Friday, December 16, 2011

Walkergate: Absolute Corruption

There's an old, cynical joke about a guy that keeps hitting his head against a wall as hard as he could. When asked why he was doing that, he replied, "Because it feels so good when I stop."

I was reminded of that today when I was catching up on the news of the day.

Scott Walker and WISGOP has filed a lawsuit against the GAB. Their complaint is that the GAB is enforcing the law and will not certify each signature on the recall petitions. Walker claims that this is unconstitutional.

I don't see this going anywhere fast.

But I pondered why Walker would do such an absurd thing.

The most obvious answer was that this was a genuine complaint. I quickly dismissed this notion though. After all, Walker has been a career politician for the past twenty years and knows full well how the system works. Indeed, the article enforces that Walker knew the rules, or at least should have:
"The plaintiffs are challenging the rules that have been established by statutes and administrative code, and which have been in place since the late 1980s. Since then, these rules have been used in every state and local recall petition effort against incumbents of both parties," accountability board director Kevin Kennedy said.
Of course, regular readers of this site already knew that. I covered this weeks ago when I consulted with elections law expert Attorney Mike Maistelman. Maistelman confirmed that it is normal practice for the opposing political camp to verify and to challenge the signatures on any petition.

So in other words, Walker is saying that the fact that the GAB won't use tax dollars to do his campaign's political work is unconstitutional. Now, I'm not a constitutional expert by any means, nor do I pretend to be one like a certain Bradley Foundation beneficiary, but I really don't believe that there is a part in the constitution that protects the right to be corrupt.

But while the depth of Walker's corruption should very well shock and disgust anyone, no one should be surprised. After all, Walker has spent so many years following corrupt practices that it has become second nature for him.

Remember, Walkergate itself has been going on for nineteen months now, as the authorities try to do a comprehensive investigation into the full length and full depth of Walker's corruption.

Walker, while had his director of constituent affairs doing politicking on county time and on county equipment. He also had his lifelong friend, Tim Russell, along with him on his bike ride last year, using a county car and on county time, to help him campaign during the tour of the state. Again, this is old news, since I've already given a full introduction to the beginnings of Walkergate.

Another example of how unethical Walker has become came was when Walker finally realized that he was in serious trouble and used the state's own website to set up a campaign page for himself.

And now he feels that doing whatever the hell he wants, no matter how unethical or corrupt it might be, is his constitutional right.

But do not despair. There are a couple of silver linings to the dark cloud of Walker's abhorrent behaviors.

One is that he is pulling this stunt at the halfway point of the signature gathering phase of his recall, which has already gathered more than 500,000 signatures. (My guess is that the total has already been reached when one considers all of the gathered signatures which haven't been turned in yet.) By filing this ridiculous lawsuit, it only puts a bright light on Walker's corruption, which in turn will only serve to inspire the signature collectors to double and triple their efforts. I would not be at all surprised if the number of signatures tops one million by the time it's over.

The other silver lining is that this will cut into his base by betraying them.

Two months ago, Representative Robin Vos started the spin of complaining how much the recall would cost taxpayers. As one might expect, Vos completely ignored the fact that keeping Walker and his maleficent policies has already cost the state a heck of a lot more than all of the recall elections combined.

Others have picked up this deflated ball and have tried to run with it. The bloviating and confabulating Charlie Sykes was sniveling about it as recently as Thursday morning. He was especially whiny when he mewled about how the "mainstream media" wasn't giving this the coverage he thinks it deserves.

Well, oddly enough, I find myself agreeing with Sykes. I hope that all the media sources cover this, especially now. I hope that they point out that despite their complaints of cost, Walker is now forcing tax payers to pay for the court costs as well as the costs that the GAB will now incur to defend against this inane and frivolous lawsuit. Then for good measure, they can finally get around to pointing out what Walker's policies are costing us, both in jobs and a lousier economy.

That will only serve to help push more conservatives over to the side of signing the petitions.

Upon reflecting what I've just written, I've come to realize that Walker - with his hypocrisy and absolute corruption - is the recallers' best friend. He just keeps giving us more and more things to work with and more and more people who are sick of him and want him gone.



1 comment:

  1. Agreed. There's nothing subtle about Walker's rank corruption. It's astonishingly blatant. Makes recalling him a whole lot easier. He thinks the people of Wisconsin are as clueless as he is. He's got another thing coming.

    ReplyDelete