Thursday, February 2, 2012

The Breathtaking Audacity Of Scott Walker

Even after ten years of calling out Scott Walker on his bad policies, his misconduct in office, and his malfeasance, he still has the ability to leave me flabbergasted from time to time.

Please let me explain.

Just yesterday, I wrote about how Scott Walker blatantly abused the power of his office as Milwaukee County Executive in taking a taxpayer-funded Harley Davidson ride around the state, purportedly to promote tourism, but was nothing more than a campaign stunt:
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 coincidence (meaning it was anything but a coincidence), 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.
There's always more indeed.

I noticed today that Walker, despite having a John Doe investigation actively looking into his campaign and his county staff because of this, is doing the same bloody thing all over again!

On Wednesday, February 1, Walker went to Wausau as part of something he calls "Governor Walker's Turning Around Wisconsin Tour."

As the gentle reader will notice, this was sent from the Governor's Office, making it official state business.

But does anyone really believe that?

It's so obviously another gimmick, just like the bike ride was, in which Walker is using taxpayer dollars to run his "Please don't hold me accountable for my misdeeds by recalling me" campaign, that it's actually breathtaking in its audacity.

What's even more stunningly outrageous is that his "Turning Wisconsin Around Tour," according to the press release, is about his "agenda" for job creation.*

Well, to be fair, maybe it's not so outrageous after all.

As I have previously discussed, and as the following graph so eloquently shows, when it comes to job creation, Walker has definitely turned this state around, from a positive job growth period to six straight months of job losses, at twice the rate that Doyle had even in the height of the recession:



One does wonder how anyone can believe the tripe that Walker and WISGOP is trying to force down our throats.

However, regardless of Walker's hypocrisy and outright lies, this continued pattern of abusing the power of his office, whether county executive or governor, should not and can not be allowed to go on without Walker being called out on it.**

Whether it's via the recall or via being indicted in Walkergate, we cannot be rid of this weasel soon enough.

*Strangely, the WSAW-TV story on this decided to focus on education, which is another area he has failed miserably in. Also noteworthy, in the comment sections, it appears Walker's appearance at the school caused fights to break out. He's even divisive to our children.

**I would also like to know where the hell is the media who is supposed to be watchdogs for the people.  Has journalism dropped to such a low standard? I hope not, but still...

9 comments:

  1. Yup, the media has NO watch dog capabilities now. They are as bought for as any product. It's honestly why I read blogs to find out what's going on. Kind of the same way Repugs watch Fox, only the blogs are much, much and again, much more accurate than Fox.

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  2. Clearly, Walker should be claiming that the losses would've been much greater if it hadn't been for his special brand of magic. Am I being spokeman-ish yet?

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  3. Thank you for pointing this out. I have also been arguing that it is no coincidence that the sudden appearance of "e-updates" from Walker just happened to coincide with the full-force start of his recall election campaign. An entire year passed without these emails, which he claims are "one of his most important duties as governor." The emails are essentially tax-payer funded campaign propaganda mass-emailed to anyone who's contacted the governor's office in the last year.

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  4. The problem with corporate news organizations is that cost cutting has eliminated so many journalism jobs they don't have the personnel to do investigative journalism or even simple in-depth stories. It is much cheaper to simply rewrite press releases, get a quick soundbite and not bother with the facts of any particular story. One person's fact is as good as another. Who knows what the truth is? This is why so many TV news reporters have that perpetually quizzical --where am I?-- look on their faces.

    By the way, the pay at small market television stations is quite low, so there is a continuous migration into PR work.

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  5. The jobs loss graph looks a lot like the Capitol dome.

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  6. Can you break down those jobs into government jobs versus private sector jobs? Might be interesting. Or is this your way of skewing the numbers?

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  7. Over the past 6 months, seasonally-adjusted job losses in the private sector have averaged approx 4,700 per month and job losses in the public sector have averaged approx 1,800 per month. The only way that this 'total jobs' graph skews it is to make the losses look less severe than they have actually been in the private sector.

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  8. Tyler, thanks.

    A9:12, looking forward to your response.

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  9. I can tell you it directly affects my business. I can also say that we can see what we would be like with another democratic governor (just look to our south, things are going swimmingly there). Do I assume since giving existing employees more money doesnt create jobs then the next step will be to follow Indianas lead. After the recall nonsense of course.

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