Fore! And No Matter How You Slice it...

...you have too much money if this where you putt it:
Senate Republican golf outing
9/12/2014
9 a.m.

Black Hawk Country Club,
3606 Blackhawk Drive,
Madison.

With Special Guests:
Wisconsin Republican State Senators

Registration, Lunch and Practice Range Open at 9:00 AM


Shotgun Start at 10:00 AM

Reception at 3:00 PM

Contributions:

$3,500 Hole Sponsorship and Foursome – Includes Optional Golfing with a Senator.

$1000 per Individual Golfer

Cost includes: Golf, Cart, Lunch, Dinner and Drinks...

Root River Siren Blog Rocks Wrong-Way Walker Graphic

Better than anything I could do. Hat tip, Root River Siren blog, and thanks for the props:

Better Headline: WI DNR Secretary Can Let Those Turtles Die

Talk about living the dream.

(Newer, better headline, 4:00 p.m: WI DNR Secretary Can Let Those Turtles Die)

Remember that Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Secretary and former developer Cathy Stepp got appointed to run (into the ground) what was once a nationally-recognized, pre-eminent environmental agency after her published rant against DNR bureaucrats caught Scott Walker's eye.

Wrote Stepp:

For example, people who go to work for the DNR's land, waste, and water bureaus tend to be anti-development, anti-transportation, and pro-garter snakes, karner blue butterflies, etc...This is in their nature; their make-up and DNA. So, since they're unelected bureaucrats who have only their cubicle walls to bounce ideas off of, they tend to come up with some pretty outrageous stuff that those of us in the real world have to contend with.

So good news, threatened species' haters - - Stepp can close that "outrageous" circle of misplaced concern by signing off on the bureaucratically-obfuscatory "incidental taking" of several endangered and threatened species - - including more butterflies and wood turtles and rare little insects that are of interest only to stupid scientists - - now her co-workers - - behind what Stepp calls their "cubicle walls."

And for natural gas pipeline construction - - so these species takings [Sic] is something of a win-win for the big-hunt-(hey, elk soon, Bucky - -  once the wolves are shot nearly to extinction)-and-fossil-fuel-gang now running the state and DNR:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin wildlife officials say a pipeline construction project could kill members of several threatened and endangered species.

Wisconsin Gas LLC wants to construct a new 74-mile natural gas lateral that would run from an existing pipeline in Eau Claire or Clark County to Tomah. The Department of Natural Resources says the project could result in incidental taking of the threatened prairie leafhopper; the endangered phlox moth; the threatened frosted elfin, a type of butterfly; and the threatened wood turtle.

Or as Walker called his brand of environmental stewards - - the "chamber-of-commerce" crowd.

And turtles, you say? Hell, you can get yourself a wolf-kill (the bureaucrats whom Stepp had formerly despised still prefer "harvest") permit for only 49 bucks and run your baying pack of hounds right through wolf dens and known feeding and rendez-vous territories 24/7/365.

An incidental taking is one in which you choose to kill off some plant or animal life, but the killing doesn't go deeply enough into the population, we're assured, to significantly threaten that species' existence.

So incidental is intentional, not accidental.

Sort of like like gunning it and running down - -  I mean, incidentally taking - - a wood turtle crossing the highway, but when you're building the gas line and the turtles are in the way, you don't even have to say, "oops."

Incidental is as incidental does.

But consider that Incidentally taking a few turtles here, then some wolf packs there, and soon 10,000 acres just about anywhere - - even in a Lake Michigan shoreline state park for a fancy-pants golf course, or across an entire watershed for a giant open-pit iron ore mine - - and soon the taking leads to talking about a genuine slippery slope, no?

And we've just seen what happens when the slope indeed gets slippery, despite all the promises by those chamber-of-commerce-friendly regulators:

It didn't get enough publicity in the US, so thanks to long-time La Crosse professor and resources expert Al Gedicks for his op-ed in the Journal Sentinel about a massive mining accident in Canada that experts figured couldn't happen: 

On Aug. 4, more than a billion gallons of mining waste spilled into rivers and creeks from a tailings pond at Imperial Metals' Mount Polley gold and copper mine at the headwaters of the Fraser River watershed in the interior of British Columbia. Indigenous First Nations peoples mostly populate this area. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Co., the volume of the spill would fill 2,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. It is the largest mining disaster in Canadian history.

No word yet if the DNR plans on adding a 'Do Not Respect,' or DNR/DNR list to its incidentally-but-not-accidentally-weakened policies.

If DNR/DNR is awkwardly redundant, then how about a new category: 'Stepped-On.' 

Since Walker claims he's the King of Transparency, why not?

Mike Ellis Might Ask...'And What About Walker?'

It was just a few months ago that moderate veteran GOP State Sen. Mike Ellis abruptly withdrew from his re-election campaign after boasting that he was going to enable a purportedly independent third-party organization to pay for ads against his opponent.

A proposal; bar talk bluster, reckless for sure.

And certainly illegal if money had been raised and spent in that sneaky, sleazy manner - - and so the long-time legislator - - set up for a hidden recording by more conservative operatives - - quit in disgrace with a scolding by the Journal Sentinel editorial board, too:

After the video came out last week, Ellis claimed he didn't understand that what he was proposing on the video was against state law. That was hard to swallow — and still is. 

In the recording, made secretly at a Madison bar, Ellis talks about having a separate political operation with $400,000 to $500,000 to help get him elected. Wisconsin law prevents candidates from working with groups that are set up independently to run ads aimed at helping them. 

"I am putting together my own super PAC," Ellis is heard to say in the recording, with the intent of attacking his Democratic opponent in this fall's Senate race, state Rep. Penny Bernard Schaber of Appleton. 

"The world has changed and to be honest with you, I just don't fit in there anymore. I grew up where you could be an independent thinker and still work out compromises," Ellis said in an interview with Charlie Sykes on WTMJ-AM (620). 

Well, sure, but it's not exactly independent thinking to propose an illegal act. Ellis was wrong to do that — even if only in passing at a bar. And he surely should have known it was illegal.

The tape made its way to the public on April 9th. By the 11th, Ellis had withdrawn, and the Journal Sentinel said its goodbye on the 13th. 

Flash forward to two Fridays ago.

Documents were released that day by federal judges showing Gov. Walker allegedly having helped raise millions of dollars that were funneled per his wishes through a purportedly independent group to aid his 2012 recall campaign, and those of other Republican legislators.

You can read the details in court record, here.

Then came more disclosures about other coordination to benefit Walker and other GOP-recall candidates by two additional purportedly independent outside groups: 

A newly released document alleges Gov. Scott Walker's campaign illegally coordinated with two national groups on political advertising in a way that went further than what had been previously known.

The court filing by prosecutors alleges that the governor's campaign crossed a bright legal line by coordinating with independent conservative groups that expressly called for the election of specific candidates in the recall elections for governor and state Senate in 2011 and 2012.

Walker and Ellis - - apples and oranges?

Not really.

Walker isn't denying that these donations or coordinated activities took place. The documents make that all clear.

He's simply saying the activities was covered by free speech protections, so wasn't illegal.

And the Journal Sentinel editorial board hasn't said a word about it, as I have pointed out.  Maybe an editorial judgement will appear after the Labor Day holiday, but precious time is passing.

Ellis took the fall, went down hard, and the Journal Sentinel said he had it coming.

As you would expect from the editorial board at the state's largest paper.

I'd bet Ellis is wondering why there seems to be a separate, silent treatment by the newspaper's' commentators for Walker, since prosecutors are alleging in court filings, with documented back-up, that Walker crossed more lines than did Ellis who just shot off his mouth.

Secret Audio Praises Outside Funders' Devotion To Scott Walker

A bigger story in national media than in statewide media here, to my knowledge, with a sobering but motivating Labor Day message:

On Thursday in the Huffington Post we learned that Republican Governors Association director Phil Cox told the Kochs and their friends that he has “no stronger partner” than the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity. And nowhere has that partnership paid more dividends than in Wisconsin.

Not only did the Kochs’ investment in Walker pay off on Election Day 2010 and in his 2011 recall, Cox assured his patrons, it resulted in the achievement of one of their dearest goals: a decline in public sector union membership.

Here’s what Cox told the Kochs and their wealthy allies:

Talent Search Prospect Has Walker Victimhood Down Cold

Why not bring him in here?

After all, he'll land somewhere, and seems to have Walker's whiny media mantra down pat, as The Washington Post reports: 

Jesse Benton, the GOP political strategist spearheading Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s reelection campaign, resigned from his post Friday amid new details about an ongoing federal investigation into anendorsement-pay-scheme involving a 2012 presidential campaign he oversaw.

In a statement issued Friday evening, Benton cited “inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors about me and my role in past campaigns that are politically motivated, unfair and, most importantly, untrue.”

Walker's Yard Sale Of Your Property To Begin Post-Election

Like other controversial matters - - the Kenosha casino, Waukesha's Great Lakes water diversion scheme, DNR land sales, pending mega-dairy expansions, the iron mine - - Walker's no-competitive-bid/insider-friendly sell-off of public property will happen in 2015. First up: electrical power plants. 

'I Do Not Like You, Mainstream Media...'

I do not like you, Mainstream media.
I'm far more happy with Wikipedia.

About me you should be more praisey.
Instead you're incompetent - - flat-out biased and lazy.

MSM's too broad; I should say press.
It once sent love, but now only stress.

I do not like your tone, so dour.
Can't we pretend I'm doing book tour?

Milwaukee papers would show my Harley.
So why so mean now, Patrick Marley?

That's real news, the kind I liked.
When I, Desperado, rode and biked. 

Why so gnarly, so not now nice?
I mean you, Journal Sentinel, but mainly Dan Bice.

I really don't like you, Washington Post.
Implying that soon I could be toast.

And curses on the New York Times.
Implying I might be guilty of crimes.

And charges of funding coordination?
Outrageous newsroom insubordination.

These stories cause panic, my donors say, "Yikes."
Must I move to the studio with Belling or Sykes?

And, yes, I prefer to be with a talker.

Unlike you, Mainstream Media, they respect Scott Walker.

Where's my credit, and why now such a tussle?
Our direction is good - - I've moved past Tim Russell.

Reputations are sullied, it's all been unfair.

Will pay-to-play ever enjoy repair?

The honest reason for Walker's irk
is fresh-faced phenom Mary Burke.

----- Inspired by the news, and a certain SKW.

Why Walker's Done So Much Traveling Lately

He's been all over the map trying to find his reputation.

For cryin' out loud!

Help Citizen Action With BadgerCare Campaign

Pledge here. I did. This is what it's all about:

Launch our BadgerCare Bumper sticker campaign!
This November almost half of Wisconsin voters will get the chance to vote directly on whether the state of Wisconsin should say "YES to BadgerCare"! 20 Wisconsin localities have put the question directly to voters in the form of a referendum.We need your help! This is a grassroots campaign and to ensure that we can afford these stickers for everyone we want to "Kickstart" a big bulk order! So please pledge to purchase stickers and once we make our goal we'll send them to you! The larger your pledge the more you can share with others!

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COUNTDOWN TO 12:00 PM CDT ON SEPTEMBER 08

Wrong-Way Walker...Meet Whiny-Walker

Like the losing manager who kicks dirt all over the umpire, Wrong-Way Walker and Scott Kardashian released a new Friday afternoon cartoon character, Whiny-Walker.


The answer to where your reputation went? It was blown up by your own Act 10 bomb and checked out with that secret-no-more $700,000 GTac check.

WI PSC Affirms Anti-City Funding Double-Standard

Scott Walker's 2-1 anti-urban, rightwing Public Service Commission majority affirmed a ruling that said only city residents should pay for relocating utility lines if a street car line is built in Milwaukee - - while the state routinely spreads among all state taxpayers the cost of relocating utility lines when the so-called 'freeway' is being widened.

Another double-standard aimed at the city by Scott Walker's gang.

The PSC majority includes:
*  Ellen Nowak, former chief of staff to GOP Assembly Speaker John Gard, and also to Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas;

*   Phil Montgomery, a former Green Bay-area GOP State Representative. Montgomery was also a former Board Member to ALEC, the Koch brother-inspired state legislatures' advisory organization, and was once named an ALEC Legislator of the Year.

On Secret Walker Campaign $$, JS Edit Board Seven Silent Days

No comment yet from the state's leading board of media commentators about allegations of jaw-dropping campaign financing chicanery found and disclosed by prosecutors...and  widely reported and highlighted by Journal Sentinel news staffers and editors...and noted in national media, from The New York Times, to The Washington Post, and in this pointed Politico.com account that all cry out for local recognition and comment:

A fresh batch of emails emerged Friday night that shows Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was deeply involved in raising money for an ostensibly independent group focused on fending off recall efforts.. 

Here’s a look at the six most revealing nuggets from the tranche of documents: 

“There is certainly an appearance of corruption in light of the resulting legislation from which it benefited.”That’s a reference to perhaps the most immediate and politically potent revelation in the latest documents: that mining company Gogebic Taconite LLC cut a $700,000 check to the Walker group. The firm wants to build a controversial open-pit iron mine in the state, and Walker signed a bill in 2013 that helped them by lightening environmental requirements.

As I said Wednesday, I understand the technical and scheduling issues that can delay quick comment on breaking news.

But the relevance of commentary is fading as the days fall off the calendar, plus we're heading into a holiday weekend of traditionally-lighter newspaper access that works against readership, and editorial oomph.

Will the edit board comment on the Walker campaign funding stories in one of the mini-editorials it stacks in its Saturday round-up potpourri?

Sunday's more significant Crossroads section is really the paper's last relevant shot at meaningful commentary on last week's Doe document dump.

Walker's Triple-Trickery On State Jobs Numbers

Along with the rest of us, Wrong-Way Walker knows that his signature campaign promise to create 250,000 new private sector jobs in one term is a bust.

Solid signs of the failure of his robotically-rightwing economic 'planning' that included tax cuts for businesses and upper-income filers combined with take-home income hits to middle-income public employees statewide have been there for a long, long time.

So he's now got a three-step charade underway to detoxify and otherwise hide that reality from voters who will decide in two months whether he wins re-election.

1. In statements and campaign ads, Walker redefines the jobs promise into a "goal." After all, missing a goal isn't as serious as breaking a promise. And he will throw in self-aggrandizing terms like "big...bold...aggressive" to embellish his stature and performance, when, in fact, the promise and his leadership to keep it is failing:

Perhaps the most important number coming out of the state's July jobs report is this: 29,437.

That's how many jobs Wisconsin employers would have to add each month for the remaining five months of the year in order for Gov. Scott Walker to achieve his top campaign promise --  creating 250,000 private-sector jobs by the end of his four-year term, 

That's more jobs than were created for two of the three full years that Walker has been in office. (In the year that topped the figure, employers added 33,872 jobs in 2011.)

2. He has had his state workforce department appointees release early just the state's jobs numbers they receive as part of a comprehensive federal data set that the feds routinely release themselves in a 50-state package.

The early release makes it tougher to see or appreciate the full context the state's comparative national ranking - - most recently #37 - - so the goal and consequence of the Walker manipulation is to obfuscate rather than inform fully.

Which, if you think about or have a good memory, is just what Walker, his campaign staff and the public employees under his control have been doing habitually for years.

Gov. Scott Walker and his top campaign and Milwaukee County aides were named Monday as part of a team that routinely commingled political and official county business.

The Journal Sentinel included a good explanation of the manipulation in a story yesterday showing Wisconsin job growth flat and remaining behind the national trend, further distancing Walker from  hitting his 250,000 goal and undermining his mantra that the state is moving in a good direction.

3.  Early on, Walker attacked a separate federal jobs data set as inaccurate because it relied on a small survey sample. But now that the comprehensive report noted above continues to show Wisconsin's relatively poor job growth, Walker cherry-picked numbers from one of the small survey samples that he'd earlier condemned that showed some good growth and used those numbers in a campaign ad - - even though the more comprehensive report shows no such thing.

Walker's data deceit is so transparent these days that PolitiFact rates "True" the sleuthing by a blogger and on-line commenter who spotted the deception in a different set of cooked numbers.

I'll add Walker's fuzzy math and calculated spin to my separate updated posting covering Walker's inveterate penchant for spin that, regrettable, is getting longer.

A Question For Walker, GTac And Their Pocketed Legislators

How much time has been lost, how many resources have been wasted and how much good will has been flushed away by the mining lobby's pushing its never-to-be-opened open-pit monstrosity without any honest and authentic commitment to a comprehensive, multi-faceted, long-term, sustainable and publicly-crafted jobs and development plan for the region?

No Plan B, C, D...X,Y or Z from WEDC, or the WMC or the rest of the big cheeses who are more interested in big talk instead of the day-to-day grind that, as in all communities, has to involve the people and be for them if it is to have any credible chance of taking root and paying off.

Clarke Also Asks For Personal Nuclear Submarine, Land Speeder

David Clarke requests 157 new positions in 2015 budget

Blogger Who Outed Walker On Income Also Verifies Ugly State Deficit

Props to Jakes's Economic TA Blog for helping prove an outrageous Walker manipulation of income data, and again in a separate posting showing the truth about Walker's failing, deficit-growing economic policies:

THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 2014

Verified- a massive budget deficit in Wisconsin. Who'da thought?

Well, those Wisconsin revenue numbers we’d been waiting on finally dropped today. And as predicted, we’re now looking at a real and growing budget deficit in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin tax collections are more than $281 million short of estimates, nearly 2 percent less than anticipated.

The state Department of Revenue on Thursday released the figures for the fiscal year that ended in June. Those figures show the state collected $281.2 million less than was anticipated by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau in January.

Huh, who could have predicted something like that? 

Walker Trying To Raise Money Off Obama's Labor Day MKE Visit

I won't include the links, but Scott K.ardashian Walker finds a new way to make everything in Wisconsin all about himself - - and to seek contributions for the Walker campaign. At least this pitch for $25 donations and your email address - - which is worth a whole lot more to the campaign - - is included in transparent fund-raiser - -  not like some secretive $700,000 mining company windfall or casino mogul Sheldon Adelson/hair stylist Donald Trump/hedge fund owner Steven Cohen/Koch brothers checks.

And P.S. - - Obama has been to Labor Fest twice since 2008, and Walker has met Obama on Milwaukee airport visits when the photo ops worked to boost the Governor's mini-statesman credentials, as well as in Green Bay, so reduce the drama, Walkerites:

HIGH ALERT: President Obama is coming to Wisconsin President Obama is coming to Milwaukee on Labor Day for a massive Laborfest Rally. The political purpose is clear: RALLY THE TROOPS TO DEFEAT GOVERNOR WALKER. In a Governor's race that's too-close-to-call, Democrats are hoping a presidential appearance tips the balance, makes the difference, and makes their dream of defeating Governor Walker come true. The media circus will create a surge of propaganda for the Burke Democrats. Don't be surprised if the Democrats use the Obama visit to raise millions. Every dollar will be transformed into TV attack ads that are long on lies and short on truth. We MUST fight back right now -- that's why we are announcing the creation of our Rapid Response Fund.

Jim Spice, Et Al, Take A Bow; Your Data Derails Walker Claim

I think this is the first time in the Era of Walker Falsehoods that an online commenter and a Daily Kos/economics blogger get credit from PolitiFact for showing Walker's misleading use of official income data:

Bloggers say Wisconsin ranks last in income growth since Scott Walker became governor

Scott Kardashian

The Walkerites are unsettled today, and with good reason.

Yesterday's Marquette University Law School poll showed their guy - - the career politician, the incumbent Governor with 264% name recognition and bank accounts larger than some nations' cash reserves - - at 50% and two points down among likely voters to the lesser known, lesser-funded challenger, Mary Burke.

Polling may be rocket science, but it's pretty simple to grasp why Wrong Way Walker is on the wrong side of those numbers:

Walker fatigue.

Overexposure.

Set aside the likely voters who've gotten the back of his hand for nearly four years: How many times can his supporters go to the well and the wall to defend and save him?

In the last election, Walker successfully spun away from personal staffers and associates who did his bidding and then headed off to jail while he stepped over them for personal glory and better housing at the Governor's Mansion.

Now he's on another opportunistic route to higher office - - again under an ethical cloud - - fighting allegations that he worked secretly and possibly illegally to raise and spend campaign money that negate his repeated claims to transparency and render his 2012 recall election illegitimate.

People are tiring of his fading, phony, failing story lines, and I suspect that even his supporters understand that his principal purpose is without principle, though I won't be surprised if the First Amendment speech-and-association arguments conservatives are making to support his formerly-secret campaign manipulations gets further elevated to the principled status of 'civil disobedience-in-the-face- of-unjust-[campaign finance]-law.

Producing fresh banality on top of celebrity with ubiquity, without credibility - - a Kardashian Kandidate, if you will - - and apologies in advance to Kim and Co., since no one ever asked them to be the K in SKW.

But think about it:

He's got a book. She's got a book.

She's got an Instagram account, and a busy Facebook page, and so does he.

Her Twitter page is filled with trivia and self-promotion, which are not contradictory - - so Walker's is, too.

He's posted close-up photos of his Gille's [Sic] vanilla custard cone and late-night burgers. Twice, lately. Or "Nice 4th inning for the @Brewers." Or posting a smiling picture of himself on a ride seated next to a freaked out State Fair Queen, without a sense of irony, "#SpinCity."

Therein lies the reason for Walker's Wrong Direction polling.

No one wants to go with him to spin city anymore.

Secret Iowa Campaign $$ Peanuts Compared to Wisconsin's

Someone's going to the pokey in Iowa for failing to properly report $73,000 during the 2012 campaign there, the Washington Post reports, and a prosecutor lays out why:

On Wednesday, [the defendant]pleaded guilty to one count of causing a federal campaign committee to falsely report its expenditures and one count of obstruction of justice. He faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for the first count and up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for the second count, but prosecutors plan to recommend he receive a reduced sentence for accepting responsibility, according to court filings.

 “Campaign finance reports should be accurate and transparent, not tools for concealing campaign expenditures,” Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a statement. “Lying by public officials – whether intended to obstruct the FEC or federal investigators – violates the public trust and the law, and the Department of Justice does not tolerate it.”

OK, OK. In Iowa, it was pay-for-endorsement, and in Wisconsin you could argue that what's been recently disclosed John Doe II documents was pay-for-play. 

You say tomato, I say tomahto, but set aside the apples and oranges and the rest of the low-hanging fruit and consider:

If $73,000 secret and unreported campaign bucks can get you you up to 25 years hard time in Iowa, some folks in Wisconsin or its 2012 recall campaigns might end up in Alcatraz. 

Major WI Editorial Boards Loathe To Hit Walker On Secret $$

Last Friday's bombshell disclosures about a secret $700,000 mining company donation and additional big-dollar contributions steered through a willing, behind-the-scenes conduit to benefit Scott Walker's recall campaign have yet to prompt comment by the Journal Sentinel editorial board.

Maybe it's on its way. We'll see.

I know that there are limitations on editorial page space, and that some editorials are scheduled in advance. I understand that there are production obstacles to quick editorial comment about news breaking on a Friday afternoon, though I don't see anything yet on the paper's editorial page blog, either.

And let's note that taking one's time didn't spur the Wisconsin State Journal to muster up more than dereliction-of-duty 'they're-all-doing it' editorial criticism today.

To be accurate, the elements of secret campaign advertising and organizational coordination for Walker's benefit that are alleged in the official investigation have not been alleged against anti-Walker efforts.

Boo to the State Journal for insulting readers and voters with false conflation that helps give Walker - - whom the paper endorsed in 2010 - - a pass.

Blood Sporters Losing WI Opinion Battle

[Thursday update: See new blog by Rachel Tilseth]

Despite fear-mongering by Wisconsin wolf killers enabled by a gun-pandering Legislature and their allies inserted by Walker atop the DNR, the general public wants to put the brakes on the state's scientifically-devoid, dog-assisted, cruelty-laden $49-a-carcass' wolf slaughter.

Courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

We'll see if the DNR listens to its own data, and the people -- or to gun and hound-hunting special-interests whose votes and campaign assistance Walker needs to carry Northern and Western Wisconsin this fall.

Oops: WEDC-Sponsored Tech Event Yields Biz Defection News

Not the business location/relocation discussion, I suspect, that Walker's WEDC was looking for out of a Tech Festival it is co-sponsoring in Madison this week, as reported by the Journal Sentinel:

Kurt Brenkus, [tech firm] Aver's president and chief executive officer, approached [venture finance firm] Drive Capital about moving from De Pere to Columbus, Ohio, where the venture capital firm is based, said Chris Olsen, a Drive co-founder.  

Aver recently moved to Ohio... 

        

I Imagine The Walker Campaign Voice-Mail Greeting Has Been Redone...

(In light of Mary Burke's fresh polling lead among likely voters): 

Please listen to our menu, as some options have changed: 

If you'd like to make a campaign donation, press 1. 

If you'd like to make a campaign donation, press 2. 

If you'd like to make a campaign donation, press 3. 

If you're Kathy Nickolaus, press 4, and stay on the line. 

If you'd like to make a defense fund donation, press 0. 

Walker Mocks "Transparency." Again.

Wrong-Way Walker badly distorts "transparency" into 'whatever I do is automatically virtuous.'

This blog has tracked Walker's preposterous, Orwellian claims to transparency since he threw the word around even though his public, taxpayer-paid staff had set up a secret Internet communication and fund-raising system in his Milwaukee County Executive office suite.

Since he sucker-punched public employees after his election with the anti-collective bargaining "bomb" he dropped on them out of nowhere and whispered "divide-and-conquer" to one of his biggest, private-sector donors.

Walker - - or is he Tommy Flanagan? - - has no legitimate claim to transparency, and when he mouths it you know it's to cover up the exact opposite.

Hearing Walker embracing transparency after court documents showed him directing to his recall campaign millions of dollars in secret and possibly illegal campaign donations and valuable organizational coordination is like spotting a late-night pitchman for home gym equipment pff-camera wash down a bag of pork rinds with a 64-ounce soda.

Waukesha Judge Added To Gun Stupidity

[Updated] In a period when the news about guns in the country has been repeatedly sad, shocking and downright gruesome, let me be the first to suggest to Waukesha County District Court Judge Lloyd V. Carter that he rethink the paean to guns he delivered in a burst of gun-lobby over-thinking a few months ago when he dropped a criminal charge against an Oconomowoc woman who'd left her loaded semi-automatic pistol in a church bathroom. Said Givens:

"A firearm is not an existential threat. It does not come alive and act by itself to menace society."

Well, fine, if there were only one person - - the owner - - in the immediate area code and she knew where it was safely stored?

And if the very people mishandling their firearms were not given a high-falutin' but ultimately illogical philosophical pass by the judge, would we be reading today that the husband of the woman who left her gun in that bathroom left his loaded semi-automatic pistol in a Door County amusement park public men's room.

Didn't know his gun was missing and thought it was "funny" when he found out?

I'd say that the menace to society began on the bench and moved to the bathroom stall.

Will there be a third time that shoots down the judge's theories?

Walker Working Hard To Erase Mining Embarrassment

Go way back, Bucky - - back, back, back before there was the Walker Presidential fantasy fed by big-dollar, Club for Growth opportunism, back before the Wisconsin Governorship was a mere day-dream for Team Walker, back before their years of grind in the falling-down, depressing, politically no-wheresville Milwaukee County Courthouse with all those aggravating Supervisors, low-income taxpayers and social services that didn't lend themselves to peppy, preppy, post-card pretty TV spots.

Yes, Bucky...go back to the lean, dark, dead-end years when Walker was carpool commuting to back-benching irrelevancy in the Assembly, nursing his wounds and big fat grudges over being beaten for the Marquette college presidency, then by Gwen Moore.

Politics for Walker was little more than water-carrying for Tommy Thompson and Scott Jensen - - 'here's how you vote, son' - - and yes, before being discovered by talk radio and Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers there were old-timey consensus votes that had to be taken and which now must be lived down when Dan Bice spreads them across the newspaper:

Like that awful vote opposing toxic mining.

Walker will atone.

But, let's be clear: things happened back then to the Scott Walkers in the Assembly because there just wasn't the money that could have helped a guy make the Right choices if, someday, he wanted to chase after Bigger Brass Rings.

So now he has to live down embarrassing votes that were recorded, but which are now being corrected, because for God's sake, Bucky: there's a New Walker Now, and the system is flush with boatloads of cash that could never have been imagined back in the day.

So trust me, Bucky and Walker backers everywhere.

He's moving in the Right direction now. So while Intolerable mistakes like these were made, they will never happen again:

Now pro-mining, Walker as legislator opposed mining bill

Props To OWN For Student Loan Research, TV Media

Good for One Wisconsin Now scoring public television national news hour coverage today. (disclosure: I am on OWN's C-3 board)

You can watch it now athttp://bit.ly/OWNPBSNewsHour.

N. WI Iron Mine Research Going Slowly; Application Delayed

How surprising is that while the politicians in the mining company's pocket pushed through a bill that cut application review timelines - - against the better advice of real scientists and the US Army Corp of Engineers - -  the company is now discovering that all that stupid pre-application research is going more slowly than expected?

I'll bet the company wishes it had a certain $700,000 available to spend on the ground instead on campaign commercials now in the ether.

My opinion, to the best of my knowledge.

Reagan-Era Judge Skewers Walker/Van Hollen Gay Marriage Argument

Scott Walker, and the state Attorney General who obstructed John Doe I by declining to assist federal investigators, have been busy the last few months making the ideological case with taxpayer funds that there is room in Wisconsin's Constitution for discrimination against same sex couples.

So the nation got a good look today at the shallow vindictiveness of these GOP leaders - - Walker and Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen - - who are running Wisconsin into the ground: 

Chicago — A three-judge federal appeals panel on Tuesday closely questioned Wisconsin and Indiana's bans on same-sex marriage, with one judge calling parts of the states' arguments "absurd" and "ridiculous."

"These people and their adopted children are harmed by your law," Judge Richard Posner said of gay and lesbian couples who are barred from getting married. 

The Wisconsin State Journal's account was even more pointed:

Judge Richard Posner, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, was dismissive when Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Timothy Samuelson repeatedly pointed to 'tradition' as the underlying justification for barring gay marriage.

"It was tradition to not allow blacks and whites to marry — a tradition that got swept away," Posner said. Prohibition of same sex marriage, he said, is "a tradition of hate ... and savage discrimination."

Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama each appointed one of the other two judges on the panel.