Franken to be Declared Winner

The head vote-counter position in a given state is that state’s most important race.

I am disappointed that Democrats realize this but Republican Party officials can’t be bothered to care.

Stalin got his position by making himself the secret ballot vote counter in the CP’s central committee ... Lenin had no clue what was going on.

Franken to be Declared Winner

To Bad the Fox News Article has been shown to be a fraud!

By Whom?

Franken to be Declared Winner

And communism.  Don’t forget communism.

Franken to be Declared Winner

That figures Scott...more unbridled liberalism, more unbridled taxation.

Franken to be Declared Winner

Stolen my butt.  And man am I glad Franken won.  I enjoyed a couple of his books and his victory is the absolute cherry on top of the 2008 election for me.

Franken to be Declared Winner

Kinda odd that more votes were cast than people who actually voted (from what I read). Can you explain?

Franken to be Declared Winner

To Bad the Fox News Article has been shown to be a fraud!
The Actual Ballots are on the web.
yes they had to make a call on such ballots, but they did so in the same manner regardless of who it benefited.
you dopes do realize they had 2 minn supreme court justices working on the panel.
reminder that the minn supreme court has 7 justices,
4 been appointed by REPUBLICAN IDOL Tim Pawlenty.
Tell me again why they’d let franken steal a donut much less an election. Owen you really got look into this stuff rather than just trust the right wing nutbags.
just like i don’t expect all lefty blogs to buy into the 911 was an inside jon BS just cause they are lefty’s!

Richardson Out Amid Scandal

Any public financing scheme is going to be centered around a minimum number of sigantures/votes in prior elections/other funds raised, etc.  All of this will favor the existing parties and their candidates.

The problem isn’t financing.  The problem is that government now controls a purse that is far too large.  Any purse of that size will be corrupted.

Franken to be Declared Winner

To quote from the article TD posted:

He’s getting help from Mr. Ritchie and his four fellow Canvassing Board members, who have delivered inconsistent rulings and are ignoring glaring problems with the tallies.

Under Minnesota law, election officials are required to make a duplicate ballot if the original is damaged during Election Night counting. Officials are supposed to mark these as “duplicate” and segregate the original ballots. But it appears some officials may have failed to mark ballots as duplicates, which are now being counted in addition to the originals. This helps explain why more than 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote. By some estimates this double counting has yielded Mr. Franken an additional 80 to 100 votes.

Whether the election has been stolen will depend on if these actions were deliberate or simply sloppy.

Group Wants 50% Hike in Gas Taxes

Yes my math is pretty solid

Crossing the line between ignorance and stupidity?

Or we can use your solution of paying $182 for a watermelon?  I wonder which one is more sensible?

I don’t like watermelon.

Big Bopper's Casket Up for Sale

...

There ain’t a-nothin’ worth a scoffin’
like a big ol’ coffin

Make my house look funny
make me spend my money

Maybe climb inside
smell formaldehyde

I’m-like-a ghoul
Oh baby, that’s-a what I like…

-jjg
DailyScoff.com

Franken to be Declared Winner

And here is great discussion with actual ballot examples of the inconsistent rules applied to ‘divining voter intent’ which has favored Franken.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,470892,00.html

Franken to be Declared Winner

Its dissapointing that you would characterize the process in this manner.

And it would have been more disappointing if you had characterized it any differently Watson.

Group Wants 50% Hike in Gas Taxes

Well Scott ... I mean PJR

See comment #26.

Yes my math is pretty solid - 80,000 maximum weight of class 8 divided by 4,000 - average weight of passenger vehicle equals 20 - Not 9,600

Higher fees - you want trucking fuel fees to increase in price by a factor (using your math) of 2300??

To bring in a load of fruit of Calexico California to Roundys here in Milwaukee costs $2,534.40 (2112 miles x $1.20 mile) The truck will consume an average of 352 gallons of fuel (2112 miles Divided by 6 MPG) and therefore pay an average of $162 in fuel taxes (352 x $0.46 per gallon average fuel tax) - actually it wil be a bit more because fuel taxes out west are higher than east coast.

So using your factor of 2300, you think that the truck should instead pay $372,600 ($162 x 2300).  Yeah - no problem.  No economic issues there. 

That means that you will now pay a lot more for watermelon. 

If a class 8 can haul 42000 lbs of product and a watermelon weighs 20 lbs the truck will carry about 2100 melons.  Each melon would would pay a road tax of $177.43 (372,600/2100).  So much for the $5 watermelons for that July 4th picnic.

I wonder what the economic effect will be on the farmers - or those on food stamps??  Do you need me to answer that for you too?

If it doesn’t come from your back yard - it gets to your house by a class 8 truck.  Food, furniture, clothing, electronics, everything.

I have an idea - how about we use the road taxes that are collected for road building/maintenance and not for bridges to no where, duplicated unwanted mass transit choo choos, bike racks, and jogging/bike paths.  I-88 should receive zero federal funds since it is a duplicated routed interstate of I80 7 miles south.

Or we can use your solution of paying $182 for a watermelon?  I wonder which one is more sensible?

Franken to be Declared Winner

Mike ... you can start here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123111967642552909.html

Franken to be Declared Winner

That’s a ridiculous charge Owen.  This recount has been as transparent as can be, with challenged ballots even being shown online by the MN newspapers.

Coleman has cherry picked 650 ballots from Republican leaning districts that he claims were improperly left out of the count.  Yet even with those and discounting the 133 lost ballots, the most optimistic predictions have Coleman coming up short.

Both campaigns were involved in setting up the ground rules for the recount.  Both campaigns had the same opportunities to challenge ballots, with Coleman challenging a substantially greater number even before Franken withdrew the majoritiy of his challenges.

This was a model of the right way to do a recount, painstaking as it was, it learned the lessons from Florida in 2000 and removed all but the faintest of doubt about its accuracy.

Its dissapointing that you would characterize the process in this manner.

Richardson Out Amid Scandal

BBB,

Public financing would merely entrench the existing parties even further.

Explain, please?

Franken to be Declared Winner

I agree with half of Owen’s statement. I don’t think it was stolen, per se. I believe Team Franken out hustled Team Colemann, hence “while we looked on.” I would agree while someobody looked on I am not so sure about “we.”

Richardson Out Amid Scandal

"There’s a difference between helping your friends and engaging in quid pro quo that needs to be drawn...”

No, there isn’t.  And yes, that does make many politicians crooks. 

Public financing won’t change any of this.  Public financing would merely entrench the existing parties even further.

Doyle and Four Other Governors Can't Manage Own States

ATV & RS: I agree in totality.

Here is an interesting exercise. Ask a school superintendent if he/she likes unfunded mandates. He/she will loudly proclaim that they hurt education.

Next: Ask the superintendent which ones they would like to see eliminated. Let me know of your results. The two I asked never gave me one example. I even checked back with them several months later to see if they could name one. Nope.

How would you guys explain that? I am asking a serious question and I don’t know the answer.

Richardson Out Amid Scandal

Sorry Jill, but he has been under investigation for sometime and it’s been common knowledge.  If Obama and his campaign didn’t know, then they are dumber than we all thought.

Group Wants 50% Hike in Gas Taxes

or are you still quoting the antiquated 1962 study???

Yep, and your source refuting it?

Having a little trouble with the math Clint?

Taking off your shoes won’t help.

Besides that.....

Let’s see,

Do I want to pay higher taxes/fee to offset the cost associated with providing someone else a good/service?

Or,

Do I want to have a choice in paying more for a good/service or doing without it?

I like choice, you seem to be advocating for a more redistributive approach.

Richardson Out Amid Scandal

Or it could mean that Obama demanded his resignation because he didn’t tell the transition team that he was being investigated. All of you seem to assume that it was Richardson’s idea to pull his name from consideration. I think there’s an even chance that a directive came from above.

Franken to be Declared Winner

"Stealing an election” is a pretty serious charge there, Owen.  How do you mean, exactly?  Are you aware of any problems with counting the votes? Any of the ballots challenged by Coleman that you would have rulled the other way? Do you think the absentee ballots rejected in error should have been not counted for some reason (Franken still wins by 40 without them)? What exactly is your problem with the process by which all of the votes were counted? Or is it just the result you don’t like?

Group Wants 50% Hike in Gas Taxes

9,600 passenger cars

Ummm - if a car weighs about 2 tons and the MAXIMUM weight of a class 8 is 40 tons that is a factor of 20 - not 9600.  Combine that with the fact that a class 8 will have 18 wheels with 2-3 times the footprint of the average car.... and your 9600 figure is way off.... or are you still quoting the antiquated 1962 study???  If you are, I have a study from 1963 and Johnson’s administration that says poverty can be elimanted in a decade…

Besides that - is your argument that the taxes paid should be equalized (at your figure) - yeah because jacking up the fuel taxes on semi’s only won’t effect the cost of EVERYTHING THAT YOU OWN.

Richardson Out Amid Scandal

RS,

Good to see that itch to beat up on Pro-Life Wisconsin was scratched again.  Must be hard to not be able to egg their offices personally from out there in South Dakota.

While your point is valid, you’re also generalizing a tad too much.  This isn’t about legislation, it’s about state contracts.  You more than any of us, know the difference between that.

There’s a proper and legal process for both, and it appears from the early information coming out of Santa Fe that Richardson was leaning hard for an out-of-state contractor - and contributor of his - to get a state contract only his office could hand out. 

As for Richardson’s decision to pull his name from nomination, it could mean either he’s a statesman, or he’s more concerned he could have the shortest tenure ever for a Commerce Secretary.

Clinton Secures Millions in Taxpayer Dollars for Donor

Look at the common thread here.  Rahm, Richardson, Hillary.

The Clinton administration was filled with unethical folks, starting at the top with Hillary asking Craig the bouncer to bring those 1,000 FBI files on GOP people over to the White House ("how did these get here on the dining room table next to my toll house cookies!).

Obama needed to make a clean break from Clinton.  These clowns are dragging him down.

Clinton Secures Millions in Taxpayer Dollars for Donor

One Party’s practice doesn’t permission make for the other.

I agree, though there are a lot of partisans who have a hard time accepting that.

Big Bopper's Casket Up for Sale

Eww

MPS Board Votes to Investigate Hardin

This article sounds great.It boosts up my energy on this morning. It is really informative and impressive as well.
http://www.visionomics.com

Richardson Out Amid Scandal

I just want to make the point that if you think wanting to help out your donors makes you crooked, then pretty much every politician on earth is crooked.  The only reason wealthy people and lobbyists max out is to curry favor with politicians.  You think wealthy couples are forking over $4600 in two checks to a candidate because they love democracy?

If PLW cuts Dan LeMahieu a check and encourages its members to donate to him, and then LeMahieu pursues a bunch of PLW initiatives, does that mean he’s crooked too?  I would argue not.  If he gets some pro-life bill passed and PLW cuts him a check afterward, does that mean he’s corrupt?  No.

There’s a distinction between helping your friends and engaging in quid pro quo that needs to be drawn here, and I think some of you are blurring the line without having any factual basis for doing so.

Quid pro quo shouldn’t be tolerated under any circumstances.  But we don’t know that either Richardson or Clinton are guilty of that.  The Blagojevich tapes, on the other hand, spell it out rather clearly.  But even he’s entitled to his day in court.

The only way to eliminate this type of real or perceived corruption is to go to a system of full public financing, I’m guessing most of you don’t want to do that.

Richardson Out Amid Scandal

Man, to hear the narrative since 2005, you’d think only the GOP were corrupt SOB’s.

Between Blago, Richardson, and now Clinton, they make the GOP of late look like pikers, and lest we forgot our own Governor Doyle.

Is there a clean one in the bunch, or do their motivations absolve them of their means?

Clinton Secures Millions in Taxpayer Dollars for Donor

When one Party (and their nominee) made it a centerpiece of their agenda and their supporters invested so much hope in their message of change, the glass house should only be too brittle…

One Party’s practice doesn’t permission make for the other.

Doyle and Four Other Governors Can't Manage Own States

You know, that’s a great point.  Imagine how much further in the hole the state of Wisconsin would be if it actually paid for all the crap it tells local governments to do.  And then the bastards have the nerve to also try and limit how much revenue local governments can raise.

Evil.  Pure evil.  The Wisconsin Legislature is the pretty much the heart of darkness and of complete unaccountability.

Richardson Out Amid Scandal

John Galt: ditto to everything you said.

Doyle and Four Other Governors Can't Manage Own States

I think the bigger problem is the unfunded mandates. Grant programs and others can be problematic but at least when the spigot is shut off, the state/locals have the option to ditch the program. I know it sounds unlikely but I have worked in places that ditched things attached to funding sources that were shut off.

Unfunded mandates are just pure cowardice and evil. Like you say, a great way for legislators on one level to say they did something while not worrying about the bill (deficit spending being its sinister twin). Real ID was about the most egregious example of this I’ve seen in a long time, with No Child and pretty much everything the State of Wisconsin does tied for a close second.

While MPS has its problems, and I won’t defend it overall, but one of the few things people care to understand is that it faces a crushing burden of unfunded mandates. A lot of people like to say private schools can teach kids for less. Well yeah, but private schools always pick their students. MPS and other public systems don’t have that luxury. A simple comparison of costs per student therefore is never valid, though criticism of teacher benefits overall is.

Clinton Secures Millions in Taxpayer Dollars for Donor

While it ought to be, it’s hard to call it a scandal anymore when both parties have been doing it for quite some time.

Clinton Secures Millions in Taxpayer Dollars for Donor

Is there still room under the Obama bus?

Richardson Out Amid Scandal

Unnnhhhhh....so what about an investigation into Paulson?

Clinton Secures Millions in Taxpayer Dollars for Donor

No shortage of scandal around the Prez.  But it’s ok....he’s one of “us”, says the MSM.  This one will pass quickly.

Group Wants 50% Hike in Gas Taxes

Something that a couple of trillion dollars in bailout spending will do nothing to improve.

It’s way over a couple and your are correct.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, Couldn’t.........

But back to the food....

As we get poorer as a country your % of income spent on groceries will continue to rise.

Group Wants 50% Hike in Gas Taxes

Well pjr - I think the charts are a either a bit off, or a bit behind, or both. Maybe our region is an aberration?  I agree that, as a whole, the nation is over-extended.  Something that a couple of trillion dollars in bailout spending will do nothing to improve.  But back to the food....

We watch our spending pretty closely.  Our food budget - just groceries, not including restaurants or alcohol - went from roughly $650 per month to roughly $1100 per month.  It started creeping up in May, peaked in July and is down to just under $1000 per month now for our little family of four, even with buying “store” instead of “name” brands.  Milk alone has gone from about $3.25 to over $4 per gallon.  My friends and co-workers have experienced the same.  Obviously, we have had to change our spending habits because of this.  In our area, restaurants are failing daily because nobody is eating out anymore.  Regardless of the charts, food is up way more than 6.8%

Jail Closed

Interestingly, the inmates in Wisconsin are served higher quality food than our public school children.  Go figure.

Group Wants 50% Hike in Gas Taxes

Clint,

Talk about half baked!
Forgot to figure mpg into it.
Truck @ 6 mpg = $14,325
Cars @ 22 mpg =$33,578,182
That certainly seems more equitable doesn’t it?

What are you talking about here??

That is the difference in the WI Fuel tax that would be paid by one Class VIII truck and the 9,600 passenger cars that it would take to create the same amount of damage/wear/deterioration to a roadway as that one Class VIII truck.

Group Wants 50% Hike in Gas Taxes

JJ,

Our food budget almost doubled this summer when gas was over $4 - my guess is that it did for everyone else as well.

Well given that the CPI shows food up at an annual rate of 6.3% through September 2008 my guess is that it did not.

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid0809.pdf

Ya’ think that these things may have had some contributing factor to everyone spending less on like everything else?  Maybe had something to do with people not being able to suddenly pay mortgages or buy new cars?

No, I think that the majority of spending less part came about because in the aggregate we are tapped out.

We have leveraged and consumed way more than we have actually produced.

The gravy train is over.

It really is just as simple as that.

Richardson Out Amid Scandal

As much as I don’t mind seeing Dems get some of their own medicine, I like Richardson and think he is a good man.

He has the decency to step down rather than have clouds hanging over the administration. Back in my day that is what statemen did, even when they were innocent.

Hillary’s deal sounds more shady but you won’t get her to step aside with a crowbar. Either prying her fingers or bonking her on the head.

Group Wants 50% Hike in Gas Taxes

Is that “fact” or “conjecture & half-baked bs”?  I would say it is conjecture on your part.

OK mht, let’s take a look at the project at hand.

The I-94 North-South corridor was first built in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/projects/d2/i94/need.htm

What are they planning to do that is significantly different?

Adding an additional lane in each direction.

Clearly a breathtaking innovation from the original design.

Ya, ya I know all those safety and design improvements which account for about 10% of the total cost. Wow, that really gets my heart pounding in anticipation.

As far as the AASHO study you reference, what is your point?

Have the laws of physics changed in the last 46 years relative to load equivalency factors?

Apparently not.

http://www.pavementinteractive.org/index.php?title=ESAL

Again what is your point?

My point is that-in this conversation-the transportation model the I94 N/S represents doesn’t work.

If it did we wold not be having this conversation in the first place.

The current tax/fee structure does not meet the cost of maintaining what we have much less accommodating continuous expansion.

Have you got something else?

American Fascism

Under the terms of the draft legislation, which continued to evolve Monday evening, the government would receive warrants for stock equivalent to at least 20% of the loans any company receives.

Three Wisconsin Legislators Refuse Pay Raise

Big deal -

When was the last time that they proposed real spending cuts in the budget?

Richardson Out Amid Scandal

How is this different than anything Doyle’s done?

What the hell’s up w/ the New Mexican State Capital Press Corps?  Aren’t they supposed to just take the Guv for his word and then just re-print his press releases like good little soldiers?

Swear that’s how I was told the professionals in Madison did it all the time.