Dysfunction Junction

By Jeff Simpson

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin seriously tweeted this:

Democratic Party WI ‏@WisDems  Feb 10Today @JebBush released hundreds of thousands of emails, while @ScottWalker refused questions from the press. #transparency

Ummm do you read the paper?

In the spirit of transparency, I am posting the emails of my governorship here," a note on Bush's website says. "Some are funny; some are serious; some I wrote in frustration." Some also contain the email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, and social security numbers of Florida residents. The emails are available in Outlook format, and can be searched on the web at Bush's website.

So for those scoring at home, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin(#dreamteam) sent out a tweet touting the wonders of the Republican front runner for 2016, for releasing thousands of emails of constituents personal information, social security numbers and medical records.

Its almost as if Mike Tate is applying for a job with the Bush campaign, or maybe Nation Consulting(whatever comes first).

If I didn't know better, I would think the next thing the WIdems(#dreamteam) do is send out a press relief touting well known POS Orville Seymer.  Nah that would be beyond the pale!

Don't forget send in your money....they are fighting for (against) you!  

Irresponsible Citizens for Responsible Government

Milwaukee, Wisconsin is the home base for a right wing, small government group with the ironic Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG). CRG consists of two socially inept misfits named Orville Seymer and Chris Kleismet.
name of

Orville Seymer

CRG's usual modus operandi is to threaten liberal elected officials with a recall in an order to try to intimidate them. (This, by the way, is how Scott Walker got to be Milwaukee County Executive. CRG recalled the former executive and paved the way for Walker)

Their other activities include trying to interfere with John Doe investigations, using federal court to interfere with John Doe investigations, trying to intimidate teachers and other public sector workers by giving out their personal information and filing false criminal complaints against innocent bloggers in retaliation for writing unfavorably about Scott Walker.

Ironically, at least one of them, Seymer, doesn't feel responsibility should apply to him:

Long a local government watchdog and critic, conservative activist Orville Seymer is now asking the federal government to help him sort out his money troubles.

Seymer -- a top official with Citizens for Responsible Government -- filed for bankruptcy last month, listing $147,126 in assets and more than $1 million in liabilities. He is seeking Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, which stops all legal actions and could allow him to write off many of his debts.

Seymer is pinning much of the blame for his financial woes on City Hall, saying he has been targeted by city building inspectors for speaking out against local officials.

[...]

In his federal petition, Seymer said he and his wife owe the city more than $50,000 for everything from property taxes to what he dubs "nuisance fees." The couple lives in Franklin.

He reported owing $742,000 to Waterstone Bank in Wauwatosa for mortgages on four properties and another $103,000 to Sunset Bank in Waukesha for two additional mortgages. He said six of his seven rental properties have no equity in them.

He listed his gross income from his real estate business at $13,776 a month, or roughly $165,000 a year. Of that, he said he pays more than $8,000 a month on his various mortgages.

In Chapter 7 bankruptcy, a court trustee liquidates some of a debtor's assets to pay off as many creditors as possible. Once this is done, most of a bankrupt individual's debts, including credit card and medical bills, are wiped from the books. Seymer hopes to exempt six of his rental properties from liquidation.

In sum, a guy who thinks that paying public sector workers $40,000 a year is being lavish can't make it on more than four times that. On top of that, Mr. Small Government wants Big Government to bail him out of the mess he made for himself.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Orville.

Walkergate: Poor Orville!

With a shout out to blue cheddar, we learn that Orville Seymer of the nefarious and ill-named Citizens for Responsible Government has had his poor little feelings hurt by his good buddy and hero, Scott Walker.  Orville is upset because he found out that Team Walker didn't really respect him too much and now he's lashing out:

Orville Seymer made a name for himself as a conservative activist in the 2002 effort to recall then-Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament.  Ament resigned instead and Walker won the special election to succeed him.

So, Seymer, who's with the group Citizens for Responsible Government, was bothered to find his own name among the many emails released last week.  It involved an open records request that Seymer filed with the county over a security firm's contract.

Kelly Rindfleisch, Walker's then-deputy chief of staff at the county, sent an email to Walker campaign manager Keith Gilkes in 2010 asking, "What the Hell is Orville doing?"

Five days later, she asked Gilkes what to give Seymer.  Gilkes replied, "Just something that fulfills the request without giving him anything."

Seymer calls it a serious violation of Wisconsin's open records law to have a campaign making these decisions.

"They were controlling the release of these records and who got what, and to me, that is just way over the top," Seymer said.

Seymer said he doesn't know whether Walker knew about this or not, which is why he wants the governor to hold a press conference and take questions on these emails.

"At some point, you've got to tell the truth.  You know, you can't just brush it aside," he said.

Poor ol' Orville really doesn't have too much to complain about. He and his partner in depravity, Chris Kliesmet, are not forthcoming about who is funding their two-man operation.

Then again, no one probably wants to really be associated with a couple of low level muckrakers and henchmen who attack innocent teachers, even if it means breaking the law.  This dopey duo has also been known for doing Scott Walker's bidding while he was county executive, having them threaten recalls against county supervisors who opposed Walker and his schemes or filing false and falsified criminal complaints against innocent bloggers.

And Orville, if you have someone reading this to you, here's a free bit of advice:  Don't trust your new best BFF Chris Abele either.  He'll stab you in the back faster than walker did.

Then again, I don't think poor ol' Orville is done paying for his misplaced loyalty to Walker yet either.

The Faces Of AB 85

As our young friend atop the soapbox shared his take on the event, today was the Assembly public hearing for AB 85, the bill that is aimed to destroy Milwaukee County Government.


Despite an overwhelming amount of statements from people from all over the state - many of them Republicans - the Republicans in the legislature are apt to continue their wont of listening to the money being handed to them by the fistfuls rather than the people.

The anti-Plutocracy Power Grab people listed a laundry list of reasons why this was a bad idea ranging from the fact that it's simply not needed to the fact that any reform should be done locally to the fact that they tried something like it in Fond du Lac County and it failed miserably to the destruction of representative government. The list is rather lengthy.

However, the people speaking for it generally broke down into three groups:

• Anti-government kooks,
• The people that wrote the bill (Greater Milwaukee Committee), and,
• The people paid by the people who wrote the bill.

I won't bother with the first group.  We've heard them all before.  We could hear them again at the next week's Tea Party Tax Day Rally - oops, wait, no we won't because there won't be one.  Now it's just a loosely wound group of loosely wound people.

Then there is the plutocrats of the GMC crowd.

Of course, Chris Abele was there because he's already created so many jobs - never mind that that unemployment rate in Milwaukee County is 8.4% and climbing. He's also already resolved the long term funding issue for the transit and parks systems, found appropriate and safe places for all the people he's kicking out of the mental health complex.

Anyway, Abele's sole argument for wanting to be given complete control of the county is simply because he didn't get his way when he wanted to bust the unions even more.

Side note: What really burns my beans is that many of the people who is supporting Abele in his hostile takeover were screaming when Walker tried it. Bloody hypocrites.

Another GMC member who was there to testify was it's Grand Poobah, Julia the worst thing in the world that Lee Holloway fired Tim Russell.  Yes, that Tim Russell.
Taylor. Yes, the Julia Taylor who thought it was

Tayler's rationale for wanting the County Board incapacitated was the same as Abele's - they didn't do what GMC told them to do.

And sitting right next to Taylor in the Rogues' Gallery - because they didn't want to mingle with the commoners, was right wing stud muffin, Orville Seymer. Seymer is one of the two people that make up the totally inappropriately named group, Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG).

Seymer, and his cohort in crime, Chris Kleisment, are neither exactly upstanding citizens nor very responsible themselves.  Where they think they have a right to preach to anyone about anything is unfathomable.

Seymer's reasoning for supporting the power grab was, well, watch it for yourself and see if you can figure it out, because I sure as hell can't:



(Video courtesy of Rebecca Kemble of The Progressive)

I've watched it several times and I still don't know what he was trying to say.  One would think that with all their money, GMC could have hired a better script writer who didn't use so many big words that made Seymer stumble so much.

In short, if this bill is passed, it's only because Abele, Taylor and the other plutocrats were able to buy the votes and not because of its nonexistent merits.  And it's surely not based on the merits of the people pushing it, for those are just as nonexistent.

ARM + CRG = POS

The readers of CogDis, are familiar with a Wisconsin based right wing hate group called CRG!  If you remember, they were the Vile cowards that sent out the loathsome anonymous attack on the Janesville teachers!   They are back and we will get to them in a minute!

This election cycle a new "company" seemed to pop up calling themselves "Advanced Research Methods".   ARM offered their services to democratic candidates throughout the state of WI.   Their services consisted of opposition research of the candidates opponents.

A little research and we see a couple things.

1.   They seem to have no website and no way to contact them. 

2.  The only google hit is one Leanne Rice who says her position is an "analyst"   (she obviously is NOT analyzing how to get your companies name out there and drum up business! 

3.  Leanne Rice bills herself as :

Political Consultant

• Field Operations Manager for Confidential Employer

  Provides confidential services to candidates affiliated with
  all political parties.

4.  Some quick research on her and we find that she is good friends(along with most republican elected officials and staff) with MacIver Institute for Republican Propaganda, Our old friend Shrill laBarre , David Prosser's really really really really good friend Vickie Schimming, paid right wing fantasy blargher Jimmy Wigderson and (wait for it), Orville Seymer.  

5.  Orville Seymer is the head coward of the cowardly CRG.  If I didn't know better, I would think that Ms. Rice is a member of CRG herself!  That of course would be highly unethical so that can't be!  

Conclusion:  It is not hard to do opposition research when YOU are the opposition.  I wonder if they mentioned that when they were trying to get business from the democratic candidates or if they overlooked it.  It is hard to imagine that someone like Ms. Rice and her friends would ever stoop so low as to try and mislead us?  Say it aint so! 

Maybe the republican party did not think their message was resonating statewide and they needed to get votes another way?   

Some days, the pure dishonesty and lack of ethics of the republican party, amazes even me!  

CRG: The Depth Of Depravity

My colleague Jeff Simpson has already done a yeoman's job of calling out the utterly misnamed group Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG) and their malicious attack on the teachers of Janesville.  As to be expected, I have more to say on that subject.  But first, I want to share with you exactly who these cretinous miscreants are.

CRG is basically a two man operation.  The leaders are a real odd couple, Chris Kliesmet and Orville Seymer.

Kliesmet is a diminutive man, both physically and emotionally.  Kliesmet is always seen in an oversized suit, and would make the perfect stereotypical bookkeeper.  Although he is always claiming poverty, he lives in Bayside, one of the wealthiest communities in Milwaukee County.

His partner, Seymer, is the exact opposite.  He is a large, brutish man who is always unkempt, grungy and greasy.  Like his partner, he is always claiming poverty, but owns several rental properties, but doesn't invest too much time or money into upkeep, judging from the lawsuits and complaints.

As the gentle reader probably has already surmised, they are Scott Walker's personal thug enforcers.  When there is dirty work to be done, Walker whistles and these two wretched hounds come running.

Orville "Pretty Boy" Seymer

CRG first came on the scene in 2002, when the news broke of a pension scheme devised by then Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament.  CRG stepped up and, with the help of radio squawkers Charlie Sykes and Jeff Wagner, were able to fan the flames of anger to a point just short of breaking out torches and pitchforks, and started a recall against Ament and several county board supervisors.

After they got Walker was ensconced as county executive, he tried to pay them back by giving them office space in the Milwaukee County Courthouse. Yes, you read that correctly.  He offered this right wing nut job group, the precursor to the teahadists, an office in a public building. This move was shot down by the board due to it being illegal, but word is they still got one on the sly.

After that, CRG became Walker's enforcers.  When it came to be time to vote on one of Walker's draconian budgets or some other act of malfeasance, CRG would start threatening progressive supervisors who might oppose his cuts to staff and service with a recall, regardless of how unlikely they were going to be successful.  However, outside of those very first ones, they were never successful and became the laughing stocks of  Milwaukee County.

However, their interest in Walker and his career was never very altruistic or very interested in having a responsible government.  Via former County Board Supervisor Jim McGuigan, we catch this missive from George Stanley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to Kliesmet who was upset about an article written about his corruption being exposed:

Cary Spivak and Dan Bice have very detailed notes from a July interview and a second interview on Tuesday in which you talk quite openly about making money as a Six Sigma adviser to other government entities. Here are just a few examples of things you said to them: 

"Yeah, I might be inclined to sell my services to those people (you were talking about other governments contacting you about Six Sigma services)

"Loss leader " that's a good way to put it (you were talking about your work at no charge for Milwaukee County and later getting business from others) 

"Could I make a dollar on it in the future? I guess the answer is true. 

"I have no intention at this point of starting a company and doing this. But If somebody came to me and made me a better offer, of course I would." 

"I'm also a capitalist. I don't have any altruistic motives toward San Diego or any other place." 

Given your openness about how your Six Sigma work for the county could lead to business with other government units, I see nothing inaccurate about today's Spivak & Bice column.
When you lobby government officials, pressure them with your clout as a citizen organizer, and mention possible business dealings with them, you should not be surprised that this newspaper will watch you with the same scrutiny as we do others who lobby and do business with government officials spending taxpayers' money. 

We will continue to watch your actions in the future.

Chris "Macho Man" Kliesmet

Unfortunately, Stanley's threat was not to be and the corporate media giant started to actually use CRG as a credible authority despite their knowledge of CRG's corrupt nature.

Over the next few years, they tried to expand their reach across the state. They launched one failed recall attempt after another against politicians in all corners of the state, including too laughable attempts to recall then Governor Jim Doyle.

In 2010, they chose to go after someone other than county supervisors.  Just a few weeks after Darlene Wink was caught leaving comments on JSOnline and other blogs and Tim Russell was taped doing campaign work during county time as a county employee, CRG filed a criminal complaint against yours truly. Using falsified data to prop up their false accusations, they claimed I was blogging on county time using county equipment.

Only thing is, I wasn't.

The Bloggerati stepped up to defend me, pointing out that the days CRG used in their attacks were vacation days, furlough days and {gasp} major holidays.* How dare I use my off time as I see fit!  Obviously, I had to be punished! (Or at least used as a foil in an effort to take people's attention to the real criminals.)

Interestingly, to this date, this group, which claims to be watchdogs of the government, has never said one thing regarding the ongoing Walkergate scandal, which is the ultimate waste of taxpayer dollars.

Many have also wondered about where CRG was getting all there money from.  After all, running all these recall attempts and doing literally hundreds if not thousands of open record requests costs quite a bit of cash.  And like I said, the only people that appear in charge of their mayhem is this unlikely Mutt and Jeff duo.

Well, thanks to their malevolent attack on the Janesville teachers, people like karoli at Crooks & Liars started looking at this group.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that they've gotten a large amount of cash from groups like the Koch-funded Club for Growth, as well as American Majority and the Sam Adams Alliance.

And to show off their hypocrisy, they've failed to follow tax laws in their filings:

That grant to CRG was for $126,500. It was, according to the Club for Growth return, all paid in 2009. The identification number on the postcard filing matches the identification number on the Club for Growth filing. 

CRG filed a postcard return with the IRS for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2009, just as it had for 2008, 2010, and 2011. There are special rules connected with the postcard filing. For example, an organization could receive more than $50,000 in one year, (the usual threshold for the postcard filing) and still file via postcard as long as their average receipts were less than $50,000 over a three-year period. 

Let's see if they qualified. In 2007, CRG received 40,959. In 2009, CRG received at least $126,500. Assuming no receipts in 2008, the average receipts comes out to $55,819.67, which exceeds the permissible threshold for filing an information-free return. Oops! 

Why is this important? It's important because it seems clear that the Wisconsin Club for Growth used CRG and other allied right wing groups as funnels and fronts to avoid accountability for purely evil acts like publishing an enemies list of public school teachers, for example. It's important because there might have been at least a shred of accountability for their prior bad acts. And yes, there have been many

Well, that's not very responsible now, is it? Maybe we should start a group called Citizens for Responsible CRG.

Their hypocrisy and their depravity really show when it comes to their attacks on the Janesville teachers.  As noted before, they stuck their attack fliers in the boxes for the Janesville Gazette, which is stomping mad that they've been made to look like they were the ones that put them with their paper.  (Judging from the fact that they regularly print the tripe from Kevin Binversie of another Koch front group, Wisconsin Reporter, the assumption appears to be a natural mistake.)

I have learned that since the Gazette ran the story Wednesday morning in which CRG was outed as the cravenly culprits behind this malicious attack, Kliesmet has been crying the blues to whoever will listen that people have been calling him to ream him out.

He is so upset about finally being held accountable for his actions that he is threatening to sue the paper for connecting him and his group to the fliers, even though it was his group that did the open records request and gathered all the information.

Even more incredulous is the fact that Kliesmet has been saying that they wouldn't have had to do that if it wasn't for the recalls.  This coming from the King of the Recalls.  Can you say "hypocrite?"

But that could be the least of CRG's concerns.

I believe that they might have broken the law with their little escapade.

While it is true that the names and salaries of the teachers are public record, their malfeasance didn't end with their McCarthy-esque use of this data by printing it out and shoving it in people's paper boxes.

On the flier, they said people should look for the names of their children's teachers on verifytherecall dot com.  And then they included this portion:

click on image to embiggen

With this attachment, they are calling teachers that signed the recall petition "radicals" and are urging parents to disrupt their work by asking their children to be removed from their classrooms. And that's where the rub comes in.

Civil service codes state that public employees cannot be punished or harassed for partaking of political activities, joining a political party or any other group on their own time.  Yet this is exactly what CRG did.

If I were the teachers, I would get in touch with an attorney who specializes in labor law and/or civil rights and see if they got a case.  Hell, just the discoveries that CRG would have to go through would be worth it, as they have to reveal the other culprits who joined in this act are, as well as who ordered it and who bankrolled it.

Then Kliesmet and Seymer can finally learn what being responsible is really all about.

*The legal bills which I accrued (and am still paying off) and lost time at work to deal with their smear job have totaled over $4,000.  Who said that Freedom of Speech is free?  Anyway, if the gentle reader would like to help me with my legal costs, they can donate to the capper defense fund by clicking here or on the button to the upper right side.