Wisconsin Democrats now say they have more than enough signatures to launch a recall of Republican state Sen. Dan Kapanke, in the battle over Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) new law curtailing public employee unions. They are filing the petitions today — less than halfway through the 60-day window for gathering the signatures.
[….]As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s district rankings have demonstrated, Kapanke represents the bluest state Senate district in Wisconsin of any Republican state senator: Obama carried it by over 23 points in 2008, and in the 2010 Republican wave Scott Walker won it by a margin of less than one point.
Here’s one of many ActBlue pages where you can give to the Wisconsin State Democratic party.
If Democrats can flip the State Senate, it will be big. Even gaining a seat or two will be big. The nation is watching. I think you’re gonna find, when all this shit is over and done, I think you’re gonna find yourself one smilin’ motherfucker.
MikeJ
Also too:
Dark Patriot
great work in Wisconsin everyone.
SteveinSC
I promised you a donation to the recall. $100 bucks to help, just done.
Xenocrates
@MikeJ: FonD du Lac…sorry to be the spelling Nazi. It’s a dirty job, and I have to do it. Also, too, I am making popcorn. The sight of Punky Walker seeing his magic majority disappear…the ironing is delicious! (That is a deliberate typo, a Simpsons reference, btw.)
FlipYrWhig
I can only hear the title in the voice of Amy Winehouse. Deliberate?
Comrade DougJ
@FlipYrWhig:
Yeah, I had a bit of title block.
scav
@FlipYrWhig: Weird. I got GaGa and I don’t even listen to her. ETA: which means it must entirely be a phone-based neuron firing, nothing more. My knowledge of current music is pretty much negative.
Redshirt
I read a very depressing summary of what Maine’s new Teabaggin’ governor has “accomplished” in a few short weeks. Very sad. Maine has no recall mechanism, unfortunately.
So, go Wisconsin!
13th Generation
Sorry. O/T, and I know you don’t pick the ads, but I HATE seeing that “Defund planned parenthood” ad. It just really pisses me off.
Also, too, I think DougJ is that jwest guy from the previous thread.
FlipYrWhig
@scav: Re, re, re-e-e-e; reca, reca-ca…
garage mahal
They needed a little over 15k for Kapanake. And got over 30k, in 30 days. That’s pretty impressive.
kideni
It sounds as though it was a lovely hearing today in Judge Sumi’s court. Lots of testimony from people shut out of the hearings (to establish that the public didn’t have access), and staff in the Republican offices kinda forced to acknowledge that there was no reason to have the meeting with less than two hours notice (esp. since they apparently had plans afoot two days earlier). The temporary restraining order remains in effect until late May (the DA [good guys] has three weeks to submit a brief, the AG’s office [FitzVanWalkerstan] has three weeks to respond, the DA has a week to reply to that), unless the Republicans decide to do the vote properly (which they won’t, since it probably won’t pass this time).
It’s Friday, though, so I wonder what Walker/Fitzes will try to pull today?
Mark S.
@13th Generation:
I don’t think so. He sounds like every other libertarian douchebag I’ve read on the Internet. I’d like to think Doug would give him more pizazz.
FlipYrWhig
@Mark S.: Every libertarian douchebag since the _invention_ of the Internet. And for that matter ever libertarian douchebag since the invention of the conservative campus newspaper, a la the D’Souza/Ingraham _Dartmouth Review_.
freelancer
Them thinking that they could get away with this, that’s Pride fuckin’ with them. They think they stand for me and you. There IS no me and you. Not no mo’.
Comrade DougJ
@freelancer:
You lost all your Wisconsin privileges.
13th Generation
@Mark S
I hear ya, but that guy just sounded like too much of a caricature. I just kept thinking of DougJ’s reputation as an undercover troll every time I read one of those comments.
Again, sorry to be O/T. Go Wisconsin!
BGinCHI
@Comrade DougJ: I wish this fit on a sign:
“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy My brothers. And you will know My name is the Lord when I lay My vengeance upon thee.”
SteveinSC
@FlipYrWhig: You’d a thought Dartmouth would have had better taste, unless the review is the campus humor magazine.
demkat620
Yeah in 2008, my husband would complain everytime I donated.
I gave to the Actblue page. Charge came in, my husband followed a link and tossed in some change hmself.
The times they are a changing!
zmullls
So what is the timetable? If they get a recall election approved, how long until it actually happens – a month, two, more?
And if he’s recalled, is there another election for his vacated seat? Or is the recall election a re-do with the same candidates?
If it’s a recall election followed by a refill election, it could go on for months, yes?
BGinCHI
So, in 2012, in statewide elections in the Midwest, and in Congressional elections, what are the GOP teabaggers going to run on?
Sharia?
The Koch Bros are gonna have to spend a lot of green if they want to stay in that game.
freelancer
@Comrade DougJ:
Alls I’m saying, is I’m a racecar, and you got me in the red.
Mark S.
Now I sometimes wonder if Caz is really Doug. Every so often there’s a sentence or two that takes the craziness up to 11.
MikeJ
@Xenocrates: Not my speeling error, it was a quote from http://www.politiscoop.com/component/content/article/35-last-24h-news/149-one-down-7-to-go-hopper-up-for-recall.html
Mnemosyne
I posted this in one of the threads below, but I think it makes sense here, too:
Cops, firefighters turn on GOP in labor fight
I’m really starting to think the GOP overreached this time. I’ve thought that before, but I don’t remember pissed-off white guys being part of the backlash before.
Three-nineteen
Had a guy come to the door the other day gathering signatures to recall my Democratic state senator (Bob Wirch). I politely laughed in his face. I don’t think he had a lot of luck in my neighborhood, since a) it’s full of policemen, prison guards, and teachers, and 2) from my front yard I can see “Recall Walker” signs in at least four yards (none of which belong to a policeman, prison guard, or teacher as far as I know).
jcgrim
I just donated $40.00 to ActBlue in solidarity.
CaliCat
This is so awesome. I can’t wait to see these fucking a-holes get thrown to the curb. Did they really think the proud, hard working people of Wisconsin were going to roll over and accept this crap?
We have a bottle of decent champagne sitting chilled in the fridge…when the first WI Repuke falls, I’m popping it.
BGinCHI
@Three-nineteen: You should have signed your name:
Fuck Scott Walker Intheass
cthulhu
I know that it seems like they have more than enough to get Hopper’s recall on the ballot as well. Any word as to how the other 6 efforts are going?
geg6
Heh. Indeedy.
Sasha
@Mnemosyne:
Truth. It’s like the beginning of the Tea Party movement except, you know, not manufactured.
Erikthe Red
I’ll be smiling a little if they flip one or two, but I’ll REALLY be smiling if they manage to flip enough for control of the Senate.
SteveinSC
O.K., let’s hear about some more donations on this blog. Let’s keep this ball rolling. Fuck the reactionary assholes!
Davis X. Machina
@CaliCat:
They believed their own press notices. They confused the election results with the ineluctable march of history.
But were they wrong to think that sticking it to the other guy gets you the votes of the unstuck?
Were they wrong to think that there are plenty of voters happy to eat resentment instead of food, who think they can fill their heating oil tank with Schadenfreude, or doctor their ills with team spirit instead of prescription drugs?
Were they so far off the mark, based on the sound of circular firing squads in the gloaming, in thinking that the ’06-08 progressive implulse was spent?
That remains to be seen.
Jay C
@zmullls:
According to a link to the WI Government Accountability Board (the responsible agency) I got from a thread at the GOS, the nominal timeframe for recall elections is that once the recall petition has been presented to the GAB, they have 31 days to “certify” it, after which the actual election has to be conducted with 45 days – give or take.
So, assuming that the WI GOP don’t attempt their reflexive ratf*cking (by making each and every signatory appear in person to validate their address under notarized oath, or whatever) to delay the process, the earliest a recall election could take place is mid-June.
Though I think the more important election (and, vitally, the nearest) is the judiciary election next Tuesday (4/5); if old Justice David “the bitches are out to get me” Prosser – GOP long-timer, and Scott Walker’s BFF on their SC – gets the boot in favor of a Democrat, the fecal matter is going to impact the ventilation system BIG-TIME. And not a minute too soon…
Spaghetti Lee
the fecal matter is going to impact the ventilation system BIG-TIME.
I would love this on a shirt.
JCT
I’m in for $25.
What I love is the potential for real momentum here. All we’ve been hearing about is that we are stuck with these assholes running amok — if they successfully recall a few of them it will truly empower our side. Nothing like a little “in your face, asshole” success to get things rolling.
R-Jud
@SteveinSC: $50.00 here.
I’ve spent maybe 60 hours, total, in Wisconsin (2 of those hours were spent cringing through a Muse concert in October, 10 trying to get out of WI after said Muse concert).
However, my Aunt Rusty lives just outside of Milwaukee. She retired from teaching last year when my uncle passed away. Finally got to talk to her on Tuesday, for the first time since the funeral. Her great talent, outside of pedagogical flair, is profanity. She’s a craftswoman. She held nothing back when describing how deeply she loathes Walker. I’d try to repeat it, but I am much much much too drunk to do it justice.
R-Jud, +4
Linda Featheringill
@SteveinSC:
You talked me into it, you silver-tongued devil. :-)
Not much, but they all add up.
HRA
$25 contributed to WI Democrats
I had an aunt and uncle in Racine. I keep thinking of them and how they would feel about their state in the hands of these idiots.
sherifffruitfly
I wish the WI electorate could have considered all of these things a few months ago. (shrug)
shortstop
@Davis X. Machina: That was an elegant little piece of copy right there.
shortstop
I donated three weeks ago, so I own some of those signatures, bitchez!
But I’ll give again. Until it hurts, ’cause doesn’t it hurt sooooo goooood?
Just Some Fuckhead
These fuckers in WI brought this shit on themselves. I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna let it impact my wallet. But I can respect the rest of you for your efforts.
gbear
Just had an email exchange with a friend of mine who’s been on disability most of his life and has a same-sex partner (I believe they were married in Maine) who’s a healthcare provider. He calls himself a centerist and is adamant that we need to have a two-party system where both parties work together. I told him you can’t have two-party governance when one of the parties doesn’t even care about following the law. ‘Centerists’ like him are just financial conservatives afraid to call themselves out on it.
Man, I will be so happy to see Walker get his ass kicked back towards Milwaukee and hopefully a couple hundred feet further east.
Cain
Jeezus! These guys are haters to the extreme from that political article :
Holy shit.. they completely don’t see those people even as human. Some of these conservative public sector employees should read that shit..
cain
Davis X. Machina
@shortstop: Ta. Anaphora is your friend.
Three-nineteen
@Just Some Fuckhead: Let me know what state you live in, so when something like this happens there I can tell you to go fuck yourself because you deserve it.
ETA: I would still help.
Omnes Omnibus
@kideni: I loved it when they got people to admit that they were planning sneaky move two days before they did it. Hell, I loved the whole thing.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Three-nineteen: Sorry dawg, I’m in the Tough Love stage of my political evolution. As I mentioned somewhere else, half of the peasants are voting for serfdom. Let ’em have it and see how they like it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead: One of the problems with your attitude here is that I would be surprised if the majority of the people getting screwed by FitzWalker voted for them. Also too, at what point do you decide that someone has learned and is worthy of redemption?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s like pr0n. Ya just know it when ya see it. There was no need for Wisconsin – of all places – to go full metal teabag. Fuck ’em.
shortstop
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m guessing at the point when that person is not asking him for money. This is a wallet thing, not a “tough love” thing.
Just Some Fuckhead
@shortstop: Yeah, maybe that’s what it is. How much fucking money is it gonna cost me for Wisconsin to stop dicking itself? Can I get a total up front?
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
considering my state is utterly fucked with corbett, and there was nothing anyone in the southwestern part of the state could do to stop it, i can’t hold it against the people in wiscy, that there weren’t enough of them to kochblock the republicans.
PIGL
Props for the Waco Brothers.
Have some Millionaire Love:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50LwbnBlk6A
VidaLoca
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Y’know, Fuckhead, I live in Wisconsin and when the election went down in November I was feeling, for a while, sort of the same way. And even now I have little doubt that many of the people who marched around and around the capitol in Madison were quietly suffering from a serious case of buyer’s remorse: all of the benefits from those 250,000 jobs that Walker promised he’d create (by pulling them right out of his ass, no doubt) would come to them, goddammit; and all the pain would be felt by someone else. Why? Because they deserve it. And all those other losers just don’t. That’s how privilege works — and when you start to realize that it’s been fooling you, the learning curve can be steep. Cops on the side of the forces of good — who’d have ever thought they’d live to see that day come?
However, that’s all water over the dam. We (by which I mean, us people who like to think we’re progressive under some vague definition of that word — and I’ll take the liberty of assuming that includes you) can’t afford to think that way. People in Wisconsin aren’t thinking that way either: Walker wanted a war, now he’s got it. In that context, the position you’re taking — “they voted for him, so fuck ’em” — is basically the left-wing equivalent of IGMFY.
This is a serious resistance, folks. If we can pull this off it will be the first case in what — thirty some years since Reagan? — that a mass movement has stood up and said “No. No more. No fucking way are you going to do this to us.” Every progressive person, every working-class person, everyone who cares about good government or social justice or just what-the-fuck ever, has a dog in this fight.
Fuckhead, I’m not trying to tell you what to do with your wallet. Do whatever. Do what makes you feel good. But realize (if it matters at all to you) that the reasoning you’re using is putting you on the wrong side of history in all of this.
And by the way, to those of you who AREN’T being all fuckheaded, thank you so much. We need your help now, we’ll need it in the days to come. We hope we can do you proud.
kideni
I’d been wondering why the Kapanke recall group decided to go ahead so early, but apparently they got about 30,000 signatures, almost twice what they needed! Last month he got hammered by a local school board (excerpts here); I hope the hammering continues this summer.
kideni
@VidaLoca: that was beautiful!
VidaLoca
@kideni: Gee, thx — want to bet it gets nothing more than a resounding “tl;dr” from the Hon. Fuckhead?
jazzgurl
What the heck is going on with Sullivan? On,and fricking on about the Congress and the Libya scenario.. Give it a rest,mate! A blog called King Barack has appeared in which he is of course going on and on, and on…
Sorry to say Andrew has lost me from
a) when he disappeared and called in sick for a few weeks.
b) announced soon thereafter, when he was back, that he was going to the Daily Beast
c) has become a whingeing same old song griper. Move it along,Andrew.
Imagine expecting those arseholes that masturbate all day long with words and actions since they entered the Congress Household to vote on something! No Andrew,he didn’t do anything unconstitutional!
Wolfdaughter
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks for the link. The Politico article is veeeerrrryyyyy interesting. So are the reactions. A few sane voices, most are thuggish and claiming all sorts of evil things to be true of every union member or leader.
I’m throwing $100 to ActBlue. A few weeks back I gave $150 to one of the grocery stores in Madison that had been supplying the protesters with food and important sundries like toilet paper. I also forwarded the phone nos. of that grocery and two others involved in the same effort, to my email peeps. I inherited some money from my mother and father, who are doubtless turning over in their graves every time I donate to a progressive cause.
Three-nineteen
@Just Some Fuckhead: Yes, and you mention this in every. fucking. thread. I got it the first five times you said it. Give, don’t give, whatever. Just stop going “Nyah, nyah, I’m not in this situation” on every post.
James E Powell
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I feel you. My skeptical attitude toward the recall campaigns as they began had a few people here branding me an enemy.
But the Wisconsin Democrats are doing what needs to be done and we ought to help them win. Because this isn’t about Wisconsin, or the people there who either voted Republican or stayed home. Walker is just one of several wing-nut governors who are determined to roll back the 20th century. The Wisconsin recall elections are national in character and importance. We need to win them.
To do anything but help them win is to be just like the people you disdain, the ones who voted Republican or stayed home.
IndyLib
@Three-nineteen:
I wish one of those assholes would show up at my door. My laughter would probably be somewhat less than polite.
My landlady and I go round and round all the time about politics. She claims to be an “independent” who hates republicans and democrats equally and then constantly quotes shit from Glenn Beck at me and gets pissed when I tell her that I know exactly where she got that talking point. I knew she was going to be at my house yesterday, so I prominently left my “thank you for your support” note from Sen. Wirch’s office right in the middle of my kitchen table where I knew she would see it. I thought she was going to pop a blood vessel. She and I argued long and loud when the Dem. Senators were in Illinois and she wants Wirch recalled. She also tried to tell me that the protesters were all from out of state and that they had no right to protest. I asked her if she’d ever read the First Amendment. She didn’t find that amusing.
Mnemosyne
@Davis X. Machina:
They weren’t. The problem is that the Republicans have been fooling blue-collar white men for so long that they actually thought cops and firefighters wouldn’t notice when they were the ones getting stuck. Oops.
(Edited ’cause I just like it better this way.)
Alison
@James E Powell: “To do anything but help them win is to be just like the people you disdain, the ones who voted Republican or stayed home.”
If the only way to “help them win” is to donate money, that’s being pretty blind to the fact that not all of us have money to give. Trust me, I am on the WI Dems side 1000% and I want them to win and win fucking hard – but I am also unemployed, dealing with major illness, had my UI claim denied, and am living with my parents (at 30 years old) and still have bills to pay out of my piddly savings. So you see, I would like to “help them win” but I *can’t* financially.
You might say you of course understand that and you certainly wouldn’t expect that everyone could afford to donate, etc etc. But then you shouldn’t make blanket statements like what I quoted from you. I’m no fucking Rethug, I’m in as shitty a boat as a lot of the people we’re talking about helping. Just keep that in mind when you admonish people.
(Granted, JSF seems to be in a slightly different, more assholey boat…but then I don’t know his/her personal situation…)
James E Powell
@Alison:
I wrote my comment as a reply to Just Some Fuckhead and used the second person pronoun. Whatever gave you the impression I was addressing you or anyone else?
Mart
In my youth I worked for college tuition at a company that collected race track horse piss, straw, manure and hay. They trucked it to a mushroom farm. The hours were long, and the pay was amazing – covered room and board at college plus many extras (odor not so hot). About the time the family owners sold out for big bucks to the food giant mushroom farm owner; the Teamsters come in with free beer and burgers and the promise of more money and job security.
So the corporation brings suits into our shit stained equipment cabs and explain if we go Union, they will be forced to bring in low priced rural truckers near the mushroom farm. This would result in laying off everyone from the big city.
So we vote. Being a part timer, I wanted to vote the way I thought most of the regulars wanted. They wanted Union. So I go to vote, all kinds of observers for a small operation, and I accidentally vote no Union (reverse polish logic ballet). So I think I need to re-do my ballet. Then I think about all those nasty looking judges about ten feet away and think what the hell, so many guys are voting Union my one vote against will not hurt. Of course the Union loses by one fucking vote and management blackmails me for “knowing” I voted pro Union.
One year later all the big city employees were fired and were replaced by much cheaper workers near the rural mushroom farm.
Watching the assault on living wages in this country over the past thirty years, combined with a propaganda campaign to assure you it is the Air Trafficker, Mob controlled Unions, Mexican, Muslim, Black folks, old teachers, firemen, policemen’s fault has been astonishing to me.
Just Some Fuckhead
Sorry folks, didn’t mean to drop out but Friday night is Billiards Night.
Serious question, why should Wisconsin voters be saved from themselves by non-Wisconsin voters? I’m supposed to throw in X amount of money in the hopes that X of these recalls will be successful.
Fuck that. This is like a con. Sorta like giving Egypt and Israel 5 billion dollars a year not to wage war on each other while they have two of the largest armies in the middle east pointed at each other across the border.
Barry
Fuckhead, because they’re being screwed by non-Wisconsin money. That item in Walker’s bill allowing him to sell off power plants at dimes on the dollar, with no consideration of the public benefit – who paid for that?
Omnes Omnibus
@Barry: In addition, Wisconsin is the front line right now. If Walker et al are ultimately successful here, one will see a lot more. If they are defeated, it could mark a turning point.
Cat Lady
@Omnes Omnibus:
We are all cheeseheads now. Seriously, we all are. Looking back, historians will point to Wisconsin as the firewall where the GOP teatard fever burned out and the patient started recovery, or where it consumed it in a fiery death spiral. It’s that important.
bjacques
$25 from me too. As far as I’m concerned, Wisconsin Democrats trying to reclaim their state are no different from the brave people standing up in the Middle East and North Africa.
Over there they got decades of official robbery, torture and massacre (with our active or passive connivance), hearing religious and revolutionary cant that masked the reality of one sleazy family operation after another. Over here, the cant comes first, with descent into a medieval, feudal shithole definitely on the agenda.
And if some voters in Wisconsin helped make the bed the governor, AG and statehouse majority have shat in and realize how badly they fucked up and want to help unshit that bed, at least it proves people can reform.
It’s time to put a stop to the bastards getting away with it.
Wisconsin deserves to be again the state of Bob LaFollette and not Joe McCarthy.
buckyblue
@VidaLoca: no doubt there’s some buyer’s remorse. Some even had the guts to hold up signs in Madison that said, to the effect, “I voted for Walker and I’m sorry”. The Milwaukee press has to take part of this. The amount of shit Walker pulled in Milwaukee County that the Milwaukee press didn’t say a word about. Shit, I was finding out about Walker firing the county jail guards on Rachel Maddow. Why wasn’t this out in force before the election. Hopefully they learned their lesson. In our upcoming State SCOTUS election they ran with the story of the sitting justice Prossor calling the Chief justice a BITCH and threatening to bury her. More of this please.
Alison
@James E Powell: Sooo…you only think JSF has an obligation to help them win? No one else? Come on, that makes no sense. If JSF doesn’t help out s/he’s as bad as the Repubs, but that doesn’t apply to the rest of us? ooooookay then….
VidaLoca
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Serious answer: we never will be. If we can’t unmake the mess we made when we elected Walker, all the non-Wisconsin voters in the world won’t put that toothpaste back in the tube for us. It’s up to us to fix this, BUT we deeply appreciate all the support and solidarity we can get in doing so. We also hope that if we are successful, we may provide both a model for resistance for other people who one day wake up to find a reactionary clown posse running their governments, and a cautionary warning to the reactionary clowns that try.
You may hope, Fuckhead, that that never happens to you; or if it does that other people are less cynical in their responses than you are.
VidaLoca
@buckyblue:
Bucky, if you’re hoping for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel to take responsibility for the way it has covered Walker and the budget wars I would not advise holding your breath.
Back in November they endorsed Walker for election. As recently as a couple of weeks ago they explicitly refused to revoke that endorsement, saying in essence that while they aren’t comfortable with some of the tactics he has used and the general lack of comity surrounding the whole situation, they still support his strategy.
In other words they’re part of the problem not part of the solution, and their lack of a critique of Walker’s administration as County Executive has to be seen in that light.
VidaLoca
@Alison:
Alison, I realize that you’re responding to Powell here but if I might be allowed to interrupt: both Powell and I are making a criticism of Fuckhead’s ideological position, which ultimately rests on IGMFY. Your position is completely non-ideological and based on lack of means, which I see as very different.