Friday, December 6, 2013

Grinch Walker, You Better Not Lie, You Better Not Pout!

Nearly one week after I broke the story of the Walker Grinch's Black Friday fundraising email, in which people were told to not bother buying gifts for their children but to send that money to the Walker campaign, and we are finally seeing something close to journalism from a local media source:
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.

Taylor Palmisano was fired Tuesday as Walker's deputy finance campaign director. Walker made the move after Twitter posts she made demeaning Hispanics were made public.

Palmisano also sent a fundraising email the day after Thanksgiving saying "instead of electronics or toys that will undoubtedly be outdated, broken, or lost by the next Holiday Season," supporters should give to Walker's campaign.

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."
There are two basic issues that Walker is trying to spin. One is that he had nothing to do with the emails and the second is that his firing Palmisano is due to the racist tweets she made three years ago but only learned about on Tuesday, when the email story hit the international level.

Both of these premises are, as the gentle reader probably has already surmised, are utterly false.

Walker is prone to micromanaging things, especially his campaign.  We've learned that during the sentencing phase for the Walkergate trial of Kelly Rindfleisch, when it was demonstrated that he was included in all of the emails and things needed to be cleared by him before his team could proceed with anything.

When Walker says that the email was "certainly not something I would have put out.," you can just hear the rest of the sentence, "if I knew it would cause me international embarrassment."

And if Walker did not authorize that email, just who did? Surely they wouldn't let a newly promoted deputy campaign finance director send out an important fundraising email without it being run through a number of levels.  So again, who approved it and did that person receive any consequences?

As for the racist tweets, only the most gullible would believe that tweets from three years ago would suddenly surface just as the email story was hitting maximum exposure around the nation if not the world.  One would also have to be very gullible to believe that Walker knew nothing about them until then and that is when he "took action."

I would remind these fools that Walker, while he was Milwaukee County Executive, had kept the resignation letter of then Parks Director Sue Black in a drawer for years:
Sue Black, the recently fired Milwaukee County parks director, was nearly canned by her former boss, now-Gov. Scott Walker.

In fact, the situation got so bad that Walker - then the county executive - had a resignation letter drafted for Black and kept in his office, according to several sources. A source who worked with Black said she wrote the signed resignation letter on parks department letterhead and then ordered the agency to change its stationery.

The letter would have allowed the county exec to dismiss the popular parks director quickly while giving the impression that Black initiated the move.

But it never came to that.

One former Walker aide said Black was very upset about the standing resignation letter.

Walker insisted on it, the source said, to give her an incentive to keep her focused on keeping the budget on track.

"He wanted to let her know he was serious," said the source, a former county official.
I would not be at all surprised if he knew about the racist tweets long before and kept them handy for such an emergency. It was also suspiciously convenient that Palmisano had a statement so ready to support Walker for firing her.

The thing that really raised the red flags was Walker's comment about "taking action" once he learned of the tweets.

It reminds me an awful lot of 2010, when his then county staffer Darlene Wink was busted making political comments on jsonline.com and other blogs in support of her boss and his campaign to be governor.  At that time, Walker denied knowledge that this was going on and taking action once he learned of the political activity during county time.

It was then that we learned that with all things Walker, there is more.  There is always more:


Lo and behold! It turns out that Walker not only knew about the illegal politicking, but also was giving orders regarding it.

Now, is there any reason to believe that he wasn't aware of what was going on in his own campaign, much less wasn't directing it?  It sure looks like Walker isn't going to get anything from Santa or anyone else this year.

18 comments:

  1. I got a tweet from Bice where he indicates that he forwarded the information about the racist tweets to the Walker campaign for comment, and they canned Palmisano a few hours later.

    Now the question is- Did they fire her because the never looked into this (like you, I doubt it), or did they can her because they realized this was going public?

    Either option qualifies under "unfit for office".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think another very interesting question would be who gave Bice the tweets. You know he didn't go three years of tweets himself.

      Delete
    2. Interesting indeed. I wouldn't put it past someone in Walker's camp to offer her up on a silver platter to the media, giving them an easy out. It fits within the entire Priebus MO

      Delete
    3. Agree that there's a whole lotta "plausible deniability" going on here. And doesn't Bice have better things to do than dig through some college kid's tweets. Then again, given the smear job he wrote on the newest member of Team Burke on Wednesday, maybe he doesn't.

      Delete
    4. The MO fits the entire Wis Republican legislative group. There is *dirt* on every single one of them -- which is why they vote in lock-step to support Walker, even if their constituents do not support these policies.

      Now THAT would be an interesting story for the NJS -- to figure out the dirt on GOP legislators hiding "in wait" Walker's files.

      Delete
    5. Bice is a sharp guy.

      He probably is good at recognizing patterns.

      The email is pretty good evidence of a brain disconnected from reality in terms of perceiving how the email would be viewed by more sentient people.

      Knowing a name, and the age, it is not a great leap of analysis to check for a twitter account, and then search that account for certain key words.

      One could presume that account was searched for other offensive words, when I do this I look for a word that starts with n along with up to 20 other frequently used slurs.

      Perhaps Bice did this, maybe someone like me did this after the email story broke (I didn't tip Bice on this), maybe one of Palmisano's twitter followers with an agenda saved the offensive tweets and then used them when the opportunity arose.

      Once the slurs already published were found, that would indicate reading the entire stream, because there might be something else found. It takes less time to read the stream than to attempt searching for an unknown unknown. Sometimes the real find is one or two steps of retweets away from what was first scrutinized.





      Delete
    6. Portions of that deleted twitter account may still be viewed. Apparently she was not too offended about Ho Lee Fuk airplane pilot crash jokes either.

      Taylor Palmisano
      @itstaytime

      Majoring in Finance with an emphasis in Taynomics. Capitalism is sexy. Big government? Ain't nobody got money for that.


      Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 7 Jun
      So Obama knows nothing about what's going on in his own administration but is throwing a net to collect info about American citizens...

      Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 17 Jul
      If you are just posting on FB about Ho Lee Fuk I should probably let you know that Kim & Kanye named their baby North West
      .
      Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 5 Jun
      Celebrating the 1 year anniversary of the recall attempt. Makes me incredibly proud to work for such a monumental Gov! #ThankYouGSW

      Delete
  2. Have you also noticed the canned rhetoric coming from the Walker-bots? I have seen at least a dozen instances (on yahoo, and FB) where his defenders are claiming Obama did the same thing. Boy, they must really be scrambling to try and sweep this one under the rug. Time for the Dem's to put out another add, about a week before Christmas lambasting walker for his latest stunt.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Capper, great analysis.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I heard Bice interviewed on WORT-FM last night and got really suspicious that someone in the Walker camp had fed him the tweets so he could give them cause to fire Palmisano. He also helpfully brought up the "Obama did it too" subject. I can't imagine that a 23-year-old is solely responsible for the fundraising pitch used by the Walker campaign. By the way, which office is he running for again?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Speaking of lying, I saw a short bit on local TV news in which a reporter caught Walker in an unscripted moment -- without makeup or Adderall -- and asked him why the long promised Open Government website wasn't operating after nearly three years. Walker stated that there were some computer gliches and then, realizing that this sounded like the Obamacare website, assured the viewers that it wasn't at all like Obamacare, nothing like Obamacare and would be up and running soon. When? Soon. But the odd thing was the way he looked. He was obviously rattled by having to answer an unscripted question. Even worse, his face was puffy and red, not from blushing because sociopaths are incapable of shame, but in the way Wisconsinites get a skin flush from knocking back a few shots of brandy. Or perhaps it was just an allergic reaction to subpoenas. "Is the Guv coming unglued?" I wondered.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I noticed Walker's morphing facial features recently, too. What's up with that?

      Delete
  6. Before it is gone:


    Tweets

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 17 Jul
    If you are just posting on FB about Ho Lee Fuk I should probably let you know that Kim & Kanye named their baby North West.

    S.M ‏@redsteeze 13 Jul
    Dear @CoryBooker We are a nation of laws. Not philosophies.
    Retweeted by Taylor Palmisano

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 13 Jul
    WAHHOOOO!!! #GeorgeZimmerman the LAW prevailed!

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 7 Jul
    BF proposing on stage at Gov Walker's Independence Day Party at the executive residence = brownie points for life

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 20 Jun
    The more I learn about MKE County Supervisor Pat Jursik, the more I see how much of a total boob she is #SheriffDavidClarke @VickiMcKenna

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 20 Jun
    Liberals:if they're not complaining about something, they'll die (this can't be proven due to the fact they haven't stopped complaining yet)

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 18 Jun
    My only fear about spending my summer in NYC is if I'm going to find the same caliber dining, nightlife, and shopping experience as in WI...

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 12 Jun
    Oh yeah....libs are throwing a tantrum because THEY'RE LIBS and that's what they do! Silly me!

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 12 Jun
    Sonya's Law is a great step for Pro Life supporters in WI, but I can't see why libs are going ballistic and throwing a tantrum over this

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 10 Jun
    Drivers license renewal dates should be set 1 day before Election Day...then maybe people will WAKE UP & realize what they are voting for

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 10 Jun
    Waiting at the DMV makes me really excited for the WI rollout of Obamacare....HA!

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 7 Jun
    And also shows how incredibly frightening Kathleen Sebelius' power is.

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 7 Jun
    The strength of the mom on @hannityshow whose 11y/o son saved 4 lives through organ donation is making me teary eyed & is truly inspiring

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 7 Jun
    "Uhhh...uh...uhhhh." -President Obama

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 7 Jun
    Lets just all process that for awhile...

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 7 Jun
    So Obama knows nothing about what's going on in his own administration but is throwing a net to collect info about American citizens...

    Tom Giovanetti ‏@tgiovanetti 6 Jun
    Remember, we can't require voters to show IDs before they vote because that would be a violation of their civil liberties.
    Retweeted by Taylor Palmisano

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 5 Jun
    Celebrating the 1 year anniversary of the recall attempt. Makes me incredibly proud to work for such a monumental Gov! #ThankYouGSW

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 15 May
    I feel like a lot of our country's problems would be solved if POTUS would just listen to some country music #RedWhiteBlue #Merica #USAPride

    Taylor Palmisano ‏@itstaytime 13 May
    Hey, at least Disney's Merida can shop and Abercrombie now. #topical

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't believe this hashtag
      #Merica

      I thought that was a joke.

      Delete
    2. She'll be quite shaken when she evolves into adulthood...if she ever makes it that far. What a tool

      Delete
  7. On the other hand, what might Cullen Werwie *have* on Scott Walker that he could testify with immunity in the first John Doe and still be employed in Scott Walker's administration, albeit much more removed from his highness's inner sanctum. One wonders whether everything Werwie does is being recorded, videoed, and documented by Walker in every way possible...
    Does Werwie have the goods on Scott Walker?

    ReplyDelete
  8. FOIA all the correspondence with Ms. Palmisano to find out what she (and anyone else) knew about her fundraising email.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Did you ever get a peek at the anti-immigrant vitriol that Tea Party Gov Walker supporters spew in the Tea Party website at northwoodspatriots.blogspot.com?

    Whew.

    I haven't heard Gov Walker putting a stop to THAT. Or, perhaps he turns a blind eye to any 501(c)(4)s getting cash from dark money funders like AFP or Club for Growth or...

    As if Walker doesn't know what his biggest Tea Party supporters are doing. Hah.

    ReplyDelete