A clerk in conservative Waukesha County claims to have discovered more than 7,000 votes for David Prosser, which if true would reverse the recent election results. (Waukesha is one of the three “dark red” counties in the southeast corner of Wisconsin.)
Karoli at Crooks and Liars calls bullshit, saying the “new” numbers were reported before. Chris Bowers reports for Daily Kos that this same clerk has a history of suspicious behavior. See also Andy Kroll at Mother Jones.
Apparently the GOP is trying to preemptively pin shutting down the government on the Democrats. The story is that the Dems are trying to force a shutdown because this would make Republicans look bad.
But the teabaggers did not get the memo. This clip features rallying baggers shouting “shut it down! shut it down!”
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It’s not clear to me that a shutdown would play into Dems’ hands they way it did in the Clinton Administration, but that’s mostly because Big Bill played the GOP like a fiddle, and President Obama just doesn’t have the same skills. Otherwise — historically, most government shutdowns have been brief and/or occurred at a time when the effects were minimal, such as federal holidays. A prolonged shutdown right now possibly would delay tax refund checks, among other things, and I think people would notice.
And even the Dems ought to be able to tie Paul Ryan’s Medicare-killing budget to the GOP and their inability to compromise.
Meanwhile, likely Republican voters think that Donald Trump is presidential material. Seriously. Not only do baggers not have a clue; they’re too dumb to recognize a clue unless it comes in a Parker Brothers board game box.
On to Wisconsin — rightie bloggers already are spreading rumors of voter fraud to explain yesterday’s Wisconsin election results. The weird thing about this claim is that it occurred in a county (Ozaukee) that went overwhelmingly for Prosser. Ozaukee was one of the three strongest pro-Prosser counties in the state, in fact. So if the allegations of ballot shredding are true, why wouldn’t fingers be pointed at Prosser’s people, not Kloppenburg’s?
Oh, right. They’re wingnuts. Never mind.
Finally, Gov. Scott Walker is blaming those alien beings in Madison for his guy’s apparent loss yesterday.
“You’ve got a world driven by Madison, and a world driven by everybody else out across the majority of the rest of the state of Wisconsin,” Walker said at a press conference in the Capitol.
However, a look at actual results by county tell a different tale. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.