Belling The Welcher

As is his wont, Mark Belling shot off his mouth again last week. It's compulsive with him. It's like he can't help himself, but feels an uncontrollable urge to make an ass out of himself whenever possible, and sometimes when it's impossible.

While handicapping the Kentucky Derby, Belling wrote this comment about one of the horses, Mine That Bird:

#8 MINE THAT BIRD---If this horse wins, I’ll never bet on another race
and will vote for Jim Doyle for reelection.

Well, as you can guess, Mine That Bird won the race.

Joe Wineke, head of the DPW, decided to have some fun at Belling's expense and sent out a release announcing Belling would be supporting Governor Doyle for reelection and even sent him a membership card to fill out.

True to form, Belling backpedaled and tried to put additional conditions on the statement. This, of course, makes Belling a loud-mouthed, hypocritical snake that should not be trusted.

In other words, just a normal day for him.

Tim Cuprisin has more.

Bellowing Wrong Again

Bellowing gave us a big "scoop" the other day regarding the GOP race to lose to Doyle (emphasis mine):

That’s why many who respect Neumann are going to urge him to drop out. When the Republicans hold their state convention this weekend, Walker will unveil an endorsement list that looks like a Republican Hall of Fame. His campaign is planning an overwhelming presence at the convention. It’s their hope Neumann will recognize what he’s up against and bow out. Scoop: former Gov. Tommy Thompson is very likely to endorse Walker this summer, a move that will more than neutralize the backing Neumann is getting from Thompson’s former top aide, Jim Klauser.

What does TOMMY!!! say? Stick it to 'em:

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is considering a run for Wisconsin governor.

Thompson told 12 News that he’s currently looking for other candidates to step up before he throws his hat in the ring.

The revelation comes one day after Scott Walker announced his intention to run for the seat.

Thompson offered Walker his best wishes -- but stopped short of endorsing him. He said he looks forward to other Republicans entering the race.

PaddyMac Is Wrong On Rights

IllyT explains.

I Think He Was Guessing Low

James Rowen notes that the right wing media is alarmed because the government is listening to us and doing what we ask of them.

How does he know they are upset?

I'll let him explain:

In response, conservative talk radio this morning sounded the Sky Is Falling alarm.

Since Bill Clinton's election, and with the minute-by-minute on-air catastrophizing since the emergence of Barack Obama as a political force, today's Sky Is Falling alerts put the number of alerts at 17,328.

Really.

See the whole thing here.

Fischer's Freudian Slip

A Freudian slip is when someone does a faux pas, usually verbally, which some people believe to be caused by the subconscious mind.

Given Fischer's love of the Dionysian beverages, this comes as no surprise.

In a post in which he reports that a soccer game is canceled due to one of the school's being shut down by the health department because of the swine flu, Fischer writes this (emphasis mine):

Tonight’s high school varsity girl’s soccer game between Milwaukee Riverside and Milwaukee South was postponed after Riverside became one of four Milwaukee Public Schools to be closed indefinitely because of the wine flu outbreak.

Screencap proof:

Waterboarding For Walker

On his very first post at Heartland Hollar, Harris Kane nails it:

As you may know, Scott Walker is "officially" believing in himself as governor again (or did he ever stop) and he is going to need a lot of charity from people to survive his bloody primary against Mark Neumann.

Now it's one thing for Milwaukee's very own blowhard, Charlie Sykes, to post Walker e-mails on his blog and provide free radio airtime defending Walker's disastrous record and failed ideas, but it's quite another to show real support for Walker and the right-wing talking points.

That's why in our inaugural post at Heartland Hollar we would like to ask that you join our "Waterboarding for Walker" campaign.

Our first task is to have you pledge support for Sykes to follow Hannity's lead and agree to undergo waterboarding for charity- in this case, Walker's campaign for governor.

We can think of no better way for Charlie to use his Sunday Insight TV show to "stand up for what's right" and once and for all prove to everyone that waterboarding is not torture.

Read the rest here.

Twitterpated

That's a fun word, isn't it? Say it again, "Twitterpated." There. Don't you feel happier now?

It seems so familiar. Where did we learn the word? Bambi. That's right, Bambi. According to allwords.com it is a portmanteau word

from twitter + pated, i.e., having one's pate (head) in a twitter (confused). First seen in the Disney movie w:Bambi, Bambi

Who is the latest to become twitterpated? Who is the very latest to jump on the most up-to-date technology of 2008? According to the allpolitics blog from the JS

The tweets so far may be less than earth shattering, but Republican candidate for governor Scott Walker plans an abundance of tweets on Twitter in his Republican campaign for governor.

So there you have it. Walker has joined the tweeting class and he's knocking down the barriers between him and his fans.

From his first campaign stop of the day in Green Bay: "There was some incredible excitement in Green Bay. Keep it going to Wausau!"

That's the spirit. A good use of Twitter as a campaign tool. It was short and to the point. It conveyed a sense of building momentum and set a goal for his supporters at the next stop. How could he build on that? Let's look at an earlier post.

"Eating the ham and cheese I make at at home and bring in for lunch."

Okay. That's not a show-stopper but it will slow it down. The truth is that Twitter is nearing its 14th minute. Even hard core tweeters are figuring out that it's really a high tech version of the CB radio.

The biggest Twitter discussion of the past week was whether CNN's Breaking News feed or Ashton Kutcher would have the most subscribers. When your success ratio is being measured against the Punk'd guy there might be longevity issues.

But let's give Walker the benefit of the doubt (He could use an easy week before the Neumann Negativity Field starts to envelop him) and pretend that the tech isn't making a loop behind the tow boat and swerving towards the shark tank. Walker has 16 months of tweeting until the Primary election and, heaven forfend, another two to get to the General. If he tweets three times a day until then what will he be reduced to tweeting.

I'll open it to you all in a moment, but first, a few of my projections.

May 24, 2009 Excitement is building as we head for Bowler. My wife and children are looking forward to the parade.

June 15, 2009 We have to beat Jim Doyle. I don't know why Mark is saying these awful things about me.

July 4, 2009 Ha, I'll bet you won't see Jim Doyle at any TEA parties today.

July 26, 2009 Today I made a tuna on whitebread sandwich, just to be a little daring.

August 15, 2009 Does anybody know a good RV airconditioner repairman near Cascade?

September 7, 2009 Jim Doyle is Satan

October 31, 2009 I'll be you won't see Jim Doyle at any of the Hallowe'en TEA parties tonight.

January 29, 2010 Another ham and cheese? Another ham and cheese?

Feb 1, 2010 Mark Neumann is Satan

Feb 12, 2010 It's felt good to be speaking at the Dumptruck County Lincoln Day dinner. The 7 people who showed up were very enthusiastic.

April 14, 2010 I'd like to thank my supporters over the past 12 months. We put in a strong run but today I am announcing that I'll be putting my support into get

But you go ahead and add your own Walker tweets. It'll be fun

Stay Awake People -- Walker Is Running for Governor

In a not too brilliant PR move, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker announced his dead from day one race for Governor on Charlie Sykes program this morning at 8:30. Obviously Sykes couldn't wait to get this out of the way but hey, the shoulder is always there for the right wing to cry on when the rest of the population says means things.

If I were to advise his campaign, it could be pointed out that this venue was not a good idea. Admittedly Sykes' voice pours into ears throughout the state because many have welded their dials to pick up the Brewers. Can't beat the coverage.

But what doesn't work here is Scott Walker is running to be governor of all of the state of Wisconsin, and to kick this thing off on the program of one of the most polarizing, hard right personalities in all of the state doesn't say big tent to the 80% of the people who do not adhere to Americans for Prosperity notions. More like pup tent.

The AP story that warned us about the announcement called this one of the worst kept secrets in recent politics. So that makes the second worst kept secret that Walker stands no hope of winning the GOP nomination. Good news for Milwaukee, which for the past seven years had to be his warm act for this flight of the Hindenburg.

About Those Tea Parties...

From Matt Pommer of The Daily Reporter:

Earlier this year national radio host Rush Limbaugh attracted attention, saying he hopes Obama “fails” in his presidency. While that wasn’t repeated at the Capitol rally, a reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal captured something more ominous: One man, who said he owned a ceramic tile business, carried a sign that said “Obama is the anti-Christ.”

“He (Obama) needs to go. This is the first and last warning he’ll get,” the man said.

That kind of implied threat might worry the Secret Service, but will it concern the radio talk show hosts as they seek ever-higher ratings?

via WisOpinion.com

The Squawker and The Tweeter

Charlie Sykes is fond of saying that any press releases issued by a politician late on a Friday is either bad news or something that they are not very proud of.

I can't wait to see how Chuckles spins that fact that Scott Walker, who announced that he would announce his gubernatorial campaign this Tuesday, actually announced it late Friday. To make it even more comical, Walker did via Twitter.

That must mean that it is really bad news and/or he is really ashamed of his candidacy.

I could agree to either or both of those.

Jessie Oakley

In her Waukesha Freeman column, our old friend Jessica McBride chimes in on the open carry controversy which was escalated by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, who gave an advisory opinion on this matter. (Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Van Hollen tastelessly made his announcement on the anniversary of the Columbine shootings.) McBride writes:

Some in the media and other anti-gun emotionalists are tearing apart Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen for his – somewhat belated, but very correct – advisory opinion on open carry.

What provoked the open carry hysteria? Van Hollen simply reminded people about a settled fact. He reiterated a point that Jim Doyle and the state Supreme Court once freely recognized. He repeated the state Constitution. That’s controversial?

One does have to wonder if Merton's little Annie Oakley would be so agreeable if the person who wanted a gun looked like this:



Crown tip: Spring City Chronicle

We're Saved!

Well, sort of, in a small way.

But thanks is owed to CommunityNOW websites for their decision to change their format. Why?

My friend Greg explains in the comment thread of his post:

No hit counting? That’s terrible, in my opinion. So one doesn’t really know how well (or popular) their content is among NOW readers.

I mean, how can Franklin’s very own legislative aide do a “most popular blogs of the week” w/o hits being counted!?

Double Ouch!

Recess Supervisor did a post about the Neumann/Walker race that appears to be forming up. One of his anonymous commenters left the perfect double ouch in the comment thread:

i remember whenever he filled in for belling he mentioned he was building homes! he was so much better than kevin fischer...oh well at least belling never let fraley back on after his one appearance!

When you see this:


Doesn't it make you think of this?

Obama The Fascist

One of my new favorite blogsites is Griper Blade. This site, along with that of Emily Mills, is the kind of writing that I could only hope to mimic.

Let me show you what I mean. From Griper Blade, a post titled "The Hitler Hypocrisy":

No, Barack Obama is exactly like Adolf Hitler because people say so. You don't need an analogy or parallel, it's just true. So shut up, turn off your damned brain, and listen to the nice shrieking voices from conservative media. Obama's Hitler because Glenn Beck says so, Ann Coulter says so, and Sean Hannity says so. Obama's a fascist, until he's a socialist. That these are polar opposites (fascism was founded to counter leftism) and constitute a political oxymoron is beside the point. Socialist fascism makes as much sense as pro-slavery abolitionism. But conservative media carefully guards their audience's ignorance, so there's no way the people being told about President Obama's socialist fascism know any of that. Not that they'd want to know anyway. Wingnuts tune in to wingnut media precisely because it preserves their ignorance. Knowledge is for liberal elitists; the real "folks," as Bill O'Reilly refers to them, believe what they're told to believe, because that's what real Americans do. That O'Reilly's constant references to "the folks" would be a literal translation of Hitler's term der volk is certainly lost on his audience. They don't know things like that because they don't want to know. What they know is only what they want to know and it doesn't make any difference whether or not it's true. "The folks" get to decide for themselves what's true. And what's true is that Barack Obama is exactly like Hitler.

And to demonstrate the truth of that passage, this video:




Video brought to us, courtesy of the Brawler, who has more to say on the subject here.