Wisconsin citizens have been captured by a manipulative, radical, right-wing state government directed by one party - - the GOP - - seeking long-term power outside of the basic rules of democracy. And party leaders and henchman laid their plans a long time before Republicans finally took control of the Governor's office and both houses of the State Legislature in January, 2011 after the November, 2010 elections:
* The Republican Governor Scott Walker is being exposed through the John Doe probe, and it is entirely possible that his removal from office could come through the criminal justice system and not the electoral process.
A secret communications and partisan campaign apparatus to defeat the Open Records statute had operated just a few feet from Walker's door in his suite of Milwaukee County offices to assist his campaign for Governor and that of Brett Davis, a Republican assemblyman who ran unsuccessfully for Lt. Governor.
Ex-aides to Walker are beginning to plead guilty to official misconduct and additional charges are expected - - while former campaign allies of Walker's named as users or beneficiaries of the secret apparatus remain on the state payroll in at-will jobs Walker gave them - - former Lt. Gov. candidate and now-state Medicaid director Davis, and current Walker office spokesman Cullen Werwie, who held the same position in Walker's campaign after leaving the Davis campaign.
* The Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen was asked provide technical support for the John Doe probe. Van Hollen declined.
* The Wisconsin Supreme Court, with a 4-3 majority lined up to support Walker, his corporate donors, and the Republican legislators who approved Walker's radical anti-collective bargaining agenda, is tainted by the presence and participation of Justice Michael Gableman.
He received free representation in a judicial ethics case arising from his 2008 campaign from a law firm bringing cases before the Court. Gableman will not absent himself from most of those cases.
* The same law firm that represented Gableman - - Michael Best & Friedrich - - represents Wisconsin Republican legislators who drafted new legislative district maps with the assistance of Republican legislative staffers housed out-of-sight - - where they are still working in the shadows of the Capitol months after the process has ended - - on the public payroll but in the lawyers' offices.
Where Republican legislators were invited - - and who was in charge of that? - - to see their new district maps after they signed papers agreeing not to disclose what they'd seen. If and when these matters end up before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, how could anyone challenging the maps, the process by which they were drafted or other measures crafted by the same, scheming Republican majorities and leaders - - Voter ID, for example - - get a fair hearing before the Court?
And what other partisan activities took place off-the-books, out-of-public-view and away from either the Legislature or Walker's official, ceremonial transition office that has been folded into bills, Executive Orders or proposals not yet rolled out or approved.
What is the extent of this shadow activity and can it be traced?
And in the name of Open Government, be exposed, laid at the feet of the responsible parties and its dirty work be unwound. A full-scale investigation is warranted - - the argument nicely summarized by the Cap Times - - and maybe the Dane County DA needs to follow the lead of his Milwaukee County counterpart and initiate a John Doe probe, where testimony can be compelled.
The Attorney General, the legislative majorities and leadership, the Supreme Court and the Governor are helplessly and dangerously conflicted, yet they are going right ahead and suffocating the state with anti-democratic procedures on behalf of political agendas foreign to mainstream Wisconsin values - - public education, middle-class living standards, workplace bargaining, environmental protections, inclusive voting, and women's health-care, to name a few.
Make no mistake: this is an unprecedented, full-blown Constitutional and moral crisis that would be affected only modestly in the near term if Walker is recalled or if the Democrats' retake the State Senate.
This will take decades to fix, with great damage already done.
This entry is an excellent reminder of just what's at stake and what is happening to our state. We've gone through so much over the last year and a half or so. It's really hard to put it all in perspective. This entry is a good place to start. But the enormity of the assault and its historical proportions won't be known or written about thoroughly until it's seen in the rearview mirror of history.
ReplyDeleteIt really breaks my heart thinking about it. It's hard to read this entry and not feel the pull and pangs of it all. And it hasn't stopped. It's still ongoing. Money from billionaires and millionaires outside our fair state is still pouring in to buy our democracy wholesale. There are things in the background going on that we still don't know about. It's just so heart breaking to read this entry and think about. It takes me back to some dark thoughts I had when everything first started going down. But we have to remember without getting discouraged. It's a hard task to do that: look the assault right in the eye and keep moving forward, knowing, as you say, it will take decades to clean up the damage done in one year.
What happened to the Republican Party? This isn't even the GOP of Reagan. They've just all gone completely bonkers.
I agree we are in for a decades long struggle and everything will hinge on the ability of working people to form a state-wide solidarity network --preferably outside the Democratic party-- that can be mobilized to take the fight everywhere it is needed.
ReplyDeleteWe need to establish a new paradigm for economic development encompassing cooperatives, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, worker-owned enterprises and forms of public ownership. Think Green Bay Packers.
The establishment of a State Bank to provide credit to these enterprises as well as small businesses is necessary to insulate our state from the vagaries of the Mega Bankster system.
To accomplish all of this we have to revive the Wisconsin Idea in our University system and lighten the grip that corporate giants now have over the academic world.
This is all a very tall order, but I think it will be politically appealing to the majority of Wisconsin's citizens.
Comments appreciated. I know some of this is dense reading.
ReplyDeleteDid the "secret" email system in Walker's office encrypt the messages. I thought that I read that someplace, but you can't (see tongue in cheek) believe everything that gets into print.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, I don't have decades.
ReplyDeleteSo I am just biding my time before I can afford to retire and get out of here. It's heartbreaking, having lived here all of my life, many decades now, and loving my Wisconsin that I knew. But it won't be back in time for me.*
When I realized that, almost a year ago now, I began the process of making my peace with what I can change and what I cannot change, not in time.
By the way, I'll be taking my pension, my savings, with me.
+(Most heartbreaking, though, is that not decades or even centuries may be enough to recover what has made Wisconsin a marvelous home for thousands of years of human habitation -- our natural resources -- if Walker and Co. are allowed to continue unchecked with the mining bill and more. Destroying our natural resources could require a recovery of thousands of years, too. Please do keep trying to spare the land and waters from Walker, those of you who have time enough to await a recovery from all of this.)
To Anon: I don't have decades either. So time is of the essence. Let's get started.
ReplyDelete"We need to establish a new paradigm...think Green Bay Packers."
ReplyDeleteThat, frankly, is a horrible example. Corporations would love to take money from the public, given willingly due to a highly emotional sense of brand loyalty, and in return give the 'donor-owners' a worthless ownership certificate that entitles the owner to nothing.
Alas, if only the citizens of this state cared as much about there government as they do about the Green Bay Packers, what a different state this would be.
ReplyDelete