Jeff Fitzgerald: 2 + 2 = 5

Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald today:

We ran on this.  We were going to get the fiscal house in order. This is how we ran in our election. This is how we picked up 14 seats from you guys.  The public spoke (in the elections).  They said, ‘no more, no more. We want you to go to Madison and do what you say you’re going to do.’

Says PolitiFact: 

But Walker, who offered many specific proposals during the campaign, did not go public with even the bare-bones of his multi-faceted plans to sharply curb collective bargaining rights. He could not point to any statements where he did. We could find none either.

Straight Rights Watch: Wisconsin

Dan Savage—author of the nationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column "Savage Love", founder of the "It Gets Better" project created in response to bullied LGBT youth committing suicide, architect of the Rick Santorum Google bomb "Spreading Santorum"(potentially NSFW) and all around good guy—reintroduces the "Straight Rights Watch" in his latest column.

Straight Rights Watch, you ask?

We used to have a regular feature at Savage Love called “Straight Rights Watch.” It lapsed when the Democrats took the House in 2006 and political attacks on the sexual freedoms of straight people decreased. But the GOP is back in charge of the House and state houses across the country, and attacks on the sexual freedoms of heterosexuals—attempts to ban abortion, restrict access to birth control, destroy Planned Parenthood (which doesn’t just serve straight people), even make it legal to kill abortion providers (!!!)—are back, and so, sadly, is Straight Rights Watch.

Governor Charlie Sheen

On 22 September, 2003, Two and a Half Men debuted on CBS.  The Chuck Lorre-created, Charlie Sheen-starring comedy pulled in over fifteen million viewers its first season and since has generated enough revenue to justify paying Emilio Estevez's brother $1.8 million per episode.  While I haven't the first clue how much china white one could snort up for that scratch, Two and a Half Men now finds itself on indefinite hiatus because Charlie Sheen does.

Cue Sinatra's rendition of "It Was a Very Good Year":

8 February 2010 -- Charged with felony menacing, third-degree assault and criminal mischief, stemming from a 25 December 2009 arrest for domestic assault upon his then wife, Brooke Mueller.  Charlie, per police documents, told his wife, "You better be in fear. If you tell anybody, I'll kill you.  I have ex-police I can hire who know how to get the job done and they won't leave any trace."  Happy Christmas!

Wormtongue is at it again.

The February wind bites the back of your neck like a feral beast scrounging on the carcass and bones of caught prey.  Upturning the collar of your jacket or the throwing on of your scarf only makes you all the more aware of the acute burning on your cheeks.  As sure as noon follows morning and midnight follows dusk, as sure as the motivated legion of protesters in Madison are to stay committed to a cause battling a totalitarian regime, as sure as the sun rising each day...

...so too is Cullen Werwie prone to talk out of his arse.

AP file photo of Cullen Werwie addressing Wisconsin citizens.

On Wisconsin, part one.

This week, Catalan at Heart presents 'On Wisconsin', a multi-part look at the budgetary imbroglio Wisconsin finds itself in.  By tracing the who, the how, the why and everything between, we will offer a seemingly tangential, always empirical and ultimately definitive look on the crisis.  With snark.

As far as Wisconsin political theatre goes, the drama from fourteen Senate Democrats refusing a call to quorum and escaping to Illinois to avoid a sure-to-lose vote on Governor Scott Walker's "budget repair bill" is without precedent.  While the resulting schism is not starved for analogues to earlier affairs -- race relations, the original turmoil over unions, Bush/Kerry, Laverne and Shirley ending -- the connectedness of today's society has artificially amplified the fervor to a new critical mass.

While feasible to have avoided or compartmentalized earlier affairs, one click of the mouse or opening of a vibrating phone or button press of a remote control assaults one with instant news and faster commentary.  With tweets and status alerts and wall postings now the stuff of nightmares, a relentless force hunting and chasing regardless of the speed undertaken to get away or the tactics performed to elude its clutches.

On outright disinformation.

The Godwalker's spokesman, Cullen Werwie, through a statement on that whole switchboard snafu:

Throughout this call the Governor maintained his appreciation for and commitment to civil discourse. The phone call shows that the governor says the same thing in private as he does in public and the lengths that others will go to disrupt the civil debate Wisconsin is having.

Let's go to the transcript: