Anatomy of a Right-wing Smear Campaign, Volume One
On Tuesday, the community and labor group Wisconsin Jobs Now was cleared of wrongdoing during this summer's recall elections against Senate Republicans.
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Walker knowingly pushed “very questionable” jobs numbers
Announcing the best job numbers of his tenure with a splash last summer, Gov. Scott Walker left out the fact that his office had been told in an internal report that the monthly numbers were “very questionable” and “suspect.” The snapshot of jobs in the state is normally announced each month simply through a news […]
How financing a college education has changed at the expense of students
The lobbyists of the student loan industry have created a world in which freshman take on a lifetime of financial burden before they even start their life journey.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Existing districts appropriate for recalls
For pure political brazenness, the new legislative and congressional maps drawn by Republicans may be without parallel in Wisconsin.…Today’s topic is whether Republicans should now be allowed to change the rules so that their “new and improved” district maps can be used in the expected recall elections next year. We don’t think they should.…Republicans wrote […]
Gov. Scott Walker LOST 10,000 Wisconsin jobs, Illinois CREATED 30,000 jobs
Gov. Scott Walker and right-wing blogosphere have made a nemesis out of Illinois, citing its “job-killing” tax policy of actually ensuring corporations and the rich pay their fair share, compared to here in Wisconsin Walker and the GOP majority have handed out $2.3 billion in tax breaks to corporations and the rich. The numbers are […]
One Wisconsin Now Establishes $10,000 Reward Fund to Combat Recall Petition Attacks
In response to reports of alleged plans to illegally destroy recall petitions, One Wisconsin Now has established a $10,000 reward fund for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of any individual guilty of fraudulently destroying or defacing recall petitions from today until the end of the recall gathering process on January 14, 2012. […]
One Wisconsin Now issues Recall Petitioners’ Rights
CIRCULATING RECALL PETITION: To circulate a recall petition, you need to meet the qualifications of an elector in Wisconsin (citizen, 18 years or older, not a felon actively serving a sentence). To circulate a petition, however, you do not need to be a Wisconsin resident. SIGNING RECALL PETITION: To sign a recall petition, you must […]
Walker acknowledges his ‘reforms’ have hurt schools
Gov. Scott Walker would like to think that his agenda has been good for Wisconsin schools. He issued a release on Monday claiming just that. But as the Capital Times points out today, he is actually — and perhaps unknowingly — acknowledging that his reforms are not working for schools. Among the effects of Walker’s […]
Waukesha “education expert” in Walker ad had almost no experience
The ad features recently elected Waukesha School Board member Karin Sue Rajnicek praising Walker’s education reforms. … The head of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now, though, chided Walker’s team for using a political newcomer to praise Walker’s proposals. “It’s no surprise that someone from the most Republican part of Wisconsin, who is specifically opposed […]
Powerful GOP majority doesn’t create jobs bills, claims it was powerless
Wisconsin has a Republican governor, a Republican majority in the state Senate, and a Republican majority in the state Assembly, not to mention a conservative stronghold in the State Supreme Court. Yet, the GOP is claiming they are powerless to pass any key job creation legislation this session: Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow Republicans […]
Let’s #OccupyWalker
Scott Walker and Wall Street share a common agenda: destroy the middle class while protecting the interests of big corporations and the rich. But we’re fighting back. On Monday November 14, One Wisconsin Now will launch #OccupyWalker — an online movement to publicize the disastrous policies of the pro-corporate, anti-middle class Scott Walker administration. #OccupyWalker […]
Wisconsin schools reported huge losses in the aftermath of Walker, GOP budget
This map shows Wisconsin school districts that reported a net loss of teachers in the aftermath of the new state budget, according to results of a new study. [MJS]
Domino effect: Results in Ohio could spell trouble for Walker’s agenda
Gov. Scott Walker’s now denying the results in Ohio have any bearing on Wisconsin, but back in February when a prankster pretending to be David Koch called his phone, Walker spilled the beans about connecting with other anti-union, Republican governors: WALKER: That’s all they wanna talk is what are you doing to help in the […]
Tommy Thompson refuses to disclose big business, lobbyist connections
A new video highlights the fact that “Despite already declaring himself a candidate for Wisconsin’s open Senate seat, former Gov. Tommy Thompson has refused to disclose his business interests and lobbying firm clients to the state’s voters.” We took Thompson to task in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for just this reason: Thompson hasn’t had to disclose […]
Newspapers across WI pan Scott Walker’s special jobs session
Here are some clips from various newspapers criticizing Scott Walker and the GOP majority for refusing to do anything of substance about Wisconsin’s rising unemployment during their so-called special jobs session: From the Sheboygan Press: [T]he biggest news out of the session was the passage of the “castle” bill that gives presumed immunity to people who […]
GOP special jobs session about sex, guns, and landlords
While Republicans claim they’re focused “like a laser” on job creation during the so-called special jobs session, Zach at Blogging Blue has compiled a list of these bills pushed by Republicans. Ask yourself how many jobs each of these would create: Passed AB 69, a bill implementing the “Castle Doctrine” providing immunity to property owners […]
One Wis. Now Supporters Back to Skies Against Walker at Badger Game
With University of Wisconsin Badgers’ football returning to Camp Randall Saturday after a several week road trip, One Wisconsin Now supporters will also be returning to the skies above with a message about the failure of Gov. Scott Walker and its impact on students. This week’s banner that will fly overhead for the two hours preceding […]
Kentucky is Open for Business: WI to lose 165 manufacturing jobs
Perhaps hearing how serious the GOP isn’t about creating jobs during the so-called special jobs session, Dana Holding Corp., an auto parts manufacturer, is closing its doors and moving to Kentucky. The closure will take place at the end of next year or in early 2013, a company official said. It will result in the […]
Unearthed Walker video may stymie bigoted conservative agenda
The bigoted attitudes stirred up by a conservative think tank in September have apparently spilled over into November. With no real ideas on how to create jobs, Gov. Scott Walker’s Republican majority and Democrat Peggy Krusick turned to pushing archaic legislation one would expect from the deep south: a bill that would “remove race as one factor for […]
Walker’s GOP nixes cameras in Capitol, OKs guns [Really?]
The Green Bay Press-Gazette has taken to the editorial page to air a grievance with the Republican majority deciding that the public cannot bring cameras into the legislative galleries, but will allow guns: Both the Assembly and Senate have maintained rules that prohibit the use of cameras, cell phones and video equipment in the public […]
Lazich voted for to kill notary requirement she now wants for Walker recall
When it comes to sheer partisan hackery, there is no substitute for GOP Sen. Mary Lazich of New Berlin. Lazich, an author of the Jim Crow-era voter suppression ID bill, has now dumped a slew of sleazy legislations to try and save Gov. Scott Walker and the razor-thin Republican Senate majority. And now it’s requiring […]
Scott Walker’s Raise in Compensation is Undeserved
Gov. Scott Walker’s track record of pandering to corporate elites, instead of the wishes of Wisconsinites shows the hypocrisy in accepting a raise.
Koch group selling Walker agenda ahead of recall
Koch Industries and its front group Americans for Prosperity spent roughly a million dollars helping to put Scott Walker in the governor’s mansion and another half a million dollars protecting his recalled state senators. Now, Koch’s AFP and their sister organization the MacIver Institute are teaming up to help Scott Walker yet again. Just in time […]
Oshkosh Northwestern: Walker’s corporate special interest session NOT about jobs
Make no mistake: Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP majority’s corporate special interest session is not about jobs. The Oshkosh Northwestern editorialized against their backward agenda, writing “Looks like the only thing harder to find than a job in Wisconsin is a jobs bill during the legislature’s special session on jobs.” Take a look at the […]
Report: Walker will FAIL to meet job creation campaign promise
An economic forecast by Gov. Scott Walker’s own administration predicts that Wisconsin will fall far short of adding the 250,000 new private-sector jobs by 2015 that the governor promised as a key part of his successful election campaign. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, not only because Gov. Scott Walker has broken campaign promises […]
Walker pulling out health care safety net from hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites
Despite claiming to keep a basic safety net for low-income families for health insurance through the state’s popular BadgerCare program, around 215,000 children and adults will likely see a steep reduction in the health care services they’re currently able to get. Now keep in mind, BadgerCare only provides basic health services – services to help people […]
Wisconsin From A-Zia: Walker Cuts to UW System Top $300 Million
Cuts are happening right and left in the state of Wisconsin, and the UW system is getting hit especially hard. Between 2011-2013 Walker will force the UW system to cut $65.8 million, and this does not include the $250 million base budget reduction. Overall, there will be about $300 million worth of cuts to the […]
Student Loan Debt to Hit $1 TRILLION
With each passing day the student loan debt total creeps closer and closer to exceeding the $1 trillion dollar mark.
WI From A-Zia: How to avoid keeping campaign promises, a lesson from Gov. Scott Walker
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to any Wisconsinite that Governor Scott Walker has issues fulfilling his campaign promises. One of Scott Walker’s many campaign promises was that he and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch would pay their state pensions in full immediately upon taking office: “As governor, I’ll pay my share toward my retirement […]
Tommy Thompson campaign won’t cut lobbyist connections
Thompson, who has a host of consulting and other business relationships, told reporters he would sever or suspend some of those financial ties as he ran for Senate, but he declined to elaborate. Thompson hasn’t had to disclose his financial interests yet in federal candidate filings. But groups like the liberal One Wisconsin Now were […]
Corporate lackeys rush to defend trillion-dollar student loan debt
Over the weekend, our “$1,000,000,000,000 IN STUDENT LOAN DEBT – BIG BANKS STOLE OUR FUTURE” banner at the Occupy Milwaukee event was featured in a photo in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Not too long after, corporate mouthpiece Charlie Sykes sent marching orders to right-wing bloggers across the state, all to defend the big banking industry […]
Bill to repeal Healthy Youth Act is latest attack on children and schools
On Wednesday October 19th, Walker’s Legislature will hold a hearing on a Bill to Repeal the Healthy Youth Act. Just one more attack on Wisconsin children and schools. The Healthy Youth Act provides for sex-education in the classrooms and has contributed to lowering teen pregnancy in Wisconsin to the lowest it has been since the […]
Is Walker afraid that public jobs summits would get “Occupied?”
After charging the “public” $50 to hear what he has to say about job creation in Green Bay, holding small invitation-only events in La Crosse and Milwaukee, and hosting a “job creation forum” at the University of Wisconsin Research Park MGE Innovation Center (which apparently is so private it’s not even listed on the UW Research […]
No Humanity in Family Care Cap Freeze
Talk about despicable. Family Care provides critical assistance to approximately 35,000. Scott Walker, however, is more concerned with the taking away of collective bargaining rights and his upcoming recall than the livelihoods of people with disabilities. Walker’s proposed July freeze on Family Care enrollment illustrates just how callous he is. This freeze does nothing more […]
GOP hypocrisy, caving to gun manufacturing lobby in current concealed carry dust-up
It started with JB Van Hollen’s epic cave in the face of pressure from the gun manufacturing lobby attacking plan to require actual training in order to get a concealed carry permit. But always the wily veterans, Scott and Jeff Fitzgerald took the hypocrisy to a new level this week, telling reporters that not […]
Van Hollen’s Gun Bravery From Behind Locked Doors, Guarded Office
Time and again, scion to a Republican fortune and our state’s Attorney General JB “John Noe” Van Hollen has proven he is a partisan hack instead of the state’s top cop. Van Hollen is the perfect Roscoe P. Coltrane to Scott Walker’s corrupt Boss Hogg. Van Hollen refused to join the John Doe investigation of […]
PBM Takeover
Here’s something to consider when it comes to consolidation and access to health care. Take a look at those who process your medicinal orders and who you may depend on for your mail order prescriptions. Pharmacy Benefit Managers, or PBMs, are the third party supervisors that manage our prescription plans. They are an integral part […]
Legislature to Debate Vouchers: A Cornerstone of Walker’s Strategy to Privatize Schools
A Committee of the WI State Senate will meet Wednesday Oct 5 to discuss a proposal which would prohibit further expansion of school vouchers. The move is a response by a bi-partisan group of Senators to stem the advance of the school voucher program. The existing Milwaukee school voucher program was expanded from Milwaukee to Racine […]
Dem proposal would STOP Walker ending health care for 53,000
Delegating power back to the Legislature away from Gov. Scott Walker and ensure 53,000 Wisconsinites don’t lose access to health care? Sounds like a good plan to me: A group of Democratic lawmakers is trying to roll back state law to a time when the Legislature decided all major cuts to Wisconsin’s health care programs. […]
Report: GOP voter ID laws disenfranchise five MILLION
A new report from the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice reveals that more than five million U.S. citizens could be impacted by the wave of new voter laws passed over the last year. When it comes to Voter I.D. laws, such as the one passed in Wisconsin, the report says […]
One WI Now’s ‘RecallScottWalker.org’ Flies High Over Camp Randall
Thanks to the generosity of the online supporters of One Wisconsin Now, Badger faithful, Nebraska fans and Gov. Scott Walker were treated to this banner, which flew above Camp Randall for several hours preceding Saturday’s nationally-televised game. We’ll have video later, but here’s a picture of the banner — which turned out to be one […]
Walker scheme to charge public $50 to hear his job ideas rated TRUE
We stand by all our statements and research, but if you really needed third-party validation, here’s Politifact rating True our statement from a few weeks ago criticizing Gov. Scott Walker for charging the public $50 to hear his job ideas: Gov. Scott Walker tried to take the edge off the latest dreary employment report — issued […]
Big biz finally ADMITS use of extreme tax-avoidance techniques
From the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future “Who Does Not Pay Taxes”: It took awhile, but SC Johnson (SCJ) eventually fessed up to its tax-avoidance schemes. It started when the last issue of this publication disclosed that SCJ paid no state income tax in 2000-2008. This prompted an SCJ insider to release a secret tax-avoidance report […]
Republican Rep. Ribble hasn’t voted in WI since his election
It’s bad enough Republican Reid Ribble doesn’t even live in the district he represents, now we’re finding out he doesn’t even vote. But Rep. Ribble makes it unclear as to whether it’s DC’s fault or his staffers’ fault: Ribble blamed the April 5 voting oversight on his “hectic lifestyle” in Washington, where he sits on the […]
WRTL under investigation for recall GOTV bribery
From Dan Bice at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Details of the secret investigation are sketchy, but it is clear the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office is investigating charges that Wisconsin Right to Life offered rewards for volunteers who signed up sympathetic voters in the recall races. Several people familiar with the investigation said subpoenas were […]
Something stinks: New ‘Cronygate’ details emerge over the weekend
New details surrounding Gov. Scott Walker’s Cronygate have emerged in the last few days. First, there was this from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Three days after Cindy Archer was to have started her job as the legislative liaison at the state Department of Children and Families – and while she was already being paid sick […]
Homegrown’ Tommy! Ad Busted By Fake ‘Teacher’
Tommy! Thompson. Homegrown. Wisconsin. Whatever Tommy! is going to do in the U.S. Senate race, he’s now launched out some slickly-produced interwebs ad. It’s chock full of claims, quick edits and the latest technology to make the near-septuagenarian the voice of the future. What we also noticed in the video at 28 seconds and 1:15, […]
Outside Scott Walker’s mansion last night. WHAT THE…
One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross was outside Scott Walker’s mansion last night getting the inside scoop at the Governor’s Wine & Wickets fundraiser. Scot was a little disgusted at what he saw, to say the least. In between his live-tweets, he sent this email from his Blackberry at about 7pm last night: Hey— […]
Analysis: Lowest-paid state workers get hit HARDEST
A new analysis shows just lower-paid state workers will have to contribute a higher percentage of their salary to comply with a new state law raising pension and health care costs. It shows that a state worker earning $25,000 a year will see their total pension and health care costs increase from 4.5 percent of […]
FLASHBACK: Darling couldn’t name one job created in her district
The unemployment crisis in our state needs no introduction. The fact that Wisconsin has lost nearly 14,000 jobs over the last two months and unemployment has risen from 7.4% to 7.9% is very well known. The dismal economic situation of the state is not lost on anyone; however, some of our states leadership seems to […]