I knew it wouldn’t be long until someone put together something to counter the President’s recent bold faced lie that he was “never for ‘stay the course’”.

I don’t cut and paste comic strips very often, but this one from last Friday’s Doonesbury seemed especially timely:

…and so the trail of lies begins! The President on ABC’s “This Week”:

STEPHANOPOULOS: James Baker says that he’s looking for something between “cut and run” and “stay the course.”

BUSH: Well, hey, listen, we’ve never been “stay the course,” George.

“We’ve never been stay the course”. Wow.

The fact that the President can say that with a straight face – and worse, that he expects anyone to believe it – is even more proof of his delusional state of mind.

Of course, there’s another word that could be used to describe that. Three letters. Starts with “L” ends with “E”.

Color me unshocked. It looks like a California Republican candidate is responsible for sending out letters to hispanic voters warning them that if they went to the polls to vote in November, they could be thrown in jail and/or deported.

The letter, written in spanish said in part:

You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time.

In America, naturalized immigrants do have the right to vote. The Republicans name is Tan D. Nguyen, he’s running for Congress, and if he was the guilty party here, it’s really just disgusting on top of illegal.

I thought we got over this whole racial voter intimidation thing like 100 years ago?

Even more ironic is it appears Mr. Tan D. Nguyen is an immigrant himself. Just when I think that the Republican party as a whole can’t look any more ridiculous, something like this shows up in my inbox.

From today’s Journal Sentinel feature called “issue of the day” where they toss a slow pitch softball to each of the candidates for Governor.

The pitch: Candidates were asked if the $62 million state subsidy for 4-year-old kindergarten programs offered by some local school districts should be continued.

Here’s Rep. Mark Green’s response:

“We’ve been funding four-year-old kindergarten for over 20 years, but during that time we have never tested to ensure the current structure of the program is adequately preparing our children for the next step in their education. … If four-year-old kindergarten isn’t making our children more competitive, then we should look at channeling that funding into other measures that will accomplish that very important and necessary goal.”

This tells you everything you need to know about Republicans and education.

No children are safe from their attempts to privatize schools through the testing trojan horse, even pre-schoolers.

Rep. Mark Green thinks it’s just not enough to get kids early access to schooling – which every study in the world has said has huge benefits – they should be TESTED on how many digits between 1 and 5 they know and what coloring crayons they’re using to scribble with.

What would a potential Gov. Green want after that? Head start funding cut if two year olds aren’t potty trained yet?

Seriously. Testing four year olds for how competative they are!?!

If it weren’t so ridiculous that this man wants to be your next Governor Wisconsin, we could all share a big laugh.

More anti-Milwaukee County, anti-tax, anti-government-service rhetoric from the Journal Sentinel’s Patrick McIlheran.

This time, he’s saying anyone who lives and pays taxes in Milwaukee County is a “sap” for doing so. The underlying message here is what? We should all pack up and move to Waukesha or Washington counties where taxes may or may not be lower?

If I recall, Mr. McIlheran himselfs lives in Milwaukee, so I guess I don’t get why he’s still here himself if it’s such a burden? Go ahead and move to the suburbs where instead of paying taxes for things like pools and parks you’re hit with the ‘hidden tax’: fees.

Go ahead and move to the suburbs where the average response time to fire and police emergency calls is higher than Milwaukee. When your house is burning down because your suburban township doesn’t have a full-time fire department, just remember that those “saps” in Milwaukee County are paying higher taxes than you are.

Seriously, I’ve never gotten this argument from conservatives like McIlheran. I myself cringe when I get my property tax bill.

But then I remember that it goes for things like police cars in my neighborhood. Those taxes provide for a person on the other end of the line at the fire department when my house is burning down. Taxes pay for a transit system that stops half a block from my house. Taxes also pay for my swimming pool, golf courses, and great parks throughout the city.

If you don’t feel like paying for any of those things, maybe living in a city like Milwaukee isn’t the best place for you. And the same goes if you can only talk about taxpayers in terms like “saps”.

But like I’ve said before, McIlheran is obviously serving a function at the Journal Sentinel of branding the majority of it’s readers as idiots who are being taken for a ride by the mean ole government.

First off: I’m all for a local company like Harley-Davidson succeeding. After all, if they do well Milwaukee does well in terms of a higher tax base, higher employment rates for the region, and a higher standard of living for those employee’s who work and live in Milwaukee.

That said, it’s hard to understand why Harley-Davidson is so interested in picking up and moving hundreds of jobs out of Milwaukee. They recently gave one of their unions the ultimatum of taking a 1/3 pay cut or they’d move up to 200 jobs out of state.

That’s a tough decision to make for both parties, but my question is why does Harley-Davidson need to make such huge cuts to the amount their employee’s are compensated?

Take this blurb from the story as an example:

The motorcycle maker last week said it needed the cuts to be competitive, and that the new jobs might be added elsewhere if the roughly 1,500 members of United Steelworkers of America Local 2-209 rejected the concessions.

That doesn’t sound too unreasonable until you realize that Harley-Davidson is an extremely profitable company. How profitable? They’re planning on making a net profit this year of around $1 billion with a B.

A company that’s bringing in that kind of cash hardly needs to make these cuts “to be competitive” as the article states. They’re competitive as you can get right now, so what’s the real story?

After all, it’s not like the 200 union jobs going to another state wouldn’t ask for pretty much the same kinds of pay that the workers are getting here in Milwaukee.

As a union member myself, I can understand why the union members who work at Harley-Davidson would balk at taking such a huge cut in benefits and wages. They do have to provide for their families after all, and that consideration comes first and foremost in their decisions, probably ahead of their willingness to go the extra mile for a company who already appears to be super successful.

A follow up on this post from a month ago about MPS dishing out free breakfast to school kids this year…

Another 27 schools in MPS have started feeding their students breakfast with one twist: every student in those schools will have the option of getting breakfast regardless of economic status, and they’ll be fed in the classroom, not a cafeteria before school starts.

Good stuff, and a program that most people would think is a great idea.

Except for the Journal Sentinel’s Patrick McIlheran of course. But then it’s his job to play down things like this as best he can.

If you follow his twisted logic, kids who have parents with cars shouldn’t be taking the school bus in the morning either, because, you know, they already have transportation.

But that’s exactly what it takes to be a “right wing guy” columnist for Wisconsin’s largest daily paper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Anyways, good news for the students at those 27 schools.

Another day, another Republican congressman under investigation for corruption. This time it’s Rep. Curt Weldon from PA:

The FBI is investigating whether Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., used his influence to secure lobbying and consulting contracts for his daughter, two people familiar with the inquiry said Saturday. – AP

Meanwhile, we have a admitted felon serving in Congress right now. Republican Rep. Bob Ney from Ohio pleaded guilty for bribery on Friday but is still serving as a United States Congressman.

The party of “moral values” just keeps truckin’ along…