Fraley's fix = FAIL

by folkbum

Yesterday, I posted about GOPerative Brian Fraley's posting of a Communist party rant and attributing it to Barack Obama. I gave Fraley the benefit of the doubt that he had been duped, though I think we all knew he wasn't. But I gave him an out if he wanted it.

Instead, he updated his post this morning:

I tried to bait Obama supporters to show their blind allegiance to The One. [. . .] I had even held all comments so that no one could ‘warn’ folks that the quote was indeed from the CUSA site. [. . .] Alas, no takers on the bait.

Yes, how sad for him that Democrats are not as stupid as he thinks we might be.

But Fraley's excuse for his behavior is worse:

Obama’s interaction with Joe the Plumber was quite revealing to many who hadn’t examined the Obama economic plan to date. He believes in establishing a new welfare state, to be ‘fair’ and redistribute wealth (Spread the wealth around), including taking Joe’s would-be income to provide income tax ‘credits’ to those who pay no income taxes.

Each according to his abilities to each according to his needs, right? Fight on Comrades!

The problem, of course, is that Barack Obama said no such thing to Joe the Plumber. The miracle of taking things out of context has provided endless bounty for Republicans during this campaign, and Fraley is its beneficiary now. Hilzoy provides the actual transcript of Obama with our new idol Joe:

My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. If you've got a plumbing business, you're going to be better off if you've got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody's so pinched that business is bad for everybody, and I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody.

Yes, the phrase "spread the wealth around" does appear in what Obama said, but you have to excise the context and twist Obama's meaning to get anything Communist (or communist) out of that. Nowhere does Obama say he will "establish a new welfare state" or do anything to "redistribute wealth." Indeed, it is clear that Obama is supporting the idea of a strong economy for all, not just a strong economy for the wealthy (which is, after all, what we've had for the last 30 years). When more people can afford to hire Joe the Plumber (once he gets that pesky plumbing license), Joe the Plumber will have a better life for himself. That's "spreading the wealth around."

If Fraley has a problem with a strong economy at all levels (or if Fraley has a problem with reading comprehension), then that's his problem, and no amount of trying to "trap" anyone will make up for it.

Fraley's Daily Forwards, Redux

by folkbum

When last (well, first) we played this game, Brian Fraley, who has had his fingers in all kinds of Wisconsin GOP pies and currently hosts a bunch if WILFs, had mindlessly applied a right-wing forwarded email as a "daily take" of his, seemingly passing it off as his own research.

Today, I was alerted by an astute but pseudonymous tipster that Fraley seems once again to be playing the post-an-email-forward game*. Fraley writes,

Attention Obamaniacs: Please, read this latest Obama missive and tell me that I’m wrong. Because, when I read this I see, not only a socialist, but a Communist.

Laying down the gauntlet, he is, demanding that we pro-Obama forces read and then defend the "latest Obama missive" from charges of Communism.

Now, I'm on the Obama email list, and, while I don't read every single one of those emails all the way through, I have a pretty good sense of both how Obama writes and what kinds of policies Obama supports. And Obama is certainly no Communist. Yet here, in part, is what Fraley attributes to Obama--without a link of any kind, of course:

In the longer term, what is required is a new model of economic governance at the state and corporate level. By that I mean a reconfiguring of the role and functions of government and corporations so that they favor working people, the racially and nationally oppressed, women, youth and other social groupings. [. . .]

In my view, such a model should draw from the New Deal experience, but in the end it has to be shaped in the first place by today’s conditions and requirements for political and economic advance for our nation’s working people and oppressed people, broadly defined. It won’t be socialist, but it would challenge the power and practices of the agents of capitalism, insist on peace and equality, consider public takeover of our energy and financial complex, and de-militarize and green our economy and society.

I have never heard Obama call for a takeover of any "complex" of any kind. Obama does not use rhetoric like "oppressed people" or "agents of capitalism." This smells bad for Fraley.

So I grabbed a sentence from the bit that he posted, and googled it. The first hit? Communist Party USA. Right after the title of the article, "OPINION: Finances and the current crisis: How did we get here and what is the way out? Part 2," there's a byline--"Author: Sam Webb, National Chair."

That's right: Fraley has attributed an opinion piece written by the national chair of the American Communist Party. No wonder Fraley says he sees a Communist as the author of the piece--the author is a Communist! But the author is not Barack Obama.

No doubt--because I do not believe Brian Fraley is so malicious that he would concoct this lie himself--he got one of those ubiquitous email forwards claiming "OMG! Look what Obama's campaign just mailed to supporters! Obama's a Communist!" And, rather than do the simple work of googling the piece and seeing that, indeed, Obama was not the author, Brian just plows right into the smear on his blog. He demands that someone come in and defend Obama for writing something that Obama did not and would not write.

The best part, of course, is that Fraley ends his post with "Why is my take wrong? [. . .] Your forum. Go for it." It's the best part because, if you leave a comment to tell him why his take is wrong, it goes off into the ether somewhere to await moderation without so much as a notice that moderation is even enabled. "Our forum" seems nothing of the sort.

* NOTE: The post-somebody-else's-work game is not unique to Brian, and it is normally not worth commenting upon, as everyone does it all the time. My complaint here is not that this is what he's done, but rather the laziness or willful ignorance that led him to post the specific content that he did.

I guess the "professionals" were right--Obama can't win Ohio

by folkbum

Oh, wait, yes he can. In spades.

Where are the concern trolls "professionals" now?

by folkbum

Two weeks ago, after the Pennsylvania primary, the "professional" Brian Fraley wrote that it was all over for Barack Obama because "[b]lue collar white catholic swing voters, who may have been warming up to [Barack] Obama at one point, are running away from him in droves."

Let's look at Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, shall we?
White Obama Clinton
OH     34%    64%
PA     37%    63%
IN     40%    60%

Cath. Obama Clinton
OH     36%    63%
PA     30%    70%
IN     41%    59%

<$50k Obama Clinton
OH     42%    56%
PA     46%    54%
IN     50%    50%

Running away in droves my foot. And, no, Obama didn't win clear majorities in these categories; but the predicted collapse didn't happen in PA and it didn't happen last night, either.

Leave it to the professionals, indeed

by folkbum

When Brian Fraley wrote that "Blue collar white catholic swing voters, who may have been warming up to [Barack] Obama at one point, are running away from him in droves," and I calmly pointed to the exit-poll data to show where that was wrong, he eventually resorted to a sad kind of argument from authority:

Jay, I realize that while I’ve only been doing this for 16 years, you teach in MPS and stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but let me try to explain.

First of all, Fraley should know that a teacher's salary cannot provide posh Holiday Inn Express kinds of lodgings--more like Motel 3-and-a-half. Second of all, he never answered my questions, which were simple and direct. What evidence did he have that these voters were leaving Obama, let alone "in droves"? Why was he not making a similar argument about Hillary Clinton, that black voters were "leaving" her "in droves"?

I mean, she lost the "black vote," if you want to call it that, by far more than Obama lost the "white vote." Obama won 90% of blacks and Clinton won only 63% of whites. (In Ohio, Obama won only 87% of black voters--clearly they are "running" away from Clinton!)

As I said, Fraley could not answer the question except to pat me on the head (electronically) and to say, "Trust me, I'm the professional." This was a theme picked up on by an ex-professional, James the Son of Wigder, in a post he actually had the nerve to title "Some things are best left to professionals":

I was really laughing when I saw Brian Fraley's response to an attempt by Jay "folkbum" Bullock to spin Pennsylvania for his candidate.

Wigderson did not read very carefully, since he didn't catch, apparently, that Obama was not "my candidate." He also didn't bother to offer an answer to my questions, either, or to explain to me how Fraley's statement that "blue collar white catholic swing voters [. . .] are running away from [Obama] in droves" was anything approximating the truth. Neither could say anything more than that Obama had lost a state primary that he was never predicted win, and that he lost constituencies in that primary that he was never predicted to win. And yet, somehow, that's the equivalent of voters "running away from him in droves."

Thick as thieves, these "professionals."

So let me offer a counter argument from authority, from the "professionals" at Real Clear Politics, who, more than anyone else out there, are providing thorough and invigorating coverage of the primary. Their numbers are cited far more often than just about anyone else's when it comes to primary and delegate analysis. Here's the "professional":

We might expect Obama to have improved relative to Ohio in the southeast [of Pennsylvania, the Philly area]. However, this does not appear to have been the case. When we control for race, income, and age, we get roughly the same results in Ohio and southeast Pennsylvania. The same goes for southwest Pennsylvania [Pittsburgh].

What is significant is the variable that captures counties in central Pennsylvania. This was surprising. The model indicates that, controlling for race, income, and age, Obama performed better in central Pennsylvania than he did in Ohio. Additionally, there is a modest statistical significance to the variables for the northeast and northwest segments of the state. However, when we use a more expansive definition of central Pennsylvania, re-classifying the counties in the northeast and northwest segments that abut the center segment as part of the center, this significance washes away.

What is the upshot of this? Obama did not improve relative to Ohio in Erie, Pittsburgh, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, or even Philadelphia. However, he did improve in the "Middle T" of the state. This improvement was not puny. [. . .]

This is not to imply that he did particularly well in central PA. Clinton still won the counties by an average of 25 points. The point is that, if this area were behaving like Ohio or the rest of Pennsylvania, she would have won them by something closer to 33 points.

That is nothing close to "running away from [Obama] in droves." Obama did better in Pennsylvania than he did in Ohio, almost completely across the board, even in demo- and geographical areas of Clinton's strength. But the McCain voters out there like Fraley and Wigderson--knowing, perhaps, that their guy runs really, really weak against Obama in places like Wisconsin--have to do everything they can to cut Obama down, even if it means fudging the truth.

Yeah, because when I want cogent commentary on the Democratic primary, I'll ask a Republican. Whatev.

by folkbum

There's nothing quite so insulting as what we in the business call a "concern troll." They're everywhere, these days, even if they don't know what they're doing, talking about Democrats and the nomination process. Just trolling away, sounding quite, quite sincere in their wish for the Democrats to nominate someone who can win in November. Who are these people?

McCain voters.

I know, I know, it doesn't compute on its face, or even, for that matter, several dense troll-packed layers down. What possible reason could Republican, conservative, McCain-voting bloggers have for tsk-tsking the Democrats over our rush to nominate Barack Obama, whom they see as the weaker candidate against McCain? Well, it's the same reason why the Republicans are planning to air some pretty ugly ads against only Obama--not Hillary Clinton: Obama is the presumptive nominee (no matter what Clinton thinks) and, frankly, they're scared pantsless of how bad for their side a McCain-Obama race would turn out.

Maybe not all of them got a memo, no. But you can bet it's the talking-point of the rightward set, circulated at all levels and bubbling forth in public for consumption from a number of otherwise-reasonable people.

Exhibit A would be Rick Esenberg. He sidled into concern troll mode with a post early election morn, wondering, goshdarnit, what's making it so hard for that nice man to seal the deal with Democrats?

But don't Democrats have to be worried about a guy who can't put away such an empty suit? And no matter what the polls say about a race that hasn't started, it's hard not to conclude that Obama has left folks in places like Pennsylvania and Ohio unimpressed. You can make a fairly strong argument that, for a Democrat to win, Pennsylvania shouldn't even be in play. How do you get to 270 if, after McCain actually campaigns there, it's in the GOP column?

So many breathless questions, so much concern trolling. If there were a concern troll scale--like, say, the Richter Scale, or the Manly Scale of Absolute Gender--this would be peaking at a fairly solid 6 or 6.5, starting, of course, with his labeling of Clinton as "an empty suit." It takes a lot of, erm, concernes, as they might say en espanol, to paint someone who still can win a hot primary and run neck-and-neck with Obama with that kind of brush. Voters clearly don't see that suit as empty at all; in fact, one Clinton voter (*cough*me*cough*) highly resents the implication that I'm too dumb to pick an empty suit out of a crowd. But because Obama is presumptive nominee, such lies are not intended as lies per se; rather, they are to be read as an acknowledgment of reality, sort of a paternal pat on the head to reassure us that he, too, knows Obama's in the driver's seat of this race, something most Dem readers of Esenberg's blog figured out weeks ago. (NOTE: Had he gone with "an empty pantsuit," as many of his colleagues are wont to do, he would have slipped from concern trolling right into flat boorishness and lost credibility. That's what I like about Rick--he knows which lines to dance up to but not cross.)

Further, there are some other Esenberg concern-troll lies not meant to be read as such. For example, suggesting that Obama has not impressed the voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania. It feels true, again, because, well, Obama lost those states. But there are any number of ways to put the lie to it. For example, since the start of the elections this year, Obama has drawn more money in contributions from Ohio and Pennsylvania that Clinton has. Two-thirds of Ohio and Pennsylvania primary voters said in exit polls that they would be satisfied in Obama won the nomination--considerably more voters than actually voted for him. And while Obama may be behind McCain in Pennsylvania according Pollster.com's trendlines this morning, that's almost entirely because of Republican polling firm Strategic Vision, as opposed to non-partisan polling firms finding Obama ahead for the last month. Pennsylvania hasn't voted for a Republican since they voted against Dukakis--and they keep electing Democrats lately to state-wide office. It's nice Rick, that you seem to care, but, please, keep it and your falsities to yourself.

The Recess Supervisor makes a lot of the same concern-trolly points Esenberg does about Obama's losing to Clinton in states that will be important in November (apparently, McCain's losses in key Republican swing states like Colorado, Minnesota, and Louisiana don't matter). But RS's additional complaints concerns--not to mention his use of ultra-violent bullet points--put him onthe concern troll scale at about a 7.5 to 8. Here's some of his "concern":

Barack Obama outspent Hillary Clinton 3-to-1 in Pennsylvania and lost by ten. Shouldn't that be story? [. . .] Why won't the talking heads mention how Obama's narrow lead in pledged delegates and the popular vote owe largely to his running up the score in states in the Great Plains and the Mountain West that Democrats have absolutely no chance of winning in November? Are Obama's whopping victories in states like Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Kansas really the stuff that Democratic superdelegates want to base their decision on? The voice of voters who will do NOTHING to bring them the White House come November? [. . .] Obama's spent a year trying to sell voters the yellow brick road, and it's starting to come up short. Swing voters aren't buying it.

Money: I think the story is that Obama is outraising Clinton three-to-one. How in the world can we expect Clinton to compete with McCain's campaign finance shenanigans if she can't raise money herself? That is my real concern as a real Democrat, not some phony ginned-up trollishnes of the Supervisor's.

"No chance" states: Montana, North Dakota, Kansas, and Nebraska have been electing Democrats state-wide lately. There will be close House contests in Utah. Colorado and Nevada--not on RS's list, but implied--will be battleground states in this cycle, based on changing Demographics if nothing else. As a Democrat, I want a candidate who can make those states more competitive. I want a Democrat who can have coattails in states like Utah or Kansas. I want Republicans to have to spend money to defend in those places, instead of in Ohio or Pennsylvania, and I want Nevada and Colorado to go blue this year. The Dems' win without the South strategy has always gone through the Mountain West, and if Obama can make it happen, that's a good thing.

The "yellow brick road": I see that RS has bought into the BS that Obama's campaign is some kind of fantasy of hope and change rather than a coherent and extensive collection of detailed policy proposals. It's funny--Esenberg calls Clinton the empty suit, and here the Recess Supervisor implies that it's Obama, instead, whose suit is empty. Is it too much to ask that the concern trolls settle on a single storyline?

But the concern-troll cake of the week has been taken by Brian Fraley, whose post yesterday goes off the scale completely. What makes Fraley bury the needle is not merely that he's demonstrably wrong in his concern trolling--and in total denial about it--but that he does it with a snippy I-told-you-so attitude:

After Obama’s ‘Bitter, Cling to Guns and God’ jab was made public I wrote:

If he actually said this condescending, elitist claptrap it will take all his vast rhetorical skills to talk himself out of the firestorm heading his way. And not because us rubes are going to merely cling to our guns and our religion. But rather, because he just insulted the largest block of swing voters in America.

Well, how did my prediction shake out after the first contest since his San Francisco treat? Well, look at how Hillary Clinton trounced Barack Obama in Pennsylvania’s rural counties and the northern suburban counties outside Philly. It’s not a matter of her winning there. Look at the numbers. The percentages are staggering. White middle class, and Catholic voters went to Clinton by unbelievable margins.

Lucky for us, we can actually look at some polling data to find out if what Fraley said here is true. We can compare what happened in Pennsylvania to what happened in neighboring Ohio, as the states share some demographic qualities as well as a border, and Ohio was the last major primary before Obama's "cling" statements were made public. (In general, Ohio's electorate is a little more amenable to Obama--more black voters and more younger voters than Pennsylvania--so that fact that Obama did better in PA is itself notable.)

Comparing CNN exit poll data (same company, same questions, already linked above) between Ohio and PA, you find that Obama actually improved this week! More whites voted for Obama in PA (34% OH, 38% PA). Obama gained among white men (from 39% to 44%) and white women (from 31% to 34%). He gained among those earning less than $50k a year (from 42% in OH to 46% in PA). He did fall among Catholics (from 36% in OH to 31%) but he gained among Protestants (from 36% to 53%)–and remember, his “cling” to religion comment was not specific about which religion, so it should have offended everyone equally. Fraley restated his claim in a comment even more explicitly: "Blue collar white catholic swing voters, who may have been warming up to Obama at one point, are running away from him in droves." And to prove it, he reiterates his point about Obama's losing Tuesday in areas that were Clinton strongholds. I don't see anyone leaving Obama "in droves," though. Maybe you can, and if so, I would appreciate it if you explained it to me.

And if you're thinking about concern trolling, please, keep it to yourself.

POST SCRIPT: Former Republican John Cole has a solid take on all of this:

I have had the tv on for 2 minutes and am already ready to scream as Joe Scarborough asks why “obama can not close the deal.”

Gee. I dunno. Because he is running against an exceedingly popular candidate who has a 16 year advantage building a political machine who just a few months ago was Mrs. Inevitable?

Gableman surrogates don't know how to Google

by folkbum (note updates--and see additional post here)

The righties have been giddy the last couple of days over a complaint (.pdf) filed with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board by Bob "What Hoppened" Dohnal. The complaint seems to revolve around the fact that, for many years, Justice Louis Butler listed as his campaign address the address of a Milwaukee law firm, one of whose partners, John D. Finerty, was, for those same years, his campaign's treasurer. (This has not been true for much of the last cycle--at least as far back as I have emails from the Butler campaign.)

Whether or not this complaint has real merit remains to be seen--the fact that Finerty seems to have volunteered his time and the Butler campaign has paid the law firm a small sum to, I assume, cover the costs of what little time others at the firm may have spent sorting the Butler campaign mail, for example, into the right box for Finerty to deal with on his own time to me suggest some smoke but no fire. Of greater concern is the notion that Butler may have heard cases from attorneys at the firm without notice to other parties involved. However, this seems only truly damning if attorneys other than John D. Finerty were involved in the campaign, or if Finerty himself had cases before Butler. The former is not easily proved--guilt by association is weak circumstantial evidence--so if the latter could be proved true, there would be your smoking gun. (UPDATE: Attorney Jeremy Levinson also has done work for the Butler campaign, and, according to a campaign source, Butler has recused himself from some of Levinson's cases.)

Among the groups championing this line of attack is the Wisconsin Club for Growth. It was apparently the subject of their Wednesday "email update." I don't get their emails (believe me, I get enough spam promising "growth"), but Brian Fraley was kind enough to repost the whole thing on his blog. WICFG included this list of "evidence" in the case against Butler:

• The fact that the Friebert law firm served as Butler’s campaign headquarters since 1999.

• The fact that Butler’s own campaign stationery used the Friebert office as its official address, to accept campaign contributions and other campaign-related mail

• The fact that the Friebert law firm used its own stationery to file documents relating to the Butler campaign.

• The list of cases before the Supreme Court that involved Friebert attorneys, including John Finerty, Butler’s own campaign treasurer.

None of that evidence indicates that a single attorney besides Finerty worked on or for Butler's campaign (some, though not all, have given the Butler campaign money). But it's that last bullet point that would be the mushroom cloud of evidence here, right? That the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard cases brought by one of their own Justices' (former) campaign treasurers would be damning indeed. And, in fact, if you click on the .pdf document that the last bullet point originally linked to, you find a long list of SCOWI cases, grouped by attorney, including two different habeus corpus filings in the case of Sandra Lea Benedict v. Eau Claire Area School District under the name of attorney John D. Finerty.

Bang! Boom! Crash! Case closed! QED! Or, perhaps, ROTFLMAO. See, had Club for Growth done a cursory Googling, they would have found that Benedict was filed not by John D. Finerty, Sr., of the Friebert, Finerty, & St. John law offices, but rather John D. Finerty, Jr., of Michael Best & Friedrich--who lists the case prominently on his biography page.

John D. Finerty, Jr., has never, to the best I can find, worked for Justice Butler, nor has he ever even given Butler a penny in campaign contributions.

I know Wisconsin Club for Growth has the internet--they send out emails, apparently--so why they couldn't do that search, I don't know.

So all that's left is the circumstantial: One attorney at Friebert, Finerty, & St. John volunteered his time as Justice Butler's campaign treasurer, and has not set foot in the Supreme Court to argue in front of Butler and crew. The Butler campaign has paid Freibert for clerical time spent. No other Friebert attorneys' names seem to be associated with the campaign beyond routine contributions, easily found through WDC, something any opposing attorney could find in his sleep and raise at trial if necessary. (I would prefer had Butler disclosed it--though were every Justice to disclose every time a contributing attorney appeared before them, parties could be stuck at the courthouse for hours just listening to the disclosures. What I'd really prefer is public financing of court elections!)

(Update: The exception, as noted above, is that Jeremy Levinson has also done work for Butler, but Butler did recuse himself in some cases. I'm trying to sort out now whether any of the cases Butler recused himself from still made WICFG's list. At any rate, their key piece of evidence in the press release and their "email update" is Finerty--but they've got the wrong Finerty.

FURTHER UPDATE: The more I read CFG's list, the more it looks like sloppy work all the way around. For example, the list looks long because they have listed the same cases multiple times if more than one attorney may be associated with it. Also, many of the cases listed, when you check them out on the pages of wiscourts do not actually have attorneys from Friebert, Finerty, & St. John listed on the case. More to come as I keep looking.)

I don't make the final judgments, of course, but Dohnal's track record of complaints lately is poor and the "evidence" for this one seems thin where it is not outright false. This seems to me more like a last-minute ploy to generate negative press right before an election, rather than anything serious.

UPDATE: Attempts to contact the Wisconsin Club For Growth using the email address provided on their "contact" page bounce back with a "no such recipient" error. If you wish to contact WICFG, you should instead use staff@wicfg.com, which so far, at least, has not bounced.

There's Spin, And Then There's Desperation

by capper

The Walker camp must be feeling a bit put upon lately. They can't seem to find ways to get around the reality of how bad of a job he has done. In their desperation, they have resorted to not spin, not even desperation, but flat out lying.

A prime example of the desperation being felt on the right is the post by Brian Fraley. He seems to have a bit of a problem being quite honest and frank when comparing the Internet chats hosted by JSOnline.

Fraley complains that Taylor only answered nine softball questions while Walker answered nineteen diverse questions. Too bad the facts don't back up his allegations.

First of all, lets look at Walker's chat. JSOnline chose to transcribe 20 questions, not nineteen. Out of those twenty, Walker refused to answer one, stating he was out of time. Two of them weren't questions at all, but just expressions of adulation by two deluded individuals. One question, by some person named Calvin, didn't have to do with County business, and would have been more appropriate for when Walker decides to run for Governor again. Three of them have to deal with his failure to complete college. One of the answers he gave was shown by yours truly to be a lie. On another question, Walker tells us how great it is to live in Indianapolis (um, Scott, this is Milwaukee, not Indianapolis).

SIDENOTE: The Brawler points out that it would be fabulous to emulate Indianapolis, in which the underdog challenger pulled a most amazing upset over the sitting incumbent, who all thought was a lock for re-election.

So, when one eliminates the non-questions, the non-answers and the nonsense, we are left with, at best, 11 questions answered by Walker. And most of those I have already deconstructed throughout the last few months.

Senator Taylor has 15 questions posted, not nine. It has also been observed that at least one of the questions had been eliminated by JSOnline. Now, Taylor did get three really weird softball questions, so that leaves her with 13 questions answered. That is two more than Walker answered.

Out of those 13 questions, two are attacking her as being a career politician (which she correctly points out that Walker has almost four times the years as a politician) or for bills she introduced in the state legislature (which she again answers decisively). Another four go after her on taxes, which is Walker's only talking point. So, Mr. Fraley is wrong about the number and the type of questions that Senator Taylor took on.

He apparently realizes that he is not being honest, so he continues his attack by linking to a video in which Senator Taylor shows a brief moment of confusion and another clip that is so highly edited, that no one knows what question she is answering. (It is obvious it is a specific question dealing with benefits. The retirees are understandably nervous, as that Walker has been seeking frivolous lawsuits, going after individuals and their contractually and legally protected benefits, however extravagant they may be.)

But even if they were accurate representations, I would take a couple minutes of confusion over six years of incompetence and hypocrisy any day.

In the interest of fairness, Fraley did get two things correct.

His post is pathetic.

And the election is next Tuesday, April 1.

ADDENDUM: The Taylor campaign is denying any political ties, but could this be the Republicans' version of tire-slashing?

Locus of Control

by folkbum

Brian Fraley overturns every rock to find a liberal poster (who, until someone pointed it out to him, thought the governor of New York was named "Elliot Spencer") who blames George W. Bush for Elliot Spitzer's whoring.

I ask what's worse--or, perhaps, what's more representative: A nobody from the "Left" lobbing spitballs at Bush, or one of the right's most respected voices blaming women for their husbands' whoring?

That's right, ladies, if your guy goes out to pay for sex, Dr. Laura blames you.

(Standard disclaimer: Breaking the law, even between consenting adults, is still breaking the law, and we should soon be talking about former Governor Spitzer.)

Thoughts On The County Budget

by capper

The county budget has been resolved, for better or for worse. I won't go into details, but for those that may have missed the news, Brian Fraley has a break down on each override vote by the county board.

I won't insult any conservative or libertarian readers by offering platitudinous expressions of sympathy, and I won't insult myself by gloating.

I will mention that in the supposedly liberal Milwaukee Sentinel Journal had an article in this morning's paper regarding Walker's vetoes. As usual with the Journal, the good stuff is buried near the bottom of the article:

Walker said he was able to leave the board's transit add-ins intact because of an unexpected extra $3.2 million in aid for the county included in the state budget and championed by state Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee), a candidate for Walker's job in the spring election. Walker hasn't officially announced that he will run for another term, but has hinted he will.

Senator Taylor, who hasn't even been elected as County Executive yet, has already done more good for and has shown more commitment to Milwaukee County and its residents than the current County Executive has in the past six years. That says a lot.

Oh, Yes, He Did Say That

by capper

A lot of the right wing bloggers have been also posting about the upcoming election for Milwaukee County Executive. Doing my civic duty, I pointed out that Walker has yet to formally announce that he is running for re-election. I also pointed out that Walker promised he wouldn't be running for re-election in 2008.

Apparently, Pug J at Daily Takes took umbrage, and posted this comment:

Capper,
You have fallen behind on reading Milwaukee Mags. Bruce Murphy already apologized for saying Walker promised to not run for re election. Awaiting your mea culpa.

He also cited this article from Bruce Murphy, who wrote:

My last column’s contention that Scott Walker promised not to run for re-election as county executive in 2008 was a bit overstated: He said he had no plans to do so, helping to buttress his image as a nonpolitician, but made no outright promise. He certainly fooled this voter.

Not quite an apology, but more of a clarification. But I digress. To Pug J, and others who may disagree with my assertion, I would like to refer you to a post by xoff, in which he quotes from JSOnline:

Walker clarifies '02 re-election comments

County Executive Scott Walker said today that comments he made six years ago about not running for re-election in 2008 weren't serious promises.Walker last week touted his accomplishments in office and strongly suggested he plans to run for re-election next year."I certainly didn't make that as a pledge" in 2002, Walker said in an interview today. "I didn't put it anywhere in my literature."Any remarks he might have made in 2002 about not seeking re-election in 2008 might have been joking references, Walker said...

In a campaign forum on April 24, 2002, Walker was asked if he'd seek re-election as county executive and how long he would hold the office. According to a transcript of the forum, Walker replied:

"I will focus on cleaning up the waste and abuse during the next two years. To put in place reforms to insure these changes stay in place, I am open to a run for a full term in 2004, but will not run beyond that term."

... As pointed out here earlier, Walker also told the newspaper editorial board, in an interview possted on April 21, 2002:

Q: Just so everyone is clear, you do, if you win, plan to run again in 2004?
A: Yes. I don't have an interest in running beyond that.

Now a grammarian might point out that he did not specifically "promise" not to run again, but as they say, "It's good enough for government work."

Spinning Out of Control

by capper

It's no secret that I don't care for Scott Walker. However, when I have posted on Walker, I have had some interesting discussions with people that agree and disagree with what I wrote. I respect those opinions, even when they disagree, because, even though I don't agree with their reasoning, they are open and honest on what they say and why they say it. I can even handle spinning a subject or a certain point. (I'd better since I do it as much as anyone). What I can't respect is when the spin becomes out of control.

A fine example of this would be the post by Fraley at Daily Takes. He advocates for his boy Walker, which is fine and to be expected, since he did work on Walker's campaigns. But when he lists Walker's "accomplishments", I was simply floored by his audacity at playing with the truth. It's an amazing collection of, at best, gross embellishments, and, at worst, flat out lies. Here is a breakdown of some of the most egregious ones.

5 consecutive budgets with a $0 tax levy increase from the previous year.

But each previous year had a tax increase thus he was still increasing taxes.

Isolated large pension enhancements so not one new employee will receive them.

Most of these weren't allowed to new employees in the contract that allowed them. Also fails to mention how Walker failed to get several existing, non-represented employees to sign the waivers to remove the pension enhancements, and then lied about them.

Restructured the pension board by requiring appointees to possess financial literacy, having a retiree serve on the board and limiting the number of terms a board member may serve to two.

But still failed to notice and/or do anything about the buy back scandal.

Reduced the size of the County taxpayer-paid workforce by almost 20% .

But does not mention the closed swimming pools, the shoddy parks, and other failing services caused by this.

Updated ethics code and instituted new restrictions and reporting requirements, prohibited contributions from political appointments and those in active process of seeking contracts with the county.

He fails to mention the opening of a respite home for disabled adults that had to be postponed for almost a year due to Walker receiving contributions from the agency to which he awarded the contract.

He returns $60k of his salary every year ($300,000to date).

Unproven, but even if true, did he also give up the tax benefits for his "donation"?

Eliminated waiting lists for long-term care for seniors through Family Care; secured State grant to plan similar programs for persons with disabilities.

Family Care was created by Tommy Thompson in '98, implement in five pilot counties, including Milwaukee County's Department of Aging in 2001. The waiting lists are not eliminated, just moved on to the providers (Family Care is worthy of a post by itself, it's that bad). About a year ago, Governor Jim Doyle signed the law to extend it to all 72 counties in the next five years.

Created an Aging & Disability Resource Center that serves as a national model.

Again, per state regulations and created before he was elected. Not to mention the financial troubles it was in, due to poor fiscal oversight (a common theme in Walker's administration).

Negotiated multi-year agreement with municipalities to enhance our county-wide EMS system. Partnered w/ local hospitals to maintain and improve General Assistance Medical Program (GAMP). Spearheaded community partnerships to improve care for the mentally ill including increasing the number of housing units .

A three-for-one. Walker was originally against all of these until faced with overwhelming public pressure and/or press coverage.

Helped stabilize Midwest Airlines by using our financial tools, helping to keep nearly 3,000 jobs in the Milwaukee area.

Huh? The jury is still out on how smart the sale of Midwest was, or how it will turn out.

Last, but not least...Established County Executive’s annual Harley Ride to promote Milwaukee County and regional attractions.

And his gubernatorial campaign.

Fraley's Daily Forward

UPDATE: WisOpinion has taken the link down. No word from Brian.

Diamond Dave caught this first, but I think it deserves wider play.

WisOpinion--good non-partisans who often link to your humble folkbum--has spotlighted this post from Blogger Republican campaign strategist Brian Fraley. Now, I've met Brian and he is a decent, smart fellow, and this probably would not be an issue at all had WisOpinion not picked it up. The post begins,

An interesting point comes to mind when contemplating the immigration question. It is amazing that people from across the globe are clamoring to come here. After all, if you listen to liberals, we Republicans have screwed up this country, right?

Following that are quotes about how bad America sucks from famous liberals Bill Mahr, Michael Moore, Gwenneth Paltrow, Sean Penn, and more

The post is probably one of those email forwards, likely originating with rightwingsparkle, where the quotes are in almost exactly the same order as in Brian's post (she includes links to sources for all the quotes, making me think she's the origin), with the addition of some items from this page. Snopes doesn't have anything on this to verify the accuracy of the quotes--I checked.

As I said, I'm assuming Brian got this as an email forward--he's not the kind of guy (as far as I can tell) who would just cut and paste someone else's blog post. But, when posting a forward, he should have at least have indicated it was exactly that. WisOpinion may never have picked it up, then, but at least neither they nor Brian would be looking as foolish as they are now knowing what it is.

Fraley does a McBride

I'm not sure if he will take that as a compliment . . .

Anyway, here's the story on Milwaukee County Board Chair Lee Holloway's ethics hearing today:

Holloway ethics case trimmed
60 charges against county official dismissed
Two-thirds of about 90 non-criminal ethics charges against Milwaukee County Board Chairman Lee Holloway were dismissed Monday by a hearing examiner.

That still leaves about 30 of the more serious counts intact, including allegations that Holloway had a conflict of interest in voting for county funding for a local social service agency that paid Holloway some $165,000 in a never-consummated property deal.

Brian Fraley re-writes the headline: "Holloway Still Faces Dozens of Ethics Charges"

Reminds me of Jessica McBride's attempt to re-write the story of how Wisconsinites voted to start bringing home the troops from Iraq sooner rather than later:

More voters in 30 Wisconsin communities voted Tuesday to stay the course in Iraq than wanted the troops to withdraw. It was purely a symbolic message, but a heartfelt one.

She neglected to mention that there were 33 ballot questions that day.

MTEA's ad, and the irrational Cheddarsphere's foaming response

The pro-voucher folks dump what must be hundreds of thousands of dollars into the ads calling for an end to the "cap" on the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, ads that, on occasion, have labeled the other side--my side--racists. And the right Cheddarsphere stands up and applauds.

Predictably, the moment someone from the other side starts presenting fact-based arguments against wanton cap-lifting, the same half of the Cheddarsphere goes crazy. Even I got hit with some of the mouth-foam, and I haven't even written about it yet.

The ad is produced by my union (putting the biases up front), the MTEA. You can listen it to it here; the newspaper's story from this morning is here; Seth's take is excellent.

Much of the right's consternation comes from the fact that someone is finally mounting a more public opposition campaign. "Th-th-they can't do that!" they sputter. "Consider their motives!" they say. Face it: Someone has to stand up for the public schools. Milwaukee's public servants--our elected representatives--are doing that, but they only get as much access to the court of public opinion as the papers let them have. The school district is in no position to spend money (what money?) to defend itself. Who else would do it?

Then, of course, there are those who don't want to accept the facts presented in the ad. Fraley:

The value of homes in Milwaukee are not decreasing due to School Choice. School Choice is not the cause of MPS' problems. Choice schools have accountability and their performance certainly can be no worse than MPS.

Pawlak:

How can 15,000 kids going to private schools equal an *increase* in MPS clas size? [. . .] How is taking 15,000 children out of MPS causing a decrease in educational materials available to the remaining students?

Somehow, they refuse to believe that sucking money out of the public schools could serve to increase class sizes, create shortages of supplies, and otherwise jeopardize schools' quality. Because yes MPS pays for these voucher students, these voucher students that state doesn't count as MPS's. They also don't consider that the higher taxes Milwaukee residents are paying because of the voucher program might also have something to do with declining property values.

And we had a long talk about accountability last week.

The new sound bite I'm trying out is simple: We Milwaukeeans are paying more for this voucher program that gives us less--less accountability, less for Milwaukee's children, less transparency.

I'd stop there--and I really should, since I've been trying to follow sensei Feldstein's rule--but I was invoked. I laughed through much of Peter's post there, and not only because I am watching "The Office" as I write this. He starts with a quote from this post of mine to "prove" that we want an end to the voucher program. I'm sure Peter's PI license is in the mail . . .

But here are the real laugh lines:
[T]he tax dollars that are being used belong to the taxpayer, not the government. [. . .] All this does is allow the parents to use the portion of their property taxes for education to choose their own children's education.
So, if I give the choice parents each their $1.15 back, will you finally let me start demanding accountability for my tax dollars? You know, as a taxpayer?

Also, there is accountability to the parents: bad Choice schools go out of business.
One, Peter. One school, according to the Public Policy Forum, has closed because parents abandoned it. Why didn't the parents close Northside? Or L.E.A.D.E.R.? Or Academic Solutions? Or Louis Tucker? If it were a true free market, DPI wouldn't have to do the closing.

Quick. Name any monopoly that provides a high quality product at low cost.
I don't have to. This is what we in the business call a straw man: Public schools are not a monopoly. You think private schools didn't exist before the voucher program? You think they won't after the voucher experiment comes to an end?

If the MTEA thinks its product is so exceptional, why do three out of 10 teachers send their children elsewhere?
If private school teachers think their product is so exceptional, why do seven out of 10 teachers send their children to public schools?

The overall MPS graduation rate is 36%, according to Jay Greene, a nationally recognized expert on graduation rates.
Okay, technically, that's Susan Greene's joke, but, I mean, c'mon . . . Jay Greene an "expert"?

In the end, for all of the foaming at the mouth, the right Cheddarsphere can't see past their own biases. They just can't possibly believe that the union has any reason to invest in this fight besides money. As Fraley put it, "for them it's all about jobs and the subsequent union dues." They don't get it. Not even the right ballpark. No one--not even the union people--go into public education for the money. The union provides more professional development to its members than management; the union developed the TEAM program that defeats all conservative stereotypes about "protecting bad teachers." It does nothing without considering the single most important factor in a child's education--the quality of the teacher.

No one, at least not on their side, seems to consider the motives of the Waltons and the Joyces, funding the pro-voucher movement to the tune of tens of millions.

Or consider me: I collect no union dues. It would take a lot of students' leaving MPS before I get laid off. I have no personal investment in this. All I know is what I see in my classroom, and I have seen students fresh out of their voucher schools. Not all of them work miracles, believe me. I've seen my department cut by more than a third as our enrollment inches upward. I've seen my tax bill (Peter hasn't, since he doesn't live in Milwaukee) to know that I'm getting ripped off by a program that requires zero--zero--performance measures to be collected or reported.

Yet and still, I have offered to compromise. Jim Doyle has offered to compromise. The elected officials who represent Milwaukee have offered to compromise. But their side--they want blood. This foaming over MTEA's ad is symptomatic of their desire to get their way, only their way, all the time, because that is their ideology. The Market is King. Compromise is Weakness.

And lost in their struggle to get their feet on our necks is the very real future of 100,000 children in Milwaukee.