The Week In Walker

By Jeff Simpson

With so much bad and crazy happening on a breakneck pace everyday, it is hard to keep up with it all.   Let's try and catch up with some of Scott Walker's recent hits.

1.  Get ready, coming smack dab in the middle of the state, will be lots of layoffs and changes at UW - Stevens Point!

 Kristen Hendrickson, the university’s chief financial officer, laid out three scenarios for UWSP's structural deficit that largely depend on enrollment numbers for this year.
If the university enrolls 8,000 students, the total deficit may sit at about $2.4 million.
If 7,500 students enroll, the total deficit may grow to $5.4 million.
If enrollment falls to 7,000, the total deficit may grow to $8 million.
The university’s academic division might need to make cuts ranging from $4 million to $6 million, eliminating as many as 60 to 70 full-time jobs, if enrollment falls to 7,000 students, Summers wrote in the Aug. 27 letter.

 2.  Small Government Scott Walker is taking people's homes.

Unless you know the right people, then Foxconn is the jackpot!

3.  While Walker's signature promise was to create 250,000 jobs (as his floor) and after 8 years still has not come close to that number.  In fact, Scott Walker has cost Wisconsin some 80,000 jobs.

The average from both models points to a Walker administration which cost Wisconsin 80,000 jobs. This loss was masked by national job growth. If Wisconsin had followed the same pattern relative to its neighbors as under previous administrations, jobs would have grown by an additional 33 percent — quite a difference. To put the shortfall in perspective, the 80,000-job loss is six times the 13,000 jobs promised from the Foxconn development in Racine.
It is hard to identify possible causes for Wisconsin’s jobs lag other than the administration’s policies. It is not as if the state is dependent on a single industry. Rather, the underlying cause seems to be the triumph of ideology over evidence as to what grows an economy. 

4.  Have to admire Badger Meters business sense, and be amazed at how cheaply Scott Walker can be bought.

Top executives of a company that was awarded $250,000 in state welfare have contributed nearly $26,000 to Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s campaigns.
Badger Meter, which makes flow measurement tools for water utilities and commercial and industrial businesses, plans to expand its Mount Pleasant operations in Racine County and create up to 40 jobs in the next three years. Walker’s economic development agency, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., said Thursday it will provide up to $250,000 in tax credits to train the new employees.
Overall, Badger Meter employees contributed $36,850 to legislative and statewide candidates between January 2010 and December 2017. All but $300 went to Republican candidates.
The top recipients of the contributions were Walker, $25,900, followed by Republican Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, $6,000, and GOP Rep. Dale Kooyenga, of Brookfield, $2,000.
The company’s top contributor to legislative and statewide candidates between January 2010 and December 2017 was its chief executive officer, Richard Meeusen, of Pewaukee, and his wife, Maribeth, $34,750. That’s 94 percent of the contributions from all employees of Badger Meter. Walker received $24,500 of those contributions from the Meeusens.

5.  Another way to get your hands on some easy Wi Taxpayer funds in Scott Walker's WI?  Abuse teenagers at Lincoln Hills. 

– For the second and third times, Gov. Scott Walker’s administration has given cash settlements to guards who it determined had used excessive force on juvenile inmates, state records show.
The payoffs — including one totaling $9,000 — were reached as the FBI continues a criminal investigation of Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls, which share a campus 30 miles north of Wausau. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last year reported officials at the prison complex trained staff improperly, failed to preserve video evidence, didn't document serious incidents and often shirked their duty to report matters to parents, police and social service agencies.

 6.  In Election Season, Scott Walker will say absolutely anything to get elected.   Here is a clip in 2010 telling us how he would never cut education funding.

7.  Scott Walker is out with his 21st political ad already.  I guess he can not find one that people will believe.  However this one is very typical of Scott Walker.  He starts out complaining about attack ads, then starts attacking.

Tone deaf? Desperate? Dishonest?   We report, you decide. 

It stays with the theme he has been working for months.  That Scott Walker, the king of outside money, fears outside money.   
I guess that the Kochs, Sheldon Adelson and loony Uihlein are all above board WI residents, or maybe he just a hypocrite. 

Finally, as Bruce Murphy points out in his great piece at Urban Milwaukee, everything Walker does is for sale. 

Two of his biggest supporters have been the Koch Brothers, who have donated $4.8 million to Walker’s campaigns, and the state’s biggest business group, Wisconsin Manufacturer’s and Commerce, which has given $9.5 million to his campaigns.
Walker’s signature law, Act 10, which decimated public employee unions, was backed the Koch Brothers and WMC. The two groups also supported the Right to Work law, which makes it difficult to organize private unions and which Walker had promised unions supporting him in 2014 that he would never support. But he signed it into law in 2015. 

Readers of this humble blog know, that everything Scott Walker sells, he sells cheap! 

RoJo Loses Big Money Backers' Big Money

It's been a rough couple of days for Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. First, the National Republican Senate Committee pulls back on their ads for RoJo, then the Koch Boyzzz follow suit:

A conservative group funded by the Koch brothers that is backing Sen. Ron Johnson canceled $2.2 million worth of ads it had planned to run to help the Republican in August and September, a blow to his re-election campaign as he tries to win a rematch against Democrat Russ Feingold.

Feingold has been outraising Johnson and leading in the polls in the closely watched race. Democrats are hoping to pick up the Senate seat as they try to regain majority control in the Senate.

The super PAC Freedom Partners Action Fund ran about $2 million worth of ads attacking Feingold in May. It was slated to run another $2.2 million in pro-Johnson ads over the next two months, but a Democratic media tracker said Wednesday that they had been canceled.

"We are realigning our television advertising strategy to ensure maximum impact across key Senate races," Freedom Partners spokesman James Davis wrote in an email. "We will continue direct citizen outreach through our grassroots activists, volunteer phone calls, digital media and direct mail. Last weekend alone network grassroots organizations made almost half a million contact attempts to targeted audiences."

The bad news for Johnson comes a day after he spoke in prime time at the Republican National Convention, a late-reversal from his long-held position that he was going to skip the gathering to campaign in Wisconsin. It also comes the day after the National Republican Senatorial Committee said it was delaying until October $1.3 million in ads it originally planned to run over the next two months.

To put it in perspective of just how bad this news is for RoJo:

Johnson has benefited from spending by outside groups, which had outspent Feingold's campaign by about $5 million to $1 million from the April 5 primary through late June. In addition to Freedom Partners, the ads benefiting Johnson have come from Americans for Prosperity, another Koch brothers group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Let America Work and the Judicial Crisis Network.

"Senator Johnson has always relied on the Koch Brothers and these outside groups to run his campaign for him, so this must come as a disappointment for their model legislator," said Feingold spokesman Michael Tyler in an emailed statement.

To put it another way, the money that these two groups just pulled out from underneath RoJo's feet is more than a third of what he spent in 2010.

It is not surprising that these groups are pulling back on RoJo, seeing how he has consistently been lagging behind Russ Feingold in both the polls and in fundraising.

I, for one, am going to enjoy watching RoJo flail about the next few months as he goes through his political death throes.

Eric Bott Bears False Witness

By Jeff Simpson 

Americans for Prosperity(AFP), the Koch Founded dark money haven and far right wing "think" tank was in my mailbox lately and the email was interesting to say the least.

Apparently their mission is:

Our Mission
Our mission is to mobilize citizens to advocate for policies that cut red tape and increase opportunity, put the brakes on government overspending, and get the economy working for hard workers– not special interests.

Of course, that is a bit like Colonel Sanders wanting to make sure there is room for Beef and Pork in the fast food industry.   But I digress, the interesting folks, led by Scott Fitzgerald protege and fomer lobbyist Eric Bott, to lead the State of Wisconsin Sect of the national AFP cult, sent out this email.

Jeffrey,
Did you know that secret elections in Wisconsin decide where millions of taxpayer dollars are spent? 
Big-government liberals are holding referenda  that decide millions of dollars in new spending, in off-year elections, hoping you won't be paying attention. 
Let's help stop this.   Will you send a letter to your legislators and tell them elections are fairer when everyone has the chance to participate. Let's bring referenda back into the light and move them to general elections when more people vote.For freedom,

Oy Vey.  As Inigo Montoya would say about the term "secret" elections:

se·cret

ˈsēkrit/

adjective

1. 1.

   not known or seen or not meant to be known or seen by others.

   "how did you guess I had a secret plan?"

   synonyms:

   confidential, top secret, classified, undisclosed, unknown, private,under wraps; More

noun

1.

something that is kept or meant to be kept unknown or unseen by others.

"a state secret"

synonyms:

confidential matter, confidence, private affair; skeleton in the closet "he just can't keep a secret"

There are tw 

There are two kinds of elections in Wisconsin, the non partisan held the first Tuesday of every April and the partisan, held the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.    

From the League of Women Voters website:

ELECTION DAYS
Primary Elections are held to nominate candidates to be voted on in the general or spring election.
Spring Primary:  Third Tuesday in February. In presidential election years, presidential preference primaries are also held at this time.
Fall Primary:  Second Tuesday in August.
Spring Election:  First Tuesday in April to elect judicial and nonpartisan municipal, county and education officials.
General Election:  Even-numbered years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November to elect U.S. Senators, Representatives to Congress, President and Vice-President, and state and county partisan officers.
Special Elections:  Held to fill vacancies or for other designated purposes.

Now that we have established that the Spring elections are NOT "secret elections", they happen every single year, in every single municipality in Wisconsin, we know that Mr. Bott is a bearer of false witness(for those scoring at home, that is breaking the 9th commandment).  

Why would Mr. Bott, outright lie?  The same reason they always do.  Money.  

The Republicans, have spent four years decimating public education budgets and telling us that if schools want to spend more money, go to referendum and have the taxpayers approve it.  That way the "taxpayers have control".  The problem is schools, out of necessity, were doing just that and passing them at a 77% rate.   

This flabbergasted the anti-intellectual republicans who are now doing all they know how to do.  Legislate their troubles away.   They are now coming up with an ALEC inspired referendum "reform".  

Republican state lawmakers are seeking to restrict when and how local school districts can raise money from their local taxpayers at a time when the state is offering few new dollars for public schools.
But critics say the measures are another example of GOP lawmakers making it harder for public schools to pay the rising costs of educating the state’s 870,000 public school students and could hurt school boards’ ability to ensure cash flow.
The bills come during an uptick in referendums — 206 in 2014, the most in at least 10 years, state records show — and the rate at which they pass. One in four in recent years were held outside of the traditional spring or fall elections, according to the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance.
In April, 76 percent of the referendums to exceed revenue limits passed. That compares to a typical rate of about 50 percent in years prior. This represents a changing perception of the state’s support of public schools, said Todd Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance.
“This reflects a shift in public opinion due, I think, to tighter state-imposed restraint on aids and revenue limits in recent years,” Berry said. “There is one instance above all when locals will vote to tax themselves: a fear that they might lose their community’s or neighborhood’s school.”

Of course the right wing echo chamber was all over that:   

The thing about the right wing echo chamber, in the era of Trump, is that they need to be even more outrageous and full of crap before anyone pays attention.  

Hence Mr, Bott's ridiculous claim that a spring election is a "secret" election.    No one is kept from voting(except veterans and college students thanks to the Republican voter ID bill), in the spring election.  

Something to take into account next time AFP puts an op-ed in the paper, emails you their BS or is a guest on a local political show.  

They not only lie, but that have no idea how the Government or our democracy works.   

Waukesha Reaps What It Sows

By Jeff Simpson 

Waukesha is known for three things, men raping couches, really bad water and voting solidly red.

The land that has given us the likes of Paul Ryan, Ron Johnson, Paul Farrow and sent Wild Bill Kramer(who would still be in office if he was not in prison) to Madison, over and over and over, are now starting to face the consequences of their actions.

The free market, anti Government haven is now begging for the Government to step in and let them ruin Lake Michigan the way they have mismanaged their own water.   Getting bailed out by the State of WI and harming Lake Michigan, sure beats those nasty regulations, and having to responsibly govern.

Now Waukesha is taking another hit, this one courtesy of their favorite son Paul Ryan.

Blaming Congress for its failure to reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank, an institution that finances sales of U.S. industrial equipment to overseas customers, General Electric Co. says it will stop manufacturing engines in Waukesha and move that work to Canada.
About 350 jobs will be lost at the Waukesha plant, where GE Power & Water, a division of Fairfield, Conn.-based GE, builds engines used in the petroleum industry.
The company says it will move the production to a new $265 million engine factory to be built in Canada during the next 20 months.
The Waukesha workers amount to collateral damage in what has become a highly politicized fight.
GE and other companies have pleaded with Congress to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, which provides loans, credit guarantees and insurance to aid sales by U.S. companies to customers abroad. But many Republicans say the bank amounts to corporate welfare, benefiting large corporations that don't need government assistance.
The bank's charter expired June 30 when Republican members of the House blocked a reauthorization vote.

Yes the Republican leaders in the House(IE Paul Ryan) blocked a reauthorization vote.  Insteado f having the vote and seeing where the rest of Congress fell along this issue(you know democracy), they actually blocked a vote of reauthorization(not democracy).

GE then took their ball and went to Canada, costing WI and Waukesha 350 family sustaining jobs and a solid piece of tax base.   All gone in an instant.   For the economically challenged Republicans in WI(of which there are many) there is so much more:

GE says the Waukesha plant has more than 400 U.S. suppliers and, in Wisconsin alone, suppliers receive millions of dollars in revenue from the plant.
"We know these announcements will have regrettable impact not only on our employees but on the hundreds of U.S. suppliers we work with that cannot move their facilities, but we cannot walk away from our customers," Rice said.

Let's check the scorecard, 350 jobs lost (minimum), millions of dollars to surrounding businesses and huge tax base for the county.  Gone.

$174,000/yr + Cadillac Benefits and sweet pensioned Paul Ryan (R-Wall St.), remains unbowed by the devastation he is helping create in his home district:

Opponents of the Ex-Im Bank include some of the nation's highest-profile lawmakers, among them U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican from Janesville.
Ryan has said he opposes the bank in principle, calling it a "strange collusion of big business and big government."
"Congressman Ryan remains opposed to the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. He feels there are better ways Congress can promote economic growth. Rather than continue with corporate welfare, we should be focused on fixing our tax code and reducing burdensome regulations, which are long-term solutions to our economic woes," Ryan's office said in a statement.

Probably the worst part of this, the US Senate actually passed a bill reauthorizing the bank,  But the House felt it more important to go on vacation.

At the end of July, the U.S. Senate passed legislation reauthorizing the bank, as part of a long-term transportation bill. However, the House adjourned for the August recess without reauthorizing the bank and hasn't taken action on the issue since.

Paul Ryan is excited, now that so many of his good friends in Waukesha will no longer be working, they have more time to join him and his wife at the beach.

You can even grab your Paul Ryan political robot beach towel to sit with him:



In case you are wondering, the failed presidential candidate and former "open for business" guy, Scott Walker also opposed the reauthorization of the bank:

This time around, Republican opponents of the bank have a lot more friends — as in, nearly every GOP 2016 presidential candidate.

These new opponents join with what The Washington Post's Matea Gold and Tom Hamburger describe as a fierce lobbying campaign by tea party-aligned groups such as Heritage Action and the Club for Growth and mega-GOP donors Charles and David Koch to get rid of the bank.

This camp includes three of the four senators running for president, as well as most governors in the race: Bush, Wisconsin's Scott Walker, Louisiana's Bobby Jindal and former Texas governor Rick Perry.

Why would they oppose it?  Their boss told them to:

Even more surprising than the rare event of a government program being wound down was the force behind the shutdown: the billionaire Koch brothers. Their network of groups turned what was once routine reauthorization of a lesser-known financing entity into a litmus test for conservatives — and they scored a major victory.
The ability to make the bank a Capitol Hill priority and even a presidential campaign issue highlights the growing power of the Koch network within the GOP. It also spotlights some of the internal divisions complicating the Republican effort to recapture the White House in 2016.

While I feel bad that these 350 fellow Wisconsinites will no longer be employed at a company they have worked for generations, I highly recommend that the good folks in Waukesha do what they do best!

NO, get away from that sofa!

I was referring to, grab a Waukesha Freeman, run a bath and think of ways that you can blame Obama and see how you can bring other Wisconsinites down with you!

PS:  Don't forget to pull the Paul Ryan Shower curtain or you will have a bigger water mess than you do now!

Clinton Calls Walker "A Tool Of The Koch Brothers"

Hillary Clinton did a campaign stop in Milwaukee on Thursday night. During her speech, she said what many of us already knew - Walker is a tool for the Koch Boyz:

Making her 2015 debut in Scott Walker’s home state of Wisconsin, Hillary Clinton on Thursday unleashed her harshest and most extended diatribe yet against a Republican rival not named Donald Trump, accusing the governor of being a tool of the billionaire Koch brothers.

“It seems to me, just observing him, that Governor Walker thinks because he busts unions, starves universities, guts public education, demeans women, scapegoats teachers, nurses, and firefighters, he is some kind of tough guy on a motorcycle, a real leader,” Clinton said to a packed audience at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “Well, that is not leadership folks. Leadership means fighting for the people you represent."

While Clinton frequently criticizes her Republican opponents on the campaign trail, her barbs are rarely so extended or pointed. She also mentioned Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, and Rand Paul on Thursday evening — but Walker faced the brunt of her fire.

“It looks like he just gets his marching orders from the Koch brothers and just goes down the list,” she added.

You gotta give Clinton credit, when she's right, she's right.

Interestingly, the local corporate media giant, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, failed to mention the line about the Kochs. But they did provide Walker's mewling response to Clinton, which shows that Walker has no limits to his hypocrisy:

Walker fired back at Clinton with a statement touting his record in Wisconsin and accusing her of fighting for the "ruling class."

"Hillary Clinton could learn a few lessons from the bold reforms we've enacted in Wisconsin since I took office," he said. "To move our country forward like we moved Wisconsin forward, we need a fresh face from outside Washington, D.C., to wreak havoc on the status quo and put hardworking American taxpayers back in charge. Hillary Clinton, who has been fighting for the ruling class over the working class for years, is not fit to take up that mantle."

If Walker thinks that creating the biggest drop in median income and in the middle class while lagging woefully behind the rest of the nation in job creation is fighting for the working class, it tells me that his mind is like concrete - all mixed up and firmly set.

Jon Stewart Destroys Kochfest!

Oh, this is much too funny not to share.  The best comes near the 5:25 mark, where Stewart does the most remarkably accurate take of Scott Walker (slightly NSFW):





H/T Heather at Crooks and Liars

Scott Walker Gets His Just Reward!

By Jeff Simpson


Scott Walker was at a campaign event and someone with a Walker for President sign asked to take their picture with him.

Like Scotty Walker himself, things are not always as they seem!

This is the finished product!

AFP-WI Knows How To Fill A Room

By Jeff Simpson

It is very simple, ignore all facts and just declare something as true, regardless how idiotic it sounds.   It is something Americans for Prosperity has thrived on, and this is no different.  

Apparently they had some kind of "grand opening"in Sheboygan and here is a pic from their facebook:



And with NO embellishment whatsoever, here is the caption on their pic:

Packed house here in Sheboygan tonight for our grand opening

A picture is worth a thousand words! 

Umm:

packed
 
 
adjective \ˈpakt\: pressed together so there is very little space between the parts or pieces
: filled with a large amount of something
: full of people : filled with as many people as possible

Nuff Said.    

Scottholm Syndrome

By Jeff Simpson

Rebeccaforreal posted this on her facebook page:

Rebecca Kleefisch

41 mins · 

It's a small wonder the Governor's message is resonating across the country: what a study in contrasts...as our president vetoes the Keystone XL Pipeline, killing the creation of thousands of new jobs, here in Wisconsin our State Senate votes "Right to Work" legislation out of committee, moving our state into position to create thousands of new jobs. What a difference 852 miles can make.

To which someone left this comment:

Shari Pes----------wski: God has blessed us with a governor who cares about the citizens and not big businesses.

In case you think your eyes have deceived you let me post that again:

Shari Pes----------wski: God has blessed us with a governor who cares about the citizens and not big businesses.

There really are no words and there really is no hope for WI.  

Walkergate: The Kochfather

Last week, we some some very peculiar twists and turns in the Walkergate saga.

Not the least of these was the syndicate styled threat made by the dark money masters, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal.  The Kochfathers, apparently feeling that a horse head in Scott Walker's bed was too subtle of a message for him, warned him that he better not be even entertaining the thought of turning rat on his allies in the corporate mafia's election racketeering scheme.

Walker responded at first with a terse press release saying that he and his campaign have nothing to do with the federal lawsuit and he is in no way messing with that.

It seems that maybe Walker did find a horse head in his bed after all, because on Friday, he was much more ingratiating and sycophantic:

Gov. Scott Walker said Friday that he won't back away from key allies amid a continuing secret John Doe investigation.

Walker also expressed surprise with a recent Wall Street Journal editorial that criticized alleged settlement talks between the Walker campaign and special prosecutor Francis Schmitz.

"I'm certainly not going to undermine people who share my same beliefs and I'm certainly not going to undermine anyone's First Amendment rights. I'm frankly kind of shocked for anyone to suggest that," Walker said after delivering a keynote address at Hope Christian High School senior signing day.

[...]

Walker also touted his record "as strong economic and fiscal conservative," policy positions that align with the Wisconsin Club for Growth.

"I've been tested on that," he said. "I've been pushed on that. I haven't backed away from from keeping that commitment to the people of this state. I think there is no evidence that would otherwise suggest in any way I would back away from not only that position but from supporting people who support the same position."

First, we have to look past the fact that Walker is making political statements while doing a gubernatorial function in a religious institution. It's not surprising that the corporate media missed that completely since they have their noses so far up Walker's butt they could tell you what he had for breakfast.

The Kochfathers responded, again through the Wall Street Journal.  They again admonished Walker for even thinking of betraying the Dark Money Family and for trying to weaselspeak his way out of it, but said that his later words pleased them:

"Sorry, that's disingenuous," the editorial said of Walker's initial response. "The 'federal lawsuit' is one brought by Mr. Walker's political allies in federal court against prosecutors who are conducting a state John Doe probe into allegedly illegal campaign coordination. Our editorial concerned Mr. Walker's willingness to settle with prosecutors over his role in the state John Doe probe. The worry is that he might settle to help his re-election campaign while throwing his allies over the side."

The same day, Walker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "I'm certainly not going to undermine people who share my same beliefs, and I'm certainly not going to undermine anyone's First Amendment rights. I'm frankly kind of shocked for anyone to suggest that."

The Wall Street Journal's Friday editorial liked those Walker comments.

"If that means he won't cut a deal that undermines his allies, we're glad to hear it," the unsigned editorial says.

It added: "The stakes in the federal lawsuit against the John Doe probe are bigger than Mr. Walker's campaign. They concern the prosecutorial machine that exists in Wisconsin, and in too many other states, to punish and limit political speech that is protected by the First Amendment. Mr. Walker can help that cause by not undercutting the federal lawsuit with a deal in state court that might let prosecutors save face."

To put it another way, what they were saying to Walker was, "Youse got a nice campaign dere. It'd be a shame if something bad were to happen to it."

They are also telling Walker that they made him and if need be, they'll break him.

There are some things to take away from this "friendly discussion" between the Kochfathers and Walker.

One is that we really know who is in charge, and it's not Walker.  He is just an enforcer for the Dark Money Syndicate and he will remain in his seat of power only as long as he is useful to them.

Another thing is that this whole situation is much more like a mafia syndicate's racketeering scheme rather than the caucus scandals that we saw over a decade ago.  The prosecutors need to treat it such.  If they are unable to execute their duties because of all the legal wrangling, it is time for the feds to step in and deal with it, just as they did with John Gotti, the Teflon Don.

Thirdly, if they ever make a movie about this, I nominate Steve Buscemi to play Scott Walker.

Is It Working?

By Jeff Simpson

On the same day that Scott Walker was able to get his bosses to pony up $1,000,000, to tell everyone in WI that "it's working", in a silly, poorly produced ad. 



Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction came out with updated numbers on childhood poverty in Wisconsin. 

For the 2013-14 school year, Wisconsin has 359,400 public school district students who are eligible for free and reduced-price school meals out of enrollment of 829,394 in the 413 school districts that participate in the National School Lunch Program. There are now 117 school districts that have 50 percent or more of their students eligible for free and reduced-price school meals, including the state’s five largest districts: Milwaukee Public Schools (82%), Madison Metropolitan (54%), Kenosha
Unified (55%), Green Bay Area Public (58%), and Racine Unified (63%).

I guess, AFP-WI feels that the increase of childhood poverty and hungry children in WI was an endgame, then it is working perfectly.  

I personally think "Its working!" would mean that those numbers decreased, not increased.  But that's the crazy progressive in me.  

Koch's Desperately Mine

Great piece by Malcontends today:

 Iron County District Attorney Martin Lipske—inclined to shoot his mouth off in service to favored litigants such as the GTac mining company—should read Wisconsin Supreme Court Rule [SCR 20:3.6  Trial publicity]:  "(a) A lawyer who is participating or has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter."

Now, I'm no attorney, but Lipske's statement made to Steven Verburg of the Wisconsin State Journal (July 17, 2013) sure seems to me like a "extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter."

State Journal headline reads: "Details of harassment incident at mine show a troubling threat, prosecutor says."

Here is Lipske's quote: '"The details on the [alleged criminal] incident (of Katie Kloth and a small group) help explain why the Gogebic Taconite mining company hired heavily armed security guards from Arizona who wore camouflage and masks, Lipske said."

It's not like she is an ecoterrorist, we know what that looks like!    

Americans for Hypocrisy!

By Jeff Simpson

We have written alot here at CogDis about Americans for Prosperity and their old gopher boy Luke Hilgemann.   Although Luke has kind of had the last laugh, in that as he has become a VERY rich man (more on that story soon) and no longer has to live under the oppression of Scott Walker's regime. 

When Luke got promoted from local gopher to national coffee boy, the koch brothers, in their Wisconsin division of the Walker Campaign, needed a replacement, and they found one in David Fladboe. 

 They found Fladboe the same place that they found Hilgemann and Sean Lansing - straight from Scott Suder's office.    If your going to have an unethical, misleading organization like Americans for Prosperity, which is led by the vermin Tim Phillips, then Scott Suder is the perfect person to train your up and comers (United Sportsmen anyone?)! 

Now that we are caught up on the backstory of AFP, here is their current campaign:



    

In case it does not just JUMP right out at you...... 

Americans for Prosperity - STANDS WITH low-income workers, and unemployed Americans by opposing the minimum wage increase. 

Nothing says prosperity like low income workers and the unemployed! 

Koch-Funded AFP Gets Routed In Iowa

In case you missed, the news out of Iowa in last week's elections has great meaning for more than just the town of Coralville:

The mayoral and City Council candidates in an Iowa town who were most closely aligned with the message promoted by Americans for Prosperity, the deep-pocketed conservative political group, were roundly defeated on Tuesday in a sharp rebuke of outside influence in local politics.

The group, founded by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, did not back specific candidates, but it targeted incumbents in the town, Coralville, for their role in running up a $280 million debt. Yet the involvement of an outside group provoked so much anger that the race became as much a referendum on the group’s involvement as on the issues themselves, and it captured national attention, including from the White House. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. called the newly elected mayor, John A. Lundell, who was a City Council incumbent, on election night to congratulate him for overcoming the outside influence.

If anything, people in Coralville said, Americans for Prosperity’s efforts backfired and helped the candidates whose positions it was criticizing.

“The intrusion of the Americans for Prosperity pretty much poisoned the water of what we were trying to do for the last couple of years,” said Douglas Paul, a member of Citizens for Responsible Growth and Taxation, a group made up mostly of area business owners that also spoke out against the debt and the town’s economic development strategy.

Although his group agreed with Americans for Prosperity on many of the issues, Mr. Paul said, their positions came off as frightening.

“They were pretty much like bringing a loose cannon into the room,” Mr. Paul said. “They pretty much were a benefit to the incumbents.”

This is exciting in that it shows that the Kochs and their billions of dollars are not invincible.

But what it does take to win is people giving a damn about their communities and their lives and taking a stand for them.

Wisconsin's next chance to show that we are not caving in to our would be corporate overlords comes in just over a week in the race between Elizabeth Coppola and the corporations' candidate, Jessie Rodriguez.

Koch Network Groups Busted In California For $15 Million Dark Money Donations

After reading the previous post regarding the possibility that the Walkergate 2.0 investigation could very well include illegal collaboration and collusion between the election campaigns of Scott Walker and other Teapublicans and the third party groups funded by the Koch Brothers, the Bradley Foundation and the Sam Adams Alliance, a friend of Cog Dis forwarded this story from Mother Jones, which has eerily familiar:

On Thursday, the California attorney general and the state's top election watchdog named the "Koch brothers network" of donors and dark-money nonprofits as the true source of $15 million in secret donations made last year to influence two bitterly fought ballot propositions in California. State officials unmasked the Kochs' network as part of a settlement deal that ends a nearly year-long investigation into the source of the secret donations that flowed in California last fall.

As part of the deal, two Arizona-based nonprofits, the Koch-linked Center to Protect Patients Rights and Americans for Responsible Leadership, admitted violating state election law. The settlement mandates that the two nonprofits pay a $1 million fine to California's general fund, and the committees who received the secret donations at the heart of the case must also cut a check to the state for the amount of those donations, which totaled $15.08 million.

The article goes on to say that the most of the names of the actual donors of all those millions of dollars were able to be kept dark due to loopholes in the law (thank you ALEC and Citizens United) but did reveal some of them, including investment guru Bernard Shaw and Gap chairman Bob Fisher.

The article also has a screencap of an email from the fundraiser to Charles Koch. I could easily see one like that coming from Team Walker or WISGOP in order to get money for messaging, especially during the recalls.

As for how they did it, MJ does a very capable job of explaining it:

By October 2012, Russo had steered nearly $29 million for his Props. 30 and 32 advocacy campaign to Americans for Job Security. But there was a problem. Election day was less than two months away, and the way campaign law works, the standards for disclosing donors get tougher within that two-month window. So, out of fear that its donors could somehow be revealed, AJS and its lawyers took precautions, choosing to funnel the money through the Center to Protect Patients Rights, which was run by Sean Noble, who was then the primary outside consultant and strategist to the Koch brothers' national donor network. The settlement documents indicate that AJS made three, no-strings-attached donations to Noble's group: $4.05 million on September 10, 2012, $14 million October 11, 2012, and $6.5 million.

Here, the money trail forks into two trails. In one direction, CPPR gave $7 million to a nonprofit called the American Future Fund, which in turn passed $4.08 million of that to a subsidiary in California. That subsidiary, the California Future Fund for Free Markets, finally spent the money on influencing Props. 30 and 32.

In the second direction, CPPR directed $13 million to its Arizona neighbor, Americans for Responsible Leadership. ARL then passed $11 million of that money to the Small Business Action Committee in Sacramento, which spent the money influencing Props. 30 and 32.

Here's the bottom line: A California fundraiser raised a boatload of money. He shuffled it through a network of secretly funded nonprofit groups to hide the donors' identities. And when the money finally arrived in California in time to influence the 2012 elections, the fingerprints on the money had been thoroughly scrubbed off—and in the process, the operatives masterminding this scheme had broken the law.

Again, this is something that I could easily see them do here in Wisconsin, especially during the recalls, when there were more stunts pulled than any one group could watch.  It would not take any stretch of the imagination to see groups like MacIver Institute, Americans for Prosperity and/or Citizens for Responsible Government to take advantage of the crazy times to do something like this.

This could get very interesting indeed.