Place Homemade Recall Walker Signs in Windows—Help Recall Canvassers

The Democratic Party should begin encouraging voters to help the recall canvassers out with this display now.

Nothing will warm a heart like a 'I support Recalling Walker' sign, come Nov. 15.

Nothing warms a heart like a nice person and a political sign for Wisconsin families.

Kim Simac Calls for Employers to Foot Bill for Medicaid

Kim Simac, Recall Candidate

Employers should pay for Medicaid costs, says Simac

Kim Simac is challenging Sen. Jim Holperin (D-Conover) in one of the final two recall elections Tuesday.

But Simac is drawing laughs across Wisconsin through her stunning ignorance and to be charitable: Bat-craziness. For example, Simac can't name one single legislative bill she supports or opposes (Bice), but just knows that she should be elected to the legislature.

Medicaid

This next gem takes the cake, and is the most offensive and dangerous of Simac's quasi proposals, as Simac makes common cause with Paul Ryan's plan to kill Medicaid and Medicare.

Here's the plan: Simac says we can revitalize the Wisconsin economy, people will leave Medicaid ["some people (will) come off of it," in her words] and then employers will provide Medicaid for their employees. Problem solved.

But a big issue with Simac's solution to buttressing Medicaid is the over-looked fact this social insurance program provides health insurance coverage to folks with lower incomes who likely will not present a skill set attractive to prospective employers in pitching employers' pick up all of the rising health insurance costs, supplanting the state-run subsidy.

From the Rhinelander Daily News (Laurel Carlson): Simac said: "I think that if we can revitalize the economy in this state, you're going to see it maybe kick back and some people come off of it as they can afford to get their own health care, as their employers can provide it for them, so I think that that will be part of the solution."

Employers paying more health care costs will likely not win Simac any points.

Enemy Among Us

Simac warns there is an "enemy living among us" in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, but refuses to specify what the enemy is. Simac also sounds the alarm that American public schools are accurately compared to Nazi Germany; maybe those nefarious English teachers and the furtive-looking janitors are the analogues of the Wehrmacht and Gestapo respectively. [Apologies to my friends, Mikey and Walter; I know you hate NAZI humor.]

A clear and present danger from this wanna-be policymaker is her utter inability or refusal to grasp public policy.

So committed to ignorance is Simac, she makes Sarah Palin look like Joel Rogers, Professor of Law, Political Science and Sociology; Director, Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) and MacArthur Foundation fellow at UW-Madison.

Hopper and Kapanke Defeated; Senate now 17-16

Wisconsin working families made history last night

For the first time, two sitting state senators were successfully knocked off in recall elections despite a mountain of GOP lies funded by $millions from shadowy groups hiding behind the corrupt Citizens United decision

Democratic challenger Jessica King of Oshkosh defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac [Empire now] in perhaps the most satisfying win for families.

Jessica King

The only way Republicans can hold onto power now in Wisconsin is by:

• the millions of big-money, out-of-state interests
• preventing Wisconsin voters from voting
• gerrymandering the state and federal districts before municipal districts even have a chance to draw their own internal ward lines

Which of course the GOP has accomplished.

But pending or soon to be pending are appeals made to those most liberal of public documents—The U.S. Constitution and Wisconsin Constitution.

And of course, Republican activist Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus sadly used her office again for corrupt purposes, secretly tabulating and then releasing votes on her personal timeline rather than getting results out to Wisconsin citizens.

Republicans have lived down to expectations, and in the process likely put Wisconsin in the blue column for 2012

Nation's eyes on Wisconsin; Scott Walker stays in seclusion

Update: If you are in Wisconsin, go door-to-door with We Are Wisconsin. Everywhere else, you can make phone calls with either the Democratic Party of Wisconsin or DFA and the PCCC.

Wisconsin is ground zero as the great 2011 counter-offensive against corporate extremists culminates in recall elections against six Republican state senators.

Gov. Scott Walker still avoids public appearences on the campaign trail as any mention of Walker is effectively a get-out-the-vote (GOTV) call for betrayed working families.

"The other thing is I’ve got layoff notices ready. We put out the at-risk notices. ... And we’ll probably get 5 to 6,000 state workers will get at-risk notices for layoffs. We might ratchet that up a little bit, you know. ... We’d already kinda built plans up, but it was kind of the last hurrah before we dropped the bomb."
- Scheming and conniving, Scott Walker caught unawares on tape in February, bragging about his ambush against Wisconsin workers

No matter how much the Koch brothers and other anti-family outfits spend and lie, the recall election and protests of 2011 have made American history.

March 10, Wisconsin state capitol

As the rightwing American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) jammed its extremist agenda down the throats of states all over the nation, Wisconsin has led the way in fighting back.

The stakes could not be higher: Wisconsin workers and families against a cynical governor and his Amen corner in the legislature.

August 9, Tuesday; Wisconsin families say: We Are Wisconsin.

Value of Work-Labor-Sweat—Wisconsin Recall Elections



Madison, Wisconsin State Capitol; February 26, 2011
President Lincoln on Labor

Common ground.

There is honor and dignity in labor. We have that in common.

There is honor choosing our public servants in this republic; its our right in a democracy and we have that in common.

There is innovation in organizing to sell our work, a sacred product protected by the right to freely associate and organize. We all share this right.

Republicans today disagree with these propositions; revering the emissions of Ayn Rand over the vision of civil rights activists Fannie Lou Hamer, Aaron Henry of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (1964), President Lincoln and FDR.

Wisconsin citizens find common ground in protecting the rights of our neighbors, our fellow citizens: To vote, to work, to exercise our liberty.

And that is what the Wisconsin recall elections are about.



Human being

"Many were lost in the struggle for the right to vote: Jimmy Lee Jackson, a young student, gave his life; Viola Liuzzo, a White mother from Detroit, called 'nigger lover,' and brains blown out at point blank range; [Michael] Schwerner, [Andrew] Goodman and [James] Chaney -- two Jews and a Black -- found in a common grave, bodies riddled with bullets in Mississippi; the four darling little girls in a church in Birmingham, Alabama. They died that we might have a right to live."

When we divide, we cannot win. We must find common ground as the basis for survival and development and change and growth. ... We stand at the end of a long dark night of reaction. We stand tonight united in the commitment to a new direction. For almost eight years we've been led by those who view social good coming from private interest, who view public life as a means to increase private wealth. They have been prepared to sacrifice the common good of the many to satisfy the private interests and the wealth of a few. ... We are a better nation than that."
- Rev. Jesse Jackson, 1988 Democratic National Convention Address;
July 19, 1988. Omni Coliseum; Atlanta, Georgia

Wispolitics liveblogging GAB Hearing on GOP Attempt to Recall Dem Senators

Wispolitics live-blogging on Wisconsin GAB hearing on challenge to GOP effort to force recall elections of three Democratic senators.