Scott Walker and the 1.5 Million-Dollar Menard’s Bribe

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-photo-charlie-114429739886.html Bless the mainstream “News” media for their circumspection, but let’s call spades “spades” here, shall we, Gentle Reader? These are not “contributions”, they are BRIBES. BRIBES.The right-wingnut Teavangelical typhoon Johnnie Menard funneled at least a million and a half bribing bucks, in secret, to Scott Walker’s political operation. And he got what he paid for, too:

So a little more than three years ago, when Menard wanted to back Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — and help advance his pro-business agenda — he found the perfect way to do so without attracting any attention: He wrote more than $1.5 million in checks to a pro-Walker political advocacy group that pledged to keep its donors secret, three sources directly familiar with the transactions told Yahoo News.

Menard’s previously unreported six-figure contributions to the Wisconsin Club for Growth — a group that spent heavily to defend Walker during a bitter 2012 recall election — seem to have paid off for the businessman and his company. In the past two years, Menard’s company has been awarded up to $1.8 million in special tax credits from a state economic development corporation that Walker chairs, according to state records.

And in his five years in office, Walker’s appointees have sharply scaled back enforcement actions by the state Department of Natural Resources — a top Menard priority. The agency had repeatedly clashed with Menard and his company under previous governors over citations for violating state environmental laws and had levied a $1.7 million fine against Menard personally, as well as his company, for illegally dumping hazardous wastes.

This is why the Roberts Court is wrong about campaign funds and speech. It is why the “Republican” party has become a criminal enterprise. When secret money buys elections, it buys our government. One more time, loudly:

When secret money buys elections, it buys our government: it buys our executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

And when skeevy crooks like Menard buy the government, we the people LOSE our government. We have already lost it in Ohio, Wisconsin, and much of the rest of the nation.  We can take it back; by voting.  And by  being engaged, enraged citizens.

Or we can continue doing nothing, and lose it all. It’s our choice.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The 2014 Election Summarized: “GOP Used Car Salesman Wins”.

Granted, it was from a single race. And it seems like a punch line, rather than reality. But it’s true: a member of one of the sleaziest of all professions just won election to high office, in spite of his complete lack of qualifications and dearth of experience:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Mark Maynard owns a used car lot, runs a towing business and spends his spare time on a professional drag racing pit crew. And despite not raising a dime for his Republican campaign and agreeing with his Democratic opponent on almost all the issues, he defeated West Virginia’s longest-sitting state senator.

Got it? The majority of voters that turned out and cast ballots in this race elected an unqualified used car salesman instead of a qualified public servant. There is nothing else to say about that choice except, “Oh, ferchrissakes, you stupid f***ing f***s”. But it wasn’t just in this one contest: all across the country, those who actually chose to vote made some amazingly silly choices, like electing hog-castrators and science deniers.

Kudos to the minority of American voters who cast thoughtful, deliberate ballots based on rational criteria. Thank you for being responsible citizens, we need more like you.
Bricks upside the heads to the vast majority of eligible American voters who lazily sat it out and let the Moron Minority choose our government. You are about to get what lazy people usually get: whatever the non-lazy people wanted. Tough s*** if you don’t like it.
And dunce caps for all the eedjits who voted for shysters, con men, extremists and yes, used car salesmen. You are about to get what you truly deserve.

We can’t fix stupid, but we CAN fix apathy. Get out and vote next time, please. If you disagree with that course of action, well, there’s a newly-elected “Republican” West Virginia State Senator who has a used car he’d like to sell you. Or maybe two or three used cars.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

A Modest Proposal: Require all Americans to Vote, Read Plato, and Read Mark Twain.

America has a dismal record when it comes to voting. It also has turned into an Oligarchy, in which the politicians are bought and sold by rich motherf***ers (since there aren’t enough votes to get their attention). This is not a coincidence. When most Americans don’t vote, we get liars, crooks and con artists “elected” via bribes and propaganda to be our “public servants”.

So mandatory voting would at least get more of our citizens to show up and vote (maybe charge them a fee on their taxes if they don’t). And that in and of itself would be a benefit, even if the new voters just vote randomly: it would scare the crap out of our “representatives” and the 1%-ers who own them. But to get maximum benefit, it would be better if people understood just what and who the Hell they are voting for, and (most importantly) why they should question everything a candidate or government says.

One example: a popular bit of Plato, currently winging its way about the Intertubez:

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

This is not the exact wording (he wrote, “But the chief penalty [of good men who refuse to lead] is to be governed by someone worse if a man will not himself hold office and rule.” [Republic, Book I, line 347c]) but it captures the essence.

In other words: we wind up with crooks, fools, and a**holes in government when the competent, intelligent and decent people refuse to run and/or vote.

Another couple of examples:

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. – Autobiography of Mark Twain.

Sounds a lot like the crap we hear from Teabaggers and such, does it not? Willful ignorance, regarded as a virtue rather than a vice. Here’s one example: James Inhofe http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inhofe-an-epa-foe-likely-to-lead-senate-environment-committee/2014/11/05/d0b4221e-64f4-11e4-836c-83bc4f26eb67_story.html
And:

“To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals.” – Mark Twain’s Autobiography

This writer would prefer that it say “a party” rather than “one party”, but that’s just me.

That is wisdom, Gentle Reader, spanning thousands of years, and speaking a truth we most sorely need to hear: if you let parties and plutocrats run things, they’ll run things to suit themselves. Which they have done. Those of us who do not participate in politics will NOT get the government we want: we’ll get the government THEY want.

Everybody needs education. Everybody needs motivation. This modest, if cynical, proposal can help empower our people and repair our democracy, at a very low cost. It’s kind of hard to think of anybody who’d object to that, right? Ermmmm….well…the bastards who have stolen our country will most certainly object. But f*** those people.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The Ultimate Lesson of Election 2014: “Nothing’s Free”.

Stripped down to its barest bones, that’s the takeaway. The “Republicans” won because they invested in things that could help them win, and the Dems lost because they didn’t invest thus. Not saying it’s fair, not saying it’s right, just saying that smart investing pays dividends, and un-smart investing loses shirts.

And what was the GOPee investment? Why, ’twas in propaganda media. 24/7, all across the TeeVee, radio, Internets, billboards, you name it, the Elephants paid millions upon millions to hammer their message home. And even though the bulk of said message was a pack of lies, the repetition of it over a period of years proved effective – lots of gullible nitwits believed it. The ‘Phants bought the media and used it to brainwash the masses. That was a huge investment, and it resulted in an enormous return.

In contrast, the Democrats invested in smart public policies (like the ACA), and then tried to pretend they hadn’t. They invested in the election of a truly historic President, and then tried to pretend he wasn’t there. Dems invested a lot in holding back the most cray of the Repubs’ cray-cray ideas, and then pretended they hadn’t done that either. Many Dems actually did a very good job in office, but got scared of seeming too, well, non-Republican. They invested and then tried to un-invest. Small wonder they got bupkis for a return, innit?

You can’t get ANYTHING for free. Even the air we breathe and water we drink requires investment to keep it clean enough to use. Hell, even love requires an emotional investment, does it not? Gravity isn’t free, for that matter – ask any physicist. NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING. Ya gotta do something, pay something, sweat, speak, take some kind of action, if you want to get something in return.

The Democrats, Greens, and the Left in general need to treat this as a lesson in reality. If they want power, they won’t get it by being virtuous; by being right; by having a “D” by their name; kicking and braying; or any of the other stupid, lazy, disorganized, inconsistent methods they employed in 2014. And they can look to their own ranks for proof. Minnesota Dems invested in candidates, media, turnout, message, and did much better than the party as whole. They invested wisely and profited thereby. Something the rest of American Democrats did not do.

One phrase common during this writer’s youth was “the marketplace of ideas”: the notion that quality ideas would, like quality goods and services, rise to the top via free and vigorous debate. The willingness to invest time and effort in the debate was part of how well an idea succeeded in the “market”. The Repubs invested in control of the debate instead of quality policies, but have succeeded because, 9 times out of 10, the public hears only GOP talking points. Sadly, because of this unscrupulous (but competently executed) strategy, the GOP is winning the battle of ideas, at least when it comes to how it shakes out at the ballot box.

Non-Repubs needn’t opt for the criminal methods employed by the GOPee; but they DO have to invest in good ideas and policies, courage, consistency, and learn to aggressively promote themselves and their “products” if they are going to succeed. Based on this year’s election cycle, Democrats have a f*** of a lot of work to do.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The Only Questions that Matter Today: Could You Vote, and Did You Vote?

Everything else is a bunch of irrelevant details, or an excuse. If you could have voted and did not, then you suck at being a citizen.

If you are voting or have voted, thank you! Feel free to ignore the rest of this post.

If you couldn’t vote, you should find out why, and then work to clear any roadblocks so you can vote in the future. Perhaps you’re too young, not a citizen, or prevented by other legal reasons; nobody can get on your case for that. Or perhaps you couldn’t vote because of GOPee criminal actions that disenfranchised you: you’re pretty much blameless there. too. Maybe you’re sick, or out of the country, or had some other obstacle in your path. Understandable.

But if you COULD have voted today, and CHOSE not to do so, f*** you. F*** you for being lazy, being cynical, being stupid, or being oh-so-superior. The only way we can win a f***ing election is if we turn out. And when people don’t turn out, we get whatever a**holes the 1% wish to cram down our throats. By not voting, you bear partial responsiblity for the Teapublican Takeover of our nation. F*** you for that, you stupid, f***ing f***.

Turnout is the ONLY tool left in our kit, the ONLY weapon in our arsenal. Turnout, and ONLY turnout can defeat voting machine hacks, disenfranchisement schemes, poll-rigging, disinformation and propaganda. Every other means of ensuring our representation is already gone, stolen by the corrupt motherf***ers who have hijacked our nation. THE ONLY WAY TO DEFEAT THE “REPUBLICANS” IS FOR EVERYONE ELSE TO VOTE AGAINST THEIR CORRUPT A**ES.

A few other factual points:
Number A: the two parties are NOT THE F***ING SAME. Stop with that f***ing lying bull-f***ing-s***.
Letter 2: Dem voters outnumber Repub voters overall. If Dem voters vote Dem, we win. If Dem voters don’t vote Dem, we lose.
Thirdly: If you aren’t voting, you aren’t using your Constitutional rights.
Fact the Fourth: You can vote Dem, or Repub, or for some idiot third-party yahoo who is there to help Repubs steal Dem votes. Only by casting votes for Democrats do we beat “Republicans”.

It’s math, period. Pound all the other hifalutin philosophical bilge right up your own a** along with a heaping helping of sand. More votes win. Fewer votes lose. Math.

Ohio flipped from Purple to Red because of fewer votes that can be counted with your shirt, pants and socks on. Less than ten votes in one district did the trick. So don’t tell this writer that your vote is of no consequence: women, children, and every taxpayer in the state are suffering because a few f***ing Dem voters did not vote for a single Ohio Democratic candidate in 2012.

Once again: If you can vote, PLEASE do so. If you choose not to and you could have, f*** you and the high f***ing horse you f***ing rode the f*** in on.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Uh, You DO Know that Obama’s Not on the Ballot, Right?

Just checking, because lots and LOTS of people are yammering on about him during this year’s campaign. Which is pretty f***ing stupid, because OBAMA CAN’T BE F***ING RE-ELECTED. The pundits and “news” types are all ratchet-jawing about the man, but in truth he matters not one bit for next Tuesday’s contests.

The Senatorial candidates matter. The Gubernatorial candidates matter. The House candidates matter. So too do the other state and local ballot options. They matter, and they matter a LOT. (For example, McConnell, Boehner, and a host of other politicos are up for re-election or de-election.)

By your actions you can help turn this country into a Red Hell or a Purple Patchwork (It’ll take a Helluva lot more than one election to turn America Blue). You can take away our rights, or give them back to us. You can enable us to: feed the kids or starve them; fight or cower; fix or ignore; pay or go broke; function or fall apart; all of these vitally important matters are in the hands of voters on November 4th, 2014.

But Obama is NOT on the ballot. We kinda need to ignore him when we hit the voting booth, because the people for whom we DO cast ballots can actually make our lives better or worse.At the very least, we need to focus on the people and issues that are on the table this coming Tuesday.

The media moguls and bribe artists would love nothing better than to have us focus on a lame-duck President: that enables them to play their sleazy shell games via distraction and misdirection, f***ing us over royally in the process. We The People need to see past the sleight of hand and focus on the task at hand.

Like Obama or loathe him, as you choose: but you can’t vote for him this year. Concentrate on the people you CAN vote for instead.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Giving Up = Guaranteed to Lose (Talking to YOU, Democrats)

Mr. Blunt and Cranky has become somewhat accustomed to dealing with weakness, vacillation and incompetence from the Democratic Party, but it is still possible to be shocked. Thus it happened when he read this article. In it, we find out that one of the worst Teabaggers in Washington is guaranteed to win, because Local Dems did not field a candidate. Seriously. Nobody is running against Mr. Sessions:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The primary season just ended and the general election campaign now unfolding looks the same to Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, tea party favorite, foe of immigration legislation and the only Republican senator running in 2014 without a ballot opponent of any stripe.

Sessions’ lack of opposition this fall in a state with a heavy African-American presence stems from a Democratic party weakness so pervasive that it holds none of the statewide offices, only one seat in the nine-member congressional delegation and a minority in both houses of the legislature.

Against this backdrop, we are compelled to inform you that two Dems are in a position to win in Georgia: for Governor and Senator.

All the talk of a Republican takeover of the US Senate after this year’s midterms may have been a bit premature as a new poll in Georgia shows that Democratic candidate Michelle Nunn holds a three-point lead over Republican nominee David Perdue for Georgia’s open Senate seat. The seat is currently held by retiring Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss. The poll, conducted by Landmark Communications, has Nunn up on Perdue, 46% to 43%. The poll’s margin of error is 2.9%, so Nunn’s lead is razor-thin. However, considering that Georgia is a deep-red state, it has to be extremely disheartening for Republicans to see themselves down in a race where they’d normally be holding a comfortable lead.

The GOP is also taking its lumps in the race for governor. Incumbent Governor Nathan Deal is currently trailing his Democratic opponent, State Senator Jason Carter. Like Nunn, Carter is the beneficiary of a famous last name. While Nunn is the daughter of former US Senator Sam Nunn, Carter’s grandfather is Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States. The poll shows Carter leads Deal by three points, 47% to 44%. With Deal dealing with an ethics investigation, along with general voter dissatisfaction over his policies, trend lines seem to be pointing in a Democratic direction.

The difference in this Tale of Two Red States? Attitude. That is all. Both states are deep red, full of entrenched “Republicans” who rule with iron fists over what should be Democratic majority populations. Geryymandering? Check. Vote suppression? Check. Poverty and oppression? Check. Corruption? Check. These two states are far more similar than they are different.

In Georgia, we have two bad-ass Democrats running for statewide office: Nunn and Carter are lean, mean, politicking machines who are in it to win it. The Sessions race could be going just as well, but Alabama’s Democratic officials are a load of whiny little weenies with loser sweat all over them. They surrendered before the battle even began.

When you give up, you WILL lose.
When you stand up, you CAN win.

Let’s all remember that we are not defined by either of our two parties. We have the power to change things whether  our party hacks have any intestinal fortitude or not.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

In your anger at the party, don’t forget the real victims. (Please vote.)

This post has a very narrow audience: those who say they will not vote unless the candidates are sufficiently in line with their personal beliefs, and think that by withholding their vote they will somehow “teach the party a lesson”. It is not targeted at any other people or groups. S’alright? S’alright.

Many of the party apparatchiks, leaders and candidates (for example, Hillary Clinton) are millionaires, and will not be hurt by your lack of participation in a hypothetical future contest. They should pay a price, but they will not. They might write books, consult, bloviate, become the ambassador to Lower Maylohda, or join the punditocracy: but one thing that they will not do is suffer. Not one wee bit.

No, the people who will be hurt by the lack of participation in a given race will be the poor. The children. The elderly. The minorities. The women. THEY will pay the price for your bitterness, defeatism and despair. You might not pay a price, the candidates might not pay…but nothing is free in this world. Somebody always pays.

In the last election, in one Ohio state congressional district, a (literal) handful of voters failed to vote for the Democrat in the race, and the Teapublican won. That state is now 100% Red. Dems have NO POWER OVER STATE GOVERNMENT.

Voting rights are being taken away. Women’s rights are being obliterated. Children are starving and dying. Millionaires are profiting and the rest of us are struggling. Because a very few voters made the choice you propose to make.

Think a bit before you decide to be dogmatic. Think of those four voters who did what you say you will do. Every vote counts. And every vote has a consequence.

Perhaps God should have mercy on those who abandon their fellow Americans to poverty, privation, and death; but the rest of us shouldn’t.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Want to vote in South Florida? Better wear Depends.

That’s because if you have to pee during your six-plus-hour wait to cast a ballot, the bathrooms are verboten. Closed. Not available. No matter how long the line, or if you are elderly, or if the weather is crap (oh, you can’t do that either-no potties for you voter types).
From the article:

Instead, he received a written response announcing that the county would close all restrooms at polling places “to ensure that individuals with disabilities are not treated unfairly,” a January email stated. “[T]he Department’s policy is not to permit access to restrooms at polling sites on election days,” Assistant County Attorney Shanika Graves said in a Feb. 14 email.

This latest voter-suppression effort is, of course, designed to keep the elderly, minorities and working poor from casting their ballots: Democratic voters, in other words. The local Board of Election is pretending that this is a decision based on the rights of the disabled, which is a lie more transparent than a hooker’s blouse. No, it’s Miami-Dade county doing what it does best: rigging elections so that “Republicans” win.

If it’s any comfort to all those voters waiting in long lines to vote this year: no matter the state of the diapers they may have to wear in order to exercise their franchise, they will never be as full of s*** as the elected officials who concocted this, well, crappy idea.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Putin was not “emboldened by Obama”: he was inspired by Bush

Take a gander at that flock of sphincter birdies: they were paid political operatives sent to Florida to stage a fake riot at a Board of Election, thus helping steal the 2000 election for Gee Dubya Bush. The idea was; create a false impression of public outrage and dissent that the government “had to deal with right away”, thus allowing “extraordinary measures” to be taken to “preserve public order”. As we all know by now, that effort was a success, and the Bushistas robbed, pillaged, and murdered their way across the country and the Middle East for 8 interminable years of illegitimate government.

This year in Crimea, Vladimir Putin and his oligarch buddies followed the same model: they sent in faux “demonstrators” to create the impression of disorder, and so Russia just HAD TO send in troops to restore order and allow the oppressed locals the opportunity to shuffle off those dreaded shackles of Western Oppression, blahblahblahblahBLAHblahblah. (Guns were required in Ukraine because they, unlike we wimpy Americans, were unlikely to allow a bunch of corrupt billionaires to steal their entire nation. We rolled over and accepted it without a fight.)

Now in Eastern Ukraine, what was done in Crimea and Florida is being done again. The Russians are staging more fake riots and creating a “need” for “immediate intervention” yadayadayada. And any number of Right Wingnuts would have you believe this is being done because of Obama’s “weakness”.

Nonsense: a President who orders the invasion of sovereign countries to kill our enemies there (via drones and SEAL teams, mostly) is not a wimp. Obama is a hard-assed Chicago lawyer who would cut off your wedding tackle if need be, were you a threat to him. And we have ample proof of this. Ask the Taliban and various Al-Quaida groups: well, ask the surviving members, that is. He has killed a s***load of ’em, and never shed a tear.

No, if Putin needed guidance from an American Prexy, he got it from the Shrub. What Russia is doing in Eastern Europe is straight out of the “Republican” south Florida playbook.

It’s just as transparent, just about as illegal, and just as successful as it was in 2000.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky