I take it back.

A month ago, I gave Scott Walker credit for his tone in approaching a potential recall election.

I'm taking it back.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday attacked the recall process currently underway to unseat him, calling it “unusual” for duplicates and obviously fake names to be allowed on petitions.
“The whole process is pretty unusual. We had one of the local affiliates here [reporting] about someone signing it, proudly saying they signed 80 different recall petitions,” Walker said on “Fox and Friends.” “As we see it, you should only be able to sign it once and only once, and it should be for a legal citizen.”

There's a very easy way to get duplicates and fakes disqualified.  Your staff goes through the petitions, finds them, and challenges them.  Funny - this process has worked in Wisconsin for decades, and avoids the highly uncomfortable position of making a governmental body the primary actor in potentially disenfranchising someone from the electoral process.

So now, instead of focusing on Wisconsin's outstanding job growth and improvements to the business climate, Walker's crying in his milk about how suddenly the recall process is unfair to him because the GAB doesn't want to do his homework for him.  Grow up, Governor.

Oh... wait... you say all the changes Walker's made haven't done anything in terms of job creation or retention?  Wisconsin lost HOW many jobs in November?  Well, I guess I understand why he's complaining about process then.  Never mind.

For the Democrats, it's a Lollapa-loser Christmas

Union officials are sitting around the Christmas tree, trying to figure out which multi-race loser they want to run against Scott Walker. 

Leaders of the state's largest teachers union and the state employees union met earlier this week with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to encourage him to stay out of a possible recall election next year against Gov. Scott Walker.

The union bosses were not successful.

According to an email obtained by No Quarter, Wisconsin Education Association Council President Mary Bell, WEAC Executive Director Dan Burkhalter and other top union officials had a face-to-face meeting with the Democratic mayor to discuss the potential Walker recall race.

"On Monday, Dan and I, along with the We Are Wisconsin partners, met with Mayor Barrett," Bell wrote Thursday to her board members and UniServ presidents. "Despite attempts to communicate the issues you laid out very clearly in our meeting on Saturday, in our judgment the meeting did not convince Mayor Barrett that he should not run in a potential recall election."

Insiders say the union officials are hoping to clear the field for former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk to take on the first-term Republican governor in the spring.

Will it be 2002 and 2010 gubernatorial loser Tom Barrett?  Will it be 2002 gubernatorial and 2006 AG loser Kathleen Falk?  What's 2010 congressional loser Steve Kagen doing these days?  Based on public comments, we can assume it won't be 2010 U.S. Senate loser Russ Feingold.  What's Ed Garvey doing?  He has experience losing a gubernatorial race.

Maybe for Christmas, the unions can ask Santa for some better candidates.

Why does Scott Walker hate the baby Jesus?

After the Obama Christmas card debacle, in which the President released a holiday card more Christmas-ey than many of those sent by President Reagan but did not specifically say "Christmas", we get this oddly secular video from Governor Walker, in which the most notable features are the moody poses his kids strike in the background, as though they're being shot for a future Nickelback album cover.

 

C'mon, Governor. Why are you appealing to the Jews, the atheists, the terrorists/Muslims, and the agnostics, when you could be a brave American like Rick Perry and just blame the gays for stealing Christmas?

(Seriously though, Governor, I like the video. It's inclusive and appeals to community service. The people I don't like are your crazy-ass supporters.)

Another lump of coal for the UW System

Courtesy of Santa Scott:

Madison - Gov. Scott Walker's administration is expected Friday to say where the state will slice to make $174 million in added budget cuts.

The cuts were called for in the budget passed by the Republican governor and lawmakers in June but were not specified. The task of divvying them out was left instead to the Walker administration, which said in October that the biggest part - more than one-third - will have to be shouldered by the University of Wisconsin-System.

But until now no details have been released on how state agencies like the universities will meet those cuts and how services and workers might be affected. Friday afternoon the administration is expected to send those details to the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee, which will decide in the coming weeks whether to approve them.

I'm surprised he didn't haul someone in on Sunday to release the news in the middle of the football game.

Big asses - it takes one to know one.

Which makes Jim Sensenbrenner the best judge of them all.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), known for his cantankerous ways and for not speaking to media unless it’s his idea, was overheard at the Delta Crown lounge at Reagan National Airport today talking on his cellphone about an incident he said occurred three weeks ago while at an Episcopal church auction. Please note, a church auction.

Our source, a Democratic operative who heard the whole thing, said he was “very loud”. Sensenbrenner was overheard saying that after buying all their “crap” (his word) a woman approached him and praised first lady Michelle Obama.  He told the woman that Michelle should practice what she preaches — “she lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself.”

Sensenbrenner has since apologized to the First Lady, the same way I would like to apologize now for calling Sensenbrenner an old, worthless, out of touch windbag who lives off family money, has never worked an honest day in his entire life (unless you consider 43 years in elected office to be honest work), and whose crowning achievement as a politician is making you wait in line even longer at the DMV to get a driver's license.

Now get in the kitchen and make him some pie.

Always good to see a perennial loser like Bob Vander Plaats letting his true colors show.

DES MOINES – Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats called Michele Bachmann and urged her to drop out of the race and endorse Rick Santorum, a source with knowledge of the conversation told POLITICO Tuesday.

The phone call took place Saturday, three days before Vander Plaats announced he – but not his organization, the Family Leader – was backing Santorum.

Bachmann declined, the source said, noting to Vander Plaats that she has consistently polled ahead of Santorum in the race and still does.

I mean, why support a woman when you can support a man who's not only polling behind the woman, but can't even leverage a presidential campaign to move his own last name above Dan Savage's reappropriation of it on Google?

Then again, it's not like Bachmann should be surprised.  Live by the troglodytes, die by the troglodytes.

AshleyMadison.com endorses Newt

Given the options available, he seems like a perfect fit.

This may be one endorsement Newt Gingrich wishes he didn't receive.

Ashley Madison, a "pro-adultery" website whose slogan is "Life is short. Have an affair," put up a billboard in Bucks County, PA, that "endorses" Newt Gingrich for president. Gingrich has famously admitted to extramarital affairs in the past.

The billboard boasts a large picture of Gingrich, with the text, “Faithful Republican, Unfaithful Husband. Welcome to the AshleyMadison.com Era."

Congress to defund enforcement of incandescent light bulb ban

Once again, the GOP shuns science to curry favor with the black helicopter crowd.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The traditional incandescent light bulb won a nine-month reprieve late Thursday from new federal rules that would have led to its demise.

The deal to avert a government shutdown starting Friday night includes a provision that prevents the Department of Energy from spending any money to implement or enforce the energy efficiency standards for light bulbs that is set to start going into effect for 100-watt bulbs in 2012.

The new standards and regulations remain on the book, even if they now won't be enforced.

The efficiency rules are intended to phase out of the old bulbs that are essentially unchanged since the time of Thomas Edison and a phase in of the more efficient bulbs such as halogen incandescent bulbs, compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) or LED bulbs.

Those more efficient bills have a more expensive initial cost, about $1.50 to $2 a bulb compared to 25 or 50 cents for a less efficient light. But their advocates say lower energy usage and in some cases longer life from the new bulbs will more than make up for the higher purchase price over the life of the bulb.

Some gems from Free Republic this morning:

"YAY!!! My mom has been stockpiling light bulbs for a year now. Her garage looks like a wholesale club."  (Your mom is an idiot.)

"Whew! This saved us a ton of money, we were getting ready to majorly stock up on the incandescent bulbs tomorrow." (Saved money?  I guess the energy to run the bulb must be free.)

"Now if they would also allow us to buy toilets that work properly and don’t need to be cleaned daily because they hold virtually no water in them." (It's not the amount of water, it's that your toilet sucks.)

On the plus side, most manufacturers have already wound down production of these incandescent heating sources, so the Jesus-rode-a-dinosaur crowd will have a hard time flagrantly wasting more of our natural resources even if the feds aren't watching.

It's not that we're xenophobic bigots...

... it's that our customers are.

(CNN) -- Lowe's has pulled its advertising from the reality TV show "All-American Muslim," which the retail store called a "lightning rod."

"All-American Muslim" is an eight-part series that follows five Muslim families living in Dearborn, Michigan.

"Lowe's has received a significant amount of communication on this program, from every perspective possible. Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lightning rod for many of those views. As a result we did pull our advertising on this program," the company said in a statement Saturday.

"We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance."

The conservative Florida Family Association, which is pushing advertisers to drop "All-American Muslim," cheered Lowe's decision. The group called the TLC show "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values."

But really, it's different. Just ask them.

December 2009

President Obama: "Well, uh, you know the former president left us a bigger challenge on the jobs front than we expected, so it's taking us a little longer to get the ship turned around than we were hoping."

GOP: "Own your economy, buddy.  Stop passing the buck."

December 2011

Governor Walker: "Well, uh, you know the former governor left us a bigger challenge on the jobs front than we expected, so it's taking us a little longer to get the ship turned around than we were hoping."

GOP: "That makes perfect sense to us."

The return of President Windbag

Mr. Hopey Changey is back.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- President Obama traveled to the heart of Republican Kansas on Tuesday, where he presented Americans with a choice: a "fair shot" with him, or a return to "you're on your own economics."

Obama firmly embraced the rhetoric of income inequality, and laid out a plan to rebuild the middle class.

"This is a make or break moment for the middle class, and all those who are fighting to get into the middle class," Obama said. "At stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement."

Problem is, his plan was pretty short on details.

I'll concede that the income inequality thing is an issue.  Middle class wages have been stagnant for decades while costs for things like college and health care continue to escalate dramatically.  That's a big problem.

But this president talks.  And talks.  And talks.  And then does very little.

If you've been president for three years and you're still running on rhetoric and not on your accomplishments, you probably don't deserve another term.

So do me a favor, Mr. President.  Come back with some specific ideas - a real agenda.  Pound it home and make the GOP own their shortcomings on this issue.  But spare me the fluffy language.

Dumbest economics article ever.

I thought nothing could top Nobel Prize winner and hack journalist Paul Krugman's efforts, which all effectively boil down to "more taxes, more spending."  And then I read this gem from Cornell economist and occasional NYT contributor Robert Frank.

Many social critics wag their fingers at what they perceive to be frivolous luxury spending. But that misses the point that all consumption norms are local. It’s not just the rich who spend more when they get more money. Everyone else does, too. The mansions of the rich may seem over the top to people in the middle, but the same could be said of American middle-class houses as seen by most of the planet’s 7 billion people.

The important practical point is that when the rich build bigger, they shift the frame of reference that shapes the demands of the near rich, who travel in the same social circles. Perhaps it’s now the custom in those circles to host your daughter’s wedding reception at home rather than in a hotel or country club. So the near rich feel they too need a house with a ballroom. And when they build bigger, they shift the frame of reference for the group just below them, and so on, all the way down...

In short, the growing income inequality that OWS protesters are calling to our attention is not the nonissue that many of the movement’s critics say it is. Growing income disparities have imposed enormous costs on almost everyone. OWS protesters have performed an important public service by urging the government to take inequality more seriously.

I don't disagree with the author that income inequality is an issue.  However, to suggest that the rich are to blame for other people's financial problems because they set a standard that middle-class slobs have to keep up with is insane.