Accusations of sex harassment nothing new for ALEC’s man in Wisconsin

PR Watch: Assembly Majority Leader Bill Kramer, a stalwart of the American Legislative Exchange Council, has been accused of sexually harassing two women while in Washington, D.C. last week for a Wisconsin GOP fundraiser. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the 49-year-old Republican lawmaker physically and verbally harassed a 33-year-old female lobbyist at the fundraising event and another woman on the plane back to Wisconsin…

Kramer’s office staff released a statement indicating that the boss was checking into rehab, but a little counseling may not be enough. This is not the first time that this type of allegation has been made about Kramer. Republican State Representative Chris Kapenga warned his caucus that Kramer was a loose cannon after he engaged in similar conduct at an ALEC meeting in Chicago last August.

According to news reports, Kramer shrugged off the allegations: “I have heard that something happened at ALEC, and everybody I’ve talked to said they heard something inappropriate happened at ALEC,” Kramer said. “I haven’t run into anybody that saw something inappropriate happen at ALEC. Apparently, I had a pretty good time.”

Kramer is an ALEC pointman in the Wisconsin legislature. He supported Voter ID, telecom deregulation, anti-consumer tort legislation, the repeal of collective bargaining rights for state workers and more. He also supported radical restrictions on a woman’s right to choose, including a state mandated ultrasound before terminating a pregnancy.

The cocky Kramer, who likes to use Wisconsin’s new concealed carry law to reportedly carry a Glock semiautomatic onto the floor of the Assembly, will face a vote on Tuesday designed to strip him of his leadership position and ease him out of office.

OK, so here’s the timeline here: the Assembly GOP were warned that Kramer was a pig (and apparently a bit of a nutjob) in September of 2013. In January of 2014, they elected him Assembly Majority Leader (think Eric Cantor’s equivalent in the Wisconsin legislature). They knew that he’d been accused of sexual harassment before, but they went ahead and elected him anyway.

These accusations are so serious that it’s highly likely that he’ll be removed from his leadership post tomorrow. Wait, did I say the accusations were serious? I’m sorry, I meant the bad publicity is serious.

Obviously, Wisconsin Republicans don’t take this sort of thing seriously at all. If they did, Bill Kramer would never have gotten the leadership post in the first place.

WI GOP lawmakers will vote to remove Assembly majority leader in sex harassment scandal

Reuters: Wisconsin Republican lawmakers will attempt to remove Assembly Majority Leader Bill Kramer from his leadership post after two women accused him of sexual harassment last week, according to local media on Sunday.

The Republican caucus in the Assembly will vote on Tuesday on whether to oust Kramer, according to a statement released by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to Wispolitics.com.

“It is clear he has lost our trust and confidence,” Vos said in the statement.

Calling this “sexual harassment” is probably underselling this, since Kramer is accused of groping at least one of the women during a lobbyist’s fundraiser in DC. If that’s not some degree of assault, then it certainly should be.

Since the accusations broke, Kramer has reportedly gone into “treatment" for some sort of disorder. History shows (i.e., Anthony Weiner, Bob Filner) that this sort of attempt to turn popularity-deflating scandal into a sympathy-gaining disability doesn’t actually work so well. That these guys keep reaching for that particular escape hatch suggests a lack of imagination, options, or both. In any case, Kramer’s days as Assembly Majority Leader are pretty certainly numbered.

And the fact that Republicans are moving so quickly on this shows that they really want to get this out of the headlines as quickly as possible. One Wisconsin Republican scandal at a time seems to be about all they’re capable of handling. The party may not be all that comfortable about 2014.

[photo by bloomsberries]

Top WI GOP lawmaker under fire for alleged sexual harassment

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Assembly Majority Leader Bill Kramer may resign from his leadership post as soon as Saturday after being accused of sexually harassing at least two women while in Washington, D.C., for a GOP fundraiser.

Sources said the allegations against the 49-year-old Republican lawmaker involve a 33-year-old female lobbyist and at least one other woman. The Journal Sentinel has decided not to name the women.

Kramer, 49, could not be reached for comment and was not at his Waukesha home Friday night. His chief of staff, Cameron Sholty, said the lawmaker would be meeting with staff Saturday and would be talking with fellow Republican lawmakers over the next 48 hours. He declined to comment further.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos issued a statement calling the alleged conduct “reprehensible.” He said the issue would be resolved quickly.

"Recently I was made aware of serious allegations regarding inappropriate behavior by Rep. Kramer. Since I learned of those allegations I have been consulting with legal counsel and other legislators to understand what options are available.

"The alleged behavior is reprehensible and won’t be tolerated."

According to the report, “Kramer is accused of groping at least one of the women and making lewd and inappropriate remarks to at least two women.” War on Women? Well, Kramer’s engaged in hand-to-hand combat, so…

Along with the recent release of emails from the first John Doe probe, it’s becoming awfully clear that Republicans in Wisconsin are one scuzzy bunch of racists and sexists. Hell, it’s even hard to argue that they’re not just anti-human.

If state Democrats don’t make 2014 at least partially about character and morals, it’ll be political malpractice. So many of these people have none.

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]

Rand Paul’s never going to put his plagiarism scandal behind him if he doesn’t stop plagiarizing stuff

Raw Story: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) has been caught once again using other people’s written work without attribution, this time in a lawsuit against the NSA that he jointly filed with Virginia’s ex-Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli.

According to the Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank, the suit alleges that the National Security Agency’s domestic phone surveillance program is unconstitutional, but that neither Cuccinelli nor Paul did the bulk of the legal work on the suit. The majority of the suit’s verbiage was lifted verbatim from the work of former Reagan administration attorney Bruce Fein.

Speaking through Mattie Fein, his ex-wife and spokesperson, Fein said, “I am aghast and shocked by Ken Cuccinelli’s behavior and his absolute knowledge that this entire complaint was the work product, intellectual property and legal genius of Bruce Fein. Ken Cuccinelli stole the suit.”

She continued by pointing out that Paul “already has one plagiarism issue, now has a lawyer who just takes another lawyer’s work product.”

And here’s the problem with copying off the other kids’ papers: what Paul and Cuccinelli had hoped would be a big, headline-grabbing, grandstand on an issue with bipartisan appeal has become all about their unwillingness to do any work at all and not about the NSA. If you want to be a Big, Important Senator with Many Important Stances on Many Important Issues who does Many Important Interviews on Many Important Talking Head Shows, it helps not to wander around the yard like a clown, stepping on rakes.

Christie desperate, flailing, golden brown and crispy

Politico: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, after a low-key initial response to Friday’s explosive allegations about his involvement in a bridge-closing scandal, mounted an aggressive defense late Saturday afternoon, attacking The New York Times and a former political ally in an email to friends and allies obtained by POLITICO.

“Bottom line — David Wildstein will do and say anything to save David Wildstein,” the email from the governor’s office says, referring to the former appointee who reignited the controversy.

A letter from Wildstein’s lawyer, Alan L. Zegas of Chatham, N.J., asserted Friday that “evidence exists … tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the Governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference.”

The subject line of the 700-word email from the governor’s office is: “5 Things You Should Know About The Bombshell That’s Not A Bombshell.” It offers a harshly negative portrayal of Wildstein’s character and judgment.

The problem here is that the “5 things you should know” (did Christie get Buzzfeed to write that email, BTW?) is that they’re 5 very stupid and irrelevant things. The groundbreaking revelations are that Wildstein sued the school board when he was a student, that he was “publicly accused by his high school social studies teacher of deceptive behavior,” that he was once a not very popular or particularly good mayor, that he was once a blogger (an “anonymous” blogger, so I guess that’s scary), and that he had a “strange habit” of registering websites under other people’s names — a common enough practice in modern politics. You try to snatch up all the memorable URLs, leaving your opponent with choices like www.2014IsForCandidatesNameToWinBig.com.

He may or may not have done something questionable in high school? Really? That’s not even an actual accusation, it’s the illusion of an accusation.

"One person said we should see the release of this email as a message to funders," writes Josh Marshall. “If so, the message seems to be ‘I’m desperate and losing my mind.’”

But the message everyone else should take away from this is “I got nuthin’.” Christie is responding to very serious charges by a until-very-recently top Team Christie player — and the only thing he can manage are unserious charges about crap from high school. If the governor had anything that would stick — anything at all — he’d throw it. Instead, we get the political equivalent of “he smells and his mom dresses him funny.”

At this point, there’s pretty much no one who will argue that Chris Christie is not completely done for as a 2016 candidate — or possibly even as a governor. At least, no one with the exception of Rudy Giuliani, who for some unfathomable reason seems absolutely committed to hitching his wagon to Chris Christie’s star — even as that star sinks under the horizon.

Christie is finished. If he wasn’t, he’d have some sort of defense, instead of this ridiculous high school grievance smokescreen.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

Giuliani slowly begins to accept reality

Just days ago, he thought the case against Christie was “clearly a partisan witch hunt,” now there's a "fifty-fifty" chance the governor was involved. At this rate, Christie will be giving a tearful confession in handcuffs and Rudy will say, “You know, there’s a distinct possibility that the governor might actually be guilty. I could be convinced.”

He seems to be that far behind everyone else.

Milwaukee private school closes ‘in the dead of night,’ taking over $200k of taxpayer money with them

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: A small private school participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program abruptly closed in the middle of December, but not before collecting more than $200,000 from taxpayers this academic year to educate students who now attend other schools, state officials confirmed.

LifeSkills Academy, a K-8 school that had dwindled to 66 students, appears to have closed around Dec. 12, according to a letter sent to the school from the Department of Public Instruction.

All Saints Catholic Church owns the building that LifeSkills rented at 3434 N. 38th St.

"They moved out, as people say, in the dead of the night," Father Carl Diederichs of All Saints said.

The school’s leader listed in DPI documents is Taron Monroe. Diederichs said she appeared to work with her husband, Rodney Monroe.

LifeSkills received $202,278 in taxpayer-funded voucher payments from the state this year, and more than $633,248 in voucher payments in 2012-‘13, according to the DPI.

The school joined the voucher program in 2008-‘09 and collected more than $2 million in total public payments to educate children.

You’d think that running off with taxpayer money would be enough of a scandal, but we haven’t reached the bottom yet. That $2 million Lifeskills took in over the years? It didn’t buy taxpayers one helluva lot.

No students attending LifeSkills were proficient in reading or math in 2012-‘13, except for a single fourth-grade student, according to the most recent state achievement test score results.

So they collected millions, closed up shop after collecting hundreds of thousands more, and didn’t deliver jack in terms of education. This is a prime example of the privatization of government services, people. It’s the idea that private business can make a profit and still deliver better and cheaper services than the public sector, which doesn’t have to put money aside solely for profit.

In order to believe this anti-math, I think you’d have to be a former Lifeskills Academy student. It makes absolutely no sense at all.

Christie’s latest spin actually makes his office look even worse

Talking Points Memo: New Jersey Gov. Christie’s (R) office apparently thinks “left-wing blogs” are to blame for the competing theories about who and what was behind the decision to close lanes on the George Washington Bridge in September.

In a short statement to CNN on Tuesday, Christie spokesman Colin Reed blasted the theories, including those that posit the closures, which tied up traffic for days in Fort Lee, N.J., were to get revenge on rivals or possibly linked to a local real estate development.

"We’re not commenting on every wild-eyed conspiracy theory that’s originating on left-wing blogs," Reed told the cable news network.

OK, so if there was no conspiracy to punish anyone politically and there was no traffic study, then what’s left is that the lanes were shut down because someone in your office woke up one day, decided to be a total dick for no reason, and got a whole bunch of people in your administration to help them do it.

If that’s your story, this is one leftwing blog that’s more than willing to help you get the message out. So listen up everyone: there’s no conspiracy here. The governor’s office is just filled with complete assholes who fuck citizens over for no reason at all.

You can thank me later, Gov. Christie.

Christie’s problem: he actually is a bully. It’s his political brand

Not to belabor the point I’ve been belaboring, but — despite his statement to the contrary — Chris Christie is a bully. Not only is he a bully, but he’s a bully who had previously bragged about being a bully by posting videos to Youtube of him being a dick to people.

Ezra Klein: Christie inhabits a rare space in American politics: He’s a bully. He’s followed around by an aide with a camcorder watching for moments in which Christie, mustering the might and prestige of his office, annihilates some citizen who dares question him.

Almost everywhere Christie goes, he is filmed by an aide whose job is to capture these “moments,” as the governor’s staff has come to call them. When one occurs, Christie’s press shop splices the video and uploads it to YouTube; from there, conservatives throughout the country share Christie clips the way tween girls circulate Justin Bieber videos. “The YouTube stuff is golden,” says Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review. “I can’t tell you how many people forward them to me.” One video on Christie’s YouTube channel — a drubbing he delivered to another aggrieved public-school teacher at a town hall in September — has racked up over 750,000 views.

Now in Moorestown, Christie was hoping to create another such moment. After some introductory remarks, he opened the floor to questions. “For those of you who have seen some of my appearances on YouTube,” he cautioned, peeling off his suit jacket as he spoke, “this is when it normally happens.”

It’s not an accident that Christie emerged in a period when the Republican Party is out of power. His videos make them feel powerful at a moment when they’re weak.

And of course, there’s my long-standing hypothesis that many conservatives are conservatives because they think it gives them license to be assholes. If you’re of a dickish nature, what better party to join than the one that lets you bully gays, feminists, unwed mothers, minority voters, non-Christians (Muslims especially), environmentalists, scientists, and people who react badly to having guns jammed in their faces? Chris Christie is a bully because the Republican base is made up of bullies. Bullies pass his videos around like kids with baseball cards. It’s his brand.

So what does Christie have going for him now that he’s ditched his “hero to assholes everywhere” brand? Not a lot, really. A competent handling of natural disaster and that’s about it. I’m not sure Christie knows how to do politics without belittling reporters and shaking his finger in teachers’ faces. He’s basically just a loudmouth with a tough guy act — only now without the act.

He may very well be done as a national figure. At least, I hope so. His brand of politics has no place in a democracy.

Chris Christie’s bridge scandal just got real

NewJersey.com: Private messages between Governor’s Christie’s deputy chief of staff and two of his top executives at the Port Authority reveal a vindictive effort to create “traffic problems in Fort Lee” by shutting lanes to the George Washington Bridge and apparent pleasure at the resulting gridlock.

The messages are replete with references and insults to Fort Lee’s mayor, who had failed to endorse Christie for re-election and they chronicle how local officials tried to reach the Port Authority in a vain effort to eliminate the paralyzing gridlock that overwhelmed his town of 35,000, which sits in the shadow of the bridge, the world’s busiest.

The documents obtained by The Record raise serious doubts about months of claims by the Christie administration that the September closures of local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge were part of a traffic study initiated solely by the Port Authority. Instead, they show that one of the governor’s top aides was deeply involved in the decision to choke off the borough’s access to the bridge, and they provide the strongest indication yet that it was part of a politically-motivated vendetta—a notion that Christie has publicly denied.

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," one senior Christie staffer wrote another. Another said they felt sorry for the kids trapped in traffic jams on their way to school, the response was, "They are the children of Buono voters" — referencing Christie’s Democratic opponent in the gubernatorial race.

This makes the scandal harder for Christie to ignore and reinforces his image as a bully. Just coming off a win in New Jersey, he may get a pass from voters there. But national voters may not let it slide, putting his presidential aspirations in question.

This is abuse of power, pure and simple. The sheer pettiness of it all just makes everything worse. Christie would get nothing out of creating traffic headaches for the residents of Fort Lee, other than revenge on the one mayor who refused to kiss his ring. it serves no other purpose.

[photo by Gage Skidmore]

GOP Rep. completely trashes $1 million rental, leaves it unfit for human habitation

OC Weekly: When Congressman Dana Tyrone Rohrabacher moved into a four-bedroom, four-bathroom, million-dollar Costa Mesa rental home on April Fool’s Day 2010, the immaculate, 6,300-square-foot property could have been featured in a glossy real-estate magazine. Built in 1948, the two-story, Orange Avenue home had been updated in recent years for comfort and style. The carpeting was new, appliances worked and walls were spotless. Thriving flowers, plants and grass adorned the idyllic back yard less than 4 miles from the Pacific Ocean.

But it’s now understandable why Orange County’s senior, career politician secretly changed the locks and refused to allow homeowner Robert Polyniak inside for annual inspections. When he moved out in August 2012, Rohrabacher left behind a shockingly horrific pigsty, a dump worse than a college fraternity house of unhygienic slobs unfamiliar with the most basic tools of cleaning. Darlene Whitsell, Polyniak’s longtime girlfriend, entered the home shortly after the congressman’s departure and wept at the scene.

"It was disgusting," she said. "It was unbelievable. Who lives like that?"

Massive black stains and muck covered the carpet throughout the home. Sticky grime encased damaged, rusted appliances. Denied water, once-thriving outside plants and grass dried up and died. Blinds were cracked. Black dirt ruined the appearance of once-sparkling tile floors. Walls inexplicably contained odd holes, nail polish, wax and some smelly substance that may have been feces.

Further, all the toilet seats were broken, the ceiling was smoke damaged, “Clumps of hair and remnants of what may have been balloons or some other rubbery material clogged sinks.” The kitchen exhaust fan was clogged with grease.

"A second-floor suite used by Dana’s wife, Rhonda, as her bedroom contained a huge, mysterious, lubricant-like stain—something you might expect on the floor of a Hollywood sex club—that had seeped through thick carpet and padding to tarnish a hardwood floor… And, no joke, white maggots squirmed underneath a kitchen stove that may not have ever been cleaned during Rohrabacher’s $3,350-per-month occupancy…"

Of course, this follows news that Rep. Steve Stockman was asking campaign staffers to work in conditions that rivaled a crack house for squalor. Both reps are completely pro-polluter. Maybe they just don’t get why filth is bad.

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.

Maybe Rand Paul should go back to plagiarism

Daily Beast: Senator Rand Paul gave his first major speech in the wake of a recent plagiarism scandal Tuesday to cadets at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. But while his staff added 33 footnotes to the publicly released version of his speech about U.S. foreign policy, just because everything was correctly cited didn’t necessarily make it accurate.

The Kentucky senator’s speech included extensive citations in the wake of Paul being exposed as a serial plagiarizer by a number of outlets including Buzzfeed and MSNBC. In his defense, Paul initially dismissed these concerns as attacks from “haters.” But, after losing his column from the Washington Times, Paul acknowledged that “mistakes” were made and said he would restructure his office.

The restructuring seemed to be effective so far in that the content of Paul’s speech was entirely original. But, some of the arguments that the Kentucky senator made did not match the facts associated with his own footnotes.

If you ask me, this is actually worse than the plagiarism scandal. Paul’s using footnotes as cover to pull “facts” out of his ass and hopes no one will check. Where as plagiarism as Paul used it was basically just intellectual laziness, this is a conscious effort to mislead. It’s like if I said, “The facts show that Rand Paul had his brain replaced with a turnip after a motorcycle accident in 1995 (see Wikipedia, “Turnip”).” If you check, you’ll find plenty about turnips, but nothing about Rand Paul’s brain. What I told you was a lie and I’m just using the phony citation to make it seem extra truthy.

In his case, Rand cites articles about Egypt to claim the Obama administration sent weapons to the Egypt’s military government, something the articles themselves say nothing about. And the silence on the subject is entirely because the claim is simply not true. It never happened. Rand Paul is a liar, as unsurprising as that fact may be, whether he has a turnip for a brain or not.

Of course, the press will give him a pass on this. Pretending you wrote something that is actually true is a scandal, making up your own lies is just politics as usual.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

Rand Paul doesn’t seem to be taking his plagiarism scandal well

I mean, just look at that photo. Actual quote from the story: “Paul admitted that he had ‘made mistakes’ and said new procedures were being put in place to make footnotes available ‘if it will make people leave me the hell alone.’”

A real levelheaded guy in a crisis. Cool under pressure. Born leader. Should totally run for president.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m enjoying this immensely.

GOP “pulls the plug” on Mark Sanford’s Senate campaign

Politico: National Republicans are pulling the plug on Mark Sanford’s suddenly besieged congressional campaign, POLITICO has learned — a potentially fatal blow to the former South Carolina governor’s dramatic comeback bid.

Blindsided by news that Sanford’s ex-wife has accused him of trespassing and concluding he has no plausible path to victory, the National Republican Congressional Committee has decided not to spend more money on Sanford’s behalf ahead of the May 7 special election.

“Mark Sanford has proven he knows what it takes to win elections. At this time, the NRCC will not be engaged in this special election,” said Andrea Bozek, an NRCC spokeswoman.

I love the happy talk in that last paragraph; we’re supposed to believe that they’re pulling out because Sanford doesn’t need their help. Hilarious, but pretty much necessary. They don’t want to blow any more money on his campaign (meaning they believe it’s doomed), but there’s no point in shoveling in dirt either — it’s one thing to drop him, it’s another to kill his candicay. After all, he’s still in it and there’s still the slimmest of slim chances he could win. They don’t want to throw the baby out wth the bathwater.

But still, this thing is pretty much done. Once again, I offer my congratulations to to Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the next Senator from the state of South Carolina.

[photo by functoruser]