Cognitive Dissidence

Question Of The Day

2012-02-01T00:25:00.003-06:00

How does the time that Scott Walker has spent going to out-of-state fund raisers compare to the time the Fab 14 spent in Illinois to buy Wisconsinites time to realize what a bloody mess Walker and company were making of our state?

Walker's Web

2012-02-01T00:05:00.000-06:00

Although I should point out that there should be direct line from Jim Villa to Scott Walker.

With gratitude to my dear Lisa Mux.

Walkergate: But There's More. There's Always More.

2012-01-31T23:39:00.000-06:00

When Kelly Rindfleisch was arrested and charged last week for illegal politicking, I pointed out the following email from Scott Walker to Tim Russell, which he sent just after Darlene Wink got caught posting comments on JSOnline and other sites:

I pointed out that this showed that Walker knew exactly what was happening and what his county staff was doing. It does this by being very specific about the laptops and websites and other activities.

Also very telling is that Walker sent this email, which one would think would actually be county business, from his campaign email address, during what would be considered work time. This shows he was more concerned with the damage Wink's outing did to his campaign than there was anything illegal actually going on in his executive office.

The astute Jud Lounsbury noticed that when Walker sent that email to Russell, Russell was no longer in the county executive's office. Two months earlier, Walker had transferred Russell to the Department of Housing, meaning that he was no longer in any authority of what happened in the executive office, unless it was to oversee the illegal campaigning that Walker denies knowing anything about. I would only add that was Russell no longer in the executive office, he was no longer in the courthouse, but had been moved to the Coggs Building, one mile away. Although Russell didn't seem to be in his office all that often.

The esteemed Jay Bullock, formerly known as the blogger named folkbum, took Lounsbury one step further. Bullock points out that the same day that Wink was outed, the official unofficial Walker campaign website up and disappeared - poof! As Bullock states, this email shows that Walker knew exactly who to go to when he wanted it stopped, even though that person wasn't even in that office or that building.

Now, some of the Walker apologists might argue that the email shows that Walker ordered the illegal activity stopped and fired Wink, and that shows that he is a straight shooter. Of course, to believe that, they would have to ignore the issues described above and the fact that Wink resigned on her own and there is no evidence that she was asked to do so.

But there's more. There's always more.

If you take a closer look at Walker's email, he sent it on Friday, May 14, 2010. Yet on the very next day, Saturday, May 15, Walker left Milwaukee on his infamous Harley Davidson "Executive Ride." This ride, which was purportedly to promote tourism for Milwaukee County, was nothing more than a poorly disguised campaign event for Walker. He moved the ride up from it's usual time at the end of June because, get ready for this, it was too warm then to go for a motorcycle ride. In what I'm sure is a coincident (meaning it was anything but a coincident), Walker's bike ride led back to Milwaukee just in time for the Republican state convention, in which the party nominees were named. Shazam! How'd that happen?!

This campaign bike rid is also what led the DPW to file a complaint against Walker, first with the GAB and then with the Milwaukee County District Attorney, based in part on the fact that Russell, who went along on the ride as a county employee, was apparently doing what appears to be campaign work.

Walker didn't even wait a day before he violated his own directive.

Fun fact: For some reason, Walker didn't take a bike ride in 2011. I can't imagine why not.

But there's more. There's always more.

Via Lounsbury again, we learn that as recently as this past October, Walker again crossed the line between government duties and campaign work when he had a WISGOP staffer sending out his official state press releases:

I had a rather strange exchange with the spokeswoman for the Wisconsin GOP yesterday morning as I tried to get Walker’s side of the story. First, Walker’s press secretary had emailed that the trip was not official state business and the Wisconsin GOP was handling everything. Nicole Larson, deputy director of communications for the WISGOP, called me back after I left a voice mail message.

“His schedule’s actually completely booked while he’s in Iowa,” Larson told me. “But what we can do is, I mean, since you’re radio I’m sure this might not be helpful, but we can send you the statement from his office.”

I asked: “The statement from his office, that’s not handling his trip?”

“Well, technically, I’m doing his communications,” Larson said, pausing before she added: “Because I am. We can send you a statement, but that’s all we can do because he’s booked.”

Let's recap for a minute. There's some illegal politicking going on in the Walker's office while he was county executive. He knows what's going on but doesn't do anything until one of his staff gets busted. And then when he finally does act, it's only to do damage control and not address the personnel issues occurring, meaning he's still OK with it as long as no one gets caught. The day after issue his edict to stop, he violates his own orders. And he continues to do the same illegal politicking as governor.

But there's more. There's always more.

One Wisconsin Now and We Are Wisconsin are calling for Walker to ask for the resignations of Cullen Werwie and Brett Davis, who were caught being involved in Walkergate and doing illegal politicking, just like in the caucus scandals of ten years ago. They are basing their demands on Walker's very own words regarding another one of his scandalous friends, Darlene Wink:

“Had we been aware of anyone else who violated the…policy [against campaigning on taxpayers’ dime], we would have taken the same action [that we took against Darlene Wink and requested their resignation].”

Let me take a second to interject that Walker's email to Russell shows he knows Russell was in on the scandal, not to mention was with him during the entire campaign bike ride, but he never did fire him. Russell stayed a county employee until he was fired by Walker's immediate temporary replacement, Lee Holloway.

But there's more. There's always more.

Walker himself has violated this policy time and time again, both as county executive and now as governor.

But to be honest, unless the public outcry becomes so great that he can't conceivably ignore it, don't expect him to ask for anyone's resignation. If he let's them go, he loses even the pretense of being able to influence their testimony in any upcoming trials. And he doesn't dare risk anything more incriminating come out about him, between the Walkergate investigation and the recall election coming up.

Likewise, Walker will never resign. Like most megalomaniacs throughout history, he is unable to conceive the fact that he could do wrong or is any way vulnerable. Besides, if he resigned now, it would be effectively an admission of guilt. And owning up to anything he did wrong is something that he has never done in his entire life. I would not be at all surprised in the event of his recall and/or indictment, he will go down blaming others and accepting no responsibility himself.

The Pro-Walker Rally Was Illegally Held After All - Or Was It?

2012-01-31T01:44:00.000-06:00

About ten days ago, there was a "Scott Walker Appreciation" rally in Wauwatosa's Hart Park. The event was attended by ~~thousands~~ ~~hundreds~~ dozens of people. As near as I can tell, the number of people that were there were pretty evenly divided by politicians, event organizers, police, moles and actual attendees.

Perhaps their attendance would have been higher if they picked the right day. But even if you give the event organizers the benefit of the doubt and agree that they had "thousands" of people there, it's still a pale comparison to any given anti-Walker rally. I wouldn't be surprised to find out they had as high or even higher turnout at the recall signing petition they had in that same neighborhood weeks before.

At the time, I did a satirical piece saying the recall organizers broke the law by defacing a recall sign (it was just an example of the right wing's lack of originality).

As it turns out, the rally might have been illegal after all.

The City of Wauwatosa has a pretty messed up and convoluted policy towards political events in Hart Park. Organizers can have a political event in one part of the park, but not in other parts, unless they get special permission to do so.

In the case of this rally, it was both in the legal part of the park as well as the illegal part. But they did have that special permission to go into that other part. However, in the article, the city attorney said that he wasn't consulted on this, but would have advised the authorities to deny the special permission. Another city official described the granting of the special permission as a mistake.

See? Like I said, it's a mess.

So I thought I'd try to see what I could come up with.

I contacted another city official who said that the Patch article hit it pretty much on the head. The official said that once they became aware of what was going on, they had more questions than there were answers.

The same official said that this mess was a leftover from the overly partisan former mayor, Jill Didier, who had resigned from her position to become economic development director for Milwaukee County.*

But another interesting fact was brought to my attention.

One of the main organizers, Paris Procopis, was a failed candidate for the State Assembly. He had run against incumbent David Cullen, but failed to make it on the ballot when he didn't collect enough valid signatures. (Procopis got bounced off the ticket by Attorney Michael Maistelman who went through and challenged the signatures. He worked at Cullen's expense. This is something Scott Walker couldn't and/or wouldn't do and has now saddled the tax payers for his political expenses.)

It would not be a very dangerous leap of logic that Procopis was seeking an appointment of sorts, or maybe and endorsement for Cullen's old seat, by Walker in return to putting this rally on. And there's enough evidence that Walker does that sort of thing, whether the appointee is qualified or not.

In summary, the rally was technically legal, although it shouldn't have been allowed according to city ordinances.

But the bigger problem is the screwed up rules the city has, which they need to change immediately. They should either allow all political events or none at all. If they wanted my input, I would side with free speech every time, no matter how pathetic and repulsive one might find it. The way it is now, it gives the appearance of favoritism and political manipulation.

*Apparently, there is a little known county ordinance that states the county executive cannot hire someone who is actually qualified to be the economic development director.

For MJS, What's Old Is New Again

2012-01-30T23:30:00.001-06:00

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has uncovered some "new" angle on the Walkergate story. There "breaking news" was that Tim Russell, who is facing embezzlement charges stemming from that investigation and seems to be mired in every aspect of the investigation so far, was fired for using a state credit card for personal use:

A former aide to Gov. Scott Walker accused of stealing from a fund for veterans was earlier fired from a state job for the misuse of public money, new records show.

Tim Russell, a former deputy chief of staff to Walker while he served as Milwaukee County executive, was fired from a job in 1993 for "gross misconduct," his personnel records show. This latest news follows charges filed in recent weeks alleging Russell stole money in 2010 from a fund meant for veterans.

Russell was fired from the earlier job at the quasi-public Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority after it was discovered in the spring of 1993 that he had improperly billed $1,123 in hotel stays to the agency. The details are in Russell's personnel file, which was released to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel through an open records request.

"We have considered carefully the disciplinary options available and have come to the conclusion that we have no other alternative than to terminate your employment, effective immediately," Russell's May 1993 termination letter reads.

Of course, those familiar with my work are probably wondering to themselves, "Yeah, so? What else is old?"

You see, we already heard this story in October 2010 when Milwaukee County Supervisor John Weishan brought it up, just months after it was learned that Russell had his office raided and his computers confiscated in the Walkergate investigation:

Milwaukee County Supervisor John F. Weishan, Jr., is calling on County Executive Scott Walker to disclose the full work history of the Housing Division administrator, Mr. Timothy Russell. It has been brought to Supervisor Weishan’s attention that Mr. Russell was terminated from a previous position at the Wisconsin Housing & Economic Development Authority (WHEDA) for illegal use of a department credit card for his personal use.

“After reviewing the past resumes of Mr. Russell, submitted to the County Board when he was considered for the position of Economic Development Director, I could not find any mention of this infraction,” Supervisor Weishan said. “It’s time for the County Executive and Mr. Russell to come clean about the Housing Division administrator’s work history.”

I brought this up again at the beginning of the month, after Russell was arrested in a tangential investigation:

One, this is not the first time it's been alleged that Russell has stolen. In October 2010, Milwaukee County Supervisor John Weishan brought up the fact that Russell had been terminated from a position with WHEDA when he used a state-owned credit card for personal use.

Ah, well, this isn't the first time I've scooped the paper and it won't be the last. Tis the life of a blogger, I guess.

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LXVII

2012-01-30T22:35:00.000-06:00

I'm sure by now the gentle reader knows that, thanks to Scott Walker's budget, there is less spending money going around for the hard-working people of the state. And as people have less money to spend, the first thing that gets cut is discretionary and luxury spending, like eating out or staying in a hotel.

And, as usual, I am again proven correct:

Clearwaters Hotel and Convention Center's overnight guests awoke Friday morning to an unpleasant surprise: The hotel was closing, and they effectively were being booted from their rooms.

At least one Clearwaters guest booked a room with Marshfield's Holiday Inn Hotel and Conference Center for Friday night, after a note from Clearwaters management was slipped under the guest's door announcing the hotel was shutting down at 10 a.m. Friday, said Steve Luchik, Holiday Inn general manager.

By 11 a.m. Friday, the doors of the financially troubled Clearwaters Hotel, at 2700 S. Central Ave., were locked, and all the window shades were drawn.

Signs posted on the doors said Clearwaters was "closed until further notice."

And later in the article we see how Walker's trickle down economics really works:

Clearwaters' closure will hurt local tourism, several officials said.

Its 103 hotel rooms made up a significant portion of Marshfield's more than 200 total hotel rooms, said Scott Larson, executive director of the Marshfield Area Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

"It's disappointing because it's one less banquet facility that's available and 103 less rooms available for business and tourism activities," Larson said, adding that it's particularly disappointing for people with pending reservations at Clearwaters.

In other words, as the hotel fails, other businesses, like restaurants and attractions, which were probably also struggling, will also go over the edge and fail.

And to think, Walker says his budget is working.

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Parts XLV and XLVI

2012-01-30T00:44:00.000-06:00

Scott Walker pledged that he would create 250,000 jobs in his first term (not counting on the fact that his first term would be only about 18 months long). That would have to put Wisconsin at the top of the states in regarding job creation. But as we already know, he's falling way, way short of that mark:

New preliminary figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show Wisconsin with 2,739,500 total employees on nonfarm payrolls through December 2011.

That's up 3,200 for the year -- a 0.12 percent increase -- and puts Wisconsin 45th for total job growth compared to the other states and the District of Columbia.

The only states with a worse percentage increase in 2011 were Rhode Island, Maine, Missouri, Georgia, Alaska and Delaware.

And if it weren't for Governor Jim Doyle, we'd be even in worse straits:

In Wisconsin, the losses of the second half of 2011 effectively wiped out job growth of 38,800 in the first six months of the year.

Well, OK. If he didn't create jobs, he made Wisconsin one of the most business friendly states, right? I mean, Walker's been bragging about that for months, so it's got to be true, right?

Well, if you believe Walker, you must be new to this site. Welcome and feast your eyes on Walker's real track record:

Wisconsin is one of the 10 worst states in terms of taxes on businesses, according to the State Business Tax Climate Index, released Wednesday by the Tax Foundation.

It rates Wisconsin No. 43, down from 41 a year ago.

I can almost hear Walker doing his best Church Lady impersonation and saying, "Never mind."

If It Isn't A Mink, There Is No Link

2012-01-29T23:39:00.000-06:00

Surprisingly, this story isn't from Sheboygan:

The victim said that a man burst into his apartment. When the victim asked, "Why are you carrying a weasel?" police said the attacker said, "It's not a weasel, it's a marten," then punched him in the nose and fled.

Neither man was right. Authorities say the carcass was a mink.

Even funnier is the source who offers their own assessment of the story from a legal point of view.

H/T to the future Royal Barrister, if she ever finishes law school at UW-Madison.

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part XLIV

2012-01-29T23:22:00.000-06:00

Business is so good in Fitzwalkerstan that three appliance stores are closing without notice:

Employees of Appliance World, which operates three stores in southeastern Wisconsin, were told Sunday morning that the business was closing immediately and its assets were being seized by a bank.

Even though signs on the doors say "Closed for Inventory," Mike Whittaker, a sales representative at the Brookfield store, said it's unlikely the stores will reopen soon.

Whittaker said Appliance World owner Ed Aumann told 25 employees summoned to a meeting Sunday morning that "we're closing the business as of right now. It may reopen on Tuesday. I will not be the owner."

Whittaker doubts whether the business will reopen on Tuesday, and he's worried about getting his last paycheck.

Aumann did not return a phone call Sunday.

Kevin Novak, manager of the Brookfield Appliance World store, said Sunday night that he didn't know in advance of the meeting Sunday morning that the business was closing.

Novak and Whittaker don't know if customers who purchased appliances scheduled for delivery this week will get their merchandise.

"I have absolutely no idea. The owner wasn't clear on that," said Novak. "The word we got was that the company was going to reopen in some form on Tuesday to address some of these issues but there were no further details provided to us."

Whittaker, who has been a sale representative for nine years, estimated that as many as 100 customers are scheduled to get deliveries this week.

Last week "we were told only to sell things that were in stock," said Whittaker.

If the stores do reopen this week, Novak isn't sure who will be working.

"I think everybody employed by the company is looking for a new job including the owner," Novak said.

And remember at recall election time, that Scott Walker thinks this is a success. Then vote for the other person, even if it's a rancid potato.

Who Wrote The Mining Bill?

2012-01-29T23:06:00.000-06:00

The Republican lack of leadership and accountability in action:

They're so proud of their work, no one will take credit for it.

And for what it's worth, the bozo that slammed the door to Jeff Fitzgerald's office is John Jagler, who used to be one of the morning clowns on WTMJ-AM in Milwaukee, the official flagship for the GOP. Something tells me that the "news" department over there won't be reporting on this any time soon.

And to think that Fitz the Lesser wants to be a US Senator. It is to laugh.

Controversial Psychobabble Of The Day

2012-01-29T22:33:00.000-06:00

From Yahoo News:

There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy.

The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.

"Prejudice is extremely complex and multifaceted, making it critical that any factors contributing to bias are uncovered and understood," he said.

For the record, I don't believe that IQ and racism are correlated.

I know some very intelligent people who are racist and some people with limited cognitive skills who aren't racist at all.

I think the important factor is wisdom, by which I mean the application of intelligence. Most or the people described in the article aren't necessarily stupid, just foolish.

Will Ernst-Ulrich Franzen Apologize To Supervisor John Weishan?

2012-01-29T20:27:00.000-06:00

A couple of years ago, Supervisor John Weishan, in light of Darlene Wink's illegal activity, filed an Open Records Request against Scott Walker's office. After being grossly overcharged, all Weishan got was a few lousy sheets of paper, which we now see were grossly in violation of the law regarding ORRs.

At the time, Ernst-Ulrich Franzen, part of the distinctly conservative editorial board at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel agreed that Weishan was overcharged and underserved, but then added this snide comment:

Weishan should remember that not every fishing trip pays off.

Recent events, that Franzen's paper has documented surprisingly well, goes to show that the record given to Weishan isn't accurate at all, nor is it complete.

Methinks that Franzen owes Weishan an apology for that off-hand and off-target comment.

Then he can apologize to the paper's readers, if they have any left, for carrying water for the corrupt Walker.

Walkergate vs Capitol Chaos

2012-01-29T19:50:00.001-06:00

Just a point of interest regarding the supposedly liberal media.

Last year when Wisconsinites gathered by the tens and even the hundreds of thousands in Madison to protest the outrages being done upon our fair state and its people, the local media was quick to coin the phrase "Capitol Chaos." They did so despite the fact that even though the crowds were huge, they were also very well behaved and under control.

However, as the investigation into the corruption of Scott Walker's campaign/county executive office* is coming to the light of day, they continue to refer to it as "the John Doe investigation into Walker's aides."

I may be biased, since I was one of the first, if not the first, to publicly refer to the scandal as Walkergate, but I think that is a much catchier name.

At least The Ed Schultz Show recognizes it:

You can catch the whole clip here.

So, peaceful protests deserves being labelled as chaotic, but the most corrupt governor in state history gets a pass. Exactly how the heck is that being liberal?

And on another point, just when the heck is Ed Schultz or Rachel Maddow going to ask me on their show? Sheesh!

*Walker's campaign staff and Walker's county staff are, for all practical purposes, apparently interchangeable.

Walker Dances Around Direct Questions

2012-01-29T15:57:00.002-06:00

The other day, Scott Walker said that he would finally take questions about the Walkergate investigation, even though for months he said that he was complying with the rules of the John Doe by not commenting on it (and that was on top of his continuous denials of being part of it, so not subject to the rules, supposedly).

But when it came down to it, Walker didn't say much at all about it, other than to deny that he was John Doe. However, it is important to keep in mind that when it comes to Walker, what he doesn't say is much more relevant and revealing than what he does say. Here is an excerpt from the story the Chicago Tribune did on this matter (emphasis mine):

Walker also sidestepped questions about a spreading corruption investigation that has led to the arrests of some of his former top aides from his tenure as Milwaukee County executive. The governor declined to say whether he had hired his own criminal attorney, saying his campaign was fully cooperating with prosecutors, who had asked him to refrain from such comments.

That would indicate that he has retained legal representation, an without doubt, it's not someone who comes cheap. I'll have more as I muddle through the pile of stuff, but there's been a noted change in the way that he is approaching this issue and that email he sent will be coming back to haunt him.

Notice The Difference?

2012-01-27T20:08:00.000-06:00

Walkergate: John Doe Hits A Bullseye!

2012-01-27T01:58:00.000-06:00

On Sunday, just five days ago, I wrote a piece about how the John Doe investigation, commonly referred to as Walkergate, into Scott Walker's county executive staff and campaign staff, which appear to be the same thing in many instances, was about to take a caucus scandal twist.

I pointed out how it appeared that Walker's Deputy Chief of Staff, Kelly Rindfleisch, was doing a lot of campaign work for then Assemblyman Brett Davis, who was Walker's and WISGOP's preferred choice for Lt. Governor.

Lo and behold, on Thursday morning, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisolm announced the arrest and charging of Darlene Wink and Kelly Rindfleisch.

And with that news, we gained an even larger glimpse of just how corrupt Walker's office and campaign really was. In fact, this was the first solid bit of news to come from the actual Walkergate investigation and John Doe hit a bullseye on the first pass.

In the complaint against Darlene Wink, who set off this whole investigation by leaving comments on JSOnline and other sites, we learn that not only was she leaving comments, but was actively fundraising and organizing campaign events from her county office on county time.

Most of the complaint is an itemization of the times that Wink was doing her political work, but there are some eye-catching names included in her emails. For example, there are references to squawk radio hosts James T. Harris and Vicki McKenna doing emcee duties for a fundraising event and having Charlie Sykes promote it on his show. I would love to see if there were email exchanges between Wink and the squawkers.

We do know that Wink did have email exchanges with Reince Priebus, then chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, to see if he could get Sarah Palin to help them with a fundraiser. Eventually, this fund raiser was scrapped due to lack of interest.

The most intriguing thing about Wink comes not from the complaint against her. Instead, we learn that Wink was given a plea deal. Instead of getting charged with felonies, which they could have easily convicted her for, they gave her the chance to make it two misdemeanors and probably won't even see jail time. In exchange, Wink will testify against her co-defendants on other illegal campaigning allegations and most notably, regarding the "destruction of digital evidence." In other words, we might have just learned what happened to all those missing computers and files that suddenly grew legs at the end of Walker's term and walked away. Of course, many of the computers and what not had already been detained by the DA's Office on November 1.

But when one is facing recall, they probably don't want their name associated with a massive cover up like that.

If you thought that the names in the Wink complaint were interesting, the ones found in the complaint against Kelly Rindfleisch is a regular Rogues Gallery. Among the 57 pages of detailed explanation of the misconduct she is accused of doing, names like Robin Vos, Mike Huebsch, and, of course, Brett Davis. Also listed are Walker staffers Darlene Wink, Tim Russell, Tom Nardelli and campaign staffers such as Cullen Werwie, Keith Gilkes, Stephan Thompson and my personal favorite, Jill Bader.

From this complaint, one of the things that stands out the most is the fact that Tim Russell set up a secondary, secret email system using a wireless router designed to set up a 3G network. They used this set up for their campaigning and fundraising emails, as well as official county business. But because it was secret even to the head of IT, any open records requests would miss this.

Interestingly, after all of this came out, Walker basically put the governor's office on lockdown, cancelling all of his events, including a trip to Wausau. Oddly, the weather for Wausau was in the mid-30's and sunny, with patchy fog. Nothing that would keep him from making a trip. Besides, I'd bet my bottom dollar he's traveled through worse weather to get to one of his out-of-state fundraisers.

Walker eventually came out with a statement, through his campaign, which was very terse:

“The Milwaukee County executive's office expressed policy was that county employees were not permitted to use county time or resources to conduct any political activity. Scott Walker expected everyone to follow the law and made that clear publicly and privately," Walker campaign spokeswoman Ciara Matthews said in the statement.

Well, that takes care of that. I'm sure the Walker apologists will take this statement and the fact that Walker hasn't been indicted (yet) to show that he is a victim just like the rest of the people in Milwaukee County and in all of the state.

But as we all already know all too well, just because Walker said something, doesn't make it true. In fact, it's usually the opposite. And this is no exception.

In the Rindfleisch complaint, on page 50, we see this exchange that Walker sent regarding the damage control after Wink was caught and had resigned from her position in the county:

That clearly indicates that Walker knew exactly what his staff was doing and was ordering them to start covering their tracks. This was also about the time that Milwaukee County Supervisor John Weishan started doing his own open records requests into Walker's office.

It also contradicts his statement regarding his policy of doing politicking from his governmental office. But we already knew that when he got busted soliciting for political help from a person he had thought was David Koch

If the investigation were to end with this, they could probably indict Walker with the information they already have. But this is far from over.

Remember that commercial realtor Andrew Jensen was to report to the DA's Office just yesterday. And there are indications that they are looking at a pay-for-play scenario regarding the realtors, some of which are Walker's staff, both in the county and in his campaign.

And the complaints show that there was two way communications between Walker's executive office and his campaign. All of the campaign workers could be looking at possible charges as well.

And I am hearing things of yet another mess that might be coming down the pike besides the ones that are already known.

And there are a couple, three questions that I am pondering:

How is Rebecca Kleefisch handling the realization that she's hooked up her minivan to a guy and a whole political party that didn't even want her as Lt,. Governor?
Are any of Walker's big time out-of-state donors calling asking for their money back since every day makes Walker look more like a losing bet?
Does anyone still believe that Walker turned in these people like he claimed after Tim Russell got arrested?

While this was definitely a bullseye and puts Walker in a very untenable position, there is no reason in the world to even think that John Doe isn't already aiming his next shot or that this one will miss its target either.

The next few days and weeks and months will definitely be interesting as Walkergate continues to unveil itself.

Well, If That's The Comparison He Wants To Make...

2012-01-26T02:02:00.000-06:00

I've notice recently that Scott Walker has been trying to cover his losing job record by highlighting the three years before him, such as in this press release:

The Governor also noted that the state has put a stop to years of job loss. After Wisconsin lost 150,000 jobs over three years, the state created thousands of jobs this year, and the state’s unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been since 2008.

I don't know who's been advising him on his talking points, but I hope he keeps them.

First off, bragging about the lowest unemployment rate is a losing fight for him, since we already know that is only reflective of the people that have given up looking for employment in the jobs wasteland known as Fitzwalkerstan.

But does Walker really want to compare his record to Doyle's?

The three years that Walker refers to, we were going through not just a national recession, but a global one. And even one accepts Walker's numbers as factual, that means that Doyle saw Wisconsin lose 50,000 jobs a year.

But thanks to my co-author, Keith Schmitz, and this handy chart, we see what was happening in Walker's first year as governor:

The only job growth for the year happened as a leftover of the Doyle budget. When Walker's policies started taking effect, the jobs started leaving like crazy.

In the last six months of 2011, when Walker's policies and budgets were in full force, the state lost some 40,000-45,000 jobs. Or to put it more frankly, it took Walker half the time to lose nearly the same amount of jobs that he is accusing of Doyle losing over the course during an entire year. And during Walker's term, the rest of the nation has been gaining jobs as the economy recovers from the recession, while Doyle had taken the brunt of it.

Perhaps he could use that as a campaign slogan: "If you thought Doyle was bad, I'm twice as bad!

Your Health vs Their Profit: Scrap the Mining Bill

2012-01-26T01:19:00.000-06:00

The Republicans are again kicking common sense to the curb by trying to ram through legislation, which was written by the mining companies, to ease up the restrictions that are protecting our water.

From the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters:

And here is their own fact check which pretty clearly proves their statements, contrary to the lies that the corporately-owned WISGOP would have you believe.

If you're interested in helping more, you can find out how here

And as an added bonus, here's some video of the mine protests featuring the Bad River Drums.

Milwaukee County Pension System Is Under Attack

2012-01-26T00:59:00.000-06:00

Three Milwaukee County supervisors - Joe Rice, Paul Cesarz and Joe Sanfelippo - are trying to do a money grab on the county's pension plan to appease their corporate friends, as well as to carry on the legacy of damage done by Scott Walker.

The thing is, not only is completely unnecessary, it is detrimental to both the workers and to the taxpayers in Milwaukee County, as we explain at Milwaukee County First.

But what can one expect from three of the most ethically-challenged supervisors on the board. Rice and Cesarz are tied in with the latest aspect of Walkergate and Sanfelippo has his own problems as it's being (finally) reported that he's been profiteering off the county.

At least Rice and Cesarz will be gone in a few more months.

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LXIII

2012-01-25T19:56:00.000-06:00

Yet another store closing because it was bringing enough money in:

Gail Jones knows her days are numbered as manager of the Hostess Bakery Outlet on Kennedy Road in Janesville.

In fact, she said, her 13-year career might end today when corporate Hostess Brands officials visit her store at 3212 Kennedy Road to tell her exactly when she will close.

Jones said the corporate store has sold products for 30 years. Until about 18 months ago, she shared the space and split the costs of the building with Hostess route trucks that would load up each day and head out on their retail rounds.

"They say my store is not profitable," said Jones, who agrees that the added overhead has eaten up a good portion of her retail sales.

And it's not bringing enough money in because there's not enough money in the people's hands thanks to Scott Walker taking it from the working men and women and giving it to the profiteers.

Betcha that's something that's not mentioned in his State of the Please Don't Recall Me Campaign speech. (No, I'm not watching that tax-funded political ad. Why would anyone want to?)

Walkergate: Intermission

2012-01-25T07:02:00.000-06:00

I don't have time to go into depth on the latest installment of Walkergate as being reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this morning. I'll try to give you some insights that the paper missed tonight.

But a couple of things for now to digest as you read their report:

Now we know why Hiller left so suddenly
They really don't go into how cozy all these people are with each other
I'm really surprised they didn't go after what, at least to me, was the more sordid land deal regarding the county grounds
Remember, they save the big stuff for last and this thing isn't done yet

Scott Walker: Bought And Paid For

2012-01-24T01:24:00.001-06:00

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

In just over a year, Walker has raised more than $12 million in campaign donations - more than he spent to win the seat in 2010 - and despite sizable spending in recent weeks still has $2.6 million in cash in the bank, according to figures released Monday by his campaign. The Republican governor has traveled the country to raise money in recent weeks and has benefited from a quirk in the state's election law that allows elected officials facing recalls to raise unlimited amounts.

All that proves is that Scott Walker is openly prostituting himself to the big corporate interests.

James Rowen has a graphic that shows just how much Weasel à la Carte runs for, which is way beyond what most Wisconsinites, especially those that have suffered severe pay cuts or even lost their jobs, could ever afford.

It's pretty obvious who Walker is really standing with, and it ain't us.

But don't lose heart friends. Just remember the late George Steinbrenner and his New York Yankees, who every year blew more cash on star players than most teams could afford, yet have nothing to show for it.

Likewise, all the money in the world won't hide the fact that Walker has driven jobs out of the state for six months running, has caused the state's economy to become stagnant and have the lowest economic activity in the entire country, and has shredded the constitution and the long honored and esteemed system of checks and balances.

And all the money in the world won't cover the corrupt and maleficent way he has led the state down the tubes.

Nor will it save his job.

Save The Date! Reclaim Wisconsin March!

2012-01-24T00:50:00.000-06:00

From the AFL-CIO:

Join us as we mark the one year anniversary of the passage of Gov. Walker’s draconian union-busting bill.

March 9 is the night that Senate Republicans rammed through the bill in the dead of the night in an illegal session. Friday, March 9 will be marked with candlelight vigils around the state and on Saturday, March 10 we will return to the Capitol to let Gov. Walker now we will never forget his attacks on worker rights, our democracy and fairness!

When: Saturday, March 10

Where: State Capitol, Madison

What: Reclaim Wisconsin March

Rally Organizers Broke The Law

2012-01-24T00:25:00.002-06:00

In my reviewing of the rally video done by the blogging duo of Phil Scarr and Lisa Mux, I noticed something else. At the far right of the stage was this sign:

That is clearly a Recall Walker sign that has been defaced!

I'm sure with all the faux outrage, right wing bloggers will be calling them out in exactly never.

But perhaps I judge the organizers too harshly. Maybe they didn't put the sign up, but one of the overzealous scofflaws in attendance. The organizers were probably too busy picking attendance numbers out of the air to take time to vandalize any recall signs.

I Don't Think It Means What You Think It Means

2012-01-23T23:46:00.000-06:00

I saw something in the various videos regarding the gathering of dozens of very white people who showed up in Wauwatosa on Saturday to show they still don't know what is happening to the state.

There were a lot of signs that looked like this:

Some scallywag even came up with a website with those letters for a PAC of some sort.

But I don't think it means what they think it means.

Republicans Don't Like To Follow Act 10

2012-01-23T23:09:00.002-06:00

Eau Claire County Sheriff Ron Cramer doesn't think he should take the same hits that other public employees in Fitzwalkerstan are taking thanks to Act 10. So much so he sued to not have his wages cut.

Talk about poor leadership!

Oh, and yes, he's a Republican.

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LXII

2012-01-23T20:31:00.000-06:00

Add another 25 people from Baraboo who get to enjoy the "success" of Scott Walker's ideological budgeting:

A national retailer that has held a presence in the Baraboo area since 1929 will close its doors March 3.

"It's never easy, but it came down to a business decision," JC Penney spokesman Tim Lyons said Friday. "We regularly review our stores to ensure they're performing as expected. I guess it's fair to say it was under performing."

The roughly 25 employees at the West Baraboo JC Penney were notified earlier this week of the firm's decision to close the store.

The article goes on to say that this is the second closing announcement in the same shopping plaza in recent weeks.

Walker says that the state is open for business, but with the legal problems, the cronyism and huge tax giveaways to his big campaign donors, he omitted that Wisconsin was open only for monkey business.

Davis Throws His Own Mother Under The Charter School Bus

2012-01-22T23:27:00.000-06:00

In the latest Walkergate update, I pointed out that Brett Davis was getting a lot of support from the education profiteers:

Davis looked like someone who would fit in well with Walker's extremist agenda. He supported slashing school funding, which was in line with what education profiteers want and what Walker's attempting to do. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign shows that groups like All Children Matter, Wisconsin Club for Growth and Coalition for American's Families put in undisclosed amounts of money to run issue ads. One Wisconsin Now reported that the financial backers of All Children Matter gave Davis $13,000.

This whole thing is slimier than I realized at the time.

One of these financiers behind All Children Matter include the same Swift Boater that just gave Scott Walker a huge check.

Even worse, Davis is willing to throw his own mother, who works as a public school teacher in Monroe, WI.

Nice to see that Davis thinks lucre is thicker than blood.

Tommy Thompson: The Red Meat Reel

2012-01-22T22:21:00.000-06:00

My friends Phil Scarr and Lisa Muxy went to the pro-Scott Walker rally on Saturday. They took a video of TOMMY!!! flying off the handle and added their own observations and commentary which makes the sickening hate the GOP spews not only tolerable, but entirely laughable:

Good job, kids!

One note: About the 2:51 mark, it sounds like Tommy had one of his usual gaffes and called our soon to be ex-Governor Scott Worrier. Freudian slip, anyone?

I Thought The Mines Were Supposed To Create Wisconsin Jobs...

2012-01-22T21:58:00.000-06:00

Here all along, Scott Walker and his cronies were telling us how allowing mining companies to come in and rape our natural resources and pollute our air and waters would be OK because they created good-paying jobs for Wisconsinites.

We now learn that not only is this not true, it brings scum here to endanger our police officers and clog up our courts and prison systems and use up more of our preciously scarce tax dollars:

“We wanted to isolate the room before we made contact with the individual,” Tomah Police Chief Wes Revels said.

He said the displaced guests, all of whom were part of a construction crew with Roark, were moved to vacant rooms on the second floor. Revels said they were performing work at a local sand mine.

Roark was arrested and was being held in the Monroe County Jail on suspicion of endangering safety while intoxicated with a firearm, failure to comply with police, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct with a dangerous weapon.

So, while Walker has driven tens of thousands of jobs out of the state over the past six months, the few jobs remaining our going to out-of-state, drunken, gun-toting idiots?

We can't get rid of him fast enough.

January Days

2012-01-22T21:16:00.000-06:00

So, the Koch Brothers funded an all-star pro-Scott Walker rally where they had ~~thousands~~ ~~hundreds~~ dozens of people show up.

Yawn.

This video by Mike Matheson shows what a real grass roots effort looks like, including the culmination of a million signatures from people wanting to take their state back from the corporate interests that Walker is trying to sell it to(WARNING - Not epileptic friendly):

And those are Wisconsinites, folks, not the Illinois people that Walker had to bus in.

In Case You're Keeping Score In Walkergate

2012-01-22T20:16:00.000-06:00

Just to help people, including yours truly, keep track of the exploding Walkergate story, here are some events to keep mark of:

Monday, January 23, 8:30 am - Tim Russell appears in court for his preliminary hearing.
Wednesday, January 25 - Andrew Jensen is to report to the DA's Office in regards to Walkergate
Thursday, January 26, 8:15 am - Brian Pierick has his preliminary hearing in Waukesha County for his child enticement charges
Monday, January 30, 8:30 am - Kevin Kavanaugh has a scheduling conference regarding his embezzlement charges

As Zach at Blogging Blue alludes to, I am hearing there will be more shoes dropping soon, maybe as early this week.

As always, I will try to not only provide updates, but also some background, to help the gentle reader stay informed.

I am counting on you to make sure that Scott Walker doesn't raid the treasury and abscond with our money as things get closer to him and he tries to elude justice.

Scenes From An Education Convention

2012-01-22T15:21:00.000-06:00

Last week, Scott Walker returned to Milwaukee County to speak to a convention of school administrators, board members and business managers. He came to boast of his so-called reforms (remember: reforms can be negative as well as positive) to Wisconsin's educational system.

One problem though. He forgot to include the state's top educator in his plans:

An Evers spokesman said he hadn't been apprised of the package of reforms before they were released on Thursday.

"Policy and legislation are two different things. I'm a little bit in the dark on the legislative piece," Evers said.

Evers released a statement saying that while he worked in a "collaborative spirit" on various reform-oriented initiatives, he wasn't involved in the creation of Walker's plan.

"Despite my leadership in these arenas and constitutional authority, I have not been involved in the drafting of the education proposals that have been announced. Clearly, it is essential to see the details of this proposed legislation and ensure they match the intent and spirit of all the work that so many groups and individuals put into improving schools and academic achievement for all students in Wisconsin," he said in the statement.

As one might suspect, I knew someone who was in attendance at the convention.

My friend gave me some insight that was not reported in any of the traditional mainstream media venues.

For example, Walker was very much on edge and looked like "a scared little boy." (Was this Walkergate or just the fact that he knew they knew he was going to implode the educational system?)

Walker also said, "I don't want to talk about the past." Heh, my guess is he doesn't want to talk about the present or the future too much either.

My friend also had the, um, "opportunity" to experience the wit and wisdom of Karin Rajnicek, the clueless school board member from Waukesha.

Rajnicek takes her job very seriously, even if she apparently doesn't understand quite what her job is. She said that she spends her day wandering "around the halls of the schools keeping an eye on the teachers." I don't know, but maybe she's a wannabe correction officer?

Rajnicek also appears not to do as well without a teleprompter to read from. She couldn't iterate the points that she made in her commercial, much less show an understanding of what she is about to face when they look at next year's budget.

But she was able to complain that the hot lunches at the schools she oversees are so bad that she would only let her kids have one three times a month. The irony of that sentence cannot be overstated.

Walker Gets OWNed

2012-01-22T14:28:00.001-06:00

Best visual of the year so far:

From One Wisconsin Now and their press release behind it.

Walkergate: Caucus Scandal Redux

2012-01-22T12:51:00.001-06:00

Note: The following was done with the assistance of the research crew at www.politiscoop.com.

As the gentle reader might remember, all those months ago, I wrote An Introduction to Walkergate. In that piece, I wrote about Darlene Wink and Tim Russell, two GOP operatives who were also working for Scott Walker when he was Milwaukee County Executive. I also pointed out how they were accused of campaigning on county time and with county equipment.

More recently, in an article I wrote for the Shepherd Express, I did an overview of the Walkergate investigation, again with everything coming back to indicate that there was a high level of illegal campaigning going on in the Walker administration and possible collusion with his campaign.

Over the course of the last few days, I've learned more things, things which might or might not be part of the official investigation being conducted by the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office, which is starting to make this whole stinking mess seem more like a redux of the caucus scandals which rocked the state ten years ago, when Walker was still a state legislator himself. The caucus scandals involved dirty politics at its dirtiest, done by both the Republicans and Democrats. The scandal, if I may oversimplify it, involved staff doing extensive politicking on the taxpayers' dime and collusion with third party groups.

Zach Wisnewski started things off by questioning why Cullen Werwie, former Walker campaign staff and current gubernatorial spokesman, was given immunity in the Walkergate investigation. Wisnewski gave us the first clue when he wrote this (emphasis mine):

During the 2010 Republican Lt. Governor race, Werwie worked for the campaign of former Republican State Rep. Brett Davis. After Davis was defeated in the September 2010 Republican Lt. Governor primary, Werwie went to work as the traveling press person for Scott Walker’s gubernatorial campaign. In that role, Werwie would have traveled everywhere Scott Walker went, working in close proximity to Walker, no doubt leaving Werwie privy to most – if not all – of Scott Walker’s communications while on the campaign trail.

I then received a tip from a friend of Cog Dis, who pointed out that there was another connection between Walker's campaign and that of Brett Davis.

That connection is a woman named Kelly Rindfleisch.

My tipster indicated that Rindfleisch had done consulting and fund raising work for Davis while she was employed by Milwaukee County as Walker's Deputy Chief of Staff, replacing Tim Russell, whom Walker had made his Director of Housing. A few weeks ago, Russell was arrested and charged with embezzling more than $10,000 from a veterans fund.

Rindfleisch's Linked-In profile does indeed indicated that she was Walker's Deputy Chief of Staff from January 2010 through November 2010. Further research indicated that Rindfleisch was the registered agent for a group called JVS Consulting. Davis' campaign finance reports show that he paid this agency $3,000 in his failed bid for Lieutenant Governor.

Now, none of this indicates that Rindfleisch, Werwie or Davis did anything illegal. However, there are other facts that have surfaced in researching this angle that, well, I will just present them and let the gentle reader draw their own conclusions.

One of the things that stands out is that Davis appeared to be the candidate of choice for the WISGOP machine. The Republican Party of Waukesha County, one of the reddest counties in the state, sent out mailers which endorsed Davis for Lt. Governor. Davis was also endorsed by the Republican Party of Milwaukee County (home of Darlene Wink, Tim Russell and other names that have been popping up in the Walkergate investigation), Tommy Thompson, WMC and MMAC.

As a point of interest, and to further cement the ties that bind, Davis' campaign treasurer was Jason T. Thompson, son of Tommy Thompson, and currently an attorney at Walker's favorite law firm, Michael Best & Friedich.

Davis looked like someone who would fit in well with Walker's extremist agenda. He supported slashing school funding, which was in line with what education profiteers want and what Walker's attempting to do. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign shows that groups like All Children Matter, Wisconsin Club for Growth and Coalition for American's Families put in undisclosed amounts of money to run issue ads. One Wisconsin Now reported that the financial backers of All Children Matter gave Davis $13,000.

After failing to win in the primary, Walker eventually appointed Davis to be the Wisconsin Medicaid Director, to work with Dennis Smith. Davis and Smith had previously worked together in Washington, D.C., for then Secretary of Health Tommy Thompson. We all know how things are working out for people dependent on Medicaid services.

Now on to Kelly Rindfleisch.

Rindfleisch was named in the complaint filed against Tim Russell. Russell apparently listed her as Secretary/Treasurer and as a Director of Heritage Guard Preservation Society, Inc. (HGPS). HGPS was the group that Walker personally assigned to handle the finances for Operation Freedom. She denied being aware of this. But she sure was aware of Operation Freedom.

On the Facebook page for Operation Freedom, Rindfleisch put in three entries (all of which one might assume was during work hours).

As an oddity, it was also found that Rindfleisch had once submitted a picture of a "ghost" to International Ghost Hunters Society. Putting one's beliefs and feelings regarding the paranormal aside for a moment, it should be noted that she submitted her picture and accompanying description via her state legislative email address.

Again, I would emphasize that none of this proves that Davis, Werwie, or Rindfleisch have done anything illegal or are necessarily part of the Walkergate investigation, with the exception of Werwie's immunity. But they are things that I found interesting.

What I also found interesting, and I would hope the gentle reader also finds interesting as they come to their own conclusions, was this passage from an article from the Wisconsin State Journal, which I came across in my research:

In late January, three months before Gardner was charged, the head of a nonpartisan group that tracks political contributions was interviewed by an FBI agent who was interested in not only the Gardner contributions but also how legislative staffers hid illegal campaign activities in the caucus scandal 10 years ago.

In that case, staffers of four partisan legislative caucuses were found to have been campaigning illegally on state time for both Republicans and Democrats. A John Doe probe, sparked by a Wisconsin State Journal investigation, resulted in criminal charges and fines against five lawmakers and four legislative aides, including the Legislature's top leaders, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala, D-Madison, and Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, R-Brookfield.

When he was interviewed by the FBI, Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said he was unaware that the discussion was part of an ongoing investigation.

In addition to discussing he Gardner donations, "The agent also wanted to talk about the caucus scandal: how it worked, how they covered stuff up, that sort of thing," McCabe said. "He never mentioned Milwaukee County."

If the authorities are indeed looking at Walkergate with the caucus scandals in mind, this could eventually turn into a bigger affair than even I imagined, with ramifications reaching not only around the state but around the country.

The other thing that I question is, if Davis was indeed the first choice for Lt. Gov by Walker and WISGOP, I wonder how Walker's relationship with Rebecca Kleefisch really is. Is she aware that Walker apparently had his people working for Davis? If so, does she trust Walker? What is her relationship with the party like?

Kleefisch sure hasn't done much publicly, either as Lt. Governor or as a politician.. To me, this could indicate a possible trust issue going in either direction, or even both directions, between her and Walker and her and the WISGOP machinery.

This could get very interesting very fast. Make sure you're stocked up on popcorn.

Parting Words To Live By

2012-01-22T02:58:00.001-06:00

Tom Foley, aka Illusory Tenant, has gone offline.

But before he left, he did send one last message, words which we should abide by:

Thanks again everybody. Okay, I'm off the grid. Impeach the scofflaws!

"Celebrate Walker" Organizers Chose Wrong Date!

2012-01-21T15:03:00.004-06:00

On Saturday, January 21, 2012, dozens of unpaid Walker supporters and hundreds of Koch Brother-hired plants gathered in Wauwatosa to celebrate the jobs lost, the tanking state economy and the shredding of the Constitution.

Sadly for them, they chose the wrong date to hold their rally.

January 21 is Squirrel Appreciation Day.

The date that the organizers really wanted to hold their rally is September 21 - Weasel Appreciation Day.

Poor buggers just can't get anything right, can they?

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LXI

2012-01-20T20:12:00.000-06:00

Just last night, I explained and shown how Scott Walker's budget is bad news for the state's economy. He has basically taken away the demand for things by taking away the money people would have spent on those things. And as I have shown time and time again, the first thing to go are the luxuries and the niceties in people's lives.

And to further prove that point, we have yet another business falling to the Walker budget:

One of Cross Plains' signature businesses is closing.

Co-owners Mike Schutz and Ron Brunner have announced they are closing Feiner Home Furnishings at 2009 Main St.

A going-out-of-business sale will begin Monday and last until about May, Schutz said. The store employs five people, down from nine people three years ago. Since then, business is down 55 percent, Schutz said.

The closing is not the result of big-box furniture retailers in Madison.

"We had a higher-end store," said Schutz, a former village president and village board member. "Unfortunately, higher-end goods now, with the economy what it is, are not moving."

It's like Walker keeps hammering home the nails in his own political coffin - from the inside.

Meltdown

2012-01-20T12:15:00.004-06:00

By Keith Schmitz

For those of you who are into symmetry:

A lot has been talked about jobs under Walker on this blog by the incomparable Capper, but for those of you who are more visual than verbal, this is the trend.

Note how the jobs were going up until July. For those of you who know anything about business, any time a business puts on a new employee, the decision making process can take months, especially in this economy.

Many, including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have credited the increase in jobs since January. But only the most doofus partisan would credit Walker with raising his right and for a spike in job creation. Bet even his cheerleaders in the WMC would not be so ill-informed.

Hiring is not a snap decision and its based on a level of customers coming through the doors or orders being booked that tells a manager, it is time to expand the workforce. The process can take many months. Sadly, the decision to let people go is much faster.

And this is what we are seeing here. An abrupt drop off in employment in Wisconsin. Sure our unemployment percentage has dropped, but that's because the number of people have dropped out of the job market.

Most importantly, that drop-off coincides nicely with when Walker and the state GOP's made-to-ALEC order economic policies kicked in. Looks like drastically cutting public employee taken home pay by demanding the "contributions" to pensions and benefits has led to fewer dinners out and trips to the hair salon, creating a ripple effect though the economy.

People are already upset with the over reach, a million of them at least as evidenced by the ton and a half of petitions dropped off at the GAB on Tuesday. Should this keep up, and we hope it is not true, this continual bad economic news is going to add two more people to the ranks of the unemployed -- Walker and Kleeefisch.

The Primary No One Talks About

2012-01-20T06:18:00.000-06:00

As they say, it's the crazy season.

Politics is taking front and center in every level of the nation.

There are the Republican presidential primaries which have become more of a traveling circus which people pay attention to only to see what gaffe or scandal will break next or to ponder why the Republicans are hell bent on ensuring that President Obama sails in for a second term.

On a very local level, here in Milwaukee, there are some interesting contests on the county and city levels, with the most notable probably being Eyon Biddle giving up his seat as County Supervisor to take on the President of the City Council, Willie Hines. (If you want to know why Biddle should win, just look at Hines' district and see what he has - or more importantly, hasn't - done for his constituents.)

But the one primary everyone in Wisconsin is focused on is the Democratic recall primary. Who is going to take on Scott Walker? Meh. Right now, the Dems could put up a rancid potato and it would win by at least 10 percent.

The early names that have announced or been bantered about are less than impressive and I would find it hard to through my most eager support behind any of them. Either they have too much baggage, aren't the ones that would fight hard for the people who have fought so hard to give them this chance, or just don't have the statewide name recognition, much less popularity, that they would need to hit the ground running.

I don't think that the final candidate has even mentioned running yet. And if they're smart, they won't until the recall has been certified. An example of why this would be so is Tom Barrett. Even though he's stated he was only thinking of it (but just sent out a press release today touting some endorsements for mayor), Team Walker reacted in a panic and has been attacking him daily for the past few weeks. Why would anyone want to give them time to develop a smear campaign.

I expect (and hope like hell) that someone will announce in the upcoming weeks. This person would have instant name recognition across the state, already be fairly popular and have a decent war chest already established. Someone like Russ Feingold, for example.

But with everyone currently focused on the Democrats jockeying for position to be the next governor, there is something that one only hears about in echoes of whispered conversations.

And that something is whether there might be a Republican primary as well.

It is commonly assumed that Walker enjoys unanimous support, but that is far from the truth. This has been evidenced by the many stories of Republicans and conservatives, like my father, signing the recall petitions. And there has been stories of Walker and his allies cajoling, coercing and even threatening fellow Republicans when they showed signs of breaking ranks and not goose-stepping with his cadre. And many Republicans still hold onto their irrational anger at Mark Neumann for daring to run against their Dear Leader in the last election.

It would not be hard to believe, given Walker's past behaviors, that his shows of force - traveling the country and kissing up to the big money special interest folks in Texas, New York and Kochland is as much for the benefit of his own party members as it is for the Democrats.

And let's face it, most politicians are opportunists. If they see a possible opening, they're going to take it.

And Walker is definitely vulnerable. The most obvious sign of his vulnerability is the number of polls showing the strong support for the recall, directly due to his overreach and proving himself either unable or unwilling to do what is best for the state. No one who is at all honest would deny that six straight months of job losses, which only started when Walker's policies began to have their predictable and predicted impact, is going to be very popular.

And Walker has already been stained, even if only slightly thus far, by the first major outbreak stemming from the John Doe investigation commonly known as Walkergate. And the longer Walker stalls the recall, the greater the odds that the next big shoe will drop from Walkergate. And the odds are that each consecutive shoe dropping will be more damaging to Walker and his tattered reputation.

There are many Republicans that wouldn't want to relinquish their values, but also find themselves unable to vote for Walker. There's been speculation that one such person who would meet this bill is former State Senator Ted Kanavas. Kanavas is an ultra-conservative who already has had aspirations to be governor. Interestingly, Kanavas, who had been toying with running for US Senate, suddenly chose to take a pass on that race. He could meet the Republicans desire for the wing nut type of conservatives they've been choosing lately, but without the obvious stench of corruption that Walker exudes.

Another name that has been discussed is State Senator Dale Schultz. He is a moderate Republican and this would be a move Republicans could very well decide to take in order to win back some of the Republicans and Independents that Walker has driven away. He also has the added attraction to being one of the few Republicans in the state to not always follow marching orders and to stand up against Walker and his agenda from time to time.

It will be interesting to see just how strong of a hold Walker has on the Republican party and how far he has to go to maintain that hold.

Personally, I hope he is able to fend off any challengers from his own side and delays the recall as long as he can. He's the best tool the Democrats have in regaining control of at least the Senate and the governor's mansion. And if he strings this out long enough, there might even me a turnover in the Assembly as well.

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LX

2012-01-19T22:42:00.000-06:00

Remember how Scott Walker said he was making Wisconsin more "business friendly?"

Guess what. He lied. Again.

Another 130 workers are losing their jobs.

Why? The miserable business conditions.

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LIX

2012-01-19T22:37:00.001-06:00

The good news is we have finally found one thing that Scott Walker is consistent with.

The bad news is that one thing is losing jobs:

Wisconsin unexpectedly lost private-sector jobs in December for the sixth consecutive month, the same months in which the nation added private-sector jobs.

Given robust hiring last month at the national level, as reported separately two weeks ago, "I did not expect a sixth month of decline in Wisconsin," said John Heywood, a labor economist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

According to data released Thursday by the state Department of Workforce Development, the state lost an estimated 3,900 jobs in the private sector in December from November. In the same month, the United States gained an estimated 212,000 jobs, outstripping expectations of most economists and raising hopes that employers are gaining confidence at the national level.

Two hundred state jobs also went poof in December - a personal Christmas present from Walker, no doubt.

The Walker administration tried to ignore the actual numbers and tout that the unemployment percentage dropped from 7.3 to 7.1, but even that is nothing to brag about. It just means that people gave up trying to find work in Fitzwalkerstan:

Economists caution that the apparent improvement in the jobless rate was at least partly attributable to more than 1,000 Wisconsinites who stopped looking for work in December. That removes them from the government's official tally of the unemployed and automatically leads to a lower rate even without new jobs. In the course of the recovery, the unemployment rate has dipped repeatedly because so-called discouraged workers have given up looking for work.

"The unemployment rate is not a clear-cut indicator because it can improve for good reasons and it can improve for bad reasons, and so far it looks like it has been improving for bad reasons," said Brian Jacobsen, a Menomonee Falls-based economist at Wells Fargo Bank.

I've been pointing out for a long, long time that these continuous months of job losses are due to Walker's budget and the way he took money away from the working men and women of the state and gave it to his wealthy corporate sponsors. I have repeatedly pointed out that when people have less money to spend, they cut back on the luxuries and the niceties, such as going out to eat, going to the movies, having spa days, or even just buying things that aren't essential.

Sure enough, the report from the Business Journal proves me correct (as usual):

The biggest job losses were in the service sector, where Wisconsin lost 6,900 jobs between November and December, and had 2,200 fewer people working compared with December 2010. Manufacturing continued to post gains with a count of 443,200 jobs, 3,300 jobs higher than November and 9,300 more than in the same month of 2010. Construction gained jobs between the months, but had 3,800 fewer jobs in December than in the same month of 2010.

And as James Rosenberg points out, the jobs that were added in Wisconsin came in the first six months of Walker's regime, when Doyle's budget was still in place. Once the effect of of Walker's redistribution of money - taking from the working class and giving it to the wealthy - took effect in midyear, it's been all downhill.

Walker shouldn't be taking credit for Doyle's work and he sure as heck shouldn't be surprised that there was a million people who were willing to brave the Wisconsin winter to sign his recall petition.

It's becoming more obvious that not only did he needlessly overreach and most egregiously attacked the good people of the state, he did so very incompetently. We need to oust him sooner than later, if anyone of us is to have a job left.

#wirecall Goes International!

2012-01-19T22:05:00.000-06:00

And #wirecall got a very nice summation from the Guardian with this classic ending:

As attention remains fixed on the fervent, fierce conservative-dominated contest in South Carolina, careful observers of American politics should be keeping an eye on events elsewhere. They are showing the American left – so often derided and so often ineffective – can sometimes throw a pretty mean tea party of its own.

But it is a sad commentary that we have to go overseas to get find a media source that gets it and is willing to tell it as it is.

H/T to the great, but not late, Illy-T

I Carried A Box

2012-01-19T21:24:00.002-06:00

The following was written by Tonya Lohr, a woman who is currently a program member for Emerge Wisconsin* and had the privilege of being one of the people to help deliver the recall petitions to the Government Accountability Board on Tuesday.

I carried a box.

It seems like such a strange statement to use to describe a defining moment in your life, and yet for me, that’s exactly what it is.

My initial reaction to the honor of carrying a box of recall petitions into the Government Accountability Board on January 17th was pure excitement. I couldn’t wait to turn in the signatures we had all worked so hard to collect.

That feeling of exhilaration continued throughout that evening as we celebrated the victory of over 1 million signatures collected. We laughed as we hugged and congratulated each other on a job well done.

But now that the parties are over, I find myself quite reflective as my thoughts keep wandering to the experience of carrying that box.

I think about walking down that corridor of people who were holding hands with each other so our path to the GAB was clear of obstacles. As I walked down that path, I caught glimpses of the faces of people I had met in the last 11 months of my life. I had never met them before February 11th, but I was now connected to them for the rest of my life. They yelled “Thank YOU” as I passed by, but all I kept thinking was “Thank YOU for helping me find my way.”

I think about the people whose signatures I carried into the GAB. Even though I don’t know their names, or their stories, I feel connected to them forever. I carried their hopes, their dreams, their struggles, and their fears. What will happen to them after these boxes are opened, and their signatures are counted? What will it take to get their lives back on track and what else can I do to help make that happen?

I think about the sacrifices that were made to collect the signatures I carried. How many broken friendships and severed family ties are inside? And what did the volunteers have to give up in order to successfully circulate each of these petitions?

When I was first selected for this task, I thought I was just carrying a box. Now I know I was carrying the future of a state currently entrenched in its own cold war. I was told the box would be heavy. Little did I know how heavy it would really be.

I carried a box.

*For the purpose of full disclosure, I help out with Emerge Wisconsin's social media work.

Election Redux

2012-01-19T21:12:00.002-06:00

By Keith Schmitz

The redoubtable Rebecca Kleefisch channels Tracy Flick.

We're Number 37

2012-01-19T19:24:00.004-06:00

By Keith Schmitz

Today when Romney the Robotic Republican was confronted by a 99er in South Carolina with “What will you do to support the 99 percent seeing as how you are part of the 1 percent?”, Mitt responded with a variation of the old Republican standard, "why don't you just get out of here..."

Let me tell you something: America is a great nation because we’re a united nation. And those who try and divide the nation, as you’re trying to do here and as our President is doing, are hurting this country seriously. The right course for America is not to divide America and try and divide us between one and another. It’s to come together as a nation. And if you’ve got a better model, if you think China’s better, or Russia’s better, or Cuba’s better, or North Korea’s better, I’m glad to hear all about it. But you know what, you know what, America’s right and you’re wrong.

Nice travelogue. Notice he left out the 37 or so countries that rank ahead of us on a lot of other rankings.

They Who Drop Bombs Last, Drop Bombs Best

2012-01-19T07:23:00.000-06:00

From the incomparable Stuart Carlson:

How Much Is A Child's Life Worth?

2012-01-19T02:59:00.000-06:00

Scott Walker is facing an inevitable recall. WISGOP will probably lose control of the state senate. All because they've been selling out the state and its citizens to the well-moneyed special interests.

So what does Walker and his cohorts do? Double down on their lack of integrity and ethics.

The State Senate Judiciary Committee is prepared to ram through SB-373, which would negate already established lawsuits filed by or on the behalf of people who have suffered from lead poisoning.

Xoff thinks that Walker and company are doing this in order to gain some big time recall defense funding from WMC, who is pushing for this law to be passed.

While that rationale is a distinct probability, they may be doing it to just find themselves a place to land as they are removed from office for their malfeasance.

But whatever their motivation might be, there is no way in hell this bill should have even gotten this far. In fact, the Legislative Council points out that other cases that likewise retroactively negate people's right for redress have been found to be unconstitutional.

Illy-T: Escape From Fitzwalkerstan

2012-01-19T00:47:00.001-06:00

Ah, the emotional roller coaster which our lives in Fitzwalkerstan have become.

On Tuesday, my eyes welled up in tears of joy, gratitude and satisfaction as I learned that one million of my closest friends have stood up and shouted in one voice, "NO MORE!"

Just one day later, my eyes again well up, but the tears are now of sadness and loss.

One of my best friends and one of, if not the best, legal bloggers is about to make the great escape from Fitzwalkerstan.

Tom Foley, aka Illusory Tenant, or Illy-T to his friends, has come across one of those rare opportunities most people dream of, and is leaving our great state and his adopted home of many years for the arduous task of spending his days in the harsh clime of the Caribbean. Quite a bit different than Canada, I'd imagine.

In his own terse but effective style, he has already said farewell.

I've known for weeks that Tom was leaving, but was able to successfully suppress that knowledge, and the sadness it brings, until I saw the finality in that one post.

It was only then that the full impact of his departure will have on my life.

Tom has been a wealth of information, especially when it came to matters of the law. His wit and charm was ever present, as he would dissect, clarify and illustrate, with the casual flair of a true wordsmith, the issues that were happening in the legal aspect of our fight to win back our very rights.

I have leaned heavily on his knowledge, skill and artistry, whether he was jousting with the ineffective and hypocritical GOP activist named Esenberg, making light work of the squawking heads like Jessica McBride and Charlie Sykes, or taking on the boss anti-justice Michael Gableman.

This loss of the fountain of knowledge will greatly diminish the Cheddarsphere, without argument.

But it is also crushing on a personal level.

Tom has been more than a friend, but a brother to me. He put up with my weeks of indecisiveness on what to call this blog when I decided it was time to go solo and even designed the header at the top of this page, again with the patience of a saint as I was overly demanding, wanting things just so. I will miss the behind the scenes banter we had, the jokes and one liners we shared.

Most of all, in a debt I cannot ever repay, Tom was a stalwart supporter and stood by me and advised me as I was being assailed by Walker and his minions for daring to speak out against him.

In his final note, he thanks us "for all the cheese."

Indeed, it is all of us that owe him our thanks, and I owe him far more than that.

For another take from another one of Tom's close friends, and from who I hope becomes Tom's successor (but no replacement) as Royal Barrister, I would refer the gentle reader to Mike Plaisted's site.

And on a final note to Tom - once you get settled in, feel free to send me a line so that we can come an visit, especially in the winter.

Thanks To Public Employees

2012-01-18T23:16:00.001-06:00

This letter to the editor appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel yesterday:

Thanks to public employees

I paid my property taxes the other day. I "saved" $150, or about 3% over 2010. I could get on the bandwagon and thank Gov. Scott Walker, but I won't. All he did was ram a bill through a friendly majority.

I will, however, thank my local teachers, educators and public workers. They are the ones who sacrificed about 10% of their middle-class incomes so I could save a few bucks. My local educators are the ones who dedicated their lives to helping me raise and educate my successful children. Sorry, but I can't think of a single legislator who has had any impact on that effort.

The sad part is that outstanding leaders would have accomplished the same budget savings without the bullying, rancor, cost of a recall or negative publicity for Wisconsin. Most union members I know knew the state was having fiscal problems due to the recession and were willing to pay their fair share. The governor and legislators could have amended the "3.8%" law to "0%" for a year or two until things were back to normal, for example, and most would have understood.

Instead, Walker destroyed 50 years of bargaining rights legislation, gave the rich a megamillion-dollar tax break and denigrated educators and other public service workers. Now I see him on TV taking credit for saving me $150 instead of thanking our public workers for their financial sacrifice. He has no one to blame but himself for the recall effort.
We deserve better leadership.

Thomas Balliet
Mequon

Mickey Mouse Club

2012-01-18T07:04:00.003-06:00

First of all, you’ve got to ask yourself. What self-respecting serious politician would want to end up on the airwaves with the Drugster Limbaugh as Walker did?

Nevertheless, Scottie took time begging for money from Wall Street chiselers to peddle the legends that the Flaming Nazi Gas Bag’s audience loves to lap up. On yesterday’s program with the Jowly Red Giant, out once again went the nonsense about fake signatures ending up on the recall petitions.

Once these thoughts are implanted in the concrete heads of Limbaugh’s followers, they of course are never extracted. But you, dear readers, are smarter than that.

Think about it. There were thousands of volunteers chasing down signatures, through the holidays, through rugged weather and dodging Packer games. To that end, many hundreds of volunteers spent thousands of hours meticulously combing through these signatures, because we all knew that this thing had to have legitimacy and besides, the GOP would have their crack any ways at knocking off suspicious signatures, as is their right. So why would we waste our time putting on the sheets fakes or duplicates?

Think about it. How would people on the right know that Mickey Mouse, Adolph Hitler or whomever appeared on the recall petitions? They wouldn’t have seen the other petitions.

So the logical conclusion is that one of them put the fake names on the sheets, and no doubt later bragged about it to his doofus buddies down at the tavern. Or more realistically, it never happened at all and Walker with the help of his buddies on FOX and elsewhere where legends are born continue to lie about it.

Accusing us of cheating? Why, that’s just projection, because cheating is what the right wing does all the time when it comes to disrespecting our electoral process.

A Sign Of The Times

2012-01-18T01:51:00.000-06:00

Boutique law firm opens in Walkersha County:

It provides local employers in the heart of the country with the unparalleled legal resources and expertise of one of the largest workplace law firms, in addition, to access to a distinguished team of local, regional and state-wide labor and employment law practitioners.

"Thanks A Million"

2012-01-17T23:53:00.000-06:00

"Thanks a million."

Those were the words that Scott Walker uttered at the end of a conversation he had with who he thought was David Koch.

Koch is, as you all know, one half of the Koch Brothers, multi-billionaires that are throwing their considerable wealth around to buy politicians and/or buying legislative policies in Wisconsin and across the country. And as we all know, Walker is one of the more key recipients of the Koch's largesse, either directly or indirectly through one of the myriad of front groups. This is probably why Walker was so comfortable with violating campaign laws and ethics by soliciting the faux-Koch for aid during last year's turmoil.

In a moment of the sweetest poetic justice, one million also happens to be the number of signatures that recall organizers delivered to the Government Accountability Board on Tuesday.

Take a moment to soak that in.

More than one million Wisconsinites stood up and publicly declared that they are fed up with the corruption and the corporate greed that Walker and his allies have been forcing upon us for the past year and that they want their state, and their dignity, back.

Those one million signatures make the recall of Walker the largest in the history of the United States. From a list of facts from United Wisconsin, they include these key points:

• In the unprecedented turn-out of signatures collected to recall Walker,
more than 46% of the electorate signed. By contrast, in the only other two
successful gubernatorial recalls in American history, almost 32% of the
electorate signed in North Dakota in 1921 and 23% of the California
electorate signed in 2003.
• And this year, 32% of the electorate in Ohio signed the petition to overturn
the Republicans’ union-busting SB5.
• During the summer recalls, approximately 9% of the signatures were
found to be invalid -- nearly 50% of the signatures collected for Walker
would need to be found invalid to stop a recall

Or, if the gentle reader prefers visuals to help appreciate what has transpired, they also provide those here and here.

To me, one of the most telling stories comes from Green County (with a H/T to Democurmudgeon):

Coordinators Amy Sloan, Monroe, and Tim Sager, Belleville, say more than 9,000 signatures have been collected in Green County since the petition drive began Nov. 15. The petition drive wrapped up this weekend.

This represents about 43 percent of all registered voters in the county (20,725 as of July 2011) and eclipses votes cast for Walker (6,391) and Barrett (6,567), according to data from the Government Accountability Board (GAB), the nonpartisan panel that oversees Wisconsin elections.

And the good news didn't stop there.

We also collected 845,000 signatures to recall Rebecca "Now it's going to get real" Kleefisch and more than enough to recall all four targeted Republican state senators, including Scotty "Too Snotty" Fitzgerald.

On a personal note, after all that Walker and his people have put me and my family through, I will admit I teared up when I first heard the news. And to my fellow Wisconsinites who stood up for themselves and their state, all I can say is "Thanks a million for the million."

But now the work continues.

We must make sure that everyone can exercise their right to vote, despite the Jim Crow laws and gerrymandering that Walker and his ilk have foisted upon the state. We must counter all the lies and misdeeds that will come from the right. We must continue to point out the damage that Walker has done and continues to do to our state, our ecology and our people. We must keep Walker's benefactors from buying this election as well.

By all means, take a day, two even, to savor this moment. You've earned it. God knows you've earned it. But then roll up your sleeves and get back to work.

We still have a state to save.

Good News For Grigsby

2012-01-16T23:51:00.000-06:00

From the office of Representative Tamara Grigsby, who has been in the hospital for the past month, half of that in ICU:

“Rep. Grigsby continues to make progress in her medical recovery and has been released from the hospital. Her recovery will continue in a private setting as recommended by her physicians. Rep. Grigsby and her family express their heartfelt gratitude for the kindness and respect shown during this incredibly difficult time. The Grigsby Office will continue to provide updates as Tamara moves toward a full recovery.

“Many have expressed an interest in sending flowers to Tamara and her family. In lieu of flowers, Rep. Grigsby requests that interested parties instead make a small donation to a Wisconsin organization representing the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. To honor the Martin Luther King Day of Service, Grigsby prefers that, instead of flowers, the cause of social justice move forward. Groups such as Urban Underground, the Milwaukee Inner City Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH), the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, and the Wisconsin Campaign Against Violence are a few of many organizations that represent part of Dr. King’s—and Rep. Grigsby’s—commitment to better lives for all.”

I hope that she continues with her recovery and rejoins the fight for our freedom and our state soon. She is a tremendous leader and is sorely missed.

School Districts Have Act 10 Remorse

2012-01-16T23:48:00.000-06:00

Imagine that you were leasing a car from Dealership A. You got into the lease as part of a contract that you signed with the people riding in the car with you and were helping pay for the car.

But suddenly, the government ruled that you no longer had to abide by the contract you signed in good faith and you were free to go wherever you wanted to to lease a car.

You immediately go to Dealership B and lease a car from them, because it looks like a better deal. However, Dealership A did some hard work, got a federal business grant and now gets a chance to offer their customers a significant discount.

You become outraged and demand that Dealership A give you that money they got and give it to you so you can use it to pay Dealership B. When Dealership A, somehow managing not to laugh in your face at such a ridiculous demand, says no, you take them to court.

How far do you think you'd get before the case got tossed as being frivolous?

Not very far, most likely.

Yet that is what a number of school districts are doing right now. They dumped their health insurance provider, WEA Trust as soon as Act 10 allowed them.

But WEA Trust had gotten some federal money to help defer the costs associated with the early retirements that stemmed from Act 10. In turn, they are offering that discount to their customers.

Now the school districts that kicked WEA Trust to the curb is demanding that they hand over the federal funds to them, even if they are no longer customers of the company.

That is some really skewed thinking on the schools' part.

But what strikes me as really odd is that the right wingers are taking the side of the school districts. In other words, they are actually OK with a government arbitrarily taking money from a private company.

Too bad they don't feel that way all the time. Then the Big Businesses could start paying their share and lower the tax burden on the rest of us. But then again, that would make sense, which is asking too much from the conservatives.

Slimy Koch Brothers Are Slimy

2012-01-16T21:26:00.000-06:00

And the slime doesn't ooze far from the slime pond.

And remember that Scott Walker bathes in this slime so much it has soaked into his very essence.

Scott Walker: A Disgrace to Martin Luther King's Memory

2012-01-16T21:04:00.000-06:00

Personally, I don't think that it was appropriate for Scott Walker or Rebecca Kleefisch to participate in any memorial for Dr. Martin Luther King's legacy. Everything that they stand for and have done is in direct opposition of everything that King had fought for and had helped achieve. This is how regressive and oppressive Walker and his ideology are.

Don't take my word for it. Listen to Sherrilyn Ifill, a law professor and civil rights lawyer, who spoke at the ceremony at the Capitol on Monday:

Did you notice the looks on the faces of Walker and Kleefisch while Ifill spoke?

Walker looks very haggard and like he hasn't slept in a week. Is it stress? Or is it merely jet lag? And he looks like every other word is going over his head. I imagine that this must have been the look he had when he was sitting through his father's sermons and the topic was the sin of greed.

Kleefisch doesn't have the dopey look that Walker has, but she does look like she was contemplating causing physical harm to Ifill. For someone who's Twitter and Facebook handles are RebeccaForReal, Rebecca apparently doesn't like it much when things do get real and she has someone speaking truth to power.

Words almost fail me when it comes to describing how much I am looking forward to the day that we can finally start bring integrity and pride back to Wisconsin instead of these two embarrassments.

Want To Save Taxpayer Money? Look At Walker's Travel Budget

2012-01-16T20:18:00.000-06:00

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that Scott Walker, who prides himself on supposedly being a frugal manager of taxpayer dollars, was going to be in Milwaukee this morning for a Martin Luther Kind Day breakfast and back in Madison for a noon event in the Capitol.

In between these events, he jetted up to Superior to make some sort of job announcement that will cost the taxpayers even more money in corporate giveaways.

Maybe someone should look at his travel budget and cut it in half to save money. The make Walker's campaign pay for the remainder, since he's doing nothing more than campaigning on the taxpayers' dime anyway.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

This is America's opportunity to bridge the gulf between the haves and have-nots. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and resources to end poverty. The real question is whether we have the will.

-Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968)

Walker's Track Record On Jobs

2012-01-16T00:49:00.000-06:00

This says it all.

H/T James Rowen

You Hoo! Fraud Commission! Found One!

2012-01-16T00:31:00.000-06:00

The local paper which is hidden behind a pay wall is reporting that Scott Walker is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to a private investigation agency to go over 800 cases in the Foodshare program.

As I pointed out when Walker tried to do some damage control for his poor track record as governor, public sector workers used to do this for thousands of cases each year. The most notable was Milwaukee County worker Cindy Jaeger, who recovered more money than anyone in the nation, and she sure as heck made a lot less money than Walker is paying this agency.

But I have one question that the story doesn't answer. When Jaeger recouped the lost money, it went back to the county, since she was a county employee. So who's getting the money that the private investigation agency supposedly finds?

The Other 5,929,000 Wisconsinites Still Have Their Sanity

2012-01-15T23:41:00.000-06:00

Only 71,000 people have applied for concealed carry permits, per Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

B-b-b-b-but I thought this was supposed to be what everyone wanted...

I guess that shows why the Republicans never did a referendum on the issue. They knew it would fail miserably.

Of course, it's already have the predictable results.

Fitzwalkerstan: Open For Carpetbaggers

2012-01-15T23:27:00.000-06:00

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has an interesting article about some shenanigans going on up north in Marinette County.

Marinette County has only two circuit court judges, one of which is retiring.

Two people have applied for the seat, which has more than a year until the next election.

One of the people applying is Michael Perry, who was a former sheriffs deputy who ran against his boss, lost and then got fired. He sued, won and used his award to go to law school. Perry is a Marinette County resident.

The other applicant is James Morrison. Morrison just moved to Wisconsin from Michigan, in an obvious move to get the seat. He's been schmoozing it up with the local pols and judges. Everyone seems to think that Morrison is a lock for the job.

The kicker is his "qualifications":

[Retiring Judge Tim] Duket also expected Morrison to get the nod because he's "the Republican, conservative, Fox News type" who has been active in GOP politics, working for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser in his election last year.

So what do you think Walker will do? Will he go with the Marinette native who's played by the books, or will he go with the crony of Justice David "Chokehold" Prosser, who he owes a favor to for rubber stamping Act 10 without even reading the law or the case?

Here's a hint: The precedent has been set.

George Takei vs The Douchebags of the World

2012-01-15T22:30:00.000-06:00

George Takei knows how to call the idiots out:

Sadly, it takes strong words like that to just get their attention. Just don't hold your breath that they're actually going to figure out how to behave like humans.

H/T digby

My Thoughts About The Packers

2012-01-15T21:17:00.002-06:00

Any questions?

Walkergate: The Web(Site Problem) Draws Tighter

2012-01-15T00:58:00.000-06:00

I've already discussed some of the side issues stemming from the arrest of Tim Russell, especially in regards to various websites.

To recap, we know that Russell had used the money he stole from the veterans fund and used it to buy various domains, including the site for ScottforGov.com and for Scott Walker's official campaign website.

I have since been given information that shows how far Russell was into this and raises several more red flags on who else might have been involved in the whole Walkergate scandal.

My source said that they did a Google search of Russell's email, tim@regentgroup.us and found www.regentgroup.us/. They added this note

The site's only content is an address and phone plus: "The Regent Group provides consulting and ancillary services to select clients. For information or to inquire about becoming a client, contact us by e-mail or phone."

The significance of this address is that Russell's realty company was named Regent.

This site led to www.regentwebhost.com/ which was described as:

"Regent Web Hosting is a subsidiary of The Regent Group. We provide web-page design and hosting services to select clients. For information on our services or to inquire about becoming a client. Please contact us via e-mail or phone."

Further examination uncovered that www.regentwebhost.com hosted a number of sites, most of which were blank pages or domains parked at GoDaddy.com. Some of these include the following:

hiller-realty.com
walkerrecord.com
thewalkerrecord.com
hillerrealty.com
hiddencreekcondos.com
regentwi.com (which redirects to blank page regentrealtyonline.com

Hiller Realty is the company owned by John Hiller. Hiller was Walker's campaign treasurer for 18 years until he abruptly and quietly left (or was fired) last spring. He has ties to the Commercial Association of REALTORS Wisconsin*, which we learned about when Andrew Jensen was jailed for a couple of days when he refused to cooperate with the Walkergate investigation.

Russell also had a domain www.believeinwiagain.org which redirects to scottwalker.org, Walker's official campaign site.

Russell also had two other parked sites: www.believeinwi.org (as well as .net and .info) and www.hgps.info.

The latter site is obviously in reference to Heritage Guard Preservation Society, the front group that Russell headed up to act as fiscal manager for the Operation Freedom funds, which he eventually stole from.

Despite Walker's repeated attempts to put as much distance as possible between him and Russell, it's fairly obvious that Russell was deeply entrenched in Walker's campaign. Another source had already told me that it appears that much of the work that's been done at Walker's campaign site was done by Russell and apparently during work hours.

And all the ties to the various realty brokers - John Hiller, Jim Villa, Andrew Jensen, Brian Pierick and Tim Russell - it appears that this group might be a larger part of the Walkergate investigation than previously thought.

And as much as the Republicans keep trying to either ignore the Walkergate story or minimize it to just the embezzlement of the veterans funds, it's becoming increasingly obvious that all the threads of this web lead right back to Walker.

*If things keep going the way they appear, the Milwaukee area is going to have a sudden dearth of realty brokers. Maybe that's the way Walker was planning on creating the 250,000 jobs.

Is There Any Walker Campaign Staff That Didn't Get A Government Job?

2012-01-14T22:56:00.001-06:00

Scott Walker's habitual cronyism has been well documented on this site, but I am seriously beginning to wonder if there has ever been a Walker staffer that hasn't been given, or at least offered, a political appointment in Walker's administrations.

When he was county executive, we saw him give cushy spots to Bob Dennik and Tim Russell, to name just two of the horde of them.

As governor, it's even worse.

Even the most inept and unqualified have been given state jobs.

Take for example, Michael Brickman.

Brickman's claims to fame as a Walker campaign staffer was to videotape a low level SEIU guy drunkenly ramble on about embarrassing Walker and for making racist tweets directed at President Barack Obama.

We already knew that Walker gave Brickman the job of "fixing" the schools, then in the Department of Propaganda and Untruths. Apparently he's been promoted again to the DOA:

I guess Mike Huebsch needed someone to use the calculator when adding up the $7 million that protesters didn't cause at the Capitol last year.

Even more telling is another one of Walker's crony appointments, Ashlee Moore.

Ashlee, when she wasn't busy being Walker's chauffeur, was leaving insulting comments on this site or showing her genteel nature on Twitter.

Do you know what's she doing now? I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count. Yuppers, she's worker for Walker:

Executive office? Given her utter lack of tact and class, I sure hope she doesn't have anything to do with working with the public. Of course, knowing Walker, that's exactly where he put her.

You can find these two on Twitter at @BrickM and @ashleestarin respectively. Any bets that they'll be tweeting on work time?

Aaron Rodriguez' Walkergate Culpability

2012-01-14T21:26:00.001-06:00

Almost two years ago, when people started taking a closer look at the very pro-Scott Walker blog called ScottforGov.com, they started a hasty retreat, closing their Twitter account and deleting all the comments on their site. At the time, I followed the logic chain and concluded that all indicators pointed at the unknown bloggers being people in Walker's office as county executive.

Aaron Rodriguez, a pseudo-journalist at the Conquistador and pro-Walker blogger, left comments at other posts stating that he knew for a fact that no one from Walker's office or his campaign was writing at ScottforGov.com.

But lo and behold, after the arrest of Tim Russell, long-time close friend of Scott Walker, and who had served both in Walker's office and in his campaign - sometimes at the same time - it was found that Russell had used his stolen money to purchase the domain for ScottforGov.com as well as for Walker's official website.

This can only mean one of two things: Either Rodriguez was lying when he said he knew who the bloggers for that site was or he did know that there was wrong-doings going on in the county executive's office and didn't say a word, making him culpable for not standing up for the taxpayers.

I would normally call out Rodriguez to clarify this issue, but on second thought, why bother? There's no way anyone can trust what he says.

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LVIII

2012-01-14T20:41:00.001-06:00

I received word from a faithful reader and friend of Cog Dis that there are two Milwaukee area stores that are "enjoying" the benefits of Scott Walker's budget.

The Williams-Sonoma store in Bayshore has closed its doors already.

The Gap store in Brookfield Square is closing on January 23rd.

There is no word on how many people will be losing their jobs from these two closings.

But it only goes to prove what I've been saying all along. As Walker takes the money out of circulation and concentrates it in the hands of his wealthy contributors, most of them out of state, that leaves people with no spending cash to buy much but the bare essentials.

This hurts the stores, which in turn downsize or close altogether, taking the economy further along the downward spiral.

The sooner we get rid of the corporate puppet, the better off we'll all be. Then maybe we can start gaining jobs again, like the rest of the nation has been doing for months.

Why Did Walker Go To Texas?

2012-01-13T22:49:00.002-06:00

On Thursday, while playing Wisconsin's favorite game, we learned that Scott Walker went to play with his friends in Texas.

Now meet his friends, the big out-of-state donors in the Lone Star State.

Walkergate Exclusive: Add A New Campaign Violation To The List

2012-01-13T00:58:00.000-06:00

To those that have even remotely been following Scott Walker's political career, it's pretty basic knowledge that he plays fast and loose with election laws.

This has been a lifelong pattern for him.

When he was attending Marquette University, he ran for president of the student government, but couldn't follow the rules regarding campaigning even then.

This was followed up when he ran the first time when he ran for re-election as Milwaukee County Executive. He shirked following the rules regarding open records, a stunt that wasn't discovered until months after the election. While he did not receive a fine for his misdeeds then, he did get a severe rebuke from the Department of Justice:

"In sum, this episode evinces a case of how government officials ought not to do business...

"Whether they violated the public records law is a question largely mooted by the later production of the waivers and the nearly inconceivable notion that a repeat of this inglorious set of circumstances might be forestalled by a judicial pronouncement on the matter.

"Nobody honored to serve in public office ought to manipulate public records in this fashion -- that is the opinion of this office."

One Wisconsin Now has been following his campaign finance reports for years and recently reported that he has violated campaign finance laws more than 1,100 times which, if enforced, could tally up to more than $500,000 in fines for his campaign.

Last week, Tim Russell, a long time and very close friend and cohort of Walker, was arrested for embezzling tens of thousands of dollars of funds from a veteran's fund and from conservative candidates. From the criminal complaint against Russell, we learned that he used that stolen money to pay for Walker's campaign site and for another website, ScottForGov.com, which Russell and possibly other members of Walker's county staff were promoting Walker's campaign, almost always on the taxpayers' dime.

Along the same line, there is still the original issue of Darlene Wink's admitted politicking during county time.

But there is another campaign violation by Team Walker that has not yet been reported as far as I can tell.

In the fall of 2009, a pro-Walker group, the misnamed Citizens for Responsible Government, held a couple of rallies purportedly to support of Scott Walker's 2010 county budget, one which he was promoting as a 0% budget, meaning that his goal was to absolutely not raise taxes, no matter how many vulnerable citizens and workers he had to harm to do so.

One of these rallies was held at the Italian Community Center, near the Summerfest grounds. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker implored hundreds of people at an anti-tax rally Saturday to flood the County Board with phone calls demanding that supervisors uphold coming Walker vetoes that would reduce 2010 spending by $10 million and bring the budget back to a zero tax levy increase.

And, based on recent history, the crowd at the Veto Super Rally event staged by Citizens for Responsible Government at the Italian Community Center will more than likely follow through.

While most people would admit that this was nothing more than a stunt to promote Walker as a gubernatorial candidate, it technically was a county event and Walker's appearance there was in his capacity of county executive.

And since Walker was there as county executive and this was an event based on a county issue, according to Wisconsin State Statute 11.36(2), it would be strictly forbidden for any political campaign activity to occur.

But, as one might have seen coming, this was not the case.

At the time of the event, I noticed something that caught my eye as being wrong and took a screen cap of it:

This is a capture of Jill Bader's Twitter feed at the time. Bader was Walker's campaign spokeswoman, yet as one can see, she was at this non-political event.

And not only was she there, she was working in her official capacity as one of Walker's campaign staffers as highlighted in this second screen capture:

At the risk of overemphasizing the point, as one can see, even though Bader shouldn't have even been there in the first place, in order to keep it from having the appearance of being inappropriate, not only was she indeed there, but she was ready to set up a meeting between Walker the candidate and @BadgerBlogger, who is Patrick Dorwin, proprietor and head blogger of the ultra conservative blog of the same name.

Given Walker's long history of campaign shenanigans like this, one must wonder how many more similar incidents might have occurred. And then one might very well wonder, and hope, that District Attorney John Chisolm is aware of this.

Milwaukee Area Labor Council's Endorsements

2012-01-12T22:37:00.000-06:00

For the purpose of full disclosure, let me start of by saying that I am a duly elected delegate representing my Local at the Milwaukee Area Labor Council.

Last night, we voted on the list of candidates that are being endorsed. The list is as follows:

Marina Dimitrijevic, County Board #4
Theo Lipscomb, County Board #1
Peggy Romo West, County Board #12
John Weishan, County Board #16
David Bowen, County Board #10
Tracey Corder, County Board #18
Nikiya Harris, County Board #2
Jason Haas, County Board #14
Scott Manske, County Comptroller
Mark Sanders, Circuit Court Branch 28
Hannah Dugan, Circuit Court Branch 23
Ray Harmon, Common Council #9
Eyon Biddle, Common Council #15
Tony Zielinski, Common Council #14
Jennifer Morales, Common Council #8
Jose Perez, Common Council #12
Michael Murphy, Common Council #10
Milele Coggs, Common Council #6

People that know Milwaukee politics might be rather shocked by the list, not so much by who's on it, but by who's not. Some people might also be surprised at some of the picks, such as Eyon Biddle over the incumbent, City Council President Willie Hines, Jr.

These endorsements are reflective of a new approach that the unions are taking. They will no longer tolerate the status quo and will not endorse politicians and candidates that do not support the people that live in their districts or work for their communities.

Take the Biddle - Hines race for example. As MALC Secretary and Treasurer Sheila Cochran stated, if you want to know why we didn't endorse Hines, all you have to do is walk through his district. It has some of the highest crime and highest unemployment rates in the city and Hines has been absent to his constituents. In comparison, in his short stint as County Supervisor, Biddle has been very active in his community, decrying the violence and helping to create programs to help the people in the community be able to gain the training they need and help them find the jobs they want.

Also discussed last night was that how it is an embarrassment for every person in Milwaukee County that we allowed Scott Walker to get as far as he has done and that we would not send another person like him to Madison.

In my opinion, this new attitude is long overdue. In fact, I think they have a ways to go yet, as there are some names on their list that I personally don't think make the grade, but it's at least a start.

The unions may be smaller than they have been, but they are in no way weak or out of the fight, no matter how much Walker or his supporters might wish it to be so. And like the rest of the good people in this great state, we are willing and ready to dig in our heels, roll up our sleeves, and help fix the wrongs we allowed to happen.

And that moment starts now.

Friday Night Recall Parties

2012-01-12T20:06:00.000-06:00

From the recall organizers:

More than 20 regional recall offices across the state will host parties Friday to celebrate the historic volunteer effort that will lead to the recall of Governor Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefisch. Supporters will be encouraged to turn in any outstanding recall petitions. Surrogates, current candidates and other special guests will be in attendance.

The parties marking the Jan. 13th internal deadline for local offices for turn-in of recall petitions will be open to the media. Some parties are held on days other than the 13th -- those are noted below.

Please find a list of these parties below, including the time of the event and location.

APPLETON
Time: 6 - 9 p.m.
Location: 612 West College Avenue, Appleton

ASHLAND
Time: 6 - 8 p.m.
Location: 316 West Main Street, Ashland

BEAVER DAM
Time: 6 - 8 p.m.
116 Monroe Street, Beaver Dam

EAU CLAIRE [Held on Sat., Jan 14]
Time: 4 - 6 p.m.
Location: 2233 Birch Street, Eau Claire

FOND DU LAC
Time: 6 - 8 p.m.
Location: 21 N Portland Street, Fond du Lac

KENOSHA
Time: 7 - 9 p.m.
Location: 5535 6th Ave, Kenosha

MADISON (EAST)
Time: 6 - 8 p.m.
Location: 330 East Wilson St, Madison

MADISON (WEST)
Time: 6:30 - 8:30pm
Location: 6602 Normandy Lane, Madison

MANITOWOC
Time: 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Location: 1207 Washington Street, Manitowoc

MILWAUKEE (NORTH)
Time: 4 - 7 p.m.
Location: 6807 N. Green Bay Ave, Milwaukee

MILWAUKEE (SOUTH)
Time: 6 - 8 p.m.
Location: 1027 S. 5th St, Milwaukee

MINERAL POINT [Held on Thu., Jan 12]
Time: 4 - 6 p.m.
Location: 420 Commerce St, Mineral Point

OSHKOSH
Time: 8 - 10 p.m.
Location: 480 N Main St, Oshkosh

PLATTEVILLE
Time: 5:13 - 7:13 p.m.
Location: 255 McGregor Plazza, Platteville

PORTAGE
Time: 5 - 7 p.m.
Location: 216 W Wisconsin St, Portage

RACINE
Time: 5 - 8 p.m.
Location: Racine Labor Center, 2100 Layard Avenue, Racine

RHINELANDER [Held on Sat., Jan 14]
Time: 10am-2pm
Location: 29 W Davenport St, Rhinelander

SHEBOYGAN
Time: 6 - 9 p.m.
Location: 5425 Superior Ave, Sheboygan

STEVENS POINT [Held on Thu., Jan 12]
Time: 5 - 7 p.m.
Location: 2220 Division Street, Stevens Point

WAUKESHA
Time: 6 - 8 p.m.
Location: 312 W Broadway, Waukesha

WAUSAU
Time: 5:30 - 7 p.m.
Location: 4404 Stewart Ave, Wausau

WEST ALLIS
Time: 6 - 8 p.m.
Location: 1370 S 74th St., West Allis

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LVII

2012-01-12T19:56:00.000-06:00

It's working so well that the state is about to lose another couple hundred jobs:

Joerns Healthcare announced Tuesday it will move the majority of its manufacturing operations out of state, likely leaving hundreds of local workers without jobs.

The move has angered local officials and state leaders who say they offered incentives for the company to stay in town.

In a news release, the Stevens Point-based company -- which produces medical equipment to help treat and heal wounds, furnishings for the home, and safety products to help in areas such as reducing falls -- announced it will spread the local operations between its facilities in Arlington, Texas, Matamoros, Mexico, and Dumas, Ark., over the next six to 12 months.

[...]

The release stated that some employees will be retained for product development, and customer and technical service. Caroline Berns, vice president of strategic planning and communications with the company, wouldn't say how many employees would stay in Stevens Point. The company also did not release the number of jobs that would be lost, but Stevens Point Mayor Andrew Halverson said more than 200 would be out of work.

I seriously doubt that I'm the only one that bursts out in derisive laughter every time I see a Walker commercial when he tries to tell us that his budget is working and that the state's added "thousands of jobs." They don't stand up to the tens of thousands of jobs we've lost in just the past six months.

Today's Edition Of Do You Know Where Your Governor Is?

2012-01-12T06:29:00.000-06:00

Yes, boys and girls, it's time for today's edition of Wisconsin's favorite game, "Do you know where your governor is?"

Is he in Madison, busy at creating ~~more losses~~ in jobs? Heck, no!

Is he in Milwaukee, visiting his one of his oldest and closest friend, Tim Russell, begging him not to tell? Pshaw! He threw Russell under the bus long ago.

Is he in the Emergency Government control room, ready to make sure everyone is responding to the winter storm which is hitting most of the state today? Ha, ha, ha, ha! We all know that we're on our own. Walker runs away from bad weather.

No, the correct answer is that Dear Leader will flee the snow, the increasing joblessness and Walkergate to go to Austin, Texas so that he can ~~raise funds~~ give a speech to an ultra-conservative group down there. That's OK, some of our closest friends and family are planning on giving him the welcome he so richly deserves.

But, just one question: Texas has recently had to deal with a severe drought, wildfires, flooding and Rick Perry. Now they're getting Walker. Just how many plagues were there again?

Recall Celebrations

2012-01-12T06:07:00.000-06:00

From the AFL-CIO:

Since November, thousands of volunteers have braved the cold by going door to door or by standing at busy intersections throughout Wisconsin to collect signatures to recall Gov. Walker, Lt. Gov. Kleefisch and four Republican Senators. On Tuesday, January 17, recall partners will turn in all completed recall forms to the Government Accountability Board.

Join us, this Tuesday, as we celebrate the hours of hard work and dedication it took to begin to reclaim our democracy.

In Madison, there will be a 5:00 p.m. celebration at the Monona Terrace, 1 John Nolen Drive.

In Milwaukee, there will be a celebration rally at 4:30 p.m. at the Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC), 700 W. State Street, by the mall in front of the student services building.
When Gov. Walker attempted to divide workers by going after the rights of public sector unions he never expected that his attack would bring the community together. By destroying the collective bargaining rights of working people, Gov. Walker is destroying a fundamental underpinning of the middle class.

Thankfully, Wisconsinites are standing together to reclaim their government and recall Gov. Walker and those who rubber-stamp his agenda. Months of job loss and deep cuts to education and health care have led to a compromised economy. Luckily, the people of Wisconsin are ready to bring Gov. Walker’s reign to early end in order to get our state back on track.

Walker Has Found The Fraud, And It Is Him

2012-01-11T00:16:00.000-06:00

Scott Walker, looking for something - anything - that wouldn't turn instantly toxic to his chances of surviving the coming recall, seized upon a report from his "Commission of Waste, Fraud and Abuse."

Sadly for Walker, but completely unsurprisingly, this too is blowing up on him.

Senator Chris Larson and Representative Mark Pocan, who are members of this "commission" have a more than a few issues with Walker's move born of desperation. From their press release:

The Walker report takes credit for savings the state has nothing to do with or savings already accounted for from previous actions of state government. The misleading report did not even include a final vote for passage by its members before completion. While Governor Walker has publicly touted his report, he has yet to release the report because it does not stand up to scrutiny, according to Pocan and Larson.

“Governor Walker’s commission issued a misleading report that takes credit for decisions that have already been made or that are outside of the authority of state government,” said Rep. Pocan. “Much of the supposed savings in Governor Walker’s plan are about as real as the Loch Ness Monster.”

[...]

Therefore, the commission was expected to identify new savings of state tax dollars to keep Governor Walker’s promise. According to Pocan and Larson, Walker’s report did not meet its goal.

“Taking credit for money saved under a federal bill that isn’t even law yet has nothing to do with finding current waste, fraud and abuse in state government,” said Sen. Larson. “This commission was more of a fraud upon the public than a useful roadmap into the future. In fact, Governor Walker is already ignoring a suggestion by the commission to invest more to crack down on tax cheats.”

The commission recommended hiring more tax collectors to crack down on tax cheats, which would generate much needed revenue for the state. However, the Walker Administration recently directed the Department of Revenue to lapse more than $2 million that was supposed to assist in the collection of taxes owed to the state.

Larson and Pocan also issued their own, truth-based report which rebuts Walker's bloviations rather effectively.

It should be noted that Larson and Pocan also have the quote of the week with their closing line in the report:

It is our hope that whoever is Governor in 2012 will have a more sincere interest in safeguarding the integrity of Wisconsin government and services

But there's more to the story than what even Larson and Pocan covered. And to be honest, it's something that Larson is all too familiar with from the days he served as Milwaukee County Supervisor.

In the Milwaukee Business Journal, they have this blurb at the end of their report on this issue:

The report said $177 million could be saved with changes to various state social service programs. FoodShare, for example, should hire internal inspector generals to conduct audits and implement measures to prevent sale of QUEST cards, which are the modern equivalent of food stamps.

What's not included in Walker's release or in the news report is another area where fraud was rampant, child care.

Nor is it included anywhere that I saw that the largest areas of these cases of fraud occurring was Milwaukee County, during the time that Walker was county executive.

In fact two years ago, I brought up this very issue. The state received an email from the federal government expressing concern regarding the poor performance of the Economic Support System in Milwaukee County. The poor performance is directly tied to Walker willfully failing to fully staff the program even though he had the funding to do so. You can read my entire post here at Milwaukee County First, but I would point out this section specifically:

The interview process is has two concerns tied into it. One is that if the ESS workers are not doing sufficient interviews, people might not be receiving all of the benefits that they are eligible for. In these dire economic times, every bit of help becomes vital.

The other side of the interview coin is that without sufficient in depth interviews, it could open up the Foodshare program for fraud, such as had happened with child care services.

By the way, after Governor Jim Doyle ordered the state take the program over and fully staffed it, in order to avoid a class action lawsuit, things improved.

I iterated and expanded on this point three months ago, here on Cog Dis, when Walker claimed he was going to resolve all the fraud:

The funny thing about all this is that it is the equivalent of Walker announcing he is going to clean up some milk that he spilled.

When he was Milwaukee County Executive, he actually helped foment and grow the problem by cutting the number of staff that were assigned to do fraud investigation. His mismanagement of this entire program led to a class action lawsuit being filed against Milwaukee County and the State of Wisconsin. Governor Jim Doyle saved Walker's political hide by taking over the state and bringing the program back to full staff and within compliance of the law.

One of the county workers that did do fraud investigation, Cynthia Jaeger, who was a county worker until her retirement a three years ago, was so good at her job that she won state recognition for her work and was the only worker in the entire nation to recoup more than $1 million in a single year. Cindy saved tax payers more than $5 million in a three year span. And she did that just at county wages, including furloughs.

So how did Walker, who claims that "preventing waste, fraud and abuse of tax payer dollars" is his top priority, recognize the hard work of Ms. Jaeger and all of the money she saved the tax payers? Employee of the month? Special commendation?

Nope, he let her retire without a word and without filling her then vacant position.

So much of the fraud that Walker's commission "found" was actually caused by Walker and his "money-saving" stunts that he pulled as county executive. And as always, it will be the taxpayers and the most vulnerable citizens that will end up paying for his maleficent negligence.

I could have saved the taxpayers tons of money and expense by writing the commission's fraud three months ago, with the perfect solution as well:

See how easy that was?

Charlie Sykes, In His Own Words, On Recalls

2012-01-10T22:33:00.000-06:00

Charlie Sykes, a Milwaukee area squawk radio host and paid mouthpiece for the GOP, on recalls, in his own words:

Businessman Michael Cudahy derided the recall supporters as a “lynch mob,” but outsiders who saw only the anger misunderstood the depth of the outrage. Supporters were neither puppets nor radicals: they were taxpayers who had raised their families in Milwaukee,
bought homes, paid taxes, and played by the rules all their lives. They remembered when
Milwaukee was known for its efficiency and integrity, and were offended at the insult to
both their intelligence and their integrity.

But what was it about this particular scandal that brought out the burghers?

It was an easy scandal to understand: the numbers were big and the greed transparent.
But timing was also a factor: the economy was weak, thousands of Milwaukeeans faced pay
cuts or layoffs. Many of them have seen their own retirement funds shrink. Retirees who worked forty years or more for meager benefits seemed especially incensed. As well, the cumulative effect of choking property taxes, the simmering sex scandal of City Hall, and a sense that government no longer worked for the public seemed to have reached a tipping point.

'Nuff said.

Another Staff Assaulted At Dodge Correctional Institution

2012-01-10T07:06:00.000-06:00

Fresh in my inbox:

On Sunday, January 8th at approximately 1245hrs CNA [name redacted] was assaulted by an inmate on Unit 25. Security staff quickly intervened and brought the inmate under control. CNA [name redacted] was taken to WMH via state vehicle and was released from the hospital after receiving medical care.

Now that Walker has put his usual inept management style in place, where even correctional facilities are grossly understaffed and demoralized, these types of things sadly become the norm.

The man simply has to go before everyone is endangered.

"Operation Freedom" - Charitable Event Or Political Stunt?

2012-01-10T00:28:00.000-06:00

When people ask me about the most recent chapter of the Walkergate saga, where Tim Russell, long time personal friend and aid to Scott Walker, and two others were arrested stemming from a tangent of the Walkergate investigation, I tell them as explosive as this news is, it's just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. I remind them there is a big part of the investigation that is still under way.

But even with just the news of the arrests, there is enough fodder for an army of reporters and researchers to keep busy for a long time. This one story is indeed like a rancid onion, in such that as you peel away one rotten layer, there is another, even more rotten layer beneath it.

One of the things that is puzzling a lot of people is the timeline of events regarding "Operation Freedom" and how it was managed.

Per a report from WisPolitics.com, the common accounting of things is that in 2006, concerns were raised by the Milwaukee County Ethics Board on handling a charitable event through the office of the County Executive. The finances were given over to the Milwaukee Order of the Purple Heart, where Kevin Kavanaugh, was treasurer.

In 2008, Darlene Wink found that $11,000 was missing from the fund and reported it. Kavanaugh readily agreed that his group owed the fund this money. (It should also be noted that in 2010, despite his concerns of what happened to the money, Walker reappointed Kavanaugh to the Veterans Service Board.)

Subsequently, in early of 2009, the financial management was handed over to an American Legion Post. About the same time, Tom Nardelli, Walker's Chief of Staff, went to the District Attorney's office and spoke to them about it.

Despite the American Legion doing an exemplary job of handling the money, in the fall of the same year, they were removed from deal and the set up was handed to the Heritage Guard Preservation Society, which was basically a front group headed by Tim Russell.

In other words, despite the admonishment by the Ethics Board, Walker still had people in his office in control of the funds for "Operation Freedom."

In 2010, only after the money was transferred to this front group did Walker's office file a formal complaint.

This chain of events raise any number of question, with two of the main ones being why did Walker personally order the funding be transferred from a group that was doing well to the front group ran by Russell, who already had a history of stealing money? And why did Walker ignore the advise of the Ethics Board by keeping his fingers in the mix?

To answer those questions, as well as some others that have arisen, one has to first look at just what is "Operation Freedom."

Well, according to their About page (complete with misspelled words), "Operation Freedom" is a non-profit group intended to honor veterans by hosting a free picnic at the Milwaukee County Zoo, including free admission to the zoo.

Sounds good, right? Well, on the surface, it certainly does.

But something nagged at me about it. So, over the weekend, I decided to call Milwaukee County Supervisor John Weishan, Jr., who I know had proudly served in the United States Marine Corps.

Weishan told me that he also had a lot of questions about "Operation Freedom." He told me that he would be invited, almost as an afterthought, to come to the event and stand on stage, behind Walker and whoever else was hosting it, usually one of the squawk radio hosts from WTMJ-620 AM - Charlie Sykes, Jeff Wagner and James T. Harris (none of whom, I believe, served in any branch of the armed services). Weishan said that no matter what, he was always told that the would not be allowed to speak, which he considered to be offensive.

Weishan also told me that he was not the only veteran that Walker was less than respectful to. He told me that certain vet groups, like Veterans for Peace, were also not invited to participate in these events.

Milwaukee County Supervisor
John Weishan, Jr.

He said that Walker might have wanted to keep such tight control of this in order to prevent all groups from participating, which would be difficult if the American Legion were in control of the finances. He also questioned the purpose of the event, since it was only for certain veterans. Part of our discussion was whether Walker was doing this to curry favor with the Bush administration and promoting the Iraq War.

As it turns out, I was not the only one questioning the purpose behind Walker's actions in regards to "Operation Freedom."

Dominique Paul Noth, of Milwaukee Labor Press and a man a deeply admire for his skills as a reporter and a writer, in a article worthy of reading for the comprehensiveness of it, was also thinking of Weishan:

When Supervisor John Weishan, a Marine, complained several years ago that Walker was engaged in self-aggrandizement, shutting out the America Legion and the County Board and insisting on creating his own charity effort along with Russell for veterans, Weishan was hooted down as just another liberal politician opposed to Walker’s right-wing vision. So busy were the attackers that they failed to notice what the DA seized on, that Walker created a 501 ( c ) for veterans out of his own elected office, a big warning signal of what could happen to funds from the well-meaning public.

Today, Weishan looks pretty prescient . . . while Walker? It’s as if the preacher’s son was grabbing a nap in the back pew when morality and ethics came up in the pulpit.

James Rowen, another person I hold in the highest esteem, picked up on Noth's piece and took it even further. Rowen points out that Weishan led the charge to keep Russell from being appointed as Director of Economic Development. Rowen felt that this was part of a slap back at Weishan for his defiance:

So it would not surprise me that Walker chose to transfer the veterans' charity management to Russell because Walker saw it as a way to stick it to Weishan.

I can hear Walker saying, 'Weishan thinks he's the veterans' guy in the Courthouse? He thinks he can push me around by making Russell's life difficult? I'll show Weishan who's in charge here: watch me give that veterans' program to Russell just to tick Weishan off.'

That's my theory, and don't think for a moment that scores in government aren't settled just like that when a chief executive wants to teach a lesson to a nettlesome legislator.

While all three of these fine gentleman have rational theories that have merit - after all, Walker has shown himself to be a butt-kisser, unethical and punitive - my thoughts take me in a slightly different direction.

Having lived under the Walker regime for going on ten years now, one of things I know for certain about Walker is that everything he does is self-serving. He can't resist a chance to grandstand and try to curry favor with someone.

At the risk of appearing overly cynical, I believe that Walker saw "Operation Freedom" as just one more opportunity to promote himself. Indeed, if you look at the page for "Operation Freedom" you see Walker everywhere. Even their flicker page, which only has 27 pictures after all those years and tens of thousands of vets, and half of those are pictures of Walker. Yet the events were able to give him the appearance of being such a good patriot. And by tying in his good buddies and free advertisers at WTMJ radio, he was getting all sorts of publicity.

Since he left Milwaukee County, I can't recall one thing that he did to show that he still wants to honor vets outside of what is absolutely obligatory.

It would also explain Walker's desire to keep the control of "Operation Freedom" close to him, so that he could minimize any negative exposure for himself with all those mean old veterans that might not agree with his ideology.

When I spoke to Weishan, he told me that it cost Milwaukee County $100,000 in lost revenue each time they closed the zoo to the public. In other words, this was just another way he could use his office to promote his personal political interests.

And if Walker was so concerned about the vets, why did he wait two years after the discovery of the missing money to finally file a formal complaint? Is it possible that he only did so when he became nervous when the Democrats filed their complaint against Walker and Russell?

All of this indicates to me that Walker did all of this just to get some free publicity and brownie points for his campaign.

And before anyone wants to try to raise the point that conservatives respect veterans too much to pull such a dastardly scheme as to use them in order to simply raise funds and promote conservative causes and/or candidates, let me give you two names to counter that false argument: Sean Hannity and Lt. Col. Oliver North.

The Final Results Of The Iowa Republican Caucus

2012-01-09T22:07:00.001-06:00

Heh. I thought guns would have made it in there somewhere:

Source

Walker Recall Proves To Be Even More One Helluva Bargain

2012-01-09T22:02:00.000-06:00

I pointed out over the weekend that the recall of Scott Walker would be one helluva bargain for the people of Wisconsin.

Today, the price that tax payers will be stuck with for Walker puckering up to the mining companies shows that it would be even more of a helluva bargain that previously thought:

A Republican bill designed to kick-start an iron mine in far northwestern Wisconsin could mean additional costs for the state Department of Natural Resources ranging from $550,000 to $3.8 million per year, according to a DNR analysis.

The 183-page bill would make a number of broad changes, including placing time limits on the DNR to approve or deny an iron-mine application. It also caps at $1.1 million the amount that a mining company could be asked to reimburse the DNR for costs associated with the application approval process.

Those factors could lead to higher expenses and lower revenue, the agency found.

The DNR conducted a fiscal analysis to estimate the financial impact of the legislation. While acknowledging the analysis was based on assumptions and uncertainties, the agency concluded that its overall costs could increase by millions of dollars per year.

And that doesn't include the cost to clean up whatever toxic crap they spew into the air and the rivers.

But with just the mining-related costs given, the Walker recall would pay for itself in three short years.

Add all the other costs that Walker has foisted upon us and the recalls could be paid for in just months.

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LVI

2012-01-09T21:49:00.000-06:00

It's been said time and time again. When you take money away from the people who would spend it, the economy starts to go stagnant and then the businesses start to suffer. It's no different in the world of travel:

A dramatic drop in traffic at Central Wisconsin Airport in 2011, combined with increasing fuel costs, has officials worried that 2012 could bring flight reductions that would crimp travel for people in the region.

More than 248,000 people flew into and out of CWA on commercial flights between January and November, a decrease of 14.5 percent from the same time period in 2010. Airport Administrator Tony Yaron blamed a sluggish economy and flight reductions by the airlines as reasons for the decline.

A few paragraphs after the ones cited above, it talks about a family who is fortunate enough to have enough money to take a number of trips, but even though they can do this, they need to make some sacrifices to do so (emphasis mine):

The family does not plan to cut back on its traveling in 2012, but will cut back on trips to restaurants and other spending to save money for trips to Wisconsin, Miami and Puerto Rico, Fox said.

While I'm not judging their decision, it needs to be pointed out that their decision, and similar decisions made by other people who might not be able to afford even the trips, will impact those local businesses and further damage the economy.

And so the Scott Walker-inspired downward spiral will continue.

Other Politicians Can Abide By The Law, Why Can't Walker? -- UPDATED

2012-01-09T19:01:00.000-06:00

I pointed out a while ago that Scott Walker was showing his absolute corruption by feeling that he should have the right to have taxpayer dollars be spent on doing his campaign work. Walker wants the Government Accountability Board, a nonpartisan group formed to enforce election laws, to violate state laws by going through the recall petitions instead of having his campaign do that, as is required by law.

Indeed, at the time, I consulted with Michael Maistelman, one of the state's leading election law attorneys. Maistelman has recently been awarded the honor of being one Wisconsin's Leaders in the Law, so he obviously knows what he's talking about. When I consulted with him on this matter, he told me this:

I called Attorney Michael Maistelman, one of the state's leading election attorneys, to confirm my suspicion that this was another bogus complaint. Attorney Maistelman confirmed that it has always been the responsibility of the candidate and his or her campaign to challenge the signatures of their opponent, whether it is for a recall or even just for nomination papers to get on the ballot. He also told me that he has bumped a number of Republicans off of ballots by having invalid signatures stricken leaving his client's opponent with not enough to get on the ballot. He said that the Republicans have done that to a number of Democrats as well.

Maistelman also confirmed that it was always the campaign that paid for that legal work to be done. He added that Scott Walker's campaign would have much more funding than what would be needed to review and challenge the signatures of the recall.

Despite this, Walker went running to Waukesha County Judge Mac Davis, a dyed in the wool Republican, who subsequently chose to ignore the law and not only deny the recall petitioners their right to be heard in court, but then ruled that the GAB must violate state law.

Funny thing is, just this weekend, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported about some local races here in Milwaukee. The gist of the report is that some candidates got bounced off the petition for not having enough valid signatures (emphasis mine:

Sue Edman, the commission's executive director, said nominating petitions submitted by 1st District candidate Virgie Wynn, 4th District candidate William Crowley and 6th District candidate Duffy Holloway were disqualified because they didn't have enough signatures with valid addresses within their respective districts, while 7th District candidate Roosevelt Sanders was disqualified for not filling out his papers properly. Holloway also had been disqualified from the 6th District ballot in 2008.

The disqualified candidates can appeal those decisions to the three-member commission. That panel could meet Tuesday to rule on any appeals and on challenges to candidates' papers.

Ald. Willie Wade is challenging 7th District candidate Jason Hargis' papers and Ald. Bob Donovan is challenging 8th District candidate Chez Ordonez's papers. Ald. Bob Bauman also filed a challenge to Crowley's papers in case Crowley successfully appeals the disqualification ruling, said Mike Maistelman, attorney for Bauman and Wade.

Mayoral candidate Ieshuh Griffin tried to file two separate challenges to nomination papers filed by rival Edward McDonald, a University of Wisconsin Extension faculty member, but both were rejected because they were filed incorrectly, Edman said. Had Griffin succeeded in disqualifying McDonald, she would have eliminated the mayoral primary and faced Mayor Tom Barrett alone.

Similarly, Wynn tried to challenge Ald. Ashanti Hamilton's papers, but her complaint also was rejected because it was filed incorrectly, Edman said.

So, the aldermen and the candidates either hired an attorney to challenge their opponents forms or they did so themselves. And these candidates don't pull in anywhere the amount of money raised by Walker over the last two months as he has spent as much time traveling the state to kiss up to special interest groups for their big money donations.

I'm just wondering where all the conservatives that are worried about government waste, government ethics and election integrity have gone too. Not one of them is standing up for any of those issues in this matter.

That speaks as loudly for them as Walker's corruption of the legal system does.

ADDENDUM: My friend Jay Bullock has already touched on this subject as well, citing actual law in doing so.

This is supported and enhanced by Ed Fallone at the Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog in which he writes:

One merely has to read the statute as a whole. For example, Section 9.10(2)(g) states “[t]he burden of proof for any challenge rests with the individual bringing the challenge.” The grounds for a challenge are listed in Section 9.10(2). Under the statute, a challenge may be brought and the signature removed if the challenger establishes by affidavit or other evidence that the signature is duplicative (Section 9.10(2)(i)) or that the signature is of an ineligible individual (Section 9.10(2)(l)). Under Section 9.10(2)(q), challenges may be brought for grounds other than those specifically listed. That would include challenges based on the assertion that the name on the petition is fictitious or unrecognizable.

In other words, at the prompting of the Friends of Scott Walker, Judge Davis has interpreted the words “careful examination” in Section 9.10(3)(b) so that they require the GAB to affirmatively seek out duplicative, fictitious and unrecognizable signatures when the language of Section 9.10(2) clearly places the burden of removing signatures that fall into these categories on the challenging party and not on the GAB.

In the comments section of the same blog, Mr. Fallone further points out that the reason Scott Walker is allowed to raise unlimited funds is for the singular purpose of going through and challenging the petitions.

I would simply add that if Scott Walker foolishly spent all of the money he raised on easily refuted commercials instead of challenging the petitions, that is not GAB's fault, nor is it the fault of the taxpayers, and neither are obliged to pay for the myopic way Walker chooses to run his campaign.

He Should've Remained Silent

2012-01-09T01:19:00.000-06:00

In yet another showing of how vulgar and utterly classless the right wing can be, ultra-conservative blogger "Silent E" shows himself to be a real prize:

You’re a sick senior citizen and the government says there is no nursing home available for you. So what do you do?

Our plan gives anyone 65 years or older a gun and 4 bullets. You are allowed to shoot four Politicians.

Of course, this means you will be sent to prison where you will get three meals a day, a roof over your head, central heating, air conditioning and all the health care you need!

This type of rhetoric would be over the top on any day of the year, but to write something this disgusting - advocating for assassinations of our political leaders - on the one year anniversary of the shooting of US Representative Gabrielle Giffords goes beyond the pale.

And don't expect any of his right wing buddies to call him out on it either. Heck, they probably didn't even see anything wrong with it.

And these are the same people that get outraged when a demonstrators yell "Shame!" at Republicans who violate the Constitution and people's civil rights. Go figure.

Tracey Corder: "The People Will Be My Boss"

2012-01-09T00:49:00.000-06:00

Tracey Corder

Tracey Corder is a candidate for the 18th District seat on the Milwaukee County Board. That seat is currently held by Supervisor John Thomas, who has decided to join the throng of people running for City of Milwaukee Comptroller.

On Sunday morning, Ms. Corder and her campaign manager, John Heflin, took some time out of their busy campaign schedule to meet with me.

I asked Ms. Corder what she thought were the main issue or issues the county is facing and what would she do to address them.

She responded with three things that she has been hearing a lot from the people she's been talking to as she's been knocking on people's doors: Transit, economic development of the Northridge area and the poor reputation of the County Board.

In regards to transit, she said that the northwest corner of the county has been getting their bus services cut very deeply and people aren't able to get to the jobs that are available. She would like to see services restored with expanded routes and more frequent services.

I asked how she would fun this, especially with the county being strapped for cash and she said that she would push for a dedicated funding source for the transit system. As she put it, "You can't say you're serious about jobs if you're not serious about getting people to the jobs."

In regards to the Northridge area, Ms. Corder said that she would like to see the county put forth some effort in economic development in that area. She said that many of the people that live in that district do their shopping in Menominee Falls and Germantown. She said that this is a problem because that is Milwaukee County money being spent in neighboring counties. If they developed the Northridge area up and attract the stores that people want to shop at, the people she's spoken to said they would rather shop there rather than go to those other communities.

She also told me that a lot of people have a negative impression of the County Board and that they see the board as a group of do-nothings. She said that she would work to change that impression, at least in her district, by having monthly town hall meetings. She also plans on being very active in her community and attend meetings with various groups and make herself as available as possible to the people in her district.

She said that she needs to hear from all the people in her district, whether they are people that vote for her, vote against her or just don't vote at all. She said, "I can't put policy in front of the County Board unless I know what they people want, how they feel."

I asked her if she had any statement regarding the word that one of her more prominent opponents, Lamar "Penny" Sikora apparently failed to get his name on the petition. She told me that she wasn't focused on that or on any of her other opponents. She said she was only going to worry about her own campaign and how she conducts it.

I also asked her about the kerfuffle regarding her former campaign manager, Nicholas Reindl, who has been accused of sending out emails attacking Sikora under a false name. She admitted that she wasn't clear on what the whole issue was between Mr. Reindl and Mr. Guerrero, who had made the accusations against him. But she did know she did not want to take the focus away from her campaign to deal with that negativity.

She said that she was proud to have the endorsements of State Representative JoCasta Zamarripa, Milwaukee Public Schools Board Director Annie Woodward, Judge Pedro Colon and County Supervisor Eyon Biddle.

When I asked her if there was anything else she wanted me to know, she said that she wanted to give credit to Emerge Wisconsin*. She is currently taking their training and said that the program, as well as her classmates, is what gave her the confidence and the skill to run for his seat.

After having met Ms. Corder and speaking with her, the people in the 18th District would be well served if they elected her to represent them. During the entire conversation, she kept a positive and upbeat approach, even when discussing the most challenging issues. She exuded confidence that while these issues were difficult challenges, they could and would be overcome.

I think that one of the things that impressed me the most is that she repeatedly emphasized that "the people would be [her] boss."

You can learn more about Ms. Corder at the her website. You can also follow her on Twitter and on Facebook.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I volunteer for Emerge Wisconsin, doing their social media work. However, this was the first time I met Ms. Corder and that commonality had no influence on my opinion of her.

"Say Republican!"

2012-01-08T20:48:00.000-06:00

Heh. Check out this video that came across my inbox this afternoon. The video is Scott Walker and Senator Luther Olson during Walker's ~~gubernatorial campaign~~ tourism promotion Harley Davidson ride in 2010:

Notice that the cameraman, who is off screen, says "Say Republican!" then quickly apologized as he remembered the Democrats were there taping the whole thing. You can see Walker cringe at the telling gaffe.

And yes, that is Tim Russell, of Walkergate fame, wearing that gaudy Air Tran polo over another shirt, looking like a 1980's fashion reject.

Of course, long time readers of this site know that the whole trip smelled from day one, when Air Tran decided to sponsor the ride about the same time Scott Walker decided to give them much more space at Mitchell International Airport.

To add to the suspicious nature of the ride, Walker had moved it up from it's usual time in the middle of summer to the middle of May. *Coincidentally*, the ride just so happened to end back in Milwaukee as the State Republican Convention was about to convene in Milwaukee. Walker said at the time he moved the ride up all that time because too many people complained that in the summertime it was too hot to ride a motorcycle.

No, seriously, he really did:

This year's trek comes a month earlier and puts it just ahead of the state Republican Party convention, which runs May 21-23 in Milwaukee. Walker said he moved this year's bike trip because it got too hot during last year's ride.

And yes, Russell was acting as a county employee and was driving a county car during this trip, according to reports. It gives one cause to wonder what the Director of Housing has to do with tourism and why he was wearing the Air Tran shirt, but Walker was not.

It was the actions of Walker and Russell during this campaign bike ride that led the Democrats to file their first complaint against Walker with the DA's office. It should be interesting to see what else comes from Walkergate.

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LV

2012-01-08T01:45:00.000-06:00

BizTimes.com came out with the latest job numbers, and they seem like a broken record, playing the same thing over and over:

New requests for unemployment benefits fell by 15,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 372,000, the U.S. Labor Department reported today.

The average of new claims over the past four weeks, meanwhile, dropped by 3,250 to 373,250, marking the lowest level since June 2008.

However, first-time claims in Wisconsin spiked to 27,837 last week, up from 17,646 in the prior week, according to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

According to the latest seasonally adjusted U.S. Labor Department estimate, Wisconsin’s unemployment rate stands at 7.3 percent, which is below the national rate of 8.6 percent, but Wisconsin has lost private sector jobs for five consecutive months.

So while the rest of the nation has been gaining jobs at an increasing rate and starting to recover from the Bush/Cheney recession, here in Wisconsin, where are governor follows the Bush/Cheney plan, has been consistently losing jobs at a faster and faster pace.

And Walker and his supporters really expect us to believe that his budget is working?

Secret Video From Walkersha Rally

2012-01-07T15:04:00.001-06:00

I reported earlier in the week that the Koch Brothers-funded front group, Americans for Prosperity, was hosting a pep rally in the deep heart of red country, Walkersha County. Here is a video secretly taken from that rally and smuggled to the free world:

We are unable to confirm whether that is Owen Robinson at this time.

Oh, What A Tangled Web(site Problem) They Weave!

2012-01-07T14:43:00.000-06:00

As the most recent events of Walkergate unfold, namely the arrest of Tim Russell, long time friend and close associate of Scott Walker's, things are starting to creep closer to Walker.

Despite Walker and his campaign quickly trying to backpedal away from Russell after his foretold (by yours truly) arrest was made, they are finding it hard to get away from a decades long relationship.

As I had reported on the day of the arrests, the criminal complaint against Russell shows that he used the purloined money that he stole from the veterans and used it to buy a large number of websites, including those being used for the unofficial official campaign website for Walker. (And yeah, I called it that that website was being run by people in Walker's county executive office.)

Now, Walker knew that Russell was in the thick of the Walkergate investigations. Walker himself claimed that he only knew what he read in the papers. Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has done an excellent job of covering it, including pointing out Russell's involvement in almost each of his Walkergate stories. Despite this knowledge, Walker was perfectly comfortable with having Russell and his roommate, Brian Pierick, who was arrested for child enticement, do the administrative work for his official campaign website.

In fact, Russell was listed as the administrator up to and through the day before the arrest.

I also find it interesting that Russell did his work through his realty agency's website, which he had paid for with the money he stole. Apparently doing campaign work through work computers was a common habit for Russell, no matter where he worked.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin had already caught on to this too and have filed a complaint with the GAB alleging that Walker failed to report the in-kind donations in his campaign finance report for the cost of the domains.

Walker's new mouthpiece for the campaign, Ciara Matthews, claims that the complaint is frivolous and that none of the domain names were associated with the campaign.

I don't know, but when your site administrator is also setting up and contributing to another website that closely resembles, to the point of being identical, to the campaign website, it would seem that there was a bit of a connection there.

It will be interesting to watch as more of the missing pieces of the Walkergate puzzle come to the light of day. But there is no denying from where the stench of corruption is coming from.

The Effect Of Walkergate Already Being Observed

2012-01-07T02:18:00.000-06:00

The ramifications of the embezzlement arrests of Scott Walker's long time friend and crony, Tim Russell, as well as another of Walker's appointees is already starting to show its effect, all the way to Madison.

John Peterson III, who already has a shady past of voting in favor of the state Investment Board sticking $80 million into a company with ties to his own corporation, withdrew his name from consideration for being reappointed to the board on Friday. If Russell and the others had not been arrested, it's doubtful that Peterson would have withdrawn his name.

But appointing people with questionable pasts seems to be a habit for Walker.

He was aware that Tim Russell had been terminated from the state for stealing taxpayer dollars, yet Walker willfully transferred the veterans' funding into Russell's care. Not only that, but he kept promoting Russell to positions where he had access to all sorts of funding, including federal funding. (Given that Russell was also their treasurer, how much you want to bet that the Republican Party of Milwaukee County is scrambling to do an audit at this moment, while they are all eyeing each other suspiciously?)

Of course, it was Walker who made Madison into Crony Capitol of the world, appointing scads of unqualified people into appointed positions just because they gave him money or other favors.

It would be safe to say that there is an established pattern for Walker that if he thinks it will benefit him in the slightest, he will not hesitate to put anyone in any position, no matter who might get hurt.

Cindy Kilkenny Hits The Perfecta In Foolishness

2012-01-07T00:23:00.000-06:00

On Wednesday, as most of you know, I had an article published in the Shepherd Express which provided an Overview of Walkergate up to that moment.

Sure enough, the very morning after the paper hit the stands, Tim Russell, long time close friend and supporter of Scott Walker, and two other people were arrested.

Many right wingers, from squawk radio hosts to bloggers, were trying to frame this as being the totality of the entire John Doe investigation.

Of course, as I had shown yesterday, they couldn't be any more wrong.

One of the right wing bloggers that were flailing in their desperation to hide the truth was Cindy Kilkenny, proprietor of the questionably named "Fairly Conservative." Not only did she have an extremely acute case of selectivitis, but displayed it to the world in extraordinary fashion:

Here's some free, unsolicited advice for Kilkenny: If you're going to write an entire post trying to show someone is wrong, first make sure they are wrong. That was your first mistake. And then, if you despite to attack despite being in the wrong, do try to at least check for errata.

While being deified is a complement, my name is Chris, not Christ. And the publication is Shepherd Express, not Shepard.

If you want to prove yourself to be desperate in trying to protect your hero, that's you're business and you have that right. But do try to take care not to give yourself the appearance as being as poorly education as Walker is.

Then you're just embarrassing yourself.

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LIV

2012-01-06T23:12:00.000-06:00

Scott Walker's budget continues to have its negative impact, even on the State Bar of Wisconsin:

Feeling the pressure of a difficult economy, the State Bar of Wisconsin said this week that it has eliminated nine jobs from its staff.

In a statement issued Thursday, State Bar Executive Director George Brown said that the nine positions were eliminated through a combination of voluntary retirements and layoffs due to a year-end deficit.

"Despite efforts to reduce expenses and increase revenues over recent years, economic realities necessitate more drastic cost-cutting measures to ensure the organization's long-term fiscal stability," Brown said.

The layoffs reduced the State Bar's staff by 10 percent, to 86 full-time employees.

No one is safe from the damage Walker is causing.

Walker Recall Proves To Be One Helluva Bargain

2012-01-06T22:45:00.000-06:00

Four months ago, Representative Robin "Suds" Vos thought he had a talking point when he asked the GAB to look at what the cost of recalling Scott Walker would be.

Today he got his answer: $9 million.

But Mike Tate, DPW Chair was ready and hit that one out of the park:

“The $9 million cost of a statewide recall election is great, but the cost of doing nothing is far greater. This undertaking is the biggest investment in the future of our state and families we can make.

It would take more than 7 recall elections to equal the cost of Walker's tax increase on seniors and working families. It would take more than 11 recalls to equal the tuition hike Walker foisted on University of Wisconsin-System students and their families. And Walker's $2.3 billion in tax giveaways to out-of-state corporations and the super-rich would pay for more than 255 recall elections. Wisconsin simply cannot afford Scott Walker any longer.

At the end of the day, no matter how Scott Walker and his Republican Party try to spin it, the people of Wisconsin called for this election. There is no price tag on democracy.”

Yeah, the kid did alright.

But then again, so did I, and I did mine four months ago.

Walkergate: The Tim Russell Tangent

2012-01-06T00:27:00.000-06:00

What a difference a day makes.

On Wednesday, the Shepherd Express published an article I had written to provide an overview of Walkergate.

On Thursday, Walkergate exploded with more news.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisolm announced the arrest and charging of three people stemming from the ongoing investigation. These included Tim Russell, who was charged with two felony counts of embezzlement and one misdemeanor charge of embezzlement. Also charged were Kevin Kavanaugh for one count of felony embezzlement and four counts of felony fraudulent writings and Brian Pierick for two very disturbing felony charges, one for child enticement and one for exposing genitals or pubic area. (Warning: The complaint against Pierick is very graphic) I will address the latter two in detail at a later date.

Tim Russell in happier times.

The most severe of the charges against Russell involve his stealing money from the charitable fund meant to help run Operation Freedom, an annual event meant to honor veterans by allowing them and their families free access to the zoo and food and beverages. The other two charges involve Russell stealing from two candidates for Milwaukee County Supervisor.

The complaint goes on to give a list of things Russell used the purloined money for, including vacation trips to places like Hawaii and a trip to meet former presidential wannabe Herman Cain.

Oddly, Scott Walker used his campaign to comment on government business and to take credit for bringing the issue to the DA's attention, which Chisolm had stated in his press conference. Perhaps he was advised that this would give him wiggle room when further news erupted, as opposed to an official statement as governor.

Squawk radio hosts and right wing bloggers came down with cases of acute selectivitis, in which they suffer severe symptoms of selective hearing, selective reading and selective comprehension to take a "there's nothing else to see here, move along" attitude. The notable exception to this epidemic outbreak was James Wigderson, who admitted that the investigation is continuing.

Indeed, Chisolm clearly stated in his press conference that this was an ongoing investigation.

And there are many unanswered question and unexplained events that would support the notion that Walkergate is far from being over. But before I delve into those, there are two things I feel should be noted.

One, this is not the first time it's been alleged that Russell has stolen. In October 2010, Milwaukee County Supervisor John Weishan brought up the fact that Russell had been terminated from a position with WHEDA when he used a state-owned credit card for personal use.

Another thing to note, which also would indicate that there is more news to come, is a specific part of the complaint against Russell. There is a section of the complaint that points out that Russell had used some of the money he had allegedly pilfered to buy a number of websites. One set of sites was for his realty business. The other sites were for apparent political use, including one that is very familiar to me:

The site, MilwaukeeCountyExecutiveScottWalkerforGovernor is the address used for the unofficial official Walker campaign site, ScottforGov.com, which I had pointed out in An Introduction to Watergate. The fact that Russell owned this site further supports my speculation from May 2010 that it was indeed Walker's staffers who were blogging on there during work hours. It would also go along way in explaining why this site had a much easier time getting records requests fulfilled than most people, as was exemplified by the time I had inquired about a Milwaukee Parks logo on a tea party banner.

As I mentioned earlier, there are a number of things that have not been addressed in today's news that would indicate that this is not the beginning of the end of Walkergate just yet.

Here are just a few of them:

This does not address what, if anything, they are going to be doing about Darlene Wink's self-admitted politicking on the taxpayers dime.
The involvement if Cullen Werwie, Walker's spokesman, in the investigation or why he was given immunity.
It was not explained why they want to speak with Andrew Jensen, the realty mogul, who is expected to meet with the DA's office on January 25.
It does not explain Nardelli's sudden departure from his state job or his need to lawyer up.
Nor do the events explain why Walker paid Steve Biskupic, former US Attorney, at least $60,000 to represent his campaign.
There was also no mention of the footage shot by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, showing Russell campaign during Walker's last Harley-Davidson ride around the state or the complaint they filed with the DA's Office as a result.
It does not resolve the mystery of how so many files and computers ended up missing from the Milwaukee County Courthouse as Walker left to become governor.
There is no mention of Cindy Archer or the things that they took from her home, including a computer hard drive.

In addition to the above points, the biggest question regarding them is how much did Walker know about any of this. It's hard to believe he knew nothing, considering that many of these people were his top advisors and closest friends.

Yup, no matter how much Walker or his supporters might try to wish Walkergate away with the news from Thursday's arrests, John Doe is very much alive and kicking. Time will tell how many more shoes will drop before it is all over or the full impact it will have on Walker's political career, including his pending recall.

All The Easier For Walker's Money Carriers

2012-01-05T19:59:00.000-06:00

Now Walker's money carriers and the special interests in Washington, D.C. will have an easier time getting their wads of cash and marching orders to Walker:

Frontier Airlines begins Madison-Washington service on Thursday

The Real Effects Of Walker's School Budget Starting To Be Seen

2012-01-05T19:48:00.000-06:00

I've pointed out before that even though the schools are already being impacted by Scott Walker's irresponsible budget with less teachers, bigger classrooms and programs being cut, that the real impact hasn't been felt yet. Some school districts, like Merrill's, are starting to see the reality of it (emphasis mine):

Parents of Merrill elementary school students said a proposal to move fifth-grade students to the district's middle school would disrupt their kids' education and place them in an environment for which they might not be ready.

Merrill Area Public Schools administrators proposed sending all fifth-grade students now divided among five elementary schools to Prairie River Middle School in the middle of the city. The idea is one of 14 cost-cutting measures aimed at cutting about $1.4 million from the district's $40.5 million 2012-13 budget. Closing Maple Grove Elementary School in the town of Hamburg and Pine River Elementary School on the city's east side also is proposed along with eliminating the boys hockey program.

About 200 students now in fourth grade would move to the middle school as fifth-graders if the board approves the change, Interim Superintendent Bruce Anderson said. He is uncertain how the increase would affect individual class sizes or the number of classrooms for the grade and said the district will spend more time studying those questions if the board approves the change.

You're going to be seeing this all over the state as parents start to realize that Walker's budget is harming their children's education and would have life long impacts for the children. And this will be becoming more noticed as we close in on the time of the actual recall election.

I wonder if Walker is still so proud of what he has done.

Walkergate: Scott Walker's Other Big Problem

2012-01-05T01:14:00.000-06:00

The Shepherd Express published an article written by yours truly:

Scott Walker's Other Big Problem: An Overview of Walkergate

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LIII

2012-01-05T00:53:00.001-06:00

I don't know how many times I have to explain this.

When people lose all or even part of their income, or feel that they are about to, they instinctively cut back on spending. And when people cut back on spending, the first things to go are the niceties, such as going out to eat or catching a movie in a theater. People also doing things more at home and for themselves. They'll brew a pot of coffee instead of going out for one. Or they'll bake their own cake rather than buying one from a bakery.

We recently learned that over 1,000 people in Central Wisconsin are about to lose their jobs when two major plants are about to be shut down. The ripple effect could cost that many again as other business start to suffer as that money flow stops.

The ripple effect is already being seen, as a baker is about to close, costing 51 people their jobs:

A longtime Stevens Point bakery will close next week because of financial difficulty.

Colligan's Bakery & Cafe, 2201 Division St., will close Jan. 14. The owners also will close the company's production facility, 1733 West River Drive, where they handle baking for the cafe along with wholesale orders for other businesses.

According to a notice sent to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development by Lois Colligan, who co-owns the bakery with her husband, Terry, 51 employees will lose their jobs, 26 of which are "low hours or newly hired employees."

"The closing of the business is due to extreme financial hardship and the business will be filing for bankruptcy," Lois Colligan stated in the notice to the state department. The Colligans tried to sell the business but were unsuccessful.

People aren't putting up with Walker concentrating the wealth in the hands of the few super rich campaign donors. It's starting to hurt their families and compelling them to do whatever they can to get the state back on track. Which explains why, even this late into the signature collecting phase and deep into the winter, people are still lining up to sign the petitions.

Mark These Important Recall Dates!

2012-01-05T00:34:00.000-06:00

From the recall organizers:

The recall committees have set deadlines for the turnin of petitions. They are:

Tues, Jan. 10 -- The deadline for mailing petitions to: PO Box 2569, Madison, Wis., 53701

Fri., Jan. 13 -- The last day to drop off petitions at recall offices. Most offices will then be shuttered after this date.

Sat., Jan 14 through noon, Jan. 16 -- A grace period for the dropoff of petitions, where remaining recall petitions may be dropped off at the recall Madison field office, 6602 Normandy Lane, Madison, Wis., 53719.

Tues., Jan 17 -- The recall petitions will be submitted to the Government Accountabilty Board. Details of press availability to follow.

Ending collection of petitions a few days before we turn them in allows us valuable time to sort and process in a way that will ensure easy processing by the GAB.