Wisconsin Updates

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Debcat
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Post by Debcat » 05-28-2011 12:46 PM

FWIW I posted this on a local forum - BTW I am not a "they," and I don't speak for "they."

***
I volunteered as a Klop observer in one of the counties that did an AWESOME job with their election and recount processes ... and I'd agree with the article except for a few things....

It was not just the "one stunning clerical error" that happened in Waukesha County. It was a whole chronic history of questionable behavior on the part of Kathy Nickolaus that came to light and heightened suspicions to the point where further investigation was warranted. At worst, the woman (may have) committed fraud, at best - dereliction of duty. ("incompetence" is too kind a word, as she had been informed by auditors in the past what were correct procedures and she chose to flaunt them.)

If (notice the word “IF”) Kloppenburg has any evidence that fraud may have been committed then this needs to be pursued and “get over it” would NOT be the appropriate response. The many opened bags & chain of custody malfunctions found in Waukesha Co. are suspicious but do not in themselves prove fraud. My understanding from talking to the fantastically knowledgeable election officials at the county where I was - recount procedure is NOT the venue for proving or disproving fraud, and that this would have to happen as a formal fraud investigation.

I was really glad to learn that so many counties appear to be doing a stellar job. Many or most counties did have glitches here and there but not on the scale of Waukesha Co. Now we can see clearly what constitutes normal “human error” VS. a chronic history of unacceptable behavior on the part of the county clerk. My understanding is that there is indeed some minimal competence standards required of people in this position and my hope is that this all will provide some leverage to get that county to clean up its act.

So yes, I do support continuing to pursue further investigation, IF warranted. (Again, notice the “if” before you jump all over me.) But no, I don’t support hanging it up in court as a purely political maneuver. No, I’ll even go so far as to say I OPPOSE that.

Hope you black-white, either-or thinkers can get your head around THAT.

And I hope you folks who post on Madison.com all day managed to find some time to get away from the computer and volunteer with either the Klop or Prosser folks, pick your poison. It was a worthwhile experience, if only to interact with some conservative folks in a less vitriolic way. At least that's how it was in Racine county...
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Post by Debcat » 06-04-2011 10:18 AM

You do know that this is the same Govt Accountability Board that last week certified Prosser and scolded Kloppenburg for stating there "couldve been fraud"? And who took a quick look at what Kath Nickolaus did in Waukesha and shrugged it off and said it was OK?? Same board, same Kevin Kennedy, same everything.

Besides - the sheer quantity of challenges and 200 allegations of fraud is what's slowing it down. They dont say in the article but there's many thousands of challenges per petition, compared to a few hundred for the ones against the repubs.

It's the Repubs own darned fault for outsourcing and hiring out-of-staters to collect the sigs for dirt cheap. You get what you pay for! Shoulda paid a decent, union-scale wage and hired actual Wisconsinites. I'm serious! They paid these folks per signature - now there's an ethics problem waiting to happen.

And now you know the rest of the story. Good day.

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Post by Shazam » 06-15-2011 08:24 PM

WI Supreme Court Over turns lower court.....HAHAHA love it

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Post by Patty » 06-16-2011 03:45 PM

HB3 wrote: I don't think giving up territory in the US is a good idea...as you indicate, that will simply prolong the problem. California may well need an "intervention" from the rest of the country, though....;)
Yes! Can we include Oregon in that intervention? (or at least a couple of the larger cities! ;) ) :coolhat:

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Kaztronic
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Post by Kaztronic » 08-10-2011 12:27 AM

HB3 wrote:

Fortunately, the Democrats and unions already have an excuse for this...are you ready?

Voter fraud!


Now that's a surprise.

It is amazing how that seems to happen every single time.
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Post by SquidInk » 08-10-2011 09:32 AM

Voter fraud?

Yeah -- it happens. Every single time. It happened this time too.

One word -- 'gerrymander'. That's just a stinking example of institutionalized fraud. Every season brings untold instances of localized, ad hoc frauds.

However, everybody everywhere knows voting has become a kind of sick joke, although some pretend it's not so. The true political calculation is to determine whether or not a candidate gains an advantage by mentioning the fraudulent behavior, or concealing it.

It's another tool in the arsenal arrayed against 'liberty' in 'the greatest democracy the world has ever known'.
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Post by SquidInk » 08-10-2011 12:25 PM

I suspect the same, at least over the last 30 years or so. I tend to believe it's because within that time frame, the democrats have lost more often. It's usually the losing side which will find it useful to reveal the ever-present fraud, in order to taint the victory of the opponent.

We live in a mass marketed, soundbite driven world -- if the peeps hear 'fraud' + 'candidate x' on the TV, their perceptions shift.

But the key thing to remember is the fraud is rampant, its only talked about when the results of talking about are predictably favorable to one of the two parties, and it's institutional.

[:D ]
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Post by SquidInk » 08-10-2011 01:05 PM

WASHINGTON — In 2006, conservative activists repeatedly claimed that the problem of people casting fraudulent votes was so widespread that it was corrupting the political process and possibly costing their candidates victories.

That debate is flaring anew.

Tea Party members have started challenging voter registration applications and have announced plans to question individual voters at the polls whom they suspect of being ineligible.

[...]

Voter fraud and voter-registration fraud are, of course, different.- source


Purely partisan -- the loser cries fraud, or more accurately, the loser unwisely tries to reveal some fraction of the systemic fraud in a moment of desperation.

I don't even have to reset the 2000 & 2004 'elections', with all of the 'fraud' allegations put forth by democrats.

Oh, and of course 'voter fraud' & 'voter-registration fraud' are *totally* different.

Roflmao! Who believes in this stuff anymore?
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Post by Kaztronic » 08-10-2011 02:28 PM

The only real voter fraud I see here are the recall elections themselves.

In my opinion, the Wisconsin recalls set a dangerous and very troubling precedent.

A recall election is something that should be used as a last ditch effort by the public to oust a politician who has in some extreme way failed to fulfill the obligations of the office they were elected to. It should have overwhelming public support, and should be as rare as impeachment.

In this case, we have a political party bringing about six recall elections so that they can fulfill their own political ambition to take over control of a governing body outside of scheduled election cycles, subverting the will of voters who elected these people in to office in the first place.

The Republican politicians being recalled made an aggressive/controversial move in taking on a massive special interest group closely aligned with Democrats, public sector unions. These unions operate in the political arena very similarly to major corporations, buying politicians and throwing their muscle around to manipulate legislation. It's not really a question of whether you support unions or not, and this is not intended as an attack on unions, merely a statement of fact that just cannot be dismissed.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I firmly support the rights and protections of private sector unions (although I would not belong to one under any circumstance - I do think their should be more of them though and support that concept). But I completely oppose collective bargaining rights for public sector unions given conflicts of interests brought about by a lack of obvious and logical campaign contribution laws in this country that leave politicians compromised when dealing with both unions and corporations while charged with representing all tax-payers. Take both corporate, and union dollars out of elections and I'll reconsider that stance.

Seizing upon a deeply unpopular decision by their political opponents, and at the urging of a major political contributor, the Democrats used recall elections in an effort to regain legislative control after having lost an election. In my opinion, they did this at the behest of special interest organizations with deep pockets. We know for a fact that the recall elections were driven by millions upon millions of special interest dollars pouring in from both sides. This type of action BEGS for a tit-for-tat approach from the Republicans in the future, and lo and behold, we have two Democrats facing a recall election in Wisconsin next Tuesday.

Recall elections should be a very rare occurence, only taking place under the most extreme circumstances where an overwhelming majority feel the need to remove a specific politican from office due to factors that find the office improperly served. Factors such as scandals, criminal matters, incompetence, gross negligence, etc..... It should NEVER be used to further partisan interests, and should NEVER be used at the behest of special interest organizations of ANY kind.

Politicians are elected to office with the expectation of the voters that they will serve at least one full term - for better, or for worse. If the public is dissatisfied with the results, our system is designed with the expectation that they can (and should) be voted out of office during the next regularly scheduled election cycle.

Any deviation from that cycle absolutely must take place only under exceptional circumstances in order to preserve the will of the voters during an election, and to preserve the powers of the office itself.

8 recall elections in the space of 1 week in 1 state does not qualify as rare (not including the 1 recall vote that had already taken place). Further, the results of the election clearly do NOT validate the idea that their was overwhelming public support to remove these politicians from office, the results were actually quite close - further underscoring the reality of the recall election being used to further partisan political interests.

The reality that these Wisconsin recall elections will have a further chilling effect upon the already difficult idea of a politician taking on, or casting a vote against a firmly entrenched political donor of either one's own party, and now even of the opposing party is a given - and that is a truly bad thing for this country. The true victors of these recall elections are not Republicans, not Democrats - and certainly not "We The People". The real victors are political donors who are clearly further empowered by this cynical ploy to pervert justly won elections.

We need to understand that this is clearly not an example of people power as the elections were close, and that was quite obviously not the real message sent to office-holders anyway. No, this was an example of dollar power, and we can be sure that politicians have further taken note of this new element of that pre-existing reality.

Democrats and their supporters must realize that they have not only neutered Republicans here, they have neutered themselves as well. They have set a precedent, and are now subject to the law of physics that states for each and every action, their is an equal and opposite reaction. That is not a good thing. That they did it while further empowering major political donors makes it that much worse, because we can be sure that while the supporters of these recalls didn't receive dollars for taking on these recalls - the politicians certainly did.
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Post by Patty » 08-10-2011 10:15 PM

Kaztronic wrote:

A recall election is something that should be used as a last ditch effort by the public to oust a politician who has in some extreme way failed to fulfill the obligations of the office they were elected to. It should have overwhelming public support, and should be as rare as impeachment.
I totally agree. :cool:

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Post by Cherry Kelly » 12-28-2011 01:00 PM

Actually listened to Rush - well guest host - who had interview with WI governor.

It seems the unions are PO'd because NOW they have to actually PAY for some of their own health insurance, PAY for some of their own retirement.

Noted and probably not quoting exactly - but he said that many of the counties, cities are in better financial shape than they were and have actually lowered property taxes.

AND they want to recall the governor?? I'd say we should impost the same on our Congress (fed) and maybe all states gov'ts.

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Post by voguy » 12-28-2011 05:59 PM

Cherry Kelly wrote: It seems the unions are PO'd because NOW they have to actually PAY for some of their own health insurance, PAY for some of their own retirement.


Stray Dog Theory at work. :D
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Post by Diogenes » 12-28-2011 10:19 PM

Cherry Kelly wrote: Actually listened to Rush - well guest host - who had interview with WI governor.

It seems the unions are PO'd because NOW they have to actually PAY for some of their own health insurance, PAY for some of their own retirement.

Noted and probably not quoting exactly - but he said that many of the counties, cities are in better financial shape than they were and have actually lowered property taxes.

AND they want to recall the governor?? I'd say we should impost the same on our Congress (fed) and maybe all states gov'ts.


I must admit I boil when I hear union folks - from the teachers to the grocdery store clerks - complain about the pittance they are asked to contribute to their health care. The teachers in California a while back actually brought students, young children out on the trail with them to hold up signs, etc.

These people babied and cradled by the unions relative to being asked to contribute "something" for their health care, retirement, have no sympathy from me.

They have no clue relative to the real world and the private sector.
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Post by Raggedyann » 12-29-2011 01:41 AM

Diogenes wrote: They have no clue relative to the real world and the private sector.

They do know and that's why they are trying to hang to what they've got.
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Post by Cherry Kelly » 12-29-2011 10:18 AM

Diogenes - They do not get sympathy from me either. AND yes I have several teachers in my family and groups of friends. Fact is - when chatting with them from other states - they all said HUH to the WI teachers as they pay into health and retirement where they are located.

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