For Walker and his donors, October could be a losing month
[Updated from Sunday] I won't rewrite T.S. Eliot and suggest that October is the cruelest month - - though there is something of a wasteland quality to what Scott Walker and his donors have wrought here, whether you prefer Fitzwalkerstan or Havocwreakostan or his "chamber of commerce mentality" government or another of the labels that regrettably describe our formerly progressive state - - but I will say that October could bring less a surprise to Walker than something of an unwinding which could loom large the next time he's on the ballot.
* For one thing, he's managed to get crosswise with a Federal judge whom his lawyers and minions had given assurances that the Voter ID law and other blatantly partisan and obstructive goals was going to be implemented in Wisconsin according to rules, law, fairness and transparency.
Though there was a long history to the contrary.
Anyway, Team Walker's lawyers and handlers now have to prove to the judge, and pronto, that they are not violating the court's directives.
As they have done before, they could sacrifice some underlings. And eat a fine as they did in the federal redistricting case, knowing, like the crack-backing lineman or head-hunting defensive back that the penalty was worth the damage done.
* Then there is the arrival in the second week of October to the offices of the afore-refenced 'chamber of commerce mentality'-managed Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources of investigators from the US Environmental Protection Agency.
This significant trip to a state agency has its roots in the Walker administration's intentional disregard since 2011 of its responsibilities to residents under the US Clean Water Act - - details here.
And it was righteously provoked by aggrieved state Wisconsinites and their public interest lawyers doing for the people what the state under Walker deliberately and ideologically has refused to do - - all the while starving the DNR into weakness and irrelevancy.
I am hoping for the release of records and findings by the EPA that will further educate people about what has been denied and diverted by Walker's DNR or the benefit of special interests that would turn public land and water and wells and shorelines, and other natural treasures into manure-factories, dune-demolishing and native artifact-crushing golf courses for the wealthy and other profit centers for Walker's partisan, self-interested donors.
* Then there is possibility that the US Supreme Court will agree to hear the case brought by John Doe prosecutors that their investigation into the GOP's dark money machine in Wisconsin was improperly cut short by a State Supreme Court majority that had taken millions of that same dark money.
If you haven't read The Guardian's document-driven report on the issue, take the time now.
It's a long-shot, as the US Supreme Court takes few of such petitions, but taking the case could more broadly explain why Fitzwalkerstan/Havocwreackostan/the chamber of commerce state managed to win elections in a bought-and-sold Wisconsin.
Monday Update: The US Supreme Court declined to take the case.
So stay tuned. October's just begun.
* For one thing, he's managed to get crosswise with a Federal judge whom his lawyers and minions had given assurances that the Voter ID law and other blatantly partisan and obstructive goals was going to be implemented in Wisconsin according to rules, law, fairness and transparency.
Though there was a long history to the contrary.
Anyway, Team Walker's lawyers and handlers now have to prove to the judge, and pronto, that they are not violating the court's directives.
As they have done before, they could sacrifice some underlings. And eat a fine as they did in the federal redistricting case, knowing, like the crack-backing lineman or head-hunting defensive back that the penalty was worth the damage done.
* Then there is the arrival in the second week of October to the offices of the afore-refenced 'chamber of commerce mentality'-managed Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources of investigators from the US Environmental Protection Agency.
This significant trip to a state agency has its roots in the Walker administration's intentional disregard since 2011 of its responsibilities to residents under the US Clean Water Act - - details here.
And it was righteously provoked by aggrieved state Wisconsinites and their public interest lawyers doing for the people what the state under Walker deliberately and ideologically has refused to do - - all the while starving the DNR into weakness and irrelevancy.
I am hoping for the release of records and findings by the EPA that will further educate people about what has been denied and diverted by Walker's DNR or the benefit of special interests that would turn public land and water and wells and shorelines, and other natural treasures into manure-factories, dune-demolishing and native artifact-crushing golf courses for the wealthy and other profit centers for Walker's partisan, self-interested donors.
* Then there is possibility that the US Supreme Court will agree to hear the case brought by John Doe prosecutors that their investigation into the GOP's dark money machine in Wisconsin was improperly cut short by a State Supreme Court majority that had taken millions of that same dark money.
If you haven't read The Guardian's document-driven report on the issue, take the time now.
It's a long-shot, as the US Supreme Court takes few of such petitions, but taking the case could more broadly explain why Fitzwalkerstan/Havocwreackostan/the chamber of commerce state managed to win elections in a bought-and-sold Wisconsin.
Monday Update: The US Supreme Court declined to take the case.
So stay tuned. October's just begun.
3 comments:
Not likely, though I hope so. We don't get the state back from koch interests until we take back the media. There isn't much hope for that anytime soon, because major media outlets like Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have proven they do not care about circulation and making money off an advertising-supported content model based on what we were taught in grade should about journalism.
No one with any media reach will publicly call for a boycott and, in the case of MJS, the business is in free-fall anyhow. Now that it is part of USA Today, the new owner has no reason to bring any integrity back to it's Milwaukee-area and Wisconsin news coverage. It is now just part of the Gannett chain and, like its holdings in other parts of Wisconsin & America, exists to cross sell USA Today.
Question: If a republican falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
Answer: Not if the media is in the bag for right-wing political interests and out-of-state multinational corporations.
If we are lucky the EPA will find that the DNR violated the Memorandums of Understanding that they had agreed to in the past. If so they can play tough and demand very specific actions with very real timelines and costs. If Idiot Stick decides that he doesn't want to go that way then the EPA can pull the funding they provide for Wisconsin to administer the Clean Water Act. This is no small amount of money and would leave the Wauwatosa Wonder with even less money to play with.
Well, the Court declined to take case. Money wins out. http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/election-matters/u-s-supreme-court-rejects-wisconsin-john-doe-case/article_a67b0249-fa44-5743-b999-c458f772cade.html
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