Ron Johnson's muse, Dick Morris

Dick Morris can't read — Steve Benen

You remember Dick Morris, the erstwhile podiatrist and present Faux News "pundit" who called on Ron Johnson to run for the Senate. Rather, Morris called on "some rich guy from Wisconsin" to run for the Senate, which is pretty much how Ron Johnson has distinguished himself so far.

Coincidentally, Ron Johnson can't read either.

In other words, RoJo stepped to the podium

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson opened his remarks with a joke

He noted that Justice David Prosser's re-election, which is still under a recount, "took just a little bit out of [Democrats'] sails."

Maybe in Ron Johnson's sunspot-dreams it did.

Trump / RoJo 2012

For this you traded Russ Feingold

"Obviously, someone has given serious consideration to (me being a potential running mate), but I'm focusing on my role in the Senate," said Ron 'Sunspots' Johnson of Oshkosh, WI.

Because they're serious people with serious ideas. Meanwhile today's Republican Party is busy vilifying its most viable 2012 presidential candidate for trying to assist the young, the ill, and the elderly while today's GOP's most viable 2012 candidate is doing his best to deny it.

h/t @tiffanybrault.

Mr. Johnson goes to [find] Washington [on a map]

'Or whatever the hell it is I'm running for.'

Item: Ron Johnson has also expressed an interest in a spot on the Appropriations Committee, "but not to spend money."

Other Senate committees the Oshkosh millionaire has expressed interest in include Rules and Administration, but not to administer the rules, Armed Services, but not to arm the services, Judiciary, because the third time in his life to read Article III is the charm, and Indian Affairs, because he's always wanted to visit the Taj Mahal.

Sources say RoJo's most likely assignment will be to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, where he will advocate for the beneficial nutritive effects of carbon dioxide on the nation's flora.

h/t The Chief.

Science overlooks trees-sucking-it-down factor

Give that man a Nobel Prize

As the political debate drags on, the mute gray boxes atop Mauna Loa keep spitting out their numbers, providing a reality check: not only is the carbon dioxide level rising relentlessly, but the pace of that rise is accelerating over time.

A climate reckoning

Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere "gets sucked down by trees and helps the trees grow," said Republican/Fox News candidate for United States Senate Ron Johnson.

A candidate gesticulating

Correction: Senate richer without Feingold

Apparently McCain forgot who's taking Feingold's place.

Federal takeover of health care well underway

Ron Johnson promises to "repeal" all of this medical research.

For why? Because: "It's the single greatest assault on [his] Freedom in [his] lifetime." That's what Ron Johnson has said. Many, many times.

Ron Johnson's inspiration Ayn Rand called it the Virtue of Selfishness.

One firm that received $1.2M is Geron Corp., which is conducting the first trial therapies for quadriplegics using embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are derived from surplus in-vitro fertilizations that would otherwise be discarded. Johnson promised that is the first project he would abandon. We'll let him inform the quadriplegics.

Quadriplegia, I am willing to bet, is a far greater assault on freedom than any of Ron Johnson's insipid Fox News Channel talking points.

Feingold and Yemen

Item: Earlier Flight May Have Been Dry Run for Plotters

One of the harsher critics of US counterterrorism policy is US Sen. Russell Feingold (D) of Wisconsin, who is as critical of Obama's Afghanistan policy as he was of President Bush's Iraq policy. Senator Feingold has said since shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that prolonged military operations in Islamic countries cause the US to become bogged down and lose sight of extremist threats popping up elsewhere.

In a Dec. 2 letter to Obama explaining his opposition to the president's Afghanistan troop build-up, Feingold said, "Al Qaeda and its affiliates are located in Yemen, Somalia, North Africa, and other places around the world."

"Rather than investing so many of our resources in Afghanistan, we should pursue a comprehensive, global counterterrorism strategy," he said.

CSM, 01/05/2010

On the other hand, you have Ron Johnson, who believes making such statements is inappropriate to the role of a United States Senator.

Johnson's structural views of government apparently have something to do with the Framers of the Constitution not being accountants.

Feingold ironies noted

By both a Capital Times editor and reader:

And let's take that irony one step further. Ron Johnson claims his biggest asset is that he's a "self-made businessman" who hates health care reform. Except that RoJo:

1. Married into his money and his CEO position, and had a large portion of his sales go to other family-related businesses.

2. Took low-interest loans and other government assistance to help his company, but claims that all of these moves are bad for everyone else.

3. Despises the public option, but saves money for his company by having employees be covered under Badger Care ... which is the State equivalent of the public option!

I know the polls are bad in this race ... but if this State is foolish enough to pick a dishonest GOP rubber stamp like RoJo over the real deal in Feingold, this State is not what I have previously known it to be.

And this morning the New York Times reports that, "Not long ago, most Americans had scarcely heard of Yemen," the shipping origin of bombs discovered on cargo airplanes the other day.

But Senator Feingold has been warning about Yemen's potential as a launching ground for international terrorism at least since 2002.

In 2002, RoJo was counting up the hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest payment savings he realized through state-structured industrial revenue bonds, the same kind he now criticizes specifically where they're offered to a manufacturer of electrical transformer insulation, a business in all practical effects identical to his own.

That's not mere irony, that's flat-out hypocrisy.

Bob Barr, liberal moonbat for Russ Feingold

From one consistent reader of the Constitution to another:

What I look for in Washington are folks in the Senate and the House who put the Constitution first. Not the "R" or the "D", not partisan politics but the Constitution. And what you have in Russ Feingold, and I have worked closely with him over a number of years to try to rein in the Patriot Act, to try to rein in the government surveillance and so forth — this is a man who understands the Constitution, who supports and fights sometimes against his own party to defend the Constitution in the Congress of the United States in ways that are much more consistent and much more proactive than a lot of Republicans.

Earlier: Bob Barr, liberal moonbat

Compare:

I will say, y'know, prior to doing this, I've sat down and read the Constitution probably, thoroughly, three ... probably about five or six times. It is not an easy document to read. It is not, unless you study it in detail, it's hard to study. — Ron Johnson

See also: Ron Johnson's Second Amendment fantasies

In Wisconsin, a mandate conferred by apathy

For those of us who would prefer that Wisconsin retain for another term the most principled member of the U.S. Senate, another trend-affirming poll and a grim assessment:

Wisconsin has one of the largest enthusiasm gaps of any State in the country. Although it appears Democrats will have turnout issues pretty much everywhere the problem is unusually severe in Wisconsin.

What springs immediately to mind is an episode the Recess Supervisor highlighted several weeks ago, after Obama appeared with Russ Feingold at a rally in Madison:

Emily Lawless, a UW-Madison junior from Lakeville, Minn., waited in line five and a half hours for the chance to see the president live. . . . [But] Lawless admitted she would likely not vote. "It's too much work with the absentee ballot," she said.

I've never absentee voted, but I can't imagine it's much more trouble than paying the cable teevee bill or choosing from a restaurant menu.

Less than 5-1/2 hours exertion, surely.

What the Public Policy Polling report is saying is that the electoral success of the vapid Ron Johnson will be determined not so much by Wisconsinites voting for him as Wisconsinites not voting for anyone.

It's the self-described "likely voters" who are driving these polls whereas among the larger pool of registered voters, the contest is much closer. That is, the polled respondents who favor Russ Feingold are also admitting that they are not going to vote anyway.

No good will come of that.

The Silence of the WPRI Hypocrites

Sykes & Co. too busy think-tanking nonpartisanly
No surprises there, but do check out Cory Liebmann.*

There is no evidence in the WPRI report — 7th Circuit

* Speaking of whom, this is an item Cory dug up quite a while ago, but I haven't seen him given any credit now that it's hit the papers.

On the other hand, Kleefisch's likening gay people to one of the lower animals is typical conservative Christian twaddle, and not surprising.

Nor is it surprising why Kleefisch has been kept hidden away since becoming Scott Walker's running mate. One smart move there.

Ron Johnson fails to provide health care coverage

Asserts the Great State of Wisconsin:

It is important to know which companies [e.g., Pacur] fail to provide coverage for some or all of their employees and instead rely on the government to cover these costs.

— Karen Timberlake, Dept. of Health Services Secretary

Yesterday Scott Suder, a Republican member of the Wisconsin Assembly, threw a conniption when he learned the State's Department of Health Services publishes partial summaries of the number of employees (and their dependents) at Wisconsin companies who are recipients of the medical assistance program known as BadgerCare.

Claiming to be unconnected with the Ron Johnson for Senate campaign, Rep. Suder fired off a press release charging everyone from several local reporters to U.S. Senator Russ Feingold to Governor Jim Doyle with unlawful shenanigans. "Russ Feingold is so desperate that it appears Jim Doyle has to break the law in order to disparage an Oshkosh businessman," Suder said, and then, upping the ante, "This time they have gone too far by violating the law."

But it might appear that Rep. Suder's tactic has backfired.

This morning the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that Rep. Suder has already received a reply from Karen Timberlake, the department secretary, from whom Suder demanded an explanation.

Timberlake's response could well drive Suder even wilder:

In her letter to Suder, Timberlake said the department "provides such information because it is important for taxpayers to know which companies fail to provide coverage for some or all of their employees and instead rely on the government to cover these costs."

And among those would be none other than Fox News/Republican candidate Ron Johnson, who is "relying on the government" to cover the cost of his own employees' health care benefits, the same Ron Johnson who has repeatedly called government-administered health insurance "the greatest assault on [his] Freedom in [his] lifetime."*

Suder pointed to a DHS administrative rule that refers to "safeguarded information" relating to BadgerCare that may not be distributed as including "past or present employment."

However, the administrative restriction applies to "individual applicant[s] or recipient[s]," none of whom are individually named in any of the summary documents published at the department's website or by the various news outlets that ran the original story (Lisa Kaiser at the Shepherd Express was the first, after which the Journal-Sentinel and the Associated Press picked up and went with it).

Perhaps Rep. Suder could successfully argue that releasing the employment information itself reveals the identities of individual applicants or recipients, in which case the Department of Health Services has been violating the administrative rule for several years.

Maybe we'll find out soon enough whether he'll try or not. It's not hard to read Timberlake's reply as at least mildly politically charged and if Suder was that excitable yesterday, he may be fit to be tied today.

* In fact he claims it — and Dick Morris — as his primary motivation.

Quote of the day

I'm tempted to be That Guy who says Feingold is more likely to make the shocking comeback than Sestak. — Nate Silver

Except it wouldn't be as shocking as Wisconsin electing a cipher.

Ron Johnson's Stasi manhandles affable scamp

Right in view of the American flag!

Related: Joe Miller's Tijuana border patrol

Suder demands to know who uploaded Excel files

It's a Ron Johnson campaign outrage!

State legislator wants answers and he wants them NOW:

State Rep. Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) said Monday that the State's decision to release the number of those enrolled in BadgerCare to the Journal Sentinel "compromised the integrity of the information."

Um ...

Wisconsin Department of Health Services Employer Reports

h/t Lisa Kaiser.

The Tail-Gunner flourishes yet

No, it's not Mike Gableman this time

Our flag is a symbol for all the true Americans — not the Communists, socialists, fascists, nor others who are opposed to the free-enterprise system.

LETTER: Feingold opposed flag-burning [amendment]*

As a matter of fact, Senator Feingold's position was in accord with Justice Antonin Scalia's. So is Scalia a Communist, a socialist, a fascist, or some "other" opposed to the free-enterprise system?

* As did Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the noted Marxist-Leninist whose cash money free enterprise champion Ron Johnson loves.

Divisive Ron Johnson now with added petulance

Julie Leschke, a former Oshkosh Chamber of Commerce employee who left the Chamber to work for the Johnson campaign, contacted at least two people in the Oshkosh Area School District to ask them to write a rebuttal letter to association president Len Herricks' letter endorsing Feingold.

They declined.

Fox News's Ron Johnson can't even get along with a tiny education committee. How does he think he's going to get along in the Senate?

Earlier: Ron Johnson hearts the Social Darwinist, Charles Murray

Ron Johnson, RepubliCorp employee of the month

RoJo wins coveted award at Milwaukee's posh University Club

"For his outstanding service in promoting the corporate agenda."

RoJo's bean-counting skills are not the sharpest

But he advertises those as his primary qualification.*

Ron Johnson overlooked a few tens of thousands of beans here too.

* Others include "man whose personal Freedoms are under assault."