Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Grinch Walker Throws His Elf Under The Sleigh

So, last Friday, I got an email from Scott Walker's campaign.  You've might have heard about it.  A few media sources have picked up the story.

Briefly, Walker's campaign sent out a fundraiser email saying that instead of buying silly old gifts for your children, you should donate that money to Walker's campaign.  It was like a modern day, political version of  "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."  The author of the letter was Taylor Palmisano, the deputy finance director for Walker's campaign.

Obviously, the email went beyond the pale.  To tell people suffering under Walker's regime should now deny their own children Christmas toys so that they could support his tyranny was just too much.

Not only that, but Palmisano was a big old hypocrite.  As one astute reader pointed out, she still had her bridal registry at Macy's, and not one of the things on the list was a donation to Walker's campaign!

Anyway, the story grew legs and went viral in just a couple of days.  This undoubtedly caused great embarrassment to Walker and needed to be addressed.

So he fired her.

But the way they did it and the reason they gave might have actually made things worse for themselves.

Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that Palmisano had made some very racist, anti-Hispanic tweets:

Image courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Walker's campaign is claiming that these tweets were the reason that they fired her and that "Both the Governor, and the campaign, condemn these insulting remarks which do not reflect our views in any way."

To which I say, "Poppycock!"

There are two main reasons why the campaign's statement is false.

One, as my colleague Jeff Simpson pointed out earlier today, these tweets are three years old.  Since the time she made those vulgar tweets, Walker's campaign not only hired her, but promoted her!

The other reason is that in 2010, one of Walker's campaign staff members, Michael Brickman, made a racist, anti-African American tweet.  This was retweeted by his spokeswoman, Jill Bader.  Not only were these two not fired, but Walker went on to make excuses for them.  On top of that, Walker made Brickman a member of his office staff.

So no, racism among his staff is not an issue for Walker.

The reason Walker fired Palmisano is that she caused him to be embarrassed on a national and international level. Not only would that hurt his reelection hopes, but it will also put a damper on his presidential aspirations.

Now there are three things that we can take away from this incident.

Walker is a liar.

But we already knew this.  Walker has lied about his job creation record.  He has lied about his supposed tax cuts.  He lied about the John Doe investigations, commonly referred to as Walkergate.  One would be hard pressed to find anything he was completely honest about.

Walker has a staffing problem.

Walker has an exceptionally high level of problems with who he hires as staff, either in government or in his campaigns.

On the campaign side, he has issues with Palmisano, Bader, and Brickman, as I've pointed out above.  But he also had problems with other staff members like Ciara Matthews and Nicole Tieman.

His government staff has been even more problematic for him.  We are talking about people like the people convicted in the Walkergate investigations, including Darlene Wink, Kelly Rindfleisch, Kevin Kavanaugh, Brian Pierick and Tim Russell.  There are also prizes like the uneducated, two-time drunk driver Brian Deshane. And lest we forget, there is Dennis Smith, who was hired to destroy Badger Care.  Instead, he wrecked a marriage.

I could go on and on, but I believe the gentle reader has the idea.

Walker is the Grinch

There is one thing that Bice and all of the other media sites that echoed his article missed, besides the fact that Palmisano wasn't really fired for tweets she made three years ago.

Walker has yet to address the issue of the email itself.  Did he approve the email before it was sent out?  Did he think it was a good idea to tell people to give him the money they would have otherwise used to buy their children Christmas presents?

I'd've thought that if he had an issue with the email, he would have said that Palmisano sent it out without his permission and that he felt that it sent the wrong message or something like that.  But he didn't deny it at all.

Scott Walker truly is the Grinch.  And if he cannot bring himself to deny the email, where would his avarice bring us if he were to be reelected, much less make it to the presidency.

20 comments:

  1. Up near the top of things about right-wingers I cannot stand is this snarling contempt for the people who do the jobs they regard as beneath them. My dad always taught me never to tell a worker to do a job you would not be willing to do yourself. Unlike Palmisano, who sounds in league with the William Zanzingers of the world, I will always stand with the Hattie Carrolls and Mexican janitors.

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  2. Maybe they forgot to check her Twitter history, but they surely checked to see if she signed any recall petitions.

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    1. Seeing a female financial specialist posting herself at linkedin in a little black dress instead of say, a more subdued business suit, likely spurred some of Walker's staff to overlook most other information that might have been available.

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  3. You know they checked her Goldman Sucks references.

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  4. On WMTV Madison this morning, Christine Bellport interviewed the Governor. But in a news segment preceeding the interview, she reported the Taylor Palmisano firing story noting that she was sure that the fundraising letter telling parents to forego toy buying "was a joke" and anyway, it had nothing to do with Palmisano's firing.

    Amazing to hear the editorializing during the news and also noted that no one else, including the Walker campaign, is claiming that the fundraising appeal was a "joke." Frankly, it is well in line with how the Walker people think.

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    1. There was a d-bag in the RawStory comment section saying it was tongue-in-cheek, and the Dems just don't have a sense of humor.

      Nobody was buying it.

      Nice work guys! I never thought this would grow legs. But man, was I wrong.

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  5. Capper,

    Thank you for saying it. This BS about her racist tweets is just a craven attempt to distract from the apalling fundraising email. Is there nothing Walker won't lie about?

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  7. Let's not ignore the nice way the Journal handled this for Walker. The lede and the head are about Palmisano's racist tweets, leading people to think that Walker is doing something in support of Latinos.

    The editors then float the link between Palmisano and the Black Friday to the sixth paragraph, after the jump.

    Gutless wonders.

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  8. The hiring and firing of Palmisano tells us much about the person, Scott Walker. He is an excellent politician and a miserable human being. So was Joe McCarthy and so is jackass Walker.

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  9. There are quite a few Walkermen on the Yahoo article claiming they would send money to Walker just to spite "libs". Do you really think he wants to return that cash?

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  10. I suspect Ms. Palmisano was fully vetted when hired and the years old tweets were kept in the closet to be used in just such a situation as this. I'll go further and speculate that Walker is aware of the skeletons in the closets of his entire staff, just in case any of them embarrass him or damage his campaign image. Then the skeleton canned be dragged out and used as a media distraction as the staffer is sacrificed for Walker's ambitions.

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  11. If Walker can fire Ms. Palmisano for racist tweets, then one would think that Ms. Appling of Wisconsin Family Action would also fire James Maillette, Jr. (son of Tea Party Kim Simac) for his threatening anti-immigrant comment captured online and reposted before the reference was deleted by the Vilas County News Review. See: twittweb.com/threat+a+rwnj+wisconsin-27912709

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  12. Walker said Thursday that was "certainly not something I would have put out." Walker says he wasn't aware of Palmisano's tweets until after they were reported but then he "took action." (channel3000.com)

    I don't buy it. Walker's thoughts are "Christmas; what's in it for me?"

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  13. The fundraising letter also seems to tacitly acknowledge that in our fabulous new Wisconsin, people may not have enough money to make campaign contributions *and* buy Christmas presents.

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  14. Latest press release: "Gov. Scott Walker says he wouldn't have put out a fundraising letter sent by a fired campaign staffer that asked supporters to donate to him rather than buy Christmas gifts for their children."

    if I had known it would make such a big stink.

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  15. Hey! Walker made news in the U.K., where they are now laughing at the fascism that is Walkerville:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518046/Scott-Walkers-aide-Taylor-Palmisano-fired-racist-Twitter-rant.html

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  16. Will Walker and RNC try to pin any John Doe 2 stuff on Palmisano, I wonder?

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  17. I always say that if you have problems with everyone around you, you are probably the problem.

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