So we got sick of Lasee

Seriously, this guy is a gigantic wad of toilet paper in the sewage system that is Wisconsin politics, and Dr. Nugz and I realized that we've said about all we can say about Frank's totally-ignored and ridiculed tentatives to make Wisconsin better for him and all other upper-class white inhabitants.

I may start dinking around a bit over at Blawgering, and I swear that when Lasee admits he's a massive douchebag, we'll post back here just to confirm our undying correctness on this issue.

Keep it real.

YLfB 1, Lasee -75

Due to a confluence of factors, YLfB has been a little slow recently. However, I just wanted to take a second to acknowledge the moral victory we've captured over Lasee. He doesn't post on his blog any more, and therefore there's slightly less drivel in this world. Now, to get him to resign from office. Dr. Nugz and I have some plans, and most of them involve impersonating members from different organizations around town to set up a meeting that ends in us taking a picture of Lasee holding a sign reading 'I'm with stupid'.

Franky breaks his nearly-month-long silence

to tell us that we can get his stupid ass newsletter. Perhaps, after a holiday-inspired epiphany that YLfB is actually, as we all knew, spot on, he's decided to shelve the open-access internet shitstorm of political bile to instead concentrate on those devoted fans who receive his newest bastardization of reasonable thought.

Luckily for YLfB, Dr. Nugz is on the case: He has already subscribed to the newsletter under a cleverly-crafted psuedonym. As soon as school restarts (and we again have hours upon hours to waste on lost causes like Lasee), there'll be a chronicling of some of the newsletter gems sent out over break.

Lasee: If you want to know who the mole is, post a comment and we'll tell you.

Frank Lasee Explained

Frank claims here that "Illegal aliens take taxpayer dollars."

Explanation, by example: If Frank were a politician in the early 19th century, he'd be railing about housing and feeding the slaves.

"Merry Christmas, Frank Lasee!"

In his usual spirit of generosity and self-effacing humanitarianism (except if you don't look like him!), Frank posted a Christmas card on his blog.

After all this bullshit about pleasure and cheer and crap, Frank really gets to the point at the end. Basically, Frank wrote the card to himself ("Merry Christmas, Frank Lasee") and thinks the rest of you shouldn't be reading his blog on your free time (don't you have some work to do?) and instead should find publically-funded jobs where you have, oh, 7 free hours on the internet every day to go into Microsoft Paint and make up blog Christmas cards directed at your own holiday good cheer.

If he had any sense of work ethic, his Christmas card would've looked like mine:

Because I've got 2 minutes to kill...

Frank's confused again. As a result, we get this:

_____________________________________________________________________

"Politicians gave us the idea that the things we could not afford individually we could somehow afford collectively through the magic of government."

--Thomas Sowell
_____________________________________________________________________

Remember that one time when you wanted to get drunk, but you didn't have enough cash to buy a case of beer? Then you met up with your buddy, who also wanted to get drunk, but also didn't have enough dough. You two decided to pool your money, split the beer, and you both got drunk. Remember that?

Frank doesn't have any fucking clue how that worked out.

Frank made me stop studying

It's early December, and as all of you either unfortunate enough to be a law student yourself or, perhaps more perniciously, unfortunate enough to be friends with one, you understand that things go a little bonkers this time of year. The entropy level in the law school is high, 1Ls are flinging themselves around like it was 0G, and professors interrupt their uninterruptable walks through the hallway to respond to your idiotic question about promissory estoppel solely with a borderline-rhetorical 'well, what do you think?'

And yet, Frank doesn't even have the sympathy to give his detractors some time off. The bullshit meter is running, and therefore I ceremoniously take a break from my antitrust procrastination to wade into the dismal swamp of Lasee's mental faculties.

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." -Winston Churchill

If there is a God up there, Frank, he's in tears. Can't you hear him? He's like "Lasee, stop being such a fucking douchebag, run headfirst into a wall a few times and see if the agitation can't get some action going up there."

To briefly move to the actual idiocy of the quote, I'm really curious how you'd distinguish the Americans that get up every morning and go to work from the taxpayers in your metaphor. The metaphor a dead Brit used awhile ago relies on this idea of something not being able to impose a force upon itself. Wouldn't the hard-working guy who gets up early to put in a good day's work be trying to pull America up by the handle while standing inside? Would you say it's distinguishable because he's not actually pulling, or because he's not actually inside the bucket? Would you want to answer that question with a bunch of laborers around?

Once again, Lasee takes a massive dump all over the idyllic illusion of some sort of interplay between government and logic. Thanks, Frank, frankly, for being Frank: I didn't want to study Dr. Miles anyways!

Frank answers his own question, has yet to realize it.

Frank's been on a real quoting spree recently. Perhaps he's run out of independent thoughts. That, or he really thinks his "365 half-witted cluster-fucks of pseudo-political ramblings of the day" calendar is the shit. Nevertheless, here's what we got today:

___________________________________________________________________

"The mystery of government is not how Washington works, but how to make it stop."

--P. J. O'Rourke

___________________________________________________________________

Frank doesn't live in Washington. Frankly (haha, get it?) he thinks the place is the dumps - that's where the government resides, that's where taxes are raised, blah blah blah. Therefore, it seems fitting that Frank would finally initiate his attempted overthrow of the US government. Just imagine Frank leading his militia of redneck Packer fans to the White House.

Keep in mind, Frank, that the folk advocating anarchy are going to be the first people to lose their house under its realization. I don't see you as an exception to the rule.

The most disconcerting facet of Frank's little quote is the fact that he's figured out the mystery, but doesn't seem to have realized it. As a result of bullshit political bickering (I'm looking at you, Lasee), Wisconsin's state budget was overdue by several months this year. Political gridlock. Government stopped, because of Lasee and his band of ruffians. Mystery solved. Well played, Lasee.

Now that you've figured out that mystery, maybe you should figure out that mystery of the hallway in Brown Deer High School. You know, that one you thought the black students were having copious amounts of sex in, the one that white kids weren't allowed in. Remember that one? Me too...

How do you solve a problem like Lasee?

Tuesday, November 20, 2007
"Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. You can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients."

--Ronald Reagan

Wednesday, November 21, 2007
"We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex--but Congress can."

--Cullen Hightower

Where does a critic even start? You can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients? What's that mean? You can't have a government control administering health care without requiring people who need health care to become socialists? Well Frank, if that's true, and you're paid by the government, and some poor souls are your constituents, doesn't that make them socialists? What about people who go to the post office to send mail? All de facto socialists, according to Lasee according to Reagan.

Now the second quote, Frank, I'd think you'd see as a good thing: If Congress was totally ignorant of the ways our lives could be more frustrating and complex, certainly they wouldn't take that into account when they're making decisions. I think what you meant to quote from someone else is: "We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex, and Congress cannot either, so our lives keep getting more frustrating and complex!"

That being said, I do understand Frank's trying (hard but pathetically, and through the voice of another) to imply that legislatures intentionally make people's lives more frustrating and complex. For example, Dr. Lasee recently went into a school outside his district to convince them to stop allowing black kids to have sex in a school hallway. Now, those kids will have to have sex somewhere else. Moreover, instead of calling the police should a kid show up at school with a gun, Lasee proposes trying to get five school administrators together to put their thumbs against a safe to release the gun and shoot the kid. Frustrating and complex much?

Frank quotes Hill

From Franky's Funhouse:

"I have a million ideas. The country can't afford them all."

--Hillary Clinton

Frank Frank Frank. If I didn't know it was you totally misunderstanding the quote, I'd be curious whether someone from your position would agree or disagree with that (obviously realistic) statement. But you got your panties in a bunch and, instead of reading the words 'million', 'them' and 'all', I bet you saw "I have ideas. The country can't afford them." Would you rather she said "I have a million ideas, I think the country can afford them all, and I'm gonna try to make that work"? Hillary says something fiscally pragmatic, and Lasee jumps down her throat.

You've managed to turn a nearly tautological comment (if the US Government tried to enact every idea for reform I have, we wouldn't be able to) into an implicit exogesis on your inability to interpret even simple quotations just by posting it on your blog. C'mon Frank: Don't you have any staffers that aren't miserable at thinking you could throw on the case?

If only Lasee could read

Bill O'Reilly has started messing with his liberal blogger law school critics by trying to get them kicked out of law school.

My only question is, Frank, when do you try to get Dr. Nugz and I kicked out of law school? We started Seriatim for other reasons, realized it was insufficient to keep up with the ridicule you deserve, and started YLfB to make fun of you. I took the picture from the front page of your blog, added a tongue in Microsoft Paint (with which I am amazing) and captioned it by saying that you're sticking your tongue out out of disgust with the general populus of the state you govern.

Dr. Nugz had an idea: "Of course, it'd mean he would have to hire a lawyer, and he might not feel like punching someone right now." Frank, if you're reading this, you should email some UWLS administrators right now* and tell them to kick JP and Dr. Nugz out of school. I wouldn't bring up your recent attempt to defund the entire institution, though.

* Please BCC us, too. Post a comment and I'll send you the addy.

** Sweet Benny is a news source of no equal.

He tries so hard...

Earlier this week, Frank was lambasted by this fine blog for, rather idiotically, quoting some dead guy on an issue Frank couldn't quite understand. As my colleague JP noted yesterday, Frank tried to circumvent this criticism by 'attributing' bullshit from someone, rather than outright quoting them. After being admonished for this rhetorical sleight-of-hand, Frank is now trying to pass the buck on one of his potentially well-meaning, yet still mildly retarded, constituents.

It turns out that somebody in the world subscribes to Frank's weekly newsletter. Even more surprising, it seems that this person decided to write his/her thoughts to our favorite incompetent legislator. Frank, clearly impressed by the level of intelligence and thought displayed by the comment, posted the drivel on his blog. We're left with this:

___________________________________________________________________

"I think we have a responsibility to provide health care for those who cannot afford it. This does not mean everyone who does not have health insurance. If a person /family spends their money foolishly we should not have to pay their bills.If they buy a new car instead of buying health that's too bad for them. Let them sell their car and house if they were so foolish to waste their money.

Every man, woman and child has the responsibility to provide for themselves! If they do not do so , we should not have to pay for them.

I am tired of hearing people claim we owe them something for nothing. We owe them the right to work for it and NO MORE!"

__________________________________________________________________

It hurts. Hurts bad.

It appears that Frank and his band of imbeciles have figured out what's wrong with the system. Those that are unable to provide health insurance for their family have obviously spent their money on foolish shit - like cars, drugs, bitches, diamond-encrusted goblets, etc. For some reason, I'm not quite sure the world-view espoused by Lasee's minion is entirely accurate.

Note the obvious double-bind that Frank and his creature placed themselves in. Our society has a responsibility to pay for the health insurance of someone that can't afford it, unless they spend their money foolishly. Frank's policy thus far has been to provide health insurance to nobody, to leave it an entirely personal affair, regardless of finances. If Frank adopts the message provided by his minion, which he has presumably done given its publication, Frank now desires to give poor families the luxury of going to a doctor, provided that Frank is allowed to go through your financial statements from the past several years to determine whether or not you spend your money on stupid shit. You can say a lot of things about Frank, but he's going to make sure you'll never be able to call him consistent.

Let's talk about the foolish shit Frank doesn't want poor people spending their money on for a bit. If you're too poor to afford health insurance, Frank wants you to prove it to him. Sell your house, sell your car - do what you've got to do. Wait, what? Sell your house??! That's right - sell the fucker. You're not poor enough for our 'responsibility to provide health care' to kick in until your family is, quite literally, living in a cardboard box in an alley. Compassionate conservatism, anyone?

If y'all would be so kind, please point your attention to the second paragraph of the message. According to these cretins, the responsibility for health insurance coverage is on the shoulders of every man, woman or child that wants it. That's right - if you're 6 years old, and want to see the doctor about your boo-boo, Frank wants you to get a job, save your money, and buy the necessary insurance.

Quite obviously, child-labor laws must piss Frank off to no end. He's telling us that every child has a responsibility to fund their own health insurance. This is difficult, because children in Wisconsin can't work until their 14, and can't hold any meaningful employment until they're 16. What does that mean for little Billy, the able-bodied 11-year old who needs to go to the doctor, but can't afford coverage because the asshole Democrats wont let him get a great job at the foundry? It means - fuck you, Billy.

Maybe your parents shouldn't have blown their money on that house you live in. That'll teach 'em.

The Attributable Lasee

Frank Lasee reads YLFB. For serious. He posted another quote today, but with a few differences from his normal parroting that are obviously a result of the criticisms on this blog. From the horse's mouth:

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.

From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
--attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler

First, after all of the crap we've given him for quoting people, Frank's decided instead to "attribute" this retarded little blurb to Alexander Fraser Tytler, an 18th century Scotsman. When you check out Mr. Tytler's wikipedia entry, they do in fact make reference to the nugget of idiocy with which Frank chose to associate himself:

"The following unverified quotation has been attributed to Tytler, most notably as part of a longer piece which began circulating on the Internet shortly after the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election[1]:"

Ah, it was a chain letter! Now we're moving back to traditional Franky, who apparently still thinks that quotes from chain letters are appropriate bases for legislative policy. Why does Frank like chain letters so much? As Howie beat into my head, let's go to the definitions. From wikipedia:

"Although no state or federal laws currently exist banning chain letters; they are viewed as a general nuisance as that frequenly multiplying letters clog up the postal system and do not function as correspondence mail, but rather, a game."

Now we're in LaseeLand: Viewed as a general nuisance, clogging up the system, treating something serious as a game. If ever there were a better metaphorical representation of the Lasee era in Wisconsin, it'd have to involve some sort of defecation.

To spend just a second on the "content" of the attribution, can anyone out there think of one democratic government that has spent itself into dictatorship? Dr. Nugz and I pondered this question at some length to no avail. Moreover, how would Franky reconcile the quote, which says politicians must spend money to help the people, with his continued term of office despite screwing everyone over all the time? Is Frank implicitly asserting that his nuisance-y legislative game that's clogging up Wisconsin is keeping us from a dictatorship?

By the way, the point in the quote, "[a] democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government" reminded me of The Onion article proclaiming that political scientists have discovered a new form of government! C'mon Frank, treating a democracy like an atom with a half-life is something only the genious' at The Onion can come up with nowadays, and they don't even write chain letters.

Much ado about Franky

JP: oh yeah, lasee's quote
Dr. Nugz: Oh shit, for sure.
Dr. Nugz: Seems the perfect tie-in for a talk about his illegitimate child.
JP: even after reading it, it doesn't really say anything to respond to
JP: heh
Dr. Nugz: I'm not sure - do you think he's trying to tell us that we can't blame him for his mistakes, we should blame the entire organ of government?
JP: i'm actually surprised that he'd quote someone talking about washington; is he suggesting that in wisconsin we have a particularly accountable system, where he gets all the shit on him?
Dr. Nugz: He's talking about shifting responsibility as an act of shifting responsibility.
JP: and by quoting someone pointing out that it's happening in washington...
JP: where's lasee in here again?
Dr. Nugz: Maybe he thinks life in Wisconsin and in D.C. are the same?
JP: or maybe all governments are the same
Dr. Nugz: You know, the rough, rugged political scene in Madison. It'll kill ya....
JP: with his expertise in fashion design, you'd expect him to know better
Dr. Nugz: With his desire to put thumbprint-coded safes full of guns in public schools, you'd expect him to not know better.
JP: well, i don't know, maybe everyone else was just artfully evading responsibility for not having more guns in schools
Dr. Nugz: Ha, and Frank became the patsy. I could see that - seems like the kind of guy everyone would set up for a fall.
JP: true, always sticking his nose out there for the little guy
JP: i'm just gonna post the im
Dr. Nugz: Even if the little guy isn't even in his voting district, and gets Frankie looking up to see whether or not 6th graders are having sex in a public school hallway that black students aren't allowed into. Maybe everyone is just setting him up for the fall on that one too.
JP: writing a post would make it seem like we could encapsulate his stupidity in one coherent block
Dr. Nugz: That's the problem - you just can't square a circle.

Lasee quotes to avoid being quotable

If ever one of Franky's puppet-like attempts at individual thought via quotation really hit it on the head, it's this one:

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."
-Milton Friedman

Like most people who aren't able to conjure up and defend a point themselves, Frank resorts here to summoning the authority of Milton Friedman, a figure whose name people believing that money should be in the hands of the capital like to invoke in response to the argument that deregulation generally screws the working class. Unable, apparently, to come up with a hyperbole as poignant as a sand economy, Franky thought he'd pull the double whammy of bad argumentation. I can see him doing it right now: "If I quote Milton Friedman merely making a ridiculous, bald-faced assertion, then, not only will this blog post contain a ridiculous, bald-faced assertion, it'll also encapsulate my [Ed. note: pathetic] inability to construct even a bad argument on my own!"

When you read this and realize we got that moment on tape, post a comment and we'll tell you where we hid the spycam.

Frank's quoting folk again

So it seems that Franks either (a) ran out of intellectual fortitude required to formulate original posts, or (b) really thinks that resorting to out-of-context quotations is an effective way to legislate. Whatever the cause, he's provided us with this gem:

_____________________________________________________________________
A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
-Thomas Jefferson
_____________________________________________________________________

This quote, by way of Lasee, is interesting for a number of reasons. Here's the game - I'll rattle off intriguing aspects of what's going on here, and y'all can help supplement my list.

1. Frank's part of the damn government. When a government official tells us that a government has the ability to do bad things - he should probably spend more time fixing the government, and less time quoting dead people.

2. Frank's confused about the difference between correlation and causation, again. Something that's big isn't necessarily strong. Is Frank really trying to tell us that these people are stronger than this one? Come on Frankie - take a second and think about this.

3. Frank seems to think that every facet of potential an organization has will manifest itself. Just because a government may be strong enough to take something away doesn't mean it will happen. Dr. Nugz has the capacity to steal your lunch money, seduce your mother and become your step-father. Chances are, that wont happen, and you don't have to worry too much.

Notice how point 3 ties into point 1 - get off your ass, Frank, and do something about it.

4. Frank has, once again, defenestrated basic norms of time and space and thinks that we're living in a fantasy world. For this quote to be grounded anywhere near reality, we would have to live under a regime that gave us everything we wanted. As of this post, the state of Wisconsin has not provided me with a gold-plated Hummer, a diamond-encrusted goblet, or various women of different ages, sizes and ethnicities. This government hasn't given me anywhere near everything I want. Does that mean Frank's trying to tell us that the government he is part of is too weak to take anything away from us?

Now that Frank's gone and confused the daylights out of me, I'm going to see what the Sherman Act is up to. It's certainly less amusing than Lasee, but its also exponentially less retarded.

Franky Panky

Daniel Bice, a journalist for the Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, is trying to steal Dr. Nugz' and my jobs. He pointed out the hypocrisy in Frank's "family values" platform and, well, his divorce, child-out-of-wedlock, and subsequent custody battle.

Of course, this is all old hat to all you Lasee followers, but Bice did get a quote that I felt should be pointed out: "Reached by cell phone, [Lasee] was curt. Just before hanging up, Lasee said, 'I understand the type of journalism you do, so you can do it without my help.' Not true, not true at all. There'd be nothing to write about here without all the material being supplied by this veteran lawmaker."

No Frank, we really can't do it without your help.

Franky Friday Monday

Frank posted here on Friday about the property tax cap veto.

"Property tax relief in sight for 2009. Local governments will be limited to 2% or new growth for their property tax levy."

Holy shit Frank, that sounds a bit like a compromise! Forgive my befuddlement at the prospect that you could hold two thoughts in your head simultaneously, much less two thoughts that aren't both knee-jerk representations of your silly point of view, but isn't this the sort of thing you've been bitching about for the last three months on your blog (when you should've been working on the budget)? I know, if you had your way, we'd just disband the whole government, return to a feudal system and make random nonsensical exhortations at members of the judicial branch, but it sounds like, instead, Wisconsin may have gotten its way! That's a cause for celebration, right? When's the Frank Party? I'll attend, in the spirit of Halloween, as an armed schoolteacher!

Little Frankie edits his own Wikipedia entry

Seriously, check it out.

Up until October 16, 2007, folk interested in reading up on their favorite dipshit legislator on Wikipedia were made aware of his 'more guns in schools' policy, his illigitimate child, his alternative strategy in budget procedures, his attempt at holding a judge in contempt, and his inability to graduate high school.

Enter Frank. Dude deleted all the above-referenced information, replacing it with such nonsense as his fathering of the "Taxpayer Bill of Rights" - which is not really a bill, doesn't define or declare any legitimate rights, and does nothing for the taxpayer but force him/her to realize that Frankie is making this bullshit up at the expense of the public coffer.

Just how do we know that Frank edited his own Wikipedia entry, and not some other interested party? First - nobody else in their right mind would replace perfectly good information about illegitimate children and arming school-teachers. Second - the bit about Frank not graduating high school was replaced with a line about Lasee's degree from the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay. Only somebody as retarded as Frank would think that's an improvement. Lastly - the introduction of an entirely incomplete sentence. If you can make any sense of the line 'A gailed attempt to require referendums to raise taxes or greatly increase govenment spending' - YLFB would love to hear it.

Way to go, Frank. Surfing the internets for information about yourself. It's not quite up there with punching your attorney in the shoulder while in court, trying to buy thumbprint-reading gun safes for schools, or designing pretty dresses, but its still fairly impressive.

Frankie L designs skirts

The Wisconsin legislature has finally reached a budget deal, and Frank's ass is officially chapped.

___________________________________________________________________

"There is a budget deal. The major points have been agreed on, and the minor points will be ironed out today.

I will be voting “No” on this budget tomorrow.

This budget is flawed because taxes will be increased by a half billion dollars and because there is a $200 million raid of the Injured Patients and Families Compensation Fund—a fund designed to protect doctors from large malpractice claims.

The raid on the Compensation fund is likely to end up in court; we could end up repaying it along with interest, court costs and fees.

I predict that the raid on this fund will drive medical prices up. We will pay more for our medical care.

This budget is a raw deal for us, the taxpayers."

___________________________________________________________________

Frank, this is getting too easy. I can only hope and pray that the new budget calls for the elimination of your compensation. Only if the desire to put more guns in our schools, import a plethora of Illinois lawyers and butcher the mandates of logical argumentation and advocacy are considered desirable traits up in Lambeau Country can I understand a scenario where you are paid.

Last Monday, your blog admonished Democrats for refusing to compromise. You pointed out various aspects of their budget proposal that you hoped Democrats would make concessions on. The same day, you bitched about the Governor being a hypocrite. Now we've got a situation where you're not entirely happy, and you're post indicates that you're absolutely unwilling to compromise. Pot, kettle, black.

Last Friday, you mentioned that creating a state budget is a difficult endeavor because unemployment in Wisconsin has increased. Ignoring the obvious fact that you never mentioned why that's a concern in the budgeting procedure, you've managed to place yourself in an argumentative predicament. You recognize that more people are without jobs, and are pissed that taxes are increasing? Seriously? Even you've got to realize that when people are unemployed, it becomes more difficult for them to finance their basic needs. Come on Frank, pull your head out of your ass and recognize that public assistance programs don't fund themselves.

I'm not even going to talk about medical malpractice issues with you - you're beyond a lost cause at this point. If you're willing to protect surgeons that commit serious errors and honestly think that the management of medical policy is best left in the hands of various insurance companies, as opposed to the citizens, I should probably save this conversation for someone with an intellectual capacity that allows for a more profound thought than "daaarrrrhhhhh" provides.

Maybe your constituents would be willing to replace you with someone a bit more qualified (not retarded) if they were aware of your degree in fashion design?