Cari Anne Renlund, chief legal counsel for the state Department of Administration, said in Dane County court that estimates of damage to marble includes $6 million to repair damaged marble inside the Capitol, $1 million for damage outside and $500,000 for costs to supervise the damage.
Turns out, not so much:
Madison - Officials charged with overseeing the state Capitol Friday backpedaled sharply from their estimate - delivered in a high-profile court case only the day before - that demonstrators did more than $7 million in damage to the building and grounds during the tumultuous yet peaceful protests that erupted Feb. 15.
Touring the building on Friday morning with state architect Dan Stephans, who oversaw the Capitol's restoration that concluded in 2001, Jeff Plale said he had not immediately observed any damage from demonstrations over Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill. Plale is a former Democratic state senator and now the state facilities administrator.
Hey Cari Anne! What’s your game, girl? Can anybody play? Why yes they can!
Two local news organizations sued Gov. Scott Walker Friday for alleged failure to respond to their requests for e-mails that the governor claimed were overwhelmingly in favor of his controversial budget repair bill.
[...]
Isthmus and the AP did not receive a response to their records requests, the lawsuit states.
But Richmond received an e-mail response late Friday, which was dated Feb. 25, from Nate Ristow, associate legal counsel for the governor, in which Ristow detailed the cost of printing out the e-mails of more than $31,250, to be paid in advance. Ristow also invited Richmond to review the records at Walker's office for no charge.
In his records request, Lueders had asked that the e-mails be put on a disk instead of being printed on paper.
Wow: $31,250 to print out e-mails? I’m calling bullshit. It seems the latest conservative tactic in the propaganda war is to pull a wildly inflated number out of someone’s ass and attach it to whatever it is someone wants. Then watch as everyone starts screaming about my money! Seriously, some of the comments on these stories are hilarious. Are liberals the only ones who have developed a healthy skepticism over the years? Are we the only ones with highly developed bullshit meters?
Alternately, this can explain a lot about Republicans’ repeated failure to balance a budget. Perhaps the poor dears simply can’t do math. Remember how the Iraq War was only supposed to cost $50-$60 billion? Remember Paul Wolfowitz saying the war would pay for itself? Yeah that was a good one.
So you know, we're left with the eternal question: stupid or lying? Which is it, Republicans?
(h/t, DailyKos)
