Fucking buffoon:
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Thursday failed to confirm that he will accept the 2022 midterm election results, alleging that Democrats might attempt to cheat in this year’s contest.
During interactions with the press on Thursday, a reporter asked the incumbent if he would concede if the vote count showed that he lost.
Johnson responded: “I sure hope I can, but I can’t predict what the Democrats might have planned.”
The two-term senator said that he and other Republicans are not trying to “gain partisan advantage” by contesting election results, but rather trying to “restore confidence” in the electoral process.
“It sure seems like there’s an awful lot of, in the past, a lot of attempts on the part of Democrats to make it easier to cheat,” said Johnson.
Some more context here:
Johnson, who is running for reelection against Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, offered no actual evidence to back up his claim that there had been “a lot of attempts on the part of Democrats to make it easier to cheat.”
Johnson was asked the question, at least in part, because on Thursday a top Milwaukee election official was fired after allegedly requesting military ballots for fake voters and sending them to a Republican state lawmaker.
This is far from the only time over the last few years that Johnson has dabbled in conspiracy theories. Consider:
* Johnson suggested that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (and House Democrats) voted to impeach Donald Trump for his role in the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol as a way to cover up her own culpability for what happened that day. (There’s no evidence to back up that claim.)
* Johnson said that he saw no evidence that January 6 was an “armed insurrection.” (There’s lot of evidence it was.)
* In a Senate hearing on the Capitol attack, Johnson read excerpts of a piece by J. Michael Waller, which ran in The Federalist on January 14, 2021, claiming that “a small number of cadre appeared to use the cover of a huge rally to stage its attack,” and suggesting that these “agents-provocateurs” were a) not Trump supporters and b) were primarily responsible for the violent storming of the Capitol. (There’s zero evidence to back up that claim.)
* Johnson suggested at a 2021 virtual town hall that mouthwash was a potentially effective treatment to combat being infected with Covid. “By the way, standard gargle mouthwash, has been proven to kill the coronavirus,” Johnson said. “If you get it, you may reduce viral replication. Why not try all these things?” (Nope!)
Johnson is really pushing to stay in the Senate so he can benefit himself and his family some more:
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin was pushing for a tax cut provision in 2017 that benefitted his former plastics company and many others as his family was acquiring properties around the country, a newspaper review of property records revealed.
The tax cut to companies called “pass-throughs” benefitted not only Johnson’s company and big donors, as had been previously reported, but it came as the senator’s family was acquiring luxury properties that could also take advantage of the law, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Friday.
There is nothing illegal about Johnson or his family members taking the deduction available to limited liability companies and other firms that pass all of their income on to their owners or investors. Companies structured this way, often small, family-owned businesses, are not subject to corporate income tax.
Here’s some context:
The Journal Sentinel reported that Johnson’s three adult children are the beneficiaries of a family trust and are listed as managers of about 10 companies registered with the state Department of Financial Institutions.
Those companies and the family trust own about two dozen properties around the nation with assessed values of $21 million, the newspaper reported.
In 2017, Johnson held up passage of Trump’s tax bill by objecting to the plan’s already generous tax break for pass-through businesses. Originally, the Trump administration proposed allowing business owners to deduct up to 17.4% of their profits. Johnson fought to increase that to 23%. The figure ended up at 20%.
Several studies have found that the tax cut primarily helped the wealthy.
Ross Milton, an assistant professor at La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the pass-through provision is “still a hotly debated topic among tax policy people.”
“I think these pass-through provisions have been criticized because much of the benefit of them goes to very high income and/or high wealth households,” Milton said. “And presumably the Johnson family is a high-income household.”
What happens if the Republican Party wins big this election cycle? Democracy advocates warn that Republican governors and their legislative allies would rig election processes to favor the GOP.
Should voters take that dire prediction seriously? Absolutely.
Who says? Republicans. Take Tim Michels, the party’s nominee for governor of Wisconsin. Polls show that Michels, a multimillionaire who has financed his campaign with family money, is running even with Governor Tony Evers, the mild-mannered Democrat who saw the state through the worst of the coronavirus pandemic and has ushered in an era of high employment, improved services, increased funding for education, and balanced budgets.
Michels is running a wildly dishonest campaign that has earned “pants-on-fire” ratings from fact-checkers. But it looks like he’s decided to tell the truth about his intent to end nonpartisan election oversight in the state. During a campaign stop in Jefferson County, a swing region between Madison and Milwaukee, Michels declared, “Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I’m elected governor.”
That’s a bold statement, considering the fact that Wisconsin voters have elected Democrats in eight of the last nine presidential elections. Democrats also hold every statewide constitutional office—governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and state treasurer—as well as one US Senate seat, three US House seats, and 50 seats in the state legislature.
But Michels has a plan. He wants to replace the Wisconsin Elections Commission—which is currently organized with an eye toward guaranteeing nonpartisan management of voter registration, voting, election counts, and recounts—with what by every indication would be a partisan oversight board. Under the scheme Michels is proposing, a new commission would be made up of appointed representatives from the state’s eight congressional districts.
Because of gerrymandering, Republicans already dominate five of the eight districts, and could win a sixth district in November.
Michels, who told a radio interviewer that the 2020 presidential election was “maybe” stolen, has according to the Associated Press “been unclear about whether he would accept 2024 results.” The question of certification of election results has been a big deal in contests across the country this year, as Bloomberg noted in an August article headlined, “Five US States Will Decide If the 2024 Election Can Be Stolen.” The battleground states referenced in the article feature front-running candidates who falsely claim that “Donald Trump was the true winner” of the 2020 election (Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake), that Trump won a state that he actually lost by 155,000 votes (Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon), that 2020 election results were “compromised” (Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano), that the last election was “rigged” (Nevada Senate candidate Adam Laxalt), and that “illegal ballots” were cast (Michels in Wisconsin).
By the way, here’s how big of a sense of urgency it is to keep Wisconsin Blue:
Democracy is on the ballot Nov. 8.
And we believe that means a vote for Democrats Mandela Barnes for U.S. Senate and Tony Evers for governor.
Their Republican opponents, incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson and businessman Tim Michels, continue to cast doubt on the 2020 election, and both have fudged on whether they will accept the outcome of the 2022 vote. A commitment to basic democratic principles is a threshold neither passes, and their willingness to cavalierly ignore longtime norms of democracy is dangerous.
U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a lifelong Republican who has stood bravely against her party as it bowed to the whims of former President Donald Trump, put it this way in a recent interview with NBC's Chuck Todd:
"No one of any party should be voting for people who are election deniers. "(Election deniers) are telling you they'll only certify an election they agree with. ... There's not much graver threat to the democracy than you can imagine than that."
If the Republican Party is to escape Donald Trump's cult of personality, it has to begin in elections like these. Normally, the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin editorial board does not recommend candidates in elections, but because of the stakes in this election — and our deep concerns with these candidates — we have decided to do so.
And the big names have kept on coming to make this happen:
Democrats are hoping to excite their base in the Fox Valley ahead of the mid term election next week, with a rally Saturday, led by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent.
In a room filled to capacity, Sanders received a standing ovation as he arrived inside the UAW hall as he campaigned for Democrat Mandela Barnes, who is challenging Republican Senator Ron Johnson in a race that’s expected to be won by a razor thin margin.
Johnson is seeking his third term in office.
“If we can win here in Wisconsin, we will not only I think control the United States Senate again, but we will have the votes that we need to overcome two corporate Democrats and begin to really address the crisis facing the working class of this country,” said Sanders.
Sanders previously won the Wisconsin presidential primary in 2016, but dropped out just before the 2020 primary, leaving President Biden as the only candidate on the ballot, still in the race.
However, he still received more than 30 percent of the vote and continues to have a following among progressive Democrats.
During the event, he spoke about the number one issue with voters-- which is inflation and cast blame on corporate America.
Sanders said, “They’re squeezing workers to become even richer. They also are suffering from an addiction, which is very serious. That is the addiction of greed and we have got to cure them of that addiction.”
Being in Johnson’s hometown of Oshkosh, Sanders also attacked the Senator on the issue of election integrity.
“Your Senator, Ron Johnson is not quite so sure that he will accept election results if he loses. Well, we have news for Senator Johnson, Donald Trump and all of these other guys. In a democracy, sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose,” he told the audience.
On Tuesday, we are going to make Johnson accept the fact that he lost.
Click here to find your polling place.
Health and Democracy are on the ballot next year and we need to keep Wisconsin Blue. Click below to donate and get involved with Mandela Barnes (D. WI) and his fellow Wisconsin Democrats campaigns:
Wisconsin Democratic Party
Minocqua Brewing Company SuperPAC
Tony Evers for Governor
Mandela Barnes for U.S. Senate
Brad Pfaff for Congress
Josh Kaul for Attorney General
Doug La Follete for Secretary of State
Aaron Richardson for Treasurer