Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Was Attack On Milwaukee County District Attorney A Campaign Stunt?

A couple of weeks ago, just as the Federal Appellate Court was about to rule on the lawsuit filed by Scott Walker's collaborators - the Wisconsin Club for Growth - a vile hit piece against Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm was published by a right wing propaganda group.

This smear job tried to portray Chisholm as being motivated to enforce the law by the virtue that his wife was a union steward and understandably upset by Act 10.  (Never mind that any rational person who loves Wisconsin was upset about this.)  The author of the tabloid column, Stuart Taylor, also tried to portray the District Attorney's Office as some sort of union hall, although no one could or would support these wild accusations.

At the time, I questioned the legitimacy of the article:
Given the all of the story's inconsistencies, conjectures and fallacies, it's hard to give it any credence. 

It smacks more of an act of political desperation.  Considering that Walker is trailing in just about every poll, is receiving bad economic and/or job creation news on what seems like a daily basis and could very well face the continuation of the Walkergate investigation, it is very believable that Walker and his supporters are scared to death.

This story appears to have all the reliability of Kyle Wood's accusationsagainst US Representative Mark Pocan's partner. 

And just as in the Wood's allegations, it's particularly disgusting that they have to drag Chisholm's wife into it.   Then again, if they had any sort of decency, there wouldn't have even been a need for the investigation in the first place.
Sure enough, a couple of days later, it came out that the source for this smear was a former cop named Michael Lutz who has struggled with life after being shot in the line of duty. He supposedly suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Instead of coping with this in a healthy fashion, Lutz apparently had decided to self-medicate with alcohol and making death threats to Chisholm and his family.

Now it is being reported that the CEO of the propaganda group is using these false accusations as a launching pad to promote Walker's presidential aspirations in order to further his anti-union, pro-plantation economics agenda:
"If he survives re-election, he might well become the number one Republican candidate," Richard Miniter, chief executive officer of American Media Institute, in a Tuesday article on the evangelical Christian website One News Now. The piece is entitled, "A union nightmare: Scott Walker in the White House."

Miniter's group commissioned two stories by Stuart Taylor Jr. that accuse Milwaukee's Democratic district attorney of conducting secret investigations of Walker and his staff because of  Chisholm's wife's pro-union agenda. The source for Taylor's stories was Michael Lutz, a controversial ex-Milwaukee cop who spent less than six months as an unpaid aide in Chisholm's office in 2011.

Miniter told the conservative website that the first-term Republican governor is under attack in the current gubernatorial contest because he took on labor unions in the state. Recent polls suggest Walker is in a statistical dead heat with his opponent, Democratic candidate Mary Burke.

"Unions donate a tremendous amount of money to the Democratic Party," he notes. "So calling for any kind of reform is a threat to the lifeblood of the Democratic Party."
Sadly, Dan Bice, who wrote the article about Miniter, failed to mention a few facts about Miniter, such as that he had been caught blatantly lying about President Barack Obama's record, claiming that several items on Obama's agenda failed when in reality they were successful.  Or that Miniter was such a goof that he was fired from the New York Times.

Another key omission by Bice is that Miniter worked hand in hand with Marc Thiessen, the author of Walker's "autobiography."

Once all the information is presented, it becomes obvious that this whole thing was just another scheme to further their fascist agenda.  They have no more credibility than Brian Sikma, James Wigderson or Charlie Sykes.  And like the local mugs, they have no qualms about ruining the reputations of a good man and his innocent wife, just to advance the agenda of their dark money masters..

I would call on Scott Walker to condemn these people and their underhanded tactics but something tells me that a future investigation will reveal that Walker was actually in on this stunt.

3 comments:

  1. Absolutely first class reporting capper.

    Nothing better to butter one's right-wing looney-bun credentials with, than to be fired from the NYT.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The lack of desire of the Journal-Sentinel to connect the dots on these propagandists is one if their biggest derelictions of duty. Of course, a lot of it has to do with them also being invested in Walker's career, just like Miniter is.

    Good work, capper

    ReplyDelete
  3. It would be hard to seperate the American Media Institute story from being a campaign stunt, given the circumstances. Walker has big-time backing from unsavory elements of the higher ranks of the national Republican Party behind this whole effort to promote his political career, as well as stopping the John Doe proceedings. These people just love his anti-labor politics and there is obviously a lot invested in him.

    How was Marc Thiessen set up to write SKW's campaign book? He previously worked as a speechwriter for George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, making his name by defending their war on terror and use of torture with interrogation.
    Richard Miniter, after previously working with Thiessen, went on to write about the war on terror as well, pushing disinformation and propaganda that attacked President Obama and his Administration.
    Strangely enough, American Media Institute's board includes the infamous Richard Perle along with Miniter. Most of AMI's stories have had to do with defending the war on terror and foreign policy. That policy was created through neo-conservative organizations like the Project For the New American Century (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Karl Rove on its board), the Hudson Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute, all receivers of major funding by the Bradley Foundation. The Foundation's basis of wealth is from the Allen-Bradley sale in the mid '80s to defense contractor Rockwell International. Michael Grebe has served as general counsel for the Republican National Committee and was the long-time Republican National Committeeman for Wisconsin.

    Miniter worked at Hudson with Perle just prior to forming AMI. Thiessen works for AEI with Perle, as well as another player in all this.

    Eric O'Keefe lead defense attorney David Rivkin, Jr., works for AEI and also represented former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a suit by terrorism suspect José Padilla, who claimed being tortured while in custody. Rivkin previously was noted for his appearance in the late '80s Iran-Contra hearings, then going on to being part of George H.W. Bush's Administration.

    How was Wisconsinite Michael Lutz hooked up with DC-based American Media Institute? I don't think Lutz found them in the Milwaukee Yellow Pages. Let's look into Scott Walker and his protectors, maybe you could win a Pulitzer Prize.

    ReplyDelete