Surprise: Right-Wing Think Tank-UW Poll Doesn’t Ask Public Option Question
Where’s the question on the public option? This has been the single biggest and most-discussed issue when it comes to health insurance reform.
Newsroom
GAB Coddles All Children Matter with ‘Pathetic’ Wrist Slap
MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board could be opening Wisconsin’s doors to an avalanche of future illegal campaign activity after settling for a miniscule fine of $500 from All Children Matter, ignoring evidence the group possibly funneled Wisconsin corporate contributions through a Virginia political action committee in violation of Wisconsin campaign finance law. […]
Sensenbrenner’s outrage over Butler appointment?
“Where was Sensenbrenner’s outrage when George Bush made John Ashcroft the Attorney General immediately after Ashcroft lost a statewide election to someone who had died? How about after Bush made Spencer Abraham the Energy Secretary immediately after he lost reelection to his Senate seat? This is another example of the Republicans’ willingness to stop at […]
Wisconsin Activists Join Others at White House Demanding End to Afghan War
Press release from Wisconsin anti-war activists: Disappointed with President Obama’s unwillingness to significantly change course from the Bush Administration, and his talk of troop increases in Afghanistan, a coalition of national anti-war groups will be joining together on October 5th in a day of nonviolent direct action at the White House. Members of the coalition […]
16 T. Wall Tax Shelters in Delware?
Blogging Blue has an interesting find today — real estate mogul Terrence Wall has not just one, but in fact 16, businesses registered in Delaware! Three of T. Wall’s Delware LLCs share the same name with LLCs that he just recently dissolved here in Wisconsin, on August 21, 2009 in fact. Makes one wonder if […]
Hero of the Week: Dave Obey
From the Spooner Advocate comes Dave Obey’s (D-WI) fiery words of wisdom that earned him the OWN Team’s Hero of the Week award: ‘I swear to god, when I see what some people are saying today, I think they have the memory length of a cocker spaniel,’ said Obey ‘I want you to go back […]
Terrence Wall knows a public health plan wont work in the U.S. because Terrence Wall knows France
I happened across a recent In Business column from Madison real estate mogul Terrence Wall. Using a personal anecdote about his and his father’s experience with the health care system in France, Wall lambasts any notion of a governmental role in health care in the U.S.. He flatly ignores the failures of the private health […]
Discredited Polling Firm’s Madison “Office”…er Post Office Box Expires This Week
National polling devotees have been following an exploding scandal with the Atlanta (well, Georgia)-based Strategic Vision, a firm who’s “research” consistently pops up at opportune times for Republicans, offering encouraging polling numbers for Republicans clawing against the falling sand of a collapsing Republican oligarchy. First, they were smacked down by the American Association of Public […]
JV Teabaggers get PR space in Journal Sentinel
Guess what? A group that props up Republicans is running an ad that sugar coats Scott Walker’s fee-raising, credit-card financed Milwaukee County budget. Hardly news. Unless you’re the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who felt the need to provide Citizens for Responsible Government 571 words to expound about the ‘virtues’ of Walker’s budget that attacks county workers, […]
WPRI Opposes Public Option for Health Insurance Reform, Supports Public Option for Its Polling
Using typical back-of-the-envelope, context-free math, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute’s is claiming that since the cost of the extraordinarily successful bipartisan BadgerCare program has increased since it was created, that we shouldn’t have federal health insurance reform that includes a public option to end the stranglehold insurance companies have on our entire nation. The ‘evidence’? […]
Did Wisconsin Developer Terrence Wall Create Delaware ‘Office’ to Avoid State Tax Responsibility?
MADISON, Wis. — The Delaware address of the “principal office” of T. Wall Properties, LLC, a business owned by Wisconsin developer Terrence Wall, is the same address the New York Times said is used specifically “to help corporations avoid paying taxes in other states.” 2 “There is no evidence on Terrence Wall’s business website that […]
Polluters and Energy Companies vs. Wisconsin Values
Two new polls out this morning that paint a very different picture of Wisconsinites’ attitudes toward state policy to curb climate change and help bring about a new green economy in Wisconsin. First, one from the Forest County Potawatomi Community which shows an ‘overwhelming majority’ of voters ‘ 70% — in Wisconsin support the state […]
Moralist Crusader Nass Familiar with the Legal System
As the one of the state’s foremost moral crusaders, Rep. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) is thundering about the need to expel Rep. Jeff Wood (Not an R-Chippewa Falls) from the legislature because of the former-Republican’s run-ins with the law related to operating a vehicle while intoxicated. On the most recent charge, Wood has so far only […]
Polling’ firm may have made up numbers; Wis. media dutifully report them
The decline in (or complete lack of) standards for news media coverage of political polling in recent years has been hard to watch. There was a time when newspapers like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel would not report on a poll unless it had the entire poll, rather than partial or selective results that are strategically […]
Tax Foundation, Like WISTAX, Pals Around with AFP
Much like the conservative Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, the DC-based Tax Foundation pushes out pro-conservative tax propaganda, but its rarely also identified by its conservative ideology. This fantasy of non-ideology is foisted on media consumers despite overwhelming evidence both groups are pushing an ideologically-conservative agenda ‘ that everyone is always paying too much in taxes. Rarely, […]
Will WMC Oust Humana Board Member after Company’s Medicare Scandal?
Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce must distance itself from health insurance giant Humana and remove its representative from its board of directors after Humana used its Medicare patient list to lobby seniors against health insurance reform. Larry Rambo, Great Lakes Region CEO of Humana is a current board member of WMC. According to figures compiled by […]
Vukmir talks health insurance (at posh country club)
I fully intended on showing up last night at an Oconomowoc country club to hear Leah Vukmir talk about ‘current and proposed legislation affecting Wisconsin health care and insurance’. If not for my squawking eight-month old baby boy, I’d have had a listen. Vukmir, herself a state rep eligible for taxpayer funded health insurance, has […]
Republican Party of Wisconsin Always Ready to Trash Wisconsin
In its haste to criticize Rep. Ron Kind, the Republican Party of Wisconsin showed it’s always got time to dump on the people of Wisconsin. As part of a quickly distributed press release, GOP head and Michael Steele lackey Reince Priebus refers to Wisconsin as among the “worst states to do business.” How one facilitates […]
Harsdorf, Hraychuck propose bill to collect +400k DNA samples a year
According to this Office of Justice Assistance report, 415,543 arrests were made in 2008, equivalent to roughly 7% of Wisconsin’s 5.6 million population. About 100,000 of those arrests were of juveniles. Based on legislation proposed by Reps. Sheila Harsdorf and Ann Hraychuck, law enforcement officials would be required to collect DNA at every one of […]
Is the Milwaukee Co. Sheriff for small government or Big Brother?
In one breath Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clark is calling for tax cuts and a smaller government and in the next he’s calling for the collection of DNA before a person is even charged with a crime. More from the Illusory Tenant here. So all those drunk frat boys, high school pickpockets, trespassers and happy […]
WellPoint execs and shareholder hoard cash, call for more layoffs
Last week, executives at private health insurance giant WellPoint [aka Blue Cross Blue Shield] announced to investors at the Morgan Stanley Global Helathcare Conference that ‘cash flow is very positive right now’¦and reserves are coming in better that expected at this point. So things look pretty good.’ Well of course they are! WellPoint in the […]
What’s worse – fake pimps or real sexual assault?
Last week, Fox News zombi… er, viewers were treated to an apparent expose of workers at ACORN giving advice and assistance to conservative activists claiming to be a pimp and prostitute. Of course, Fox took liberties with the facts, claiming the pair was never kicked out of the ACORN offices they visited (they were, police […]
Teabaggers’ Latest ‘Republican Rally for Failure’ Fueled Again by Partisanship, Racism, Ignorance
MADISON, Wis. — The latest “Republican Rally for Failure” hosted by the self-identified “teabaggers” is scheduled for Saturday in Milwaukee. The “Failure Rally” will feature numerous incendiary speakers, including fact-challenged Michelle Malkin, who will join other partisans to try and defeat the agenda of President Barack Obama. “The latest ‘Republican Rally for Failure’ is just […]
Tiresome Non-Plumber Comin’ to Milwaukee!
At this weekend’s GOP gaggle organized by Americans (read: Republicans) for Prospertity otherwise known as the “Republican Rally for Failure” in Milwaukee, our fine state will be treated by another visit from so-called Joe the Plumber, nee Samuel Wurzelbacher. We all remember him from his “impromptu” ambush of then-candidate Barack Obama to his work as […]
Wisconsin Superintendent: Regrets decision to prohibit live Obama education speech
WauwatosaNOW has reported that Wauwatosa School District Superintendent Phil Ertl has admitted he was wrong to prevent students from viewing last week’s live broadcast of President Obama’s education speech. “(In) hindsight, I think I would have made a different decision on it,” Ertl said. “As I look at it, it is our president of our […]
No public option — this is what we’ve been waiting for?
Sen. Max Baucus had a clear choice — the American people or the health insurance industry. As head of the Senate Finance Committee working on one of the most important issues of our lifetime, his choice was real health insurance reform that ends the stranglehold insurance companies have on us, or selling out to […]
Wisconsin Judicial Commission Head to Gableman: You Lie
At today’s hearing before the three-judge ethics panel convened to determine whether Supreme Court Justice Mike Gableman should be disciplined over a false (and racist) campaign ad he launched against then-Justice Louis Butler, the head of the Wisconsin Judicial Commission summed up Gableman’s notorious ad: ”Let’s say what it is – it’s a lie,” James […]
Hate on parade in our nation’s capital
The story on the 9/12 tea festival in DC is a few days old now, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t post something, anything, on the fear-based, hate-fueled ignorance that came out of our nation’s capital over the weekend.I actually won’t circulate the sometimes racist, sometimes hate-fueled, always conservative signage being held at the […]
Randy Hopper: The lesson from Merc debacle? WI needs more corporate welfare
Will enough ever be enough for corporate piranhas and their lackeys in the conservative caucuses at the State Capitol? Apparently not for Randy Hopper, whose column in the Oshkosh Northwestern this weekend calls for even more taxpayer financed gifts to corporate interests. Seriously. According to Randy Hopper what Wisconsin really needs to do is levy […]
Peacemakers honored for lifetimes of work
Two Madison college professors with religious backgrounds, who have worked tirelessly to change the world, will be honored for their lifetimes of activism on Oct. 3 by the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice (WNPJ), a statewide network of 170 organizations working for social change. Joe Elder, a Quaker peace activist who is a University […]
What the WI Hospital Association wants you to think
The Wisconsin Hospital Association is misleading Wisconsin residents concerned about real health insurance reform with some recent ads. It wants you to think happy thoughts about the state of health insurance in Wisconsin and casts a dark shadow over health insurance reform efforts.’Every child in Wisconsin has access to health care coverage, as do 98% […]
WISTAX out to scare schools, public
The conservative Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance issued a release yesterday regarding their recent report titled, ‘State budget woes mean school, taxpayer problems’ that’ll probably scare the bejesus out of, well, schools and taxpayers.The guv and legislature had a difficult task of making over $3 billion of cuts in the budget in the midst of a nationwide […]
Corporate choke hold pays off for Mercury Marine
So that happened. Union workers at Mercury Marine voted to accept the stunning contract offer from management at Brunswick. Workers at the plant in Fond du Lac were given two basic choices ” as one union guy put it ” cut off your leg, and accept a seven-year pay freeze, or cut off your head, […]
It Shouldn’t Be Fighting Boomer Fest, Anymore Than It Oughta Be Fighting X, Y or Millennial Fest
To Generation X, Y and the Millennials, it’s not up to the Boomers to throw up their hands and walk away — it’s up to us to join in, respect the fights of the past, but firmly accept our seats (note: plural) at the table of leadership.
A very narrow interpretation of JB’s openness
Apparently the editorial board of the Wisconsin State Journal hasn’t made an open records request of Atty General J.B. Van Hollen recently. If they had, they might not be giving Van Hollen such a high grade. Having made several records requests of Van Hollen’s office, we have found him to less than forthcoming with information, […]
Obama 2 – Louisiana GOPers Zilch
GOPer Charles Boustany had the awesome job of following President Barack Obama’s historic clarion call to end the stranglehold health insurance companies have on the nation. Boustany, like Gov. Bobby Jindal last year, was dispatched to offer the marginalized Party of No’s latest no.Boustany, bought and paid for with $1.25 million in health and insurance […]
President Reaches Podium Without Being Arrested by Jean Schmidt
Neo-birther Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Bucket-of-Dumb) was unable to have President Barack Hussein Osama arrested tonight either for being a non-America Kenyaner, or for being a known “black.” Emboldened, the President briefly praised Allah, and called for the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass health insurance reform, goddamn it.
Memo to Media: MacIver Institute’s Journalistic Misrepresentation
As you are a respected member of Wisconsin’s media, we at One Wisconsin Now wanted to make sure you had heard about a disturbing media misrepresentation by the MacIver Institute, a conservative Milwaukee organization linked to former Republican Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen. According to a weekend story broken by Wisconsin State Journal, a newly-hired staff […]
Finally, Someone Held Accountable for 9/11 So We Can Get Back to Protecting Health Insurance Companies from Competition
The nation can rest easier knowing that at long last, someone is being held to task for the myriad failures and incompetence that led to the attack against America on September 11, 2001. Take that, Van Jones. Take that and put it in your Al Qaeda pipe. Van Jones, a White House environmental staffer, quote-unquote […]
Rising medical costs contribute to the “hidden” problem of senior poverty
The number of seniors living in poverty is perhaps double what has been reported by the government in the past, due in part because the rising costs of medical care haven’t been included in a senior’s living expenses: The National Academy of Science’s formula, which is gaining credibility with public officials including some in the […]
How many taxpayer dollars have been egregiously wasted on Robert Cowles?
Robert Cowles, R-Green Bay, was first elected to the Assembly in 1982, and moved up to the State Senate in 1987. Since 1982, Robert Cowles has been feeding at the trough of taxpayer dollars. We have paid his salary and paid for his Cadillac health care coverage (which he refuses to extend to the rest […]
One Wisconsin Now Takes to the Air
Americans Republicans for Prosperity had a shindig in Miller Park this weekend to celebrate its recent ‘Republican Rallies for Failure,’ which brought in corporate-shill John Stossel to join with Republicans in criticizing President Obama. One Wisconsin Now decided to give them a proper greeting, and so ‘above the filter,’ we offered the following: http://www.youtube.com/onewisconsinnow
Is Americans for Prosperity endorsing Sean Duffy for Congress?
It’s common knowledge that non-profit organizations can’t endorse political candidates, to everyone except Americans for Prosperity’s executive director Mark Block, that is. Block, who in 2000 was fined $15,000 and banned from volunteering or working on political campaigns for 4 years, has raised new questions about activities being conducted by his organization. According to the […]
Fond du Lac the latest casualty in corporate race to the bottom
Over the weekend, corporate leadership at Brunswick, the owner of Mercury Marine, proved beyond any doubt that not only were they negotiating in bad faith, they were never planning on keeping the plant in Fond du Lac. And once again, working families in Wisconsin get left in the dust in the race to bottom that […]
Will Paul Ryan Condemn Racist GOP Colleague Who Invoked Him as Potential ‘Great White Hope’?
Perhaps a first-term fellow Republican Congressperson is low enough on the food chain that Ryan can set aside his partisanship for just a day.
Blogger falls for Van Hollen’s flip-flop on domestic partners
Owen Robinson from Boots & Sabers was on WPR’s Week in Review to defend JB Van Hollen’s refusal to represent the state in its efforts to extend basic legal protections, such as hospital visitation rights, to domestic partners in Wisconsin.Robinson basically reiterated the point Van Hollen made in his letter to Gov. Doyle that the […]
ABC Tells Wausau Media Stossel “Doesn’t Endorse Organizations” Week Before He Endorses Americans (read: Republicans) for Prosperity
Corporate-accountability foe and GOP darling ABC News 20/20 Host John Stossel has been slithering around our great state with a traveling rumba of rattlesnakes from Republicans for Prosperity. One Wisconsin Now has dubbed these ‘Republican Rallies for Failure,’ as part of a Republican strategy, financed by Republican special interests to defeat Democratic President Obama no […]
“Republican Rally for Failure” with John Stossel
Americans for Prosperity’s ‘Republican Rally for Failure’ is central in the Republican strategy, bankrolled by Republican interests, to defeat the Democratic President at any cost. They don’t care about lying to us. They don’t care if our health care costs keep skyrocketing. They don’t care if Americans die due to lack of health insurance coverage […]
Packed house greets Kagen, calls for reform
A packed house of progressives, advocacy groups, community activists, labor unions and faith-based organizations joined Rep. Steve Kagen, M.D., (D-WI8) in calling for Congress to pass real health care reform that improves access and affordability and includes a public option to end the monopoly enjoyed by the health insurance industry. For over three decades, I […]
One Wisconsin Now Launches Redesigned WMC Watch Website
MADISON, Wis. — One Wisconsin Now launched an update and redesigned version of its WMC Watch – a comprehensive watchdog website of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. Located at www.WMCWatch.org, the site includes new contributions, revenue and expenditure totals, as well as additional research and analysis of the influence of Wisconsin’s most powerful pro-corporate lobby. “Wisconsin […]