Thursday, September 26, 2013

Walkergate: Poetic Justice

Recently there has been a few people raising the hue and cry for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to push for the release of the Walkergate documents which had been sealed during the John Doe investigation and subsequent trials.

There are two major problems with that course of action.

First, who in their right mind would trust the corporate media to be the holders of this information?  There is no reason to believe that they would make all of the transcripts, emails and other documents available to the public.  They would pick and choose which ones to release, with their own spin, in order to protect Scott Walker and other key politicos.

Secondly, there ought to be no reason to rely on the corporate media to get the documents released.  These documents are property of Milwaukee County and as such, it would be the onus of Milwaukee County Emperor to demand the release of the documents.  The fact that he hasn't done so in all of these months should raise eyebrows.  Was it because he was simply too busy hanging with his plutocratic pals at the Greater Milwaukee Committee to do his job or maybe was he helping provide cover to Walker as a political favor to get Act 14 - the power grab bill - passed?

It turns out that their foot-stomping was for naught anyway.

The paper already had submitted a request for the records to be released and have now filed a lawsuit to get their corporate hands on them.

But even that might be moot - at least in part - thanks to one of Walker's political operatives, Kelly Rindfleisch.

Rindfleisch was the person that Walker had hired to be his Deputy Chief of Staff to replace Tim Russell, who was moved out of the executive's suite.  As it turns out, Rindfleisch was doing little county work and spent most of her time campaigning and fundraising for Walker and for Brett Davis, the guy Walker wanted to be his Lieutenant Governor.  After a lot of legal maneuvering and game-playing, Rindfleisch was eventually found guilty of illegal politicking and was given a slap on the wrist.  But even that slap was held so that she could appeal the conviction, even though she had entered a guilty plea as part of a plea bargain.

Ironically, it was because of Rindfleisch's appeal that now a great deal of the emails and other documents have been ordered to be released.  Even more ironic is the fact the order came on a request by Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen:
An appeals court judge ordered the release Wednesday of numerous documents in the closed secret investigation of aides to Gov. Scott Walker, including the personal emails of convicted aide Kelly Rindfleisch.

Also to be filed with the Court of Appeals are the search warrant for seizing records from Walker's office when he was Milwaukee County executive and a transcript of the secret hearing over that and other warrants. The search warrant was issued on Nov. 1, 2010, the day before Walker was elected governor.

Appeals Judge Patricia Curley ordered the filing of the records within 15 days as part of Rindfleisch's appeal. The office of Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, sought to include the records in the court file as it fights Rindfleisch's contention that the warrants were overly broad.

The release of the records would give a glimpse into the 21/2 year John Doe investigation of Walker aides. A John Doe proceeding is Wisconsin's form of a secret judicial investigation of potential crimes or public misconduct and is similar to a federal grand jury investigation.
Walker must be having conniptions about all this. Not only is there a good chance that said emails will hurt both his gubernatorial and presidential campaigns, but to have it done by one of the state's biggest Republican hacks has to be absolutely galling to Walker.

And given how much information Rindfleisch has given us already, having unedited access to her emails and other documents is surely to make a lot of people wince, including her BFF Andrea Bloom, her other BFF Jim Villa and Keith Gilkes, whom we've learned had almost as much control over Walker's executive staff as Walker himself did - to name just a few.

Perhaps the most ironic and delicious part of this is to remember that it was Walker who has been funding Rindfleisch's legal defense.

Just think about that for a minute.

Walker was helping fund Rindfleisch's legal defense so that she wouldn't roll over and rat him out.  But now, because of her legal defense, he is about to be exposed anyway, despite all the money he spent on trying to cover it all up.

Talk about poetic justice.

As a final note, there is one more person who cannot be too happy about this turn of events - Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm.  As more information comes out with all the arrows pointing at Scott Walker, people are going to again to question why he suddenly halted the Walkergate proceedings and why he let Walker off the hook.

28 comments:

  1. You do a disservice to the progressive cause in Wisconsin when you make this about Chris Abele. This is about criminal acts that predate the man you hate so much. This is about Scott Walker and Scott Walker alone. Let's get back in the game and keep our eyes on the prize.

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    1. They are both losers.

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    2. It's not about Abele. It's about the documents. Abele chose to make himself part of the story by refusing to do his job. And, ICYMI, Abele has done far more damage to the progressive cause than I could ever do. Then again, I don't know that you could call a person who supports teabaggers Joe Sanfelippo and Dale Kooyenga, holds fundraisers for Republican Deanna Alexander and schmoozes with CRG as progressive.

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  2. Capper,

    Great post!

    Thank you!

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  3. Graeme,

    Is Capper correct, the emails in question belong to the taxpayers of Milwaukee County?

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  4. Who and what will the E-mails expose will be interesting reading....Popcorn for all. Maybe Chisholm has some explaining to do about WHY he stop the John Doe!!!!!!

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  5. I think that there was another reason for halting the John Doe, and that it wasn't because the charges couldn't be proven beyond a "reasonable doubt". Chisholm is not the bad guy . . . truth will out eventually.

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  6. ANYTIME your with CRG your on the wrong side. They are cowards and despicable people. CRG is as close as you can get to Westboro church without being a Phelps.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. It is "you're" not "your." You're is the contraction for "you are" while "your" is the possessive. Your grammar is ... despicable! Bonus question: How are CRG cowards?

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    3. Blaska,

      Now you are an English major ?????

      Oh Boy.

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    4. Blaska,
      Since you are a hideous human being because you called hard-working public school teachers “thugs,” you probably won’t think this CRG action was cowardly. CRG sent an “enemies list” of Janesville public school teachers who are “radicals” because they signed the Walker Recall petitions. They sent the enemies list to subscribers of the Janesville Gazette without the paper’s permission. CRG did not have the guts to explain to the teachers or the school district why they sent hate-filled propaganda.

      You can relate to hate-filled propaganda, don’t you, Blaska? You radical thug.

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    5. "It is "you're" not "your." You're is the contraction for "you are" while "your" is the possessive. Your grammar is ... despicable!"

      Ah yes, lacking substantive criticism, Blaska is reduced to grammatical corrections in an attempt to boost his fragile ego. Good for you man, good for you. God knows what would happen if Jeff's oversight were allowed to stand. Furthermore, correcting his grammar definitively refutes his point. Nice work! I can only wonder, if one were to bother to read the tripe you write, would we find any grammatical errors? My guess is yes. Having an aversion to banality, mendacity, and inanity however, I'll never know. Carry on officer grammar, we all know you have nothing else.

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    6. Let's see, I believe it was this very blog that spent some time criticizing certain elected official(s) for their spelling/grammar.... but I digress.

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    7. CRG is cowardly because when they attacked the Jnaesville teachers, they did it anonymously. They did not have the guts to attach their name to it. The thing about Orville and his buddies while cowardly, they lack intelligence, so it was easy to find out.

      Yes I did criticize Pridemore for his ridiculous and poorly written press releases. However I do not think I need to explain the difference between a press release to run for Superintendent of Schools and a quick comment on our blog as I am heading to work!

      Or do i?

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    8. Wise man say: he who lives in glass house should use Windex.

      Delete
  7. Wise man say: When horse dead, stop beating.

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    Replies
    1. And we know how wise you are?????

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    2. "Wise man say: When horse dead, stop beating. "

      No, you're totally right. Instead we should perhaps have 40+ votes to repeal a bill that has passed congress, been signed into law, been reaffirmed by SCOTUS, reaffirmed in a national election by voters, and has no actual chance of repeal. Then, we should talk more about Benghazi, and probably throw in a chat about the IRS unfairly targeting conservative groups. Thank you for not being a hypocritical ass in any way at all. Oh, one last thing. Please stop pretending that you have ever bothered to take the advice of a wise man. You wouldn't recognized wisdom if it held you down and "Hot Carl'd" you.

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  8. Did you even read the newspaper's motion? It asks that the sealed records be returned to the county, where anyone, not just the "corporate media" can request access under the Open Records Law. Even you could read them and draw your own conclusions, if the newspaper succeeds. Thanks, Journal Sentinel!

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    Replies
    1. Reading a source... that's too much to ask.

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  9. Oh, my God... Great post, excellent analysis.

    But that's not prompting this reply...

    ....Ahem.

    Honestly, I read and follow you here and on FB regularly. Nobody fights harder for the Average Guy....

    Puh-leeze don't take this the wrong way -- BUT -- if your naysayers and doubters have already stepped in, masquerading as the Grammar Police, a friend could take the opportunity to make a specific (and hopefully helpful) observation.

    When it comes to Subject-Verb agreement -- knowing when to use "has" and when to write "have" (see 3rd word in, above) -- you might want to review the basic rule:

    http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/subjectverbagree.asp

    WHEW.

    OK, that's it. Keep up the Great Work!

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  10. The files being released will be far more interesting reading than the book Walker is having written on his behalf.

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  11. DOJ won't seal to seek sealing of records (but others might)

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/doj-wont-seek-sealing-of-records-in-appeal-by-former-walker-aide-b99107595z1-225402292.html

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  12. I smell a rat (or two, or three, or . . .)

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    Replies
    1. That's no rat! It is a GOP full of SKUNKS!!!!

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  13. Wise man say Blaska should not post comments when he has snootful of likker.

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  14. While the emails will be an interesting read, we don't have to worry about Walker's chance at presidential campaign being hurt by them, his "charisma" will take care of that.

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