CONVENTION TIME!

See You in Milwaukee!

Or....maybe it's more like this!

Let the gnashing of teeth begin....

I posted that on Monday the Senate Democrats introduced their long-awaited State-Wide Health plan and immediately held a public hearing....then...on Tuesday, they passed it as part of the budget bill through the Senate.

Republican reaction was immediate and predictable.

Here's Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch from New Salem:

“The budget proposal passed by the state Senate last night sends a frightening message to the people of Wisconsin – give us billions more of your hard-earned money and trust government to run more aspects of your lives. Senate Democrats found new and innovative ways of raising taxes and increasing state spending and put the wishes of government ahead of taxpayers. When people find out that their budget plan raises taxes by over $18 billion dollars, increases state spending by 23%, creates a socialist-style health care system and gives government more control over their lives, the reaction will be severe."

Huebsch is a real pro...notice in the line I high-lighted, he got all the Republican talking points into one sentence. "raises taxes", "increases state spending" "socialist-style health care system" "government control over their lives"....

Some Republicans seem to be more ....ummmm....focused than others...Take Senator Fitzgerald from Juneau:“The Senate Democrat budget is a recipe for economic disaster in Wisconsin,” Fitzgerald said. “They want to blow up the top-ranked health care system in the country, they want to take $18 billion out of people’s pockets in new taxes and they want to reward their special interest friends with taxpayer-funded earmarks. Their tax hikes would drive jobs and employers from Wisconsin and throw health care here into disarray.”

Got the theme? Raise taxes raise taxes raise taxes.... and ignore that the "taxes" replace significantly HIGHER HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUMS.

We will hear some heavy-duty teeth gnashing from these folks but we haven't heard from the heaviest hitter of the republican side yet...WMC....I wonder if WMC isn't doing the math.....and discovering this could be a really good thing for their members..

drive-by post....

Just time for a quick one...

on "another" website I found this book

Some listed causes of death:

visitation of God

incautious use of gunpowder in driving out mosquitoes

and

convulsion and neglect from an idiotic mother

I think they were less politically correct in those days...

HEADS UP!!!

Press release out this morning...

Senate Democrats are having a public hearing to announce their new health care initiative!

This is the BIGGIE FOLKS.....

About that resolution.............

As a lot of you know, a delegation met with Joe Wineke in Madison on May 30. We'll recount more of the meeting on Thursday night. Joe did think we should bring a resolution regarding lobbying by State Party officers to the floor at the convention.....and Eau Claire, Door and Clark Counties are sponsoring one...

I wonder....

Is Joe going to cooperate to resolve this?

Or are we going to be faced with this?

DIGBY!

At the "Take Back America" awards last night the identity of one of our favorite bloggers, Digby, was revealed. Here's the picture and Digby is the one in the middle...

Blogger Rick Pearlstein is on the right and the gentleman with the beard is none other than Ambassador Joseph Wilson.... Thanks to Jane Hamser and Firedoglake for the pic...btw...if you click on the link the first picture is actually a video of the event where Digby is giving a great speech....

Digby is female?

Who Knew?

This is truly ugly

For the past couple of weeks, primarily since the end of the Libby Trial, the verdict and the sentencing, we've watched in absolute horror as the "inside-the-beltway" gang rallyed around one of their own and showed us the horrible, ugly truth about the state of reportage in America today...

Now it has become obvious.....Glenn Greenwald points out to us in his Salon Blog

Richard Cohen, supposedly a liberal working for a supposedly liberal paper writes:

With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker -- Richard Armitage of the State Department -- but Libby, convicted in the end of lying. This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off

Keep the lights off?

Keep the f-ing lights off?

Isn't it the role of the press to shine light into the darkness so the public can see what's going on and make informed decisions?

Worse yet, Greenwald goes on to point out that this isn't the first time the Washington/National Press Corps "kept the lights off".

snip

Or, as Richard Cohen put it: "It is often best to keep the lights off." In exactly the same way, Tim Russert was forced to reveal his vital role in keeping the lights off for his friends and colleagues, Our High Government Officials, as described by Dan Froomkin: "According to Russert's testimony yesterday at Libby's trial, when any senior government official calls him, they are presumptively off the record. . . . That's not reporting, that's enabling."

In other words, the role of the press is to protect the palace and all who inhabit it because they are, once and forever, the elite.