Right-Wing Ridiculousness Round-Up
Over the weekend we heard about Scott Walker’s $24,500 ‘Brown Bag,’ Rebecca Kleefisch’s plan to cut gov’t waste by creating more gov’t, and the Sean Duffy camp kerfuffle at a Wisconsin TEA Party. Chalk it up to spring fever’¦ or just right-wing ridiculousness as usual.
First up: Scott Walker’s $24,500 ‘Brown Bag’
From the AP:
Walker’s campaign has spent thousands of dollars on food and beverages, including at high-end restaurants, even as it launches a public relations blitz to promote his claim that he’s so frugal he packs his lunch every day, an Associated Press review found.
The campaign’s bills for Walker’s meals, campaign meetings that included meals for Walker, his staff and others, and food and drinks for fundraising events amount to at least $24,500 since mid-2008.
By contrast, the campaigns of his GOP primary rival Mark Neumann and Democratic opponent Tom Barrett spent some money on food and drinks for fundraisers but virtually nothing on meals for themselves and their campaign meetings. Both entered the race later than Walker.
All this talk about food is making me hungry. Moving on.
Next up: Rebecca Kleefisch’s plan to cut gov’t waste by creating more gov’t
From Dan Bice at MJS:
Rebecca Kleefisch, the former TV newswoman-turned-political candidate, says Wisconsin should follow the lead of other states by creating a hotline so public employees and concerned citizens can report abuse and fraud in state government.
The lieutenant governor wannabe is suggesting the phone number be called a state “waste line.”
“Government is too porky and needs to watch its waste line,” Kleefisch says in a YouTube.com announcement of the proposal, which she also discussed on her Facebook page. “Just like we had those crime tip lines (on TV news), we can easily implement a budget waste line here in the state of Wisconsin.”
There’s just one problem with the idea.
In 2008, Wisconsin lawmakers set up just such a hotline so anybody could call with tips regarding fraud, abuse or mismanagement in state government.
In fact, Bice says, her ‘waste line’ would be about the fourth such a line. Kleefisch re-worked her message now to say she wouldn’t want that many agencies doing the same thing. Still, Bice writes. ‘So here’s the deal: She wants to take the government waste hotline away from a nonpartisan agency full of auditors and turn it over to a minor office that would be run by a partisan pol who used to be a TV talking head.’
Lastly: the Sean Duffy camp kerfuffle at a Wisconsin TEA Party
The altercation occurred between two Republican campaigns in the 7th CD, TEA party enthusiast Dan Mielke and reality show cast member Sean Duffy.
From Cognitive Dissidence:
Mr. Mielke had a table at the weekend’s festivities. On display, he had a computer that was playing a video called “The Wedding Video,” which apparently is a hybrid of home video and reality TV about a wedding between two homosexual men. Sean Duffy, and his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, both appear in the video. Mr. Mielke stated that this shows that Duffy isn’t consistent between his actions and his words.
Well, it appears that Mrs. Duffy didn’t like it being shown and tried to unplug the computer and otherwise interfere with the showing of this video. Things escalated to the point that the organizers of the event came to Mielke to discuss the issue. According to Mielke, they expressed concern if the Duffy children were to see this video and the effect it might have on them. Mielke, trying to be cooperative, agreed to cover the screen with a sheet of paper over the screen. On the paper, he wrote “View at your own risk.”
Apparently, this did not meet with Campos-Duffy’s satisfaction and she continued her harassment of Mielke and his table. It got to the point where Mielke called 9-1-1 and the police responded. He told them what was going on and that Campos-Duffy was interfering with his campaign. He told the police that he would appreciate them talking to the Duffys and asking them to cease and desist, which the police said was reasonable.
Be sure to check out the whole story. It has all the drama you’d expect from a reality show. It’s also funny that public law enforcement got called to an anti-tax event.
Some are calling the right-wing hypocrisy over the weekend a bad case of spring fever. I think it’s just right-wing ridiculousness as usual.