Comedy Central Comes to Madison

Stephen Colbert created a new "Turmoil in the Middle West" graphic for this story:

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He also implied that he will be in Madison on Tuesday, but he may have just meant that he will continue covering the story.

On The Daily Show, Wisconsin's protests were called the Bizarro Tea Party. John Oliver was in Madison on Monday to cover the story (maybe that bit will air tonight).

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Some Reasons Why the City of Madison Should Stay Out of Real Estate Speculation

Madison's Mayor and City Council are clearly not experts in commercial real estate. Why then do they keep engaging in commercial real estate speculation with taxpayer funds?  In today's economic climate, that is especially irresponsible.  There are plenty of signs, which they are inexplicably ignoring, that building hotels with taxpayer funds is a really bad idea.

One recent downtown Madison hotel project still sits unfinished and won't generate tax revenue anytime soon.

The City of Sheboygan has not realized the expected revenue stream from the Blue Harbor conference center.

Las Vegas is a cautionary tale of irrational exhuberance in the hotel construction business.  What do they think a new Marcus Hotel adjacent to Monona Terrace will do to the Edgewater's occupancy rate?

Wisconsin Rapids' only hotel with a conference center was several months delinquent on both room taxes and property taxes and has just gone into foreclosure.  The Edgewater TIF "loan" (actually a hand-out) was justified with inflated projections for both room and property taxes.  I doubt the city will see anywhere close to that additional revenue, and taxpayers will be left holding the bag, much like in Wisconsin Rapids.

Scenes from a "Riot"

Paul Ryan keeps using that word.  I don't think it means what he thinks it means.

Ground zero for the clashing "mobs" on Saturday was the King Street entrance to the Capitol Square, where the Tea Party Rally was held, and pro-Walker demonstrators had to pass by the "union thugs" ringing the square.

As you can see, it's an urban terrorscape.  Actually, it reminded me of Taste of Madison, only with less humidity.


Some "union thugs" brought attack dogs to intimidate the crowd.



This guy was frequently photographed. Sometimes he wore the belt, sometimes he held it up like a sign.

The small sign above the American Postal Workers banner in this picture is my favorite. It says: "They can have their tea party. I'm a Wisconsinite and I want a kegger"

The Wisconsin State Senate's Low-Hanging Fruit

It has recently been pointed out that Wisconsin State Senators who were last elected in 2008 are already subject to recall.  The list of relevant Republicans is:


District 2, Rob Cowles, Green Bay
District 8, Alberta Darling, River Hills
District 10, Sheila Harsdorf, River Falls
District 14, Luther Olsen, Ripon
District 18, Randy Hopper, Fond du Lac
District 20, Glen Grothman, West Bend
District 28, Mary Lazich, New Berlin
District 32, Dan Kapanke, La Crosse

Now, some of these politicians couldn't lose an election in their home District if they were photographed in a compromising position with a Russian spy.  However, a few of them just squeaked by in 2008.  Granted, that was a bad year to be a Republican, but the emotions on the left are running high again, and a left-leaning answer to Citizens for Responsible Government may want to warm up their recall muscles on some low-hanging fruit.

Looking back at the 2008 election results, the Senators most likely to be Petak'd are:

Alberta Darling (who received 50.46% of the vote to Sheldon Wasserman's 49.45%)
Randy Hopper (who received 50.05% to Jessica King's 49.86%)
Dan Kapanke (who received 51.38% to Tara Johnson's 48.53%)


Although the other two enjoyed slimmer margins, Kapanke may actually be the most vulnerable, because he has always enjoyed the support of organized labor (which he will lose when Walker's bill comes to a vote).

If progressives could pull off a recall hat trick, that would end the Republican control of the State Senate.  Anyone in District 8, 18 or 32 want to file some paperwork?

Walker Administration Sends Wisconsin Tax Dollars to India

Scott Walker is creating jobs, alright -- in India.
(h/t Uppity Wisconsin).

This is exactly the sort of thing I've been trying to point out to people who say that cutting the public sector payroll doesn't remove money from Wisconsin's economy because taxpayers will have more money in their pockets.  I think RS is pretty sharp about a lot of things, but he really missed the boat when he said (about halfway down the list of comments to his post): "Your wife is paid with funds collected by government from the public as a whole. If your wife takes a $2,000 hit, it doesn't mean that $2,000 disappears from the economy. It means that $2,000 is simply able to be spent (on newspapers, and cars, and Brewers tickets) by people from whom the money is no longer being collected - maybe your neighbor down the street whose taxes will be lower going forward because he will be paying less for your family's benefits."

No, sometimes it means that $2,000 is able to be spent on outsourcing a local job to an out-of-state (or even overseas) contractor. The Alabamification of Wisconsin continues.

Something else you can do

If you do find your compensation slashed by the budget repair bill and need to trim your household budget, you might start by not purchasing goods or services from the companies who are represented on the Board of Directors of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.

Familiar retail outlets and products include Menard's, Lakeside Foods and Ashley Furniture.

Music to Protest By

Here is a brief concert for those who are heading out on Friday to demonstrate at the State Capitol.

First, the late, great Bob Marley:


And now for something completely different, downtown Madison institution Art Paul Schlosser captures a bit of history in this video (h/t Dane 101):