Walker's Enemies List

Last week, I wrote about how a black Wisconsin legislator, Representative Mandela Barnes, was ousted from Scott Walker's presidential campaign announcement event.
My friend, Bert, also had a negative experience when he tried to attend the event. In his own words, as he wrote for Cognitive Dissidence:

I printed out my ticket. I cleaned up a bit and even raised my clothing game to business casual. Then I drove across Waukesha Monday to the Scott Walker campaign announcement extravaganza at the county fairgrounds. What happened once I made it to the first entrance and handed the ticket to a smiling young woman is both appalling and entirely predictable.

The flow of people from the parking lot brought me to the entrance, a temporary shade tent where attendees were channeled by tables through three lines. The friendly woman scanned the code on my printout, said okay as it beeped recognition, and then called me back as she looked at the hand-held gizmo's screen. It's been rejected, she said in a surprised tone.

Then she pointed me to the far row of tables to talk to another aide there. The young red-headed man named Nathan started punching at his pad and looking at the ticket. He wasn't resolving the rejection right away, asked for me email and then said this with his eyes on the pad: "Oh, did you sign the recall?"

"Yes," I said. "Oh, that's it then" he replied.

Others who had been behind me continued to pass through to the main building. Nathan, a cool cat for being in his early twenties, told me I could watch the proceedings from the overflow tent with the people who had no ticket or who got to the event later than me. I pushed him and then he would not make explicit that the rejection was given to any and all petition signers.

As I say, my rejection is predictable. A similar, but funnier, denial happened to Democratic state assembly member Mandela Barnes. The careful managing of a TV bite's backdrop is par for the campaign course.

I have gone to other events in the Waukesha area and seen Walker at least three other times, even chatted with his sons at a rope line once about Wauwatosa East High sports at the Country Springs Hotel. I am a former reporter and news junkie and would attend any event in my neighborhood that garners national attention. Since my neighborhood is Waukesha, though, these events tend to all be Republican deals. However, I am not surprised I did not get in to this Walker announcement Monday because now Scott is in the big time and the place was bristling with police and handlers.

Not a huge deal, then, but I bring it up anyway because it is a good reminder, on the occasion of Walker's official entrance into the presidential race, about some of the core weaselisms of a sadly craven man.

Sadly, Bert's experience isn't a solitary one.

Walker's McCarthyism has been going on for years.

Immediately after the recall election in 2012, Walker started retaliating against anyone and everyone who stood against him.

Then, using a database which included the names of all the people that had signed the recall petition, Walker and his goons started going after others, including yours truly:

As of the time of this writing, some of the first victims of the New McCarthyism includes Dane County Judge David Flanagan, who was the first judge to rule against the Jim Crow laws; UW staff and Regents; and Mary Lou Young and Linda McFerrin, officers at United Way of Greater Milwaukee.

Even yours truly isn't immune from the harassment from the right. For the umpteenth time, someone has filed an Open Records Request against me with my employer. The requester wants to see if he can find more dirt on me from the acts of retaliation Scott Walker and his minions threw at me as well as to see if I'm qualified to do my job.

I am not worried about this in the sense that they will find anything to discredit me or get me into trouble. But I do find it irritating that they will not cease in their harassment because they don't like that I speak the truth and keep exposing Scott Walker and his allies for the miscreants that they are. And yes, questioning my qualifications to do my job is nothing short of an act of harassment and retaliation.

Walker even went so far as to withdraw the name of Joshua Inglett as his nomination to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, because he had signed the recall petition two years ago.

There is a myriad of other stories of people being harassed, threatened and intimidated by Walker and his supporters for no other reason than they signed the recall petition.

Whenever a person announces that they are running for an office at any level - even nonpartisan positions like judges or town councils - the first thing the Republicans do is run the name on the database to see if they signed the petition. If the person did, the Republicans will try to pin it on them like a scarlet letter.

Richard Nixon's Enemies List had only 20 names on it. Walker's has nearly one million and counting on his Enemies List. It's McCarthyism on steroids.

Let's just hope that we don't have to go through the embarrassment of another Nixonian presidency and Watergate (although Walkergate would be a highly appropriate name) before people realize that Walker is not fit for any office, especially not president.

(Cross posted from Crooks & Liars.)

#standwithrick

By Jeff Simpson

The prosecution of my friend @GovernorPerry is outrageous and sets a dangerous precedent. #StandwithRick
— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) January 27, 2015

Maybe an actual reporter could ask Mr. Walker what laws we should and should not follow. Maybe a good follow up would be should we hold politcians to a higher or lower standard than what we hold everyone else?

More on the Rick Perry Indictment here!

"Because He Had Ideas"

By Jeff Simpson

Former War Hero and  Republican Senator, Nominee for Vice President and President Bob Dole made some observations recently about the current republican party!

Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R). 

The current GOP ought to be “closed for repairs” because it lacks a vision and is unable to strike deals with Democrats, Dole said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday”.

The Kansas Republican said he was disturbed by his party’s obstructionist behavior on Capitol Hill.  “It seems almost unreal that we can’t get together on a budget or legislation,” he said.

President Obama also deserves blame for failing to reach out to Republicans in his first term and cultivate better relationships across party lines, Dole said.

Asked whether he would be welcomed by the Republican Party today, Dole said, “I doubt it. Reagan wouldn’t have made it, certainly Nixon wouldn’t have made it, because he had ideas. We might have made it, but I doubt it.”

(Edit note: How said is it when someone who committed treason has more ideas than anyone in your party currently?)

Dole is not alone, most republicans feel the same.

 The comments from the one-time presidential candidate reflect broad dissatisfaction with the state of the Republican Party, even among rank and file supporters. Nearly half of self-identified Republicans in an April Washington Post-ABC News poll said their party is “out of touch” with the concerns of most Americans

The Remedy:

Dole said his party needs stronger leadership. “Somebody has to stand up and say, ‘We’re not going to do this,’” he said.

With Paul Ryan and Scott Walker both running hard for president already...Good luck with finding leadership!

Treasonous Dick

By Jeff Simpson

 The Nixon tapes have been out there a while and Thom Hartmann has actually pointed this out before, but this is the first time that I have seen it in print to share it.

Tapes dating back to the last days of the Johnson administration reveal that Lyndon Johnson knew of a plan by Richard Nixon to thwart Vietnam peace talks so the war wouldn’t end until he could get into office.

According to the tapes, Johnson learned through FBI wiretaps that Nixon had played a role in getting South Vietnam to withdraw from peace talks in Paris that would effectively end the Vietnam War, and was therefore guilty of treason…

Johnson found out that Nixon had reached out to Anna Chennault, one of his senior campaign officials, to convince South Vietnam Ambassador Bui Diem to pull out of peace talks until after the election, according to the BBC.

Accusations of Nixon’s influence in the peace conference have been reported before, but the tapes provide a look at how the situation was handled by Johnson.

Without an end to the Vietnam War by Election Day, Nixon was voted into the White House.

Johnson could be heard saying on one particular recording that Nixon, another fan of White House audio recordings who would resign the presidency in 1974, had ‘blood on his hands.’

During a conversation with Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, Johnson, referring to people close to Nixon, and said, ‘This is treason.’ Dirksen was the Republican leader in the Senate.

n a call to Sen Richard Russell of Georgia, Johnson says: ‘We have found that our friend, the Republican nominee, our California friend, has been playing on the outskirts with our enemies and our friends both, he has been doing it through rather subterranean sources.’

I wonder how many of the 58,282 dead Americans would have been able to survive if not for Richard Nixon and the rights blind ambition.    I personally would like to see everywhere we have his name on a Government building, get the Joe Paterno treatment!

I think it is safe to say    Worst! President! EVER! 


 

The So-Called Silent Majority

The right wing often like to refer to themselves as the "Silent Majority."

Ironically, both words are as false as can be.

They are hardly silent.

With the corporate media controlling the TV news, the radio waves and the news papers, we are exposed to their propaganda all day every day.  And as if that wasn't enough, we have the ersatz "independent news services" like McCarthy Institute for Wayward Stalkers, Media Trackkkers and Wisconsin Distorter filling up the Intertubes with their raw sewage.

They are doing this in order to control the message and drown out any voices of dissent, as was outlined in the Powell Memo and is being actively pursued by ALEC and other extensions of American Fascism.

And they are hardly in the majority.

Ever since he introduced his proposed budget, Scott Walker has been using it as a campaign gimmick to get people to donate money and sign up for his mailing lists. Even though he's been doing this for weeks now, he's not had a resounding success:

In comparison, when we started collecting signatures for the recall attempt, it would have taken less than nine hours to collect as many as Walker's campaign did during all that time.

It should also be noted that in last fall's election, Democrats garnered more than 200,000 votes than Republicans did.  The only reason the Republicans survived the election was due to their gerrymandering.

It's rather telling on just how afraid the Teapublicans are of the truth that they have to resort to such obvious lies.  Then again, it shouldn't be too surprising, considering that the term "silent majority" stemmed from Richard Nixon.

Walker Is Not The Only Nixonian Republican In Fitzwalkerstan

It's already been pointed out that Scott Walker has more than a passing similarity to Richard Nixon.

There is the obvious Watergate - Walkergate connection.

John Dean, who served as counsel to Nixon, also did an analysis of Walker's personality and behaviors. He found that Walker out-Nixons Nixon, which comes as no surprise to anyone in Fitzwalkerstan.

But Walker isn't the only one with a Nixonian twist to them.

If the gentle reader will remember, at the Republican convention, Paul Ryan was introduced by Steve King. As xoff reports at the Paul Ryan Watch, King is not a good guy by any stretch of the imagination, and was Nixon's thug enforcer.

It is becoming increasingly impossible to believe that anyone could stick up for these reprobates, much less vote for them.

Are You A Fascist?

Gee, this certainly describes a certain governor we all know and dislike:

2. You believe in the rule of the few, election rigging, political decisions being made by a select group of officials behind closed doors, embrace the informal and unregulated exercise of political power, arbitrary deprivation of civil liberties, and little tolerance for meaningful opposition.

4. You use the media as a political propaganda machine to target a specific audience and to push your agenda on others. You make sure the media demonizes your opponents and takes your side on nearly every issue. You use your propaganda machine to play on the fears of others.

6. You are driven to indoctrinate others into your way of thinking. So much so, that you try to re-write history, change the way school children are taught and you brainwash the ignorant. You use your propaganda machine as a tool to achieve this.

7. You fear and demonize intelligent people who have a higher education because they are the ones who can thwart your effort to brainwash people. You then attempt to prevent others from achieving a higher education because you want the people as ignorant as possible so you can convince them that your way is the right way.

9. You disrespect women and think their place is in the home. You believe women are weak and cannot do things that men do. You believe that sexual harassment or assault is no big deal and that the only thing women are good for is cooking meals and having babies.

10. You strongly align yourself with corporations and you support corporate money and influence in government. You despise government regulations that keep corporations honest because you believe everything should be controlled by the free market and that corporations should be allowed to do whatever they please.

13. You absolutely despise unions. To you and those like you, labor unions represent the empowerment of workers. Since you believe corporations can do whatever they want, you see organized labor as a threat because they fight for higher wages, health care, safety regulations, less hours, vacations, sick days, and holidays off. This obviously threatens the amount of money corporations can give to you and your cause so you brand unions as proponents of socialism and make laws that severely weaken them so that corporations can have a cheap, mindless labor force.

14. You are obsessed with crime and a major supporter of punishing those who commit crimes. So much so, that you don’t care about the concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ You are proud of executing people and aren’t bothered if an innocent person is killed. You seek to make harsher laws, especially laws that target specific groups of people such as immigrants, women, and people of color. You also oppose Miranda rights and using humane interrogation tactics and you seek to undermine the independent judiciary.

15. You believe every election should go your way and to reach that goal, you push voting laws that disenfranchise those who traditionally vote for opponents such as people of color, the elderly, college students, and the poor. You even stoop to fixing elections in some cases and complain when your opponents challenge the vote counts.

16. You believe in rewarding your friends with positions when you gain power and you reward those who support you with government contracts and money, especially corporations. You also do your best to aid your supporters in any way you can, such as repealing undesirable pieces of legislation and regulations. You often have something to gain financially from this.

17. You create scapegoats to blame when problems arise. Whether it’s communists, liberals, minorities, homosexuals, the poor, or non-Christians, one thing is for certain. You and your propaganda tool will blame each and every one of those groups for bad things that happen even if you were the cause of the problems in the first place.

He becomes more like Nixon every time you look at him.

Bush Knew

Over 120 new documents were released by the CIA regarding 9/11 and they are not flattering to the Bush Administration. Here are some highlights (emphasis mine):

The material contains much new information about the hunt before and after 9/11 for bin Laden, the development of the drone campaign in AfPak, and al-Qaida’s relationship with America’s ally, Pakistan. Perhaps most damning are the documents showing that the CIA had bin Laden in its cross hairs a full year before 9/11 — but didn’t get the funding from the Bush administration White House to take him out or even continue monitoring him. The CIA materials directly contradict the many claims of Bush officials that it was aggressively pursuing al-Qaida prior to 9/11, and that nobody could have predicted the attacks.

The National Security Archive and the person who edited these documents points out this is not good for the Bush Legacy.  

 “I don’t think the Bush administration would want to see these released, because they paint a picture of the CIA knowing something would happen before 9/11, but they didn’t get the institutional support they needed,” says Barbara Elias-Sanborn, the NSA fellow who edited the materials.

Do not worry, it gets even worse for the Bush Administration:

 Many of the documents publicize for the first time what was first made clear in the 9/11 Commission: The White House received a truly remarkable amount of warnings that al-Qaida was trying to attack the United States. From June to September 2001, a full seven CIA Senior Intelligence Briefs detailed that attacks were imminent, an incredible amount of information from one intelligence agency. One from June called “Bin-Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats” writes that “[redacted] expects Usama Bin Laden to launch multiple attacks over the coming days.” The famous August brief called “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike the US” is included. “Al-Qai’da members, including some US citizens, have resided in or travelled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure here,” it says

 Of course know that clearing brush and taking pictures took priority over any attempt to keep Americans safe:

During the entire month of August, President Bush was on vacation at his ranch in Texas — which tied with one of Richard Nixon’s as the longest vacation ever taken by a president. CIA Director George Tenet has said he didn’t speak to Bush once that month, describing the president as being “on leave.” Bush did not hold a Principals’ meeting on terrorism until September 4, 2001, having downgraded the meetings to a deputies’ meeting, which then-counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke has repeatedly said slowed down anti-Bin Laden efforts “enormously, by months.”

3000 + innocent American Lives and trillions of dollars are gone because of the incompetence of the Bush Administration and now Karl Rove and his Anti-American group Crossroads GPS are trying to influence elections and bring us back to the days when terrorists ran unchecked.  

Are we going to let them?   

Walkergate: One For The Ages

Before we get into this post, I must warn the gentle reader to prepare to have their mind boggled, their flabber gasted and the gob smackered.  It really is that breathtaking.

In a article on JSOnline, Dan Bice reports on Scott Walker, who was in Milwaukee for a "Job Creation Forum" (read campaign donation event).  Bice got to ask Walker some questions about Walkergate.

Walker again denied knowing one single thing about the John Doe investigation besides what he's read in the paper.  Yeah, sure.  And the fact that he retained former US Attorney Steve Biskupic and paid a cool $60,000 to his favorite law firm was just pure coincidence. You can never be too careful I guess.

But Walker also gave Bice the most jaw-dropping and absolutely incredulous quote (emphasis mine):

Gov. Scott Walker says he isn't worried about a John Doe investigation of his current and former aides.

That's because, Walker said, he is a man of integrity.

"I know that throughout my career - first in the Legislature, then as county executive and now for the last 10 months as governor - I live by the standards I got from my parents," said Walker, whose father was a Baptist minister. "Certainly, they got me to the rank of Eagle Scout, and I continue to have that kind of integrity."

Walker also referred to his "high ethical standard."

Holy chutzpah, Batman!

Bice doesn't indicate either way, but it is believed that Walker said that with a straight face.  But that statement sure does bring back a certain memory.

I think it would be a very fine idea indeed if we were to take a look at Walker's integrity and high ethical standard.

We all already know about the current growing scandal which I introduced with the primer "An Introduction to Walkergate."  And even though I wrote that primer less than two weeks ago, it already is becoming obsolete.  As Bice points out in his article:

The investigation initially had focused on campaign activity by Walker's former county workers. But several sources said last week that prosecutors continue to look at new angles.

"Every time there's a new witness, this thing sprouts a new branch and heads in a completely new direction," said one person familiar with the investigation.

But what about before Walkergate started to break out?

Going back in time, our first stop is a scant six months ago, when Scott Walker tried to withhold emails he was bragging about. He ended up releasing said emails only after getting sued to do so. By the way, that little stunt cost tax payers $7,000.

And just the month before this, there was another moment that will go down in history when Walker had his conversation with "David Koch."  It will be hard for someone to come up with a more damning example of Walker's true ethical nature in that story alone.

Going back before that is Walker and his infamous motorcycle tour around the state. Walker did this stunt every year, claiming he was promoting tourism to Milwaukee County. But his avarice for the governor's seat and his own arrogance did him in this past year by making it painfully obvious that he was only doing it to promote his gubernatorial campaign.

Of course, he was campaigning every year he did this, but as his supporters would point out, did so with the blessing of the Milwaukee County Ethics Board. What they won't tell you is that he fired the head of the Ethics Board for questioning his ethics and appointed a young man promoted by a supportive law firm. With a panel of his own people, all of whom were quite aware of what happens to those that don't toe the line, is it any wonder that they rubber stamped his using tax dollars for this thinly-veiled campaign stunt? It also acts as a precursor to the unconscionable power grab he's doing now.

Another issue that Walker has chronic issues with is campaign finance reporting.  It seemed that during the gubernatorial race, he simply could not file a campaign finance report that wasn't in violation of the law.  But then again, that was nothing new, since he had the same problems in his first attempt at being governor as well.  The problems ranged from not having full disclosure on his campaign donors to apparently getting free consultations and jet plane rides.

There is also the question of Walker using tax dollars to promote the Koch sponsored Tea Party at the lake front.

In 2005, Walker was also the recipient of the second highest fine ever levied against a campaign in state history. He earned that privilege by bombarding people with those annoying robocalls, but failing to include the fact that he was paying for them.

When Walker was whisked into the Milwaukee County executive's chair in 2002, he did so on the wave of hatred due to the pension scandal created by his predecessor, Tom Ament.  One of his promises that he made was to have all of his staff sign waivers forgoing the pension enhancements that Ament had created.

In 2004, when Walker ran for his first re-election against challenger David Riemer, the issue of those waivers came up during the campaign.  Walker said that he had all those promised waiver signed, but refused to produce them.  So push came to shove and Riemer's strategist, Bill Christofferson, filed a formal request for the waivers.

The thing is, Walker didn't have them.  He never followed through with his promise.  When Christofferson filed the request, he and his top people spent the next ten days rushing around coercing people to sign the waivers.  Then at the end of the ten day, Walker supplied a list of people who signed, but did not include the dates they signed, much less the requested waivers themselves.

This fraudulent behavior was brought before the state's Department of Justice.  While they did not rule whether Walker's behavior was criminal, they did have this to say:

"In sum, this episode evinces a case of how government officials ought not to do business...

"Whether they violated the public records law is a question largely mooted by the later production of the waivers and the nearly inconceivable notion that a repeat of this inglorious set of circumstances might be forestalled by a judicial pronouncement on the matter.

"Nobody honored to serve in public office ought to manipulate public records in this fashion -- that is the opinion of this office."

And this wasn't even the earliest sign of the kind of person Walker is or the kind of campaigns he ran.

There is the famed and often discussed Marquette University incident. Walker was running for student president in his sophomore year. To say that he had some issues then would be an understatement. What happened then seems to be eerily prophetic:

Walker attended Marquette from 1986 t0 1990, but never attained a degree (see page 5). His sophomore year, Walker ran for president of the Associated Students of Marquette University (ASMU, the former title for Marquette Student Government). He was accused of violating campaign guidelines on multiple occasions.

The Tribune reported then that he was found guilty of illegal campaigning two weeks before his candidacy became official. Later, a Walker campaign worker was seen placing brochures under doors at the YMCA. Door-to-door campaigning was strictly prohibited.

Walker initially denied this but later admitted to the violation, which resulted in lost campaign privileges at the YMCA.
In the run-up to election day, the Tribune’s editorial board endorsed Walker’s opponent John Quigley, but said either candidate had the potential to serve effectively.

However, the Tribune revised its editorial the following day, calling Walker “unfit for presidency.” The column cited Walker’s distribution of a mudslinging brochure about Quigley that featured statements such as “constantly shouting about fighting the administration” and “trying to lead several ineffective protests of his own.”

And if you thought, like I did, that was prophetic, compare this next segment to the investigation Walker is currently undergoing and what he had to say at the top of this very long post (emphasis mine):

The revision also expressed disappointment in Walker’s campaign workers reportedly throwing away issues of the Tribune after the endorsement was initially made.

Walker dismissed this, saying he had no knowledge of what his supporters did, according to a Tribune article from February 25, 1988.

Does anyone else have goosebumps?

Cory Liebmann also does a thorough examination of Walker's "High Ethical Standards" at his blog "Eye on Wisconsin."

I would advise the gentle reader to mark this occasion.

I adopted the word Walkergate because it sounded so natural and stirred up memories of its homophone, the infamous Watergate.  But as time goes on and more of this story is exposed, I truly can't help but believe that Walker's statements are going to end up echoing throughout history as much as the famous five words by Richard Nixon: "I am not a crook."

It will be interesting to see if they meet similar fates to their political careers or if we will need to recall Walker anyway.