Welcome, Truthseekers, to Flying Monkey Monday madness! It's the eve of the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election that pits labor-hater gov. Scott Walker against Democratic challenger Tom Barrett and the results are likely to be a litmus test for the presidential election in November.
The LA Times reports...
"Wisconsin, in the scant 18 months since Walker came to power, has become a national benchmark for polarized politics in an era when brinkmanship has replaced compromise and demonizing increasingly drowns out discourse. Political and interest groups on the right and left are reading a lot into Wisconsin as a barometer for the mood of the nation just five months before the U.S. chooses whether to stick with President Obama or turn to Republican Mitt Romney."
One government watchdog group counts at least $61 million spent so far by candidates or outside interest groups on the governor's recall alone, with the balance heavily tipped in Walker's favor. He has been on a fundraising tear for months, with most of it coming from out of state, some from billionaires in chunks as big as $500,000.
And that probably doesn't touch the money the Koch Brothers slid into his coffers. The editor of the Capitol Times isn't a big Walker fan, stating that, for the son of a minister, Walker sure tells a lot of lies:
"PolitiFact, the down-the-middle service that vets statements made by politicians for their veracity, found that of 51 Walker claims investigated, 23 of them were 'false' or 'pants on fire.' Just six of the 51 claims he made garnered an unqualified 'true' rating. That's a lot of tall tales, as my grandpa used to say."During last week's debate, Walker again claimed in response to Tom Barrett's questions about the John Doe investigation that as county executive he asked the district attorney to investigate what appeared to be irregularities among his staff.
"Walker repeated that claim the same day that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the district attorney's office asked for the John Doe so that the office could get better cooperation from Walker's office, 'which had been unwilling or unable' to turn over records and other information needed in the investigation.
"Frankly, this helps explain why it's difficult to believe any of the self-reported job numbers he has touted the past couple of weeks."
And score a victory for civil rights! The abominable Defense of Marriage Act was ruled unconstitutional by an appeals court in Boston. The San Francisco Chronicle has the story:
"'The denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married does burden the choice of states like Massachusetts to regulate the rules and incidents of marriage,' the appeals judges said in an opinion yesterday, upholding the ruling of a lower court."The panel is the first appellate court to have declared any part of the federal law unconstitutional, said Kenji Yoshino, a professor of constitutional law at New York University School of Law in Manhattan."
Given the recent assaults by the NeoCons on civil rights, worker's rights, women's rights, and the middle class in general, this election season will be one of the most significant in recent history.
