President Obama has (once again) released his birth certificate.
Naturally there's still a segment of the population dumb enough to believe he wasn't born on American soil.
Video of one of the chief birther nut cases below.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Shilling To Face Kapanke In Upcoming Recall Election
She's currently serving her 5th term as the State Representative for the 95th Assembly District. I believe she's a wise choice to face and oust Dan Kapanke from office.
She has a website which can be located here. At this time it's a bare bones site with a home page, a bio page, and a contribute/volunteer page.
I'm hoping there are plans in the works to expand upon the website for maximum exposure and a great more detail. The use of social media will play a great part in this election, but not the only part.
A few of the things I'd like to see listed on the website are as follows:
1) Campaign headquarter address and phone number(s). While the use of social media is going to be crucial supporters need to know these things. There are people who don't have access to the internet/social networks and this information needs listed for people who can walk in from the street to donate time as volunteers as needed and for political contributions. Let us help get this information out to people who are not on the internet.
2) On the contribute/volunteer page the physical campaign address needs to be listed for people who would prefer to mail or drop off political contributions. We have a lot of national support and I believe more money would be obtained by showing where it can be sent. There is a significant portion of the population who hesitate to carry out financial transaction over a computer. (I'm actually one of those people.) The page also asks for volunteers, with what a person is willing to volunteer to do. The page should also show what the campaign needs people to volunteer for, rather than just simply asking for volunteers.
Money is going to be important. Corporations and outside GOP interests are going to pour money into keeping a walking and talking ethical violation in Dan Kapanke in office.
3) The website should have an events page showing where rallies and campaign activities are going to take place throughout the district.
4) Show us and keep us up to date on what activities in Jennifer's current job as the State Representative for the 95th Assembly District she's doing for the middle class in Wisconsin. List (hopefully upcoming) endorsements from teachers and media. Favorable press clippings and media stories should be prominently displayed on the website.
Jennifer is just ramping up her campaign right now. Perhaps many of the things listed above are in the works and intended to be shown. I'd certainly like to believe so anyway.
I also urge all supporters on Twitter to follow @jenshillingwi and also urge her campaign to consider the points I've listed above. We need detailed and up to date information at our disposal to help win this thing.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
We've Got To Get Better
Now that the furor is dying down, especially on Twitter, on the SC election process in Wisconsin we need to get our act(s) together. While engaging the trolls on Twitter is fun to some people it accomplishes very little, if anything, constructive.
We need to own the #wiunion hashtag. Or create another one to use to be successful in organization and communication efforts.
We need state democratic politicians active on Twitter. All of them. We need informed of their activities and needs to stop Walker and the GOP in the state.
We need democratic recall offices and representatives of those offices active on Twitter. We also need those offices creating blogs to keep their districts (and national supporters, for that matter) updated with current events and what they need to be successful.
The Kapanke and Hopper districts have successfully collected the necessary signatures to trigger recalls. How many people know now what these two districts need in the future without getting better organized and better communication from them? My guess is very few.
The districts struggling to collect the necessary recall signatures is unclear. Without better organization and communication we can't help them.
My one disappointment with the Kapanke recall staff was when asking them how we were doing during the recall effort was not getting an answer. The justification for this was it was a strategic maneuver. Part of me understood it at the time, but I'm pretty sure everyone understood what the strategy was and getting an answer wasn't going to hurt. The republicans know our strategy, hiding it is senseless.
As a matter of fact, the republicans aren't hiding their strategy. It's a full-on assault on the middle class with disinformation and corporate funds backing them up. Their agenda is rather transparent, and should be easy to fight if we get better organized and get our message out clearly, and relentlessly.
We also have democratic senators facing recall efforts as well. We need the local democratic offices in their districts active on Twitter and creating blogs to communicate their needs and activities.
The Prosser campaign outspent the Kloppenburg campaign two to one, with much of that money coming from out of state through corporations backing the Walker administration. They are going to keep pouring money into Wisconsin to fight the recalls of any and all Republican state senators.
We also have a lot of national support on our side and we're going to need it financially as well if we're going to counter the corporate onslaught of money.
We failed in our bid to get Kloppenburg elected, bottom line. I collected many Kapanke recall signatures last month. Many of the signatures were from people I personally know as neighbors, friends, relatives, and work. In talking to some of these very same people who are against what Walker and the GOP is doing in the state the past few days I know there are seven people who didn't even bother to vote on April 2nd. We, or I in this case, failed to get across to them the importance of the April 2nd election. I have a feeling many recall canvassers across the state would, and could, tell the same story.
What we've done hasn't been enough and has to improve if we're going to win. Communication and organization has to increase. This effort is only going to get harder and what we're doing (to date) is quite frankly inadequate. If nothing else the Prosser victory should have made this very clear to us. We've got to get better.
We need to own the #wiunion hashtag. Or create another one to use to be successful in organization and communication efforts.
We need state democratic politicians active on Twitter. All of them. We need informed of their activities and needs to stop Walker and the GOP in the state.
We need democratic recall offices and representatives of those offices active on Twitter. We also need those offices creating blogs to keep their districts (and national supporters, for that matter) updated with current events and what they need to be successful.
The Kapanke and Hopper districts have successfully collected the necessary signatures to trigger recalls. How many people know now what these two districts need in the future without getting better organized and better communication from them? My guess is very few.
The districts struggling to collect the necessary recall signatures is unclear. Without better organization and communication we can't help them.
My one disappointment with the Kapanke recall staff was when asking them how we were doing during the recall effort was not getting an answer. The justification for this was it was a strategic maneuver. Part of me understood it at the time, but I'm pretty sure everyone understood what the strategy was and getting an answer wasn't going to hurt. The republicans know our strategy, hiding it is senseless.
As a matter of fact, the republicans aren't hiding their strategy. It's a full-on assault on the middle class with disinformation and corporate funds backing them up. Their agenda is rather transparent, and should be easy to fight if we get better organized and get our message out clearly, and relentlessly.
We also have democratic senators facing recall efforts as well. We need the local democratic offices in their districts active on Twitter and creating blogs to communicate their needs and activities.
The Prosser campaign outspent the Kloppenburg campaign two to one, with much of that money coming from out of state through corporations backing the Walker administration. They are going to keep pouring money into Wisconsin to fight the recalls of any and all Republican state senators.
We also have a lot of national support on our side and we're going to need it financially as well if we're going to counter the corporate onslaught of money.
We failed in our bid to get Kloppenburg elected, bottom line. I collected many Kapanke recall signatures last month. Many of the signatures were from people I personally know as neighbors, friends, relatives, and work. In talking to some of these very same people who are against what Walker and the GOP is doing in the state the past few days I know there are seven people who didn't even bother to vote on April 2nd. We, or I in this case, failed to get across to them the importance of the April 2nd election. I have a feeling many recall canvassers across the state would, and could, tell the same story.
What we've done hasn't been enough and has to improve if we're going to win. Communication and organization has to increase. This effort is only going to get harder and what we're doing (to date) is quite frankly inadequate. If nothing else the Prosser victory should have made this very clear to us. We've got to get better.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
We Didn't Do Enough
We didn't do enough.
What we did was still a remarkable feat. We took a Supreme Court nominee, who seven weeks ago was trailing in the polls by as much as 30 percentage points to the brink of an unprecedented victory. While there will be legal challenges and recounts I suspect Prosser will ultimately retain his seat on the WI Supreme Court.
While the GOP and Tea Party goofs are busy reveling over this on social network sites, particularly Twitter, Kloppenburg supporters are naturally upset with the latest developments in the "lost and found" ballots out of Waukesha County.
While I'm as upset over this development as every Kloppenburg supporter is I'm already over it. I refuse to whine about it. I refuse to lower myself to the level of the vitriol being spewed by the Tea Party on Twitter. I refuse to engage them in any manner because this is one case where you can't fix/cure stupid. They've fully bought into the corporate propaganda and Faux News. They're nothing but mouthpieces intent on destroying the middle class, while handing our nation over to the corporations. The same corporations who torpedoed our economy with greed, tax breaks, and tax loopholes at the very expense of the middle class.
We put a helluva scare into the GOP, Koch Industries, as well as other corporations, and the Tea Party with this election despite their many claims to the contrary. They've now, at the very least, been put on notice.
The time for whining on Twitter is over.
We didn't do enough, and that's the bottom line. While our actions have certainly been a wake up call to the nation, we've got to wake up ourselves. Our resolve has to deepen. We have got to get more people involved. We've got to raise money to counter what the corporations are going to throw out to defend the very crooks we want out of office. We have to outwork the GOP.
If you truly want to win, you've got to get to work. We have too much at stake to lose. The fight is far from over, but the fight is going to get tougher. The onus is on us. Getting people to sign petitions is actually going to be the easiest part of the next phase. Countering GOP propaganda, money, and actually getting people to vote will be the taxing part of the job.
You can decide to work harder, or you can sit on Twitter whining. Twitter is by all means a useful medium to get pertinent information out, don't get me wrong. But why engage the Tea Party trolls? Get out and do something useful for the cause, then let us know what you did via Twitter. Counter the false talking points of the trolls without engaging them. Stick to the facts. Tea Party trolls cannot respond to them anyway.
In other words, get off your asses, and make a real difference. It's not going to get any easier.
I urge everyone to get involved in the recall efforts. Listed below are the offices around the state to get in contact with. Even if your district has collected the necessary signatures to trigger a recall election there is still work to do. The Kapanke and Hopper districts, at this point having the required signatures, still should be in contact with the recall offices to see what work needs to be done.
SD 2-Senator Cowles
Green Bay
1061 W. Mason Street
SD 8-Senator Darling
Menomonee Falls Office
N88 W16784 Main Street, Menomonee Falls
Mequon Mothers Against Darling (MMAD)
9641 North Valley Hill Drive, Mequon
SD 10-Senator Harsdorf
Menomonie - Weekends only
105 21st St. N
Sat 10 am – 5 pm
Sun 12 noon – 5 pm
River Falls Office
109 B N. Main St,
River Falls, WI 54022
Hudson Office
901 4th St, Suite 260
Hudson, WI 54016
SD 14-Senator Olsen
Portage
216 W Wisconsin St.
SD 18-Senator Hopper
Oshkosh
480 Main St.
Fond du Lac
21 N. Portland St.
SD 20-Senator Grothman
West Bend
411 N. River Road
SD 32-Senator Kapanke
La Crosse
116 5th Avenue South
What we did was still a remarkable feat. We took a Supreme Court nominee, who seven weeks ago was trailing in the polls by as much as 30 percentage points to the brink of an unprecedented victory. While there will be legal challenges and recounts I suspect Prosser will ultimately retain his seat on the WI Supreme Court.
While the GOP and Tea Party goofs are busy reveling over this on social network sites, particularly Twitter, Kloppenburg supporters are naturally upset with the latest developments in the "lost and found" ballots out of Waukesha County.
While I'm as upset over this development as every Kloppenburg supporter is I'm already over it. I refuse to whine about it. I refuse to lower myself to the level of the vitriol being spewed by the Tea Party on Twitter. I refuse to engage them in any manner because this is one case where you can't fix/cure stupid. They've fully bought into the corporate propaganda and Faux News. They're nothing but mouthpieces intent on destroying the middle class, while handing our nation over to the corporations. The same corporations who torpedoed our economy with greed, tax breaks, and tax loopholes at the very expense of the middle class.
We put a helluva scare into the GOP, Koch Industries, as well as other corporations, and the Tea Party with this election despite their many claims to the contrary. They've now, at the very least, been put on notice.
The time for whining on Twitter is over.
We didn't do enough, and that's the bottom line. While our actions have certainly been a wake up call to the nation, we've got to wake up ourselves. Our resolve has to deepen. We have got to get more people involved. We've got to raise money to counter what the corporations are going to throw out to defend the very crooks we want out of office. We have to outwork the GOP.
If you truly want to win, you've got to get to work. We have too much at stake to lose. The fight is far from over, but the fight is going to get tougher. The onus is on us. Getting people to sign petitions is actually going to be the easiest part of the next phase. Countering GOP propaganda, money, and actually getting people to vote will be the taxing part of the job.
You can decide to work harder, or you can sit on Twitter whining. Twitter is by all means a useful medium to get pertinent information out, don't get me wrong. But why engage the Tea Party trolls? Get out and do something useful for the cause, then let us know what you did via Twitter. Counter the false talking points of the trolls without engaging them. Stick to the facts. Tea Party trolls cannot respond to them anyway.
In other words, get off your asses, and make a real difference. It's not going to get any easier.
I urge everyone to get involved in the recall efforts. Listed below are the offices around the state to get in contact with. Even if your district has collected the necessary signatures to trigger a recall election there is still work to do. The Kapanke and Hopper districts, at this point having the required signatures, still should be in contact with the recall offices to see what work needs to be done.
SD 2-Senator Cowles
Green Bay
1061 W. Mason Street
SD 8-Senator Darling
Recall Alberta Darling Office
6807 North Green Bay Ave, Glendale, WI
Menomonee Falls Office
N88 W16784 Main Street, Menomonee Falls
Mequon Mothers Against Darling (MMAD)
9641 North Valley Hill Drive, Mequon
SD 10-Senator Harsdorf
Menomonie - Weekends only
105 21st St. N
Sat 10 am – 5 pm
Sun 12 noon – 5 pm
River Falls Office
109 B N. Main St,
River Falls, WI 54022
Hudson Office
901 4th St, Suite 260
Hudson, WI 54016
SD 14-Senator Olsen
Portage
216 W Wisconsin St.
SD 18-Senator Hopper
Oshkosh
480 Main St.
Fond du Lac
21 N. Portland St.
SD 20-Senator Grothman
West Bend
411 N. River Road
SD 32-Senator Kapanke
La Crosse
116 5th Avenue South
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Today Is The First Of Three Important Elections
Today we can send a message today to Scott Walker and the GOP of Wisconsin, and the nation for that matter.
My fervent hope is a Kloppenburg victory over Prosser for WI Supreme Court.
My day will begin about 8:00 am with voting myself, along with ensuring anyone who needs a ride to a polling location gets one. I, along with a few friends will be in public areas and businesses spreading the word to all we see out and about to vote. (At least until we're asked to leave said business areas, which we expect to happen, quite frankly.) But, we're going to do it, to get the word out. We're going to be working the phones as well.
Despite the support we've garnered Spring time elections are notorious for low voter turnout. While I believe the turnout will be higher than normal, will it be enough? Democrats have been notorious for lack of organization in the past when compared to republican efforts. I've seen a definite improvement with the issues we face in Wisconsin. I'm hoping it's enough.
No matter the outcome we'll still have much work to do. Today's vote and voter turnout will be an indication of how much work will be in store for us. Win or lose it's not over.
We still have 7 republican recall efforts to complete. We then have to pour our hearts, souls, and money into getting them out of office.
We still have a disgrace of a governor to recall next winter.
If we win today take a moment to celebrate and bask in the moment. But all we'll have is a moment, for the republicans will really ramp up efforts as we go on to the next process. There's going to be much to do to counter their efforts.
If we lose today don't let the result dishearten you. It'll be an indication of how hard this process truly is going to be. While my resolve is very strong my pledge, win or lose, is a resolve that will only get stronger.
We're right, Walker is wrong, no matter today's outcome. Even an ouster of Prosser will not sway Walker one bit. The key and ultimate victory is getting him and his ilk out of office and ensuring they never again get into office.
Simply put, we have much to do. It's not going to get any easier.
Get involved.
Stay involved.
Get Wisconsin back into the people's hands.
My fervent hope is a Kloppenburg victory over Prosser for WI Supreme Court.
My day will begin about 8:00 am with voting myself, along with ensuring anyone who needs a ride to a polling location gets one. I, along with a few friends will be in public areas and businesses spreading the word to all we see out and about to vote. (At least until we're asked to leave said business areas, which we expect to happen, quite frankly.) But, we're going to do it, to get the word out. We're going to be working the phones as well.
Despite the support we've garnered Spring time elections are notorious for low voter turnout. While I believe the turnout will be higher than normal, will it be enough? Democrats have been notorious for lack of organization in the past when compared to republican efforts. I've seen a definite improvement with the issues we face in Wisconsin. I'm hoping it's enough.
No matter the outcome we'll still have much work to do. Today's vote and voter turnout will be an indication of how much work will be in store for us. Win or lose it's not over.
We still have 7 republican recall efforts to complete. We then have to pour our hearts, souls, and money into getting them out of office.
We still have a disgrace of a governor to recall next winter.
If we win today take a moment to celebrate and bask in the moment. But all we'll have is a moment, for the republicans will really ramp up efforts as we go on to the next process. There's going to be much to do to counter their efforts.
If we lose today don't let the result dishearten you. It'll be an indication of how hard this process truly is going to be. While my resolve is very strong my pledge, win or lose, is a resolve that will only get stronger.
We're right, Walker is wrong, no matter today's outcome. Even an ouster of Prosser will not sway Walker one bit. The key and ultimate victory is getting him and his ilk out of office and ensuring they never again get into office.
Simply put, we have much to do. It's not going to get any easier.
Get involved.
Stay involved.
Get Wisconsin back into the people's hands.
Friday, April 1, 2011
One Step Closer
The necessary signatures to recall Dan Kapanke have been collected, by a wide margin. When I got involved in this I knew we had a good chance of getting the necessary signatures within the 60 day window required by law. What I didn't expect, at the onset, was that we'd get over 20,000 signatures within 30 days.
The dedication and fervor displayed by the people in La Crosse and neighboring towns was awesome and inspiring. Naturally, Dan Kapanke had a hand in this and made it easy for us.
This latest fiasco in Wisconsin to bust unions under the guise of budget cuts was the tipping point for us because Kapanke was a weak candidate in the first place. He had a cloud of ethic violations dating back to 2001 that when brought forward sealed the deal in many of our eyes.
Honestly, he should be in jail, not serving the people of Wisconsin as a legislator. In 2009 he violated open meeting rcords laws and Wisconsin taxpayers were on the hook for $38,000 dollars for his legal bills. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9/11/2009)
In 2010 he violated state ethic laws and used charitable funds controlled by his family to pay off personal business debts. Where I come from that's called theft. Kapanke even acknowledged that this was illegal, and yet still remained in office, and out of jail. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8/25/2010)
Who wants someone like this making budget decisions for taxpayers?
Back to the recall effort.
The volunteers who staffed the recall office and the volunteers who collected the signatures were single minded in the best course of action needed. While we supported the protests in Madison and the calls to boycott Koch industries, neither of these tactics gets the crooks out of office. Recall efforts were made the top priority. The best part of this was not one dime was paid for canvassing in this recall effort. This was all done by non-paid volunteers collecting the signatures.
Recall efforts have to be the top priority, not protests, nor boycotts. While acknowledging that Kapanke was one of the easiest targets for recall I want to challenge the people in the other districts to get out and get the remaining signatures required to ensure all eight republicans get recalled.
Protests and boycotts will not remove these parasites from office. Recall signatures must be collected as the first step. You can protest and boycott day after day and what good are those efforts if you don't have the signatures to recall them?
The passion of the protesters is admirable. But passion alone won't get results. It's time to prioritize the passion into logical and meaningful work. If the recall effort fails what good is protesting going to really do?
The dedication and fervor displayed by the people in La Crosse and neighboring towns was awesome and inspiring. Naturally, Dan Kapanke had a hand in this and made it easy for us.
This latest fiasco in Wisconsin to bust unions under the guise of budget cuts was the tipping point for us because Kapanke was a weak candidate in the first place. He had a cloud of ethic violations dating back to 2001 that when brought forward sealed the deal in many of our eyes.
Honestly, he should be in jail, not serving the people of Wisconsin as a legislator. In 2009 he violated open meeting rcords laws and Wisconsin taxpayers were on the hook for $38,000 dollars for his legal bills. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9/11/2009)
In 2010 he violated state ethic laws and used charitable funds controlled by his family to pay off personal business debts. Where I come from that's called theft. Kapanke even acknowledged that this was illegal, and yet still remained in office, and out of jail. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8/25/2010)
Who wants someone like this making budget decisions for taxpayers?
Back to the recall effort.
The volunteers who staffed the recall office and the volunteers who collected the signatures were single minded in the best course of action needed. While we supported the protests in Madison and the calls to boycott Koch industries, neither of these tactics gets the crooks out of office. Recall efforts were made the top priority. The best part of this was not one dime was paid for canvassing in this recall effort. This was all done by non-paid volunteers collecting the signatures.
Recall efforts have to be the top priority, not protests, nor boycotts. While acknowledging that Kapanke was one of the easiest targets for recall I want to challenge the people in the other districts to get out and get the remaining signatures required to ensure all eight republicans get recalled.
Protests and boycotts will not remove these parasites from office. Recall signatures must be collected as the first step. You can protest and boycott day after day and what good are those efforts if you don't have the signatures to recall them?
The passion of the protesters is admirable. But passion alone won't get results. It's time to prioritize the passion into logical and meaningful work. If the recall effort fails what good is protesting going to really do?
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