December 26, 2013

"On November 5, 2014, Wisconsin progressives will wake to find that not only has Scott Walker been elected statewide for a third time..."

... but the GOP has taken back the U.S. Senate and increased its House majority.
Republicans will also be calling Obamacare the worst popular domestic policy reform since Prohibition (also warmly embraced by progressives, let's not forget), and the battle to deliver the knockout blow to this wobbly but still-standing program will enter its next phase.

This news will undoubtedly make many isthmus residents sad, and some might need a hug. Too bad Madison's Snuggle House didn't make it through 2013.

Happy New Year.

56 comments:

Left Bank of the Charles said...

Worst popular?

garage mahal said...

This news will undoubtedly make many isthmus residents sad, and some might need a hug. Too bad Madison's Snuggle House didn't make it through 2013.

Sick burn, Larry.

PB said...

One can only hope, but Obamacare could be so disastrous and calamity inducing that medical martial law is declared. With this lawless administration, who knows where that would lead.

Beorn said...

So the subtext is, "Don't let the God-damned Republicans get in the way of us screwing up this state and the country!"

campy said...

"Never make predictions, especially about the future."

- Charles Dillon ("Casey") Stengel

YoungHegelian said...

.....the Edsel and Showgirls on the list of worst new product launches in American history.

True Story: While waiting to cross Georgia Ave near me, two buses pass by, one immediately following behind the other. The first one has a side banner adv that says "Showgirls -- Forget Your Inhibitions". The second one has an ad that says "Pregnant & Scared --- Call Catholic Social Services".

I'm standing there thinking "Wow, causality in action!"

n.n said...

The problem with Obamacare is less what it is, which is quite bad, than what it hides, which is much worse.

David said...

The Isthmus?

Have they gone mad?

ddh said...

If that comes to pass, many Isthmus readers will get into their pajamas, drink hot chocolate, and watch The Lion King. Fighting the good fight is so hard--no one understands.

Okay, I'm being sarcastic.

Skeptical Voter said...


Does this guy know what he's talking about. Assuming that he doesn't have h is tongue in his cheek, I certainly hope so.

As for Isthmus folks who will be profoundly sad come November 2014, I'll be happy to send a box car full of TS chits to comfort the bereaved.

Anonymous said...

Ah, if wishes were pennies....

great Unknown said...

Ain't happenin. The Democrats will find a million uncounted absentee ballets, and Holder will obtain a court order to allow them to be counted.

victoria said...

Don't worry, Democrats. the Republicans will undoubtedly do something stupid to ruin their chances. Never have I seen a group so determined to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.



Vicki from Pasadena

Alex said...

Sick burn, Larry.

The truth does burn garage.

Alex said...

Add the Microsoft Surface to the Edsel as worst product launch ever.

somefeller said...

If wishes were horses, then dreamers would ride...

Personally, I'm looking forward to the inevitable GOP talking point of: "If Barack Obama was running for office today, he'd be a Republican! And our party protects Obamacare, unlike the Democrats!" I expect to start hearing it around 2030, if history is any guide.

Alex said...

somefeller - are you going to go against the grain and predict a Democrat triumph next November? across the board no less!

Humperdink said...

I have it from unimpeachable sources,the democrat strategy is that once Walker win reelection, will be to mount a recall effort. The seeds are being planted. During the recall effort, Walker will be indicted.

garage mahal said...

Kaufmann predicted in July that the state economy was improving. In November, Wisconsin led the nation in jobless claims. Nostradamus he's isn't.

Steven said...

Don't worry, Democrats. the Republicans will undoubtedly do something stupid to ruin their chances. Never have I seen a group so determined to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.

Eh. The literal impossibility of nominating the state-level enactor of Obamacare as a Presidential candidate limits how much damage the Rs can do to themselves.

somefeller said...

somefeller - are you going to go against the grain and predict a Democrat triumph next November? across the board no less!

Nah. I'm just going to predict a good 2014 for the GOP for the simple reason that second-term midterm elections generally don't go well for the President's party. No magic or Great Tea Party Uprising involved at all.

But I also will predict that Obamacare will not be repealed, will become a permanent part of American life and over the decades, Republicans will alternate between attacking it and claiming to be its biggest defenders. Just like Social Security and Medicare.

Happy New Year!

tim in vermont said...

somefeller,
Since we are making predictions for the distant future, I will predict that Obama will get credit for destroying the status quo, but the final system we end up with will only faintly resemble Obamacare.

somefeller said...

Since we are making predictions for the distant future, I will predict that Obama will get credit for destroying the status quo, but the final system we end up with will only faintly resemble Obamacare.

Probably true. Medicare For All or single-payer would be fine improvements over Obamacare. Glad to see you're on board!

gadfly said...

Progressives chose the all-government-all-the-time-where-we control-all-options option instead of leaving the insurance coverage and pricing to the private insurance companies. Marxist anti-capitalism prevailed and America doesn't like the results much.

It is interesting that Larry Kaufman picked on Ford's Edsel as an example of a bad product launch, but he didn't say a word about Government Motors forcing the Chevy Volt, "the electric car that runs on gasoline", into the marketplace. That fiasco ranks first as the all-time award winner as the absolute worst product launch and as the only product development deliberately financed with taxpayer dollars. Sales in the 27 months that the Edsel was on the market were 113,000 vehicles while world-wide Volt sales from launch in December 2010 through October 2013 (35 months) number only 61,000 units.

Michael K said...

"But I also will predict that Obamacare will not be repealed, will become a permanent part of American life"

What will probably happen is that panicked Democrats will gut the law and enact something Republicans support and call it "Improved Obamacare."

I don't know if Republicans will go along with that. I suspect the leadership will want to do so but those radical Tea Partiers may make them back off.

Only someone with no knowledge of how medicine works could have written that bill.

LarryK said...

Garage, where are you getting your info? Not from anywhere credible...here's the official WI DWD data from November 2013

http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/dwd/newsreleases/2013/unemployment/131219_november_state.pdf

Highlights: State unemployment rate of 6.3%, lowest in five years and well below the national avg. of 7%

Highest change in private sector employment (from a year before) since 1999 (a boom year, and the last year of the tech bubble)

Impartial observers will acknowledge that a state economy registering these kinds of numbers is improving - voters will too

LarryK said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
madAsHell said...

Garage hears dog whistles.

David said...

" In November, Wisconsin led the nation in jobless claims"

Garage, what does that even mean. More than California? Just once, could you be precise about something?

Alex said...

Garage has never explained why Wisconsin businesses are laying off people or moving out of state. It must be Scott Walker's fault, well just because.

garage mahal said...

Garage, where are you getting your info? Not from anywhere credible.

U.S. Dept of Labor: The U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday that 4,420 people in Wisconsin filed initial unemployment claims during the last week of November. That is more claims than the next two highest states combined: Ohio with 2,597 and Kentucky with 1,538.

garage mahal said...

Garage, what does that even mean. More than California?

People filing new jobless claims. California is down 19,920

Alex said...

As usual garage won't answer the question as to who is to blame for the job losses.

Curious George said...

This:
garage mahal said...
U.S. Dept of Labor: The U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday that 4,420 people in Wisconsin filed initial unemployment claims during the last week of November. That is more claims than the next two highest states combined: Ohio with 2,597 and Kentucky with 1,538.

Does not support this:
garage mahal said...
In November, Wisconsin led the nation in jobless claims.


Dr Weevil said...

garage mahal apparently can't tell the difference between a total and a difference.

His own link shows that the Dept of Labor did NOT report that the total number of people filing for unemployment in Wisconsin was higher than the next two states combined in one particular (carefully selected?) week in November.

They reported that the difference from the previous week's total was worse for Wisconsin than for the next two states combined. If total filings in Wisconsin went from (e.g.) 10,000 one week to 14,420 the next and filings in California went from (e.g.) 530,000 to 510,080 during the same period, that would mean that California was (even adjusted for state population) in far worse shape than Wisconsin, even though Wisconsin was - for one week! - heading in the wrong direction and California in the right direction. GM's statistics are, as usual, worthless, and his ineptitude would be astonishing if he hadn't dulled our amazement by constant repetition.

garage mahal said...

Fair enough, I'll correct: Wisconsin lead the nation in new jobless claims in the last week of November.

Interestingly, the three counties with the lowest unemployment rate are located near Madison and the Twin Cities..

Unemployment rate is up in 53 of 72 counties between October and November. link.

gadfly said...


Hello garage:

California's percent unemployed is 8.5% on a workforce of 18.6 million. The Wisconsin rate is only 6.3% of a much smaller workforce (3.1 million). A reduction of 19K in CA new filings is a nonsense number.

chickelit said...

garage wrote: People filing new jobless claims. California is down 19,920

Yeah, it's a boomtown out here you clown.

virgil xenophon said...

garage, do you have a trust fund? Otherwise I'm simply amazed that you're not homeless and on the streets given your level of analytical ability. I can think of no other explanation for your survival..

Dan from Madison said...

El Pollo Raylan ftw.

bad touch said...

That'd seem to be most likely...Walker for preezy? That could happen, too. I want him to stay on as guv..

MadisonMan said...

Didn't Scott Walker just get elected? And now he's running again? But the 250,000 jobs he promised haven't materialized.

I wonder which promise he makes while campaigning this time won't happen.

Rusty said...

MadisonMan said...
Didn't Scott Walker just get elected? And now he's running again? But the 250,000 jobs he promised haven't materialized.

I wonder which promise he makes while campaigning this time won't happen.

Yes indeed.
But be very careful who you vote for.
The progressives in Wisconsin want to give you a state like Illinois.
Illinois unemployment is somewhere north of 9%. The unfunded state employee pension obligations are over 100 billion.
So when you go to the polls stop and think about the road you were on before Walker and where your state is now.

AllenS said...

For the 2nd year in a row, my property taxes have went down $100. Thank you, Gov.

MadisonMan said...

@Rusty, Wisconsin has never had the Pension Fund Difficulties that Illinois has.

This is in part because the WI Supreme Court prohibited Tommy Thompson (a Republican) from raiding the funds back when he was Governor.

Wisconsin's chief difficulty stems from being someplace FIBs can escape to, permanently. They often bring their problems with them.

Mitch H. said...

Ah, if wishes were pennies....

...then either hyperinflation would crash the world economy, or dreamers world-wide would expire beneath a crushing pile of coined copper-colored zinc. You know, whichever happens first.

And my money's on the flattened dreamers, personally. I can think of less portable classes of possessions to wish for, but few of them would maintain their status as currency for long. World market in zinc would probably implode, either which way.

And if you don't know the difference between currency and wealth, then you need to go read some Adam Smith, and not the sections on the invisible hand that everybody read in school, either.

Mitch H. said...

And if wishes were horses, the processed food industry would have to figure out how to sell the world on the wonders of the Other Red Meat, or... I wonder if mulched horsemeat could be used for manure?

Dr Weevil said...

Is garage mahal really that dense? His 'correction' is still entirely untrue: Did "Wisconsin lead the nation in new jobless claims in the last week of November"? No, it did not. Wisconsin led the nation in difference between new jobless claims in the last week of November compared to the previous week.

That result is not necessarily a sign of a bad economy. If (hypothetically) Wisconsin had a low number of new claims that week, and a very very low number of new claims the previous week, the number would have gone up a lot (as it did) but the condition of the economy would still have been good. Was it? garage mahal can't be bothered to tell us.

If (hypothetically) California had a huge number of new claims that week (I mean huge even in proportion to its much larger population), and a gigantic, monstrous, humongous number of new claims the previous week, the number would have gone down a lot (as it did) but the news would still have been very bad. Was it? The fact that garage mahal avoids telling us the actual numbers, confining himself to the differences for a single week, tells me all I need to know: he's obviously cherry-picking numbers to make Wisconsin look bad.

Or perhaps someone else has cherry-picked the numbers, and he's too stupid to know the difference between totals and differences, and between one-week numbers and cumulative numbers, and just repeats talking-points provided by another. I wonder: where did he get his numbers?

LarryK said...

Garage, thanks for correcting your reading comprehension mistake. I was aware of that stat, and in fact my challenge was designed to smoke you out and get you to reveal the error. It also goes without saying that a one-week blip is not evidence of anything, especially given the year-long trend of accelerating job growth and declining unemployment in the State.

After decades of under-performing the national economy, WI is finally starting to over-perform. Of course it's too early to say that this is going to last, but for now it's very good news indeed.

garage mahal said...

"Yeah, it's a boomtown out here you clown"

Scott Walker's Wisconsin vs. Dayton's Minnesota: Which is doing better?

Three years into Mr. Walker’s term, Wisconsin lags behind Minnesota in job creation and economic growth. As a candidate, Mr. Walker promised to produce 250,000 private-sector jobs in his first term, but a year before the next election that number is less than 90,000. Wisconsin ranks 34th for job growth....

Along with California, Minnesota is the fifth fastest growing state economy, with private-sector job growth exceeding pre-recession levels. Forbes rates Minnesota as the eighth best state for business....

Anonymous said...

Scott Walker has been working HARD to bring jobs to Wisconsin...constantly flying all over the country...and he has almost completed his promised goal of creating 250,000 jobs in the state. Our economy is red hot and booming, and anybody in WI who doesn't have a job is simply a loser who should only blame themselves...because our Governor is doing everything he can.

Anonymous said...


Scott Walker remembers creating jobs as assemblyman in Wisconsin . It was easy with ALEC. 32000 UNION public sector jobs. It is not as easy this time with out using your tax dollars. Scott Walker has created ALL Wisconsin`s budget problems working for ALEC. In 1997 Walker and Prosser as state assemblymen championed for ALEC with truth in sentencing telling the legislatures it would not cost a dime it was to give judges not parole boards the control over sentencing. Then Walker filibustered to stop sentencing changes after the fact misleading ALL the legislatures. With out the sentencing changes Wisconsin`s prisons quadrupled over night. Most people sentenced to 2 years now had to serve as much as 6o years. It shows Wisconsin has wasted 100 billion if you add the numbers to the state budget since 1997. Not including the building new or remodeling of 71 courthouses & 71 county jails & 441 police stations and dozens of prisons 28 billion plus interest. The total is over 28 BILLION plus the 60 Billion spent by social services to support prisoners families because the bread winner was a political prisoner as US Att gen Eric Holder explained. Then farming out prisoners in several states until the courts realized it was not allowed in the Wisconsin constitution. Wisconsin then hired 32000 union public sector workers to fill the jobs housing the prisoners from deputies , judges, district attorneys all owe Walker for creating there jobs. 32000 UNION PUBLIC SECTOR JOBS. This cost taxpayers over 3.8 billion or a half million per day to house these EXTRA prisoners per day in Milwaukee county alone. Wisconsin claims it has 24,000 prisoners compared to Minnesota`s 5500. Wisconsin`s corrections population is 104,000 with many in half way house and county jails and county prisons that are not counted.

Hyphenated American said...

Somefeller...

1. It's the democrats today who insist that Obamacare is a republican-conservative-Heritage idea.

And point #2 - there is a lot of doubt if Obamacare will survive to 2020, let alone 2030. And don't forget that Medicare and Social Security are already going bankrupt. In case you are wondering, I suggest you look into the books written by Soviet dissidents about the USSR, and the question was - would USSR live to 1984. History answered - "barely".

LarryK said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
LarryK said...

Left Bank of the Charles - I just re-read this, and saw the "worst popular" reference. This may be a change made by the Isthmus editor; if not, it's obviously a typo, and I meant to say simply "worst."

Anonymous said...

Blogging Blue is a Koch susidy nothing more. zach now admits ok I must be is a dirty republican.
Wisconsin does not stand a chance with many fake democrats in the democratic party and even the blogs like Blogging Blue and blue Wisconsin our now know for being operated by a admitted Koch Industries worker Zach Wisniewski a fake liberal reporter who admits he is republican. Blogging Blue is known as one of the states leading proggressive blogs. Zach has out right admitted he is a republican. In the blogging blue post about his pal and fellow accomplise as he admits OK I am a REPUBLICAN. I can email you his admission also. He is a fake democrat.
He admits he does not support liberal causes. He writes generalizations and refuses complete stories and facts in those sites. Zach like Fox gets his fake 1/2 stories in most liberal blgs in the state. He puts out several 1/2 to 1/8 stories per day so his propaganda lies are doing great damage in the state. This is more misleading than FOX. These sites have done great harm to the democratic party in Wisconsin. To the people of Wisconsin. To the millions of women and children his misleading stories have hurt. The seniors.too. Republicans like ZACH have no heart. The 939 nuns said it best about Zachs and Walkers type. Like Fox news only giving the republican take or 1/2 story so the republicans look better. Like now Zach is bragging about Walkers surplus by making the teachers pay more. The numbers show it is money walker took from peter to pay paul. Like millions from the mortgage settlement walker stole from the victims who it rightfully belonged too. Walker admitted that ACT 10 never saved the state a dime under oath. The minute he lied to congress and the GOP gave him his above ALL LAW stamp. Walker has desided lying is the only way to win. Media will not expose me anyway. Blogging Blue and these type fact liberal blogs will also lie for Walker. Walker says My God/Owner David Koch will not allow his media outlets to counterdict his lies. This has allowed Blogging Blue and Blue Wisconsin to hide real truths about all the damage Walker has done. Blogging Blue is a Koch / walker propaganda sheet nothing more, If not they would allow some TRUTH in this Blog. Just expose the damage of Walkers truth in sentencing that forced the state to hire 32,000 UNION public sector workers since 1997 thanks to Walker. This has cost the taxpayers 100 billion plus building 71 new courthouse and 71 new county jails and the judges, das, police, and guards, all the extra`s salares for the last 15 years. Then the state had to hire 32,000 public sector workers in th justice system. Zach from blogging blue and blue Wisconsin owes Walker for his job because of this. This is why he is a fake democrat helping Walker his HERO. Zach admits this in a email. ALEC is invovled in everything. We have Rush saying anything he wants and Zach making fun of the Rush`s type fooling the liberals and not addressing the real crimes of Walker regime.