The Tea Party is a Cancer!

How can you tell the Tea Party IS A CANCER? Because an investigation of the TPs by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health reveals it's a synthetic concoction funded by the Tobacco and Fossil Industries. Its' safe to breathe around the TP asstroturf, just don't Inhale.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/16042-focus-false-spontaneity-of-the-tea-party

Coniver Walker's Budget - Our Elderly & Disabled

A Budget is an expression of Moral Values or the lack thereof. Monday March 4th 9:30-11:30, Gateway Tech - Madrigrano Auditorium, 3520 - 30th Avenue Kenosha. Come hear a discussion of the impacts of Walker's proposed budget on our elderly, our disabled and those who care for them.

Wealth is Like Helium, it Stagnates at the Ceilium!

We often hear money and wealth compared to the physical properties of water. Money is "Currency" it has "Liquidity" or can be "Frozen". We have cash "Flow", we "Pump" or "Pour" money into things, markets get "Flooded", we spend it like "Water", "Float" loans and get "Drained" until we've taken a "Bath", are "Underwater" and have no "Solvency". We even store it in "Banks"! And yes, despite 30 years of evidence to the contrary, there are still those foolish enough to believe that if we allow enough wealth to accumulate at the very top, it will "Trickle" down on to us. Yew!

There is a reason why the failed Trickle Down metaphor of Supply Side Reaganomics is more like Voo Doo than Physics. Because when it comes to wealth accumulation, money isn't like water at all. Money is like HELIUM!

Water seeks its own level, the lowest level possible. But wealth naturally gravitates upward like helium. Left to its own devices, most of the wealth in any society will accumulate at the top, from which point the concentration will drop precipitously as one looks downward toward the bottom, where it will exhibit a vanishingly diffuse presence. They say it takes money to make money and it's true. So if you ain't got much money, you'll never make much money, unless you're the rarity that defies the physics and performs the feat that's called "Beating the Odds".

Helium released into a room will float up to the ceiling and stop there. On its own helium has no impetus to move back downward, other than the very weak force of diffusion along concentration gradients. Similarly, wealth concentrated in the top strata has no reason to move downward from the ceiling and since there is vanishingly little wealth below, there's no force to generate any dynamism in the system. And there's certainly no impulse for wealth at the top to invest itself in the interest of gaining more wealth from below, there's simply not enough of it there to make it worthwhile and generate the energy to do so.

Wealth is like Helium, it Stagnates at the Ceilium! (I've just renewed my poetic license). By September 2008, after three decades of Reaganomics, this was the state our Plutonomy had finally come to, with the vast majority of wealth concentrated at the top, the circulation collapsed, resulting in the Great Republicon Recession.

If however, instead of settling for stagnation, a force is introduced to push that helium downward, like a ceiling fan, it gets distributed more evenly throughout the room and inevitably returns to the top through dynamic flow and its property of buoyancy. Similarly, money circulated downward ($9.00 Minimum Wage, Revitalizing our Infrastructure, etc.) will flow back upward as it is used for purchasing. And unlike helium wealth can grow, so now there is momentum to invest that money to attract some of the wealth from below, which is now in more plentiful supply. And so the strength and volume of the circulation grows. And that circulation my friends, is called an "ECONOMY"!

School Vultures

Don't let the Vultures Write Your Laws!

Below is a link to Fact Sheet on Special Education Vultures from Disability Rights Wisconsin. See what a disaster these Vultures have caused in other states. Don't let them infest our state and feed off our our public schools!

http://www.wi-bpdd.org/whoweare/bpdd2013legpolicy/School%20Vouchers%202013.pdf

Tell Governor Walker not to stand for segregation of disabled students and the Education Profiteers supported by the self-serving owners of Walmart and Amway (the Walton and DeVos families) and their wholly owned legislature at the fascist American Legislative Exchange Council (fALEC).

http://www.capwiz.com/dawn/issues/alert/?alertid=62392491&type=ML

Straight Shooter

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a SLAVEHOLDING State

Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads, IN FULL: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Was the Second Amendment negotiated to allow the Southern Slaveholding States to continue policing of their large slave populations once the new federal government became responsible for the military? Read on and follow the link at the end of the article.

The Bloody NRA enablers typically leave out the first half of the sentence. It's inconvenient for their purposes, which is make money for their sponsors by selling lots of guns. But it is just ONE sentence, meaning it's just ONE thought, not two separable statements. When they do confront the entire sentence, the Bloody NRA would have us believe that the Second Amendment was created to allow us to overthrow a tyrannical government. However, it makes no sense that our founders would refer to a domestic insurrection to overthrow the government as a "well regulated militia". Well regulated by whom? On the contrary, it seems to refer to a militia capable of putting down such a rebellion or a foreign invasion and preserving our Constitutional government. And the type of Constitutional government that our founders devised for us provides for a peaceful means of changing the government. THAT is the whole point!

Furthermore, the Supreme Court while upholding the second amendment has affirmed the right of Americans to keep and bear arms to protect themselves and their homes. Never have they affirmed the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of overthrowing the government. NEVER! While I'm not totally unsympathetic to the idea that a tyrannical government might need to be opposed if one ever arrose, there is no way that citizens will ever have the type of weapons that are, and will be in the future, available to the government. Nor should they! It's been illegal to own a machine gun since the 1930's because they present too great a threat to public safety. Is that an infringement? Yes. Is it Constitutional? Yes. Is it reasonable? You're damn right it is! How many mass muders have been commited by Gunmen equipped with fully automatic weaopns in the U.S. since the 1930's? Almost ZERO. Proof that reasonable gun control laws work, even with respect to criminals.

You can't resolve the language "Well Regulated Militia being necessary to the Security of a Free State . . ." with the ability of the General Public to own any type of "Arms" ever to be devised by man. There's nothing Well Regulated about that! And remember, the Constitution doesn't say "firearms", is says "Arms", which can be interpreted to mean ANY Weapon, when of course the founders meant muskets capable of firing up to 3 rounds a minute in the hands of well trained militiamen. Hardly a major threat to public health and safety. As a Strict Constitutional Constructionalist and dogged adherent to original intent (NOT!), I insist on the right of all Americans to keep and bear all the muskets, lead balls, wadding and powder horns they can carry! RAMRODS ALL AROUND!

So was the Second Amendment designed for We the People to overthrow our own government? I don't see any evidence for that. It certainly isn't claerly stated as such. However, below is a link to an article that makes a compelling case that it's intent was to allow the Southern Slaveholding States to continue the policing of their slave populations once the right to raise armies passed from the states to the Federal Government and Congress under the new Constitution. And despite the Bloody NRA's Predictable Profit Inspired Protestations, that hardly represents a reasonable or moral underpinning for the alledged right of the General Public to own military style weapons of mass murder in Post Emanicipation Proclamation, Post Civil Rights, Modern America. 

Interchangeable magazine clips were designed for the military for maximum firepower on the battlefield. They have No Legitimate Civilian Use. Ban them NOW!

http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery

And Again! Merry Christmas from the Bloody NRA

From Mr. Gunman's Christmas Eve Massacre Note: “I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down and do what I like doing best — killing people,” Well Mr. Gunman, enabled by the Bloody NRA, picked the right mass murder tool, the military style AR-15 Bushmaster assault weapon with an arsenal of high capacity, interchangeable magazine clips!

As Christmas Eve dawned in Webster, NY Mr. Gunman set a trap. When fire fighters responded to the fire he set, he shot four of them with his Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle, the same type of semiautomatic weapon used in the school mass murder shooting 10 days earlier in Newtown, Conn. http://burlingtonareaprogressives.blogspot.com/2012/12/again-ban-weapons-of-mass-murder-again.html He murdered two volunteer firemen and severely wounded two more before engaging in a shootout with police and then blowing his own brains out.

“He was equipped to go to war to kill innocent people,” the Webster police chief, Gerald L. Pickering, said of Mr. Gunman.

When will we outlaw weapons of mass murder like the AR-15 Bushmaster and the high capacity magazine used by the mass murderer du jour in Aurora, CO, Newton, CT, Webster, NY? Oh yeah, we already did it was called the Assault Weapons Ban, but the Republicons gleefully let it expire in 2004 as required by their puppet masters, the Bloody NRA, the lobbying arm of the gun manufacturers that works feverishly to ensure their profits. It’s NOT REALLY about the 2^ndAmendment, it’s about the money.

I'm not against people having guns, but high powered, highly concealable guns with high capacity, easily interchangeable magazine clips that allowed the Virginia Tech mass murderer to spray 170 rounds in 5 minutes are not weapons of sport or self-defense. The only thing they are good for is mass murder. No one needs one and no one should have one, let alone Four, three, one!

For crying out loud, give us a chance, at least make'em have to stop and RELOAD!

Which brings up a good point, actually. It’s not the guns so much as the magazines that are the problem. I'm convinced that interchangeable magazines should be illegal to manufacture or sell in the U.S. They were designed for the military specifically so that soldiers can reload quickly, which is what makes them so dangerous to public health and safety in the hands of civilians.

There is no non-military use for these items. Simply limiting the capacity of these clips to 10 rounds as was the case under the old assault weapons ban and as is proposed by Sen. Feinstein will not do much good because a killer can still reload in seconds.

Only guns that have internal magazines that require reloading rounds one at a time, like revolvers should be legal. And those magazines should be limited to 10 rounds max. Those types of guns are perfectly suitable for self-defense and hunting. Nothing more is needed and anything more is a much too substantial threat to public safety.

I honestly believe that if these mass murderers knew they could only kill a few people on their way out, it just wouldn't provide the "glory" they're looking for. They might just not bother with it if we take all the fun out of it for them. Anyway making them less deadly and protecting public safety while preserving our 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, reasonably would be a very good thing.
 
Machine guns have been illegal since the 1930's and these mass murderers aren't using machine guns. Not because they wouldn't want the ability to kill even more people during their rampage, but because they are not easily available like the next best thing for Gunmen, military style, semi-automatic assault weapons with high capacity interchangeable magazines. It's time to make them illegal too!

Again!? Ban Weapons of Mass Murder . . . AGAIN!

I'm just updating a post to the BAP blog from July 20, 2012, for crying out loud. Literally! Please, I don't want to have to ever do this again, again.

http://burlingtonareaprogressives.blogspot.com/2012/07/ban-weapons-of-mass-murder-again.html

When will we outlaw weapons of mass murder like the AR - 15 Bushmaster and the high capacity magazine used by the mass murderer du jour in Aurora, CO Newtown, CT? Oh yeah, we already did it was called the Assault Weapons Ban, but the Republicons gleefully let it expire in 2004 as required by their puppet masters, the Bloody NRA.

I'm not against people having guns, but high powered, highly concealable guns with high capacity, easily interchangeable magazine clips that allowed the Virginia Tech mass murderer to spray 170 rounds in 5 minutes are not weapons of sport or self-defense. The only thing they are good for is mass murder, no one needs one and no one should have one, let alone Four three!

For crying out loud, give us a chance, at least make'em have to RELOAD!

Student Achievement - It's the Poverty Stupid!

I've been having a running "discussion" (AGAIN!)  with some Cult of Con Indoctrinants over at
http://freeracine.blogspot.com/ who insist on blaming Racine Unified (where I was educated, thank you!) generally and the teachers specifically for the poor student achievement. They think doing away with RUSD is the answer. I have been arguing, as I have in the past, that if one only looks at where these types outcomes prevail, it is pattently obvious that it is the result of concentrated poverty and all the social ills that go with it. Well that doesn't fit with the Cons Pre-Set Blame & Belief Buttons, so they will hear none of it.

As it happens I was listening to Wisconsin Public Radio (one of our crown jewels!) the other day and what do I hear? The Forward Institute has just released a study that shows School Report Card scores issued by the Department of Public Instruction are closely linked with poverty (Who Knew!). AND that Wisconsin's public schools out perform charter schools even when adjusting for the poverty of the students. http://forwardinstitutewi.org/ Take THAT would be Educational Profiteers!

Of course in true Con fashion and unable to address the substance of the study, they immediately attacked the source. But I suppose some must close their minds to "conserve" what's in there.

Press Release Excerpt: Currently more than 4 in 10 school age children in Wisconsin are defined as poor or “economically disadvantaged,” up from about 2 in 10 a decade ago. A student from a family qualifying for “free or reduced price lunch” is considered economically disadvantaged for the purposes of DPI scores – over 350,000 children in Wisconsin schools.

Based on data from the new Department of Public Instruction (DPI) Report Cards, our study showed a clear link between low Report Card scores and economically disadvantaged students who already have significant barriers to educational prosperity. Those schools with higher numbers of economically disadvantaged students had significantly lower scores on the Report Cards.
The study results show that nearly half of the Report Card score variation from school to school can be explained by the variation in poverty levels from school to school.

Since higher enrollments of economically disadvantaged students are a significant factor in the scores on the DPI Report Card, current proposals to tie school funding and teachers’ salaries to Report Card scores would unfairly punish schools in high poverty districts. As the study clearly shows, a very significant factor affecting Report Card scores is poverty, something which is outside the control of teachers and schools.

The data also revealed that contrary to the assumptions that non-traditional charter schools would be more effective through creating competitive choice, Wisconsin’s public schools significantly outperformed charter schools overall. This finding was especially evident in those schools with high poverty enrollment.

In the last four years, public school budgets have been cut by over $1 billion, while in 2012 alone, Wisconsin taxpayers provided $143.6 million to charter schools, the highest amount in state history. These fund increases did not translate into charter school performance over the three years of Report Card data collected. The Report Card data indicates public schools continue to better educate Wisconsin children than the non-traditional charter schools. Charter schools are underperforming at the core level of their mission – student excellence and achievement, without the taxpayer accountability of public schools.

These findings are important, especially as policy makers look for ways to provide the best educational opportunities for Wisconsin’s children while being mindful of the economic burdens on struggling families. Based on the high rate of Wisconsin school children living in poverty and the clear effects of poverty on education, this study recommends policymakers enhance educational opportunities for our children, and save taxpayer money by redirecting educational funds to the schools most effective at meeting the current needs of Wisconsin children, Wisconsin’s public schools.

GOPsters Admit to Voter Supression

Former high-ranking GOP leaders in Florida have admitted to efforts, including passing laws, to suppress the vote of American Citizens who tend not to choose Republicons at the polls. Furthermore, they've admitted that preventing voter fraud was just used as an excuse for their traitorous voter suppression schemes: http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/14740-former-gop-leaders-in-florida-admit-to-voter-suppression

Gubnah Scott Walker is of course following the GOPster lead on voter supression right here in good ol' Wisconsin, once the land of clean and transparent politics, the nations laboratory for democracy.

On top of his uneeded photo ID voter supression scheme, a solution in search of a problem, he now wants to eliminate Same-Day-Voter-Registration. The problem you ask? Why it's too popular!

The Gubnah: "States across the country that have same-day registration have real problems because the vast majority of their states have poll workers who are wonderful volunteers, who work 13-hour days and who in most cases are retirees," "It's difficult for them to handle the volume of people who come at the last minute. It'd be much better if registration was done in advance of election day. It'd be easier for our clerks to handle that. All that needs to be done."

You see? It's because it works for a lot of Wisconsin's Citizens. People with time constraints, who might move more often and have more difficulty getting off work and traveling to city hall to get registered than certain other people. If so many people weren't using this option it wouldn't be a problem. Of course the poll workers say it isn't a problem now and did anyone hear about any big problems here in Wisconsin on election day? NOPE!

Walker is in lock step with Robin Vos and Glen Grothman, one of which is batshit crazy and both of whome are staunchly committed vote supressors. http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/walker-calls-for-changes-to-sameday-voter-registration-rules-hk7n9e8-180010171.html

Once again we see a Republicon solution in search of a non-existant problem, making it patently obvious that the REAL GOPster goal is to make it more difficult for some people to vote. The Republicon war on democracy wages on!

Death Panel Anonymous Nonsense

I got an anonymous (chickenshit) letter in the mail with nothing but the above photocopy of an ominous article. The envelope included a return address of 3030 30th Ave. #14 Kenosha, but who knows if that is real, a stupid oversight by Mr. Anonymous or simply more bull shit. It didn't take me long to identify the source of the article as the National Review, a well known GOPropaganda and fear mongering rag. Again with the "Death Panels" silliness!

It also didn't take me long to find a scholarly article on the UK's plan to improve the quality of life and services provided to patients who are at the end of their lives so they can die with dignity and hopefully at home. See below. I read it and it's a good plan, thoughtful in it's goals and well intentioned.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Issue%20Brief/2011/Jul/1527_Gray_Englands_approach_endoflife_care_intl_brief_v2.pdf

So I asked the question; why must the Cult of Con faithful (and their ideological minders at the likes of FuxSnooze and the National Review) see everything through a lense of dark and sinister (and whacky) conspiracy theories? My friend Steve Sullivan gave me the answer: Because they are dark and sinister conspirators themselves -- and if they were in power, that's the way they'd run the world. And have in the past. It's called "projection."

Couldn't have said it better myself. Death Panels - Sheesh!

Ketterhagen's Snake Strangled Banner

The photograph above was taken on the observance of Veteran's Day, November 12, 2012 at the residence of local Teajadists Phillip and Bonnie Ketterhagen. They are flying their American flag upside-down presumably as their response to the Expressed Will of the American People last Tuesday when President Barack Obama was comfortably re-elected.

Maybe they could also try stamping their feet and holding their breath until our democracy is thwarted in their favor. I guess in certain circles it's only "Freedom" when YOU GET YOUR WAY!

But judging by the results of last Tuesday's re-election of President Obama, our first openly gay Senator Tammy "You're Damn Right" Baldwin, the rejection of Mitt's tripling down on the failed trickle-down voodoo economy and the "legitimate rape" agenda, the votes on gay marriage and other progressive victories, it seems the Ketterhagen's have the wrong flag inverted. The Stars and Stripes should be waving proud with the blue on top!

It is the co-opted flag of the venomous Tea Party that should be flapping head over heels. (or should I say, rattling-tail?) Demographics is destiny and the TP would do best to take their angry, old, out of touch, reactionary agenda and slither off into the grass (or should I say astroturf?) from whence they first reared their head.

Why aren't we Trumpeting Voter Fraud!?

Courtesy of the Burlington Area Progressives, the following is a guest editorial by Cayman Island based vulture capitalist Rich Whiteman and Republican strategist Juan Percente'

After all the voter suppression efforts by our Republican Party, why aren't we trumpeting "voter fraud!" like bull elephants to provide cover for the war on voting activities as justifiable by the vast leftwing conspiratorial menace? Our challenging, caging and intimidating voters, limiting early voting, making ballots 10 pages long to slow down voting in crowded wards, under-allocating voting machines, making brown citizens stand in line for SEVEN HOURS and denying them chairs and bottled water, these actions by Republicans and our surrogates like True The Vote just look mean, nasty, underhanded and un-American if they can't be squared with the immanent threat of a stolen election and a thwarted democracy. So where are the covering cries of fraud? How the hell are we supposed to justify our photo ID voter suppression scheme if we don't keep screaming real loud!?

Look our ideas suck, our money bombs failed us, demographics are going to swamp us, we sure as hell aren't going to get all hopey changy and adjust to reality, what choice do we have but to suppress oppositional voters? We need to get serious people!


O.K. so here's the deal, in Wisconsin Obama won the election by a mere 205,205 votes, well within the margin for theft so why aren't Republicans making our case? Look, the polls were open for 13 hours on Tuesday, right? And conceivably one dedicated brown lefty fraudster (BLF) could cast an average of one vote per hour. By the way we know that their brown lefties because our efforts to challenge and prevent this scurge of voter fraud always focus exclusively on minority voting districts that vote democratic, so it just stands to reason.

Of course the BLF would have to move to new polling stations and register with different properly forged documents at each location before casting each vote, but that's totally doable! Sure they could just vote under somebody's name who is already registered and save some time, but then at least one of these legit voters would certainly have already voted, would vote later or be known by someone at the poll, which would blow the whole operation out into the open. And if BLFs have one genious (besides music and dance of course) it is the ability to maintain complete operational secrecy with their soul brothers, sisters, hombres and latinas. No reward ever offered would be sufficient to break their loyal bonds and expose their conspiracy. Wait, we have offered substantial and widely publicized rewards for penetrating and exposing this dark conspiracy, yes!? What!!? NO!!??

Well anyway, using a cutting edge analytical technigue called math, we've divided the 205,205 vote margin of victory by 13 hours and found that it would require only 15,785 conspirators in our fair state to accomplish this nefarious crime! To thwart the will the people! (Yeah, you know which people)

We know that minorities already turnout to vote at rates that far exceed those of other groups, right? So how can we doubt the dogged determination of the BLFs to vote not only once, but multiple times? Surely our fair state was being quietly crisscrossed on Tuesday by hoards of BLFs, individually and on busses, (many of them from that notorious BLF enclave, Chicago) secretly  and unnoticed, stealing the election from good and decent people! (Yeah, you know which people)

What we can't figure out is how they always know just how many votes they're going to need to make sure that their herculean expenditure of time, money, effort and resources doesn't fall short. Because even BLFs do not have limitless supplies of those commodities. That's a puzzler we're going to have to work on, but we know there's an answer somewhere, because those BLFs are crafty devils aren't they?

Rich Whiteman - Juan Percente'

Cult of Con Prophets

A number of Cult of Con Indoctrinants that I've ecountered here and elsewhere on-line over the last several months made emphatic predictions about what they considered to be the inevitable outcome of last night's close and hard-fought Presidential election. You know who you are.

I still don't understand if this GOPredilection for prediction & prognostication is because they actually believe they can foresee the future. Or if it is that they feel that if they say the right incantation, they can influence the future and make it so.

Either way, it seems it is time for a reality check of their faith-base ideology and their belief in the power of magical thinking.

Or perhaps they just didn't squint hard enough.

WI GOP Poll Watchers Mislead by Fearless Leader!

NOTE: The bullet list immediately above is a power point slide from a recent Romney Poll Observer training session in Racine. Note that the trainees are directed to sign in not as representatives of the Romney Campaign or the GOP, which they clearly are, but as concerned citizens. This little but of subterfuge must have a purpose, like allowing them to pack more of their people into a polling station as the Chief Election Inspector has a right to limit the number of reporesentatives of any one group at her polling place.

The latest in a long line of Republicon dirty tricks and tampering with the sacred right of American's right to vote is seen here in the Romney Campaign's inaccurate and deceptive poll watcher training right here in Wisconsin: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/31/1114071/wisconsin-election-officials/?mobile=nc

Seems Republicon poll watchers are being given inaccurate and incomplete information about who can vote and what proof of residency is sufficient to excercise the right on which ALL OTHER RIGHTS of Americans stand, the right to vote.

They're also telling their poll watchers to lie when checking in at the polls, to not identify as a Republicon or a representative of the Romney Campaign. That of course will give the GOPsters and the Romney campaign plausible deniability when one of their volunteers, amped up on the Cult of Con voter fraud mythology, goes ape shit, intimidates voters and disrupts the polling place because someone gets to vote that they don't believe should, based on the bad information they've been fed by the campaign. Ya know, kinda like what went on in Racine back in June.

Republicons can't win on the merit of their values and ideas. That's why they lie, hide (or change) their agenda during elections (aka Gubna Romnesia & Scooter Walker) and perenially engage in efforts to mislead voters on who, what, when, where and how to vote in order to supress legitimate voters who don't like to vote for Con artists.

Are these the illegal aliens the republicans are always so worried about?

Low Dreck Lynching

Top Photo Lynch Truck Center Hwys 20 & 36

Bottom Photo Wanasek Corp Hwy 11 & 36 Bypass

BUSINESSES THAT SPREAD LIES DON'T DESERVE YOUR BUSINESS!



Republicons truly are the party of dirty tricks and low down tactics. Every election year we see the GOPster misinformation swing into gear, misleading targeted democratic leaning voters (minorities) on when, where and if they can vote, purging them from the voter rolls and other acts of skullduggery.

Here we see two Burlington businesses playing along with the coordinated campaign of dirty Republicon tricks.

The posters read "$10,000 FINE FELONY CHARGES 3 YEARS BEHIND BARS" and "WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD COMMIT VOTER FRAUD?"

Of course the answer is, other than Robin Vos' estranged wife, almost no one. Wide spread voter fraud is a nutty conspiracy theory. It just doesn't happen and the logistics of pulling it off year after year without getting caught are so mindboggling that you have to shut your brain off to even begin to believe in it. Fortunately for the party bosses their ideologically blind followers are really good at doing just that when given their marching orders.

The Republicons have to keep the sinisterly intended myth of wide spread left-wing voter fraud conspiracies alive in the minds of their base. And so they lie to their own people. How else will they be able to justify voter ID laws that are uneeded by anyone except the Greedy Oligarch's Party who need them to prevent minority citizens from voting if they hope to remain both a viable political party AND a party of backward thinking angry old white men. Demographics are not on their side, so they lie and try to enact new Jim Crow laws.

But this is about more than denying American citizens their right to vote based on race, pushing through unnecessary and costly bureaucratic rules. It's also about voter intimidation and supressing the vote. They're trying to make going to the polls a scary thing for people who might be unsure about exaclty what the rules are and how to avoid running afowl of them, people who might feel like they've been targeted by authority figures before and fearful that they will again. Again we're talking about minorities who have a legitimate right to vote, but might not be sure if that run in with the law they had when they were 17 disqualifies them to vote. And if it does, well better safe than sorry, why risk a fine, a felony charge and jail time to cast one vote, right?

If the Republicon Party really believed their own talk of perennial wide-spread left-wing voter fraud they wouldn't spend their money on signs, they'd offer a big reward for catching or infiltrating the fraud conspirators leading to arrest, prosecution and punishment which would be a huge deterent to potential future offending conspirators. But they don't do so, because they know that the reward would go uncollected and that would expose the fallacy that must be maintained in the minds of the Cult of Con indoctrinants. If the rank and file started questioning the voter fraud article of faith, just imagine what else the faithful might start to second guess with regard to the Gospel of Con!

Not only is this coordinated effort at intimidation and misinformation aimed at fellow citizens un-American, it's down right nasty. But just as importantly it's purely dishonest. And why would you trust a business that posts lies right on their front lawns to deal with you honestly and fairly? These businesses do not deserve your business, don't give it to them!

Lynch Sales 763-7500. Wanasek Corp 763-3561

Vos' Snake Oiled DeMOCKeracy

Do you think you have freedom? Do you think you're governed through the informed consent of the citizenry as the founders intended? Do you think your state legislator represents you and your neighbors? Well, do you know that lobbyists from global corporations are voting in secret along with your Republicon State Legislators across the country on laws to rule you from your statehouse!? That’s not democracy. That’s not a Republic, it’s a crassly selfish betrayal of what America is supposed to be.

Here in Wisconsin, State Assemblyman Robin Vos is the state chair of the lobbyist group the American Legislative Exchange Council and he is sworn to enact ALEC’s corporate agenda laws, in many cases nearly word for word from the ALEC draft model legislation. Laws that infringe on your Constitutional right to seek redress for grievances in a court of law in front of a jury of your peers. Among other things, these laws are designed to prevent you from suing a car dealership when they sell you a lemon or when a landlord (like Robin) decides to keep the security deposit for your college student’s apartment.

Robin Vos has been bribed with expenses paid ALEC “scholarships” to be wined and dined in a sunnier clime while being “educated” in the ALEC way. And Mr. Vos has been using his forked tongue ever since to sell their secret snake oil sauce on issues like tort reform, free market fundamentalism, voter fraud, the privilege to pollute and privatization for the fun and profit of the few. Don’t swallow this venomous brew, don’t even step in it!

Those ruled in the interests of others are not free. If you believe in America’s founding principles of freedom and self-determination, please watch The United States of ALEC documentary by the respected journalist Bill Moyers: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/27/the_united_states_of_alec_bill and demand an end to this traitorously secret legislative process.

Be a patriot, stop Robin the shill who represents global corporations that have no allegiance to you, your city, county, state or even your country. Vote for Democracy!

Ashes to Dust

Take a good long look at the brilliant ash trees this fall. It will be among your last opportunities. Although their amazing colors don't last long and plummet with the the first wind or rain, they are among the most spectaular and unique of autumn shows. Ranging from bright, uniform yellows to shimmering, almost psychedelic dark purples to yellows, sometimes even on the same leaf, these beauties will be sorely missed as they vanish from our landscape in the coming years. The emerald ash borer is here and dispite our best efforts, nothing is going to stop it, the genie is out of the bottle. It just makes me very sad. Thanks a lot uncheched globalization.

Another Flawed TP Swipe at Public Education

Last week's Standard Press once again included a vindictive and venomous letter attacking on our public servants by a cohort of the local TP brigade. This time it was Wayne Raisleger, who derided the Burlington Area School District Board of Education and the Citizens that came forward on August 27th to vote their community conscience and support to zero tax levy increase approved by the Board. As if further cutting would have made any difference with regard to Mr. Raisleger's compaints about student standardized test multiple choicing!

We all know that the number one indicator of student success is parental involvement. Yet Mr. Raisleger blames the supposedly sub-par WKCE test scores on the school board and the teachers instead of those who actually took the test (some students) and their key supporters (parents). This of course ignores the fact that Burlington High School's ACT test scores continue year after year to be above the state average, (Standard Press - 9/6/12, page 6)  in a state, which along with its neighbors Iowa and Minnesota, lead the nation in ACT Scores. This result is characterized by Wayne as "poor student achievement". If Wayne likes other district's results better, then maybe he can get their students to take BASD's testing instead. I hear that the students from inner city areas in Wisconsin with high poverty, unemployment, hopelessness and all the social ills that accompany those conditions can be had for testing on the cheap. And Mississippi students? Why they're as free of charge for testing as they are from quality inculcation!

Raisleger called a school board member a "union shill", derided members for executing their constitutuional right as citizens to sign petitions and went on to claim that "it is generally acknowledged that K-12 systems are failing in America." Based on the above, Mr. Raisleger is probably completely unaware that the only places were this is "generally acknowledged" are the self-indoctrinated minds of those who consume FuxSnooze and AM radio GOPropaganda.

But what is really misguided and off the mark is Mr. Raisleger's pronouncement that "These divergent trends (teacher pay/student test scores) were perptuated in the tax levy passed Aug 27 and would only be accepted in a public sector organization." A claim he esentially repeated with "The ugly truth is that, given their job performance, all five (non-TP Board Members) would have been sacked if they held similar positions in the private sector". Seriously? Any casual observer of the private sector in recent, greedy and deregulated times would immediatly recognize the falacy of this Cult of Con profession of faith. This study of CEO pay versus corprorate performance by Forbes adeptly documents the failure of the god of free market forces in America today: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2012/0423/ceo-compensation-12-company-earnings-highest-gravity-defying-pay.html

FORBES EXCERPT: Our report on executive compensation will only fuel the outrage over corporate greed. In 2011 the chief executives of the 500 biggest companies in the U.S. got a collective pay raise of 16% last year, to $5.2 billion. This compares with a 3% pay raise for the average American worker. Go the link above Mr. Raisleger and you will see a graph illustrating an inverse relationship to private sector CEO pay and coporate earnings. So much for the sanctified purity of the private sector.

What is especially disturbing about this three decade long redistribution of wealth from the stagnating/declining American middle class to the ruling political/corporate class, is that these outrageously disgusting and often undeserved tributes to the CEO elitists are subsidized by America's citizens through their tax contributions as documented here: http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/executive_excess_2012

EXCERPT - Among the findings:
•Of last year’s 100 highest-paid U.S. corporate chief executives, 25 took home more in CEO pay than their companies paid in federal income taxes.
•The CEOs of these 25 firms received $20.6 million in average total compensation last year. That’s a 24 percent increase over the average for last year’s list of 2010’s tax dodging executives.
•The four most direct tax subsidies for excessive executive pay cost taxpayers an estimated $14.4 billion per year—$46 for every American man, woman, and child. That amount could also cover the annual cost of hiring 211,732 elementary-school teachers or creating 241,593 clean-energy jobs.
•CEOs have benefited enormously from the Bush tax cuts for upper-income taxpayers. Last year, 57 CEOs saved more than $1 million on their personal income tax bills, thanks to these Bush-era cuts.

In recognition of the derisive nature of his pontifications, and the baseless nature of his Cult of Con professions of faith, Mr Raisleger has earned BAP's covetous Forked Tongue & Fangs Award.
Way to go Wayne!