Blogging Blue » Announcements

Save the date: Tammy Baldwin’s coming to Waukesha County!

Lisa Mux — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:21:55 +0000

Tammy Baldwin will be joining us for a Special Session of Drinking Liberally Waukesha on Monday, February 20th! Basic info here, more details coming soon.

The Snake that Ate the Elephant

Phil Scarr — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:05:21 +0000

This is a post I’m proud to write. Yesterday, as many of you may have noticed, Blogging Blue was… unreliable. Well, there’s a good explanation for that. Apparently, one of the Gods of Reddit voted up Zach’s story on the Louisiana Congressman who thought the Onion article on the new Planned Parenthood Abortionplex was a true story. Funny, yes. But what happened next drove the site to it’s knees.

Take a look at this 48 hour snapshot of site activity I captured this morning.

The Snake that Ate the Elephant

Those little dots represent a normal day here at Blogging Blue. But that spike? Well, in agregate, that bulge represents a day with 25X the number of average hits we see here. That’s huge!

I think I’ll let Roy Scheider explain…

Drinking Liberally MKE: coming 02/20/12!

Zach W — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:43:52 +0000

Here’s some news on this month’s Drinking Liberally meeting here in MKE:

Hi Folks:

Just a friendly reminder that at this month’s meeting we’ll be joined by a very special guest, as Mike McCabe, the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, will join us to talk about the vital role his organization plays in serving as a clean government watchdog. We’re excited to have Mike join us, and we hope you’ll mark your calendars to join us for what promises to be a lively discussion.

Here are the details for our February meeting:

When: Monday, February 20, 2012 @ 7:00 p.m.
Where: Transfer Pizzeria & Cafe, 101 W. Mitchell Street

We hope to see you next month!

Zach, Ed, and the MKE Drinking Liberally crew

I hope to see you there, because it should be a great time!

Reince Priebus is an Idiot!

Phil Scarr — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:08:15 +0000

That is all. Carry on, citizens.

Upcoming health care listening sessions in Milwaukee County (ANNOUNCEMENT)

Zach W — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:22:09 +0000

From my email inbox comes news of a bunch of upcoming healthcare listening sessions hosted by Citizen Action of Wisconsin and their allies:

In addition to the listening sessions noted above, you can also register to be a part of a virtual listening session from the comfort of your own home.

Prologue: EUCWIC!

Ed Heinzelman — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:33:28 +0000

Everything Ultimately Costs What It Costs :: EUCWIC.

I am not the consummate economist like our prolific Phil Scarr! Although I look forward to his posts on economics and despite my classwork in economics, I tend to feel my eyes glaze over and hear my head scream: ‘Just show me the damn graph!’ after a paragraph or so. And when Phil and his cohorts start tossing around co-efficients my mind wanders off to articles by LJK Setright on unobtainable Italian sports cars and their remarkable co-efficients of drag…BUT I digress…

Under the heading of EUCWIC, I hope to publish a note or two or three about discussions or occurrences in the modern culture, society, economy or government that doesn’t take into account the true or total cost of a program or policy. I certainly won’t be as erudite as Mr. Scarr but will most likely be as verbose (just kidding Phil). But hope to bring a little of my knowledge of accounting and economics with whatever common sense I can muster to this table!

Kathleen Falk

Jeff Simpson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:23:55 +0000

Former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk is “technically” the first to enter the race to replace Scott Walker as Governor of Wisconsin(Tim Cullen is supposedly also running). Here is her introduction to the race.

I really like Kathleen Falk and think she would do a great job. If you took a blind test comparing her record as Dane County Executive to Scott Walker’s record as Milwaukee County Executive, Kathleen Falk wins hand down. Unfortunately it is not a blind test and Walker is willing to spend millions to lie and distort his record. They will try and portray her as a “Madison Liberal” so that will be something that she will have to overcome, but that will be the talking point whoever ends up being the candidate. I will wait and see who all jumps in before I endorse, but I do think that Kathleen Falk deserves consideration.

On to the Primary.

Hey look…over there! Are those some snazzy ads or what?

Zach W — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:41:53 +0000

In the 4+ years since Blogging Blue first started providing the top-notch political content that you’ve all grown accustomed to, I’ve been loathe to ask you, the readers of this blog, for anything beyond your comments to our entries. Last year I asked you all to help offset some of the cost of our redesign, and you all responded in fine form, and so I’ve got one more request for you.

We’re working with a new advertising partner here at Blogging Blue, and from now until election day in November, you’re going to see some ads over on the right-hand side of the blog. All I’m asking is that if you see an ad that interests you, you click through, because every click helps us here at Blogging Blue while also helping the folks doing the advertising.

Seriously…it’s a win-win for everyone involved!

You can help recall Scott Fitzgerald

Zach W — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:41:40 +0000

If you’d like to help the effort to recall Republican State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, one of Gov. Scott Walker’s most loyal lackeys, you can do so by clicking here to sign up for a shift collecting signatures to trigger a recall election.

Triggering a recall election against Scott Fitzgerald would be a huge step towards Democrats retaking control of the State Senate (and finally restoring some sanity to our government), so I hope you’ll consider signing up for a shift collecting signatures.

And if you want to sign a recall petition against Scott Fitzgerald, here’s a list of dates and locations where you can sign.

Jefferson County Democrats office at 320 South Wisconsin Drive in Jefferson. Open 9am – 9pm on Saturday and Sunday, January 7 and 8. 920-675-9805
Dodge County Democrats office at 116 Monroe Street in Beaver Dam. Open 9am – 9pm on Saturday and Sunday, January 7 and 8. 920-887-2400
403 East Lake Street in Horicon. Open 9am – 9pm on Saturday and Sunday, January 7 and 8.
“Occupy High Street” in Fort Atkinson on the way to K-Mart.
Lori Compas’ home at 326 Garfield Street in Fort Atkinson. Open 9am – 9pm on Saturday and Sunday, January 7 and 8. 920-568-9821
Ziwisky Law Office at 109 N. 3rd Street in Watertown (weekdays only).
408 E. Main in Watertown. Open 9am – 9pm on Saturday and Sunday, January 7 and 8.
Grassroots Columbus – Fall River office at 315 East James Street in Columbus. Open 9am – 9pm on Saturday and Sunday, January 7 and 8. 608-698-5832
The bandshell in Oconomowoc. 324 West Wisconsin Avenue. 10-4 Saturday, Jan. 7 and Sunday, Jan 8.
Recall office in Stoughton at 220 East Main. Stoughton is outside our district, but it’s near the border and they’ve volunteered to carry our petitions.
Inside the Labor Temple in Madison at 1602 S. Park Street, Room 104. Madison is outside our district, but many district residents work in Madison.
Saturday, Jan. 7: The Mode Theater in Waterloo from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

John Peterson Withdraws Nomination from SWIB.

Ed Heinzelman — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:39:01 +0000

Governor Scott Walker had nominated John Peterson III to the State of Wisconsin Investment Board. The nomination was received with a fair amount of controversy including an objection from SWIB’s retired executive director, David Mills. Seems that he didn’t have the common sense to recuse himself during an earlier board stint and voted in favor of investing in a company that had ties to a company he had ownership in…many viewed this as an apparent conflict of interest even back in 2001 when the action occurred.

But today he withdrew is nomination. I would imagine the recall and yesterday’s John Doe indictments may have swayed his interest in the position. That and the grilling he received on Wednesday from the Senate Committee on Financial Issues and Rural Affairs.

Mr. Peterson feared (and I can guarantee it would have) it would become a “highly partisan affair”.

“Although I looked forward to serving on the Board, I have no wish to serve under these circumstances,” Peterson wrote in an e-mail to Eric Esser on Friday afternoon.

But only two days earlier he didn’t seem quite so concerned…and even comes off a bit cocky:

“I’m probably the most experienced person available. I’ve made mistakes as a person and arguably as a trustee. They will not be repeated. . . . In retrospect, should I have recused myself? Yeah. OK, but it was an indirect investment instead of a direct investment. The facts speak for themselves. It just didn’t occur to me at the time,” Peter sen told members of a Senate committee.

If only he had ended his apology with, the “should I have recused myself…Yeah”. But he couldn’t stop himself there and went on to qualify the apology instead. Insincere? I didn’t believe a word of it.

One less Gov. Walker crony on the SWIB is a good thing…and one less ally when the governor tries to privatize public pension funds!