Milwaukee County executive at the time.

Wink's attorney insists Walker knew nothing about what was going on right under his nose, although half of his administration seems to have known about it.  But for the moment let's say that's true, until someone disproves it, perhaps in the next batch of criminal complaints.

Walker clearly knew on May 14, 2010 that one of his staffers was breaking the law.  A newspaper story said Wink was posting pro-Walker comments under news stories posted online and doing other political work while in her county office.  Was he shocked? Not likely

You'd think that Paul Ryan, after being embarrassed last year to be caught drinking $350 bottles of wine in a DC watering hole with a couple of "economists," would stay away from the stuff.

But Root River Siren reports that he's hosting a fundraiser for State Sen. Van Wangaard, who's facing a recall election -- at a Racine wine shop.

Tickets are only $125, which should leave a slight profit if you get four glasses out of a bottle.  Or maybe they won't be serving the good stuff.

More at The Paul Ryan Watch.

The title of the YouTube video is, “Al Levie refuses award from Paul Ryan."

Al Levie, a Racine teacher,  walked away from Paul Ryan and refused to go along with Ryan's hypocritical side show on stage at Gateway Technical Institute, after Levie received the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award.  Ryan tried to present him with a Congressional citation so he could share the limelight.

Democurmudgeon has more, and a video, at The Paul Ryan Watch.

Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post's Right Turn blog writes to Paul Ryan and other prominent Republicans who have been watching the presidential race from the sidelines:

The voters in their infinite wisdom have just given a huge boost to perhaps the only GOP candidate who could shift the spotlight from President Obama to himself, alienate virtually all independent voters, lose more than 40 states and put the House majority in jeopardy...   

It seems, gentlemen, it’s time to get off your . . . er . . . time to get off the bench and into the game

More at The Paul Ryan Watch.

The Obama White House must be celebrating.

More at The Paul Ryan Watch.

Scott Walker's administration and Republicans in the legislature are hell-bent to stop children poisoned by lead paint from having their day in court.

It's mostly about money, of course.  Manufacturers want to be exempt from any responsibililty for their products, and are willing to generously reward politicians who help them change the rules so victims can't sue or collect for injuries.

But there's also a question of attitude, and this video of Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, explaining how she operated when she was a television "journalist," may help to explain the mentality that would let corporations get away with it.  It's called blaming the victim. 

Hat tip to Jud Lounsbury, who first posted this in November, 2010.