Real American Heroes!

 

By Jeff Simpson

For your viewing pleasure:

Former Chicago Tribune and Cubs owner let us know that he was a true hero in our society! 

Billionaire real estate investor Sam Zell agreed with capital pioneer Tom Perkins that wealthy Americans are being unfairly criticized and said that the 1 percent work harder.
"The 1 percent are getting pummeled because it's politically convenient to do so," Zell said, an interview Wednesday on Bloomberg Television’s "In the Loop" with Betty Liu.
People "should not talk about envy of the 1 percent, they should talk about emulating the 1 percent. The 1 percent work harder, the 1 percent are much bigger factors in all forms of our society."

 Of course when he bought the Chicago Tribune, he dumped his debt on them.  That takes a special kind of person to be able to do, at least it wasn't his student loan.   One thing I have noticed as a political observer, it is so much easier to make money when you do not have to pay your own bills! 

Pressed by restive shareholders and revved up by a growing bubble in the corporate lending market, the company's leadership and a group of sophisticated Wall Street bankers embraced Zell's vision, piling the company with a total of $13 billion in debt.

Despite signs that Tribune Co.'s newspapers and television stations were under growing pressure from a slowdown in advertising revenue, the executives and their bankers were confident that Zell could make the deal work by selling off key pieces of Tribune Co. and reinvigorating the rest with the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that had helped the billionaire generate his fortune.

Instead, Tribune Co. toppled into bankruptcy court less than a year after the sale closed, where it remained mired for four years. Zell's hand-picked chief executive, Randy Michaels, was pushed out amid a cloud of scandal, having failed in his attempt to transform an old-media conglomerate into a fast-moving digital competitor. And the company, whose local assets include the Chicago Tribune, WGN-Ch. 9 and WGN-AM 720, lost crucial time in its quest to develop a new business model.

Many participants were richly rewarded. A group of Tribune Co. executives got close to $150 million in cashed-out stock and other payments triggered by the deal, while the company's banks and advisers collected almost $280 million in fees — the kinds of compensation that helped drive the record boom in corporate buyouts that preceded the global economic collapse. But there would be significant costs, too. The deal blew up for the banks, and many of its architects face litigation aimed at clawing back their gains.

I guess if you have the cojones to dump $13,000,000,000 of your debt on someone else and then talk about how hard you work, then maybe we should not stop at hero worship.  Maybe you should get more votes in our society also!

"The Tom Perkins system is: You don't get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes," Perkins said.
"But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How's that?"

Now that you know that the 1% are just smarter, better looking and harder workers than you - just shut up already and stop your whining.  

 "We've got a country that the poverty level is wealth in 99 percent of the rest of the world," he said. "So we're talking about woe is me, woe is us, woe is this." He added that "the guy that's making, oh my God, he's making $35,000 a year, why don't we try that out in India or some countries we can't even name. China, anyplace, the guy is wealthy."

 Konheim's comments are sure to provoke the inequality crusaders. After all, here is the wealthy CEO of a luxury company that sells $800 sequined dresses and $250 clutches saying that people who make $35,000 a year should be grateful.

 

Caption this!

Scott Walker took time away from fundraising out of state to wish his wife a happy valentines day with this picture.   He forgot to put a caption on it:

The Unemployment Blues

By Jeff Simpson

Recently the Senate failed to pass unemployment insurance for our friends and neighbors who are out of work.  

Fifty-nine senators, including four Republicans, voted to advance the legislation, falling one vote short of the 60 needed to break a Republican filibuster effort.

Republicans and Democrats, many from the nation’s most economically depressed states, had been trying to reach a solution that would allow people who have exhausted their unemployment insurance to continue receiving benefits as long as the government offset the $6 billion cost.

Ultimately, how to pay for the program proved too big a hurdle for senators to overcome.

“We’ve given them everything they wanted. Paid for,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, flashing his irritation at Republicans who blocked the bill.

Republicans holding our recovery hostage......Who knew?  Will someone tell Russ Holton that his buddy Ron Johnson let him down. Again:

"Imagine that, a 44-year-old man crying while watching TV," he said. He had watched the vote on C-SPAN 2. A day later, his cable provider cut him off because he hadn't paid the bill.
Holton is one of the 1.7 million long-term unemployed people missing out on federal benefits because Congress stopped providing them in December. Six years ago, he was making $85,000 per year at his job in tech sales. Today, the seams of his life are fraying.
He applied for food stamps and broke his contract with Verizon to get a cheaper, pay-as-you-go phone. His electrical company nearly cut him off before a friend helped him make the minimum payment. His Internet remains connected, but that's the next to go. Filling up his gas tank would be impossible if not for the gift certificates he's gotten from friends. He's borrowed money from his parents to stay afloat, but he shudders at how dire his financial situation may eventually get.
"It is probably an inevitability that I will have to file for bankruptcy just to get out of it all," he said.

 Wisconsin's own Ron Johnson is THE vote that is keeping extending unemployment to 1.7 million Americans!

Notably, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson did not join other Republican senators such as Indiana's Dan Coats and Ohio's Rob Portman in voting to open up a debate about addressing an issue that shouldn't even be an issue.
Instead of listening to the calls from Wisconsinites of all political backgrounds for action on the jobless issue, Johnson was busy promoting a gimmicky lawsuit objecting to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
There are at least some Republicans who recognize what is at stake for working Americans — and for those who are out of work.

Heck even our very own Paul Ryan (R-Wall St.) joined in the act:

 "hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives." That's what Paul Ryan says, at least, and as the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, he's supposed to know these things, right?

Not that they care what you think, but I highly recommend contacting Paul Ryan and Ron Johnson and tell them to extend unemployment benefits immediately:

Janesville office - Paul Ryan
20 South Main Street, Suite 10
Janesville, WI 53545
Toll-Free: 1-888-909-RYAN (7926)
Phone: (608) 752-4050
Fax: (608) 752-4711
@reppaulryan

• Milwaukee Office - Ron Johnson
  517 East Wisconsin Avenue
  Suite 408
  Milwaukee, WI 53202
  Phone: (414) 276-7282
  Fax: (414) 276-7284 
  @Senronjohnson
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Luckily for the American People, we have Senator Elizabeth Warren on our side!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
  
  

Abele's War On Workers Runs Amok

This past Tuesday, State Representative Chris Kapenga (R-Marie) and State Senator Glenn Grothman (R-Antoinette) announced that they were introducing a bill that would prohibit local governments from having any sort of living wage laws. To make matters worse, they announced that the public hearing was going to be the very next morning.

Obviously, they were hoping that the people weren't going to be able to rally fast enough and only the entities
openly in favor of the bill would be able to testify.  They obviously underestimated the people.

The hearing was well attended by Milwaukee County Supervisor David Bowen, Milwaukee Alderman Tony Zielinski, Dane County Executive Joe Parisi, and activists Mike Wilder and Nicole Collazo Santiago, to name just a few.

Given that the Milwaukee County Board had just passed a living wage ordinance last week and the fact that Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele has been an outspoken opponent to such a law, many - including myself - naturally presumed that Abele had done one of his usual temper tantrums and ran to the Teapublicans in the state legislature to get them to pass a bill to allow him to get his way.

After all, he's done just that several times before.  When the County Board prevented Abele from sticking it to the county employees to the extent he wanted to, he bought off State Representatives Joe Sanfelippo and Dale Kooyenga to pass Act 14, which usurped power from the Board and concentrated it in his hands.  He's also done that more recently to get Lake Michigan redefined so he can build a skyscraper on the lakefront.  He also did this to remove any and all oversight of the Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division from the County Board because they wanted to put safety measures in place.

Abele's involvement was further implied when people started to report that Abele had spent time lobbying for this bill to be written and passed.

But Abele denied any involvement. Per a post that he or one of his aides put up on Facebook (using both his official and his campaign pages):

Despite some of the things you might have seen posted by certain groups, I did not lobby for the state bill limiting living wage laws.

In fact, the hours listed on the GAB website are for hours we spent lobbying trying to RAISE the state minimum wage to $10.10 for all workers.

An effort I will continue to fight for.

Per an article by Sean Ryan of the Milwaukee Business Journal, Abele was surprised by this bill and "had concerns":

Abele became aware of Kapenga’s bill on Tuesday, but was not involved in its drafting, said Brendan Conway, Abele’s communications director. Abele but shares Barrett’s concerns regarding how it may affect local worker hiring requirements, Conway said.

And per Steve Schultz of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Kapenga also came to Abele's defense:

Kapenga said he drafted his bill after hearing the Milwaukee County Board approved a living wage ordinance last week. Kapenga said he wasn't acting at the behest of County Executive Chris Abele, as some opponents of the measure had alleged.

"I wrote this," Kapenga said, during a hearing of the Assembly Labor Committee. He said living wage ordinances would harm the local economy by scaring away employers.

The problem with Kapenga's statement is that it is utterly false. The Cities of Milwaukee has had a higher minimum wage for almost two decades without bad effect. Likewise, the City of Madison and Dane County each have had higher wages and they are by far the most successful part of the state.

Obviously, Kapenga is not a reliable or credible person.

As for Abele's claim, one would first have to overlook his past behaviors of running to the state legislature every time he gets told no, as I cited above.

One would also have to ignore Abele's lengthy history of being an active opponent to any kind of living wage requirement.  When Supervisor Bowen first announced this resolution, Abele immediately came out against it.  Before that, when the board tried to pass a similar requirement on a hotel being built on the former county grounds, Abele was quick to veto it that and lobbied hard in order to get his veto sustained.

The biggest item one would have to overlook in order to believe Abele is this:

It clearly shows that, as Abele claims, he was lobbying in regards to increasing the minimum wage.  But it also shows that he was lobbying against the living wage as well, which is a direct contradiction to his claim that he wasn't lobbying on it at all.

Now, it's entirely possible that Abele wasn't lobbying against the living wage, but to accept that would require a person to ignore a lot of past patterns and solid proof.

My personal take is that Abele did push for this bill, but had gone back to the well once too often.

Not getting his way about the living wage, Abele did what has become habit for him, and ran to the state legislature to get them to pass a law allowing him to again thwart the will of the people.  But this time, the player got played and the Teapublicans went much farther than he had wanted.

Instead of just stopping the Milwaukee County resolution, the wages of people who work for companies contracted to the City of Milwaukee, the City of Madison and Dane County are being threatened.  If they take a large pay cut, they could lose their homes.  Not only that, but money that would have been spent regionally might start going elsewhere, even out of state.

Because of the fierce backlash to this bill, Abele is now desperately trying to to distance himself from it, even though he wanted it in the first place.

It is infuriating to think that all of these people could be needlessly harmed because Abele had another temper tantrum.

But it does show that we need to get rid of Abele as much as we need to get rid of his mentor, Scott Walker.

Walkergate: Big Money At The Cross Rhodes

On Sunday, I introduced the gentle reader to Cross Rhodes Strategies.  Cross Rhodes is a "consulting" group headed by Scott Fitzgerald's main fundraiser, Judith Rhodes Engels.

Cross Rhodes is also the employer of Kelly Rindfleisch, the political operative/Scott Walker aide who was convicted of illegal politicking during the first Walkergate investigation.  She is currently trying to appeal that conviction, even though she took a plea deal.  Rindfleisch is also one of the subjects of the current Son of Doe investigations.

With the original trial, the ongoing appeal and now being investigated again for other possible crimes - and having a high-priced attorney - Rindfleisch's legal bills must be huge.  Fortunately for her, Walker and WISGOP had found her a lot of jobs for her to get paid handsomely so that she could pay those bills.

One of those jobs was working for the sketchy millionaire Michael Eisenga, who was recently caught out paying off Joel Kleefisch to write a bill that would allow him to greatly reduce the child support payments for his special need children.  Even with that help, Rindfleisch couldn't stay out of trouble.

As I had mentioned in my previous post, a number of Teapublicans had Cross Rhodes listed as an expenditure on their campaign finance reports.

But when one looks at who gave what, it really gets interesting.

On December 2 and December 16, State Senator Mike Ellis paid out $500 each time for "Solicitation Expenses."  One might surmise that Ellis was trying to buy his way back into the good graces of the Teapublican establishment after opposing them on some key votes.  This seems extremely likely now that he is facing a strong candidate in Penny Bernard Shaber.  Ellis couldn't afford to get primaried this summer and then try to face her.

Faithful Teapublican State Representative John Nygren paid out $500 each time on July 2, July 31, September 3, October 1 and October 31.  The $2,500 was listed as "Consulting Fees - General."  That's an awful lot of consulting for a non-election year.

Another tool of the Teapublican establishment, State Representative Paul Farrow also gave these women three payments for "Consulting Fees - General."  On July 18, he gave them $1,000.  On September 21, he gave them two payments - one for $500 and one for $1,249.50.  Again, that's a lot of consulting for a non-election year.  And what's up with the two payments on the same date? One of them wasn't enough?

But now it gets really good.

One of the other benefactors of Cross Rhodes Strategies was Von Wanggaard, who is trying to make a comeback in the upcoming election.  On July 30, he paid out $1,000 for "Consulting fees - General."  On August 20, he paid out $983.19 for "Fundraiser - Food and Beverage."  Wanggaard paid out another $827.65 on September 27 for "Postage."

But the big money came from the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate who is ran by State Senator Scott Fitzgerald.   With each payment listed as "Consulting Fee - General," Fitzgerald authorized a $7,500 payment each on July 2, August 6, September 5, October 2, October 29 and December 3.  On July 25, Fitzie sent Cross Rhodes a whopping $15,355.  Now that's really a lot of consulting!

It really should come as no surprise that Fitzgerald was so generous.  Not only was Rhodes Engels his primary fund raiser, but they also both have ties to Walkergate and so want to make sure that Rindfleisch is able to mount a strong defense.  The gentle reader will recall that it was Rhodes Engels that shared Fitzgerald's list of donors with Rindfleisch:

But with all things Walkergate, there's more.  There's always more.

In an ironic twist, Media Trackers has decided to do their own story on part of these pay outs.  Surprisingly, these Koch Brother lackeys are more than willing to throw Rhodes Engels and Fitzgerald under the bus in their efforts to get at Wanggaard, who they apparently feel isn't rabid enough to suit there needs:

While working for CERS during the final six months of 2013, Rhodes also worked for the Van Wanggaard for Senate campaign. The ex-police officer is running against conservative financial adviser Jonathan Steitz, who serves as an expert with the free market-orientated Heartland Institute think-tank.

Campaign finance records show that Rhodes took $4,310.74 from Wanggaard’s campaign in the second half of 2013.

Those same records show that Wanggaard managed to net $32,060.79 over that six-month period. Entering the race in September, Steitz netted $27,102.94, a decent showing for someone who jumped into the race well into the reporting cycle.

Wanggaard, who tried to water-down Governor Scott Walker’s historic union reforms, has a history of losing races even when he is ahead in campaign fundraising. In the summer of 2012 he lost his recall election to Democrat John Lehman. Post-election finance reports show that for the year-to-date, Wanggaard raised $329,188.54 but still lost to Lehman despite the latter’s intake of only $226,139.56 for that calendar year.

Now it's not surprising or noteworthy that the unethical Brian Sikma would follow marching orders to promote the Koch candidate. That's what he gets paid to do.

But what is noteworthy is that Sikma just might have helped the John Doe investigations by pointing out the apparent collusion between WISGOP, in the form of Fitzgerald and Rhodes Engels, and Wanggaard's campaign.  I am sure that this would be far from being the first and only time such collaboration has taken place.

If you see John Doe, please be so kind to point this out to him.  I'm planning on getting some popcorn and waiting for the fireworks to start.

Irresponsible

By Jeff Simpson

We know that Governor Walker is in full election mode, by taking a President Obama led surplus and doling it out to his friends.   Governor Walker could have given that money to our educational system that desperately needs it, or even paid off part of the long term debt that Scott Walker has saddled us with!  

It is  such a bad idea, that Mary Burke has criticized it:

"I don’t know too many Wisconsin families who would rush out to spend money they don’t have, particularly when they’ve already put more money on the credit card and they have more bills coming due," Burke said.

While it is not surprising that the republicans voted in lockstep with the Governor, thinking for themselves is not their strong suit.   What is surprising though is that Governor Walker found two Democrats who were more than happy to join him in increasing our spending and harming our public schools:  

They were Rep. Stephen Smith, of Shell Lake, and Rep. Amy Sue Vruwink, of Milladore.

Their constituencies must be very proud.   Maybe they can send them thank you cards for all of the teacher's in their district that are laid off next school year.

The sad thing is, the dems actually had a good responsible budget(of course responsible government is a pipe dream at this point) but it was voted down via party line::

 

Assembly Democrats pushed a plan similar to Burke's that would put more money into the state's rainy day fund, recast the property tax cut to increase the average savings per homeowner to $231 and nearly triple money for job training.
"When are we really going to focus on the middle class?" said Rep. Cory Mason, D-Racine. "When are we going to get people back to work?"
The Assembly, where Republicans hold a 60-39 majority, rejected the Democratic alternative on a party line vote.

The republicans will never cross party lines to be responsible but two dems could not sign on to Scott Walkers irresponsible spending bill quick enough.

What is the next trick of Vruwink/Smith?  Co authoring a bill with Joel Kleefisch? 

We can not build our "bench" quick enough:

   

Walkergate: Everything But The Kitchen Sink

Monday was quite the day in the World of Walkergate and none of it was good for Scott Walker.

Over the weekend, I had speculated that Kelly Rindfleisch was going to appeal the appellate court decision to unseal the emails and other documents that were related to her trial and subsequent conviction.

As it turns out, I was way off the mark and she and her attorney have decided to give up that fight.  Reports indicated that the documents will be released on February 19, meaning half the state will be burrowed in with their copies for the next several days.

In other developments, the list of subjects of the ongoing investigations were revealed.

We had already known that Walker's campaign was one of the subjects, as were the dark money front groups like Wisconsin Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity.

Through the response filed by Special Prosecutor Frances Schmitz, it was confirmed that one of the individual subjects was Eric O'Keefe, head of Wisconsin Club for Growth and an unbearable boor who has been leaking information like an old dog with a weak bladder and seeking attention at every turn.

The other subject was none other that - insert dramatic music here - Kelly Rindfleisch. Again.  For the third time. Rindfleisch was a subject in the first caucus scandal.  Then again in Walkergate, in which she was convicted.  She can say goodbye to her friends for a while if she is charged and convicted in a third incident.

And as all this was going on, O'Keefe and his attorneys from Washington, D.C. have filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop the Sons of Doe investigations into the possible collaboration between groups such as his and campaigns such as Walker's.

Even a precursory review of the petition shows the gentle reader that these are not serious people.  Even though half the petition is redacted, it is still so full of misspellings, typos, inflammatory rhetoric, half truths, flat out lies and baseless accusations that one might have thought one of the hacks from Media Trackers or Wisconsin Reporter had penned the document.   I mean, they're throwing everything but the kitchen sink in hopes that something just might stick.

The gist of the filing is that the criminal investigation is a violation of O'Keefe's civil rights. That is akin to a burglar who breaks into a house and suffers a lifelong injury, then sues the homeowner for loss of work in his chosen career of burglary.

In his article about the filing, Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel addressed a couple of the issues that makes the lawsuit so frivolous:

The Wisconsin Club for Growth "has been sidelined entirely and has ceased all First Amendment protected activity" because of the investigation, according to the lawsuit.

The club nonetheless continues to maintain a website and publish a weekly newsletter critical of President Barack Obama.

The suit notes the club is focused on issue advocacy and does not specifically urge the public to vote for or against particular candidates. That distinction is important in matters of campaign finance law because groups that make such pleas are subject to greater regulation.

But the lawsuit also contends "conservative independent social welfare organizations" like the club contributed to the success of Republicans who took over state government with the November 2010 elections.

Also worth noting, although Marley chose not to mention it, is that Wisconsin Club for Growth is also bankrolling Charlie Sykes' White Wisconsin to help get their message out via the Journal's radio station.  In other words, Journal Broadcasting could be just as culpable as the rest of the propagandists.

Among the falsities that are rampant throughout the document is smears regarding the protesters, the recalls, the unions and various people including Representative Sandy Pasch and Kathleen Falk.  Oh, and I'm in there as well, at the bottom of page 42:

142. In spring 2010, the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute a county employee named Christopher Liebenthal, who was caught engaging in “excessive political blogging” for liberals from his taxpayer-funded computer. The District Attorney’s Office recognized that “Mr. Liebenthal’s actions constitute an extreme example,” but stated that it would prefer to see the situation handled as a personnel matter rather than a criminal matter. The decision by Defendants Chisholm and Landgraf to treat this conduct as a personnel matter is completely different from how they treated indistinguishable conduct by Wink and Rindfleisch. Each was charged criminally on multiple counts, and Rindfleisch was sentenced to jail time for similar conduct treated as a “personnel” matter in Liebenthal’s case.

Actually, there was quite a bit of difference.

Another one of these dark money groups, the utterly misnamed Citizens for a Responsible Government, had filed a criminal charge against me in an effort to distract from the heat of Darlene Wink and Tim Russell getting caught campaigning on county time. The charge was quickly dropped when it was seen that not only was I not seeking political contributions or doing campaign work like Wink, Russell and Rindfleisch, but I wasn't even blogging as I was accused of. A quick review of the dates that CRG was accusing me off were furlough days, vacation days and even major holidays like Memorial Day and Labor Day.

So no, the issues are not anywhere near to similar.  This accusation is as false as the rest of the petition.

As a final note, a lawyerly type of friend pointed out to me that signing off on a knowingly false petition or continuing with a knowingly false lawsuit is - in itself - a crime.

It is without doubt that this is a frivolous lawsuit.  The only thing in question is whether this is a feeble attempt to delay the Sons of Doe investigations in order to buy time for Walker's campaign before fall's election or if it simply a fundraising scheme by WCfG and an elaborate sympathy ploy by O'Keefe.

Everything in Moderation

From the Daily Page - Talaga/Lyons:

Walkergate: Meet The Does At The Cross Rhodes

Last week, Scott Walker was having a bad day on the double campaign trail when Appellate Court Judge Patricia Curley ordered that the emails and other documents involved with the trial, conviction and sentencing of Kelly Rindfleisch be unsealed.  Judge Curley gave Rindfleisch and her mouthpiece, Attorney Franklyn Gimbel, 30 days to go through the documents to pull out anything that might have to do with Social Security numbers or personal medical issues.

Rindfleisch has decided that it's too much hassle to further protect Walker in this manner and said that she's :
not going to go through the papers

Kelly Rindfleisch

A former aide to Gov. Scott Walker convicted of misconduct in public office declined Friday to look through "tens of thousands" of pages of emails to identify which should be withheld from public view.

On Tuesday, an appeals court judge said she planned to unseal documents used to prosecute Kelly Rindfleisch, a former aide to Walker when he was the executive of Milwaukee County.

Judge Patricia Curley gave Rindfleisch 30 days to review documents and request that certain information, such as Social Security numbers or medical information, remain confidential. At that point, Curley said, she would issue a final ruling and release the records.

But in a letter to Curley Friday, attorney Franklyn Gimbel said it would be too expensive and time-consuming for his client to review all of the records, which Gimbel contends were collected using "overbroad" warrants that violated his client's right to privacy.

Now, before the gentle reader gets too excited, there are some things that he or she should know.  There's always more.

We already know that Scott Walker and WISGOP has been funding Rindfleisch's legal defense by throwing buckets of money at her through her "doing jobs" for them. This was the way they were buying her silence.  Sadly for Rindfleisch, even then, she had problems staying out of trouble.

About a year ago, Rindfleisch got a knew gig at a political consulting agency named Cross Rhodes Strategies.  The registered agent for this agency is none other than Judith Rhodes Engels.  Interestingly, the website that they once had for their agency is no longer to be found.  In fact, the only traces my meager Googling skills could find was on a couple of aggregate sites - Find the Company and Bizapedia.

Interestingly, sources report that more than a few GOP legislators have Cross Rhodes listed in as an expense in their campaign finance report.  Another interesting tidbit is that Engels' husband just received a cushy state job last summer.

We became familiar with Rhodes Engels during the original Walkergate investigations.  She is the favorite fundraiser of Senator Scott Fitzgerald.  Rhodes Engels is also known for her past caucus scandal involvement and her Harley riding skills.  And despite her rub-ins with the law, Rhodes Engels is either a slow learner or just indifferent and got caught getting involved with the gerrymandering scandal, although she should not be involved in governmental business at all.

But the most interesting involvement with Rhodes Engels is a fact we learned during the Rindfleisch trial.  We had learned from the Rindfleisch transcripts released then that Rhodes Engels had emailed Fitzgerald's campaign donor spreadsheet to Rindfleisch:

As I wrote at the time:

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to one of the smoking guns.

Judi Rhodes, aka Judi Rhodes-Engels, is someone else we know. She is the Harley Davidson-riding GOP operative that specializes in raising funds for State Senator Scott Fitzgerald. Rhodes sent a spreadsheet named "All Contributions-cfis-xlsm" to Rindfleisch, on what would be normally considered a work day during normal work hours.

This means not only was Walker having county staff running his campaign and doing fundraising on county time, and not only were the same staff coordinating things with the Davis campaign, but also was coordinating with WISGOP staff, under the leadership of State Senator Scott Fitzgerald. How was this arrangement approved and by whom?

In summary, you have a distinct pattern of Walker using his county staff and his county executive office which was doing campaign activity, most of which was a fund raising fundraising operation not just for himself, but also for his choice for Lieutenant Governor, Brett Davis. On top of all that, they were coordinating across multiple facets of WISGOP, most notably (for now) State Senator Scott Fitzgerald.

Do I really need to remind the gentle reader that the Sons of Doe investigations is supposed to involve the possible collusion of a political candidate's campaign and third party groups, including WISGOP itself?  And what do we have here? Clear collusion between Walker's campaign and WISGOP. Given what else we already know from the John Doe investigations and Walker's infamous phone call with the faux Koch that there were acts of collusion between the campaign and other third party groups like Americans for Prosperity, Wisconsin Club for Growth and MacIver Institute.

Given the obvious ties between Walker's groups and the third party groups, even if it didn't lead to criminal charges, much less convictions, if these emails and other documents were to be made publicly available, it would greatly damage Walker's chances of reelection as governor, much less really put a damper on his presidential aspirations.

Therefore, it would not be surprising if Walker and company tells Rindfleisch to take it to the Supreme Court. He's going to want to delay their release as long as possible.

Immigration Reform - The Time Is Now

Ohh boy, I think this is John Boehner really outdoing himself. Earlier this week, he made possibly the LAMEST excuse for not pushing forward on immigration reform. In his delusional mind, since Pres. Obama isn't "trustworthy" in his words, Boehner can't see why the GOP should push to enact any legislation on this issue. Yes. The president who has, all along, been following current immigration laws by deporting people in droves, can't be trusted to follow new legislation. And congress wonders why people find zits and getting fired from their job more likeable.

Something that always leaves me confused is the outright hatred people have for our nation's immigrants. Unless you're Native American, you have no room to complain. It's thanks to them that we are here in America today. Of course, it needs mentioning that the right-wing push back to immigration is due to a few reasons, the main of which is Hispanic immigrants. Republicans are afraid of Hispanic immigrants because of their tendency to vote Democrat (because people don't usually vote against their own interests.) And if the unbelievable backlash against the America the Beautiful Coke ad is any indication, the racist, hateful and ignorant condemnation for those seeking to come here, isn't going to ebb any time soon.

To understand this issue, and really politics in general, it helps to make it personal. Think of where you family came from. Every immigration story has real faces, real people. Anti-immigrant sentiment is nothing new. My husband's family is Polish and Dutch. My family hails from Ireland, Norway, Poland and Ukraine. When my great-great-great grandfather Patrick Murray took his first steps on American soil, he was probably greeted by one of these signs:

But you'll steal St. Patrick's Day and turn it into an excuse to capitalize on stereotypes of the Irish.

But he rose above the hatred and xenophobia and worked hard all his life to provide for his family. And that's what all immigrants are doing. People are immigrating to the United States for a reason. Patrick's story isn't unusual. Millions of people who've come here have faced the same adversity. Here in the US, they can provide themselves and their families with better  opportunities. Everyone wanting to come to the United States to gain citizenship should have that right. If you want a better future, our borders should be waiting with welcome arms. Immigrants pay taxes (i.e. pay for corporate tax cuts and big oil subsidies) buy goods and services (stimulate the economy) and add to the melting pot that is our uniquely American culture.

So in thinking about this topic, I came up with a few of my own suggestions for immigration reform. Some of them you can do on your own.

1. Make the process so much easier.
2. Don't bog people down with years of paperwork.
3. Don't bog people down with thousands and thousands of dollars worth of paperwork FEES.
4. Amnesty is critical. If people are already here and paying into the system, they're as American as anyone else.
5. Stop being a racist dick. Let's get real - GOP opposition to immigration reform comes from the skin color of many people wanting to come here.
6. End the belief that immigrants are 'welfare queens' who are mooching off the system.
7."Tough border security" is code for America puffing up its chest. It doesn't work. It obviously doesn't keep people from crossing the border. And building a wall? Huh. Let's remember how well that worked out the last time a country built a wall.
8. The children of immigrants, all 11 million, need to have fair access to education.
9. Stop getting your undies in a wad over whether or not people can speak English the second they get here. They'll learn. How many other languages do you speak? None? Okay. Than hush.
10. This is one of the most important. STOP CALLING PEOPLE ILLEGAL. No one is illegal. It's a cruel and inhumane term. I hate it.

The Center for American Progress has an extremely informative fact and statistics sheet on America's current immigration laws and numbers that you can access here. Contact your senators and congressperson and urge them to keep fighting for fair, humane immigration reform. Don't let John Boehner win on this issue.

So, next time you want to go tell your new neighbors from a different country how much you wish they'd go back, remember, they aren't stealing your jobs or your tax dollars. The people doing that are  multimillion dollar corporations. Where's the legislative reform for THAT?

Austerity - The Job Killer

From the appropriately-named Mother Jones, we learn that austerity is a job killer:

January's job numbers were fairly dismal, but the bad cheer wasn't equally spread. Private sector employment, as usual, increased—by 142,000 jobs last month. At the same time, public sector employment declined. Government employment at all levels was down 29,000 in January.

Aside from the brief census blip in early 2010, this has been the usual state of affairs for the past four years, ever since the recession officially ended. The chart below shows public and private sector employment indexed to 100 at the end of the recession. Private sector employment is up 6.8 percent. Public sector employment is down 3.4 percent. And that's during a period when population grew 2.3 percent. On a per capita basis, government employment has declined more than 5 percent since 2009, and it's still declining.

This is the price of austerity. If public sector employment had been growing normally during this period, we'd have about a million more jobs than we do now and the unemployment rate would probably be below 6 percent. We are our own worst enemies.

Remember this when you hear one of the idiotic teahadists go on one of their small government tirades or two-faced plutocrats say that they are looking for "efficiencies" (meaning privatization). They're not worried about your taxes.  All they are doing is looking to take away and keep away good paying jobs from us.  That way they can keep the money where they think it belongs - in their pockets.

It's All In How It's Red

So, Scott Walker actually had this as a Facebook post:

"...Wear Read Day..."

It's even worse when one considers that it was spelled correctly just five words earlier.

Some might call Walker a leader, but I sure as heck don't want to follow him!

Scott Walker- Quote of the Day

By Jeff Simpson

When asked about his stance on gay marriage:

 "We take an oath to uphold the constitution and as long as that's part of our constitution, we're obligated to uphold it," Walker said. "If that were to change, certainly we'd look at it differently.

Earlier in the day in the courtrooms of Madison:

Dane County Judge John Markson has dismissed 29 tickets issued to participants in the Solidarity Sing Along, ruling the state's permitting requirements for Capitol gatherings unconstitutional.
In one of two written rulings issued Wednesday (available here and here), Markson said he agreed with defendant Michael W. Crute, who argued that the state's permit requirement "violates the First Amendment because it applies, on its face, to very small groups."

Apparently Scott Walker thinks he took an oath to "selectively" enforce the Constitution.    

The Dictator Collection

By Jeff Simpson

Harlon Crow, one of the funders of the infamous disgusting swiftboat attacks on John Kerry, is now dipping his dirty feet into Wisconsin electoral waters!  Of course, when you go fishing in dirty waters, the one big fish you will catch in Wisconsin is Scott Walker. 

Gov. Scott Walker is headed to Texas this week for a fundraiser at the mansion of billionaire Harlan Crow, a strong supporter of conservative causes.
Politico is reporting that Walker's re-election fundraiser is scheduled for Tuesday at the real estate tycoon's Dallas residence.
Walker announced last week that he had raised more than $5 million in the second half of last year, nearly triple the amount collected by his likely Democratic foe, Mary Burke, in the same period.

Who is this Harlon Crow anyway?

 Harlan Crow, age 62
Est. net worth: Hundreds of millions
Source of wealth: Real estate; Crow Holdings
2012 favorite: Has given $180K to Rick Perry's gubernatorial campaigns since 2004—plus millions to state and national conservative causes. But Crow Holdings bundled $25K for long-shot GOP contender Jon Huntsman.
Dark-money potential: High. Crow, who sat on the founders' committee of the anti-tax think tank Club for Growth, gave $125K to the Swift Boat Vets circa 2004. He's also given nearly $900K to Texans for Lawsuit Reform and donated $500K to help the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas start a tea party group.
Grab bag: The gardens at Crow's $24 million estate feature statues of notorious historical figures like Mao, Stalin, and Gavrilo Princip—the assassin who sparked World War I.

Just your ordinary average guy who wants good clean government for the good citizens of Wisconsin even though he lives in Texas, obviously.  





Of course his love of dictators and psychopaths has to be examined and might better explain his love of Scott Walker:

 Crow's mansion is known for its backyard garden full of statues and relics of dictators, assassins and despots -- including Mao Zedong, Vladimir Lenin, Fidel Castro, and Joseph Stalin -- and such World War II Axis figures as Benito Mussolini and Hermann Göring, commander of Nazi Germany's air force.

 


I wonder how many of the dead dictators did Scott Walker get his picture taken with?  How much money did his fundraising trip cost the taxpayers of WI? How much money did Walker make on this little evening with the psychos?  Is Scott Walker ever in WI?

If you want to know where your Governor is, this handy little website from Madison.com should help!  

Walkergate: Doe And Sons

At the end of last week, we learned that Scott Walker was again feeling the heat as the Sons of Doe were given free rein again as an appellate court said that the five concurrent investigations into possible collusion between his campaign and third party groups.  To add to his misery, the very next day, it was revealed that his campaign had spent $86,000 on legal defense attorneys, making it all but a surety that Walker was again (or is it still?) John Doe.

On Tuesday, Walker got reminded that Papa Doe was still around when Judge Patricia Curley ruled that the emails and other documents produced in the trial and sentencing hearing of Kelly Rindfleisch should be unsealed:

Kelly Rindfleisch — who served as Walker's deputy chief of staff when Walker was Milwaukee County executive — had asked the Wisconsin Court of Appeals to keep sealed thousands of emails and other documents as she tries to overturn her conviction.

But Appeals Judge Patricia Curley ruled Tuesday only a very limited set of records could be withheld from the public, such as those containing Social Security numbers or medical information.

"Personal information collected (in) a criminal investigation is routinely included in criminal appellate records," Curley wrote. "Although the investigation that led to the criminal charges against Rindfleisch generated widespread public interest, Rindfleisch is no different from any other person seeking appellate review of his or her criminal conviction.

"She may not seek to shield information simply because she does not want the information to be made available to the public."

Curley, who serves on the Milwaukee-based District 1 Court of Appeals, gave Rindfleisch 30 days to review the material and make requests to keep any specific records from being placed in the publicly available court file.

The article goes on to report that Rindfleisch's attorney, Franklyn Gimbel, said he needed to "consult with his client" about the possibility of appealing this to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

If I were a gambling man, I would put money on an appeal for a few different reasons.

One, we can't forget that four out of the seven justices are beholden to the corporate special interests that are the subject of the investigations and as such, as shown that the law is not as much their concern as is what said special interests want.  After all, David "Chokehold" Prosser said that he would be a rubber stamp for Scott Walker.  Do you think that he would actually uphold the law and go against Walker?

Secondly, let's not forget that the funders of Rindfleisch's legal defense are Walker and the GOP.  Walker is fighting for reelection as well as keeping his eye on a presidential run.  He doesn't need to have the whole Walkergate scandal start to percolate again.  Especially while the national media is still having a feeding frenzy on the bloated carcass that was Chris Christie's political career.

Likewise, the corporate special interests don't want their money-laundering and election-buying schemes exposed any more than they already are.  They are already whining that the money flow as slowed way down.

The possible release of Rindfleisch's emails and documents aren't Walker's only problem from Tuesday.

In the same article, it is also reported that the Government Accountability Board had clarified the rules for legal defense cooperation funds in response to an "unnamed" political campaign:

Also Tuesday, state elections officials laid out how a candidate's political committee could pay its legal costs in an investigation into alleged campaign finance violations. The information was sought by a candidate's committee, but the state Government Accountability Board did not disclose which one asked.

The opinion made clear for the first time that candidate committees can use their funds only to pay for legal defense in investigations of civil matters. To pay for defense attorneys in criminal cases, the candidate and his or her campaign must establish a separate legal defense fund, the accountability board said.

But the undisclosed committee could currently pay legal expenses for the candidate or its agents from either fund because the investigation could result in either civil or criminal penalties, the board said.

Board spokesman Reid Magney said he was prohibited by law from naming the candidate or the date the opinion was issued, saying only that there is typically a "lag time" between an opinion being provided by the board and the opinion being made public.

Keep in mind that Walker's campaign finance report shows that his campaign paid out another $86,000 to defense attorneys. Even Big Fitz - State Senator Scott Fitzgerald - doesn't have that kind of payment.

The GAB might not be able to say, but I am confident that the gentle reader has the critical thinking skills needed to see what's what and that Walker is still John Doe.

And, as the gentle reader also knows, when it comes to all things Walkergate, there is more.  There is always more.

Tim Russell - long-time aid and very personal friend of Scott Walker - is still seeking his appeal to get his sentence shortened.  All the briefs are in as of Tuesday and now it's up to the court to issue a written decision or to schedule a hearing.  Even if no further tidbits come out of this, it will help to remind people of what a scandalous weasel Scott Walker really is.

In summary, one can make reasonable and educated guesses that Scott Walker is feeling the heat as John Doe and his five sons are starting to catch up with him.  Despite all of his legal maneuvering, he is only delaying the inevitable.

And don't you think for one second that he doesn't know it.  Why else would he be going to fundraisers being hosted by Texas billionaires if he didn't have to raise three times the cash - one part for his gubernatorial race, one part for his presidential hopes and one part for his legal defense cooperation fund.