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Billing from the Palm Beech Post!

Koch acknowledges his group is hard at work in places such as Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker is facing off with public unions and grappling with a likely recall vote.

“We’re helping him, as we should. We’ve gotten pretty good at this over the years,” he says. “We’ve spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We’re going to spend more.” Palm Beech Post – Koch

The Stakes are High

Welcome to the Koch Casino Wisconsin; an amusement owned and operated by David and Charles Koch. You will not need to travel to take your chances. You won’t need to go anywhere at all. Just turn on your radio, TV, open a newspaper, or surf the web., and you are in the game. The Koch claim is that “Everyone can be a winner“, and you are given full instruction on exactly how to beat the odds. Whenever you watch your favorite game, or show, the message will be there in a repetitive, mind altering, litany of display ads, commercials, and web sites to mesmerize the potential subject into the winning ways and rules of Casino Koch Wisconsin.

Don’t Think About It

Do not make the mistake of questioning the Casino Koch rules, but just assume the information, provided to win the Koch Casino game, is in your best interest. If you begin to fill your mind with questions and analysis of the motive or message, you can never win. Besides, Koch Casino Wisconsin will make it easy, even painless, by using all the right, feel-good, words and symbols to sugar the instructions and make your mouth water with desire to participate in the ultimate action. You will hear great , patriotic and important sounding words: America, Prosperity, Freedom, Liberty, Individual Rights, Patriots, Founding Fathers, Bill of Rights, Citizens United, Heritage, Private Sector, Ayn Rand, Trickle Down Wealth, Right to Work, It Is Working – I mean how can this message be wrong?

Get Your Free Tools

Oh, and here is yet another Casino Koch Tool; your enemies will be echoed through the message with the cadence of a dripping faucet in the dark of night: Job Destroyer, Big Unions Bosses, Big Government, Obamacare, Government Take Over, Death Panel, Public Workers, Federal Employees, Mandate, Collective Bargaining. Soon, with enough repetition, these words have all the appeal of your next root canal.

Please just listen to the message like a three-year-old viewing Sesame Street and you will know how to play to win! Once the big day comes you will be ready to drink the Koolaid. Unlike most Casino operations, the actual play of the game is a one time occurrence; when you go down to actually play the machines. On this day your local school, church, or city hall becomes the virtual casino operation for Casino Koch Wisconsin. Your ID will be checked, and you go into the booth and behind the curtain to exercise your patriotic, Constitutional, Democratic right to make a choice on an electronic machine. You will even hear electric sounds from the machine, much like in other casinos. Your secret ballot is counted electronically according to computer programs to which only private corporations have access. That’s right, not the President, Congress, Supreme Court, or any other government body has access to the programing that finally tallies your play in the Casino Koch Wisconsin operation.

Picture left – Example of popper ballot! Demand it at the polls!

Or at least, a phone call

It is only the beginning

The onslaught of commercials is coming like the wicked witch of the West on an F5 tornado to flatten and swirl every progressive and democratic principle, just as it did in the 2010 election to crush Russ Feingold under a house to give us Ron Johnson. It gave us Scott Walker, the Fitzgerald Brothers and turned the control of Congress over to the Koch Brothers.

It happened on the shortest day of the year. The Koch Bros. usurp the power of the House, the Senate, the President and the People of the United States.

The first message of the fringe right wing spin machine is directed at Democratic Senate Candidate Tammy Baldwin. The Citizens United ruling has turned Democracy on its ear, and allowed for an endless flow of money to be flushed into the toilet of deceit in the form of attack adds.

Only the Beginning

The ad above is produced and paid for, impart, by the the Wisconsin Manufactures and Commerce – Wisconsin’s Business Voice. © 2007 Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce
WMC Website

WMC aggressively opposed workplace regulations restricting employer communication
in union organizing drives and minimum wage hikes, as well as substantial business tax
hikes and liability expansions.

Its ads single-handedly got Annette Ziegler and Michael Gableman elected to the state Supreme Court – changed the court from a moderate body to an actively conservative, pro-corporate majority.

Eleven of WMC Board Member Businesses Paid No Corporate Income Taxes in 2003, 2004. Of the 25 companies in which corporate executives sat on WMC’s Board in 2003 and 2004, 11 paid no corporate income tax to Wisconsin. These include: Ariens, Associated Banc-Corp, Emerson, Greenheck Fan, Hutchinson Technologies, Market & Johnson, Serigraph, Snap-On, Manitowoc Company, Wausau Paper, and Webcrafters. This extends to national corporations operating in-state. In 2005, Microsoft, Merck, and Sears earned a combined $18 billion in profits – but paid absolutely nothing in Wisconsin corporate income tax. [Source: Institute for Wisconsin’s Future, 12/07/07] Wisconsin Watch

It Won’t Happen Again – Not this time.

After suffering through a year of the agenda that resulted from the last round of attack adds aired during the last election, when the people lost Russ Feingold and came close to losing Ron Kind, the people will not let it happen again.

Tod Taske is Chair of Milwaukee Manufactures and Commerce He is also chairman/president/CEO of Wauwatosa-based Briggs & Stratton Corporation For Further Information Contact: Kurt R. Bauer, (608) 258-3400

The first attack ad is now running.

It is only the beginning. How do you fight back against the onslaught of commercials that is coming like the wicked witch of the West on an F5 tornado, to flatten and swirl every progressive and Democratic principal and crush it beneath a house full of money? Make your own ATTACK add! – Or, at least, a phone call.

The Koch Brothers may have a very small camel or a gigantic needle

Nearly everyone has heard the impossible Biblical passage regarding the task the wealthy must undertake to enter the kingdom of heaven: “Mark 10:25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Are the difficulties as steep for Walker to enter the Capital as Governor after the recall election? The Koch Brothers and Americans for Prosperity seem to be bucking the political evanglelists.

Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a conservative group chaired by David Koch, is pumping at least $700,000 in ads defending Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) record as he faces a possible recall attempt, according to the Washington Post.

Americans For Prosperity Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization, while Americans For Prosperity is a 501 (c)(4) organization. One key difference is that the former is prohibited from participating in a political campaign for a candidate for public office, hence why the ad by the group does not mention Walker and mentions only “recent reforms.” Americans For Prosperity, by contrast, has a much more overt effort to “Stand With Scott Walker. Huffingtonpost – Walker Aided by Huge…

What Could be the Strategy?

It appears unlikely that Walker can escape charges in the John Doe investigation. How many of his top aides been indicted? How far was his office door from the secret email network? What are the chances that Tim Russel will display any more honor among thieves, than he has among fallen veterans or GOP candidates?

I am not much of a gambler, but betting on the survival Walker’s Governorship in Wisconsin, is not a wager I would make with even odds. Yet, money is pouring in from all over the country and from nearly every right wing financier, foundation, and organization to the tune of over 10 million dollars.

Either his role as standard bearer for union busting, vote suppression, and privatization of education is so pivotal to the movement as a whole, that the limitless spending is justified, or is there another possible strategy? Does anyone else smell the making of a martyr? The legends of Martyrs outlive many a forgotten hero. Remember, that Nixon said, “They won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”, before he won the presidency. The similarities of the Walkergate and Watergate have not escaped anyone.

Wisconsin wants him “gone”

At least, a million people in Wisconsin want him gone, and that was before the most recent allegations in the John Doe investigation broke in the press. No. People are not considering his possible role as the national martyr of the fringe right, they just want him out of power in Wisconsin. I am one of those. Let him be a martyr anywhere but Wisconsin.

Every time another video breaks the air waves by the grace of the Koch Brothers, a satirical muse awakens from somewhere between my 4th and 5th vertebrae that moves me to respond with a $70 video camera, and free editing software. Whether you “like” it or not, it serves the nagging muse to release the venom.

Here is the latest of the Wisconsin is “Lurking” Working series:

Scott Walker won the 2008 Governor’s election with 1,128,941 votes or 52.3%
Tom Barrett lost the 2008 Governor’s election with 1,004,303 votes or 46.5%

Rumor trended on twitter #wisconsin last night -1,500,000 signatures collected to force a recall election

The First Lie

124,638 votes difference or a 6% margin is hardly a mandate, yet Walker turned Wisconsin inside-out and upside-down championing an ultra-conservative agenda, the specifics of which were never mentioned in his campaign.

Just a year ago, few people were privileged to the workings of a secret conservative legislative agenda being covertly implemented in several states including New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The national consortium with no real roots or connection to the people of any of these states, is now known as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC was formed with the specific intent to gain control of state houses and to write legislation to be passed by Scott Walker and Scott and Jeff Fitzgerald to further changes in state law in favor the most ultra conservative goals of wealthy and privileged Americans.

Big money has always been a factor in state politics. However ALEC, in the hands of Walker and the Fitzgerald brothers represents a new and insidious threat to working families and children of Wisconsin and U.S.. Never before has such an attack been specifically orchestrated and launched on the people through their own local and state government.

Have you noticed that republicans are no longer republicans?

This De-republicanism is most obvious in national politics and especially in the primaries and the U.S. Congress. The primaries are divided between Romney and non-Romney, with the non-Romney candidates representing the fringe conservative agenda of the Koch Brothers and ALEC. The House of Representatives is split in just the same way as most recently exposed in the attempt to hold the vote for the tax break legislation before the holiday break, when Rep Hank Johnson of North Carolina spoke on the House floor after the vote:

It happened on the shortest day of the year. The Koch Bros. usurp the power of the House, the Senate, the President and the People of the United States.

The video begins with a cut from the bogus,chummy phone call to Scott Walker from David Koch last February.

The Koch Brothers Ended Up in Control of Congress – AND WISCONSIN

Scott Walker and the Fitzgerald Brothers are working to DE-republicanisation of Wisconsin as are their counterparts on the campaign trail and the Congress. These men actually represent a third force, or a third party hiding behind the republican party. Democrats can work with Republicans, they have for years. Progressives can work with Democrats. This new power grab of De-republicanism is a threat to all parties and to all people, and represents a covert take over of all political interests and a re-interpretation of the Constitution according to the untested philosophies of Ayn Rand, Austrian economic theory, and objectivism as legislated by ALEC through the mouths of Scott Walker, Jeff and Scott Fitzgerald, plus other de-repulicanized members of the Wisconsin Legislature.

A Walker/Fitzgerald Forced Recall is a VICTORY to be Celebrated!

All politics is local. The forced recall of Walker is Wisconsin’s local, grass-roots, bi-partisan reaction to ALEC, the Koch Brothers, and the fight to prove – Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey – the United States Is Not For Sale.

If you didn’t know about that, then what else don’t you know?

Arlo Gurthrie

Guthrie wrote the above lyrics as a question to President Nixon in the early days of the the Watergate Investigation. The song frames a question that might well be put to Scott Walker as his lose ethics spawn arrests of his closest aides.

Three individuals – including a former top aide to Gov. Scott Walker – were charged Thursday with felonies as part of the ongoing John Doe investigation into Walker staffers.

Tim Russell, a longtime Walker campaign and county staffer, was charged with two felonies and one misdemeanor count of embezzlement. One source said the charges are tied to Operation Freedom, an annual military appreciation day held at the zoo.

Walker set up the annual Operation Freedom as a military appreciation day at the zoo for veterans, who got free admission and food. It was run through the county executive’s office.

WSJ Online story

Familiar Walker Response

The arrogance of Walker’s response to the unethical, political orchestration was, “he was trying to save taxpayer dollars and that he’d resolve ethics concerns by asking a veterans organization to solicit funds for the event”. Does the lack of conscience and disregard of all that is not part of his agenda, strike a familiar ring?

And Where Was Walker….This Time?

Sometimes irony is the very energy of coincidence that shatters the truth out of deceit. Once again, as his former aides were being rounded up, Walker was out of state. What’s more. He was actually appearing nationwide on C Span2 in a Koch Bros. supported, ALEC, American Enterprise Institute forum. The fringe right wing was offering Walker a spot light to defend the recall effort way here back home. All this, at the very same instant that his former close aides were being rounded up on felony charges. He had no clue of what was going on way here back in Wisconsin, as the opportunity to defend his lack of ethics was being bought and paid for by right wing interests that hope to use his fractured leadership as bright and shining example of all that is good about America. Irony, showed up like a concealed-carry cowboy and struck him right between the teeth as he listed his litany of lies about his attempt to force the right wing agenda down the throats of the moderate people of Wisconsin. Mis-statements like:

Walker implies protestors use extra vacation time to protest while silent majority too busy working.

Walker says difference between Ohio and Wisconsin referendums is that not enough time for Kasich.

Walker expects recall election to be in June and people are “tired of elections.

Walker just lied that NY Guv. Cuomo took away collective bargaining with budget cuts.

Walker implying five months in a row of private sector job losses a “tremendous turnaround”.

Walker just said property taxes are down since his budget cuts.

Walker asked about Affordable Health Care act and he’s waiting for SCOTUS to overturn it.

If you didn’t know about that, then what else don’t you know?

Make No Mistake About It- Scott Walker and Health Secretary, former Heritage Foundation Official, Dennis Smith did all they could to protect the profits of Insurance Companies over the health of Wisconsin’s families and children.

On January 3, 2011 Just hours after Scott Walker became Governor, Dennis Smith was appointed to serve as Secretary of the Department of Health Services . Dennis G. Smith, a consultant with (ultra conservative) Leavitt Partners, is a former (Koch supported) Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow and former Director of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Under Bush/Cheney). Read More – Let Him Die – Ayn Rand

The Walker/Smith Plan to Protect Insurance Company Profits

Smith (pictured right holding viagra “waiver” capsule) wanted Wisconsin to be exempt from a federal requirement on how much health insurers have to spend on patient care. Officials are seeking a waiver to what’s known as the “medical loss ratio.”

The “medical loss ratio” required under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is 80 percent of premiums. The act required that 80% of consumers money went to health care as opposed to administration, buildings, and comercials on PBS. Walker/Smith asked to keep the state’s ratio at 71 percent this year and gradually increase it to 77 percent over the next three years so the money would be kept in the coffers of insurance companies. Read Take Action Against Dennis Smith

If the waiver were not approved with 90 days – insurance companies would get to keep the profits. Smith/Walker played a political hour glass game with the health of Wisconsin families. This is the kind of ploy that is taught to legislators through the covert conservative organization ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council). Smith was confident that any review by the Feds would take longer than 90 days, and he would get his way to preserve insurance company profits. Read Wisconsin Death Panel

The Walker Lie

Now Walker and Smith make it sound like they deserve the credit for Badger Care (Family Care) expansion!

For Immediate Release
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Governor Walker Announces Plan to Lift Family Care Enrollment Cap, Expand to New Counties
Legislative action needed to lift cap and expand long-term care program

Madison–Earlier this year an enrollment cap was placed on Family Care in response to a Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) evaluation which found a number of areas the program could be improved and made more efficient. After a briefing on the hard work done by DHS over the past couple of months, today Governor Walker announced a plan to lift the Family Care cap. Governor Walker’s plan also calls for Family Care to be expanded to additional counties.
Walker Press Release

Just for a Laugh – Read This Sentence from the Release

A very critical issue raised in the report was that the cost effectiveness of Family Care was difficult to assess. Because the Department was able to take the time to strengthen the program, Wisconsin now has the detailed data needed to develop solutions to ensure Family Care is on sound financial footing for those in the program now and for future enrollees.

The Critical issue – “Cost effectiveness was difficult to access” – yet they strengthened the program? No! They desperately used every deceitful trick like seeking a waiver to protect Insurance Company Profits!

Will Walker/Smith take full credit for Obama’s 23.1 Million Bonus?

Note the Bonus was a reward for children enrolled BEFORE Walker/Smith worked to CUT 35,000 families from the program:

“number of children enrolled monthly in Children’s Health Insurance Programs (CHIP) increased by 121,000 between 2007 and 2010. Wisconsin received the second largest bonus in the country.”
INCREASED ACCESS TO HEALTH INSURANCE FOR CHILDREN QUALIFIES STATE FOR FEDERAL BONUS
Wisconsin Receives $23.1 Million Performance Bonus for 2010.

Great News for the Children of Wisconsin – NO THANKS TO WALKER/SMITH

MADISON—Increased access to health care services for children through the BadgerCare Plus program qualified Wisconsin for a federal bonus of $23.1 million for this year, federal officials announced today. The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA) provides performance bonus payments to encourage states to enroll more uninsured Medicaid-eligible children and help offset increased enrollment costs.

Wisconsin received the bonus from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) because the average number of children enrolled monthly in Children’s Health Insurance Programs (CHIP) increased by 121,000 between 2007 and 2010. Wisconsin received the second largest bonus in the country.

.
Read Reauthorization Act Reward Document

Notice how often Walker is out of state?

Many of Walker’s out-of-state trips across the country are kept secret from the voters. The people of the state know nothing of his travels. No one finds out he has left the state until his presence in D.C., California, New Jersey, or some other distant state, is reported on twitter or face book as in the example below.

The tweet went out from Washington, D.C., earlier this month, a fairly innocuous note from a blogger at the Christmas party of conservative power broker Grover Norquist.

“Gov. Scott Walker just left ATR/Norquist Xmas party.”

The governor has refused to keep the public informed as to his comings and goings. His presence in New York, or Texas or Washington has been learned after the fact and almost always tipped off by a blogger or a website listing.Where has Walker Gone?

“Not only does this supposed governor of Wisconsin refuse to let people know when he is leaving the state, he also does not reveal what he is doing in his secret travels. Well, it isn’t too hard to guess. Walker just completed the single most lucrative period of fundraising for a candidate in state history; almost half of the $5.1 million he raised since July came from beyond our borders.”

Why are all these deep pockets so interested in Wisconsin? They’re not!

The donors to Walker are not looking to benefit the seniors, children or families of Wisconsin. They are not interested in your child’s school, or Grandmother’s nursing home, or your family’s home mortgage. They are donating to Walker in order to further a fringe right-wing agenda. They have been working covertly for years to exert their control on government, and they are donating to Walker and other governors of other states to institute this control through the state legislatures. This is not about Wisconsin, New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio or any other state. This is about using these states a guinea pigs to orchestrate a conservative agenda that is way to the right of the values of most people in any given state.

In other words, Walker is using the people of Wisconsin in an experiment. Wisconsin has become a sort of storefront to do the bidding of conservative wealthy elites like the Koch Brothers, and Grover Norquist (Walker secretly attended Norquist’s Christmas party as found out in the quote above).

“Norquist officially replaces the Koch brothers as the great malevolent manipulator that controls the republic by pulling unseen strings on behalf of the plutocracy.”

Washington Post Opinion

The Recall of Walker is a fist step against this covert, fringe right wing manipulation that could alter the voice of the people in our democracy, to a mere whisper.

The KOCH Bothers Stole Christmas

Scott Walker, Kleefisch and the Fitzgerald Brothers came to power in Wisconsin through the money of The Koch Brothers and their front organizations; Americans for Property and the Tea Party. This isn’t a narrow liberal opinion of lefty bloggers or recall activists. The quote and title of this post was spoken on the floor of the House of Representatives just days ago – Dec. 20. The words were spoken by Rep. Hank Johnson after a long day of “debate” on the tax holiday extension. He came forward and spoke for a full hour before the final gavel of that days business.

Like many of the actions of the Koch Brothers, a historic session was closed without exciting headlines or a “breaking news” reaction from the media or the notice of most voters. The move to buy power and control of the Supreme Court, 26 State Houses, and the United States Congress has been insidious and slow and covert. Dec. 20 was a historic victory for the Koch Brothers power grab; they got the United States Congress for Christmas.

Another Institution on the Koch Control List

The fringe right faction of the Republican Party acted for the Koch Brothers to usurp the power of the House, the Senate, and the President of the United States.

On Dec. 20, 2011 the Congress of the United States was delivered to the Koch Brothers in a box – just in time for Christmas.

Below is a short excerpt of the words spoken by Hank Johnson Dec. 20.

You can watch the full video of Rep. Hank Johnson by scrolling all the way to the end of the Dec. 20 House Session at the link Cspan Chronicle House

Walker Recall is Bigger than Wisconsin

The tentacles of the Koch Brothers not only reach into the Congress, but into the smallest towns and villages of the country, as demonstrated in Crawford County Wisconsin during the Senate Recall Elections last Summer.

Rolling Ground Resident Displays Fraudulent Mailing
Lamar Janes holds the suspicious absentee ballot application received by his wife on Saturday. Neither Janes nor his wife Lynda Shaller are members of American For Prosperity as the accompanying letter states. The application he’s holding states clearly absentee ballots must be submitted to “city clerks” by August 11. However, absentee ballots cannot be submitted after the election, which is scheduled for this Tuesday, August 9.

This Fraudulent mailing showed up in county after county throughout the state of Wisconsin in a attempt to suppress the vote for the recall elections.

Vote suppression actions such as misleading mailings, passage of voter ID laws, and gerrymandering legislative districts are all part of the Koch tentacles reaching to control our democracy and way of life, and not just in Wisconsin, but in state after state and nation wide.

The Recall of Scott Walker is About Stopping the Koch Brothers

Anyone – Democrat, Independent, Republican – who is aware of the Koch Brother’s attempt to buy the United States Government, will understand the overwhelming effort to recall Scott Walker. The legislative agenda was set by the orchestration of the Koch Brothers, long before the 2010 election. The survival of representative government hangs in the balance of the Walker recall.

“Mere passive citizenship is not enough. Men must be aggressive for what is right, to save the government from those who are aggressive for what is wrong.”
Fighting Bob Lafollette.

Why does the money pour into the Walker coffers and enable him to shell out a $300,000 media buy?

It is simple, really. It can be boiled down to one word “control”. Most people have never experienced the addictive emotional lift that comes with holding a lot of money. Many can identify with this lift by recalling the moment they signed the mortgage papers for a house or farm. It is a rush of sorts. It’s not unlike the rush of an addicted gambler who loses the family farm on a bet just to get the rush of the risk, except that the wealthy 1% can afford the gamble with little risk of personal debt or injury. They sit around the poker table of tax exempt foundations, and legislative alliances and lay down their bets in a game to alter public policy to their liking. The rush of the moment is filled with the adrenaline of the gamble for control. What a rush for them. What a “fun” game!

One of the main bullet points, high on the agenda of control, is privatization. Why are these self defined conservatives investing big money in dismantling government in favor of privatization of education, social security, health care, and nearly every other public program? They gain corporate control. The administration of government programs will no longer be influenced by the people of a representative government, but will be run by private, corporate, boards of directors, and the foundation leaders and organizations like the Bradley Foundation, Koch Bros, and Americans for Prosperity will be first in line to gain the power of control of the brave, new corporate America.

Wealth buys power and control of the message

Just such a man is Michael W. Grebe president and chief executive of the Bradley Foundation, which during the period of 2001 to 2009, doled out nearly as much money as the seven Koch and Scaife foundations combined. Less than a week after being elected governor, Scott Walker and his wife met privately with Michael Grebe, one of the most powerful philanthropic forces behind America’s conservative movement. The list of major recipients reads like an all-star roster of conservative think tanks: millions of dollars directed to well-known groups such as the Hudson Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, and the Federalist Society – all trying to put their stamp on three branches of government.

Grebe likened the Bradley Foundation to the 1960s Green Bay Packers, who ruled the football world with a fearsome ground game and a deceptively simple running play, the sweep.

“We’re going to run off tackle, right over there, and we’re telling you we’re going to run there and we’re going to knock you on your butt and carry the ball down the field,” Grebe said during an interview inside the foundation’s headquarters near downtown. “There are no surprises.”

Bradley Foundation jsonline

The Bradley Foundation is a “Philanthropic” Organization

As a tax exempt foundation the Bradley Foundation is not allowed to involve itself in political activities. So, how is it that the foundation’s money supports ideas, as well as political leaders like Scott Walker, who have turned those ideas into action, and have helped drive America’s conservative revolution over the past quarter-century?

Good question.

Taking Michael Grebe’s football analogy and running with it, the video below cries foul to the political activities of this tax exempt foundation and its president “Greedy Grebe”

Scheduling or Strategy?

Time to Stand with Wisconsin

Double checking the map Wisconsin is a gray shaded battleground state.

A day after his State of the Union address, President Obama visited the headquarters of power technology company Orion Energy Systems, Inc. in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. In a speech, Obama called for the U.S. to “up [its] game” in a time of increasing global competition. The decision to make Wisconsin the first state Obama visited following his State of the Union address was seen as making political sense, given the upcoming 2012 presidential election and the state’s central position in the “Midwest battleground”.Obama national visits

February – November a long, long time

Wisconsin has been engaged in the struggle of its live over the past 9 months. Many have noticed how Obama has been less than aggressive in his mounting the bully pulpit in support of the unions, teachers, seniors, and children of Wisconsin. As time passes without some message of strong support from the President through this whirlwind of vilification and attack, progressives can only begin to question his virtual silence through a challenged Spring Supreme Court race, an historic recall action against 6 GOP state Senators, a ruling of the State Supreme Court that dismissed the legislature from constitutional impertives regarding open meetings rules, and now, another historic recall effort against the governor of the state.

Bully Up

Why the silence? Wisconsin looks to Obama to take a stand against the Koch Bros., ALEC, Americans for Prosperity whose largess threatens the very heart of democracy. Secretary of Health Services (or Czar) is seeking a federal waiver exempting Wisconsin from receiving funds promised by the Heath Care Law that would will leave seniors cut from medicare and families, mothers, and children stripped of the safety net of Badger Care. This at a time when the infant mortality rate in Milwaukee is that of a third world country.

Climb up that bully pulpit and talk to us. We are on your side.