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kpete

kpete's Journal
kpete's Journal
May 29, 2012

Dirty Tricks In Wisconsin: Secret Group Shuts Down Phones Of Scott Walker’s Democratic Challenger

Source: Think Progress

Dirty Tricks In Wisconsin: Secret Group Shuts Down Phones Of Scott Walker’s Democratic Challenger With Spam Texts
By Scott Keyes posted from ThinkProgress Election on May 29, 2012 at 3:26 pm

One week before Wisconsinites vote on whether or not to recall Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), a conservative group is engaged in dirty tricks that have shut down the Democratic challenger’s campaign phones.

According to multiple reports, independently verified by ThinkProgress, the following spam text message is being blasted out to many Wisconsin cell phones:


FRM:[email protected]
SUBJ:Union Puppet
MSG:Tom Barrett is a Union Puppet who will give Union Thugs everything they want.
Call & ask why 414-271-8050


The phone number is that of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s campaign headquarters. The influx of calls following this spam text message has shut down phones at Barrett’s campaign, just seven days before Election Day and right as get-out-the-vote efforts are ramping up.



Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/05/29/491616/wisconsin-dirty-tricks/



If you live in Wisconsin and have received this message or have any tips about its origin, leave a comment below.
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/05/29/491616/wisconsin-dirty-tricks/
May 29, 2012

Just 244 of 2,000 McCotter signatures valid, petition review finds

Source: Detroit News

Just 244 of 2,000 McCotter signatures valid, petition review finds

By Marisa Schultz
The Detroit News


Lansing— Rep. Thaddeus McCotter turned in 2,000 petition signatures to get on August primary ballot, but all except 244 have been deemed invalid because of rampant duplicated copies, the Michigan Secretary of State found.

A review by The Detroit News of the petition signatures found full copies of a sheet of signatures that were photocopied once and in some cases two times and mixed in with the 136-page stack of signatures. In some cases, a different petition circulator's name was signed to the duplicate copy.

The overt copying is "frankly unheard of"; said Chris Thomas, Michigan's director of elections, as he thumbed through the stack of petitions. "It's amazing when you sit and look, and it starts to dwell on you what they've done."

The Secretary of State's office has turned over its preliminary findings to the state Attorney General's office, which would take up a potential criminal investigation of violations of election law.





Read more: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120529/POLITICS01/205290388#ixzz1wHZF1XaO

May 29, 2012

Snazzy for his homies, cheesy for the beaners. Repugniphant through and through...

Heller and his campaign team are trying to pull a fast one, putting out one message on immigration policy in English, and a more forgiving message in Spanish. The Las Vegas Sun reported today:

The Heller campaign ... has set up a Spanish-language website, deanheller.com/espanol. It is not as robust as the English-language version but does have a summary statement about the candidate.

On both sites, information can be found on Heller's stance on immigration, including similar sections that address the convoluted immigration system.... Yet, only the English-language site addresses Heller's stance on border security and illegal immigration.


more:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/29/11938052-dean-heller-gets-lost-in-translation?lite

May 29, 2012

A Memorial Day Memory on the Streets of Madison, Wisconsin: A Reminder of Why We Fight

TUE MAY 29, 2012 AT 08:53 AM PDT
A Memorial Day Memory on the Streets of Madison, Wisconsin: A Reminder of Why We Fight
byWisco Wherls

I had the great pleasure of meeting an eighty-nine year old World War II veteran and his wife while out canvassing to Recall Walker yesterday afternoon. When I explained to him what I was doing, he sat up and invited me to come and chill next to him on the porch swing for a while. We talked for a bit and after telling him I had graduated with a history major focusing on World War II-era classes, he perked up and told me how of the various places he had been stationed. He then let on that he had served in the U.S. Navy during the pivotal, infamous and terrifyingly bloody Battle of Okinawa. He went on to describe the terrible devastation wreaked upon the sailors on the ships around the island as the Japanese military resorted to desperate kamikaze attacks and for the Marines who had to undertake the horrifying task of going hill by hill, tunnel by tunnel, with their weapons and flame throwers, as the Japanese soldiers on the island refused to come out and surrender.

After I learned he'd lived in Wisconsin his entire civilian life, I asked him if he'd ever seen a politician come along that was as ruthless as Governer Scott Walker. He sat quietly and pondered my question for a few seconds, then shook his head and said, "No, I've never seen anyone like Walker. Never." Although he and his wife weren't overly enthused about Tom Barrett, they were looking forward to putting their absentee ballots in the mail tomorrow with their votes cast for Barrett and Mahlon Mitchell because "We just have to...we have to get Walker out of there." We could not have been any more in agreement.

I sheepishly told him that I could talk with him all day long but I had to get back to work knocking on more doors. I made it clear I had appreciated the brief respite and the warm conversation and thanked him for his dutiful service to our country, telling him it was an honor to have the opportunity to meet him, a World War II veteran, on Memorial Day of all days. He somberly reminded me, "There aren't many of us left, anymore," a harrowing fact that was not lost on me as several minutes later I came to the house of a widow whose husband, another veteran of World War II, had passed away in recent years.

As I prepared to depart, he thanked me several times for what I was doing, saying he was proud to see "young people like you" out doing what needed to be done to reclaim our state and we bid our goodbyes. A proud, lifelong Wisconsonian and veteran of the most catastrophic war in human history, in the fight against fascism abroad, thanking ME and by proxy, all of us, for what we are doing for his state, in the fight against fascism at home. I could barely bring myself to leave...moments like that don't exactly come along every day.

.....................

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/29/1095591/-A-Memorial-Day-Memory-on-the-Streets-of-Madison-Wisconsin-A-Reminder-of-Why-We-Fight

May 29, 2012

Reuters: Fukushima radiation seen in tuna off California

Fukushima radiation seen in tuna off California
By Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON | Mon May 28, 2012 3:16pm EDT

(Reuters) - Low levels of nuclear radiation from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima power plant have turned up in bluefin tuna off the California coast, suggesting that these fish carried radioactive compounds across the Pacific Ocean faster than wind or water can.

Small amounts of cesium-137 and cesium-134 were detected in 15 tuna caught near San Diego in August 2011, about four months after these chemicals were released into the water off Japan's east coast, scientists reported on Monday.

That is months earlier than wind and water currents brought debris from the plant to waters off Alaska and the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

The amount of radioactive cesium in the fish is not thought to be damaging to people if consumed, the researchers said in a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

..................

Fuckishima Blue Tuna in California. MOVE ALONG NOW!!!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/28/us-japan-nuclear-tuna-idUSBRE84R0MF20120528

May 29, 2012

Romney Laughs When McCain Calls American a "Jerk" on Memorial Day

Yesterday, Memorial Day, John McCain called a man a "jerk" who asked, ""What about your cover-up for Israel on the USS Liberty John McCain" and Mitt Romney laughed.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/29/1095573/-Watch-Romney-Laughs-When-McCain-Calls-American-a-Jerk-on-Memorial-Day
May 29, 2012

LOL-TRUMP: “I’ve been known as being a very smart guy for a long time”

“I’ve been known as being a very smart guy for a long time,” he said. “I don’t consider myself birther or not birther, but there are some major questions here that the press doesn’t want to cover. Now, if that were somebody else they’d be covering it and they’d be throwing people out of office, but they don’t want to cover it.”

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/donald-trump-lets-loose-with-unhinged-birther-rant-after-romney-reaffirms-support.php?ref=fpa

May 29, 2012

Meet Bill: The 91-Yr-Old Decorated WWII Vet Targeted By Florida Governor Rick Scott’s Voter Purge

Meet Bill: The 91-Year-Old Decorated WWII Veteran Targeted By Florida Governor Rick Scott’s Voter Purge
By Judd Legum on May 29, 2012 at 11:24 am

91-year-old WWII veteran Bill Internicola

Bill Internicola is a 91-year-old, Brooklyn-born, World War II veteran. He fought in the Battle of the Buldge and recieved the Bronze Star for bravery. He’s voted in Florida for 14 years and never had a problem.

Three weeks ago, Bill recieved a letter from Broward County Florida stating “You are not a U.S. Citizen” and therefore, ineligible to vote. He was given the option of requesting “a hearing with the Supervisor of Elections, for the purpose of providing proof that you are a United States citizens” or forfeit his right to vote.

This decorated World War II veteran is just one of hundreds of fully eligible U.S. citizens being targeted by Governor Scott’s massive voter purge just prior to this year’s election, according to data obtained from Florida election officials by ThinkProgress. The purge list, according to an analysis by the Miami Herald, targets mostly Democrats and Hispanics.

.................................

Bill appeared at a press conference this morning with Congressman Ted Deutch (D-FL), who has called on Scott to “immediately suspend” the voter purge.

more:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/29/491430/meet-bill-the-91-year-old-decorated-wwii-veteran-targeted-by-florida-governor-rick-scotts-voter-purge/

May 29, 2012

Walker is lying because he can - This Post Should Go Viral

TUE MAY 29, 2012 AT 08:20 AM PDT
This Post Should Go Viral
byPvtJarHeadFollow

I simply must share this piece I read over at Uppity Wisconsin by Jud Lounsbury.
http://www.uppitywis.org/blogarticle/another-absurd-lie-walker-has-no-memory-signing-feingold-kohl-re
Essentially, he was working on Feingold's '98 campaign, and while doing so, saw Scott Walker on many occasions. What he saw was Walker making a career out of being a Pro-Life anti partial birth abortion legislator. Around the same time a recall campaign against Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold over the subject failed. Walker now claims he conveniently can't remember signing the petition. It's an obvious lie.

And, because Walker was at these events with Neumann, the issue of partial birth abortion and Feingold's alleged support of it was the focus of Walker's speeches. My specific recollection is that Walker said, on multiple occasions, something in the vein of: We came up a little short with the recall effort, but that effort was not a wasted effort. History will remember it as the first step in Feingold's 1998 defeat.

(snip)

However, now Walker is making the absurd claim that he was not only not a leader of the recall Feingold / Kohl movement, but told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that didn't even sign the petition, claiming that he has "no memory" of signing the recall petitions against Kohl and Feingold and that "I don't believe that I did."

(snip)

Except there is evidence: when First Breath Alliance-- the name of the recall group-- was closing down their shop, they had some cash on hand. To whom do you think they gave that money? Yep: Scott Walker


Walker is lying because he can.

Once again, he is banking on being able to have the best of both worlds: He is so deeply entrenched in the pro-life community that he won't alienate any of them by feigning memory loss about his involvement in the 1997 recall effort with and he doesn't have to worry about the Wisconsin media, which is too stupid to point out the absurdity of a rabidly pro-life Walker distancing himself from the biggest pro-life event in Wisconsin history.



http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/29/1095396/-This-Post-Should-Go-Viral
May 29, 2012

Kirk's ex-wife files FEC complaint questioning campaign payments

Source: Chicago Tribune



Soon after Mark Kirk's ex-wife announced she would no longer support his 2010 run for the U.S. Senate, he brought her onto his campaign team, then quietly paid her after his victory.

But Kimberly Vertolli, a lawyer who received $40,000 from the campaign, again is at odds with her ex-husband, filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Kirk and his then-girlfriend may have broken campaign finance law.

The girlfriend, Dodie McCracken, who works in public relations, has acknowledged receiving more than $143,000 in fees and expenses for her campaign work. A former live-in girlfriend, she is no longer romantically involved with Kirk, according to a campaign aide.

Kirk's campaign has characterized Vertolli as an aggrieved ex-wife and labeled "groundless" her complaint filed late last year about payments to McCracken.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/ct-met-mark-kirk-20120529,0,4660129,full.story

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