Friday, February 28, 2014

Of Charlie Sykes, Right Wisconsin and Walkergate

I have often opined that journalism is a dead - or at least dying - trade.  All too often, it seems like it is nothing more than a regurgitation of political press releases without any questioning or investigation to the veracity of the statements being made.

Dominique Paul Noth, an old school journalist, wrote an eloquent article in which he also laments the changes that have happened in journalism, although he admits it wasn't always so great either back in the day.

While it would well be worth the gentle reader to take a few minutes to read Noth's poignant observations on journalism as a whole, there is a section that I would draw the reader's attention to which outlines what we all know but few are willing to say outright - that the corporate media is in bed with the political operation of Scott Walker and his dark money supporters:
Many readers now wonder aloud why parent company Journal Communications continues to
damages its reputation of journalistic integrity by turning morning TMJ Radio over to the right-wing blathering of Charlie Sykes. But that was a ratings decision, not a news one. The justification remains that Sykes, like Rush Limbaugh, describes himself as an entertainer not a journalist. (Of course, he wants his opinions revered as hard commentary and he comes from a journalist background. In fact, I worked in the Journal newsroom when he was a reporter there, haranguing veterans with his ideas, which they found amusing or just quietly rolled their eyes. The general opinion was that he was likeable but not believable, and his father, the late journalist Jay Sykes, was more respected. So no wonder Charles moved on to pastures that would put him on a higher pedestal.)

Sykes’ ego has now led to a larger error. His Right Wisconsin, a website requiring paid subscription and full of his musings and those of others who claim journalistic credentials, including several right-wing bloggers JS has hired, was started by him to spread his journalism credentials and is actually owned by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Journal Communications, moving from mere employer of an entertainer to conspirator in right-wing journalistic thematics. That has destroyed the JS reputation for objectivity especially right now, as Walker falls into deeper disrepute through his own behavior as county executive.

Just ask Bice himself. In a web chat on jsonline Feb. 26, he was asked to comment on whether Right Wisconsin was an arm of Walker’s political machine, given that its editor, Brian Fraley, has been revealed as email contact in the recent release of John Doe missives. Chatted Bice:

“If you want to understand how closely tied Right Wisconsin is to the Walker team, do this: Go to the email records and do a search for the word Fraley, as in RW managing editor Brian Fraley, who worked with Kelly Rindfleisch back in the legislative caucus days. Then note that Fraley is involved in the email exchange that just led Gov. Walker -- apparently -- to fire DOT legal counsel John Schulze. Then turn on your radio and listen to Charlie Sykes argue against the Schulze's firing. It's a small and deeply intertwined world.”

Part of that deep intertwine is JS ownership of this Right Wisconsin so closely tied to Walker’s camp and Sykes’s disgust when Walker backs away from supporting his own gang.

As of this writing, Bice as columnist has suggested but not flat out said that Walker knew of the secret email network and router set up inside his county exec office. Meanwhile Sykes pretends it’s all old news though Walker’s pettiness in these emails destroys his Eagle Scout image and explains why Republican and Democratic prosecutors and judges continue to investigate him.

Any journalist can smell that Walker was deeply involved but there is a legal concern – and Walker has a deep bench of high-priced lawyers – about what you can say in print. After all, there wasn’t enough back then to charge Walker with corruption, just hints that good lawyers could try to strangle in court action.

As I spelled out to friends who asked: “There is a legal reason that Walker dodges his obvious knowledge and even media reporters who demand he answers. Consider the consequences if he does admit publicly what the emails of others reveal. It would confirm his role in an illegal coordination between campaign and county workers on taxpayer time. That opens him up to criminal action, in effect reopening the first John Doe while he and supporters are scrambling to delay the second John Doe until after the election.”

So while I understand the caution of journalists, I must point out that aggressive reform-minded newspapers – unlike JS -- would say aloud that Walker knew despite the legal implications. They have lawyers, too, and the First Amendment to protect them when they draw obvious conclusions. It’s not a matter of opposing or supporting Walker, it’s just going where the evidence leads good journalists.

For now, Bice in his column can hint, but he won’t say. Maybe that’s unusual caution in practice. But maybe, now that his owners have shown their real stripes, he has little choice.
There is not much that I or anyone else could add to this. But I would point out that the intertwining to which Noth speaks is even deeper than he reported. While it is true that the Journal Sentinel owns the website, it is funded - at least in part - by the Koch-funded Wisconsin Club for Growth.

Thus Sykes and Fraley have forsook all pretenses of being entertainers or journalists.  They are simply marionettes controlled by their corporate puppet masters.

The Walker Agenda Is Still Working! Part CCXII

Remember when Scott Walker said that by making Wisconsin a more business-friendly state that there would be an explosion of jobs? Neither do I. All we have gotten so far is a series of implosions, the most recent one coming from Horicon:
Deere & Co. will move some production from its Horicon plant to a plant in Tennessee, resulting in the loss of a few dozen seasonal manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin.

The Moline, Ill.-based maker of lawn-and-garden equipment, utility vehicles and farm machinery said Thursday it will move production of its EZTrak zero-turn mowers from Horicon to a Deere plant in Greeneville, Tenn.

The move will not reduce the number of year-round employees in Horicon but will reduce the number of seasonal employees hired during peak manufacturing months, the company said.
While some Walker apologists might say that these are "only" seasonal jobs being lost, in Walker's job-killing economy, we can't even afford losing these jobs.

And just how business friendly is Wisconsin when employers are moving their jobs to places like Illinois? Didn't Walker and his supporters say that Illinois was going to go under due to their "high taxes?"

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Liberating!

By Jeff Simpson

H/T to Malcontends

 In a victory for voting rights, Wisconsin State Senator Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) announced he will vote against a bill attacking early voting in Wisconsin.

Schultz announced his opposition to AB 54 and Senate Bill 324 through an aide in a phone conversation with Mal Contends this morning, effectively killing the anti-early voting legislation.

Schultz cited conversations with local election officials and small-town Wisconsin clerks who say they "prefer the flexibility they now have and are tired of Madison (the legislature and governor's office) trying to control and tell localities how to do their business."


  


Good for Dale Schultz!  It must be so liberating to finally be outside the oppressive ALEC stooges regime that is currently running our state!   Senator Schultz can actually do what his constituents sent him to Madison to do - Govern! 


Senator when you declare your run for Governor - Sign me up! I am all in!  

Domestic Abuse is No Joke



By Jeff Simpson

At least to Mary Burke it isn't!

Officials with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke say that they will make a charitable donation with the hefty campaign check they received from a well-known trial attorney accused of caning his wife.

On Dec. 20, Daniel Rottier, president of the personal injury firm Habush, Habush & Rottier, chipped in $4,500 to Burke's campaign. Burke is taking on Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

Rottier, 62, was charged earlier this month with a misdemeanor battery count of using a dangerous weapon to commit domestic abuse. A plea hearing is set for Friday.
His wife told authorities that a drunken Rottier struck her with a cane while the two argued about plans to take their children to a movie.

Asked about the donation late Wednesday, Burke spokesman Joe Zepecki said the campaign will be making a $4,500 contribution to Domestic Abuse Intervention Services, a Madison nonprofit that runs a shelter for victims of domestic violence and their children.

Congrats for Mary Burke to do the right thing by donating his money where it will make a difference and not giving it back to him.    Domestic Abuse Intervention Services is a great nonprofit and you should give to them also!  

While Mary Burke was doing the right thing, Joe Fadness(head of the Republican Party in WI) was busy making jokes and spending another domestic abuser's money!    My unofficial count, says that Bill Feehan donated $1900 to Scott Walker.  None of which was returned or donated. Hey Gov, see the link to DAIS above, they could use the $1900 to help people like Bill's ex-girlfriend

However, i know we have to give Billy a pass, since he only beat his girlfriend up once(how many times has Rottier been accused of it?):


Disorderly conduct

As the challenger in an important state Senate district, candidate Bill Feehan said he expected to be asked about his past run-in with the law.
In 2000, Feehan cut a deal with prosecutors in which they dropped a misdemeanor domestic battery charge against him for allegedly choking and injuring his girlfriend at the time. In return, he pleaded no contest to a disorderly conduct charge.
But the Republican businessman, who is taking on freshman state Sen. Jennifer Shilling of La Crosse, said he doesn't believe he has anything to apologize for.
"My character speaks for itself," said Feehan in an interview. "The people I know are supportive of me, and they understand this for what it is - a low blow by the Democrat Party."
According to court records, Feehan was arrested in September 2000 after an argument with his girlfriend at the time.
The girlfriend had accused Feehan of leaving her stranded at a La Crosse bar after a disagreement and then taking a dog from her apartment. He maintained that the dog was his.
She told authorities that she went to his residence, rang his doorbell and when he didn't answer, began throwing boxes and other items from his garage. In response, she said, he came outside, grabbed her by the throat and choked her, tossing her to the ground - something he denied. He accused her of kneeing him in the groin; she later acknowledged that she had done this but said it occurred while being choked.
Police described Feehan as difficult during an interview and after his arrest.
"He remained beligerant (sic) and cocky throughout the encounter," wrote Sgt. Dale Chroninger of the Holmen Police Department.
In October 2000, Feehan was charged with misdemeanor counts of battery and disorderly conduct. Three months later, prosecutors reduced the charges to an ordinance violation, and he pleaded no contest.
In an interview last week, Feehan said he was wrongly accused.
He added that those guilty of domestic abuse do it repeatedly. He said he has only the single allegation from years ago on his record.
"I've been happily married to one of the most successful businesswomen in Wisconsin for the last eight years," he said. "I don't know what more to say."
 




If Reelected, Walker Says Taxes Will Go Up

In an effort to avoid those pesky questions about the John Doe investigations and the document drop from last week, Scott Walker did the political equivalent of yelling, "Squirrel!" when he made a campaign pledge to hold property taxes " in check."  However, he won't say how he would do it, either by raising other taxes and fees, slashing services and/or increasing the deficit by a few more billion dollars.

But lest we forget, the last campaign pledge Walker made was to create 250,000 jobs by the end of his term.  Right now, with ten months left in his term, he has created about 20% of that goal - even less if you subtract the jobs created by Governor Jim Doyle's budget and policies.

Given Walker's phenomenally high level of failure regarding his first campaign pledge, I reckon that property taxes could quadruple, at least, if Walker were elected for a second term.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Walkergate: Was Tim Russell Authorized To Take Vets Fund Money?

The biggest shout out humanly possible goes to Jud Lounsbury at Uppity Wisconsin who had gotten a copy of a work release form for Tim Russell that raises some serious questions.

As the gentle reader knows, Russell was arrested, charged and convicted of stealing money from a veterans' fund and two political campaigns, although it could be said that the veterans fund, named Operation Freedom, was nothing more than a political operation for Scott Walker.

In Lounsbury's article, he provides us with a copy of a Inmate Offsite Review, a form used for inmates on work release:


In the part of the form highlighted by Lounsbury, we see that Russell admitted that he took the money.  But then Russell states that he felt "he thought that he did have authorization to do the things he did."

He repeats this thought in the next sentence saying that he thought he had the authority to do the things he did.

Lounsbury accurately points out that Scott Walker was the one ultimately in charge of the veterans fund.  He is the one that ignored advice from the Ethics Board to have the money removed from county control and instead gave it directly to Russell to be put in the front group he created just for this fund.

The question is: Did Walker give Russell the authority to take the money from the fund for personal use?

Some things to consider when contemplating this question is that, as I had just mentioned, Walker was the one in control of the money.  Russell was just the handler, doing what he was told to do.  And we already know that Russell used some of that money to build and administer Walker's campaign website as well as the ScottforGov.com blogsite, which Walker was not only aware of, but to which he gave his approval.

It should also be noted that in the inmate statement, Russell said that he thought he deserved the money because he was doing extra work (like setting up and running websites?) and that he felt the money was a consulting fee.  Could it be that Russell was just trying to rationalize his crimes by saying he was owed the money?  Given the fact that Russell is a pompous ass and pretty darn arrogant, that is a distinct possibility.

The third option, and probably the closest one to the truth, lies between the above two possibilities.

It could likely be that Russell went to Walker saying he needed money to help cover the cost of the websites and "administrative expenses."  Walker, more worried about covering his political butt on issues like the mental health complex and the tragedy at O'Donnell Park, said he could access this fund for those costs.  But when Russell saw all that money and how easy it was to take it, he took more than he had told Walker he was going to, telling himself he earned it.

Then when Walker realized that his long-time, bestest friend had ripped him off, he went to the DA's office, never imagining that selling Russell out would have the potential to torpedo his entire political career.

As they say, there is no honor among thieves...

Riddle Me This!



By Jeff Simpson


If this is true:

Walker said, "No, because I'm not going to get into 27,000 different pieces of information."

 Then why would someone lose his job over one email?

“It came to our attention last week that an email sent by a Department of Transportation employee prior to his joining the administration contained inappropriate and offensive content,” Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said. “The email is in poor taste and there is no room for this poor conduct in Governor Walker’s administration.”

Because Let's be real here, other emails have came to your attention and there is no comment:



I anxiously await a reporter asking this question.

The Dennis Smith Ethics Test



By Jeff Simpson

WiscTV's Jessica Arp, somehow found Scott Walker in the state and was able to ask him a couple of questions.  While Blinky McBlinkerson dodged the questions(of course), readers of Cogdis know that Walker, blatantly lied to Ms. Arp.




“Since I took office on Jan. 3 I’ve had a very clear standard in terms of a very comprehensive ethics package,” Walker said. “We actually have our staff and cabinet go through training and they have to sign a code of conduct.”
That ethics policy says that employees use of personal laptops or phones during the day should be limited, and that Blackberries and work computers should not be used for purposes unrelated to state business.
That doesn't speak to the use of personal email addresses, which is what both Walker and other aides used in the Milwaukee County office to discuss both campaign and county business.

Lets go back a few months and remember Dennis Smith.  Dennis Smith was Scott Walker's handpicked Head of  Department of Health Services.   Dennis Smith, used State of Wisconsin supplied computers, phones and staff to carry on an affair with his subordinate and child hood crush Mary Spear.  

Dennis Smith's punishment for violating Scott Walker's phantom code of ethics?

None.     He fled Wisconsin, after we outted the affair here at CogDis!

So either Scott Walker has a very poor memory or his "comprehensive ethics package" is not so clear nor ethical!

 


Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Milwaukee County Dodged Bigger Money Vulture Than Previously Realized

Last week, I wrote about how Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele again thought himself to be above rigged the bidding process in order to pick the for-profit, Texas-based MV Transportation (MV stands for Money Vultures) to take over the Milwaukee County Transit System.  I also pointed out that besides the shady and suspect way that Abele manipulated the process to pick MV Transportation, the company itself has a lengthy history of labor struggles, poor performance and scandalous actions.
the law and had

Fortunately, the County's Administrative Review Panel had a hearing on the bidding process and found that the bidding process was indeed flawed and that the contract could not be given to MV Transportation.

As to be expected, Abele tantrummed about it:
The Milwaukee County Board today cost taxpayers $76.3 million by rejecting a new transit contract.

MV Transportation, a nationally recognized and respected company, was awarded the transit contract last year after winning a competitive bidding process. Two of the losing bidders filed appeals with the County Board. Today, a special committee hand-picked by County Board leaders, spent five minutes in open session and quickly voted to not allow the contract.

“The decision today upholds the status quo and costs taxpayers millions and millions of dollars. Our transit system has been on life-support for years, this contract would have allowed us to put more money into bus service and remake a broken system,” County Executive Chris Abele said. “The County Board’s decision lacks factual support or legal reasoning and it should concern every resident of Milwaukee County who wants their government to save money and run more efficiently.”
Not even a week later, it is being reported that Milwaukee County not only dodged another bullet by rejecting Abele's corrupt plan, but that the bullet was much bigger and more damaging than originally thought.

Via Lisa Kaiser of the Shepherd Express, we find an article in the Dallas News which indicated that things with MV Transportation is worse than previously known.

First we find that their service in Dallas was extremely poor, so much so that the contract had to be redone to such an extent that it was questioned whether it wouldn't be better to start from scratch.  And on top of that, the vulture capitalists running the company are ready to sell it off as fast as possible:
Dallas Area Rapid Transit board members are poised Tuesday to overhaul and extend a $185.9 million contract with the controversial company that provides transportation for elderly and disabled passengers.

The move comes as MV Transportation is putting itself up for sale and after the transit agency has spent months weathering criticisms about the vendor’s performance.

A majority of DART’s 14 board members voiced support for the contract changes earlier this month. But some board members say the alterations are so vast they should solicit other companies’ bids rather than negotiate exclusively with MV.
And yes, there's more:
Veolia and MV were among the companies that submitted bids. MV won. Its takeover of paratransit was a disaster. Passengers complained about poorly trained drivers, out-of-the-way routes and long wait times.

Many of the criticisms echoed public complaints government entities across the country faced after they hired MV for paratransit and bus services. MV declined to comment for this article, citing the ongoing contract negotiations with DART.

The contract restructuring is meant to cover MV’s costs of making operational changes aimed to assuaging riders’ complaints. DART would still save money overall, but changes would likely eat up about $26.3 million in potential savings.

Dick Alexander is the senior vice president for Veolia Transportation. He said the decrease in potential savings under the proposed contract changes is essentially a loss to the public agency.
“That would go to DART and other DART projects,” he said of the lost savings. “Under this scenario, that money’s going to go straight to MV’s pocket.”
So the company is doing such a poor job that to fix the problems is that the cost of fixing the problems was so much, it ate up the savings.  Furthermore, MV was able to manipulate the situation that it would be the taxpayers taking the hit and not their profit margin*.

And anyone's guess is as good as the next as to what would happen when and if the sale of the company goes through.

Instead of his grandstanding and pity parties, Abele should grow up and apologize to the taxpayers for putting them at risk.  Furthermore, he should just resign from office and refer himself to the DA's office for his bid-rigging scheme.  Then again, he has already shown himself to be just as bad - if not worse - than Scott Walker, so he probably has no sense he did anything wrong.

*A profit margin made by laying off workers and cutting services to the elderly and disabled.  This is what Abele calls efficiency?

Monday, February 24, 2014

Now You Know Scott Walker Is In Trouble

Via digby, we see an excerpt of Scott Walker's appearance on Faux Newz.

One would think that it would be a snap for Walker, with the hosts fawning all over him and only giving him softball questions so he can trot out his campaign talking points.  Instead, Chris Wallace asked Walker some basic questions regarding the emails that came out last week.  Watch as Walker starts getting histrionic and actually lashes out in anger:



You can tell Walker is flustered by the way he is yammering and his voice is breaking. Many people from both sides of the political aisle have complemented Walker on his political savvy and his smooth talking.  However, those of us that have had to deal with Walker for over a decade know that he is rather flappable once he is knocked off his script and his talking points.

It should be noted that Walker did try to stick to his script by repeatedly emphasizing that Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm is a Democrat and that John Doe ended last year.  What he doesn't mention - nor does Faux Newz mention - that thee is a second series of John Does going on and that there are both Democratic and Republican district attorneys that requested these investigations.

As expected, Walker then tried to deflect the question by moving the focus to his false claims of success.  He trotted out the same tired, threadbare stories of balancing the budget, finding a surplus or creating more than 100,000 jobs.  But when this didn't work for even on a toady like Wallace, you could see the panic rise in Walker.

But of all the lies that Walker told in that short time, the one that really made my jaw drop is the one where he said that he did not have any of the staff from the Walkergate documents working for him.  What utter rubbish!

Just take a look at some of the people that were named in those documents and where they went after the election:

  • Tom Nardelli - Walker's former chief of staff was not only given a state job but then a handsome promotion before the pressure got to him and he skulked off, hoping not to be noticed.
  • Cindy Archer - Walker's Director of Administration is still working for Walker.  Although he has tried to distance himself from her, he still makes sure that she is well rewarded
  • Brett Davis - Lest the gentle reader forgets, at the time of the emails, Kelly Rindlfeisch was working for Davis, whom Walker had chosen to be his lieutenant governor.  Davis is now Walker's Medicaid director.
  • Keith Gilkes - After the election, Gilkes worked for Walker as his chief of staff and as his chief of graft before leaving to once again take over Walker's campaign.
Now, I can just hear the Walker apologists and trolls say, "But, capper, those people weren't convicted. Walker was only talking about the convicted people."

OK, fine.  

I would then point out Brian Pierick, Tim Russell's significant other, who was convicted for going after teenage boys.  He worked for the state even though he was under investigation.

And then there was the center of attention, Kelly Rindfleisch.  Even after her office and her home had been raided by the police, Rindlfeisch continued to work for Walker's campaign.  And if she wasn't working for Walker directly, he and Gilkes were pulling in favors to get her some income, or as most people call it, hush money.

As an added bonus, make sure you watch the video all the way to the end.  When Wallace starts talking about Walker running a presidential campaign, Walker finally stops falling over his tongue and starts talking like it's a given he's running for president, despite all of his denials to the local press.   

He was happy because he was able to get back on script.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

How Scott Walker Tried To Bamboozle The New York Times On Act 10

The New York Times ran a story written by Steven Greenhouse which has to deal with Act 10 and its after effects. Scott Walker tried to use the opportunity to run a trial run on one of his main talking points for his presidential campaign - about he "boldly" stood up to the unions, having to rewrite history as he did so.

The article is a good read and I think that Greenhouse did a fairly good job, although he could have done a little more research to verify or disprove some of the claims made.  While the gentle reader should read the whole article, just because Greenhouse did try to look at things from a lot of angles, there are three things I would point out to the gentle reader.

Walker Rewrites History

As Walker tried to lay out justification for the unjustifiable Act 10, he spun this yarn, which has no resemblance to reality whatsoever:
Mr. Walker said he became frustrated with public-sector unions when he was Milwaukee County executive. Union leaders, he said, were inflexible in negotiations, rejecting a proposal to cut pay by going to a 35-hour workweek instead of 40 hours. Instead, he said, he was forced to lay off workers and cut services.

“The left goes crazy when I evoke this,” he said, “but that’s exactly why I raised concerns about collective bargaining in the public sector.”
Walker does a regular Gish Gallop with that first line, trotting out so many falsehoods that it would make it difficult to fact check them all. Sadly for Walker, I lived through those times and I know the truth of it.

The first thing people should be aware of is that Walker never sat down at the bargaining table to negotiate anything to make these proposals.  Walker wanted to dictate things and impose his way on the workers because he doesn't have the skills to lead.

Secondly, the 35-hour work weeks were never part of a negotiation.  Walker's proposal for that came in the middle of 2009, when he claimed that the Milwaukee County had a $15 million deficit.  Walker then unilaterally imposed the shortened work week.

The unions immediately filed a grievance and for arbitration.  The arbitrator stopped the shortened work week on the first day.  Furthermore, Walker had to pay the workers for that hour they didn't work.  When the full hearing was held regarding this, it was found that Walker not only did not have the right to unilaterally cut hours, but had been lying about the deficit all along.

It should be noted that Walker tried again to do the same thing by writing up to 26 furlough days into the county budget, which was also illegal. After a lengthy series of trials, the county ended up paying the workers back for the furlough days.  The savings that Walker promised ended up costing taxpayers nearly $20 million when all was said and done.

Act 10 Doesn't Save Money...

From the article, we can see that Act 10 didn't really save municipal or county governments money, but was really only a bait and switch to cover the massive cuts in education and revenue sharing so that he could share the lucre with his campaign donors and corporate overlords:
In Oshkosh, Mark Rohloff, the city manager, says the law has saved his city $1.2 million a year, largely because employees are now paying more of their pension and health contributions. But he said state aid cuts of $2 million a year left his city with an $800,000 shortfall.
The article goes on to show how demoralizing the law is as well.  Is it any wonder that services across the state has dropped, even though taxes haven't?

...It Only Shifts The Tax Burden

This is the most telling part of the article and helps show the damage really done by Act 10:
Leah Lipska, the president of Local 1, scoffs at Mr. Walker’s famous suggestion that public employees are the “haves” in society, noting that many earn less than $35,000 a year. And the law, says Ms. Lipska, an information systems technician with the state corrections system, has made things much worse.

“My family is now on food stamps,” said Ms. Lipska, a mother of three who earns $18.62 an hour. (Her husband’s computer installation business is struggling.)
Wisconsin taxpayers are now still paying for Lipska's full salary and benefits, but are also now paying for her family's food stamps. Instead of saving money as Walker and the Teapublicans are claiming, it is actually forcing taxpayers to pay even more.

It should also be noted that when workers have less money to spend, this is having a ripple effect throughout the state's economy. It is hurting businesses and forcing them to cut back on workers' pay and hours, if not laying them off. This accelerates the economy into a downward spiral.  This is why we are seeing so many stores and other businesses closing and why we are seeing so many people get laid off.  This is also why Walker will not and can not get anywhere near his promise of creating 250,000 jobs.

To sum it up, Act 10 is not working and can not work and will never work.  But Walker cannot let that be revealed, so he has to resort to making up lie after lie, like he did in his memoir.

Just like with Walkergate, I will enjoy the day when he can no longer run and hide from the truth.

Wisconsin's Right Wing "Media"

By Jeff Simpson

Everyone knows the turmoil that Scott Walker's budget despair bill brought to the State of WI in early2011.   Scott Walker shortly after being sworn in, decided to "drop the bomb" and completely switch course from all of his campaign promises and attack his enemies by outlawing public unions. 

The people of Wisconsin did not take this lightly. 



Despite the fact that Scott Walker never campaigned on ACT10 or any of the policies he rushed through, it is EXACTLY what he had intended to do:




   .



Luckily for Scott Walker, he has always had a well funded "media"(term used loosely) at his beck and call.  From Jsonline giving free reign to the Bradley Foundation's gopher Christian Schneider to the ridiculous mediatrackkkers and their racist writer Brian Sikma. 

However nothing better showcases how ridiculous they are then the current story of the Walker Docs.   A quick rundown of Walkerdocs.  There was a three year investigation into illegal campaigning activities of the Scott Walker administration while he was Milwaukee County Executive.  In the end, while Scott Walker was never charged with a crime(he did have to pay his TWO criminal defense firms he had on retainer $650,000 + to make sure of it) 6 of his top staffers were actually charged and convicted of various crimes.   Despite efforts by the Walker administration to stop the release of the documents collected during the investigation, a judge ruled that one of the felons - Kelly Rindfleisch, had to turn over all of her emails that she sent on county time and with county equipment.  

  These documents were released at the end of February 2014 and totaled approximately 27,000 pages.    In layman's terms, in this investigation, this one person(Rinfleisch) had 27,000 pages of evidence against her(she was convicted).   This is just a tip of the iceberg of the investigation and the results of one of the people being investigated among many.   The full set of these documents can be found here!  

Back to the story at hand - mediatrackers website has covered the full release of these #walkerdocs with exactly ONE story.   The story is a reprint of a two year old story trying to question the credibility of one of the investigators, who has 24 years of solid law enforcement experience, for allegedly having a "recall walker" yard sign in 2011.   Apparently 24 years of  exemplary public service means nothing if your wife does not like the current Governor.    

After that silly story , there is not a word written about any of the 15000 emails that were released.  Not. one.  word.    A few stories about how bad unions are and how Obamacare will destroy the world, but nothing about Scott Walker and his secret email system.   

However, go back in time two years ago and we find a "breaking news story" that they could not get out fast or loud enough.   Tom Barrett's wife, who is a teacher, sent three emails.   Two were to different representatives, asking them to vote against Act10 and one asking a few of her friends if they would be attending a protest.   

Then Sikma really nailed her good!   Kris Barrett, Tom's wife, was on one of his mailer's as supporting the Tom Barrett campaign(seriously he wrote that).   


With her husband Tom running as the Democratic nominee for governor, Ms. Barrett has already intentionally inserted herself into the political fray according to Politico. And on April 15, Ms. Barrett’s name was on a Tom Barrett campaign email entitled “Pink Slip.
 17,000 emails, 27000 pages = crickets
3 emails and endorsing her husbands run for office = major investigation!