How many times do republicans need to be proven wrong before they lose all credibilit

That is a great story... but what about the people like my wife and I, who go to college, get a degree, get out into the workforce, and then don't make enough (because, quite frankly, about 35% of my gross income goes to taxes/insurance at a roughly 65/35 split... and that's with me only making 37,500 annually...) to pay their student loans AND rent AND utilities AND buy groceries AND make the car payment (my 22 year old jeep died last year... didn't have much of a choice in the matter)... we aren't living beyond our means so much as what we are making is barely covering the basics. As it is, I have SallieMae (private, virtually unregulated student loans) that have a MINIMUM interest of something like 22% APR... my minimum payment on that comes to approximately $1,200 a month, or roughly 50% of my net income. My wife's is much lower, but her income is also lower (massage therapist, as well as an assistant manager at a local grocery chain), but she has a student credit car with a MINIMUM APR of 29%... the maximum APR (the penalty APR) is 29.9%... what the hell?

Those kinds of interest rates and payments don't "help move people towards independence and self reliance" at all... what's really stupid is that, thanks to the housing bubble bursting (more lack of regulation!) we are unable to get a mortgage on a cheap house (75k) because we are "sub-prime" lendees... even though we have several years of records showing we have made all our rent payments, car payments, etc on time... doesn't matter, our debt to income is too high... this is doubly frustrating when you consider the mortgage payment on that cheap house would come to about HALF of what our current rent is... wtf!?

No, I'm sorry... deregulate, and you will simply see more of the "middle class" getting the proverbial finger from the upper crust.

 

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Well that is the myth you guys like to tell yourselves and anyone else who will listen, but the facts say otherwise. Why is it republicans spend more and enlarge government more than democrats? That is what the data shows. Your hero, Ronald Reagan increased government spending by an annualized 8.7%. George Junior increased government spending by an annualized 8.1% during his tenure. Democrats on the other hand were much more modest. Obama has increased government spending by a modest annualized 1.4%. Clinton increased government spending by a modest annualized 3.9%. The only job gains under George Junior came from the government sector. Virtually all of the job gains under President Obama (a democrat) were in the private sector and all the job losses were in the government sector….damn minor details again.

The facts just do not support your republican mythology.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickung...isenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/

Then how do you account for the facts? There is a big difference between what republicans say and what they do. That is what the facts prove.

Nice demagoguery, but like everything else with the Republican Party, it isn’t true. The laws which created welfare have provided much needed support during difficult times for many successful people. There are millions of people who have used the GI Bill to gain an education and enjoy successful careers. Most college graduates these days have government loans which allowed them to obtain their education. Few physicians graduate from American schools without tremendous debt, government debt. Debt made possible because of government sponsored grants and loans.

Republicans favor laws which allow businesses to externalize their costs (i.e. pass them on to others) rather than to provide opportunity. The difference between republicans and democrats is thus, republicans favor legislation that benefits special interests at the expense of the common man. Democrats use government to provide opportunity to the common man. Opportunity and competition are what made us strong and keep us strong as a nation.

This is typical of the simple minded thinking which dominates republican circles. Owning a home does not make you a sovereign. It doesn’t make you a king or a queen. It makes you a homeowner. There is a difference. As a homeowner I have to make many comprises. The utility companies have easements on my property. The city has easements on my property. If I want to make structural changes to my home, I need to get approval from the city. I may even need to get permission to paint my home if I live in some areas. If I live in an area controlled by a homeowner association (a non-government entity), I need to get permission from the homeowner association to make changes to my home. The point being, homeownership doesn’t exempt one rule of law or dependency on others.

That is a bunch of partisan mythology, things republicans like to tell themselves and it is how they like to market themselves. But it is very far from the truth and the well documented facts. The facts show republicans are for big government so long as that government favors those special interests who line their political coffers at the expense of the common man. Historically, democrats spend less, expand government less, and are the party of opportunity. Democrats believe government should be used to foment opportunity and competition rather than subsidizing the fat cats who have inherited their wealth. And democrats are the party of educated folk. Democrats respect and accept science. That's why republicans are trying so desperately to disenfranchise students among other groups.

 

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THere are programs to help out with student loans. A friend of mine had 30% of his loans taken care of.

 

The idea of republicans disenfranchising students is an example of the common sense of the self reliant confronting blind obedience to the democrat propaganda due to obligation dependency.

The democrats did the same thing with housing, they are now doing with education. Decades before the housing crisis, the democrats wanted everyone to be able to have a house, including high risk people, who the banks felt would default on their loans. The utopian dream of everyone being able to have a house sounds so wonderful for those who can't think on their own. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is not. The reason the housing disaster went through, was the government said it would absorb the bad loans, which meant the tax payer. This too away checks and balances from on the free market, so everyone was trying to make loans. This predictable result was massive defaulting that choked off the economy.

With respect to students and education, the law of supply and demand meant, with more induced demand for education (due to propaganda marketing) and a limited supply of resources (schools), prices will go up. This is predictable. Anyone with common sense in business; self reliant, knows this. It also knows if you also choose a area of study, that does not provide many opportunities for jobs, while having a huge student debt, these kids will never be able to become self reliant, since their debt will keep them down. They begin their young lives with a house size loan but no house.

The democratic party can't make the economy provide enough good jobs, to justify the rising student cost of education. There are not enough career level jobs to absorb all the graduates, with a house size loan debt. Many were led over cliff but the democrats really care. All you end up are an even smarter group of government dependents who can never leave. It is like a slave that can't leave until the debt is paid.

Common sense of the republicans tells students, they needs do a cost analysis on your education to make sure your choices do not place you behind the eight ball, like the democrats want. Don't be a herd animal and blame these who actually care about your future. For some, going to a trade school to become a plumber, although not as snobby as a pHD in classical dialects, will lead to be more liberated future, where you can afford to learn the classics. People can be educated but still have no common sense. Self reliance needs common sense and not just an appeal to vanity.

One area of business that aligns itself the most with the democrats are the media and entertainment industries. These are the industries that help big businesses, even those connected to the republicans, market their products through various forms of market manipulation. Big oil is a household name because of these industries that associate withe democrats, all due to money.

Conceptually, if you have the masters of illusion and manipulation aligning with one political party, that party will be support with better mass illusions and manipulations, since that is what they do. If you can convince people the TV doctor is as good as a real doctor (wish he was my doctor), they can make their base believe anything if they market it properly. They con for business, because of money, but align with the democrats. This could explain why the democrats appear sing jingles and use the same arguments across the board, while appearing clueless to simple cause and effect.

 

The Democrat propaganda machine says the Republicans are anti science. Let us analyze this claim. If you look at large republican corporations like big oil and big drug, both industries make use of scientists at a huge level. Oil needs scientists and technicians in geology, physics, chemistry, climate science, engineering, oceanography, etc. Without all this science support these industries could not function and keep up with the changing times. The same is true of almost any manufactured product including food; food sciences and mechanical engineering.

Industries that heavily support the democrats, lawyers and the media and entertainment industries, don't need the same amount and types of science. These depend more on soft science like psychology to help manipulate the mind, heart and attitudes. The propaganda claim does not make sense. One has liberal arts based special interests telling their base the other side does not support science. The dependents are too beholden to think properly.

The goal of the republican party is to get you to self reliance, since that alone, regardless of your political party, will at least keep your ideas rational and allow you to resist media manipulation. The democrats have some good points, but are often clueless with respect to implementation that enhances opportunity. This takes more interaction with the logic and procedures of science, instead of the subjectivities of liberal arts and social (soft) sciences.

 

Yes. And thus they have endless reservoirs of money to try to corrupt scientists with. The fact that they only rarely succeed is a testament to the integrity of most scientists. Some, of course, prefer the money - and thus you see a small percentage of scientists who are well-paid to "dispute" climate change.

Yet most real scientists are liberal, and the higher someone's educational level, the more likely they are to be liberal.

The goal of the republican party is to enrich their largest donors, so that the donors will reward them financially and they will remain in power. Their largest donors (the religious right and the oil companies) dislike science, since certain kinds of science result in them making less money. However, since those organizations have so much money, they have the resources to pay scientists to distort the science and sow doubt. They expect the Republican politicians they have purchased to do the same, or they cut off their money.

Which is one reason most scientists are liberal:
========================================
Only Six Percent Of Scientists Are Republicans: Pew Poll

Updated: 02/12/2013 11:43 am EST

A new study by the Pew Research Center finds that the GOP is alienating scientists to a startling degree.

Only six percent of America's scientists identify themselves as Republicans; fifty-five percent call themselves Democrats. By comparison, 23 percent of the overall public considers itself Republican, while 35 percent say they're Democrats.

The ideological discrepancies were similar. Nine percent of scientists said they were "conservative" while 52 percent described themselves as "liberal," and 14 percent "very liberal." The corresponding figures for the general public were 37, 20 and 5 percent.

Among the general public, moderates and independents ranked higher than any party or ideology. But among scientists, there were considerably more Democrats (55%) than independents (32%) and Republicans (6%) put together. There were also more liberals (52%) than moderates (35%) and conservatives (9%) combined.

"These results were not a complete surprise," said Scott Keeter, Director of Survey Research at Pew, in an interview with the Huffington Post. He said they can be mostly attributed to "the difference between Democratic and Republican parties with respect to issues."

. . .

"Many Republicans, especially the Evangelical wing of the party, are skeptical of evolution, and have argued for the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in school," said Keeter.

The results could merely be a reflection of how scientists see the world, rather than of partisan loyalties. In a series of questions posed, the study found that the answers of scientists were consistently more in line with liberal viewpoints than those of the general public.
--------------------------------

 

It is much more than an idea, it is reality. Republicans across the land are actively attempting to disenfranchise various voter groups including students. Now how you get the “self-reliant confronting blind obedience” out of that and blame democratic propaganda for it is bizarre and disconnected to say the least.

If the facts and rational thought were on the side of republicans, they wouldn’t need to disenfranchise voters in order to succeed at the ballot box. What facts and reason cannot do for them, republicans attempt to ameliorate with money and subterfuge.

Democrats have done nothing here other than attempt to save democratic institutions and preserve individual rights granted to all Americans in the US Constitution – as painful as that might be to republicans and the Republican Party.

Well actually, homeownership has been a goal of both parties, including most recently the Georgie Bush administration.

“Eight years after arriving in Washington vowing to spread the dream of home ownership, Bush is leaving office, as he himself said recently, "faced with the prospect of a global meltdown" with roots in the housing sector he so ardently championed.

There are plenty of culprits, like lenders who peddled easy credit, consumers who took on mortgages they could not afford and Wall Street chieftains who loaded up on mortgage-backed securities without regard to the risk.

But the story of how the United States got here is partly one of Bush's own making, according to a review of his tenure that included interviews with dozens of current and former administration officials.

From his earliest days in office, Bush paired his belief that Americans do best when they own their own homes with his conviction that markets do best when left alone. Bush pushed hard to expand home ownership, especially among minority groups, an initiative that dovetailed with both his ambition to expand Republican appeal and the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/b...iht-admin.4.18853088.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

And frankly, there is nothing wrong with improving prosperity of everyone in the nation and raising the standard of living. Only in the whacko world of republican greed is that a bad thing. And prosperity is achieved when you have a healthy vibrant economy where one has competition and opportunity for all. Unfortunately, republicans like the prosperity thing, but only for a few trust fund babies, and where competition is not needed nor wanted. Competition is for the other guy, and opportunity is only for them, the few, the elect, the trust fund baby.

So what, you want them to be menial laborers for the rest of their lives? A couple of things, you obviously don’t know business or economics. In a free market, when prices go up, supply also goes up. More and more Americans have been able to go to school and only in a republican world is that a bad thing. Unfortunately, and educated population does not favor the Republican Party. I had student loans. My physician friends and neighbors have had student loans. My cousins had student loans, my wife had student loans, and we were all able to pay off our student loans, and we all live a fairly good life. So those student loans were obviously not that burdensome. In fact they were good investments for us and the nation. Student loans are not similar in any way to home loans. Students are buying an education which will allow them to earn good wages for a lifetime. A hundred thousand dollar student loan could pay millions to student over a lifetime. That is a very good investment. It took me 10 years, making minimum payments, to pay of my student loans. That is far shorter than the typical 20 or 30 years it takes to pay off a mortgage.

Well, the Bureau of Labor Statistics data says otherwise. The unemployment rate for college graduates is 3.3% compared to the overall unemployment rate of 6.1%. That suggests we are at full employment for college graduates since the full employment rate is estimated by the Federal Reserve to be 5%.

Yeah I get it, republicans fear an educated America. And you my friend are just mindlessly repeating Republican Party dogma.

You should take your own advice. I would suggest you take a college course in logic. It might help with the straw m an arguments along with your many other errors of logic and reason. And there is nothing wrong with trade schools, most trade schools now exist within the junior college system – damn minor detail again. 

Then how do you explain Fox News, One America, talk radio, conservative internet? They damn sure are not “liberal” and they sure as hell are not “fair and balanced” as they claim to be. They are right wing republican media outlets that say and do anything to advance the Republican Party agenda – facts and reason be dammed. That is how they operate every day, 24 hours a day. The reality is, republicans have a very large media presence. And subscribers to conservative media sources have been repeatedly found in academic study after study be the least well informed. Whereas the democratic presence in media is virtually nil. Just because a media source isn't pumping republican dogma and misinformation 24 hours a day and attempts to adhere to journalistic standards of integrity, it doesn't make it liberal (i.e. controlled by democrats).

Unfortunately, Republicans have evolved the point where anything other than strict allegiance to party dogma makes individual or mainstream nonpartisan news sources like CNN and NPR liberal. The term liberal as now defined by the Republican Party is anything which isn’t preaching Republican dogma. The Sun and Moon are liberal. Beds are liberal; couches are liberal; everything that does not preach Republican Party dogma and defined by Rush Limbaugh is in the republican world view liberal and not to be trusted. It's reminiscent of dictatorships. Chairman Mao would be pleased.

It was a republican who terminated the “Fairness Doctrine” which required media sources to present both sides of every issue and had been the law of the land for decades and gave rise to partisan media. It has been democrats who have tried unsuccessfully for more than two decades to restore the “Fairness Doctrine”. So again the facts are just not consistent with your claims.

And your claims about big oil and democrats are just absurd in the extreme. Both parties have strong affiliations with the oil industry. But republicans more so, republicans have steadfastly defended oil industry tax subsidies and weakened pollution laws and threaten alternative energy sources, while democrats have repeatedly tried to remove oil industry tax subsidies and tighten rules on industry pollution and safety and have favored competitive energy sources. So again, your notions are just not consistent with fact and reason.

 

Know any good ones? Most of the ones I hear about are either: A) For Federal Student Loans (not private loans) or B) Scams that simply take your money and distribute it across your loans the same way you could already except they keep a portion of the money in the process.

 

https://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation

 

Joe - as I said, these are not Federal loans unfortunately...

 

Man made global warming, divides down the political lines between democrat and republican. There is a logic for this that appears under the radar. The media, entertainment, and marketing industries, which are key supporters of the democratic party, have connections to science. One main connection, that has been around for years is connected to the industry wide News Format; News, Weather and Sports. Weather is the area of science that is a key component of the news industry, being a popular part of the newscast. Weather forecasting is not a perfect science, with forecast accuracy about 80-90% for short term forecasts, depending on time of year. There is no accountability if one makes a bad forecast, because nobody expects perfection in this science, including a democrat news audience.

As a contrast, let us consider an oil company who wants to explore and drill new wells. There is no room for error, since any mistakes will lead to accountability either by share holders or regulations. The EPA and environmentalists alone, are waiting for anything to complain about, with lawyers in tow. The result is their science has to be perfect, since it does not have the forgiveness standard of the news media science, where there is no penalty for being wrong 10-20% of the time.

Both use science, but the oil company has to use hard science that is solid enough to withstand extreme accountability. Whereas news weather science can be wrong and nobody complains since this is only seen as firm science and everyone accepts mistakes as a nature of the beast. Anyone who does solid science; oil business executives, can see the difference between firm and solid science and does not buy into the propaganda of firm science without accountability. There is a difference between gold and silver level science as inferred by accountability for predictions.

What I would suggest is we use the same level of accountability, for media executives, as expected of an oil company executive. If these weather and climate prediction are wrong, it can lead to firing and even fines and jail time. A level playing field should allow the democratic base to get a reality check on just how confident executes, who benefit by making fodder for their news format, become, if there is extreme accountability. Or we can do it the other way, allowing oil companies to make as many mistakes; 10-20% oil spills, before anything can be done by EPA, environmentalists, and share holders. If oil could make 10% mistakes they would drill in irrational places with the lack of accountability creating the impression of perfect science.

Self reliance, makes one more critical of any herd mentality and checks to see how the magic trick is being done. The media, entertainment and marketing industries are experts at creating art, that looks real. Even weather is given artistic liberty.

 

Another difference between republican and democrat, as connected to the propaganda from each against the other, is republican is see as being about greed and money, while democrat is more about power. The democrats want to tax the evil rich republicans who only want money. While republicans wants to limit the power of government because democrats make too many busy body rules and regulations and taxes.

This divide of money versus power, uses different standards of accountability. For money, there is truth in advertising with lying about products subject to penalties. With power, there are no rules about lying, with similar accountability as business advertising. Mudslinging can be lie that can take out an opponent with no accountability, but if a business did the same to another business, there are laws in place. If we assume both the extremes of money and power are corrupt, which side has more corruption freedom to lie and misrepresent without consequences? The side of the coin, most supported by the democratic base has less rules of accountability. The republicans see business forced to tell the truth, while the democrats see leaders who don't have to tell the truth. Yet the democratic propaganda implies the opposite is true. It does not add up but simply makes use of the lying clause.

Say a business pollutes the environment, there is accountability because this can harm the body. Say power pollutes the environment with lies that cause people to stay afraid or angry all the time? Or say the media propaganda wing that supports power and politics creates pollution of deception or omission, so the truth is hidden, which can fry the brain into mindless bigotry. There is no accountability or media EPA, like with business. The least self reliant depend on those on the side of the coin who have the least amount of truth accountability. Their standard should be stricter to make sure the naive get good information not spin and lie based information.

If both money and power are equally corrupt, and one side has fewer restrictions, which can practice corruption easier? Power makes the laws that regulate itself, whereas business has outsiders in government regulate it. Which promotes a more honest system, and which is more vulnerable to corruption? How about business leaders set standards for politicians based on truth in advertising and EPA mind pollution? Media is big business and they sell information and fantasy as products.

Picture if leaders of large corporations, like IBM, Apple, Mobile, GM, etc., were chosen by popular vote. Every so many years the CEO of Apple, and other top brass are chosen based on campaigning, mudslinging and voting. Would this system be as effective for these companies as a system that internally picks what it needs for a tough job? Power is created by a system that is not picking people, based on direct job experience, since the majority of voters do not know what these skills will entail. It is all about media driven popularity and image, which does not always equate with performance in a tough job. If we add to this, no truth in advertising or verbal pollution laws, to regulate these less than optimize people, this is not a trust worthy system designed to be optimized by itself. I have more trust in business since it has accountability. The lying that is allowed by power, promotes the opposite, as being true. The dependent base does not look deep enough to see this does not add up i terms of which has the most accountability and corruption taking opportunities when available.

 

As I said before, just because some media outlets constrain themselves to long held journalistic standards, it does not follow that they are in any way biased. Contrast those nonpartisan outlets with your conservative/republican media outlets. Consumers of conservative media like you, have been consistently found over a number of years to be very uninformed, even more uninformed than folks who consume no news.

Additionally, you don’t need to have a PhD to know glaciers are not melting because the world is getting cooler.

I hate to burst your bubble again, but oil companies drill “dry holes” all the time. So are you going to throw oil company executives in jail every time they hit a dry hole? If so, we will need to build a lot of new jails.

“Almost one out of every three wells started in Oklahoma last year was dry and abandoned, which means 28 percent of the money spent for exploration was lost. And Oklahoma oilmen have a better-than-average record. Nationally, the proportion of dry holes was higher. Instead of the 27.9 percent Oklahoma experienced, across the country the 1982 dry hole figure was 30.9 percent. That compares to 37 percent of all holes drilled in 1955, the API said.” http://theenergycollective.com/jim-baird/253976/no-more-blowouts-dry-holes-or-abandoned-wells

Apparently, you don’t pay attention to the weather forecasts. They are pretty good. When there is any uncertainty, that uncertainty is identified and related to audiences. And there are differences between short term and long term forecasts, just as an oil company executive cannot tell you with absolute certainty how much oil his company will produce a year or two down the road.

So the bottom line here is that your post is yet another manure dump. It isn’t factual, it isn’t reasoned.

Actually, no, self-reliance and herd mentality are two distinct things. And self-reliance is no protection from “herd mentality”. The fact that you, think you have some invisible “self-reliance” cloak of protection from deception makes you the most easily deceived and most vulnerable to deception. As humans we are all vulnerable to deception and can be deceived. It goes with the whole human gig thing.

When you have to resort to illogical argument as you do and when you have to ignore fact as you do, it is probably a good clue that you might be deceived.

 

Yes, and it's quite simple. Republicans support the businesses that would be harmed by accepting climate change science. So they deny it, and try to suppress the information about climate change. The GOP has created quite an industry dedicated to distorting, denying and manipulating climate change science to achieve their goals.

This is common within the Republican party. Republicans are masters of the use of media to advance their agenda, and they know that controlling what people hear is critical to that. That's why people who listen to conservative media outlets are consistently less informed than people who listen to other media outlets. This was shown quite clearly during the last presidential election. Republicans did not like the polling numbers they were seeing, and they feared that Obama might be seen as more popular. So they simply changed the polling numbers (the term they used was "de-skewing") to make sure that the media portrayed what they wanted it to - a Republican victory - rather than reality.

Of course, the problem with this is that by just changing the numbers, you don't change the underlying reality - and they lost big time.

This attitude within the GOP has led to the current anti-science, anti-education meme within the party. Educated people can more easily see through the republican's distortions, and scientists especially are hard to sway with angry rhetoric from a pretty talking head on the news. (Which is why educated people and scientists tend to not be Republican.) This is a threat to Republicans, which is why they oppose and mock higher education, and try to degrade even primary education to produce less informed, more easily influenced voters. An uninformed voter is the GOP's best ally.

That wouldn't be very fair to FOX News, which would now be bankrupt and leaderless.

 

Actually no, it is a little more complicated than that. Republican followers such are yourself are seen as being ignorant, poorly educated, racist, gullible, religious, deniers of sciences, and biased to the extreme…not a lot of creative thinking going on or willingness to accept difference (i.e. intolerant). The financiers and leaders of the Republican Party are viewed as corrupt and amenable to the interests of wealth donors and power brokers (e.g. Koch brothers).

Democrats are viewed as open minded and are consumers of sciences, education, and enlightenment. But they are also viewed as being a bit “air-headed”, putting dreams and ethics above the practical. Democratic leadership tends to be a bit friendlier to corporate interests too. But that friendship is constrained by its base and its altruistic ambitions. Democrats are more of a populist’s party whereas the Republican Party isn’t. The Republican Party is at the leadership level a party of special interests which benefit the few at the expense of the many. And for that reason, the Republican Party is heavily dependent on deception and theatrics.

Dude, I don’t know what to say. That is so disconnected. So I guess you don’t like the whole democracy gig. The media are corporate entities. Political power is created simply by two humans associating with each other and not by any selection process. All I can say is I feel sorry for you. But, unfortunately you are a fairly typical right winger.

I suggest you do a little reading of history. Monarchies and dictatorships haven’t worked out real well for humanity. Our election system is not perfect, it could be much better. We could and should take all the special interest money out of political system, and we should restore The Fairness Doctrine where both sides of important issues are presented to consumers. We should have better informed voters, but those are all actions which the Republican Party has fought vehemently against for many decades.

 

How many times do you have to witness corporate corruption and betrayal not held to account before you realize that the people feeding you that garbage have no credibility?

The only entity that can hold a large corporation accountable for its behavior is a suitably powerful and independent government.

 

And being a minority party not bounded by ethical constraints, republicans have a preference for anti-democratic practices, like vote rigging, voter suppression, gerrymandering, etc., and deception.

 

And where are all the people republicans like Michelle Bachman (republican representative) who said Obamacare would kill? Bachman said Obamacare would kill women, children, and seniors. Ok, where are the dead bodies?

 

WI GOPer Accuses Dem Of 'Murdering' Grandkid To Deflect Cat Abuse Conviction

By David March 27, 2014

A Wisconsin Republican candidate says that his comments were taken out of context when he recently accused his Democratic opponent of "murdering" his grandchild.

Earlier this week, the Green Bay Press-Gazette asked County Board candidate Jason Wisneski about a 2008 conviction for animal mistreatment for breaking his cat's legs. Although Wisneski denied breaking his cat's legs, he spent three days in jail after pleading guilty.

In response, Wisneski pointed to a 2007 tragedy, when his Democratic opponent, state Senator Dave Hansen, accidentally killed his 23-month-old granddaughter while backing out of the driveway.

“It’s funny how they never bring up Dave Hansen murdering his grandchild though,” Wisneski wrote in a post on the Press-Gazette's website.

Wisneski’s wife, Monica Podgurski-Wisneski, added: “Hanson is a murderer but because of who he is and his money he got away with it. Yet liberals forgive the child killer. Can you say hypocrisy?”

In a statement on Wednesday, Hansen said that Wisneski and his wife had "caused great pain to our family."

WBAY also caught up with Hansen on Wednesday, who choked up while trying to hold back the tears.

"It is something we live with as grandparents everyday," he said. "It's almost 7 years -- it will be 7 years in July when we lost Elliana -- and something you remember of every second of every day."

"For a non-partisan election to turn against a sitting senator in his 14th year on an accident that happened many years ago is really sad and tragic, and really question where the civility is in government when it gets to stoop that low."

For his part, Wisneski told WBAY that the whole thing was "being blown way out of proportion."

“In no way am I calling Mr. Hansen a murderer,” he insisted to WLUK. “I understand what happened was an accident. I was just more so pointing out the hypocrisy of the press in not, it seems like they don’t want to bring up any tragedies when a liberal has one, but if something painful happens to a conservative, they’ll do that two weeks before the election.”