The Scott Jensen Legacy

By Jeff Simpson

I finally figured out why new Assembly rep Jessie Rodriguez does whatever formerly convicted felon Scott Jensen tells her to do:

1.  He was a convicted felon before blind to republican crime Brad Schimel, gave him a get out of jail free card.

2. She knows that if she does not do what he says, he will send his goons over to rough her up!

WIsconsin political aide pleads guilty to disorderly conduct chargeA state legislative aide accused of harassing a news cameraman at the capitol building in Madison, Wis., pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct on April 25.Steve Baas, communications director for Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, was referred to a first offenders program for his actions inside the state Capitol on Jan. 30. Steve Cady, a cameraman for WBAY-TV in Green Bay, claimed Baas collared him by the necktie while he and a reporter attempted to interview another Jensen aide.Cady claimed Baas spun him around by his necktie and let go of him only when Cady shouted that he captured the incident on videotape. Baas said he tried to move Cady from blocking the hallway and claimed Cady tried to hit him during the confrontation. After the incident, Cady said the videotape exonerated him from Baas' claims.In accepting a plea agreement, the misdemeanor charge will be expunged from Baas' record after he completes the first offenders program. Baas will not have to serve jail time or pay a fine.Although she did not file a complaint, reporter Natalie Arnold said in an interview with The Green Bay News-Chronicle that other Jensen staff members "manhandled" her by shoving her against the wall in an attempt to prevent the interview.The scuffle occurred when Cady and Arnold went to the Capitol to question R. J. Pirlot, another aide to Speaker Jensen, about his involvement in a campaign against state Rep. Lee Meyerhofer (D-Kaukauna). WBAY News has been investigating allegations that Pirlot anonymously provided court transcripts to an independent campaign group. The group has been accused of producing a campaign radio spot that portrayed Meyerhofer as a "wife-beater." (City of Madison v. Baas)-

The question I have, is why in the world would anyone hire a thug like Steve Baas to represent them?  Especially the Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce, no wonder unemployment is so high in Milwaukee.

Here is Baas getting the name of the next person who asked the wrong question to rough up:



If you see this person stand clear he is known to be dangerous!  

Edit Note:  Scandal Plagued Scott Jensen is the one person in the state of WI leading the voucher expansion.  Do you really think he has the best interest of your children in mind?  Is he someone you would want your children to look up to or role model?  We all know the answer to that!   

Walkergate: The Unnamed Intervenors

As the gentle reader is aware, there is an ongoing and perpetual legal roller coaster going on regarding the Walkergate investigation.  The Dark Money special interest groups are throwing everything they can at the investigation to slow it down if not stop it completely.

In a nifty bit of legal judo, the Walkergate investigators were able to get the courts to order that some of the legal documents be released.  Immediately, two unnamed parties filed petitions to stop the release of the documents because REASONS:

Also on Wednesday, two unidentified people asked Randa to allow them to intervene in the case so they can make arguments to keep their identities and information about them secret.

In a joint filing, they noted they had not been charged with any crimes but that sealed documents had been filed in the case that include personal and political information about them. That included their names, addresses, political opinions, political associates, personal and business financial information, personal correspondence and allegations by prosecutors they had violated state laws.

The sealed information may also include their Social Security numbers and medical information, they wrote.

"Unnamed intervenors have not themselves disclosed publicly any of that information voluntarily in connection with this civil action or with a related John Doe investigation. To the contrary, these two unnamed intervenors have taken every reasonable step possible to maintain the privacy of (their) information ... and their rightful anonymity," their attorneys wrote. "Unnamed intervenors seek to preserve their privacy, enjoy their First Amendment freedoms of core political speech and association without unintended and unwarranted public scrutiny, and avoid damage to their families, their reputations, and their businesses."

Well, I believe that if they are tied up in the Walkergate investigations, we can guess that they aren't liberal.

On Monday, the federal appellate court that is handling the case ordered another batch of documents related to the investigation be released.  Again, the same two unnamed intervenors filed more petitions asking that the documents be released because "once the documents are released to the public it will be too late ...."

The obvious question is who are these unnamed intervenors?

Sadly, the answers aren't as obvious.

What can be deduced from their reasoning for wanting to maintain their anonymity is that they are fairly involved with the ongoing investigation into the collaboration between the dark money groups and political groups.  It's also pretty safe to assume that the intervenors either have a lot of money or access to a lot of money, presumably through the dark money groups and their funding sources.

It could be any of Walker's wealthy campaign donors or any of the leaders of the scads of front groups like Americans for Prosperity or Club for Growth.  But there are some names that would stand out as likely suspects: Scott Walker, R.J. and Valerie Johnson, Deb Jordal, John Connors and Judith Rhodes Engels.

The most obvious guess would be Scott Walker.

But I don't think so.

Everyone knows who Walker is and to whom he is beholden.  And he really can't claim anonymity in relation to the investigation, although he assuredly wishes like hell he could.  It seems unlikely that Walker is one of the petitioners although it is extremely probable that he helped encourage the petitioners to act.

R.J. Johnson is a more likely possibility.  He is up to his neck with the Wisconsin Club for Growth as well as was working for the Walker campaign (which he may or may not have been paid for).  Johnson is also involved with a consulting group with his partner, former Fox Valley blogger Deb Jordal.

It would be very conceivable that either one or both Johnson and Jordal could be the petitioners.  Given how tied up that Johnson is with both the dark money groups and Walker's campaign, he would be a natural suspect.  If exactly how tied up into all of the Walkergate activities Johnson is, it could easily make him expendable to the dark money groups and he would get cut off in a heart beat.

For the same reason, it would not be unfeasible for his partner, Jordal, to step up and defend her partner and thus her seat on the dark money gravy train.

For much the same reasons as her husband, Valerie Johnson must be considered.  She is the treasurer for the dark money group called Citizens for a Strong America.

Also worth mentioning is John Connors, who is the director of the same group.  And Connors was involved with the under-reported Sportsmen United scandal, in which Scott Sudor had set up a scheme where millions of taxpayer dollars would have been sent to a sham group which would have turned around and used it to help Teapublicans win elections.

Another very likely suspect would be Judith Rhodes Engels, Scott Fitzgerald's main fundraiser and proprietor of the Cross Rhodes consultation agency.  Not only is Rhodes Engels involved with a lot of political stunts and fundraisers, least of which is her relationship with Walkergate star Kelly Rindfleisch, she was ratted out by Mike Ellis as someone who could set up a Super PAC to go after political opponents.  I'm sure she can't think of millions of dollars reasons why she wouldn't want her business put out in the public.

These are just a few of the more likely names of the unnamed intervenors.  As I mentioned earlier, the list could go on for quite a while.  It could be any of the other highly placed operatives that so far have escaped much public attention.  It could be any of the corporate special interests that saw what happened to William E. Gardner, the railroad tycoon who got busted making illegal donations to Walker and don't want to lose their prestige like he did.  It could even be some low level stooges that were told to put their names to the petitions in order to protect their corporate masters.

While we don't know who the unnamed intervenors are, we do know that these would be master of the New World Horror are feeling very vulnerable and are running scared.  Not only is their personal gravy trains in peril but they really don't want to be tied to the fall of the Weasel Empire.

Then they might have to go get real jobs and they know how crappy the job market they created is.

Walkergate: I Told You There Was More. There's Always More.

Wednesday was a beautiful day.

The sun was bright as it got a little higher in the sky.  The temperatures in Milwaukee flirted with fifty
degrees, giving people a glimpse of the spring yet to come. People were quicker with a smile and had a little more spring in their steps.

Also on Wednesday, the until then sealed emails and other documents related to the investigation, charging and conviction of Kelly Rindfleisch were unsealed and made available to the public.  Rindfleisch, as the gentle reader already knows, is the WISGOP political operative that was hired by Scott Walker to work in his county executive's office. During her trial, it became obvious that she was hired to work more on the campaign of Brett Davis, Lieutenant Governor wannabe, and then his own.

The much awaited documents were eagerly taken and shared, with many revelations into the workings of Team Walker, which is becoming increasingly apparent included both his campaign and county staff, blending the lines as to make them indiscernible.

Some of the revelations included extremely vulgar and racist emails they shared to "lighten the mood."  Some of the revelations included the plans and actions taken to cover up the myriad of problems at the mental health complex as well as with the tragedy of O'Donnell Park, where a teenager lost his life and two other people were seriously injured when a facade fell of the building.

Numerous bloggers and news sources have reports regarding this.  As time allows, I will also go through the emails, although long time readers of Cog Dis are well aware of these revelations and have been for a long time.

For example, Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was one of the first with a story, pointing out that it was Tim Russell's partner, Brian Pierick, that had ran the campaign website ScottforGov.com.

That's not exactly news.  I started questioning in May of 2010, the same month that Darlene Wink and Tim Russell had both been caught campaigning on county time, whether ScottforGov.com was an insider job.  It became even more apparent that it was an inside job when the website was able to post a story on a request for information I had made within minutes of Walker's office sending me the requested information.

And to be correct Bice on a small issue, two years ago, I had referred to a post by Steve Hanson that showed Tim Russell was the administrator of the website until the day before his arrest, when it was transferred to Pierick:

Now, Walker knew that Russell was in the thick of the Walkergate investigations. Walker himself claimed that he only knew what he read in the papers. Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has done an excellent job of covering it, including pointing out Russell's involvement in almost each of his Walkergate stories. Despite this knowledge, Walker was perfectly comfortable with having Russell and his roommate, Brian Pierick, who was arrested for child enticement, do the administrative work for his official campaign website.  

In fact, Russell was listed as the administrator up to and through the day before the arrest. 

Heck, I had already pointed out long before Bice that MJS conservative blogger Aaron Rodriguez was aware of who was doing the website but kept the crime secret and even tried to lie to me about the website.

To his credit, Bice did break the news that Walker put gave the website and his approval to the website.

Which leads us to the next "major discovery" which was that Walker was also aware of the secret router his campaign/county staff used to communicate with each other and with him.  This new proof was an email from Cindy Archer welcoming Rindfleisch to the "inner circle," meaning those aware of the secret email system.

To be honest, I find that email to be less convincing than the one we learned about years ago, which had been sent via the system by Walker himself, and showed the world that when it comes to all things Walker, there is more.  There is always more:

Walker himself is acknowledging awareness of all that was going on and was directing these actions.  For reasons unknown to me, the corporate media in this state never even referred to this email until yesterday.

By far,a the biggest find so far comes via my friend karoli at Crooks and Liars, who, besides giving me one of the biggest compliments ever, pointed out this email from then WISGOP head Reince Priebus to Scott Walker and his RJ Johnson, who was a consultant to Walker's campaign and involved with the Wisconsin Club for Growth:

It is email like this one - and I am sure there are many more like it - that show the collaboration that was going on between WISGOP and Walker's campaign, which is illegal.  Other emails show that there was a cozy relationship between Walker's campaign and MacIver has well.

As the gentle reader is aware, it is this collaboration that is the subject of the ongoing investigations known as the Sons of Doe.

I am planning on exploring the emails myself to see what else might be in there and will be more than glad to share my findings with the gentle reader.  Stay tuned and make sure that you're fully stocked up on popcorn.  Things are just about to get interesting again.

Because - say it with me! - with all things Walker, there is more.  There is always more.

If All Else Fails, Blame The Dead Guy

Surely, the gentle reader remembers the United Sportsmen scandal in which former Representative Scott Suder had put in special language which would have created a perpetual revenue stream which only United Sportsmen would have been eligible.  It was surely pure coincidence that the members of United Sportsmen were all Republican supporters and that the group used money to support Teapublicans like Scott Walker during the recalls.

Now the same group of reprobates are asking for an exemption from their penalties for their false tax filing status, blaming it on a now deceased member of the group:

In a letter last month to the federal Internal Revenue Service provided by Annette Olson, the secretary-treasurer for United Sportsmen, the group argued it shouldn't face penalties despite its mistakes and misrepresentations. Olson didn't respond to requests for comment.

"It would be against equity and good conscience to impose such a penalty on this small tax-exempt organization. This late filing was not an act of deliberate late filing but was an administrative oversight which will not happen again," the letter read.

The Department of Natural Resources awarded United Sportsmen the grant on Aug. 30, but Gov. Scott Walker rescinded it a week later after the newspaper reported the problems with its tax filings and its president's 2005 citation for shooting a black bear without the proper license.

At that time, United Sportsmen made a number of contradictory claims about its tax status.

Initially, the group presented itself as a nonprofit and then, when it was revealed it hadn't yet received federal nonprofit status, said it was a for-profit company. When the Journal Sentinel reported the group hadn't filed any state tax filing required for for-profit firms, United Sportsmen reversed itself again and said it was a nonprofit and had hired the law firm of Foley & Lardner to help get its state and federal filings in order.

In its unsigned letter, the group said the tax mistakes had largely been made by board member Scott Maves, who was in charge of its finances and who died in June.

"Prior to (September), the other board members of the United Sportsmen believed everything was being filed properly and had been taken care of," the letter reads.

As previously reported, the political group Citizens for a Strong America Inc. gave $235,000 to United Sportsmen in 2011. The newly released filings show that single donation made up United Sportsmen's entire revenue for that year. The group spent most, but not all, of that donation and finished the year with $39,044.

The bulk of the money spent, $118,400, went to Arena Communications of Salt Lake City, Utah, a firm that helps design and send out mailings to voters. Arena has high-profile GOP clients around the country, including Walker; U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, a Janesville Republican; the state GOP; and the committee representing Republican state senators.

United Sportsmen sent out a mailing in the 2011 state Senate recall elections.

The next year United Sportsmen took in $51,813 but spent $80,769. To cover the difference, the group spent from its reserves and finished 2012 with $10,088.

They're so committed to this course of action that they couldn't even sign the letter blaming the dead guy.  I wonder how this all makes Andy Pantzlaff feel, since he's already taken the fall for their incompetence.

This also shows that they've never heard of the adage that one shouldn't speak ill of the dead.  Then again, what do you expect from a bunch of zombies?

Our Media Needs Your Help!

By Jeff Simpson

Our friend Blue Cheddar, pointed out that now that we have gory details on the incompetence, lack of ethics and morals of the Wisconsin republican party, in the United Sportsman debacle,  the mainstream media is doing their best to whitewash the story!

Like this gem from the Wisconsin State Journal:

Or this one from WMTV TV 15 in Madison :




Ok Coggies, this is where the media needs OUR help. They obviously have a headline writer who has no idea whats happening in Wisconsin.

Help them out:

YOU write the headline for the United Sportsman story:


Go! 

Walkergate: What's In Your Dumpster?

Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had a column up with a batch of three stories in it.

The one story that my esteemed lefty blogger colleagues caught on to was the story of Scott Walker's hypocrisy regarding how governor's should behave when they have bad-acting underlings.

But it appears that might not be the most interesting one of Bice's stories.

He also had one about a mystery dumpster that is now part of Walkergate:

The John Doe investigation of Walker's tenure as county executive has taken many odd twists and turns.

But what to make of this?

Last week, Frank Busalacchi, head of the county Transportation and Public Works Department, was asked by investigators for a particular county Dumpster.

"All they asked was if I could move it, and we did," Busalacchi said Thursday. "I think they wanted to look through it."

Was it full or empty?

"I have no idea," he said. "They asked me that, and I said, 'You know, I just got here in November. I don't know what's in a Dumpster on the side of the courthouse. I have no idea.'"

Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf, who is overseeing the John Doe probe, wouldn't provide any further insight.

"I have no comment," Landgraf said.

Well, I might have some more information on that.

From what I have learned, the dumpster was indeed moved and had to have a lock broken or cut open. Inside, the dumpster was reportedly full of papers of some sort. What kind is unknown, but it took a number of deputy sheriffs and staff from the District Attorney's office to go through and they are probably still sorting through them

Your guess at what those papers are would be as good as mine, but the first thing I thought of was the missing files that were reported shortly after Walker and his entourage left the courthouse at the end of 2010:

The dozens of Walker's file cabinets were virtually emptied of their contents by the end of last month, and 16 bankers' boxes of records retrieved this week from storage by aides to Holloway appear well short of the total paper-load once held in the courthouse's third-floor executive suite.

A tour this week of the sparsely staffed offices revealed banks of empty file drawers, save a set of various bureaucratic forms, county budget books and one stack of papers on various issues left in the office of Fran McLaughlin, who was Walker's county spokeswoman.

The empty drawers, coupled with the absence of any message or memo telling the whereabouts of Walker's office documents - and at least two bins of shredded paper left by Walker staffers - were perplexing, Mester said.

It was probably those or leftover copies of the Milwaukee County First's Survival Guide to Scott Walker's Courthouse.

Sources have told me that the authorities knew just where to go to find this dumpster, which originally made me wonder if they had put it there, until I learned of the need to force the lock. That would tell me that maybe one of the other persons of interest in this ongoing investigation has cut a deal and turned state witness and told them where to find said mystery dumpster'o'fun.  Remember that Darlene Wink has already agreed to testify about the "destruction of digital evidence."

Now, granted, a lot of the details are vague and a lot of pieces to this latest puzzle are obviously still missing, but it does not appear to be a good omen for Walker as he is going to be meeting with the investigators himself in the near future.

The one thing that I can tell you with some certainty is that it definitely appears that the most eye-popping twists to this story are still in store for us.

But wouldn't it be a form of poetic justice if the contents of that dumpster is what puts Walker's political career, and his demented ideological agenda, in the dumpster instead?

An Introduction To Walkergate

With the big news of the week, the FBI serving a search warrant of Cynthia Archer's house, there has been an increase in speculation regarding the ongoing John Doe investigation, which is quickly becoming known as Walkergate.  The investigation has to do with possible illegal campaigning and other misdeeds by Scott Walker's campaign and the actions of his staffers who served under him as county executive and now governor.

But it has come to my attention that there is a lot of misinformation and confusion, from both sides of the political aisle, regarding what is happening, what things could mean and even what is relevant.  Some of fellow lefties, in their zeal, are getting lost on irrelevant details and tangents.  Meanwhile, there are those on the right that are trying to minimize the ramifications and/or distract the people's attentions from what is happening.

To clarify things, I will present a history of events, and introduction to the players and the inclusion of some things that seem to have gotten lost in the coverage of the story.

It started in May 2010 when Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that then Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker's coordinator of constituents services, Darlene Wink, was caught leaving comments on JSOnline during work hours and using county computers. Wink was posting under the handle of "RPMCVP" which stood for  her other position - Republican Party of Milwaukee Co-Vice-President.  Within hours of Dan Bice filing an open records request, Wink quit her job.  However, even I, one of Walker's most ardent critics, found the whole Wink affair to be rather innocuous.  Later it was learned that Wink had lawyered up pretty quickly.

Others were more suspicious.

Milwaukee County Supervisor John Weishan filed an open records request of his own to find out if any of Walker's other aides were also doing something similar.  Several months and thousands of dollars later, Walker gave Weishan an unsatisfactory few sheets of paper indicating that Walker and few other aides had gone to various sites like WisPolitics.com.  Apparently, this information, besides costing more than it should have, was not accurate.

Because of Weishan's tenacity, some of Walker's allies, the misnamed group Citizens for Responsible Government, filed a criminal complaint in retaliation against yours truly, using, shall we say, very irresponsible "documentation" to support their allegations.

Also in May of last year, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin followed Walker on his annual bike ride to promote his candidacy Milwaukee County.  This bike ride has long been a source of contention, with many, including myself, who kept pointing out that it was a thinly veiled publicly-funded campaign exploit.  Sure enough, they got lots of evidence, including footage, of long-time aide, campaign worker and close friend, Tim Russell, doing non-county work, even though he was traveling as a county employee. In August 2010, the Sheriff's Office did a search of Russell's office, confiscating his computer, his Blackberry and boxes of papers.

Interestingly, at the same time interest in Wink and Russell were growing, there was a website called "ScottforGov.com," which was a strongly pro-Walker blog and was staffed with people who had obvious political connections.  There had been speculation that the writers were members of Walker's county staff, his campaign staff (or both, since Walker has a long history of blurring that line).

Around the time of Wink's outing, they stopped publishing new posts.  A week later, they killed their twitter account.  Before 2010 came to a close, they had removed all comments and then took the entire site down.

At the beginning of 2011, it was learned that everyone that could possibly be involved were lawyering up but good.  Walker's campaign hired Steve Biskupic and his favorite law firm, for a mere $60,000, to make sure all their i's were dotted and all their t's were crossed.  Other big names, including Frank Gimbel  and Paul Bucher, were being floated around.  (Gimbel was believed by some to be hired by Tom Nardelli.)

And speaking of Nardelli, long considered a possible subject of Walkergate, he had recently and abruptly left public service on a very flimsy excuse.

Hot on the heels of that news, Cynthia Archer announced that she was taking a personal leave from her job, to which she had no intentions of returning.

Which leads us back to how we got into this - the raid on Archer's home.  Now Archer has said that she's done nothing wrong and doesn't need legal representation. Deserving of skepticism and cynicism, it should be pointed out that Archer also said she had nothing to do with Walkergate just days before they did the search of her house, confiscating a lot of things, including computer hard drives.

There are some on the right, including radio squawker Jeff Wagner, who are trying to minimize the ramifications of the Archer incident by questioning if it is an appropriate use of resources for just some political comments left on the paper's website.

This is misleading in the sense that this is so much more than just Wink's misdeeds.  It's already led to one conviction, that of William Gardner, who was found to having made illegal donations to Walker's campaign.  It also involves the possible illegal campaigning by Russell and the rest of Walker's cronies.  There has also been rumors of many more people who might be persons of interest in this investigation, but I won't name them until I have more confirmation of their involvement.

I would also not be surprised if the fact that Walker and his gang left the county executive suite with most of the files and computers missing is tied into the investigation as well.

And on a final note, I must point out that while Walker has been backpedaling like crazy and denying any knowledge of anything (well, OK, that's plausible at least), one of his repeated phrases is that the investigators have not asked him any questions.  That is to be expected.  They are building the case up to him, if it indeed reaches that far.  But if it does, he is probably sitting in the governor's mansion, sweating bullets and drinking Maalox by the case, hoping none of his cronies turns stool pigeon.

Is John Doe's Other Shoe About To Drop?

During Scott Walker's gubernatorial campaign, there were repeated incidents of, to be tactful, questionable activities.  One of his office staff, Darlene Wink, who just so happened to be also a ranking officer in the Milwaukee County Republican Party, was caught leaving comments at JSOnline during work hours.  Tim Russell, an old friend of Walker's, who worked many of his campaigns when he wasn't receiving political appointments to various jobs in Milwaukee County, was accused of using county time and county equipment for politicking for Walker. There were rumors of other members of Walker's staff doing similar behaviors and manipulating and/or coercing people to hush up any negatives.

All of these sordid and sinister activities led to a John Doe investigation being launched into Walker's campaign and some members of Walker's staff at Milwaukee County.This investigation kept growing and involving more and more people,.

The investigation eventually bore fruit when railroad mogul William E. Gardner was convicted of illegal campaign donations. However, Gardner got off relatively lightly and it barely affected Walker or his campaign.

Then there was silence for several months of no solid news, but lots of rumors.

However, the silence broke early last week when the news came out that Tom Nardelli was abruptly leaving his  (second) cushy post with the state with no real reason given.  Nardelli was Walker's Chief of Staff when they both worked for Milwaukee County.  It was also rumored that Nardelli was one of the subjects of the John Doe investigation.  Given that rumor, as well as the odd reason he gave for leaving, speculation arose that his sudden departure might have something to do with the investigation.

Hot on the heels of the Nardelli resignation came news that another one of Walker's top county aides, Cindy Archer, was taking a sudden leave of absence.  Neither the reason nor the length of Archer's leave was given.

(As the reporter, Dan Bice, revealed his findings, there is an interesting side note. Walker, who was interviewed a couple of times earlier this year, first admitted that Archer was talking about his campaign, mostly for scheduling. What was the rest of the time about?

In a later interview, Walker was all too eager to throw his top cronies under the bus by dumping on them as he backpedaled away from them as fast as he could, denying any knowledge about anything - OK, that part is believable.)

It wasn't until the next day, after the questions regarding Archer's leave was aired publicly, that the answers were suddenly supplied, saying that she was "to attend to some personal family matters," and that she planned on returning in some capacity.  A cynic might read that a meaning she's got some sort of plea bargain in the works.

Things settled down for about a week, when more news came out about the investigation.

Dan Bice reports that the Walker campaign dropped $60,000 to the law firm Michael Best & Friedrich.  This firm has a cozy relationship with Walker, having donated $43,000 to Walker's campaign and receiving a half a million dollar contract from the state for its work on Walker's union-busting bill.

The thing is, that $60,000 was for "compliance/administrative" costs, which as Bill Christofferson points out, is mostly making sure that the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed.

Another point of consideration is that if the law firm charged $400 an hour, which is common among the high end law firms, that would be 150 hours of work.  Odds are that it was a lesser member of the firm who did the actual work, meaning the price would be lower and the number of hours higher.  Boy, Walker's campaign must have had a real hard time keeping in compliance with the law for it to take that long to make sure it was done right.

That is unless the law firm was responding to inquiries from the John Doe investigation.  That could open a couple of new cans of worms.

One, it would mean that Walker's campaign wrongly categorized the services provided, which in itself is against campaign finance rules.

The other problem is laid out in Bice's article, as spelled out by Steve Biskupic, who had been hired by the campaign when the scandal was first made public:

Biskupic deflected questions about his payments from the Walker campaign. He referred questions to campaign staffers but noted that campaign money cannot be used for "the purpose of supporting or defending a person who is being investigated for, charged with or convicted of a criminal violation." But can a campaign pay a lawyer to respond to a subpoena issued as part of a John Doe investigation if the campaign is not the target? Biskupic didn't respond to that question.

Wouldn't that be something, if it's true? In order to cover up misdoings by his campaign, Walker resorts to further illegal activities. Of course, that would fit his normal method of operations, wouldn't it?

 Now, there is nothing concrete saying all these things, or any of them, are tied into the John Doe investigation. But if they're not, it would be an amazing defiance of the odds to have so many things happen in such short order.

 But if these events are somehow intertwined with the John Doe investigation, the timing would be most unfortunate for Walker. By the time further information comes out, and the majority of people have the chance to hear of it and start to digest the ramifications of it all, Walker will be very close to the date that he can be legally recalled.

Indeed, the gales of November do come early sometimes.

Do You Suppose There's A Secret Door?

The Randy Randy "Bed" Hopper juxtaposition of the year award goes to:

Taken in, I believe, Oshkosh. Pure Pleasure II is an adult store that has a history of patrons getting in trouble for indecent exposure, BTW.

H/T Joanne Staudacher