New Republic Says Walker-Burke Is Key US Race

The New Republic author  - - and this is the second recent NR piece devoted to Walker's toxic politics - - plays out scenarios that will cost us sleep by raising the stakes beyond the heavens:

His brand of aggressively partisan, aggressively conservative politics [could] vault him to the top tier of presidential candidates for 2016.

And if the GOP wins the US Senate?
As I wrote three years ago:

You want Mike Gableman on the Federal bench, or as Attorney General, or Annette Ziegler or Diane Sykes on the US Supreme Court?  Don't laugh. Dennis Smith at Health and Human Services? Robin Vos at Transportation, or Scott Fitzgerald at the Department of Labor?

I especially liked the article's last few sentences: 

So, long story short, this Wisconsin election is an enormously big deal. The problem is that almost no one has an incentive to tout it as such. Burke, for her part, understandably wants to keep the focus on local issues, having learned from the recall that Wisconsin voters don’t view their state as the place where Liberalism and Conservatism should slug it out... 

Then there are progressives, who pine for a candidate more in the mold of Elizabeth Warren than a former business executive like Burke, with her relatively centrist record on labor and education. Some also feel burned by the 2012 recall and are wary of raising the stakes in Wisconsin all over again, particularly in a non-presidential year when the electorate skews right. Many of the national progressive groups I reached out to for this piece either passed on commenting or put me in touch with local allies in Wisconsin, suggesting it’s not a race they’re particularly consumed by, even if they would love to see Walker go down... 

All of that makes sense on some level—I too would love a more progressive candidate in Wisconsin, and I worry about the skew of the midterm electorate. But the logic happens to be wrong in this case. Wisconsin is where it’s at these days, whether or not progressives go all in. 

Conservatives certainly appreciate this. It’s time the left did, too.

So: amen to all that. 

If you want to stop Scott Walker from hosting the Koch brothers at state dinners and playing out his Neo-Reaganesque fantasies eating Jelly Bellies in the Oval Office, write Mary Burke a check. 

Then there are progressives, who pine for a candidate more in the mold of Elizabeth Warren than a former business executive like Burke, with her relatively centrist record on labor and education. Some also feel burned by the 2012 recall and are wary of raising the stakes in Wisconsin all over again, particularly in a non-presidential year when the electorate skews right. Many of the national progressive groups I reached out to for this piece either passed on commenting or put me in touch with local allies in Wisconsin, suggesting it’s not a race they’re particularly consumed by, even if they would love to see Walker go down. (The exception is Jim and Howard Dean’s Democracy for America, which, according to spokesman Neil Sroka, sees the race as a "priority.") Their energy is quite reasonably trained on the Senate. 

All of that makes sense on some level—I too would love a more progressive candidate in Wisconsin, and I worry about the skew of the midterm electorate. But the logic happens to be wrong in this case. Wisconsin is where it’s at these days, whether or not progressives go all in.

Conservatives certainly appreciate this. It’s time the left did, too

The easiest way to make sure that Walker doesn't get to live out his Neo-Reaganesque jelly belly fantasies or play with the White House red phone is to send Mary Burke a check.

Hooray For Bargain WisDOT Zoo Interchange Bid

A fantastic deal, and why not, as WisDOT's image - - and darned if the agency somehow forgot this one - - of the finished work shows lush, grass, no traffic and hardly any other traffic there. What, no picnic tables? There 's more vehicular movement on the Lakefront's Lincoln Memorial Dr.

A rendering of the Zoo Interchange design after its reconstruction.

Wisconsin DOT

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Bill Kaplan's Solid Column On Walker, The Mine And $700,000

That formerly-secret $700,000 mining company donation mysteriously steered to Scott Walker's recall campaign, about which he said he knew nothing, is a scandal that brings Watergate's (Walkergate) dirty money to mind.

It's the subject of a strong piece by Washington, DC-based columnist Bill Kaplan, so note to the Walkerites - - the issue isn't going away even if Walker says he knew nothing about it - - to the best of his knowledge.

And thanks to Kaplan for the shout-out:

Wisconsin icons for clean government and protecting the environment such as Democratic Gov./U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson and writer/raconteur George Vukelich would have been outraged and repulsed by Walker's shenanigans. 

Fortunately, longtime distinguished journalist Jim Rowen has covered Gogebic's proposal for a massive iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin.  

Rowen, on his blog, "Political Environment", has been dogged, relentless and scrupulously factual in outlining why the mine will be disastrous: Gogebic and Walker worked together to successfully eviscerate longstanding bipartisan environmental protections.

Walker, 'Not To My Knowledge,' 1988-2014

[Updated] His habitual default to slippery denials, absurd evasions of responsibility and flat-out factual falsehoods spans a quarter-century:

* 1988: Caught breaking Marquette student election rules:

Walker dismissed this, saying he had no knowledge of what his supporters did, according to a Tribune article from February 25, 1988.

* 2011:  Headline on John Doe I story and interview:

Walker says he knows nothing of investigation

* 2102: I collected and posted several more:

Walker's Habitual Forgetfulness 

Here's one example. After a patient starved to death at the Mental Health Complex, the gubernatorial campaign was underway and a report about it was being withheld:

Walker defends withholding Mental Health Complex report 

"I don't know what's in it, so it's hard for me to say" if it should be released, Walker said. His administration had nothing to do with the report being withheld, Walker said

* 2014:  Secret $700,000 funding steered to recall election campaign and disclosed last week by the Journal Sentinel: 

Gov. Scott Walker said Saturday that he played no role in soliciting cash from a mining company for the Wisconsin Club for Growth during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections, adding that no one should be surprised that the pro-business governor backed legislation helpful to the firm.

Asked whether he was aware that Gogebic Taconite secretly donated $700,000 to Wisconsin Club for Growth — a pro-business advocacy group directed by the governor's campaign adviser — Walker said, "Not to my knowledge."

For The Umpteenth Time, Walker Cannot Tell A True Story

There he goes again (and ask yourself why Walker has so few unvarnished "True" ratings by PolitiFact?). Just what is his problem?

This time, his constitutional incapability to talk straight and avoid self-serving spin is in his latest TV ad where he redefines his signature 250,000 new jobs campaign promise as a goal.

A goal and a promise are not the same thing.

One is a matter of your word.

The other is just words.

Two things you should note in this most-recent account of the failing Walker jobs promise by PolitiFact:

1) PolitiFact's routine and repeat definition of the matter as "his top campaign promise."

2) The Walker "Campaign news release" that is highlighted as the paper's source. Click on it. The Walker campaign has taken it down. Why do you think that was done?

I promise you: the goal is to confuse and deceive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Create 250,000 new jobs

Will "get government out of the way of employers ... who will then help Wisconsin create 250,000 jobs by 2015, and as we create those new jobs, we will be able to add 10,000 new businesses.”

Sources:

Campaign news release

Subjects: Economy, Jobs

Updates:

A small increase, but not enough to put the goal in reach

Updated: Thursday, August 14th, 2014 | By James B. Nelson

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.

PolitiFact has been using the same language for more than three years, without a challenge from Walker, when it said it would track his progress and hold him and thge performance accountable:   

Gov. Scott Walker's legacy will, in many respects, be measured by one number: 250,000.  

That's the number of private-sector jobs Walker promised will be created during his four-year term, which began in January. 

It was the central promise of his 2010 campaign, and Walker has mentioned it routinely since taking office. He says everything his administration does is based on improving the state's economic climate, and says he is pushing the "most aggressive pro-jobs agenda in the country." 

At a recent appearance before the Waupaca Chamber of Commerce, Walker called the 250,000 figure "a minimum, not a maximum." 

We will be tracking that pledge, along with 60-some other campaign promises, on our Walk-O-Meter feature.

Walker even used the word "promise" and "pledge" when challenged last year to say he hadn't abandoned it, though he remembered his talking points and slid into "goal," but he knows it was a promise, and he knows the difference between a promise and a goal.

A promise is where you give your word.

A goal is your wish, without an obligation.

And did Walker take issue with the AP's report on his failed promise as far back as 2011? 

Heck, no: He doubled-down it it. Read Walker's wording back then.

Gov. Scott Walker has made little progress fulfilling a campaign promise to create 250,000 jobs over four years, making the pledge that was a key to getting him elected last year a potentially significant hurdle as he fights off recall efforts.

Walker hasn't been shy about the promise, even saying shortly before taking office that he wanted it branded on the foreheads of his top Cabinet officials.

Walker was the only gubernatorial candidate in last year's race to promise a specific number of news jobs, with no wiggle room, and he brashly repeated the pledge after winning.

"I want my Cabinet secretaries to have branded across their heads, '250,000 jobs,'" Walker said at a December 2010 meeting of the Dairy Business Association. "I want them to know their job is on the line because my job is on the line to create 250,000 jobs in the private sector."

Walkergate's Paperback Edition Has New Epilogue...

But is it accurate?

Not to my knowledge.

Club For Growth Lawyer Is Focused On Trial Courts...

But as this solid Dan Bice piece indicates, not necessarily in the Court of Public Opinion.

You might win, or lose before a judge or a jury, but there are far more people with a vote in the other.

Timely Petition Calls For Mining Ethics In Wisconsin

Walker got the benefit of a secret $700,000 donation from the very mining company he helped win special legislation to level much of the Penokee Hills and Bad River watershed for what will be North America's largest open-pit iron mine.

Legislation passed by the same special-interest cohort green-lighting scores of polluting frac sand mines in Wisconsin.

Here's another way to fight back.

• Petitioning Candidates for Governor of Wisconsin 

Bring Ethics to Wisconsin Mining

1. 
   
   1. Petition by
      Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice, Wisconsin Interfaith Power and Light, and Snowflower Sangha

Fresh Allegation Of Illegal Walker/Funding/Politicking Coordination

Props to the Journal Sentinel for advancing the story, note that prosecutors are alleging that groups which told state regulators they were independent were, in fact, coordinated with campaigns, and that Walker is personally involved:

Madison — 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.

If proved, prosecutors' claims would undercut the argument that Walker and his allies did nothing wrong. Walker has stressed that two judges have ruled against prosecutors and he is not a target of the probe.

One group mentioned in the newly available filing is an arm of the Republican Governors Association that has run ads backing Walker since 2010. The other, the Republican State Leadership Committee, ran ads in 2011 against then-Sen. Jim Holperin (D-Conover), who survived a recall election that year but did not run for re-election in 2012.

The newly released filing shows Schmitz contends there is evidence Walker's campaign had worked with the Republican State Leadership Committee and the Right Direction Political Action Committee, which is run by the Republican Governors Association...

The plans were then shared in July 2011 — just before Holperin's recall — with Walker; Keith Gilkes, Walker's campaign manager; and Kate Doner, a consultant for both Walker's campaign and the Wisconsin Club for Growth, according to prosecutors.
 

Scott Walker, Dissembling

As the curtain pulls away from Scott Walkergate's campaign financing secrecy, we again remind readers of his twisted claim to political and executive openness, as told to the Lakeland Times during the 2010 gubernatorial claim: 

Transparency

When he says he believes in government transparency, it's not just a campaign slogan, Walker said.

"I don't just say that, I've lived it," he said.

Fifteen Walkergate Posts Here Since Friday For Your Perusal

We try to be your full-service Wisconsin political blog, so if you are inclined to check out what's gone up here in the last 48 hours about Walker's secret money - - with links and citations aplenty - -  you can begin with this one about the Dynamite Doe Document Dump and work your way forward.

Thanks, folks.

Troubled New York Hedge Fund Billionaire Sent Walker $1 Million

That would be Steven A. Cohen - - he of this spring's $900 million SEC civil settlement: 

A federal judge in New York on Thursday closed the government’s criminal case against former hedge fund powerhouse SAC Capital Advisors, accepting the once high-flying firm’s guilty plea and approving a $900 million fine.

The firm’s founder, Steven A. Cohen, has so far escaped criminal charges. But the firm that bore his initials agreed in November to plead guilty to an array of insider trading allegations and to pay overall penalties totaling $1.8 billion...

In a 41-page indictment handed down last summer, federal prosecutors described how insider trading permeated virtually every corner of SAC Capital. The indictment followed an investigation into the firm that lasted more than a decade. 

See page six of the Doe documents released Friday.

Salute Milwaukee's Socialist Planners On A Warm Summer Sunday

They're the people decades ago who guaranteed the people of the city and region more than three miles of prime public space right on the water below Lake Park to the downtown...

...unlike the Walkerites who have ordered the DNR to sell 10,000 acres, want to wreck the Penokee range and Bad River watershed near Lake Superior up north for a secret campaign donor's open-pit iron mine and no doubt will give another Walker donor part of Terry Andrae State Park along Lake Michigan about 50 miles north of Milwaukee so rich folk can fork over somewhere around $500 for a round of lakefront golf.

Key Blog Posting Quoted

The Journal Sentinel newspapicks off and bold-faces a line or two from bloggers' or other web pages and inserts them on its editorial page; I appreciated that the paper on Sunday used an excerpt from the top of a long item I had posted at the paper's Purple Wisconsin site - - before Friday's revelations about secret campaign funding - - which originated on my personal blog where it has been updated several times in the last month.

The posting has become something of a summary account of the Walker experience, with multiple links:

The Disrespected, Manipulated Wisconsin Electorate

For the record, the item is this blog's most-downloaded posting in 2014 and the ninth-most-downloaded posting out of nearly 14,000 since the blog began 2/2/2007. 

And, knowing Walker, there will be more updates: in fact, the current version has a fresh update that I will add below in italics to bring the little Crossroads piece up-to-date, which reads, in the newspaper's bold-facing:

Conflationists can claim until the cows come home that every Wisconsin Governor has behaved this one-dimensionally, opportunistically, selfishly, coldly.

But I defy anyone to find in the ten previous administrations - - split about evenly between Democrats, and Republicans: Nelson, Reynolds, Knowles, Lucey, Schreiber, Dreyfus, Earl, Thompson, McCallum and Doyle - - and that covers roughly the last half-century - - examples and patterns comparable to Walker's self-interested, game-playing, documented false-speaking and overall manipulative arrogance at the expense of the public interest and of so many people.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
Here's how the item begins now:

[Reposted, with multiple updates, fresh links and new topics over the last four weeks.]

There has never been a Wisconsin Governor in our memories prior to Wrong Way Walker who so widely disrespected the time, resources and basic interests of so many Wisconsinites, particularly the state's lower-income residents, just to advance his own political career.

Conflationists can claim until the cows come home that every Wisconsin Governor has behaved this one-dimensionally, opportunistically, selfishly, coldly.

Or whose fund-raising, special interest servitude and subsequent dismissals of questions about it are so devoid of credibility and transparency.

But I defy anyone to find in the ten previous administrations  - - split about evenly between five Democrats, and Republicans: Nelson, Reynolds, Knowles, Lucey, Schreiber, Dreyfus, Earl, Thompson, McCallum and Doyle  - - and that covers roughly the almost half-century I have spent here - - examples and patterns comparable to Walker's self-interested, game-playing,documented false-speaking and overall manipulative arrogance at the expense of so many other people:

Water. Watergate. Walkergate.

And to close that loop, note that the money trail leaving the biggest stench - - $700,000 from the mining company that wants to dig up and fill in the Bad River region - - is all about the water.

Rereading Scott Walker's Long Lost Ethics Plan

You can read all about it, here - - and may I suggest heading on over to his early campaign website and copy what's there before it, too, gets scrubbed or Error Message 404'd  - - but I'll pull out my favorite lines just in case:

Citing government ethics as one of the greatest challenges to Wisconsin's democracy, Milwaukee County Executive and Candidate for Governor Scott Walker today released his comprehensive ethics reform plan. Walker's plan calls for a major overhaul of Wisconsin's failing system to restore integrity to our state's government...

"My plan seeks to restore the public trust, and instill the confidence that our elected leaders are working for the people," Walker added.

Following The $$: The Walker/Nixon/Watergate Connection

Why Walkergate - - Walker's secret campaign donations - - are his personal Watergate. 

Compare two stories and quotes about campaign cash and spending coordination.

From CNN a couple of years ago:

While the nation marks the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in later this year, some observers say our political leaders have already forgotten a key lesson of Watergate: that anonymous money corrupts political campaigns.  

"Watergate was basically a campaign finance scandal," says Chris Dolan, a political science professor at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania.  

Dolan and others say this historical amnesia can be seen in the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, which allows corporations and unions to give unlimited campaign donations to so-called super PACs as long as those political action committees are not coordinated with a candidate's campaign...

Keeping illegal donations hidden was a prime concern of the Nixon White House after the arrests, says Barry Sussman, a former Washington Post editor who helped lead coverage into the scandal.

Nixon didn't just cover up a burglary. His re-election campaign chiefs had asked for and received millions in illegal, secret contributions from major American companies. 

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Friday:

Robert Stelter, an investigator with Milwaukee County district attorney's office, said in documents released Friday that the probe showed the Wisconsin Club for Growth gave donors a way to contribute money anonymously and without limits in support of Walker.

Stelter argued that the coordinated effort between Walker's campaign and Wisconsin Club for Growth represented a violation of Wisconsin election laws, which place strict limits on donations and spending by candidates.

Prosecutors contend candidates and outside groups cannot collaborate on their messaging and strategy. Walker and the club have contended they can, because the club's ads do not explicitly tell people who to vote for or against...

The records include example after example of Walker or his aides encouraging donors to give money to the Wisconsin Club for Growth.

Two final observations: 

*  Give John Dean credit. The former Nixon White House counsel said 28 months ago that Walker was more Nixonian than Nixon.  

*  And if Walker wants us to believe there was nothing wrong with the secret money routing, and that he didn't know anything about a secretly-routed $700,000 donation from a mining company for which he helped win and signed special legislation to dig a controversial giant open-pit operation in Northern Wisconsin, then why was it all kept secret in the first place?

"Not To My Knowledge" Paves Way For 'Oh, THAT Donation!'

Still reverberating on the front page:

The baffling, believe-me-not response of "Not to my knowledge" by our top-down micro-managing Governor Walker when asked if he knew the mining company being enabled by a sweetheart law to dig a controversial NW Wisconsin open-pit mine measured in miles had routed $700,000 to help his recall campaign.

On Walker's preferred donation route around disclosure laws he wanted potential donors to follow, court records reportedly indicated.

I now speculate that the odd construction in the response instead of a simple "No" was lawyer-dictated to provide wiggle room for restored memory should another smoking gun go off, say in the form of a statement to the contrary in a deposition, or an email in a hard drive found at a garage sale or in a post-it note found in the suit pocket at a certain Wauwatosa dry cleaner that says:

Drop off suit. Get milk, eggs, send thank you note for $700,000 donation. 

Walker's Weird, Not-Believable Denial About Mining Donation

[Updated, 10:45 p.m.] If you are asked if you knew about a scandalous $700,000 donation funneled to your campaign by a company you've helped with a special, one-company bill, and your answer is "not to my knowledge," you added unnecessary verbiage and too many words to "no."

Asked if he was aware that Gogebic Taconite secretly donated $700,000 to Wisconsin Club for Growth — a pro-business advocacy group directed by the governor's campaign adviser — Walker said, "Not to my knowledge."

"Not to my knowledge?" 

What on earth does that mean, except you cannot answer simply and directly.

Update - - Actually, I now think it's an answer with deliberate distraction, confusion and wiggle room crafted by one of his attorneys.

Perhaps it's an answer to the question's query about "secretly."

Or to "donated?"

Parsed? One or the other? Both? What?

Does Walker need to ask Walker for clarification?

These days, you do not get the benefit of the doubt.

A Link To Friday's Document Dump

The link allows you to read the details of our sold-out Wisconsin democracy.

Take Miss Forward off the State Capitol dome and replace her with one of those big foam checks.