Right Wing Media Deceptive Statements about the Wisconsin Budget 'Crisis'

First of all, there is - or was - no budget crisis in Wisconsin until those big talking opponents of government spending on the right, the ones who like to make loud bellicose claims about earmarks and pork spending, contradicted their stated objections to spending and did just that - pork spending, special interest spending, to the point that it put the Wisconsin budget out of wack and in debt.

Just like the Bush years, the Republicans ONCE AGAIN took a surplus and gave money to their cronies to such an extreme degree that they created a completely avoidable crisis.  As regular Penigma readers already know, I like to look at local sources wherever possible to get the most accurate information, information that you will NEVER find on the right wing media sources from Fakes News to Rush Limbaugh, or from right wing politicos.  I have hammered repeatedly - with factual sources - how the right wing media, including the blogosphere, likes to disinform and deliberately misinform their consumers.  Sadly, rather than being fact based or reality oriented, those right wing consumers LIKE being fed inaccurate propaganda that feeds their toxic political ideologies, and the facts be damned!

Except that when those facts are ignored, sooner or later, they return and bite those politicos and pundits and bloggers in the ass.  The extraordinary capacity of the right, news, commenters and pundits - and bloggers - to avoid updates and corrections where the facts contradict their widely distributed false accusations is truly astonishing, and it is what separates the propagandists from genuine journalists, and other more legitimate political commenters and observers.

I dearly love our sister state of Wisconsin; some of my relatives live there, I have visited there often over the years, and I'm even a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran, so I have a sort of religious tie to the state as well.  When I think of Madison, I think of well-educated people with a tremendously well-informed but down to earth sense of humor.  The Onion, first a newspaper, now also a cable TV production and radio organization, originated there (for a brief history of the Onion - read here).  Contrary to the way that the Right, including the blogosphere, is portraying this, what this conflict is really about is partisan politics of the worst kind, not  genuine fiscal responsibility.  The right has used one of their hypnotic buzz words to try to gain support by their base who hate to fact check to see if such claims are truthful.  They're almost never factual OR truthful, and they're routinely anti-union, making false conspiracy theory accusations (see the snow plow slowdown in NYC as an example).  Not because unions are bad, but because unions are not Republican.  They make exceptions, as they did in Wisconsin, for any Republican or Tea Party union support, exempting them from their partisan attacks (at least, for now; any union supporting a Republican is simply facing a delay in being attacked, not an actual exemption or reprieve).

When I think of Wisconsin politics, I think of the 'Pail and Shovel Party' (which could do a better job than the current batch of Republicans and Tea Partiers in the Wisconsin Legislature) and their amazing statue of liberty on Lake Mendota:

Wisconsin is a state where their politics can be simultaneously hilarious, and very serious.  I find the bugging out of the Democrats to Illinois, spiking the attempt by the Republicans to perpetrate a travesty to be precisely such a move.  But the longer the humorless conservatives are in office, the more they will become a target, for serious political opposition, and for humor.  I can wait, and I will watch.



photo by Debra Drower, Flickr

 Because a state like Wisconsin, where they had to paint a cement giant moose orange because of people shooting at it (Black River Crossing) HAS to have a sense of humor.  I just wait for that humor (not guns)  target to turn on those Republicans, not with bullets, but with laughter by those Superbowl winning Cheeseheads.

Because tyrants and conservatives don't do well when attacked with humorous outrage.  An example would be the backing down of Republicans and Tea Partiers after Jon Stewart and the Daily Show ridiculed them for their attempts to define rape as only forcible rape.

This is shaping up to be fabulous political theater!  I can't wait to see what comes next, and I especially can't wait to see tonight's production of the Onion's Network News on cable tv!