Walker’s reassurances less than reassuring

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Gov. Scott Walker said in an interview Monday that there is no private email system in the governor’s office similar to the one that existed in his office when he was Milwaukee County executive.

He also said that as governor he has complied with laws that restrict public servants from mingling their official duties with campaign activity.

Walker once again refused to say whether as county executive he knew of or used a secret email system set up in his office to avoid public scrutiny.

On Monday he called it a “slippery slope” to answer specifics about the more than 27,000 records released last week, because “once you start on one thing, then there’s hundreds of questions on each of those.”

OK, so first off he said he didn’t know about the first router. So how can he say with such certaintly there is no router now? There could be a bunch of blinking LEDs above the ceiling tiles right now and apparently clueless Scooter would have no idea that the modem is there. Which take are we supposed to believe here: that you’re too dumb to know what’s going on in your own office or that you have a complete understanding of everything going on in your office? Because there’s sort of a logical conflict going on there.

Second, you probably don’t want to use the “slippery slope” argument in this situation, because now we’re all wondering what new questions it is that you’re trying to avoid being asked. Walker’s not making this all go away with this dodge, he’s actually making it seem even more likely that he’s covering something up. “If I start talking about the secret email system, then I’ll have to answer questions about the contact list and — hoo-boy — do I ever want to avoid explaining that, let me tell you!”

Walker’s “lie low and hope everything blows over” strategy is failing spectacularly — not in the least because Walker himself keeps wandering out of “no comment” territory and stirring everything up again.

What Scott Walker has in common with a certain recently deposed Ukrainian criminal

If you ever come across a “gee, but Scott Walker is swell!” comment under a news story, blog post, or Reddit comment thread, assume it’s paid propaganda and call the commenter out for it — not because the odds show it’s likely to be true, but because actions like this deserve profoundly negative consequences:

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: In the heat of the 2010 governor’s race, Scott Walker urged both county employees and campaign aides to go to news websites and post comments promoting him and his record, newly unsealed documents show.

It was just such anonymous posts by a county worker on campaign issues that prompted prosecutors to expand a secret “John Doe” investigation — launched to probe into missing money in a veterans fund — to also examine whether taxpayer dollars were being used illegally to finance political operations.

In one instance in May 2010, for example, a close ally posted online a portion of a Walker email almost verbatim on a Journal Sentinel story just minutes after receiving the directive. Walker had sent the note to an inner circle that included county administrators as well as campaign operatives.

Tapping out a message on his campaign Blackberry on the afternoon of May 4, 2010, Walker urged county aides, campaign staffers and other trusted volunteers to go to an online Journal Sentinel business story and respond to critics of his plan to privatize the airport in the comments section below the story.

The legitimacy of pro-Walker statements online need to be challenged, because this sort of activity is the very definition of state-sponsored propaganda. It’s also just a hair short of sock puppetry, making it extremely dishonest. If the people who pull this sort of thing wind up worse off because of it, then they’ll stop doing it. So, when an online comment goes something like, “Yah but Walker is so awesome, too!” then just go ahead and assumed they’re on the guv’s payroll.

And this credibility problem is what Scott Walker has in common with a certain corrupt Ukrainian politician, currently on the run from his own people.

Buzzfeed: Several conservative bloggers repeated talking points given to them by a proxy group for the Ukrainian government — and at least one writer was paid by a representative of the Ukrainian group, according to documents and emails obtained by BuzzFeed.

The Ukrainian campaign began in the run-up to high-stakes Ukrainian parliamentary elections last year, and sought to convince skeptical American conservatives that the pro-Russian Party of Regions, led by President Viktor Yanukovych, deserved American support. During that period, articles echoing Ukrainian government talking points appeared on leading conservative online outlets, including RedState, Breitbart, and Pajamas Media.

The emails and documents, which include prepackaged quotes from election officials and talking points that some writers copied nearly word-for-word, offer a glimpse into how foreign governments dodge tight Justice Department regulations on foreign propaganda to covertly lobby in the United States: The payments were routed through a front group in Belgium to an American consultant, who has urged writers not to cooperate with a reporter investigating the campaign.

The model resembles a recent stealth campaign in which bloggers were paid by the Malaysian government to write favorable stories, though the Ukraine campaign appears to have involved smaller sums of money.

So there’s the common thread: American conservatives on the turd-polishing payroll. At this point, there’s ample evidence that a lot of opinion-making on the right is paid propaganda BS — so really, if you take any of it without a massive grain of salt, you’re literally a grade-A, first-class chump. But take a look at the company Wisconsin’s embattled governor keeps on this one: gangsters and dictators.

I wouldn’t trust this guy. And that advice comes unbought, by the way.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

Walker's John Doe Death Spiral

Phil Hands, Wisconsin State Journal.

Did Team Walker engage in illegal vote rigging?

The Progressive: Emails released this week appear to show Governor Scott Walker’s top aides engaging in an illegal scheme to “cage” Wisconsin voters in the weeks ahead of the 2010 gubernatorial election.

Voter caging is an illegal campaign practice used to knock voters off the rolls. Neighborhoods with large minority concentrations are most typically targeted by caging operations.

On page 15,037 of WalkerDocs 1, an email exchange between Walker staffers Kelly Rindfleisch and Nicole Simmons spells it out pretty plainly.

“If you come this Saturday I can show you how to cage,” Simmons writes. “That will be priority on the weekend.”

“Outside tea party groups bragged in 2010 that they were joining RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and Wisconsin Republican Party to cage voters for Scott Walker, although Priebus denied the charge,” the report goes on.

At this point, I’m having a hard time understanding why Walker wasn’t charged with anything. Did prosecutors believe they couldn’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Scooter wasn’t just stupid and clueless? Because at this point, that seems to be the governor’s only defense.

Republican Govs Assn’s answer to WI Joe Doe probe document dump: ‘Squirrel!’

Looks like someone’s nervous.

Associated Press: The Republican Governors Association plans to launch a six-figure ad buy next week attacking Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke on the same day that thousands of emails from a felon who worked for Gov. Scott Walker are released.

The ad is the first television salvo in the re-election race for Walker, a national conservative star who is eyeing a 2016 presidential run. The RGA was a strong backer of Walker both in the 2010 campaign and his 2012 recall, spending a combined $14.4 million in those races, based on estimates by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

The new ad, to air statewide on cable and broadcast networks starting Wednesday, will “remind and inform voters that Mary Burke was a senior official in the failed Jim Doyle administration,” RGA spokesman Jon Thompson said Thursday.

What’s important to remember here is that no one actually knows what’s in these emails. So the fact that Republicans are so eager to change the subject immediately is a pretty danged good indication that they know Walker has something to hide — and to worry about.

Walker is a vulnerable governor. Although the latest polling out of Marquette University showed Walker in the lead 47%-41%, the fact that the incumbent could only garner a plurality and not a majority means that Team Walker most likely did not receive the numbers as good news.

Throwing an insane amount of money at an ad buy to change the subject from something so far unknown to MARY BURKE IS AWFUL!! shows just how fragile Republicans believe Walker’s already slim lead to be. They’re almost as afraid of Burke as they are of Walker’s simmering scandal.

[photo via WePartyPatriots.com]

In 1988, two Wisconsin Republicans visited apartheid South Africa. It did not go well

Chicago Tribune: Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson has fired Mary Kohler, chairwoman of the Wisconsin Women`s Council, because of controversial remarks Kohler made about blacks in South Africa.

The Republican governor, who previously had disagreed strongly with Kohler`s views on racially segregated South Africa, said Wednesday that she had refused his request to resign. “Therefore I have removed her from the council,“ he said.

Thompson appointed Kohler, whose conservative views on women`s issues parallel his own, shortly after he took office in 1987. Another conservative, Republican State Rep. Susan Vergeront, will replace Kohler on the council, Thompson said.

The 15-member Women`s Council is charged with identifying barriers that prevent women from participating equally in all aspects of life.

Kohler and her husband, Terry, visited white-ruled South Africa for three weeks last February. Kohler later distributed to members of the women`s council copies of a “travelogue“ she had written about the trip.

In the account, she wrote that most blacks in South Africa “are still in the Stone Age“ and that allowing them to vote would be “a total disaster.“

The account was published last week in a Madison newspaper, and the Kohlers later elaborated on their views in a newspaper interview. Kohler said she agreed with her husband, a Sheboygan industrialist and a former Republican candidate for governor and U.S. Senate, that the South African government is being “absolutely as even-handed and unrepressive as it can be“ in its treatment of blacks.

She also said she believes the United States is more racist than South Africa and that South African blacks seem very happy with their lot in life.

Both Kohlers said blacks were not ready to vote in South Africa because of language and cultural differences, and they said universal suffrage in the U.S. has not necessarily been a good thing.

Kohler`s remarks were criticized by the National Organization for Women, which accused her of “utterly racist comments“ and demanded that she be dismissed from her state post.

Kohler said after her dismissal that she is not a racist. She complained that her views had been misquoted and misrepresented.

She maintained that the situation in South Africa has not been accurately portrayed in the news media, and said the South African government is justified in muzzling the press because of its exaggerations.

So how badly did this episode of horrifying racism hurt the Kohler’s standing in the Republican Party?

Guess.

According to PR Watch, Terry Kohler is “one of the top GOP donors in the country” and an organization with close ties to Kohler was given a half-million dollar “sweetheart deal” to promote outdoor sporting in Wisconsin. The deal was rank enough that public opinion sank it and it’s probably a factor in a second John Doe probe into Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign financing.

So yeah, you can be an unbelievably racist dick and an unashamed former supporter of apartheid and still be a big mover and shaker in the GOP — to the point of being a player in their little corruption scandals.

Remember that the next time you see some Republican shedding crocodile tears over the passing of Nelson Mandela. Terry Kohler’s membership in good standing is a prime example of just how little they really give a fuck.

Walker blames Grinchy fundraising letter on same staffer he fired for offensive tweets

Wisconsin State Journal: Gov. Scott Walker said he didn’t support the email his fired campaign staffer sent urging people to donate to his campaign rather than go “Black Friday” shopping for their children. And Walker said he wasn’t aware of offensive tweets targeting Latinos that the staffer had posted several years ago.

Walker was asked about the firing of Taylor Palmisano, who served as the deputy finance director for his campaign, following the annual tree lighting ceremony at the state Capitol on Thursday morning.

"It’s certainly not something I would have put out," Walker said of the fundraising email. "I think the tone would have certainly been different. But obviously the reason for that person no longer being there is much bigger than just that particular email."

Palmisano’s unusual fundraising email drew national attention and was widely panned.

Well that’s handy. If you’re already throwing someone under the bus, you might as well recycle them to take a little more blame with them.

If there’s anything else bothering you about Scott Walker or his reelection campaign, go ahead and blame that on Palmisano, too. You know Walker will.

[photo by Gage Skidmore]

Scott Walker brags that he knows how to win blue state elections

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker makes his case for the Republican 2016 nomination. See he knows how to win over Democratic voters. “Mr. Obama won Milwaukee County with 67.5% of the vote; I won with nearly 60%,” he writes.

I won’t subject you to more. I just want to point out that Scott Walker’s style of electioneering has resulted in fifteen felony charges for his staffers. And that was only in round one of investigations. Round two is just getting under way.

Having Scott Walker tell you how to win elections is like John Dillinger lecturing you on the subject of bank security.

[photo by Gage Skidmore]

A tiny little problem with the Wisconsin GOP’s latest infographic

There wasn’t any “Doyle-Burke administration.”

And of course, Walker’s big pile of tax relief is funded by borrowing, meaning it’s all going to have to get taken away to be paid back in the future.

But really, that whole “Doyle-Burke” thing is a shameless and ridiculous lie.

Poll: Walker tied with relatively unknown challenger Burke in Wisconsin Gov. race

Wisconsin Public Radio: A new Marquette University Law School poll shows Gov. Scott Walker would narrowly defeat Democrat Mary Burke in next year’s gubernatorial election.

The poll of 800 registered voters last week shows Walker at 47 percent, and Burke, the former state commerce secretary, at 45 percent, with a 3.5 percent margin of error.

The poll is far from a prediction of what will actually happen in the election. Marquette pollster Charles Franklin says the survey also found that 70 percent of respondents don’t know enough about Burke to like or dislike her. Franklin says that ultimately the results show a sizable number of people know what they have in Walker.

Given the margin of error, this is a statistical dead heat and there will be no celebrating in the governor’s office over it. The campaign hasn’t started, ads haven’t run (at least, none that I’ve heard), most positions haven’t been staked out. Given a choice between Scott Walker and the mystery box, half of Wisconsinites choose the mystery box. Since she’s unknown, that half isn’t so much pro-Burke as anti-Walker.  Some of those going with Walker right now have to be persuadable — it’s just playing the odds — and Walker can’t manage the majority it would take to win a two-person race.

None of which is to say that Walker is headed toward a certain loss, but he should have all the advantages and the polling shows he has none — or if he does, that they’re statistically insignificant. If this latest John Doe probe starts to rock the governor’s boat, he could find himself swamped.

[photo via Burke for Wisconsin]

Study finds premiums under Obamacare exchanges will be even ‘lower than expected’

The Hill: A leading health policy research organization reported “lower than expected” premiums for ObamaCare’s new insurance exchanges in a major study released Thursday.
The nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation compiled premium data from the new marketplaces in the 17 states where it is fully available and released a variety of figures showing how much consumers will pay if they choose to purchase coverage individually.

The study is among the first to show in detail what a variety of exchange-based health plans will cost people of different ages and incomes under ObamaCare — a major source of debate between supporters and opponents of the law.

This exposes as bullshit a report by the Wisconsin Commissioner of Insurance that rates would skyrocket under the Obamacare exchanges. The report was already on shaky ground, credibility-wise, and now that ground has collapsed under it.

You’ve got to wonder why the Walker administration would lie about the exchanges. After all, the changes are going through whether they like it or not and all their lies would’ve been exposed as early as January 3 — that is, if the Kaiser study hadn’t exposed them now. Was it to drum up support for the repeal effort? If so, Walker’s backing the losing horse to the bitter end, because repeal — or defunding, for that matter — is just never going to happen.

Whatever the reason, Walker starts off his reelection campaign by dropping a great big turd of a lie on the middle of his desk. Democrats would be wise to exploit the living hell out of it.

Today in Wisconsin GOP corruption: handing out a half-million to cronies

Slate: As hunting and fishing have become less popular in the state, Wisconsin lawmakers have supported efforts to get young people more interested in outdoorsmanship. So earlier this month, the state Department of Natural Resources quietly decided to offer a $500,000 taxpayer-funded grant to a group that would advocate outdoor sports. The sole applicant and winner of the grant, the United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation, has members with ties to national GOP groups, including former lobbyists for the National Rifle Association and Americans for Prosperity. For the record, the NRA donated more than $800,000 to Gov. Scott Walker’s 2012 recall campaign; AFP dropped $3 million.

The DNR announced the grant for hunting groups on its website but didn’t put out a press release about the application, leaving eligible groups unaware of its existence:

Reached last week, Don Kirby, executive director of the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association, said he had no knowledge of the grant.

"Our organization would have been interested to pursue this," Kirby said. "I’m more than a little disappointed to find out now."

Luke Hilgemann, the former chief of staff of the Wisconsin Assembly’s majority leader, is listed as an “educator” for United Sportsmen. Hilgemann recently joined the national office of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers’ lobbying enterprise, after working for the group’s Wisconsin chapter. Also listed in United Sportsmen’s application is Darren LaSorte, a longtime NRA lobbyist in the state who is now based in Texas.

But at least United Sportsmen is the best, right? With a long history of experience in this sort of thing? Slate reports, “According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, United Sportsmen does not have much of a track record training sportsmen.”

So I guess that’s a no.

Handing out what amounts to no-bid contracts to reward political donors with a raid on taxpayers’ money? I believe this particular grift is known as the “Cheney/Halliburton reciprocal backscratch.” George W. Bush should sue for some sort of patent infringement.

You know what might actually get more people into the Wisconsin’s natural bounty and wouldn’t cost a half a million dollars? Not blowing that bounty up to make mines no one wants.

Nobody wants to go hunting on a slag heap or a parking lot, so maybe we should leave some sliver of nature undeveloped and as it is.

[image by 401(K) 2013]

Rightwing blogosphere catches a dose of Mad Deer Disease

This one’s kind of hilarious, once you get past the sad. So here goes the sad: a bunch of armed government agents raided a Society of St. Francis animal shelter in Wisconsin to take out a baby deer. No doubt, they were concerned about Chronic Wasting Disease, which is like Mad Cow for deer. When you come across an orphaned fawn, you’ve got to wonder what happened to mom, especially when you’re fighting a contagion that constantly threatens to turn into an epidemic. In any case, it’s a violation of law to keep wildlife.

OK, so that’s the sad.

It turns out that the wingnut blogosphere got wind of this, including the National Review’s Mark Steyn, who’s regarded as one of the smart guys on the right. Anyhoo, this is the worst thing ever and an example of big federal gummint overreach and here comes communism and HIDE THE CHILDREN FOR THE SWEET LOVE OF GOD!

The whole thing was done under the auspices of the Department of Natural Resources. If that federal agency doesn’t ring a bell, that’s because it doesn’t exist — not as a federal agency, anyway. It’s a state agency. A Wisconsin state agency. A Wisconsin state agency that’s part of the administration of Tea Party hero Gov. Scott Walker. It’s not an example of federal government gone mad, it’s one of local government losing it’s marbles under one of their beloved authoritarian ideologues.

Let the furious backpedaling begin.

[photo by star5112]

Behold the miserable failure who is Scott Walker

WisPolitics.com: New federal numbers showed an improvement in the state’s job growth ranking, but were decried by Democrats as another example of Gov. Scott Walker’s failure on the jobs front.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed Wisconsin gained 62,082 private sector jobs from December 2010 through 2012, and gained 32,282 of those jobs from December 2011 through 2012.

Wisconsin ranked 33rd in private sector job growth over the 2011-12 time period and 34th in job growth over the 2010-2012 period that covers Walker’s first two years in office. Wisconsin’s 1.4 percent private sector job growth rate over the last year still lags behind the national average of 2.3 percent, but improves on the state’s third quarter ranking of 44th out of the 50 states.

Dems seized on the overall jobs ranking — combining both public sector and private sector job growth — in those first two years to argue Walker’s policies have failed.

“The fact remains that under Gov. Walker, Wisconsin ranks 38th in the country in job growth — dead last in the Midwest,” said Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha. “And despite clear evidence that the Republican plan hasn’t worked well economically for Wisconsin, Gov. Walker’s budget doubles down on bad economic policy.“

That last is what’s been bothering me. The current proposed budget — which legislative Republicans are certain to pass — is idiotic. If you had no idea what Wisconsin’s economy was like and you looked at this thing, you’d assume that Wisconsin was just rolling in the dough. It’s just another example of how Republicans always seem to believe that if something’s not working, you need to do more of it. Earlier, Walker blamed the recall for driving the economy down. “I think the big thing that people are waiting for is to have the certainty of knowing that this sort of positive outlook for job creators is going to continue," Walker said at the time. “That’s why I think that after June 5th, after these primaries are done, and when I and the lieutenant governor and these senators prevail, I think it means there will be a clear message to the job creators and the small businesses in the state that now is the time to add jobs."

OK, so where are these “job creators"? Why is Wisconsin trapped in a contractionary period when the rest of the country is in recovery, despite the fact that the recalls are long over?

Hey, maybe tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare, and undermining consumer demand by attacking the lower and middle classes isn’t such a genius move after all. In two years, we’ll be just as bad off — if not worse. Republicans run the legislature and the governor’s mansion. Walker has no one else to blame. He owns this shithole of an economy he created, whether he wants to or not.

This man will never be president, even though every bone in his body aches for it. His breathtaking incompetence will see to that.

[photo by Gage Skidmore]

Wisconsin Gov. Walker joins War on Women

ThinkProgress: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has thrown his support behind an anti-abortion measure that’s currently moving through the state legislature, saying he will sign the bill into law if it makes it to his desk. SB 206 would require women to undergo an ultrasound before getting an abortion — which would mandate an invasive transvaginal probe for some of the women who seek early abortions in their first trimester — and force one of the state’s last abortion clinics to close its doors.

“I don’t have any problem with ultrasound,” Walker told reporters on Tuesday in Milwaukee. “I think most people think ultrasounds are just fine.”

Forced ultrasound bills mandate a medically unnecessary procedure that would otherwise be left up to the discretion of a woman and her doctor. Medical experts, including the largest national group representing thousands of OB-GYNs across the country, are opposed to this type of legislation because they say it interferes with their work and compromises their relationships with patients. “All of a sudden, the Senate is full of doctors,” Wisconsin Sen. Tim Cullen (D) said in reference to SB 206's advancement.

You know, I would very much like Scooter to explain to me exactly what it is that women supposedly don’t know about their pregnancies. What new information would an ultrasound give them? What bit of ignorance about their own bodies is this supposed to clear up? Be specific please: just how incredibly stupid do you anti-choicers believe that women are?

The truth is that they’re simply a roadblock to getting an abortion; just one more hoop to jump through, in the hopes that some women will think it’s not worth the effort. In short, the explanation for why this unnecessary procedure should be required are lies. As always, the most fanatically religious among us are the biggest liars and the least trustworthy Americans.

Of course, this is just Walker’s way of shoring up his conservative bona fides before a possible presidential run. He’s hoping that attacking women will excite the base enough to look past his inexcusably gross economic incompetence. But if we’ve learned one thing in recent years, it’s that this War on Women stuff may get you through the GOP primaries, but that this level of extremism will keep you out of the White House.

And thank goodness for that. Scott Walker is unfit to lead a sing-along, let alone a nation.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

Scott Walker’s economic policies have the upward momentum of a boat anchor

The National Memo: Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) is a conservative hero with a record of taking progressives and unions in a state that went for Obama and beating them twice. He’s cut government, taken away worker protections and empowered the private sector, making him the Republican insiders’ favorite for the 2016 GOP nomination.

His only problem is, his economic policies continue to fail — miserably.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has ranked the Badger State 49th in its 50-state Leading Index report for April. With an index rank of -0.74 percent, Wisconsin was one of only five states to show contraction.

…Walker doesn’t really have any positive economic data to point to. Since he took office, his state has fallen from 11th to 44th in job creation. Wisconsin’s wages are also declining at twice the national level.

The piece goes on to mention that Walker’s proposed budget “reads more like a campaign document than a plan to create jobs,” with your typical Republican tax cut for the rich and plenty of corporate welfare. “The governor is also rejecting Medicaid expansion and using the Affordable Care Act exchanges to kick 87,000 Wisconsinites off his state’s Badgercare program,” we’re told. The governor’s super-genius healthcare plan also costs taxpayers $150 million more than accepting the federal expansion.

The man is an economic disaster and a complete failure as a governor. Anyone still holding out hope for him to make good on his 250,000 new jobs promise is an amazing chump. It’s just not going to happen. Even he seems to have given up on it — it’s suddenly become a “goal,” instead of a promise.

At the center of this smoking crater lies the bomb that created it — bass-ackward Republican economic policies. He’s attacked demand at every opportunity and practiced the supply-side horseshit that has never, ever worked anywhere. You can’t cut workers’ pay and benefits, then expect them to keep up the same level of demand. Meanwhile, those big tax cuts haven’t managed to “trickle down,” mostly because they never do. Walker’s attacks on workers have had the effect that every serious person warned they would and Wisconsin’s citizens are paying the price.

[photo by Gage Skidmore]

Walker blames protests for crap economy his policies have created

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Asked Thursday about new numbers showing Wisconsin lagging in job growth, Gov. Scott Walker pointed to the uncertainty he said business owners felt because of the political tumult that rocked Wisconsin early in his term.

Meanwhile, his critics said the governor’s policies had created a drag on growth.

“The first year we had a lot of protests in the state,” Walker said, during an appearance in Milwaukee to promote business growth in the city. “We had two years’, almost, worth of recalls. A lot of employers here I think can relate to the fact (that) uncertainty is one of the biggest challenges for employers big or small or anywhere in between. There was a lot of uncertainty. The good news is that’s passed.”

And that’s why no business ever hires in any democracy at all, right? I mean, you move your business to some state and then they go and have an election and you don’t know who they’re going to pick! The uncertainty makes for a completely terrible business environment. Every two years there’s a different government and the uncertainty caused by that just scares the living crap out of business owners.

Yeah, that’s not a very good excuse.

The better explanation is that trickle-down economics sucks as much as economists say it does. Walker’s been attacking workers and the poor, which amounts to a War on Consumer Demand. The message businesses have been getting out of Wisconsin isn’t “Ooh, we’ve got scary protests and the government might change someday. Too many elections, run away!” it’s “Come to Wisconsin, where taxes are low and customers are broke.”

“The plunge in job growth, compared with other states, coincides exactly with Scott Walker’s time in office,” says Jack Norman, one-time research director of the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future. “This is no mere coincidence… Act 10 led to large cuts in public workers’ take-home pay, which was a blow to the state’s economy.”

Slash workers pay = slash consumer demand. It’s cause and effect and it’s inevitable. Walker isn’t offering an explanation, he’s making excuses. And the fact that he doesn’t plan to change his fiscal course should tell you everything you need to know about how serious the Wisconsin Governor is when it comes to serving his state. He’s not. He’s serious about preserving his wingnut purity by serving a failed ideology. He’s serious about winning the Craziest Person in America contest that will be the 2016 GOP presidential primary.

[photo by Gage Skidmore]

Scott Walker took off two months to campaign — and Wisconsin taxpayers paid for it

Wisconsin Reporter:

Gov. Scott Walker did almost no official work in the days leading up to the Nov. 6 election, according to new information released to Wisconsin Reporter — meaning the governor essentially has taken off at least two months this year, not including weekends.

On Nov. 30, a Wisconsin Reporter analysis indicated Walker had taken 54 personal days through the end of October, with “personal day” defined as any day in which the governor spent fewer than 90 minutes on official business.

The governor’s early-November calendar, released since that report, indicates the governor also took off Nov. 1-6, with the exception of three conference calls — two with his staff and one with State Superintendent Tony Evers.

Walker responded to the report last week, saying the time off didn’t affect his job as governor, according to Madison’s WKOW-TV station.

Frankly, I’d be happier if he never showed up for work, because his record has been unrelentingly bad. Better no governor than this governor.

But this seems to be a habit for Walker and it’s one that may yet cost him dearly. The ongoing John Doe investigation into his time as Milwaukee County Executive is focused mainly on illegal campaigning using the county’s resources, rather than his campaign’s. Now it turns out that Walker’s blown two months of his gubernatorial term on near-nonstop campaigning, while drawing a state paycheck. While the latter’s not illegal, the similarities are too obvious not to notice.

[image source]

Judge to WI Gov. Walker: you’re not off the hook yet

Associated Press:

The judge overseeing the investigation into people who worked for Gov. Scott Walker when he was the Milwaukee County executive said Wednesday that the probe is not complete and remains open.

Walker said Tuesday that he hoped the so-called “John Doe” investigation would end as early as this week. He made the comments in response to a question at a meeting of the Dairy Business Association and said afterward that he was basing his hope on media accounts and a general feeling that the investigation was winding down.

But retired Waukesha County Judge Neal Nettesheim told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his home Wednesday that anyone guessing that the probe was coming to an end was engaging in “pure conjecture.”

“The John Doe is not completed,” Nettesheim said. “It is still open.”

That “general feeling that the investigation was winding down” is better known as “wishful thinking.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker photobombs an Obama appearance in Wisconsin

Leftover research from my earlier post.