Greg Sargent, at his Washington Post blog Plum Line: Wisconsin Dems 6. Wisconsin Republicans 0.
… Today the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board announced that they have now approved the signatures required for recall elections against the following six GOP senators: Rob Cowles, Alberta Darling, Sheila Harsdorf, Randy Hopper, Dan Kapanke, and Luther Olsen. That means these six elections are definitely moving forward.
__
Meanwhile, the board has also announced that they are not prepared to approve the signatures gathered by Republicans for the recall of their three Democratic targets. Dems have alleged that the signature gathering by Republicans is fraudulent, and now the board has explicitly claimed that their reason for not approving the recall elections against Dems is that the signatures “have raised numerous factual and legal issues which need to be investigated and analyzed.”
__
Translation: The fraud allegations just may have something to them.
__
What this means: While Dems only need to net three recall elections to take back the state senate, it is now within the realm of possibility that even as twice that number of Republicans face recall elections, no Dems will. That’s a pretty sizable advantage for Dems…
srv
Ben Shapiro goes after Big Bird:
Aimai
Man, I needed some good news. Thanks for posting this.
Amanda in the South Bay
Since Ben Shapiro is such a tough guy who thinks war is the best, first and only option, he’s more then welcome to enlist as an 11B in the Army. After all, he’s only 27! In the prime of life to spend basic and AIT at Ft. Benning.
LosGatosCA
This is a really big fucking deal.
PeakVT
Yeah, this is good. Until the elections take place, WI Democrats need to find a way to keep the Republicans from ramming all kinds of nasty shit through. They can prevent more if the net pickup is 3 or more, but they can do nothing to overturn anything that gets passed before then.
shortstop
HAAAAAAAA, HAAAAAAAAAA!
Chuck Butcher
Now all the Democrats have to do is field people who will set out a clear agenda to clear ends. That doesn’t mean wild eyed leftist ideas (oh well), but to make themselves clear on policy and the ends rather than just, “we’re not nuts…” There’s not one thing in doing it that is easy and sometimes it means telling your supporters that political life isn’t simple and putting things in their basic terms.
moonbat
Goooooooood!!!!!!
moonbat +2
JCT
@Amanda in the South Bay: This is one of my favorite suggestions to toss out when these young chickenhawks start talking smack. They are clueless as to how ridiculous they sound spouting off about other people’s lives at risk.
And the Wisconsin recall story is just awesome — talk about empowering.
Oh, and @Chuck Butcher, they can start with the slogan “We don’t suck Koch” — that will get the ball rolling.
Josh
This is great news. But Walker’s new vote-suppression policies, which cost like six million dollars to implement, are going into effect before the recall elections.
Frankensteinbeck
Egads! You mean there’s finally an accusation of large-scale vote fraud that has even enough evidence behind it to investigate – and it’s Republicans committing it? SHOCKED, I SAY!
Spaghetti Lee
I thought the Board just hadn’t looked at the recalls against the Dems yet.
VidaLoca
@Chuck Butcher: Chuck, I haven’t met all of the Democratic candidates for the Republican seats but the one I have met is the real deal. Her name is Sandy Pasch, she’s currently representing one of the state Assembly districts within Alberta Darling’s Senate District. Very competent, knowledgeable, down-to-earth.
@Josh: That’s true. It’s also unclear what effect holding the election at the height of summer vacation season will have. In the specific districts that will be in play in the election however, it may be that the net impact of the voter suppression policies will be a wash, affecting both parties about equally.
@Spaghetti Lee: Yes. Sargent is putting the best spin possible on the facts.
Triassic Sands
This is really high on my political wish list. I’m not going to get carried away, however, because, if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s don’t count on the American voter.
Fax Paladin
So what odds that the GOP leadership will start expulsion proceedings against some of the Democrats who walked out?
VidaLoca
@Fax Paladin: Fax, I wouldn’t want to underestimate their audacity but I’m not sure what grounds they’d have to start any kind of expulsion proceeding. I think it’s more likely that they’d try to alter the procedures under which the recall elections will be carried out.
bago
Everyone is missing the real question.
Is Big Bird gonna have to choke a bitch?
Steve
@PeakVT: The Republicans aren’t even willing to pass the anti-union bill that they already passed! I don’t see why anyone would be afraid that they will suddenly uncork “all kinds of nasty shit.” They seem terrified of making the backlash even worse.
Mnemosyne
D’oh — never mind. John covered the exact video I’m talking about one thread up. That’s what I get for scrolling from the bottom.
wonkie
The Rethuglicans of Wisconsin have been very busy passing all kinds of nasty shit. The voter supression bill is the most widely covered but there’s lots of othher stuff mostly aimed at chipping away life support for disabled people, udermining the public schools, opening up public parks for eergy exploitation…I have a friend in Wis. who sends me news of outrages daily.
They aren’t afriad of pissing people off because it’sd all stuff that rich [people won’t care about and they count on rich people votes plus the Faux cult votes plus voter supression plus incompetent media coverage to get them through.
Sadly their strategy is likely to work.