Federal Judges Call Out GOP Shenanigans

While Republican lawmakers are trying to obscure their unethical, and probably illegal, gerrymandering, a panel of three federal judges have given them a verbal reality check in how much they will tolerate. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel gives a sampling of the reprimand handed down:

Saying that GOP lawmakers and their attorneys have filed "frivolous" motions trying to keep their information private, the panel also required the attorneys for the Republican defendants to pay the attorneys' fees for the plaintiffs for the motion.

"Quite frankly, the Legislature and the actions of its counsel give every appearance of flailing wildly in a desperate attempt to hide from both the court and the public the true nature of exactly what transpired in the redistricting process," the ruling reads.[...]

The panel of judges - two of whom are Republican appointees - gave a rhetorical smack to the GOP lawmakers and their attorneys.

The court "will not suffer the sort of disinformation, foot-dragging, and obfuscation now being engaged in by Wisconsin's elected officials and/or their attorneys," the ruling reads.

Unsurprisingly, the GOP liars lawyers involved include Eric McLeod, known for giving free legal counsel to Gableman during his first ethics hearing*; Michael Best, Walker's favorite private attorney (read: Walkergate); and the Troupis Law Offices.

I'm almost starting to feel sorry for the right wing apologists, er, pundits.  The Republicans aren't giving them anything even remotely defensible.  Their eventual butt kicking is like a car accident - they see it coming but are helpless to stop it.

*Gableman's second ethics hearing will be stemming from this peppercorn of a problem.

So Much Disappointment In Milwaukee County Races

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting on how the spring elections in Milwaukee County are shaping up.  While there is some good news, there is much to lament as well.

By far the worst news is that Chris Abele's inherited riches was enough to prevent any contenders from filing to run against him.  Of course, there wasn't even a progressive candidate among the top three names being bantered about, the bumbling Sheriff David Clarke, the Walker-shadow Jeff Stone and the Walker Light clone Abele.

I hope that Abele realizes that if he thinks that his plutocratic ideology is going to sail through unchallenged, he is going to be in for a rude awakening.

As for the whole comptroller thing, aka emergency financial manager, I'll save that for a later post.  But I will say that one of the three candidates already eliminated themselves by showing they don't understand that the position isn't legislative and they won't be setting policy.  (The candidates initials are Kristie Bunting.)

In other sad news is that there are no progressive candidates running in Districts 4 and 17.

On the bright side, my good friend Jason Haas is running unopposed, as is my supervisor, John Weishan.  (Now I don't have to worry about helping them campaign as I prepare to launch my write in candidacy against Abele.) (Just kidding.) (Or am I?)

Walker's Entire Recall Campaign Is Based On A Lie

"We balanced the state budget without raising taxes:"

That is what you hear every day, day in and day out, from Scott Walker and his supporters. But just like almost every thing that comes out of his mouth, whether he's talking about why he restored Family Care or whether he campaigned on busting the unions, this statement is an egregious lie.

First of all, he did not balance the budget. Not only did he not balance the budget, he made the deficit worse than the one he inherited from Doyle:

There's a chart every two years in the state budget demonstrating the bottom line under GAAP. The chart in the Walker administration"s Budget in Brief shows that the 2011-13 budget was not close to balanced by that standard.

In fact, the document shows that based on GAAP accounting, the state would have been left with a deficit of $3 billion by 2012-13 under Walker's budget. That compares to the $2.9 billion GAAP deficit he inherited at the end of Doyle's term, the state's financial statements show.

And I've already shown that he did not only raise taxes, he also raised fees dramatically.

But I was slightly remiss with that. I pointed out Walker had not only raised taxes, but did it on the poor. What I failed to point out was that it was not just the poor, but the poorest of the poor:

Last summer, the state Legislature reduced the amount of money low- income families can receive in tax credits by $56.2 million.

That places Wisconsin among only a handful of states that will effectively raise taxes on their poorest residents in 2012, according to a recent study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit think tank.

"At a time when low-wage workers are already struggling, this makes it that much more difficult (for them) to feed their families and pay their utility bills," said Jon Peacock with the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, an advocacy group that opposed the changes

So, we now know that he actually made the deficit worse, and raised taxes on the poorest citizens in the state. It couldn't possibly get any worse, right? Wrong.

Not only did he do all of those things, but in the process of doing them, he also attacked the state's economy:

The authors of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' study suggested the tax credit has a simulative effect on the economy because low-wage earners are more likely to spend the money they make rather than save it.

So by sticking it to the poor, and concentrating the money with the rich, he's taking money out of circulation, which then causes businesses, especially the small businesses that drive the economy, to shut their doors and lay off their employees. And thus, the downward spiral in which we find the state's economy.

We can, and we must, do better. But to do that, we first need to remove Scott Walker from office before he hurts more people.

Dog Lovers Will Understand

RIP Darth Vader

Or at least one aspect of the character:

The man who played the legendary Darth Vader during fight scenes in the original Star Wars trilogy has died, it has emerged today.

Bob Anderson, 89, was a former Olympic swordsman who worked on many of the best known films of the past seven decades - but very few people are aware of the influence he had on some of our favourite movies

He is most famous for donning Darth Vader's black helmet and fighting lightsaber battles in the original Star Wars trilogy - most famously with Obi Wan Kenobi.

Here is Anderson in one of the most famous duel scenes in cinematic history:

Rep. Clark Proposes Sensible Fixes To Family Care

For those that have followed me for a while, since before Fitzwalkerstan, they know that one of my interests and pet peeves is the disaster they have made of the child welfare system in Milwaukee County.

In the 1990s, Governor Tommy Thompson and his Republican allies took over and privatized the system. Since then, the costs have gone up exponentially and they are still having a lot of issues with it.

A majority of the cost can be attributed to the privatization.  They were paying the front line workers a lot less than county workers had been paid, but they were still racking up the costs. They were paying lavish salaries and benefits to the upper echelons in the administrations in several agencies.  Taxpayer money was also going to wasteful spending, like $9,000 conference tables and every imaginable type of promotional item they could emboss their logos and names on.  But even less money than before was going to actually providing services to the abused and neglected children or their families.

In a press release, Representative Fred Clark points out that similar abuses are occurring in the Family Care program, where an increasing amount of the cost is attributed to a growing layer of administrative bureaucracy and to executive officers of the the MCOs (Managed Care Organization) getting salaries as high as a quarter of a million dollars, more than twice what a public sector director would be paid. And like with child welfare, that means less money is actually being put to where it is supposed to be, the clients.

Clark takes it a step farther by giving sensible recommendations on how to improve the efficiency and accountability program. These include:

-Perform a detailed audit of administrative expenses, including salaries and benefits, paid to MCOs;

- Establish metrics for MCO benefit/cost ratios that will guarantee a minimum percentage of capitation rate dollars are actually used to fund services to Family Care members;

- Establish salary caps for MCO administrative positions paid with public dollars that are comparable to public employees with similar responsibilities;

- Require MCOs to develop and promote the "self-directed care" option that is established under current law. While this option exists in theory, eligible participants are rarely aware of it and MCOs often discourage members from using this option;

- Provide for a fair, independent process for grievances and appeals available both to Family Care members and care providers. This could be done by increasing funding, independent of DHS, for Disability Rights Wisconsin to operate as a program advocate, and by assuring that all members know their rights to be involved in their own care management decisions and authority to question decisions by MCOs that affect them.

If the local media ever fully and thoroughly investigated and reported how much taxpayer money is going to just make a handful of administrators rich and how much is being squandered, even the most ardent anti-public sector conservative, if they are intellectually honest, would demand that this be put back into the public sector.

I commend Representative Clark for calling this out. Hopefully this will gain bipartisan support and something good could be accomplished in this current regime.

Wouldn't that be a pleasant surprise?

How Much Hypocrisy Can You Cram Into Thirty Seconds?

Since I don't watch much television, I had missed Scott Walker's latest campaign commercial. But I had received a tip about it so decided to check it out for myself. When I did see it, I was truly amazed at how much hypocrisy he managed to cram into a thirty second spot.

In case you, like me, missed it, here it is:


Like I said, it's so full of hypocrisy and sleazy tactics, I don't even know where to start.

On November 15, when the recall of Walker officially commenced, Walker's neighbors in Wauwatosa opened up their yards to hold a recall petition signing recall rally. Even up to this day, Walker expressed faux outrage, saying that his family shouldn't be exposed to any of this, but now his entire commercial is using his sons and his wife as political human shields! (By the way, if you hadn't noticed, the boys look like they'd rather be anywhere else, especially at the end scene.)

Another thing I was curious about is why Walker has the "paid for" disclaimer so faint and at the beginning of the ad? Is he ashamed of it that he doesn't want people to be aware that this is a political ad? Or is he trying to give it the appearance of being non-political and just a formal holiday well wishing from the governor?

And speaking of holidays, why doesn't anyone mention Christmas in this ad? Tonette says "holiday season." Walker says "blessings of the season." It's a political ad, paid for by his own campaign. He can say whatever he wants in the ad. For someone who made such a stink about it being a Christmas Tree instead of a Holiday Tree, it's rather odd that he won't take pride in his Christianity when he is absolutely free and clear to do so. I thought he was a preacher's son.

But the most egregious part of the ad is where Tonette repeats a running meme for Walker's campaign:

"Our hope is that we can put our differences aside and move forward together."

Excuse me?  After everything that Walker has done to the state and its citizens - putting tens of thousands of people out of work, forcing hundreds of thousands of others into dire financial straits, trashing the economy, trashing the ecology, denying services to more than 10,000 vulnerable disabled people and/or senior citizens for no valid reason, sabotaging the education system, repeated overreaches and insatiable power grabbing, disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters, attacking women and denying them health care - well, you get the idea.  After all that Walker's done, it takes a lot of gall to say we should put our differences aside.

Imagine the reaction that Walker supporters would have if a criminal told the victim, "Oops, my bad. Well, let's move on, shall we?"  They wouldn't tolerate it and there is no reason why we should have to either.

But the state is moving forward, in the sense that the people are taking action to right the wrongs, the next step being the ouster of Scott Walker.

Walker's Communication Breakdown

Unfortunately, it is all too common in politics today that the message is more important than the truth.  One may hear any number of pundits, from both sides of the aisle, stress that Politician X or Candidate Z has a real messaging problem.

This can be problematic in two ways.  One could have a really good candidate with solid ideas fail miserably because they couldn't get their message out in a way people were receptive to.  On the other hand, you could have a glib politician say what the people want to hear, but in reality, their ideology is quite the opposite and the people find out the truth after the person has been elected and the damage is being done.

Scott Walker obviously falls in the latter category.  He lied to the voters, but told them what they wanted to hear about lower taxes and creating jobs.  After he was elected, he ended up raising taxes and actually is driving jobs out of the state.

But now he finds that people are on to him, he is having a major communication problem.

First of all, he is getting caught on telling blatant lies and the media is actually starting to call him out on it.

But now, he can't even rely on his mouthpieces to get him out of these self-inflicted jams.

On the government side of things, his spokesman is Cullen Werwie, who was granted immunity in the Walkergate investigation.  It's only a matter of time before everyone in the state starts associating Werwie's name to Walker's corruption.  Every time that Werwie says something, people will think of the John Doe investigation and be suspicious.

On the political side, he has Ciara Matthews, who comes with her own baggage which has been unloaded from the crazy train.

People are going to have drink deeply from the Kool Aid to stay entrenched in the Walker camp.   Which is probably why Walker is starting to panic about his own base.

Quotable

In discussing Scott Walker's lying about the reasons for lifting the cap on Family Care, the Green Bay Press Gazette has a great quote from Senator Jon Richards:

Rep. Jon Richards, D-Milwaukee, said Walker made a “despicable” attempt to take credit for something he was forced to do.

“I don’t remember anywhere in the Boy Scout oath the dishonesty we saw yesterday,” Richards said, playing on Walker’s assertions that he learned to conduct himself with integrity as an Eagle Scout.

Somehow, I doubt that encouraging one to bear false witness was part of one the sermons Walker's father, a preacher, had given either.

Walker Shows He CAN Do The Right Thing -- When He's Forced To Do It

While running for governor, Scott Walker regularly touted what a success Family Care was for Milwaukee County and how it helped get services to frail senior citizens who had been on waiting list for year. This was a rather perverse position for him to take since Milwaukee County's Department of Aging was one of the pilot programs in the state and started years before Walker weaseled his way in as county executive.

To add to his depravity, Walker actually tried to sabotage the program by laying off the CPAs who were overseeing the program to make sure there weren't costs overruns. Walker said that he laid those people off to save money. The end result of his money saving scheme was two years of massive deficits running into the millions of dollars.

But despite his continued praise of the Family Care program, as soon as he started wielding his budget ax around, one of the first things he did was put a two year cap on the program.

What this meant was that about 10,000 of our most vulnerable citizens were being denied services for no other reason than Walker wanted to do that. The only way that these poor souls were to get services would be if that someone already receiving services moved away, aged out or died. And if the denied disabled person happened to live in a county that had not transitioned to Family Care yet, they were completely screwed over.

Walker claims he did this as a cost saving measure, but the hard truth is that it actually ran up the bill faster for taxpayers:

Allowing an expansion of Family Care and related similar programs would lead to "quality services at a lower cost," said Terry Metzger, an executive with the Southwest Family Care Alliance. The savings figure in the study was a statewide projection based on actual costs for 28,000 Family Care clients from northeastern Wisconsin.

If the freeze is enacted, many people now on waiting lists for Family Care could wind up in nursing homes, said Barbara Beckert, Milwaukee office manager for Disability Rights Wisconsin. That would drive up state costs because nursing home care typically costs $5,000 a month or more. Average costs in Family Care are about $2,800 a month for care services provided at home.

Milwaukee County has at least 2,000 on its Family Care waiting list. Some of those would likely wind up at the county's Mental Health Complex, where acute care costs more than $1,300 a day, if program enrollments are frozen, Beckert said.

It was further reported that the state was already saving $90 million a year on the people already enrolled, which is almost the same amount Walker figured he would save by denying these people services.

Like I said, he only did it because he could.

Now let's fast forward to a couple of weeks ago.

Walker arranged one of his usual grandstanding press conferences to announce that they had suddenly found all sorts of savings and were now going to lift the cap on Family Care, at least eighteen months before he originally planned on doing so:

Earlier this year an enrollment cap was placed on Family Care in response to a Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) evaluation which found a number of areas the program could be improved and made more efficient. After a briefing on the hard work done by DHS over the past couple of months, today Governor Walker announced a plan to lift the Family Care cap. Governor Walker’s plan also calls for Family Care to be expanded to additional counties.

“I am confident that Family Care can continue to be implemented efficiently and cost effectively,” said Governor Walker. “Lifting the cap will be done in a way that respects taxpayers and is mindful of their investment, while at the same time providing care for those who are truly in need.”

The 2011-2013 state budget and the Legislative Audit Bureau required the Department of Health Services to do a thorough review of the program given its rapid growth. The LAB report released in April 2011 offered recommendations for improving the program. A very critical issue raised in the report was that the cost effectiveness of Family Care was difficult to assess. Because the Department was able to take the time to strengthen the program, Wisconsin now has the detailed data needed to develop solutions to ensure Family Care is on sound financial footing for those in the program now and for future enrollees.

Wowsa! What a great governor he is, right? Not in the least, actually.

You see, the thing is Walker didn't suddenly find any savings. What he did find was a scathing letter from the feds telling him he is in violation of their agreement and needed to cease and desist his malfeasance immediately:

Because the currently approved waiver includes and entitlement to waiver services, we are instructing the State to operate the waiver as it was approved by CMS. Therefore, we are directing the State to identify any individuals not currently enrolled onto the Family Care or Self-Directed Supports waivers since the July 1, 2011 implementation of the newly instituted enrollment caps, and immediately enroll those individuals in the waiver programs. This includes individuals living in any counties who had or would have had an entitlement to the waivers as of July 1, 2011, and includes individuals who were or would have otherwise been selected for enrollment from other participating counties.

There is no denying that Walker is a weasel and cannot be trusted to do the right thing unless he is literally forced to do so.

But his problems might not end there.

He made the grave error of embarrassing the media when he told his outright lie, knowing that they were going to most likely regurgitate it. But unlike when he was Milwaukee County Executive, and had the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covering up for him, he is dealing with media sources that he doesn't have in his back pocket. That would explain why so many of the news stories regarding the Family Care issue starts like this one from the Green Bay Press Gazette:

Gov. Scott Walker failed to reveal that the federal government had ordered him to immediately lift an enrollment cap on a state program to help the disabled and elderly stay out of nursing homes, instead telling reporters that his administration removed restrictions after identifying tens of millions of dollars in efficiencies in the program.

The rest of the article focuses on Walker's lies instead of the positive spin he was hoping for.

Oh, and if any reporters out there that do happen to come across this little old blog post of mine, I'd be glad to help you catch up to speed on the other ways he has bamboozled you.

Walker Fights To Retain Support From His Own Party

Dominque Paul Noth has a must read article that show the extremes Team Walker is willing to go to try to preserve the false impression that things are good and he still has support of most of his own party, when facts are belying that claim. Here's a taste to whet your appetite:

The power of campaign money and the naiveté of facile analysis have led even political science profs at major universities to note how few established Republicans have signed the recalls, leading to the bizarre claim that 90% of the GOP is standing by their man. Try 60% in actuality but who can blame them all for staying quiet except in private talks? There is such a thing as political self-preservation, which the professors would have to step out of the ivory tower to see.

There are many reasons people don’t sign recalls, which are historically a weapon of the extreme right. Some people don’t believe in the process. Others don’t like putting their names to any public documents. Some folks are shy, some are suspicious of everyone. Noted traditional Republicans may not regard Walker as their standard bearer – they may even be embarrassed by his antics. But are not about to commit political suicide since the GOP is scrutinizing names.

The inevitable day at the ballot box is coming, and there all the votes are secret and matters of conscience, not of fear from the bully’s pulpit. Do you think, maybe, that is what Walker is really afraid of?

Tax Dollars Used For Bonuses

The city of Waupun has decided that is appropriate to use taxpayer dollars to give their employees bonuses at the end of 2011:

The city will spend $14,800 to give a bonus of $500 to all department heads and $200 to all employees.

"This is a one-time ‘thank you' from the council for a job well done," said Mayor Jodi Steger. "It's the council's way of showing appreciation to everyone for pulling together. For three year's in a row we've had no levy increase, and the department heads have cut back expenditures, and the employees' work load has increased."

Scott Walker thinks that this is worth bragging about, using his taxpayer-funded office as the venue.

But if you read the full article, you see that services have been cut, including less police officers on the street. I don't know about you, but living in a city with a state prison, where they are already having all sorts of problems due to Scott Walker's irresponsible attitude towards governing, I would think they would want to be improving and strengthening their public safety presence instead of diminishing it. Maybe that would explain why people are leaving the area and coming to places like Milwaukee.

But I'm sure that it will be a comfort to the victims that even though their car was stolen, and hopefully nothing worse, that they saved a whole three dollars over the years.

Who Says It Was A Staffer?

Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a little piffle piece about a press release issued by Scott Walker's office in which the town of Delavan is misspelled.  Delavan is the town where Walker grew up, at least physically. (Many believe he never grew up emotionally.)

This raises three points/questions for me:

1. Walker's hometown, where he is originally from, is Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Both Walker's office and Bice missed that fact.
2. Either way, is this really worthy of a news item?
3. Who says that it was one of his staffers that wrote the release?  Walker is not exactly considered to be a master speller himself.

Walker, Republicans Continue To Try To Stomp On Voters' Rights

Scott Walker and his Republican cronies will literally stop at nothing to keep their untenable hold on power, no matter how many rights they have to trample or how many ethics codes they have to violate.

Despite it being the law clearly pointing out that it is the responsibility of Walker's campaign to challenge any signatures on the recall petitions, Walker continues to argue that it is his constitutional right to have taxpayers foot the bill for his political activities.  He's even taken it to the point of filing a lawsuit to try to force the Government Accountability Board to do his campaign's job, at taxpayers's expense, of course.

Taking advantage of one of their non-job-creating-job-creation bills which they had passed early in 2011, Walker's campaign chose to file their lawsuit in Waukesha County, home of the unethical and incompetent public officials.  They managed to get Judge J. Mac Davis, a former Republican legislator, to hear the case.

The first sign that this was going to be a kangaroo court type of event is the fact that Davis did not dismiss this frivolous suit on the face of it.  If a layman like myself can see it's so much balderdash, one would think an honest judge would.

This worsened when the Committee to Recall Scott Walker et alia filed a petition to become a party to the lawsuit.  Davis dismissed this motion out of hand, claiming it would bog down the hearing and open it up for "chaos" and making it a "free-for-all."

Yeah, right.

That's like saying the victim of a crime can't participate in their assailant's trial because it would only slow things down.  And isn't it Davis' job to maintain order in the court? Is he saying he is not qualified for the job?

The recall was initiated because Walker was abusing the powers of his office and violating the rights of all the workers, the voters, the women, the children and just about everyone else in this state,.  Now Walker wants to further violate the people's rights and the judge is saying they don't have a standing in the court? Unbelievable!

Fortunately, this is not the last chapter in this story, as that the recall people are filing an appeal, with a twist of irony that I simply just love:

The lawsuit, filed Dec. 15 in Waukesha County, can be brought in one of the most Republican counties in the state because of a change in state law earlier this year by GOP lawmakers and Walker that allowed lawsuits to be brought against the state outside Dane County, the seat of state government. Republicans argued that Dane County judges are too liberal. Judge Davis used to be a Republican state senator. 

Levinson said that same law allows his clients to file their appeal in Madison-based District 4 of the state appeals court. He said they'd file the appeal on the next day that court is open, probably Tuesday. 

Levinson had said Thursday that he didn't think an appeal of Davis' ruling would be worthwhile, but he said legal research Friday convinced him otherwise, and his clients decided to go ahead.

Without the recall groups in the case, Levinson's pleading says, "Win or lose, such proceedings give Scott Walker's campaign committee a stage and a megaphone to continue disparaging and impugning Wisconsin's constitutional  recall process and the integrity of the GAB's administration of elections. Absent a competing view point, this will harm the public interest regardless of the outcome of the case."

Of course, with the corrupt Justices sitting on the Supreme Court and refusing to recuse themselves when they are caught receiving tens of thousands of dollars in free legal advise for their first ethics trial, the recallers  probably would have been smarter just going directly to federal court, because that's where this is going to end up anyway.

Happy New Year!

May the best of the old year, be the worst of the new year.