Friday, November 22, 2013

Son of Doe: Gunsmoke


As the gentle reader is aware, there is a second John Doe investigation, commonly referred to Son of Doe, which is looking at the dark money being laundered by right wing front groups as well as possible illegal collaboration between these groups, Scott Walker's campaign, various Republican legislators and WISGOP.

Now we might want to add a Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice to that list.

A friend of Cog Dis alerted me to a pdf regarding an open records request that had been done by an unknown person or persons.  The pdf is 117 pages long and consists of emails to and from various members of Scott Walker's gubernatorial staff.  Here is a link to the Scribd download I created.

In the emails, there are a few names one might recognize, such as Michael Brickman, who worked for Walker's campaign, although he was known as Rich in Retail then.  Now he is Walker's Education Policy Assistant.  In other words, the liaison between Walker and Scott Jensen.

On page 37, there is an email from one Paul Behling to Scott Matejov, Assistant to the Governor and Deputy Chief of Staff for External Operations. The email was sent on Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 2:58 pm to Matejov's official government email.

Here is a screen capture of it with the first paragraph of the email:

Click on image to embiggen

As the reader can easily see, Behling is in Big Energy and is trying to schmooze Matejov to get a piece of the action.  Even that early into Walker's reign, the feeding frenzy was in full force.

But that's not even the most interesting part.

The rest of that page is consists of Behling asking for a job, or at least help getting a job.

But at the bottom of this page is a note which apparently is supposed to be a sort of name-dropping reference regarding the work he did for the campaign of David "Chokehold" Prosser.  Read it closely several times.  It is simply jaw dropping in what he says:

Click on image to embiggen
In this one paragraph, along with the poor grammar, Behling is saying that he worked with the third party groups to help the Prosser campaign using "very creative" ways to get around campaign laws.  He also laments that it wasn't as easy as helping Walker's campaign because WISGOP wasn't there to help the campaign.

Again, just to drive the point home, that's an admission of collaboration between Prosser's campaign and the third party, dark money groups.  It is also an admission of collaboration between Walker's campaign, the third party groups and WISGOP.

I should also not that attached to Behling's email was a copy of a letter from Prosser to Behling, thanking him for his work as Prosser's Waukesha County Coordinator.  Not top of the food chain in a campaign, but not the bottom either.

This is the kind of things that Ed Fallone and Mike Maistelman had talked to me about for my article in the Shepherd Express nearly two years ago.

Now if a loud-mouthed union thug blogger can find this stuff, can you even imagine what the professionals either on a local or federal level, could find?  No wonder these guys are running scared.

ADDENDUM:  Since I know that some of you will be looking through the pdf before I can do further work on it, check out pages 51-53 and the emails between Steve Einhorn and Matejov.  Einhorn is the guy who took Bradley Foundation money to put up the racist billboards aimed at voter suppression.  He was also involved with a pay for play deal with Walker's administration as well.

45 comments:

  1. Michael Brickman is no longer walkers ed go to guy....he has served his masters well, so he received a promotion to some rwnj republican welfare group

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  2. Once again, great work uncovering this info. I need to learn from you.

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  3. I hope there is a mass round up of these criminals, and they are cuffed, stuffed and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the LAW! Where does the TOP COP fit into this, and is this why he has decided to RETIRE???? PRISON in a Public facility, where they have cut funds would be the most ironic and karmic ending.

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    1. I work with the brother-in-law of our illustrious top cop and have listened to stories of the special favors JB has done. Like help in skirting DNR permits for building in wet land and waterfront properties. He made the statement that "all I have to do is call JB when I have difficulties with the DNR" yep just call Good Ole Boy JB and he will fix everything.

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  4. Is there anyway of getting the Prosser document to Francis Schmitz? Or does he have it?

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    1. Send this to the Smoking Gun website!

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  5. My best fantasy is to see Scooter and his cronies in orange jump suits led away to be incarcerated and protected by, ahem, union guards.. what a waste of skin he and he fellow anti democracy pro rich corporation cronies are.

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    1. No more union for Wisconsin Correctional Officers.

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    2. Oh, they still have a union. But now instead of working things out through negotiations and mediation, everything will go to court. This means higher costs for the taxpayers. Brilliance!

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  6. If the current attempt by high-powered criminal defense attorneys to quash the John Doe ever reaches the Supreme Court, I'm sure that "Justice" Prosser will recuse himself...cough cough.

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  7. Gareth, well played.

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  8. Happy Holidays John Doe! The celebration starts early this year!

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  9. Round and Round.

    Pages 10 to 13 show an email chain from "Education Action Group Foundation Inc".

    Can you say Koch and DeVos money? Others do.

    http://preaprez.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/eags-kyle-olson-exposes-kindergarten-teachers-use-of-click-clack-moo-cows-that-type-to-indoctrinate-students/

    Olson parades around as a concerned parent of a kindergartener. But we have pointed out that the EAG is secretly funded, has close ties to the Koch brothers, Andrew Breitbart and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. The Mackinac Center has recently been exposed for secretly sending emails and lobbying Michigan legislators in violation of their non-partisan tax status.

    http://eagtruth.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/koch-brothers-and-kyle-olson/

    On June 2nd, a new player in right wing attack politics, the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, will host an event in Michigan at the Lansing Center.

    The Franklin Center is a front for the Koch brothers-financed Americans for Prosperity, which, in turn, is known for financing the Tea Party movement since its inception. The Lansing event serves as a Tea Party training session hoping to create “Citizen Watchdogs” using FOIA “to impact the state and local government budgeting process, and … to advance [their] message through social media.”

    Kyle Olson is one of the scheduled speakers, conducting a session called: “Back To School Reports: How Does Michigan Education Compare With Other States?” This, together with sessions entitled “Exposing the Establishment Media,” “Who’s The Boss: Exposing Big Labor in Michigan” and “Voter Fraud/Election Integrity Issues,” serve the overall ALEC-inspired mission.


    http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/8240

    Kyle Olson claims to be a founder of a non-profit group called Education Action Group. In reality they are funded by the Koch and the Devos family. Betsy Devos is sister to Erik Prince of Blackwater fame, so there is a real right wing movement behind Olson's group known as EAG.

    http://www.mea.org/privatization/pdf/EAG_Tool_Kit.pdf

    EAG and the Anti-Union Movement While EAG’s connections to the Mackinac Center are well known, it’s relationship with the national anti-union movement are less well known.

    A connection with the aggressively anti-union group UnionFacts is becoming apparent. UnionFacts spent $1.3 million on TV and radio ads and over $800,000 on print ads trashing unions in 2008. Like EAG, they specialize in what’s been called “attack conservatism.” Kyle Olson maintains the MEAexposed website while UnionFacts sponsors the TeachersUnionsExposed site. Both are making a major push into what they sell as “Hijacked Elections.”

    The Center for Union Facts was established by the National Chamber of Commerce, which, together with its state affiliates has committed $8 annually to fund the CUF. The Chamber tapped Richard Berman, a 62-year- old former national Chamber staffer to run the Center for Union Facts.

    Since 1986, Berman has coordinated the advertising efforts for a half-dozen corporate front groups through his own DC based advertising and PR agency – personally making millions in the process

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    1. Also found this.
      http://eagnews.org/eagnews-kyle-olson-appears-on-stossel-to-spread-the-news-about-the-success-of-wisconsins-collective-bargaining-reforms/

      Kyle Olson, publisher of EAGnews, appeared on “Stossel,” a Fox Business Network program hosted by award-winning journalist John Stossel, in an episode that aired Thursday night. Olson talked about the positive effects of Walker’s Act 10, a groundbreaking law which limited collective bargaining privileges for public sector labor unions in Wisconsin.

      He told Stossel and his live audience about the freedom public employees now have to leave their unions if they choose and avoid related fees. He talked about declining union membership in the state since the law went into effect.

      “When you actually give teachers and public employees a choice, they drop out,” Olson said.

      But most of Olson’s appearance focused on the positive impact Act 10 had on the cost of school health insurance in the state. EAGnews recently released a report on that topic titled, “First Years of Freedom: Wisconsin Schools Saving Millions on Health Insurance in the Act 10 Era.”


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    2. All this is very informative, information that the public should know, something you would think our mass media would cover.
      John Stossel has always been an arch-libertarian (openly promoted by the Cato Institute)--just like your Rand and Ron Pauls, Milton Friedmans, Bradleys, Kochs and Devos mouthpieces--yet he portrays himself as somehow being "unbiased."
      They hate public education because of teachers unions. Friedman calls public schools "government schools." The Mackinaw Center is Michigan's libertarian think tank, part of a nationwide network of organizations, set up to promote just what the Bradley, Koch and Devos megabucks would want you--the relatively poor ordinary citizen--to have, according to their philosophy.
      Charlie Sykes will not descibe things this way, but he speaks daily pushing what the Bradleys and Prossers would have you believe.
      Follow the coordination and the money: they could not care less about Wisconsin laws.

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  10. Per the link below, both Franklin and Mackinac gets money from Mike Grebe's Bradley Foundation.

    http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mackinac_Center_for_Public_Policy

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  11. Looks like Paul Behling's in a rather "uncomfortable" position. Wonder if he'd like showering in a Federal prison?

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  12. FIVE John Doe investigations? That's what the Appeals Court said today as they laughed the desperate righties out of the courtroom. No wonder why they're trying to taint the investigation, cause this goes deep AND wide.

    Time for a little "dropping the bomb" by the good guys.

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    Replies
    1. Jake, that's just bad reporting. There is only two Does. The original one and the current one. There were five people that filed against the one investigation.

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    2. No, the court document itself says there are give John Doe investigations. It may be a bit of a misspeaks (I have little doubt the WisGOP crooks are working for the same puppet masters), but the quote is right from the Appeals Court itself

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  13. That's what the document at the link says, the decision from the Appeals Court. You have to read the whole thing. This decision only includes three of those five people. Apparently there is a separate Doe in each of the five counties, possibly the result of that law saying that a legislator can be tried in his home county? The plaintiffs are saying that one prosecuter covering all five counties is illegal, amongst other things. Plaintiffs are trying to consolidate the Does. Unbeliveable.

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    1. Yikes, yes, the court states that there are five John Doe investigations. Good catch by Jake. Amazing, as we ponder the presidential campaign of a politician with a criminal defense fund, after six convictions connected to him in one John Doe investigation now behind him -- but with five John Doe investigations currently underway. The ads against his campaign just write themselves.

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    2. Wasn't the law recently changed so the criminals have to be prosecuted where they live rather than where they commit their crimes? Thus presenting another opportunity for the activist SSupreme court of Wisconsin to issue get out of jail cards?

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    3. Won't matter if it's federal crimes, which telephone solicitations (like to fake David Koch) and money[laundering over state lines is involved. Prosser and the rest of the "WMC 4" won't be able to save the rightie slime then.

      I will say that if there's illegal coordination with Prosser's campaign, that this is the stuff recalls of justices are made of, and we may as well do it now before the Senate tries to limit it to being formally charged.

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    4. Just wondering here.

      Why structure it so there are John Does in multiple counties if it is federal crimes under investigation? So they can default to state charges in the case of no federal charges? That's why I think this legal change might have jammed a stick in the investigations spokes.

      It seems like an investigator might be investigating statewide (or nationwide) conspiracies, so why not have 72 John Does? Other than redundant and unwieldy?

      Delete
  14. Nice example of "divide and conquer."

    Eberle works for Huebsch's DOA in "Intergovernmental Relations." Matejov is Walker's Deputy Chief of Staff

    From: Eberle, Ed
    Date: Thursday, May 26, 2011 4:15 p.m.
    To: Matejov, Scott

    Know of any green bay (sic) companies that would be willing to talk about how expensive collective bargaining is?

    ReplyDelete
  15. I knew I'd seen
    that Paul Behling name before.


    Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch's 37th Birthday Party
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    [When]
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    5:00pm until 7:00pm in CDT
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    Republican Party of Waukesha County created the event.
    Like · Comment · Follow Post · August 3, 2012 at 12:57pm

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Republican Party of Waukesha County holds its event in . . . Milwaukee County.

      Weird.

      Delete
    2. That looks like a R4Realz event, just promoted by the Waukesha GOP, rather than a Waukesha GOP event. If it was a WGOP event, it would likely be at the Country Spring Hotel.

      Delete
  16. capper -- you put too much faith in your own "genius" and the propaganda guy -- dan bice. His story about a "new" john doe probe was full of deceptions that you uncritically propped up.

    You are not a nice guy to blog with anyhow -- thinking yourself infallible and doing whatever you can to swat down a responsible dialog -- but jake is right and you are wrong.

    Why jake continues to read your crap is on him though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I continue to "read his crap", because Capper has been a solid source on both John Doe and on other inside doings in Milwaukee County. Yes, he's a little self-righteous at times, but it doesn't change the fact that this guy is pretty good at what he does, and if you go back through the years, he's right a whole lot more than he's wrong.

      This blog and others are better sources than the J-S on a lot of this anyway, and it keeps them in line.

      Delete
    2. No -- not at all -- but spew the nonsense if you like. Others actually follow this, write about it, and have a much higher accuracy rate.

      And those folks NEVER mindlessly put thoughtful commentators down.

      Capper has a decidely anti-social bent. Prop him up if you like -- but it is your integrity as a blogger on the line too.

      Delete
    3. If you don't like me so much, why do you keep coming back?

      Delete
    4. arrogance -- what makes you think this anon comes back?!?!?!?!?!

      Just askin' why jake does -- he obviously had to prop you up.

      It ain't just the trolls that are stoooooopid here....

      stupidity+arrogance=very uninformed

      Delete
    5. Pro tip: Before calling anyone else stupid and/or arrogant, make sure you're using proper grammar. Otherwise, you're just looking like a troll.

      Delete
    6. And we are still waiting for you to show what is wrong with the post.

      Delete
  17. I think the Prosser connection could make it more difficult to appeal Friday's ruling to continue the John Doe investigation to the State Supreme Court. I don't think the attorneys who tried to stay the investigation had expected the appeals court to go along with them. This was all about taking it to the State Supreme Court where I think they would have a chance, given the current make-up of the court.

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  18. "... and a pleasure to work with."
    What exactly does "work with" mean in this context?

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  19. capper thinks every anonymous post is from the same person -- a girl named anna minity.

    Uninformed is one things -- vanity and contempt prior to investigation are willful ignorance -- the worst kind.

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    Replies
    1. "Prior to investigation" is in the past. This/these John Doe investigation/s have been going for years. Keep up, Anon 4:04.

      Delete
  20. "And those folks NEVER mindlessly put thoughtful commentators down."

    Were you using a handle when you got this put-down, or were you commenting as Anonymous?

    ReplyDelete
  21. Capper could quite easily 'out' your Anonymous status if he chose. Probably doesn't as a matter of integrity.

    On the subject of integrity, the Anonymous 8.36AM who thinks Capper swats down responsible dialog and (from style & content) back again at 11.25AM calling him anti-social doesn't show a whole heap of integrity or sociability him/herself hiding behind Anna Minty. Telling Jake his integrity is at risk seems a tad arrogant too. Hmm

    Not my blog but you are not adding anything of value to the discussion and if it was my blog I would swat you like a cockroach.

    Just saying.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Great work Capper, this is the stuff that keeps me coming back, for years now.
    Keep up the good work

    ReplyDelete