Johnson Up 7 In New Poll

Via Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, the latest Rasmussen poll has Republican Ron Johnson, fresh off his primary win on Tuesday, up by seven points over Sen. Russ Feingold.

After a decisive win in Tuesday’s Republican Primary, businessman Ron Johnson now holds a seven-point lead over incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold in Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate race.

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Johnson picking up 51% support, while Feingold earns the vote from 44%. One percent (1%) of voters prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) remain undecided.

While some of the movement can be attributed to a post-primary bounce, Captain Ed points out something different about this race:

The difference would be that Feingold had been advertising during the primary campaign, as well as actively fundraising and making major appearances.  It’s also the latest in a series of surveys that show Feingold well below the 50% threshold, which had already identified him as being in danger of losing his seat.

Johnson is winning this with the independents.  Both candidates hold their own voters in line, but Johnson has a 58/30 advantage among unaffiliated voters. 

The other factor coming into play is a genuinely unlikeable incumbent. Back in March, Radical Russ came to Racine Park High School for a “listening” session. My friend, Fred Dooley from Real Debate Wisconsin, attended the session and grabbed some outstanding video. You can see all the clips here. After re-watching them this morning, I was captured by the smarmy condescension and outright hostility of Feingold toward the people he supposedly represents. How dare you question what I do?

Here’s a typical exchange from the day:

First question from Denis Navratil – about the differences in using 6 years of benefit and 10 years of revenues in CBO scoring. Denis points out that if he tried that accounting in his business he would be put into jail.

Senator Feingold just said he will not respond to people shouting out from the crowd, people though he did not answer Denis’ question.

Most who know me know I listen to talk radio and I remember our local guys — Mark Belling in particular — commenting on the Feingold listening sessions and noting that this race just became winnable if the Republicans would just find a candidate, that Feingold was coming off in these sessions as haughty and arrogant and not very likeable (an aside: I know someone who knows Feingold from his days in the State Legislature who confirms he’s not very likeable or personable).

To simply dismiss a legimitate question from a constituent who, if he did the same thing in his business as the government was doing with the health care takeover bill would indeed go to jail, is the height of arrogance.

Radical Russ, you are going to get your comeuppance November 2.

Swingin’ The Axe

Latest campaign commercial from Sean Duffy, the Republican candidate in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, in line to replace retiring corruptocrat David Obey, Father of Porkulus:

Here’s the Duffy For Congress website. Go here to donate to send another voice of the people to Congress.

With Republicans already in control of the 1st (Paul Ryan), 5th (James Sensenbrenner) and 6th (Tom Petri) Congressional Districts, the GOP is in line to pick up the 3rd from Ron Kind, the 7th (David Obey saw the tidal wave headed his way and scampered for the door) and 8th, where Reid Ribble will send Steve Kagen, Dr. Multimillionare, back to private practice. In real time, as opposed to Injun time. Where he’ll have all kinds of free time to dream up imaginary conversations.

Ron Johnson Tells The Truth

Wisconsin’s next U.S. Senator, Ron Johnson, tells it like it is in his new TV ad and nukes the counterattack from Sen. Russ Feingold (DS-Al Qaeda) in the process:

Washington politicians do treat Social Security like a ponzi scheme. Russ Feingold and other lefty politicians have robbed the Social Security trust fund for the last 40-plus years to pay for their out-of-control spending. It started in 1968 when a budgetary trick merged Social Security and Medicare funds into the general revenue. Politicians from both parties have used the surplus in both funds for years to mask the size of the real federal budget deficit.

Russ Feingold has run a campaign out of the sewer already. Most people who know him know he’s not a likeable fella, no matter what his quirky commercials portrayed in his initial Senate campaign. And with a virtually unlimited fund from lefty special interests — unions, enviromentalist wacko groups, Greater Wisconsin Committee, etc. — at his disposal, that campaign will reach new lows in slime. Feingold is at 44 percent in his re-elect numbers. Any incumbent polling less than 50 percent six weeks before the election is in trouble (Dingy Harry, call your office).

Here are the scripts for the TV ad and the radio version of the ad (from the Johnson For Senate website):

TV Ad

RON JOHNSON: Guess what’s coming in Russ Feingold’s negative campaign? He’s gonna tell you I said Washington treats Social Security like a ponzi scheme.

You know what?  I did say that…because it’s true.

Russ Feingold and politicians from both parties raided the Social Security Trust Fund of trillions and left seniors an IOU.  They spent the money, it’s gone.

I’ll fight to keep every nickel of Social Security for retirees and I’ll respect you enough to tell you the truth.

Radio Ad

RON JOHNSON: I’m Ron Johnson. I approved this message.

Hi folks, it’s me again, Ron Johnson. I promised I’d be a different kind of candidate, so today I’m doing something really different.

I’m going to tell you what Senator Feingold and his allies’ next attack against me will be. They’re going to tell you I said Washington politicians have run Social Security like a Ponzi scheme.

I did say that, and it’s true.

During his eighteen years in the Senate, Russ Feingold, and politicians from both parties have raided 2 trillion dollars from the Social Security trust fund.

They spent your savings. The money is gone. And what did we get? Bigger government, wasteful spending, and an IOU.

As your Senator, I will honor the promises made to seniors, work hard to preserve Social Security for future generations, and begin to rein in the size and scope of the federal government.

I’m Ron Johnson, running for Senate, and I approve this message.

Go here to make a donation to retire Russ Feingold and replace him with Ron Johnson.

Here’s the Johnson campaign’s main website, where you can go to learn more about Johnson on the issues, volunteer, etc.

Had a chance to meet the candidate and talk with him personally on Saturday at the Racine TEA Party’s 9/11 commemoration. Came away very impressed.

Ron Johnson will make a great U.S. Senator.

Paul Ryan’s Roadmap

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, a rising Republican star, has this plan called A Roadmap For America’s Future to deal with the impending crises in Social Security, Medicare, health care, taxes, jobs and the burgeoning debt.

You can learn more about it here.

The Claremont Institute takes a closer look at Ryan’s proposals here. The article highlights the real reason behind Ryan’s rise to prominence: he is deadly serious about the problems facing America besides his ability to discuss public policy without coming off as partisan:

The bigger reason for Ryan’s rise from obscurity to importance is that the issue he is most serious about—deficit reduction—is an issue about which Americans are growing increasingly concerned. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal public opinion survey in May 2010, for example, showed that 20% of Americans considered “the deficit and government spending” the nation’s highest priority, while another 16% called it the second-highest. As recently as January 2010, more Americans had wanted the government to concentrate on both health care and national security than on the deficit. By May, even as a grim recession dragged on, only “job creation and economic growth” preoccupied the public more than the growing federal deficit. Not since anger over Washington’s fiscal ineptitude secured 19% of the 1992 presidential vote for the decidedly odd Ross Perot have fiscal issues been so politically combustible. “There’s no question that people are almost as concerned about the deficit and government spending as about jobs,” the Democratic pollster Mark Mellman told the Los Angeles Times in June. “It is not just about the actual dollars—it is a metaphor for wasted money and lack of discipline and long-term economic decline.”

The federal budget deficit for FY 2009 was $1.4 trillion. The projected deficit for FY 2010 is $1.3 trillion. That means the Obama Regime and the Democrat-run Congress has added more to the national debt than every administration from Washington through Reagan. Medicare is broke, and Social Security started paying out more in benefits this year than it took in, eight years ahead of projection.

The tax code is used for social architecture, and the only jobs the Obama Regime is interested in creating are government jobs. Real jobs, those that actually produce something, aren’t on the radar screen in Washington. After all, those aren’t government union jobs. That is the real priority: more workers for government unions. AFSCME. The various federal government employees unions. The purple-shirts and thugs from SEIU. The National Extortion Association.

That’s Barack Hussein Obama’s real constituency. Not the American people.

Paul Ryan, in line to be chairman of the House Appropriations or Budget Committee come January 2011 with the Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, correctly recognizes the looming crises, unlike the rest of Washington, which like the Emperor Nero fiddles while the nation burns. Ryan has never said his proposals are a be-all and end-all but rather a starting point for the long-overdue national discussion.

The course America is on is not sustainable. Ryan knows that, as do most Americans. The only ones living in Fantasyland are the whiny, thin-skinned, narcissistic Man-Child and his minions. Folks like Vice President Chia Pet, Joe “Plugs” Biden, who famously said:

Now, people when I say that look at me and say, “What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?” The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.

Joe Biden, a man who thinks “jobs” is a three-letter word, says we have to spend even more money to keep from going bankrupt. That’s from the same folks who don’t read the bills they pass then tell us, “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”

And they wonder why they are looking at an electoral wipeout in six weeks? The American people aren’t as dumb as the Ruling Class thinks they are.

A brief summary of the Roadmap:

Provides individual income taxpayers a choice between the existing tax system and a highly simplified code that fits on a postcard, one with just two rates—10% on income up to $100,000 for joint filers, and $50,000 for single filers; and 25% on taxable income above these amounts.

Replaces, in the postcard option, special tax deductions, credits, or exclusions with a sizeable standard deduction and personal exemption (totaling $39,000 for a family of four).

Eliminates the alternative minimum tax.

Eliminates taxes on interest, capital gains, dividends, and the estate tax.

Replaces the corporate income tax—currently the second highest in the industrialized world—with a business consumption tax of 8.5%.

There’s a reason why Paul Ryan’s a rising star in national politics.

Primary Election Night 2010

Help is on the way.

Update: Scott Walker has won the Republican nomination for governor. He’ll be taking on Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in November. As Walker said: “Tom Barrett is the third term of Jim Doyle’s disastrous term as governor.” And as Brian Fraley said tonight on Twitter:

Wisconsin’s comeback has begun.

We’ve had eight years of the Worst. Governor. Ever. in Wisconsin’s history. Diamond Jim Doyle and his Democrat cronies have wrecked the state economy and transformed a state with a history of ethical and honest government into a cesspool of Chicago-style corruption.

To paraphrase Jack Nicholson’s Joker from Tim Burton’s Batman: “This state needs an enema.”

Also, Sean Duffy won the Republican primary in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District to replace longtime corruptocrat David Obey, the push behind the disastrous porkulus bill.

Updates as they come in …

Watching election results and blogging from Buona Vita Restaurant at the victory party for Van Wanggaard, seeking the Republican nomination for the 21st State Senate seat currently held by Sen. John Lehman (DS-WEAC).

So far the news coming in here has been fantastic. Outside of Wisconsin, conservatives scored a huge win in Delaware when Christine O’Donnell knocked off RINO – Republican In Name Only – Mike Castle. And by RINO, that may be an insult to RINOs. Mike Castle is directly connected to lefty moneybags George Soros through his involvement in the Soros-funded Main Street Partnership, and it’s been revealed in the past two days that Castle voted to proceed with articles of impeachment against President Bush. This was the preferred candidate of the GOP Establishment. Not concerned with advancing conservatism, but rather acquiring power. Castle, by the way, also voted for most of the Obama Regime’s agenda. And many prominent Beltway conservatives lectured us and told us we had to hold our noses and eat that crap sandwich.

Good riddance. Na-na-na-na na-na-na-na-na, hey hey hey, Good-Bye!

Good results thus far in Wisconsin. Scott Walker is off to a solid lead over Mark Neumann, and Rebecca Kleefisch likewise over RINO ethanol whore tax-raising Rep. Brett Davis. Support here is strongly pro-Walker and pro-Kleefisch.  Wanggaard leads Bob Gulan with 74 percent of the vote in early returns.

Primary Election 2010

Today is Primary Election Day in Wisconsin. Make sure you get out and vote. And if you see these guys, you know ACORN is active. Call a poll watcher.

Republican Gubernatorial Primary: Scott Walker vs. Mark Neumann.
Our Choice: Walker. Winner: Walker but by a much closer margin than people think.

Republican Lt. Governor’s Primary: Dave Ross vs. Rebecca Kleefisch vs. Brett Davis.
Our Choice: Kleefisch. Winner: Kleefisch.

Republican State Senate Race — 21st District: Van Wanggaard vs. Bob Gulan.
Our Choice: Wanggaard. Winner: Wanggaard.

Milwaukee County Sheriff (Democrat): Chris Moews vs. David Clare.
Our Choice: Clarke. Winner: Moews.

Democrat State Senate Race — 7th District. Jeff Plale (inc.) vs. Chris Larson.
Our Choice: Plale. Winner: Larson.

The two Milwaukee County Democrat races worth watching are for Sheriff and in the 7th State Senate District. Sheriff David Clarke has been a solid performer in his role since his election, but his willingness to stand up for law and order has made him a target of the Hard Left, and he’s drawn a challenger in Chris Moews. Moews wins this race because many of the likely Milwaukee County votes for Clarke will be case in the Walker-Neumann primary. The black vote won’t be enough for Clarke, as the Hate Left gets one trophy for its wall.

State Sen. Jeff Plale, who represents the southern part of Milwaukee County, has been a voice of reason in a party dominated by moonbats. Plale has drawn a primary challenge from the Left in convicted felon and thief Chris Larson, also a member of the Milwaukee County Board. To show how the Democrats stress ideological purity. they will replace a solid legislator in Plale with a party hack with a criminal record including a felony conviction. In the end, it’s ideology uber alles. Once again, voters who’s normally cast their ballots for Plale will be voting in the Republican primary.

Under state law, voters can vote in either primary but may not cross over into the other primary.

The Power Of The Internet

There are a lot of good things about the Internet. Listing all of them would take an entire blog post. To quote Dana Carvey as President  George H.W. Bush: “Not gonna do that. Wouldn’t be prudent.”

One of the bad things is the prevalence of information that is at best inadequate and at worst misleading and outright false information. Much of that information gets used by crackpots on both ends of the political spectrum. I spent enough time in political chat on the Internet to know that folks on both the Left and Right quickly resort to Google searches and finding whatever it is they want to support their position, not being able apparently to distinguish between fact and opinion. Hence, they tend to find opinions that reinforce their own.

For those of you who graduated from Racine Unified, fact is something that cannot be disputed while opinion reflects a person’s beliefs, values or preferences.

Fact: President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Tex., on November 22, 1963.

Opinion: There was a conspiracy behind President Kennedy’s assassination.

No one can debate the date and location of President Kennedy’s assassination. However, the debate between those who believe Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin and those who believe there was a conspiracy involved in the assassination probably will never be resolved.

You may be entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own set of facts.

This came up in an Internet discussion that quickly went downhill earlier today. At one point, I observed how much I missed Ronald Reagan. The person I was having the discussion with, clearly a lefty but not someone of very deep thought or intellect, responded by saying “This Reagan?” and posting a link to this picture:

The implication is clear: Ronald Reagan endorsed the Taliban and compared them to American’s Founding Fathers.

There’s just one problem: Reagan did no such thing.

First, as is obvious to anyone, that is a Photoshop. The photo is an official White House photo of President Reagan meeting with Afghan leaders following the expulsion of the Soviet army in the mid-1980s. The picture was taken in 1985 near the beginning of Reagan’s second term. But it is Photoshopped into an image intended to create a false impression.

Why is it false? The Taliban did not exist in 1985. The first mention of the Taliban anyone can find comes from 1994, while Bill Clinton was president, long after Reagan’s presidency concluded.

The Afghan leaders in the picture were Mujahideen, some of the Afghan freedom fighters supported by the United States government against the invadng Soviet army. That is not the Taliban, which came into power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. Reagan’s term of office ended January 20, 1989.

This picture is at best disingenuous; at worst, an outright lie. I lean toward the latter, but it also shows the power of the Internet. One can create a meme and spread whatever misinformation that he or she would like.

Now it may be fairly obvious that the intrepid troll is clearly not a candidate for Mensa. In fact, I don’t know if she has enough intelligence to come in out of the rain. But clearly she fell for one of the common Internet hoaxes out there, set up by someone able to make a commoin, ordinary Photoshop and then connect it to deliberate misinformation.

Wikipedia is not one of the more reliable sources of information out there, since anyone can access it and edit its content. That’s led to several high profile shenanigans. However, even Wikipedia gets it right by correctly identifying 1996 as the year that the Taliban came into power in Afghanistan.

Once more, for the folks riding the Short Bus of Life: the Mujahideen is NOT the Taliban. The Taliban and Al Qaeda did not exist in 1985. The Taliban is a product of Pakistani intelligence and is part of a Wahhibist Islamist political movement.

This silly nonsense has been out in the kook fringes of the Internet for years, surfacing at places like the Democratic Underground, or DUmmies for short. Kook fringe conspiracy wacko moonbats. The folks that argue that Reagan, Bush and the CIA created the Taliban and use this nonsense to validate their own nonsensical political points.

To quote a commenter at the Political Inquirer, the effort to say “Mujahideen = Taliban = Al Qaeda” and blame Reagan for their existence:

… paints every Afghan organization as a hardline Islamist group and lumps together the Taliban al Qaeda with groups that have actually have opposed both the Taliban and al Qaeda even when the U.S. was content to accept Taliban control in Afghanistan all through the 1990s.

Posting items that lump together the mujahideen, al Qaeda and the Taliban as one is really irresponsible.

But this is what passes for intellect on the Hard Left. Idiots that believe “I saw it on the Internet so it must be true” will fall for anything. You can try to post all the nutjob websites from a Google search, which is like trolling through a dumpster, or videos from YouTube, which is also an intellectual sewer. Just because it’s on the Internet somewhere does not make it true, no matter how many “links” you find.

Need more proof of that? Look at the 9/11 Troofers. People who believe Reagan endorsed the Taliban despite the Taliban wasn’t even in existence during his presidency and compared them to the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and the rest of the Founding Fathers are moronic enough to believe 9/11 was an inside job.

Probably bought the idea of Hope and Change, too.

9/11 Racine TEA Party

Went down to Pershing Park on Saturday for the 9/11 Racine TEA Party event. Saw some great people.

• Fred from Real Debate Wisconsin
• Patrick from Badger Blogger
• James Wigderson, proprietor of the Library and Pub
• Chris from Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (was there, missed her)

Heard some great speakers. Rep. Paul Ryan from Wisconsin’s First Congressional District:

Also, Jonah Goldberg from National Review Online:

Local radio rock star Vicki McKenna from NewsTalk 1130 WISN-AM in Milwaukee was the MC:

All sorts of political candidates had signs and information at booths. Republicans, of course. Didn’t see any Democrat booths or candidates. Not surprising, since this was a pro-America patriotic rally.

Also saw Wisconsin’s next United States Senator, Ron Johnson:

Saw some great signs expressing what many Americans are thinking and feeling heading into the November midterms, a complete and total referendum on the agenda of Hope and Change:

Of course, we had some local moonbats. Representative of the quality of gummint-run ejookayshun in the upholstered Port-A-John known as Racine Unified:

Brainwashed by the thugs from the teachers union at their gummint-run skool. Their opinions are ignorant, ill-informed and irrelevant, not to mention handed to them by their teechurs. Why? Because they don’t pay taxes. None of them are self-sufficent. They live at home with their parents, who make sure they have a roof over their head, clothes to wear, food to eat, all the basic necessities of life met.

Come to think of it … that also describes Democrat voters. Either sponges mooching off the rest of society or government workers, who also do nothing but mooch off the rest of Americans earning an honest living.

One thing worth noting: the attendees of the Racine TEA Party left the grounds at Pershing Park spotless, except for one piece of trash:

Fred and Patrick have some more images and video at RDW and Badger Blogger respectively.

Fred has lots of video in multiple posts, including video of Niger Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality, whose speech I missed,

‘We Hear You’

Remember when we had a real President instead of a pantywaist community organizer?

President George W. Bush at Ground Zero on September 14, 2001:

Here is President Bush’s address to the nation the night of September 11, 2001:

The Police State Comes To Alexandria

Remember the blue bin recycling Nazis here in Racine? The ones with the tracking chip to monitor who’s in compliance with state recycling mandates?

They’ve come to Alexandria, Va., and unlike the sleepy local state-run media, which didn’t bother to follow up on the threat to our liberties of government monitoring our behavior, the Washington Examiner did. What’s more, residents will have to pay $9 per year for the privilege of having Big Brother monitor their every move (emphasis mine):

Alexandria residents soon will have to pay for larger home recycling bins featuring built-in monitoring devices.

The City Council added a mandatory $9 charge to its residents’ annual waste collection fee.

That cash — roughly $180,000 collected from 19,000 residents– will pay for new larger recycling carts equipped with computer microchips, which will allow the city to keep tabs on its bins and track resident participation in the city’s recycling program.

“If you know who’s participating in the programs, you can focus your education and outreach to those who are not participating,” said Stacy Herring, Alexandria’s recycling coordinator.

Say “Sieg Heil” to the nice people. If you are not participating, you will be getting a visit from the jackbooted thugs with the Nazi bucket helmets to “encourage” your participation. Wanna bet that “encouragement” comes with threats of citations and fines and possible jail time?

For the record, my blue bin continues to sit in the shed behind my house. Never has been used. Never will be used. Any items the city demands be placed into those bins gets placed into the regular garbage. Screw ‘em.

Eventually, I am certain I will be the recipient of a visit from the brownshirts from City Hall. And they will be told as politely as possible to get the hell off my property.

They work for me. Not the other way around.