"Brett Hulsey's running for governor," I say, laughing...

... as I look at this story in the Wisconsin State Journal.

Meade does a triumphant fist pump and exults: "Yes!"

"Why are you reacting like that?" I ask, and he says, "Oh, because we have so much stuff on him."

Click the Brett Hulsey tag and scroll.

"My truth is that I want you to win, I really do."

Says Oprah Winfrey — deploying New-Age "my truth" talk, as she tells Lindsay Lohan to "cut the bullshit." And it's probably all bullshit, generating material for Lohan's reality show on Oprah's TV network and promoting the show with that teaser (at the link).

Reading between the lines, I think they didn't get enough interesting footage of Lohan, for whatever reason, so they tried to edit a story line together about not being able to get the footage. That's the old "Roger and Me" trick, beloved of on-the-cheap documentarians. You can't get footage of your subject, so you use the footage of you trying to get the footage.

I used that technique editing Meade's footage from the Wisconsin protests, as he tried to get our assemblyman, Brett Hulsey, to talk to him. Here, on March 22, 2011:



More here. And here, on March 25, 2011:

Is Mary Burke even trying to defeat Scott Walker?

I'm reading this article in the Wisconsin State Journal about how, in the second half of 2013, Gov. Scott Walker raised $5.1 million and his Democratic challenger Mary Burke only raised $1.8 million:

Burke, a former Trek Bicycle Corp. executive and member of the Madison school board, is running her first statewide campaign in an attempt to dim Walker's rising political stardom. She already has tapped $400,000 of her personal wealth on the effort.

Maybe that paragraph was just sloppily written, but it seems to say that the goal of defeating Walker is understood to be out of reach. There's nothing but an attempt/effort to diminish Walker's stature and impede his ability to run for President. 

It must be hard to inspire donations if that's all the campaign is about, especially when Burke doesn't seem to be doing much to tear Walker down. She doesn't even seem to be distinguishing herself from Walker. And look, she declined to show up with President Obama when he did that appearance at the GE plant in Waukesha (Wisconsin) the day after the SOTU. She claimed to be "too busy"!

Is she simply a placeholder to avert the humiliation of no opponent for Walker and because she has her own money? But if it's so obvious that I'm asking that right now, it is humiliating.

ADDED: State Rep. Brett Hulsey, D-Madison says:

“If the president comes to your state and you’re running for governor, you drop what you’re doing and go. That’s just politics 101... The picture of her standing next to Obama (would have helped) her, especially because most people in Wisconsin don’t know her.”

Hulsey, who last year said Burke had the personality of a turnip, tweeted “@MaryBurkeGov is too chicken to greet @PresidentObamaB, #toochicken to repeal Act 10, #toochicken to be governor too?”

But Hulsey himself remains noncommittal about whether he’ll run for re-election, and if so, whether he would do so as a Democrat or independent. He also won’t rule out a possible long-shot gubernatorial bid.

Oh, really? Click on the Brett Hulsey link if the name's not familiar and you want to know why Meade laughed when I read "He also won’t rule out a possible long-shot gubernatorial bid" out loud.

As for Politics 101, maybe Politics 102 says when a candidate avoids appearing alongside the President, it means she strongly believes that the picture would not help her.

The Democrats dream candidate to oppose Scott Walker next year.

Here's a long, long article in the Wisconsin State Journal. I'll just do a short excerpt:

a multimillionaire... who could self-finance....

From the comments:

I can easily see why the Huffington Post deemed her the "democrat version of Mitt Romney". I can't wait to find out how much she makes from dividends per year. I wonder how many tax havens she has? It will be interesting to see how the dems treat her, we all know she would be crucified if she were a republican. Heck, in her professional life she's driven by profit but since she has a 'D' next to her name she'll be thought of as brilliant, if she were a republican she would be evil.

Let the hypocrisy begin!!

And:

So let me get this straight, the Dems are thinking about shamelessly and hypocritically putter up as a candidate someone who:

1) is a 1%-er

2) comes from the Private Sector

3) relied on nepotism to succeed.

Are people that selfish, hypocritical, and willfully ignorant that they will really sacrifice their beliefs to serve their own self-interests?

And:

Run Brett Run

That refers to this.

By the way, whatever happened to the "Occupy" movement? Maybe it's taking a break out there somewhere with the Coffee Party.

About that Speedo...

The continuing saga of Madison's Brett Hulsey.

"Hulsey conducted the interview amiably in his half-darkened office, lighted by only a dim energy-saving bulb favored by the environmentalist Hulsey."

The best sentence in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article "State Rep. Brett Hulsey investigated for bringing box cutter to Capitol."

ADDED: More here:

An aide to state Rep. Brett Hulsey told police last month she feared for her safety because of the Madison Democrat's behavior, which included considering bringing a gun to the Capitol even though he doesn't have a concealed-weapons permit, taking a box cutter to the statehouse on another day and urging the aide to train for self-defense with him....

In an interview with the State Journal on Tuesday night, Hulsey, 53, said he brought the cutting tool for use in self-defense training, which he said was necessary because Capitol Police told lawmakers and staffers to punch protesters if they felt threatened. He said he planned to use the box cutter without the blade extended.

"I called up Chief (David) Erwin and said, ‘You’re telling our staff to start hitting people,’" Hulsey said. "I told him, ‘You should be giving them effective self-defense training.’"...

The aide told police that on Feb. 1, Hulsey asked her to call Erwin to reserve a training room with mats because he and Assembly Chief Clerk Patrick Fuller were going to train her in self-defense. She said she told him she did not want to be trained.

(Click on the Brett Hulsey tag for past stories on this blog about Hulsey. You may remember an incident at the beach involving horseplay with children and his presence in many of our old scenes from the protests.

Fighting over posters... it's like something that would happen in a dorm room

But it happened in the Wisconsin legislative assembly.

"This is a sham," cried Brett Hulsey.

I read that aloud and Meade went "Sham! Sham! Sham!" — which is amusing if you know your Wisconsin protest references. (If you don't, look at this and this and this.)

A Madison modus operandi.

I hesitate to reveal an approach to victimizing women in Madison....

A Saudi Arabian man who police say has returned to his country was charged with attempted sexual assault Tuesday after he allegedly talked his way in to a neighbor's apartment in Madison last month.

The July 4 incident was one of three within five days in July in which Riyad M. Alsulaiman, 24, allegedly approached women who had cats and asked to pet them in order to get into their apartments, all in the 1600 block of Fordem Avenue.

Let's retune those stranger-danger sensors. Elsewhere in the annals of getting creeped out in Madison, we've got our legislator, Brett Hulsey subjected to a disorderly conduct charge, because his horseplay with and photography of some kids at the beach creeped out the adults who were watching from a distance.

WDTY's Sly confronts Wisconsin legislator Brett Hulsey about the beach incident involving 3 children...

... which led to a charge of disorderly conduct, to which he pled "no contest."

Though both Sly and Hulsey are Madison lefties — click the tags below — Sly does a tough interview, with the refrain: People are "creeped out."

Hulsey has some stock phrases he repeats: it was "a potentially dangerous situation" (a boy was splashing 2 "little girls"), he'd been out in the "extreme heat" and wanted to "cool off,"  the splashing was "wild," "I admit I made a mistake," he "startled" the boy, in "a foot of water," the police officers "didn't write down a word" of his story, and he was "flabbergasted" that they wrote him a ticket. He tries to frame the story in terms of police abuse, and Sly practically shouts him down: Then why did you plead no contest?!

If a man dares to horse around with children he doesn't know... he could get into trouble.

Look what happened to Madison's Brett Hulsey, who just pled "no contest" to a disorderly conduct charge for —as the police put it — "the totality of the events that happened," mostly "engaging in horseplay with a child who is a stranger to him -- in the water, no less."

According to Hulsey, he chided a boy about splashing some girls and then, as he walked past him, shouted "boo" — causing the boy to roll off his inner tube into shallow water.

Supposedly, this creeped out the parents and grandparents. The mother, according to the police reports "worried if this individual may have done this before or may do more in the future."

Why not fight the charge? Hulsey says he wants to "move on." Does that work in a political career?

There are many old posts on this blog about Brett Hulsey, who represents my district in the state legislature and was a prominent figure in the 2011 Wisconsin protests. Here he is saying "boo" to Meade:



ADDED: Part of "the totality of the events" was photographing the children. Is that wrong? Here's some discussion of that topic:

"Reclaim Women’s Equality" rally at the Wisconsin Capitol draws only 100 people.

"Wendi Kent... had hoped enough would attend to encircle the Capitol...."

She said she invited Republican and Democratic state lawmakers. She told me a representative from Madison Rep. Brett Hulsey’s office was the only one who responded, to say he couldn’t attend.

Good old Brett Hulsey. At least he responded!

I love this picture of what "I am woman, hear me roar" looks like in Wisconsin nowadays.

One year ago today at the Wisconsin protests: a ragtag band plays and suddenly we have our encounter...

... with our assemblyman, Brett Hulsey, who'd been avoiding Meade.

One year ago today at the Wisconsin protests: there's a Planned Parenthood rally...

... and Meade's efforts to talk to our Assemblyman Brett Hulsey are aborted.

One year ago today at the Wisconsin protests: Meade gets a legislator to admit he lets a protester store her signs in his office.

It's Brett Hulsey, the assemblyman for our district:

Meade [to Hulsey]: "So, you're not only approving, but you're facilitating?"

The woman: "He's not facilitating. I only just asked him if I can, I said, I come here with signs. I just asked him if I could store the signs in his office overnight and he told me I could."

There's overtalking as Hulsey says "We believe in the First Amendment, freedom of speech" and Meade is asking her if she's in Hulsey's district and the woman says "I'm in Madison, but not his district. I have friends in his district."

Now, we are in Hulsey's district, and Hulsey knows it, because Meade has talked to him on several occasions. Meade goes after Hulsey, who is turning again to walk away, and asks him, "Do you have 5 minutes?"

Hulsey lets out a long "uuuuhhhhhh" then says: "Actually I... t-t-t-to discuss what?" Why should the subject matter affect whether our assemblyman has 5 minutes to talk to Meade? Especially if he's big on free speech, the subject shouldn't matter.

Thereafter Hulsey puts a comical amount of effort into evading Meade, though eventually Meade does get to talk with him.

A year ago today... the big Wisconsin protests began.

The Badger Herald has some reflections, including one by my assemblyman Brett Hulsey ("Gov. Scott Walker dropped a bomb on the people of Wisconsin") and one by UW polisci prof Donald Downs ("The country cries out for genuine vision that goes beyond the entrenched interests and shibboleths of the present right and left.")

Here's my February 13, 2011 post about the "very low key" crowd at the Capitol that day. Typical sign, from before things blew up: "Bullying Is NOT the Answer! Fix if the Plan Needed!" I went on about the lameness of the protest:

You can see that it wasn't a very big crowd. There was an effort to get cars to honk, and when they honked, the honkees went "Wooo!"

There were no speakers and no chants.

No chants! I need to be careful what I agitate for.

There was one man — I have video but I'm not posting it — who seemed a bit disoriented, who did something that is comically easy to do in a low-key protest. He started speaking, haranguing, like he was the leader. The group of nice, tolerant people did nothing to shoo him away. It was rather touching, even as it underlined the ineffectiveness of the protest.

It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm Sunday, and our new governor has just dropped a shocking union-busting proposal that our newly Republican legislature is likely to step up and pass. This is the push-back from the unions?

Ha ha. Is this all you got? I asked.

It was the next day, the 14th, that things started getting big. All I had that day was a link to Isthmus columnist Bill Lueders who said protests would be "a colossal waste of everybody's time, and exactly the reaction Gov. Walker hopes to inspire." The protests would boost Walker?

Either they are peaceful and accomplish nothing; or they turn violent and create a massive backlash against the unions and their members. Either way, Walker wins.

My reaction was: "Wow. When did Madison lefties become so cynical about protests?"

That's all very funny in retrospect. And I was definitely wrong. Madison lefties were immensely, passionately optimistic about protests. And Lueders was right, wasn't he? The protests, in the end — we're not quite at the end yet — will have boosted Walker.

If you'd called something "unadultered complete nonsense"...

... would you highlight that phrase in a self-promoting ad?

You would if you were Wisconsin legislator Brett Hulsey, who's made himself the central character in his new ad against Governor Scott Walker. And the non-word "unadultered" is not the most embarrassing thing about the ad:

The ad continues with Hulsey saying, "I stood up to Gov. Walker. I went to his press conference and said, 'What you have just heard is unadultered [sic] complete nonsense.'"

... The governor did hold a news conference that day, but Hulsey never directly confronted him. What actually happened was that Hulsey waited until the governor had left the room, took over the podium and directed his comments to reporters.

ADDED: I Googled "unadultered" and the first hit took me to some unbelievably evil song lyrics apparently written by a band significant enough to have a Wikipedia page. I have no idea whether Hulsey is into this "Illinois-based hardcore punk, grindcore, and death metal band," but sometimes song lyrics give someone the idea that a non-word is a word. It can be embarrassing. For example, maybe you thought it made sense to call something "swonderful."

IN THE COMMENTS: David said:

Althouse speaks the pompatus of truth.

ADDED: Instapundit links with "WHEN ILLITERATE YAHOO STATE LEGISLATORS attack."

"Who cares about duplicate signatures in Wisconsin Recall?"

"Anti-recall forces will have to establish their own database and run checks for duplicates, in other words, do the government’s work for it."

AND: "Is Hulsey running for governor?" (Remember Hulsey? Hint: He used to run from...)

At the Wisconsin Capitol today, a rag-tag band plays and the assemblyman who's been avoiding Meade suddenly shows up.

Brett Hulsey was avoiding Meade yesterday, but he sought us out today, when we dropped by to see what was going on down at the Capitol. The encounter begins about 2 minutes in, and you see uncut footage of the whole conversation:



The band, which looks like this...



... plays "Solidarity Forever" and then "On, Wisconsin!" Meade sings along with "On, Wisconsin!" and, as he explained to me later, he's deliberately singing tunelessly as a critique of the band.

"'Tear Down This WALL'ker"/"Torture Fitzgerald"/Meade + Hulsey/Krampus.

At the Wisconsin Capitol today... a man in a Reagan mask had come up with a clever saying...



A woman with pinwheels didn't seem to be taking the subject of torture seriously enough...



Our assemblymanm Brett Hulsey — who'd been trying so hard to avoid Meade — found us and was amiable and talkative....



So... let the wild Krampus begin!

At the Planned Parenthood rally, Meade's conversation with Brett Hulsey is aborted.

This morning, Meade went down to the Capitol to meet with our state senator, Fred Risser, who's been a Wisconsin senator since 1962. (He's the longest serving state legislator in the United States.) It's been much harder to get to see our assemblyman, Brett Hulsey. You remember what happened yesterday. Today, after seeing Risser, Meade happened to run into Hulsey.

There was this Planned Parenthood rally. It looked like this:



That's Hulsey standing in front just behind the woman in the white jacket. (Enlargement here.) That's Risser in the red hat just below the speaker's upraised fist. Hulsey noticed Meade. Meade waved at him and he looked away. A bit later,  Hulsey was talking to some women who had come to the rally. And Meade was video-recording. Actually, this was a set-up photo-op, and Meade positioned himself so he had the ideal vantage point. Then, when Hulsey starts walking back toward the Capitol, Meade calls out in the hope of finally getting a few words....



Suffice it to say: The conversation is aborted.