The Scott Walker Degree

BY Jeff Simpson 

Scott Walker, who likes to campaign Al Dente, has changed his line about not having a college degree once again.   

What about not having a college degree?"I say I’m like the majority of people in America. I’m someone who went to college, had the opportunity in my senior year to go and take a job full-time, which was not the only reason I went to college, but one of the biggest reasons was to get a job. And the American Red Cross offered me a job my senior year, and I took it, thinking someday, maybe, I’d go back. But a few years later, I met my wonderful wife, Tonette, a year after that, we had Matthew, the year after that, we had Alex. And now like a lot of folks in America, you know, your family and your job take the time away from you from finishing it up. But I don’t think anybody -- and I’ve got a master’s degree in taking on the big-government special interests, and I think that is worth more than anything else that anybody can point to."

Once you get past the fact that he changes his life story more than Robert Van Winkle ever did, one interesting line stands out.  

and I’ve got a master’s degree in taking on the big-government special interests - Scott Walker

Well we at CogDis did some digging and we found a partial course listing of classes that Mr. Walker Had to take to earn his imaginary Master's degree.  

 How to please your boss, yet look independent 202:  This course we will teach you how to say one thing to the general public while spilling your true strategy to people who pay for that privilege. By the end of this class, you will learn how to soak millions out of rich widows.  

Kiss the right rings(there is lots of money in Las Vegas) 300:  This course will show you, how to fund raise nationally while traveling secretly.  The more advanced learners in this class, will learn how you can phone reporters in your home state, while traveling, to complain about "out of state special interests".



You have access to unlimited money, use it 220:   This class will show you how to do whatever you want in office because you have unlimited access to taxpayer money to hire lawyers.  If time allows, the student will also learn how to hire consultants to keep from having to make a decision on your own.



Meet the right people - 100:  This is a refresher course to help the student understand that the person you are nice to today, could grow up to become a Supreme Court Justice, who will not only suspend ethics rules to do your bidding but be willing to choke anyone who gets in the way!



You are always, always, always on - no one is bigger than your ambition 400 :  This is an upper level graduate course for those who are willing to do anything to become President of the United States.   This course will teach you to hire felons, snakes, and loons.  You will also learn the importance of hiring your donors to major positions within the Government and the equal importance of throwing them to the wolves the second you need a scapegoat.  Students will also learn that the more taxpayer money you can give to your friends, the more money they will give you.  



You can see with five classes last semester, Mr. Walker had a full course load but it allowed him to attain his imaginary masters degree.

Congrats to you Scott Walker,

Let's hope the walk you take to get this degree involves handcuffs and disgrace!

Football Politics: Showdown at the Lambeau - K Corral

In Green Bay, Wisconsin, the wind chill is a biting 30 below zero and there is plenty of snow on the ground. However, as the Green Bay Packers are getting ready to host (and defeat) the Dallas Cowboys this weekend, things are heating up in the smash-mouth political football game known as the 2016 GOP presidential primary.

When the Cowboys come to Lambeau Field, they will be probably bringing along their biggest - and I do mean biggest - fan, Chris Christie, otherwise known as the Outlaw Jersey Whale.

Christie is out to show that he is the toughest, meanest and most corrupt Republican Governor around. Not only does he verbally abuse teachers for fun, he has gotten himself inescapably entangled in Bridgegate, the scandal that won't go away.

But even Bridgegate wasn't enough for Christie's insatiable appetite, so he got himself tied up in yet another scandal, but faces yet another possible investigation for taking gifts from Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones, after allowing the Port Authority enter into a business relationship with Jones.

But Christie isn't going to be throwing his weight around Green Bay without a challenge.

He's going to be on the turf of Scott Walker, Tosa Ranger, aka Desperado. Walker is the only governor to be a person of interest in not just one, but two, John Doe investigations. Six of Walker's aides and friends have already been convicted of illegal politicking, embezzling money from a veterans fund and other sordid affairs and more than a score of others have been granted immunity for their testimony. The only reason Walker has escaped the long arm of the law is the millions of dollars of dark money thrown at his legal defense cooperation fund.

Walker, like Christie, thinks he should be president. Or at least the voices in his head that he mistakes for God are telling him he should be governor.

Walker believes this so much that he has rehired a consultant with experience running national campaigns while he is busy explaining that he doesn't really need a college degree to be president, as long as he can follow orders from the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson and the Bradley Foundation.

Walker hasn't waited for Christie to get to Wisconsin to take some potshots at him. After Christie's embarrassing attempt at hugging last weekend, Walker sent out this almost as embarrassing tweet:

Walker, Tosa Ranger and the Outlaw Jersey Whale have tangled before, with Walker feeling that Christie wasn't supportive enough during the gubernatorial election.

But that will be small potatoes as these two knuckleheads try to out-conservative and out-corrupt each other as the primary moves on.

Christian Schneider Rides To The Rescue

 By Jeff Simpson

We brought you the story of how friend of Scott Walker, Bob Westman was charged with fourth degree sexual assault for his unwanted advances on a woman at the Governors Inaugeral Ball.   Which came on the first day that the Wisconsin taxpayers were no longer paying the salary of Republican leader and sexual predator Bill Kramer.

As if right on cue, Republican insider and apologist Christian Schneider writes an op-ed explaining that if women do not let any man that wants to kiss them, kiss them, it will be the end of romance.

Apparently in Republican insider view, if only the women would do what the Republican alpha male wants, then we would not be having these problems.

Instead of taking a pull quote from Schneider's column, and because Mr. Schneider has a habit of deleting his ridiculous columns as if nothing ever happened, here it is in its scary entirety:

(Edit Note:  Because Dave Blaska felt that as few people as possible should read the blatherings of Christian Schneider, I will decided to just use a couple pull quotes.).

"Stolen sweets are always sweeter,Stolen kisses much completer"— Leigh Hunt, 1784-1859

Schneider:

Itseems like a rare situation when a woman is kissed when there's absolutely no warning whatsoever. If a man (or woman) is standing within a foot of your face, there's at least a better than 50-50 chance that they're going hunting for treasure. Unless your attempted paramour is a kissing ninja, it seems unlikely that you're going to suddenly be caught in the middle of a lip blizzard.

 Apparently Mr. Schneider has never been around a Republican party.

Schneider: 

Maybe it's easy to dismiss the "kissing permission" stance as merely extreme feminist ravings. But they are not alone. Last year, universities often cited a statistic that showed one in five women on campus had been sexually assaulted. But, among other problems, that number was inflated by women who had been subjected to "unwanted kissing."

Ladies, Christian Schneider knows what is best for you.  If you dont want to be kissed, then your just a stuck up ornery liberal.  

Schneider:

But the unexpected kiss should remain the property of romance and not of the courts.

Free Bob Westman!

Schneider:

Or, as Robert Browning once said, "What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?"

Not sure why you would insert a quote from a poem about mortality and death.

Christian Schneider is a Journal Sentinel columnist and blogger. Email cschneider@jrn.com. Twitter:@Schneider_CM

Homeless Shelters Fill During Deep Cold

Wisconsin is in the grips of another polar vortex, with wind chills expected to reach 30 degrees below zero and possibly colder. Due to the extreme cold, homeless shelters are filling up every night:

Milwaukee's homeless shelters have been filling as the temperatures have dipped in recent days. And warming houses, which typically close in the evenings, are keeping their doors open overnight.

"We've been open overnight Sunday and Monday, and it looks like we'll be open again tonight," said the Rev. James West, executive director of Repairers of the Breach, a daytime warming center at 1335 W. Vliet St. in Milwaukee.

The Rev. Karen Hagen of Tippecanoe Presbyterian Church near Bay View said its Divine Intervention program has been at capacity — around 20 people — for the last few days.

"But in these temps, we're also able to bump up," she said.

Homeless guests leave during the day — the local library is a few blocks away — then return in the evening for a meal and settle in for the night.

Hagen said staff have seen some cases of frostbite, and that those individuals are diverted for appropriate medical care.

Hagen said guests were troubled Monday to learn of the homeless man's death and are waiting for authorities to release his name.

"They were very upset emotionally. They want to know if it's someone they personally know," she said.

It is important to remember that if it wasn't for the Milwaukee County Board, these people could easily end up in the morgue instead of a shelter.

During the 2015 county budget process, Boss Abele thought that because no one froze to death last year, the shelters didn't need as much money. He completely missed the fact that it was because of the shelters that there had been no deaths due to the cold:

One of the actions that Abele did was slash the funding for homeless shelters in Milwaukee County. Apparently, Abele forgot about how horrible last winter was with the polar vortexes and dangerously cold temperatures.

To show the importance of this funding, Supervisor Peggy Romo West shared this message from Joe Volk of the Wisconsin Advocacy Project:

"Even though we in Milwaukee suffered through one of worst winters in history last year there were no reports of the homeless freezing to death thanks in part to the extra funding provided by the County Board to support homeless shelters in Milwaukee County. This is something we should all be proud of. This is serious business and should not be used as just another attempt of the administration to mislead the legislative branch of County Government."

There have already been two deaths this winter which have been attributed to the cold.

One would hope that Boss Abele would take this opportunity to give a second thought to the way he treats the poor and homeless. Unfortunately, it's obvious that he's never given them a first thought.

The Ghost of Bill Kramer

By Jeff Simpson

Not sure what it is about "Friends of Scott Walker" that they think women are their own personal play toys but the fun never ends when republican thugs gather to honor our Governor.

Well it is usually not much fun for single women.  At the inaugeration ball, Republican Bob Westman allegedly channeled his inner Bill Kramer:

Authorities were called to the ball at Monona Terrace around 10:30 p.m. Monday, and arrested Robert J. Westman, 45, of Madison, on tentative charges of battery and fourth-degree sexual assault, police spokesman Joel DeSpain said.
A 44-year-old Onalaska woman told police Westman had been bothering her -- touching and trying to kiss her even though she repeatedly asked him to leave her alone, police said.
The woman sought help dealing with Westman from a 55-year-old Onalaska man, who confronted Westman and told him to stop, DeSpain said. About 20 minutes later, the man told police, he saw Westman bothering the woman again and went up to him once more, telling Westman he was going to call security, DeSpain said.
Westman "responded by head-butting the second man in the face," DeSpain said.

Following a looooooong line of lack of personal responsibility within the Republican party, Mr. Westman fit right in:

Westman claimed he and the woman were "having a good time," and that the touching was consensual, DeSpain said.
"That’s not backed up by any of the witnesses we talked to," DeSpain said.

No word yet if Mr. Westman can get his trial moved to Waukesha or if Judge Randa has made it illegal to investigate headbutting incidences yet.

More info on this very unsurprising story, as it becomes available(pictures from facebook).



Or maybe Bob was just wearing Hai-Karate:

The Arrogance of Chris Christie

By Jeff Simpson

H/T David Sirota   Scott Walker's good friend and campaigner, fellow Republican Governor and head of the Republican Governor's Association, openly defies ethics rule.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s ticket and travel to the Dallas Cowboys playoff game on Sunday was paid for by team owner Jerry Jones, according to a spokesman for the governor. The gifts from the NFL team owner follow the Christie administration giving millions of dollars worth of tax subsidies to the NFL.
The announcement from the governor’s office followed International Business Times first reportingtoday on Christie appearing in the NFL owner's box despite strict New Jersey ethics rules. Those rules subject public officials to “a zero tolerance policy for acceptance of gifts ... that are related in any way to [an officeholder’s] official duties.” As governor, Christie has overseen the state’s business with the NFL, most prominently during the 2014 Super Bowl.
Christie has cited those same ethics rules in barring other New Jersey officials from getting special access to tickets to events at state-owned arenas. 

Even though its impossible for Christie to hide anywhere, our political class has pretty much decided to not even hide their flaws or their open defiance of the law.  As long as we keep voting for people because of the letter after their name and do not hold them accountable for their actions, this will only get worse.

Scott Walker Has Himself To Thank

By Jeff Simpson - Cross posted at Purple WI.

 In the wierd world of Wisconsin Politics. Governor Scott Walker took to social media, to slap himself on the back.   

"My property taxes went down largely because my technical college portion went down 35.5% because of the money we put in at state."
— Scott Walker on Friday, December 12th, 2014 in a tweet

In what has also become commonplace in Wisconsin Media, Politifact rushed to give him cover.   

In a tweet, Walker said: "My property taxes went down largely because my technical college portion went down 35.5% because of the money we put in at state."

He’s right. We rate his claim True.

A deeper look at the numbers, and we see why the Wisconsin Budget is in such a mess.  Scott Walker's property taxes did go down this year $118.
 

The governor owns and lives in a $360,000 home on a busy street in suburban Wauwatosa in Milwaukee County. An online database shows his total bill fell $118 or 1.4 percent this year.

His total bill: $8,364.

Of course last year, not so much - up $1100.  

Walker had less to brag about last year at this time, when his property tax bill jumped more than $1,100. It coincided with the 2013 citywide property revaluation in Wauwatosa. Walker’s property assessment rose 11 percent that year. 

OUCH.  By the way, in the four years Walker has been Governor - his property taxes(even after the massive$118 deducation) have went up $1300!  
 

Our Mathmatically challenged Governor consider taxes going up $1300/yr as a win.   he has himself (and maybe a really poor math teacher in high school) to thank for this.   

I know that the "amen chorus" will attack because the tax increase came from the city of Wauwatosa.  Of course it did, when the State Government starves municpalities and school districts as a way to pretend they cut taxes, the money has to be come from somewhere.  The streets of wauwatosa do not plow themselves.   

Cutting these payments is not saving taxpayers money, it is passing the buck. 

By the way while Scott Walker has his self to blame for his own MASSIVE tax increase, there have been a couple other things in the news that he also has himself to thank -  or blame.  

Thanks to massive cuts to the UW System our friends to the north are paying a steep price:

University of Wisconsin-Superior announced on Friday that it’s suspending five academic programs.

The following programs will no longer be offered at the school as of this Monday:

Educational Specialist Degree
Applied Discrete Mathematics concentration
French minor
French education minor
German education minor

Thanks Scott, now the students at UW Superior will be less prepared to tackle our world economy when they graduate.    

Then of course there is Wisconsin falling further in debt than we already are:

Over the next two years, the state's costs to keep up its current services will outstrip its expected tax collections by more than $800 million, according to the Legislature's nonpartisan budget office.

The brief analysis by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau provides the sharpest picture yet of the challenge that Gov. Scott Walker and lawmakers face as they try to keep the state's main account balanced while weighing competing concerns such as schools, health care and the pocketbooks of taxpayers.

Thanks Scott, sorry I missed your tweet on this piece of "great" news or I could have congratulated you sooner.   

Buckle up, I have a feeling there will be many many more things like this that we get to "thank" Scott Walker for in the next four years.   

Second Amendment Remedies

By Jeff Simpson

A "pro"second amendment website - called - wearagun- has started selling some T-shirts to gun enthusiasts across the country and a few really stood out.

Like this one:



I am sure Jared Loughner is mad he didnt grab one of those when he had the chance.

Then this is also another winner:



Pretty sure that one was on Lee Boyd Malvo's gift list this Holiday season.  



Probably best not to give this to this teacher for her Holiday present.



I wonder if the father of Christoper Bizilj is sporting this one?



Not sure if this is the T-shirt Adam Lanza was wearing at the time or not.

Also do not forget this old standby:



Where have I seen that flag before?

1. The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Remember keep Christ in Christmas!  

God Bless and Molotov!   

Lets Begin By Understanding Who They Are

By Jeff Simpson - Cross Posted at Purple Wisconsin

  The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty(WILL), run by fellow Purple WIsconsin blogger Rick Esenberg, recently released a report which unsurprisingly tells us that charter/voucher schools in WI have it rough and are over regulated.  

That the law branch of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation would come up with such findings surprises no one.  WILL is an extremely well funded "non profit" and they have the Bradly Foundation to thank.  It is always good to keep your donors happy, so advancing the agenda of the public school profiteers, is to be expected.   

Let's take a look at who WILL is.   This "study" was put together by three people, Rick Esenberg, CJ Szafir and Martin Lueken. A quick check of credentials and we see that neither Mr. Esenberg, Mr. Szafir nor Mr. Lueken have spent a day working in a public school, nor are they certified or eligible to teach in a public school.   Martin Lueken was a recent hire to the team, courtesy of the private school pushing Walton family.  

In New Wisconsin, working on a Republican campaign is all of the credentials you need to be an expert on any topic.  Not a single education credential went into this report, and future reports to come from WILL,  on voucher/private schools.  

Now that we see who they are, let's take a look at the four main findings they came up with. 

1.  State accountability laws on the school choice programs are at least as rigorous – and probably enforced more aggressively – than anything imposed on public schools. However, unlike public schools, schools in the choice programs must meet their mark or be immediately dropped from the programs, which will cause many schools to close.

We can look in WILL's backyard, to see this is blatantly not true.  As we pointed out recently:

Witness the example of Milwaukee voucher schools Ceria M. Travis Academy(437 students, K-12) and Travis Technology High School(179 students). These two schools receive over $4.6 Million Wisconsin taxpayer public education dollars and are being told to shape up or get kicked out of the voucher program.

After three years of not serving their kids, are being told to shape up or you might eventually get kicked off the program of taking taxpayer money(currently approx.  $5 million a year!)  So much for "immediately" when this school has received close to $35 million of our public education tax dollars and counting.    

2. The Department of Public Instruction interprets the accountability laws in ways that deviates from the statutory language, making it more demanding than originally intended.

There should be an asterisk here.  The DPI interprets the laws in ways that deviate from statutory language according to WILL.   WILL has a history of filing frivolous lawsuits to serve partisan purposes, so keep that in mind when reading these reports.  

3. Policymakers should consider the current accountability scheme on schools in choice programs before implementing any new regulations.

Here we actually agree, lawmakers should take into account current accountability of voucher schools. As we found out at the Travis Academy and Travis Technology High Schools(emphasis mine): 

But new documents and former employees have raised concerns about the internal workings at Ceria M. Travis Academy, a private school that's received more than $35 million in state voucher payments through the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program since 1996.

Complaints filed with the state in 2014 and obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel through an open records request allege that the school has violated state law by employing people without bachelor's degrees to teach students.

And former and current staff members say the close-knit family business has crossed a number of other lines that, while not illegal under state statutes governing private voucher schools, may be holding children back from getting the kind of education they deserve.

They say Dorothy Travis Moore, the founder and CEO of Ceria M. Travis Academy Inc., employs an unusually high number of family members and that it's hard to tell where the money for education goes, as classrooms lack adequate resources.

School officials counter that a recent review of the schools by an independent accrediting organization found the programs to be operating in accordance with state law.

That review was requested by the Department of Public Instruction as it sought to follow-up on the claims made via email about unqualified teachers at the school.

Double-checking the review's conclusion is difficult.

Travis Moore and Wilnekia Brinson, her daughter and vice president of the organization, declined to provide the Journal Sentinel with staff rosters from 2014-'15 and 2013-'14, as well as a current list of individual staff titles and salaries.

Because voucher schools are private, they do not have to make such information public.

We agree that voucher schools, taking public money should be held to the same standards as public schools.  Want to know how much money your favorite public school teacher makes?  They are all published in this paper.  

4. New accountability measures should be tailored with an appreciation for the value of diverse approaches and parental choice. There are a number of ways to measure school performance, and different families will place different weight on these measures and the outcomes that they reflect.

This is WILL's way of saying do not judge voucher schools based on test scores the same way that you judge public schools.  Which is smart because voucher schools seem to always come up short.   

As we pointed out, with the complete debacle of the Travis voucher schools, in the backyard of WILL and others, there has been complete silence.  

The silence was reinforced yesterday, after putting out their 16 page report, Mr. Esenberg added this disclaimer.   

The recent story regarding the Ceria M. Travis Academy illustrates this. I - and WILL - are not familiar with the school and, for that reason, take no position on its recent difficulties.

They know Nothing, they know nothing! 

Finally, why is this so important to know?  The Republicans who control the gerrymandered State legislature have made expanding vouchers and a school accountability bill top priorities.   During this debate amongst themselves, you will hear them reference this report and subsequent reports that WILL puts out on this issue.   

It is important to know it is not worth the paper it is printed on and if legislation is passed based on this report, we have all been shortchanged!   

An Admission About Our University System

By Jeff Simpson - Cross posted at Purple Wisconsin.

 As anyone with even a passing interest in The Wisconson Badgers football program knows, Coach Gary Anderson resigned this week for  a chance to live a life of obscurity, coaching at Oregon State.  

This move appears to be a step down,which leaves much speculation as to why he would do that.  One of the main possibilities that people have been bandying about, is that Coach Anderson was frustrated that Wisconsin's Academic Standards are too high.  

BadgerBlitz.com @McNamaraRivals: I can confirm that Mohamed Barry and #Wisconsin have parted ways. Academic standards at Wisconsin were an issue.

Let's get real, that was so 2010.  Wisconsin's current Governor and gerrymandered State Legislature have had the University of WIsconsin System on their radar to attack since they have been in power.   There is no other reason that they would appoint Rep. Steve Nass to be chair of the Assembly's Colleges and University committee.   

Scott Walker and the Republicans in charge, did not just stop there, they also made sure to cheapen the reputation of the University of Wisconsin system and diminisht he accomplishment of the college degree.   They implemented a "flexible option" degree.   

Madison – Governor Scott Walker released the following statement today after the University of Wisconsin (UW) System announced that UW-Milwaukee and UW Colleges received approval to begin providing Flexible Option degrees:

Our budget included $2 million to fund start-up costs for this first-in-the-nation approach, and I’m pleased to see this come to fruition because we’re making it easier for people to pursue higher education. This is great news for students and workers, and I thank UW System faculty and staff and the UW System Board of Regents for their hard work on this bold and innovative improvement.

YES!  You too can get your college degree and even skip the actual college part of it!   As Yakov Smirnoff might say --- "What a State!"

But Wait, there's more!   As if attacking the University System from the outside was not enough, they decided to plant a proverbial virus on the inside.   They created a new position for the University System called Vice President of Political Cronyism and, despite the fact that the interview committee begged not to hire him, hired Scott Walker's good friend Jim Villa.

Qualifications be dammed!  

The University of WIsconsin is still, for the time being, a World Class Institution but our politicians are working on that.  

While I too want to know Coach Anderson's thinking in leaving Wisconsin after two years, lets get real about our Academic Standards.   If you are one, who thinks we absolutely should not lower ourselves to help certain people get into our Universities, you have had your chance to speak up three times now.   

That ship has sailed and it does not appear to be coming back.

 

Abele's Ivory Tower Of Corruption

As I pointed out in my previous post, Lisa Kaiser of the Shepherd Express has done a pretty damning overview of Boss Abele's first year of unprecedented and unbridled consolidation of power in Milwaukee County.  As many of us progressives had warned, it has only opened the door to more secrecy and more corruption.  A prime example is Abele's monument to plutocracy, the Couture, a 44-story white skyscraper that remarkably resembles a giant Bic lighter:

But that (meaning Abele's attempt at privatizing the food services at the zoo) pales in comparison to proposals to sell off lakefront property for commercial development without a fully public RFP process. Not only has this allowed Abele to strike deals in private with developers, but it threatens to chip away at what’s known and admired by city planners throughout the country as the “emerald necklace” of public parks that rings Milwaukee County.

First, in 2012, the Abele administration offered a little-used Requests for Interest (RFI) for the Transit Center parcel, a more informal type of request for ideas than a traditional RFP. While most bidders offered vague proposals to transform the site, developer Rick Barrett served up a fully detailed plan to build The Couture, then conceived as a multiuse high rise with high-end condos, retail, a hotel and more. Abele was ready to sign off on the deal and presented it to the board as his preferred bidder, but prohibited supervisors from vetting all of the proposals in an open meeting. The board held public hearings on the project but the project was still ensnared by the state constitution’s Public Trust Doctrine, which requires former lakebed parcels to be held by public entities for the public good. Enter Abele’s conservative Republican legislator friends, who literally redrew the shoreline to allow Abele’s friend to move forward on his commercial development on the disputed property.

It needs to be noted that Rick Barrett had originally said that he would be able to build this Tower of Abele without the use of any public funds.

That has quickly changed.

 Barrett is now saying that he needs the City of Milwaukee to redesign the whole streetcar layout, using tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, if not hundreds of millions, to make his project feasible.  This includes nearly $9 million of federal taxpayer money because - gasp - a multimodal transit building needs, y'know, to be used by transit.

Lest the gentle reader thinks that I am overly exaggerating that the Couture and now diverted streetcar is only for the benefit of the top 1%, I would point to this report by Michael Horne of Urban Milwaukee, as he gushes over Mayor Tom Barrett's plan of diverting taxpayer dollars to support this debacle (emphasis mine):

Rick Barrett of Barrett Visionary Development plans to develop the site as the Couture, a “44-story mixed-use development comprised of approximately 302 market-rate apartments, approximately 49,835 square feet of retail and restaurants, and substantial public components,” according to the TID proposal. The Couture “will provide an integrated multimodal transit hub, publicly accessible plazas and publicly accessible natural indoor/outdoor spaces, pedestrian bridges and a new lakefront stop for the proposed streetcar line.”

The apartments will rent from $1,620 a month for a studio to $6,869 for a penthouse unit, or from $1.83 to $3.50 per square foot. Cash flow from the residential units will comprise 82 per cent of the project’s anticipated revenue.

The retail component of the project will provide 13 percent of the project revenue, with projected rents of $24 per square foot.

$1,620 a month for a studio apartment?! That is more than twice what people in the suburbs pay for a two-bedroom apartment. And for what they are asking for the penthouse, one could buy - or at least put down a substantial downpayment - on a house.

No, gentle reader, this project is not for the likes of you or me, unless you just happen to have more money than you know what to do with and less common sense than a housefly.

At least now we can understand Boss Abele's need for such secrecy.  If the public found out exactly how bad he is screwing them over, he'd be less popular than Tom Ament or Scott Walker.

Ironically, Boss Abele, Mayor Barrett and the other Republicrats are trying to push this plan to transform the lakefront into a plutocratic playground are claiming that it will help the economy and create good paying jobs.

In reality, if they wanted to accomplish those things and even be able to afford their plutocratic playthings, they would raise the minimum wage to a living wage, allow workers to unionize and provide benefits like paid sick leave and paid Family Medical Leave.  Instead, they have not only not supported these things, but have actively fought against them.

The most disappointing thing about these Republicrats is the way they misrepresented themselves as liberals and progressives.

If we wanted someone that would make overreaching power grabs, shut down any hint of transparency in government, let big money make the rules and to sell off public assets in no bid contracts, we have voted for Scott Walker and the Teapublicans.

Sometimes, I wonder if we didn't anyway.

Chris Abele Is Worse Than Scott Walker

Last November, Lisa Kaiser of the Shepherd Express wrote a pretty damning overview of Milwaukee County's first year of Boss Abele's power grab (emphasis mine):

The movement that culminated in Act 14 was launched by the Greater Milwaukee
Committee (GMC), a conservative business group with close ties to Abele and his friend and key advisor, conservative venture capitalist Sheldon Lubar. The bill was introduced in early 2013 by two suburban Republicans, former supervisor turned state Rep. Joe Sanfelippo (R-West Allis) and state Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), with the blessing of Abele. The effort went far beyond any sort of “reform” pushed by Abele’s predecessor, Scott Walker.

Act 14, signed into law by Walker in May 2013, gutted the board’s power in unprecedented ways and deprived Milwaukee County taxpayers of the checks and balances on the county executive’s power to cut corrupt deals with his selected cronies. Act 14 turned the Milwaukee County executive into the most powerful one in Wisconsin. The 18 supervisors now have no ability to amend a contract, and contracts worth between $100,000 and $300,000 don’t even need full board approval but only the blessing of the Finance, Personnel and Audit Committee. Those worth less than $100,000 don’t get sent to the board at all. Only those contracts worth at least $300,000 need the full board’s approval. In addition, county supervisors lost their staffers, who were the ones who would spend the hundreds of hours carefully examining contracts and legislation, had their terms cut from four years to two, can’t weigh in on collective bargaining negotiations, and can’t get involved in the day-to-day operations of county business. Thanks to a referendum mandated in the bill, county voters cut supervisors’ pay to about $24,000, beginning in 2016.

As the board lost power, the county executive filled the vacuum, gaining almost unchecked power for a public office. Abele now has the power to make appointments of department heads and fill those vacancies without a confirmation by supervisors; call special meetings of the board and introduce legislation; and submit contracts to the board, when necessary, that only receive an up-or-down vote by the board.

But that’s not the only radical change in county government. Earlier this year, Abele sought and won a new state law—again, pushed by Sanfelippo, this time with state Sen. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa)—that created a new Mental Health Board (MHB) made up of appointed members. According to the new Act 203, this unelected board has the power to craft a budget for the county’s mental health services that the board can’t cut, although Abele can make adjustments, and it doesn’t have to present much information to the board or the taxpayers. In addition, the MHB has the power to enter into contracts that the board cannot consider, including contracts to privatize services.

Thanks to these two new laws, the Abele administration now runs the county with little oversight from the board, almost obliterating any notion of checks and balances that are found in clean and open government run by co-equal branches. Abele is now free to preside over county government with little public input or transparency, a strategy he’s come to use over and over again. When dubious actions like this occur in developing countries, democratic countries like the United States, the United Kingdom and most of Europe are sharply critical.

“It goes beyond Act 14,” Supervisor Theo Lipscomb told the Shepherd. “It’s the attitude of this administration. It’s the reason they wanted Act 14 but it’s their attitude toward governing. They push their agenda through and they don’t expect there to be oversight.”

Lipscomb, a member of the Finance, Personnel and Audit Committee, which is tasked with vetting contracts and working through a line-by-line review of the budget, said Abele’s penchant for secrecy is worse than anything seen under Walker. At least the Walker administration presented its budgets on time and had aides on hand during the board’s deliberations to clarify policy items within it, Lipscomb said.

This year, in contrast, Abele delivered his budget later than in previous years, with no details about big policy items such as a major restructuring of employee benefits, offered no aides to provide information to supervisors as they amended the budget, and then sent over his two dozen vetoes less than 24 hours before the board was scheduled to review and vote on them. When Abele finally did provide details about his changes to the county’s benefits package, they showed that he was cutting employees’ pay by 4.8% to 8%.

“I’d say it’s worse under the Abele administration,” Lipscomb said. “Clearly in the amount of detail they provided up front in the budget document but also in the fact that they just weren’t available for budget hearings.”

Lipcomb also pointed to a contract to privatize security services at the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Building. The Abele administration sent a boilerplate resolution for privatizing security “at county facilities” to the board, and Lipscomb said the company in question was in the courthouse the day of the vote, apparently to pitch its services for courthouse security as well. The language only changed to target the Coggs building after supervisors raised questions about it, Lipscomb said.

“We had to really pull teeth to sort of extract that information,” Lipscomb said.

The sad part is that we haven't even seen the worst of it. That is still to come as Abele tries to position himself for a run for higher office.

Maybe it's time that we stop referring to Abele as Walker's Mini-me. Abele is surpassing Walker in secrecy, corruption and betraying the public trust.

What I still don't understand is why the Democratic Party not only continues to tolerate Abele but embraces him and gives him honors he most definitely doesn't deserve.

Walkergate: Doe, A Deer, A Phony Deer Hunter

In 2010, to hear Scott Walker tell it, he was suddenly a lifelong avid deer hunter and outdoors man.

Shortly after getting elected, the charade stopped when he hired Cathy Stepp to be the head of the DNR, in order to make it more business friendly.  Thus far, Stepp's claim to fame is to open the door for pit mines and pollution and to put hit jobs out on  Bambi and Giggles the fawn.

Walker's disregard for deer hunting continued when he hired his deer czar. Charles Pierce, writing for Esquire, explained it pretty clearly (emphasis his):

Walker's already better than halfway to selling off all of Wisconsin's public lands to private pillage, but Dr. James Kroll, the guy Walker has put in charge of deer hunting, takes things to a whole 'nother level. (First hint that Wisconsinites are being sold out? Handing their deer hunting authority over to a guy from Texas.) Back in 2002, Joe Nick Patoski of Texas Monthly wrote a long piece about the battle over deer hunting regulations in that state, and Kroll obliged by doing a half-gainer off the deep end. You see, Kroll doesn't believe in public lands. Her believes that the rights of plutocracy extend even to the wild spaces, and is a big fan of the kind of ranches that Dick Cheney goes to so he can mistake his friend for a dove and shoot him in the face....

...Kroll, who has been the foremost proponent of deer ranching in Texas for more than thirty years, doesn't mind the controversy and certainly doesn't fade in the heat. People who call for more public lands are "cocktail conservationists," he says, who are really pining for socialism. He calls national parks "wildlife ghettos" and flatly accuses the government of gross mismanagement. He argues that his relatively tiny acreage, marked by eight-foot fences and posted signs warning off would-be poachers, is a better model for keeping what's natural natural while making money off the land...

As the gentle reader could have predicted, with all of Walker's mucking about - not to making hunting less affordable in the state's sinking economy - deer hunting numbers have been dropping like a stone.

Abe Sauer wrote a piece at The Awl which really catches Walker's whole problem with trying to present himself as a deer hunter:

But an entirely different strategy is to frame the cheeseheaded governor as a man of the outdoors, a true hunter—just like Sarah Palin.

On Monday, Walker tweeted a selfie. Wrapped in hunter orange, the governor complained that the deer must hate the cold as much as he does. Walker tweeted the selfie about the frigid, deer-less cold from his personal account as well. Even more boldly, Walker is selling himself as a seasoned hunter without even setting foot in a field or zipping up a shred of Boehner orange. Early in November, Walker traveled to Virginia to campaign on behalf of part-time Cialis model and Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli. It was a doomed venture but Walker’s team did manage to sucker Politico to state as fact that Walker had cancelled his planned bow-hunt to campaign for Virginia’s Touch Of Grey® spokesman.

Unless it has disappeared, Walker has never tweeted from a hunt before. (A request to his office for a clarified accounting of Governor Walker’s hunting experience was not answered.) And as far as the Internet record is concerned, it seems there is a reason for that.

In the end, “experienced deer hunter” Scott Walker’s 2013 deer hunt appeared to last about as long as it takes to climb into a deer stand and tweet the view, tweet a selfie two hours later and then have spokesman Tom Evenson issue a statement to the Associated Press that Governor Walker had completed his 2013 hunt “without getting a deer.“2 Total 2013 hunting time, including bow season: about four hours. But then, maybe Walker is hoping he’ll get more than the nine-day season after his administration’s recent proposal to open an eight-month season that would add “about two-thirds of the acreage in the Wisconsin state park and trail system” for “hunting and trapping.”

In the recent release of the latest batch of the Walkergate emails, Walker's then secretary and scheduler, Dorothy Moore confirms that Walker wasn't much of a hunter then.

In the email in question, Moore is responding to Darlene Wink who was asking a favor for a friend of hers and Walker's, Chris Kujawa, to have Walker appear at a benefit for Thomas More High School, a private school in Milwaukee:

In the grand scheme of things, this doesn't show us anything new.  It only confirms what we knew all along - Walker is a phony and will do and say whatever he thinks the people want to hear, even if he knows it to be a flat out lie.  Sadly, this characteristic of Walker's is not limited to deer hunting but extends to everything under the sun, including taxes, job creation and education.

Abele Party Member Named Right Wisconsin's "Legislator of the Year"

White Right Wisconsin has named Joe Sanfelippo, a member of the Abele Party, as their "Legislator of the Year":

Abele and Sanfelippo,
with Chris Kliesmet and Orville Seymer
of CRG.

For any elected representative it would be an impressive year, but for a freshman it may have been one of a kind.

No stranger to the legislative process after years on the Milwaukee County Board, state Rep. Joe Sanfelippo (R-New Berlin) has been able to turn that background into one of the most productive areas of new legislation in Wisconsin. One which has given aid to the mentally ill and ended the do-nothing, high-pay lifestyle of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors. In the coming session, Sanfelippo hopes to continue on that early success with other bills.

Boss Abele must be so proud!

After all, it was Abele that donated money to Sanfelippo, not just once, but twice.

In exchange for the campaign donations, Sanfelippo did what comes naturally to Teapublicans - he followed his benefactor's orders and introduced bills written by Abele, including the dismantling of representative government in Milwaukee County and throwing our most vulnerable citizens to the corporate vultures.

I'm sure that Abele considers that money well spent.

Sanfelippo holds a special spot in Abele's heart for another reason too.  Sanfelippo was the only member of the Abele Party to win an election in 2014.

And if you were wondering why the Democrats are in such disarray and keep losing elections, keep in mind that they continue to embrace Abele and give him honors even as he actively works against their own members and most of the Party's platform issues.

John Cleese Explains Fox News

Watch it all the way through to the end (it's only a minute):