The Chief

The Spouse-Swapping Wisconsin GOP Recall Candidate

Just … wow:

[Tea Party leader and GOP recall candidate for state senate Kim Simac] and her then husband James T. Maillette filed for divorce at the same time as Arthur Simac and Cynthia Simac filed for divorce (The same day). It didn’t dawn us what was up until we dug a bit further and here is what we found.

It appears that the two couples filed for a divorce on the same day and that Kim and Arthur used the same attorney for the divorce, though their respective spouses used different attorneys to represent each other. (So far so good right?). But wait! It then turns out that Cynthia and James dropped their attorneys at the same time before the proceedings were final, we found this strange but it was soon cleared up when we found out that Cynthia is now married to James and obviously Kim is now married to Arthur.

Now there’s something you don’t see every day.

Wisconsin Recall Petition Period Ends

And the final score is … GOP: 3, Dems: 6.

Actually, the final score really should be GOP: 1, Dems: 5, and even that 1 point for the GOP might be a little generous.

Of the three senators the GOP managed to file papers against, only one — Jim Holperin — has a shot at being defeated. Fortunately for Holperin, he’s drawn a local tea party fanatic with no experience running for office. Dave Hansen and Bob Wirch are fine. There aren’t even candidates running against them yet and the group that filed Hansen’s recall papers doesn’t exactly have the best track records thus far.

But the Dems have assembled a credible crew of challengers to take on the GOP incumbents. Only one Republican senator — Robert Cowles — doesn’t have a challenger yet, while Sen. Sheila Harsdorf is the only one of the remaining five facing a candidate who has never run for office before. So here’s a breakdown of the likely outcomes of the upcoming recall elections:

LIKELY DEM FLIP

Dan Kapanke 

LEAN DEM FLIP

Randy Hopper

LEAN GOP HOLD

Alberta Darling

Luther Olsen

LIKELY GOP HOLD

Sheila Harsdorf

SAFE GOP HOLD

Robert Cowles

********

SAFE DEM HOLD

Dave Hansen

Robert Wirch

LIKELY DEM HOLD

Jim Holperin

A couple of quick notes: I don’t think the petition period for Sen. Julie Lassa ends until the middle of May. Regardless, it’s probably not worth the GOP’s time and energy since her seat would be a LIKELY DEM HOLD even if they do manage to find the signatures.

There are also strong arguments for placing either Luther Olsen or Alberta Darling into a TOSS UP category for a variety of reasons, but for the sake of caution I’m going to assume their incumbency will actually help them the further we get away from the craziness of March.

The Intel Mother Lode and Pakistan

One of the strange things about capturing Saddam Hussein is that, relatively speaking, he didn’t know much. He was, after all, the dictator of an enormous bureaucracy and had thousands of loyal followers who were in charge of the day-to-day nation-running operations. If, for example, his interrogator wanted to know who were the names of Iraq’s spies in Iran there’s just not much of a chance that Saddam was going to know that kind of detail. (His interrogations were mostly about deconstructing the thought processes that led to certain decisions.)

Bin Laden is a different case entirely. The size of the intel cache they recovered from the raid seems enormous and reporters are already speculating what it could mean for taking out Al-Qaeda, but there’s another angle to this that really hasn’t been discussed yet: What if one of the thumb drives recovered from the scene contains a list of Pakistani ISI contacts? Would this the kind of smoking gun that might cause a tectonic change in US-Pakistan relations?

Probably not. The Pakistan is too big to fail argument has been around for a while now despite Pakistan being the center for anti-American sentiment over the course of five decades now. Military action is almost impossible in a nuclear-armed country with 170,000,000 people. Still, the roots of American animosity run deep and, to be honest, I don’t even know what the origins are. Was there some event that produced the loathing? Some kind of offense or slight? Off the top of my head I can’t think of one.

Steve Coll suggests that there really isn’t one event that anyone can pinpoint, but that it’s an outgrowth of a country with a historically weak government that has little resources to care and educate it’s people (and not just the poor ones), which created a vacuum filled by the madrassas built by supporters of the virulent strain of Islamism that developed around the world in the middle of the 20th century. That would mean the problem is as cultural as it is political.

There would be a number of different ways of trying to correct that problem. Again, military action would be out of the picture. Withdrawing foreign aide probably won’t help either. So-called “public diplomacy” really hasn’t worked in the past. So now what? This might be the right time to develop a Marshall Plan for Pakistan.

It’s an idea that gets tossed around frequently, but never really implemented. Now might be the perfect opportunity to make a Marshall Plan-type program a condition of US foreign aide to Pakistan: they tell us where the money is needed, then we go with them to help distribute the aide. Most countries, especially proud and emerging nations like Pakistan who think of themselves as being one of the world’s big players, don’t like this kind partnership because it make their government look weak and unable to take care of their own citizens. But when that hard drive does show up with a ton of Al-Qaeda contacts in the ISI, it will be a golden opportunity for the US use a great deal of leverage to changing hearts and minds from the ground up.

The Honesty Bug Hits Glenn Grothman

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Organizers of the last two recall campaigns against Republican state senators announced Monday they didn’t have enough signatures to force Sens. Glenn Grothman of West Bend or Mary Lazich of New Berlin into elections.

[…]

Grothman, reached in his office in Madison, said: “Between the phone calling, the door to door, the standing outside retail outlets and polling places, I’m sure the average person in 20th Senate District was contacted at least twice. I’m very grateful that they had the common sense not to respond to these tactics.”

You mean tactics like reaching out to your neighbor?

In any event, good on the Recall efforts. They had the hardest jobs of any of the petition drive among either party and acquitted themselves well under difficult circumstances.

gizmoboo:

omfggggg lmfaoo

(via inyourfuckingface)

wiscostorm:

Another reason to keep faith in Wisconsinites: “Does this ass make my truck look big?”

Dead Men Rise from the Grave to Sign Wisconsin GOP’s Recall Papers

For all the screaming that the Wisco GOP has done about voter fraud in the last decade, this should make head’s explode across the Badger state:

Bill Pocan - father of state Rep. Mark Pocan - may have died long ago.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t sign the recall petition against state Sen. Bob Wirch of Kenosha.

Just check page 362 of the Wirch recall petition, and you will find the signature and address for Bill Pocan, also the father of Milwaukee County Judge William Pocan. The petition says Bill Pocan penned his support of the recall effort on March 3.

Wirch is one of 14 Democrats who left the state to block a vote on Gov. Scott Walker’s budget-repair bill. He is one of at least three Dems and six Republicans targeted for recalls.

In an affidavit provided state Democrats, Corinne Pocan said her husband Bill couldn’t have signed the Wirch papers. She said he has been dead for two decades. She also said she lives at the address listed on the recall document.

Now’s here’s the kicker:

Dan Hunt, the chairman of the Wirch recall committee, acknowledged Friday that the signature appears to be forged. But he accused Democrats of intentionally signing Pocan’s name on the document to try to discredit the recall effort.

Hunt said Democrats chose Pocan because it would bring more attention to the matter, given the prominence of his sons.

“It all makes sense,” Hunt said.

Maybe they should have checked people’s photo ID’s before they signed the recall petitions?

tehblackbirdisflying:

REBLOG, PLEASE.

This is what is happening during the counting of recall signatures for DEMOCRATIC senators in Wisconsin.

Spread the word.  This is unfuckingbelievable.  

(via thefirthblackbirdisflying-deact)

Now’s the Perfect Time to Buy a Wisconsin GOP Senator at Rock Bottom Prices!

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the Wisconsin recall is actually a golden opportunity for high dollar campaign donors. Because of the lax recall finance rules, these folks can shovel unlimited amounts of money into candidate’s coffers under the auspices of ‘paying for recall expenses” (wink, wink). State senators are only allowed to except $1000 per person, per election cycle (every 4 years) to conduct their typical campaigns. The recall is allowing some donors to contribute 80 years worth of cumulative donations in one fell swoop. It’s essentially created a situation where donors are buying a career’s worth of influence all at once.

Under the recall finance rules there are no contribution limits (unlike during normal campaigns) and some big time GOP donors are using the recalls as as opportunity to make generous contributions to politicians that may be able to help them later on down the line:

State Sen. Randy Hopper has raised more than $100,000 since voters unhappy with his support of a bill scaling back collective bargaining launched a recall drive last month.

A campaign finance report filed this week shows Hopper has raised $131,447 for the year to date. The funds include monetary campaign contributions and contributions that were specifically designated to cover the costs of fighting the recall effort.

Contributions to support or fight a recall effort are not subject to election campaign contribution limits which allowed some large donations including $20,000 from Ocoonomowoc resident Jere Fabick, owner of Fabco Equipment, and $10,000 from the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate.

Hopper’s on the powerful Joint Finance Committee. If you need money from the state, or don’t wan the state taking any more of your money, the Joint Finance Committee will eventually have a hand in the matter. Also on the committee is Alberta Darling:

Joint Finance Committee Co-chair Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, leads the way for fundraising among recall targets with $188,226 through March 21. She also spent $15,579 and had $177,863 cash on hand. Her biggest donor was Daniel McKeithan of Tamarack Petroleum, who gave $20,000.

The normal contribution limits for state Senate candidates are $1,000 from an individual or a committee.

Darling’s report includes a number of heavyweights from the Milwaukee business community, including Bradley Foundation CEO Michael Grebe ($5,000) and Lubar & Co. founder and Chair Sheldon Lubar ($2,000). Her other largest donors include $11,000 from retiree Reid Marion and $10,000 from Joe Alexander of Alexander Management.

By the way, these numbers will be dwarfed by the kind of cash that will come to Scott Walker’s aide — and from all across the country — next January.

“Jeff Horn, a leader in the Miller recall, said the campaign missed the 20,352 signatures needed by fewer than 300 names.”

Wow … so near and yet so far.