Scott Walker Plays Good Despot, Bad Despot

It is not news that Scott Walker, due to his complete lack of anything even remotely resembling leadership skills, has a propensity to lavishly reward benefactors and loyalists while retaliating against those who oppose his regime.  What is news is that he is continues to do so very blatantly and egregiously.

As an example of the former, we recently saw how Walker violated civil service codes by rewarding long time loyal vassal, Cindy Archer, by appointing her to a position that she is not only unqualified for, but for one that she did not even apply for, much less end up as a finalist.

As it turns out, and as we should have expected, there is more.  There is always more.

It turns out that not only was Archer appointed to a position she had not applied for and given a pay rate that was 31% higher than her predecessor but that pay was above the top pay for that job.

Adding to the fun, the person who is claiming to have hired Archer for the job is Kelli Thompson, daughter of former governor TOMMY!!! Thompson.

In other words, we have a political appointee taking the fall for the hiring of another political appointee at a pay level way above where it should be and in violation of the civil service code.  I would not be surprised if Thompson finds herself on the receiving end of huge raise in the not too distant future.

What would surprise - and disappoint - me if no one files and ethics complaint and/or grievance about this stunt.

Then again, they might be afraid to.  As I noted above, as much as Walker is generous to his faithful servants, he is very maleficent to those who stand against him or fail to please him.

This was evidenced by the way he retaliated against several people across the state after having his way bought through the recall election.  And let us not forget how easily he finds it to through people under the campaign bus as he did to Taylor Palmisano, whose only crime was to let her name be put on the infamous Black Friday fundraiser email.

Attorney Frank Gimbel might be the latest victim of Walker's pettiness:

Gimbel has served on the board since 1994. He was first appointed by then Gov. Tommy G. Thompson and was reappointed by three successive governors every three years.

In 22012, his appointment to the board expired, but Walker did not act on it. In a letter Gimbel sent the governor's office in June 2013, he asked Walker to either reappoint him, or name someone else to replace him.

Walker did neither until recently, naming James C. Kaminski, who had been serving an expired term on the board. Kaminski had previously been a Barrett appointee. He now is a Walker appointee.

Given Walker's pattern of punishing those who disappoint him, being the petty despot that he is, it is not a great leap of imagination to believe that Walker was upset with Gimbel, who is the attorney that represented Kelly Rindfleisch in the Walkergate trial and is representing her in her appeal.

 Not only was Rindfleisch convicted for illegal politicking while working for Walker when he was Milwaukee County executive, but it was because of her appeal that a lot of damaging and damning documents were released, including the racist jokes that Walker's people often shared or the way they tried to cover up the problems with the O'Donnell Park tragedy and the devastation of the mental health system.

Come to Wacky Walker's Wisconsin Emporium! With Each Purchase, Get A Vac!*

The stories that are still the buzz of the state has to do with the exceptionally horrible bill that is going through the state legislature which would allow Scott Walker free reign to   sell off state assets without even an open bidding process.

Walker is claiming that he needs to sell what he can to pay down an $8 billion debt.  Amazingly, neither the corporate media, the radio squawker or the right wing blarghers mentioning the fact that a quarter of that debt is from Walker borrowing from our children and grandchildren.  Nor do they mention that Walker had just been touting having a great bit surplus not too long ago.

One of the stories is based on a 16 month old article from Mother Jones which discusses Arizona's folly of having actually selling their capitol building only to end up buying it back for a loss of $24 million.  It seems that this story would be warning enough to keep the legislators from rubber stamping such a bill.

The other story is written by Charles P. Pierce at Esquire.  Pierce's story is a tongue in cheek piece in which he claims that Walker is treating the state as one giant yard sale.

Sadly, neither story is very off the mark.

While Walker was Milwaukee County Executive, he did something akin to both of those stories.

Walker was claiming that the county had a $15 million deficit (it later turned out that the county actually had a small surplus).  To help cut into that deficit, he sold the county grounds for a fraction of its worth.  Along with that sale of the land, Walker did everything but throw in a free vacuum:

That's enough to tick off the ecologically-minded, but what about the ones who only care about the money? Well, there's this tidbit from the deal that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel deemed not worthy of mention (emphasis mine):

The county land sale includes the Eschweiler buildings and the Parks Administration building. The county will lease back the Parks building for the next 20 years. The transaction is expected to close during 2010, with construction beginning in the fall of 2010. The County Board also approved a sale price of $13.55 million for the 89 acres.
We are selling our building just so we can sign a 20 year lease to rent it? And just like the St. Michael's fiasco was a bad idea, what happens when the private developer decides to sell off their end of the contract? How badly are we going to get beaten up when that happens?

And for those not familiar with the history of the county grounds, the Parks Administration building is the old county orphanage. The county just got done spending millions of dollars in renovating and upgrading the interior of the building. And now we are just going to sell it at a sweetheart price. Again, Walker fails to look out for the taxpayers.

To top it off, Walker also wanted to take any left over proceeds from the sale and use it on one rapid transit route instead of using it to pay down the deficit (which didn't really exist.

As I described it at the time:

That would be the equivalent of you fixing up your house and then selling it at about a third of its value. Then you take the proceeds from the sale and rent the house from the people you just sold it to. You also take some of the money (if there's any left after paying the rent on the house you just owned until recently) and a large inheritance from your Uncle Sam, and buy them a chauffeured limo. Meanwhile, you have a patch of land (like the Park East corridor) that is only good for building an engineering campus on, but you won't even try to sell that.

And in case the gentle reader was wondering, that is indeed the same county grounds that is now a wasteland.  Even better is that the land developers, many of whom are members of the Greater Milwaukee Committee are saying they might not be able to make the payments as promised and our looking for a discount.

Given that GMC were the ones that wrote and paid for the passage of the usurpation bill, I doubt that Milwaukee County Executive Emperor Chris "Lil Walker" Abele, who is also a GMC member, will deny his pals anything.

The county ground giveaway isn't the most recent example of Walker's generosity with our public assets.  In February 2012, Walker was trying to push pre-certified site locations in an effort to draw companies to the state.  Considering the job losses that we have been having, we can safely assume that this program was a flop as well.

While Walker wanting to sell off anything that isn't nailed down is nothing new, here are some sobering thoughts about what we might be facing:

• Walker has already asked the feds for permission to make all of the highway work to be made into tollways.  Add to that the fact that they already approved selling state assets to foreign interests, and you have an instant formula for Walker selling the new tollways to foreign investors, a favorite stunt of Republicans across the country, for which the taxpayers pay dearly.
• Walker already has gotten a lot of support from Correction Corporation of America (CCA).  Walker could easily sell off some prisons to CCA for whatever campaign donation price that they agree upon and no one could say anything.
• There's the old speculation about the Kochs and the state's power plants.

And that's just to name a few.

We have to remember, Walker wants to be president, even if he can't spell it.  That means he needs really big money.  He needs amounts of money that is exponentially higher than what he got when he was facing a recall and needing to feed the legal cooperation fund.  After all, not only is he running a nationwide campaign, but he has to cover up his history of corruption, his failure to get anything more than a high school diploma and his inability to create jobs of take the economy in anything but a nosedive.

And if he is going to pull off that kind of scam across the country for three years, he is going to need more than Charlie Sykes and a couple of hacked off hack blarghers and "reporters."

That is going to require wholesale corruption and selling the state as a whole.  The amount of smoke and mirrors he'll need won't come cheap.

*Vacs are not included in the purchase of Republican (and some Democratic) politicians, since they already suck.

Five Reasons To Recall Walker

Scott Walker and his supporters are running scared, especially when the people started to reclaim their respective parts of the country, from Maine to Mississippi to Michigan to our own La Crosse.

His supporters, like the Koch Brothers, through their various front groups including Americans for Prosperity, the MacGuyver Institute, Franklin Institute, etc, are already pouring money into the state by running their scandalously and ridiculously false commercials to posing as credible sources to spread their lies and misinformation.

(If you want to know how sleazy the Kochs and their front groups are, they gained their foothold in Wisconsin by using the disgraced and disgraceful Mark Block, who had been barred from practicing politics in Wisconsin for three years for his sordid behaviors. That should tell you all you need to know right there.)

Meanwhile, Walker is currently jetting around the country, collecting major cash donations, sometimes millions at a time.  In fact, on Tuesday, the day that the recall kicks off, Walker will be in Wichita, Kansas, meeting with the Koch Brothers.  I don't think they'll be just enjoying tea and scones and I'm sure that Walker won't be walking away empty-handed.

But no matter how much spin the right try to put on stories, no matter how many lies they tell and no matter how many distractions they try to throw in our paths, we must stay focused on the mission at hand, which is to collect over 500,000 signatures in the next sixty days.

And to get that job done, we just have to remember the five main reasons why Walker deserves to be and needs to be recalled.  I present these to you now, gentle reader, in ascending order.

5) Bait and Switch


When Walker was running for governor, he ran on a jobs platform.  He pledged that he was going to create 250,000 jobs in his first term in office.  Despite this pledge, he has not one thing that would help create a job in the state.  Instead, we've seen social engineering to try to suppress and oppress the people of this state.  We have seen every form of manipulation up to and including flagrant abuses of power in order to do nothing but further his Prosser-like stranglehold on said power.  It is no wonder that Wisconsin is one of the leaders in this country when it comes to losing jobs.

By his own admission, the one thing that Walker did not even mention, even in passing, during his campaign was his plan to bust the unions.  I've read some of the paid pundits who earn their paychecks by iterating the talking points the Kochs or Bradley Foundation wants you to hear, saying that it didn't matter that Walker never said that he was going to do this.  But they're wrong, of course.  For if he had come out and said this, he would have suffered the same fate as the union-busting bill in Ohio, and get resoundly rejected by the voters.

In most fields, if one does a bait and switch  like this, promising one thing and then delivering something totally different and of much lesser quality and/or higher price than promise, it would be called fraud and would carry severe consequences.  Walker should be treated no differently for the fraud he committed.

4) We Can't Afford Him

One can hear right wing paid pundits in the hire of the Koch Brothers and the Bradley Foundation or Republicans - but I repeat myself - repeat the same two lies lines regarding money.  One line has to deal with "how expensive" a recall is going to be. The other line has to deal with how tax payers are supposedly saving so much money.

The supposed cost of the recall can be easily countered, as I have done a month ago when it first came up.  Basically, it would be a bargain to recall Walker compared to what he is costing us now (emphasis mine)

Using economic modeling software, it is possible to simulate how proposed reductions in public sector worker household income would directly harm Wisconsin’s economy. This includes detailed financial models of every county in the state which estimates the ripple effect of cuts in consumer disposable income in local communities.

This analysis shows that the proposed cuts in public worker compensation would lead to the loss of $660 million a year in economic production in the private sector. It would eliminate $46 million in property taxes or shift them to other taxpayers. It would noticeably increase the state unemployment rate.

Taking one billion dollars in purchasing power out of the hands of public sector households over the biennium would have a ripple effect in the economy equivalent to laying off sizable numbers of private sector employees in every county. For example, in Brown County the job loss would be the same as losing the entire payroll of Fleet and Farm of Green Bay. In Dane County, it would be like losing the payroll of Dean Health Systems; in Marathon County, like losing Kraft Foods. This “compensation cut” plan is a failed strategy that hurts economic recovery in Wisconsin.

For the second part, for some inexplicable reason, Walker and his cohorts have decided to stick with the story of how much money the Kaukauna School District supposed saved, even though we already know that the Kaukauna is a lie. The fact is that almost every single school district and municipality is being hurt badly by Walker's ideological attacks on their budgets. Even the affluent community of Elmbrook had to close on of their most popular schools because of Walker's slashing of the educational funding.

To fix the state's economic health, we need family-supporting jobs.  To get these jobs, the first thing we need to do is get rid of Walker.

3) The Attack On Wisconsinites

This is a generally broad category because there are just too many groups that are currently suffering because of Walker's ideological agenda of consolidating wealth and power.  It would be impossible to put one group over another, so it simply best to say that Walker has attacked just about every person in Wisconsin with the obvious exception of his cohorts (although there is talk of coercion and threats to those that were at risk of balking at following through on his agenda) and his wealthy donors.

In a span of just a few months, Walker has attacked:

• The working class, including and most  notably, public sector workers by taking away their rights and the ability of all worker, public or private sector, to earn a living wage, if they're lucky enough to find and keep a job.
• Women by trying to prevent their ability to make their own decisions regarding their health care.
• Children by not only slashing education funding by nearly a billion dollars, but also making sure that they are more likely to end up pregnant at a young age by not allowing them to have a rounded education in sex and the ways to avoid being pregnant or avoiding STDs.
• The poor, disabled and elderly by cutting tens or even hundreds of thousands of people off of health care programs like BadgerCare.  He also attacked them by making it much more likely to not even get to their medical appointments, even if it is a matter of life and death.
• Voters by disenfranchising many voters, making it extremely difficult, if not impossible to vote and imposing a poll tax on them.  Adding insult to injury is the gerrymandering done to skew the representation in this state to not represent the people but to try to ensure his cohorts remain in control of the legislature to further his maleficent agenda.
• People in higher education by trying to limit their right to vote, slashing funds to technical colleges even as businesses are wailing about the lack of a properly trained and educated work force and by raising tuition in the UW schools through the roof.
• Tax payers - oh, sure, Walker is claiming to save tax payers money, but the fact is that he is doing everything but that.  There is the hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent to defend against the lawsuits that keep flying in because people are not willing to just give up their rights without a fight.  There is also the fact that not only are taxes not going down, but fees are going through the roof, all in order to fund his personal program of campaign donor rewards.  

While some people might try to pass these assaults on Wisconsinites from all walks of life as "policy decisions," this does not change the fact that they are inexcusable and cannot be allowed to stand.

2B) Corruption: Walkergate

Some of Walker's defenders, like State Representative Robin Vos, feel that the recall laws are too lenient and should be changed so that recalls are only allowed for illegal or extremely egregious behaviors. Not only would this be a complete denial of Wisconsin tradition, but would also be an act of futility, since it would not save Walker from recall.

I, probably more so than anyone else, have tried to document all of Walker's unethical and corrupt behaviors in the Walkergate series. I started out months ago with "An Introduction to Walkergate."  The John Doe investigation into the sordid and illegal campaign tactics of Walker has reached all the way to his top advisers and even his current spokesman.  The investigation has gone wide and deep into all sorts of issues that will, in the least, leave a permanent stain on Walker's track record and could very well possibly put him into the same category of slimy politician as former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

The truly amazing part of Walkergate is that even though there is an ongoing John Doe investigation which includes, at least in part, the illegal use of government equipment and staff for politicking, he continues to do so with a state-sponsored campaign website.  The man either has great chutzpah or is simply so corrupt that he is not able to tell right from wrong anymore.

As even the Republicans have stated, corruption is an offense worthy of recall.  So there you have it.

2A) Corruption: Scott, you have a call on line one...

Remember this?

KOCH: Yeah. Now what else can we do for you down there?

WALKER: Well, the biggest thing would be and your guy on the ground probably seeing this is the well, two things. One, our members originally got freaked out by all the bodies here, I told them an interesting story, when I was first elected County Executive, in Milwaukee of all Places, the first budget I put through was pretty bold, aggressive, the union went nuts on my and got all sorts of grief, but a couple of weeks later I’m at a Veteran’s Day parade and I’m going down the line and usually unless you’re a veteran, or, ya know, when you’re marching with a veteran’s group politicians all get (tape skip) applause but nobody get’s up. I come down the lie 40, 50 people in a row hands up, thumbs up, you know, cheering, screaming, yelling, way to go, hang in there Walker and then after about 40-50 people like that there’s a guy flipping me off.

KOCH: (inaudible)

Walker: This goes on, you know, 40-50, ***(tape skip), the people who know it’s right will cheer you, applaud you, they’ll run through a wall for you, and the people that don’t like ya, they’re going to flip you off. But stop worrying about, ya know, them because the other day there were 70,000 probably about 2/3rds were against the bill, 1/3 were for. 70,000 people at the Capitol all week there’s been, ya know 15-30,000 a day but I remind all our lawmakers that there’s 5 and a half million people in this state and just because a bunch of guys who can jump off of work because their union rules doesn’t mean that the rest of the people in your district are with them. So one thing for your question is the more groups that are encouraging people not just to show up but call lawmakers and tell them to hang firm with the governor the better, because the more they get that reassurance, the easier it is for them to vote yes.

KOCH: Right, right.

WALKER: The other thing is more long term and that is after this, um, you know, the coming days and weeks and months ahead, particularly in some of these more swing areas, a lot of these guys are gonna need, they don’t necessarily need ads for them but they ‘re going to need a message out reinforcing why this was a good thing to do for the economy a good thing to do for the state so the extent that message is out over and over again, that’s obviously, that’s obviously a good thing.

KOCH: Right, right. We’ll back you anyway we can. But uh, what we’re thinking about the crowds was, a, was planting some troublemakers.

The only thing that I could possibly add to this blatant example of corruption would be Walker's sign off to whom he thought was David Koch after this conversation, in which he was soliciting for the Koch's help (remember they control Americans for Prosperity and the MacGuyver Institute who are running the current pro-Walker ads):

"Well, thanks a million"

1) Abuse of Power

While one could argue that Walker has abused the power of his office on a myriad of occasions, such as the power grab or the union busting or the rampant cronyism or attacking those of us who dare to speak truth to power, there is one example that stands above the rest in its egregiousness.

That is when Walker ordered state troopers to arrest political opponents and drag them back to the Capitol, including the then pregnant Senator Julie Lassa.

That is not only anti-Wisconsinite, that is anti-American.  That is the behavior of a petty despot and not that of a duly elected official in this state or this country.

The only time in the entire history of Wisconsin has another governor abused the power of his office more than Walker was when Governor Rusk sent out the state militia to gun down striking workers in the Bay View Massacre.  The workers were murdered in cold blood for having the audacity of wanting eight-hour work days.

What makes Walker's abuse of power even sadder is the fact that not only is it the most egregious, it's the most under-covered story.

Summary

Everyone in the state has a different opinion at what level of behavior is required before a recall should be initiated.  However, unless one is completely intellectually dishonest, Walker has crossed their personal threshold for inexcusable behavior in a public office.

Ironically, the ones that are saying that Walker shouldn't be recalled were the same ones that supported the recall of Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament and/or the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, which only goes to show how hypocritical they can be.

While there are many examples that I have not included in these five points, such as Walker's willful failure to protect the environment or his inability and/or apathy in job creation, the five points I have listed in this now overly long piece is more than enough reason for most good people to recognize and agree that Walker has fully earned his ouster from the governor's chair.

It is time and beyond time for the people of Wisconsin to rise up and say "No more!" and take control of our lives and our state again.  It is time for justice to be served.

To help liberate Fitzwalkerstan and recall Walker, please click here.