Attention, media: note the other dead zone story in Green Bay today

Media may not have to time to take a look today, but here's hoping they notice the dead zone in Green Bay, and I'm not talking about the empty chairs and speaker slots at Donald Trump's rally from which Paul Ryan, Scott Walker and other Wisconsin GOP officials suddenly got to busy to occupy.

I'm talking about the dead zone in the waters of Green Bay - - a lifeless area miles long - - where aquatic life has been snuffed out by farm runoff and other pollutants.

A fact noted frequently on this blog - - here and here - - because you can attribute much of the dead zone to politicians, including Walker, in thrall to major, monied Ag and dairy and industrial special interests which have won from Walker and the Legislature a series of weakened environmental laws, regulations and policy decisions - - even membership on advisory boards - - that degrade science, diss the public and ultimately allow for more phosphorus, chemical and manure pollution in the groundwater, lakes, rivers and streams which flow into Green Bay and Lake Michigan.

And which is also likely heading for Lake Superior on the other side of the state, too, given the Polluter Lobby's latest poke in the eye to both citizens and the US EPA which has told a dismissive Walker to clean up the state's water and follow the law.

Leading to perhaps unprecedented grassroots and legal intervention on behalf of people whose drinking water is polluted by feedlot expansion that feeds the dead zone.

Read up on the latest of these pro-manure policies and decisions - - Walker, his corporately-managed Department of Natural Resources led by a developer contemptuous of science and her own employees, and an environmental policy oversight board Walker tried to neuter but has captured anyway, rewrote pollution and manure runoff rules at the behest of Big Ag - - that will perversely encourage - - with the force of law - - large animal feeding operations to dispose of more manure with fewer controls, and on their terms, on the land, in the water and through the air.

In the era of water safety awareness spurred by tragic, human-caused water contamination in Flint, few states would achieve a dead zone and related water pollution through policy carelessness and outright corporate bias in one of its historic and most important water resources to become Flint 2.0

But welcome to Green Bay, Wisconsin, national political media.

Take a good look around.

We're even giving environmental awards to record-seeting polluters.

On, Wisconsin. 

Walker's surprise N. WI visit needs key non-Trump question

[Updated from 8/2] You may have heard the not-completely surprising news that former Ted Cruz supporter/non-Trump endorser/then-Trump-endorser-by-RNC speech Wisconsin Governor and GOP 2016-replacement candidate/2020-2024-2104 hopeful Scott Walker has taken a fresh passive-aggressive non-supporting stance towards his guy and cancelled out of Trump's party-pooped-by-his-own party appearance in Green Bay Friday.

This non-appearance in Green Bay along side the very candidate whom Walker told the nation was President-worthy just a few days ago at the GOP convention appears to also have Walker's signature shroud of phony insincerity:

Governor Walker’s number one focus is being governor, and he will continue leading the response to the violent storms that swept through northern Wisconsin last month. As part of this commitment, later this week he will survey ongoing recovery efforts and meet with residents and local officials about their needs during this difficult time… Joe Fadness, campaign spokesman.

Note that Walker took four days away from his "number one focus" and chose to spend those days at the RNC in Cleveland instead of "leading the response to the violent storms that swept through norther Wisconsin last month…"

But since Walker will be somewhere near the area, and because local and state roads there suffered spectacular damage in the storms, and because he was recently also in nearby Phillips where he told a television station that Northern Wisconsin and not Southeastern Wisconsin was going to be his state highway number one spending focus in the next budget...http://www.wjfw.com/print_story.html?SKU=20160704172252

Details, here.

...will some enterprising reporter or concerned citizen with a VIP pass to his 'listening session' there but Trump aside for a moment and ask Walker why he had been making those 'no-new-big-highway-projects in SE WI' pledges of late when he had already informed federal highway officials by letter in May that he intended to move ahead on an unpopular $850 million new big expansion of I-94 in SE Wisconsin between the Zoo Interchange, Miller Park and the Marquette Interchange?

Don't follow the pack and ask Walker about Trump. He'll give you more spin than an out of control Ferris Wheel.

Ask him about the highway spending statements he cannot have both ways in an honest answer.

And yes, I known I know…but ask anyway. Try for a moment of accountability and clarity, against all odds.

Faced with GOP's death, Ryan stuck in denial - - grief step #1

Trump disses Paul Ryan, threatens the GOP's existence and the fate of the world, but Ryan, still backs Trump.

And is still in denial.

Psychopathy Trumps sanity.

Acceptance should not even be an option.

Legislature ceded rule powers to Walker, so CAFO pollution further enabled

There has been another stunning environmental setback engineered in Wisconsin by Gov. Scott Walker  - - made worse because it was approved Wednesday by the current Wisconsin State Natural Resources Board which fell in line and forfeited its public oversight role - - when Walker threw away months of rule-making work designed by multiple stakeholders to help guarantee safe drinking water to people living near industrial-scale animal feeding and massive manure generating operations known as CAFOs.

The health problems which CAFOs produce are extensive, long-standing and scientifically-documented.

Which was of no interest to Walker, as he sandbagged the process and rigged a pro-industry outcome by sending the proposed rules to alert big dairy and other special interests.

They, on cue, registered their objections - - who'd have thunk it? - - to the Walker-controlled and special-interest obeisant Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

It, on cue, (can we say watered-down?) substantially rewrote and eased for special interests' the scope of the proposed rule-making, and then, on cue, the NRB approved the pro-industry framework yesterday:

The state Department of Natural Resources policy board on Wednesday approved limited plans for reducing manure contamination of public waters despite complaints about excessive dairy industry influence and worries the department won’t have staff to enforce any new rules...

Instead of stronger regulation of manure at CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) statewide, any new rules will apply only in yet-to-be-defined sensitive areas where groundwater is especially vulnerable.

Also removed were plans for new standards for aerial spraying of manure.

Nice, tight, lockstep oversight of the process - - but tilted to those already with power and influence.

All but ensuring that whatever final rules emerge from this polluted process will be more friendly to the CAFO owners and manure sprayers than citizens and taxpayers struggling with polluted groundwater, airborne pollution when manure is sprayed on farm fields and a polluted political process which has devalued the public interest.

And continues Walker's disregard for clean water in Wisconsin - - which has drawn the attention of the US EPA, and has led to recent calls for the EPA to take immediate, remedial action:

Today, several environmental protection advocacy organizations issued a letter to the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency calling for federal support in providing clean drinking water for households in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin.

Since filing a petition with the EPA on October 22, 2014, asking for EPA intervention under federal Safe Drinking Water Act powers, no government entity has stepped up to provide clean drinking water to residents. While the regulatory agencies have been meeting to evaluate the problem and develop solutions, groundwater pollution from landspreading of livestock waste continues to threaten the health of Kewaunee County residents living with contaminated drinking water wells... 

“After a year of talks, Kewaunee County residents are still waiting for local solutions to this continued drinking water crisis,” said Lynn Utesch, member of Kewaunee CARES and EPA petitioner. 

“We need the EPA to know that local residents are still facing unreasonable delays in drinking water contamination test results. The DNR or EPA did not provide safe drinking water in the fall of 2014...residents are again out of options.”

As an aside, I'd say it all bodes ill for efforts to stop what could be the granddaddy of CAFO polluters in Wisconsin - - the proposed 26,000-every-six-months hog CAFO close to sensitive waters in NW Wisconsin near Lake Superior - - a proposed project under review by the DNR which just used its authority to bar Ashland County from trying to control the proposed CAFO with a local ordinance.

Heck - - they're even giving Wisconsin's big polluters environmental awards these days.

It's important to remember that Walker could engineer such an ugly process because the Legislature ceded to him unprecedented executive at the beginning of his first term over the development of administrative rules which carry the force of law in many state day-to-day operations.

This power transfer enables Walker to apply the same "chamber of commerce mentality" across the government which he directed developer and known Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources antagonist Cathy Stepp to employ when Walker appointed her as DNR Secretary.

I noted several times on this blog the public policy dangers inherent in the Legislature's willing to hand over to Walker even more power to serve big business by giving away its rule-making role which traditionally transparent, democratic procedures like committee hearings where the public could speak and media could help raise awareness.

The Legislature's gift to Walker was similar to the transfer to Walker of  the power to sell any state asset with only token Legislative and public review.

These changes give Walker greater centralized authority and give the lie to the notion that Republicans oppose big government and support local control.

Here is an early 2011 posting about how Walker has been empowered to make or break the administrative rule-making process, along with several paragraphs regrettably relevant today.
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*  Walker wants to remove state rule-making powers - - a very important state function because  Wisconsin rules have the power of law  - - from the legislature to his office.

That's a power grab that upsets the checks-and-balances among the branches of government, blocks transparency and opens the door even more widely to special-interest influence.

And special interest already have more than a foot inside that door.

* Manufacturers and insurance companies have won from Walker and his legislative followers without authentic cause award ceilings in injury and liability cases - - a huge victory for the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

* Real estate interests, for example, have won Walker's pledge to impose severe restrictions on how a land owner may use his or her property by barring the installation of most wind turbines - - some even with approvals in hand - - thus killing a growing industry with well-paying jobs that will also create cleaner energy, according to a business coalition.

* And Walker created a firestorm when he asked for a special law to stop the state's full wetlands' permit review procedures so a popular fishing equipment store could be built on a small wetlands near Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

The company has wisely backed off, saying, with some logic, that a store that sells to anglers doesn't fill wetlands, but Walker's intention to use the legislative process to make an end-run around an existing policy and procedure - - for a major campaign donor, to boot - - speaks loudly about how far from Wisconsin tradition and environmental protections he is willing to drag the state on behalf of a special interest.

* He appointed the home-builder Cathy Stepp as Department of Natural Resources Secretary after her active, high-voltage assault on the agency's task to balance private and public interests and the integrity of its employees...

But now some legislators believe that Walker and Stepp will so effectively dilute the DNR's mission that even the assurance of safe drinking water statewide will no longer be defined as a Wisconsin priority.

About Trump, Reince Priebus is 'stressed.' Stand in line.

The in-over-his-head RNC chairman and failed 2004 Wisconsin State Senate candidate Reince Priebus

is said to be 'stressed' over Donald Trump.

Crocodile tears, please. Our sympathizes go out first to those Trump gratuitously stressed from the Republican Party perch Priebus, et al enabled Trump to occupy and hold:

Mexicans, immigrants, Muslims, women, Gold Star families, critics whom he'd like to hit and protesters at his rallies whose heads he would knock off at his rallies.

Not to mention anyone within the blast zone when he goes for the nuclear codes because some meanie online snarked about hidden tax returns, his ego or his hair.

WI #TrumpChickensh*t caucus in fresh passive-aggressive fail

Wisconsin GOP officials - - led by the intimidated self-promoter Scott Walker. and others who turned the Republican Party into a small-tent assemblage of naysayers and conspiracy nuts - - and who helped enable Donald Trump's national rise to power - - were willing to endorse him at their party's convention two weeks ago because they believed their own 'Hillary-is-the-most-evil' delusion.

So they have refused to cleanly disavow their gold-plated, golden-tanned Presidential candidate who rails against Gold Star families and mothers foolish enough to bring their babies to Trump rallies, and still don't have the guts to make the break with Trump that any sane citizen or politico knows is in the best interest of the country.

So staying away from his Green Bay rally Friday to mow their lawns or rearrange their sock drawers or whatever else they are pretending is a more important commitment - - in Walker's case, it's the scheduling equivalent of his infamous "Wisconsin Idea "drafting error" falsehold and political FUBAR - - is just more chickensh*t behavior.

"Status quo ante," as my Dad would have said.

Also: "People are their worse enemy."

Major WI polluter wins WMC environmental award

You gotta hand it to the multi-tasking but always on-task Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce:

Not content with helping tilt the State Supreme Court its way, and embedding on the public payroll Republican Scott Walker and a friendly majority in the state legislature, the business lobby has turned to dark political comedy with this head-spinner noted by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign

A national hardware store chain owned by a billionaire businessman who set consecutive records for the highest penalties ever paid for environmental violations in Wisconsin just won an environmental award from the state’s largest business group. 

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce says Menard, Inc., which is founded and owned by John Menard Jr., was among nine winners of WMC’s Business Friend of the Environment awards.

This next line ought to give you even more pause:

The nine winners were selected from 32 nominees by a panel, which includes representatives from the Department of Natural Resources and the University of Wisconsin

In flooded north, locals tell DNR hog CAFO is hogwash

The same DNR Secretary who tried to sell the Northwoods on the environmental merits of 35 years of open-pit mining, clear-cutting, blasting and acid percolating in the Bad River watershed was confronted by pig masks to convey this message of sanity:

Penning-up and fattening 26,000 hogs every six months to fatten the common lien of an Iowa-based mega-CAFO operator within smelling and manure flooding distance of Ashland's water supply and Lake Superior's vital Chequamegon Bay  is another horrible plan that cannot possibly pass a fair, publicly-interest permit review.


Good for those grassroots activists. They are doing the work of a real DNR.

And note the destructive effects of a hog operation one-seventh of the size in Illinois as chronicled by The Chicago Tribune:

When the sickening odor swept across Matt Heissinger's farmstead, his daughter would sprint from their home to the car. Clinging to the girl's clothes and hair, the smell drove her to tears as she feared becoming a high school outcast.

Heissinger's wife often was forced to stay indoors, suffering from headaches and congestion, while the soft-spoken farmer worked his cows and crops with smarting eyes and a raspy throat.

On the field next door, pork producers had erected a 3,600-hog confinement facility, where hundreds of thousands of gallons of manure emit gases that have ruined the Heissingers' quality of life. The assessed value of their farm was cut in half because "breezes from the hog confinement across their property are awful," the state tax board concluded.

Then again, the afore-referenced DNR Secretary, former developer and current DNR Secretary managing the dispirited, once-proud agency with the "chamber of commerce mentality" that Governor and WMC water-carrier Scott Walker installed atop the DNR these days is a just a cog in the Walker administration's larger corporate war for fatter profits and against science, and the people.

Maybe a DNR honcho at State Fair can field manure questions

The Wisconsin DNR says stop by and see us at the Wisconsin State Fair.

Be nice to the line workers, but if one of Scott Walker's 'chamber of commerce mentality' toadies is there, be sure to ask about the manure spreading rules which the agency drafted with public input but then rewrote for Big Ag after Walker intervened.

Or if there are comment or suggestion cards, leave a note for Cathy Stepp & Co. and say you're fed up with the Wisconsin State Unfair.

Trump: Loose cannon, or loser cannoneer?

Running for President, or first-ever candidate who quit the race to win PR-generating, self-inflicted political martyrdom?

Doubling down or going down?

Keeping his tax returns secret and getting rid of potential four years of 24/7 woke way above his pay grade?

Or in all scenarios, maybe both?

Trump refuses to support Paul Ryan, John McCain in upcoming Republican primaries

WI water quality news, and will Walker make us Flint 2.0?

A leading conservationist and expert in the high-profile battle to protect Wisconsin groundwater - - a fight now made even harder through blatant political interference by Gov. Walker's office on behalf of the very industrial-scale animal feeding operations at the heart of groundwater problems - - is calling it a day: 

Bill Schuster said this week he has “things to do” that don't involve the Door County Soil and Water Conservation Department.

During an interview Thursday midway through his last day on the job, Schuster talked about his 37 years as Door County conservationist.

Separately, others environmental experts have pulled the plug on their conservationist careers at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as leadership and direction there enable the "chamber of commerce mentality" Walker installed.

The political interference and its consequences for clean water are so prominent in everyone's consciousness other than Walker's that his pro-manure move 

made it into media nearly 1,000 miles away.

In the Houston Chronicle, via the Wisconsin State Journal:

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has scaled back proposed rules regulating factory farms' manure spreading amid complaints from the dairy industry... 

The DNR gave the [rules scoping] statements to Walker's office, which then handed them out to farm industry groups, including the Wisconsin Dairy Business Association and associations for cattlemen, pork producers and soybean, cranberry and vegetable farmers, Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said. 

Industry officials balked, saying the plan would be too costly...  

The DNR redrafted the scope statements to note the regulations would apply only to sensitive areas, which have yet to be defined...Walker approved the new scope statement on July 13, the same day the DNR submitted it to him.

Some experts see Wisconsin as Flint 2.0 - - like former DNR official Gordon Stevenson:

"We're arriving at an important crossroads in Wisconsin. We have our own version of Flint, Michigan in Kewaunee County where citizens cannot drink the water and we have our own version of the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone. A dead zone now also exists in Green Bay that runs from the City of Green Bay all the way up to Marinette."

Walker literally helping spread more cattle manure on top of the water table in NE Wisconsin near residential wells - - not to mention the 26,000-hog CAFO his DNR might approve near pristine Lake Superior in NW Wisconsin - - could give Bucky that toxic designation.

#DumpTrump fever must have one Havocwreaker wishin'-and-hopin'

The Donald's self-destruction has probably got this conscience free-party-loyalist-in his home state's polling pits dreaming he can get promoted to Havoc-Wreaker-Replacement-in-Chief.

Assuming he accepted the invitation to the Koch brothers big-donor retreat in Colorado this past weekend, you can bet he got his Rocky Mountain high reminding everyone he's available now, or in 2020, 2024, 2104...

Truthfully, I think President Obama getting into it and urging the GOP to dump Trump is just some White House-Rope-a-Dope - - and while there are many dopes to rope, President Obama knows is provoking The Donald into some even more damaging behavior, while Republicans are unlikely to cut Trump loose and conceding their entire nomination process and current party identification are hopelessly flawed.

At Koch retreat, Ryan continues attack on 'progressivism'

Talk about playing to the home crowd - - the 400 millionaires and billionaires at the Koch brothers annual retreat who have pledged to contribute $100,000 or more - - while stepping on Wisconsin history:

House Speaker Paul Ryan warned some of his Republican Party’s biggest donors on Monday that some in the GOP are flirting with progressive ideas and kowtowing to frustrated voters on trade. 

Speaking on the final day of a retreat for donors to the network of groups backed by billionaires Charles and David Koch, the Republican leader cast the current debate in Washington a “fight for the soul of our party and for our country.” He made only oblique references to Republican nominee Donald Trump and instead promised these 400 donors, who give at least $100,000 to the Koch groups, that next year would be one packed with reforms—if Republicans can unify... 

“We are flirting with various forms of progressivism, and there are Republican forms of progressivism. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican,” Ryan said. “We have to thoroughly debunk it, repudiate it.”

This is not the first time that Ryan has made "progressive" into a pejorative:  

Ryan blasts ‘arrogant and condescending’ progressive ideas

He also acknowledged the appeal of the liberal message and the success Democrats have had in peddling their vision to voters. 

“This vision proved compelling,” Ryan said. “It drew thousands of people into government … they seized the moral high ground. They said they were the heirs of the Founders, when in reality, they were the replacements. They said they were for the people. And their opponents? They were for the rich. They were selfish.” 

“Yet the Left keeps winning elections,” Ryan continued. “Why? Well, you can see the appeal. In uncertain times, people look for security. Progressives seem to have an answer … the progressive state offers a sense of security. But it’s a false sense of security because government can’t keep all its promises.”

Final thought: You could say that in Wisconsin, where the Progressive movement was founded and where Scott Walker & Co. are dismantling it, Paul Ryan is Scott Walker's brain. 

Both were invited to attend the Koch retreat.

13th hound lost to wolves during recent WI bear hunt 'training'

[Updated from 8/1] Ten Eleven bear hunting hounds during training runs have been killed by wolves and three more have been injured in less than a month - - along with three additional dog fatalities after encounters with wolves this spring - - the Wisconsin DNR reports in updated information.

The DNR regularly posts and distributes information about the location of wolf pack activity and so-called conflict areas.

Update - - This DNR notice accounts for the 11th death in recent weeks, and note how close the depredation was to another just weeks earlier.

Wolves are territorial and frequent areas for denning, breeding and feeding.

Wisconsin is the only state with sport hunting lobbies strong enough to have won the right for bear hunters with dogs killed by wolves - - even in known wolf activity areas, even 'managed' by scofflaws or hunters with a history of losing dogs to wolves - - to apply for and receive state reimbursements up to $2,500 per depredated dog.

The bear hunting lobby had pushed through a legal wolf season in Wisconsin which also included another in-Wisconsin-only twist - - hunting dogs could chase after wolves, too - - but wolf hunting in Wisconsin and some other states has been barred by a Federal Court since 2014.

Gov. Walker, currying favor with hunting lobbies already in his corner, moved the wolf hunt bill and initial season along quickly, then cut the $100 permit fee in half.

Recent records showed that only 30% of the wolves killed while the hunt was legal were killed by gun hunters, while 70% were finished off with close range shit while snared in leg traps.

Lead Assembly wolf hunt legislative sponsor Joel Kleefisch was so excited about the prospect of dead wolves that he could fantasize about them marinating.

More information, here. 

NY GOP Cong. Collins implies grieving statute of limitation

US Rep. Chris Collins, (R-NY), a Donald Trump surrogate and the first member of Congress to have endorsed Trump for President, seemed to have emphasized in an interview on MSBNC this afternoon that Capt. Humayun Kahn's combat death in Iraq took place in 2004.

Like there's a statute of limitations on grief that Capt. Kahn's parents have violated, or do not understand, and which helps get Trump off the hook for having attacked them?

The gap between Capt. Kahn's 2004 death and today is irrelevant to their grief or to the basic insensitivity being shown to them by Donald Trump.

Wisconsin is corporate heaven; less so for the less-powerful

[Updated from May 21, 2016]:

Dairy interests given insider privileges in process - - public health rules watered down:

Responding to strong complaints from Wisconsin’s dairy industry, the state Department of Natural Resources quietly narrowed the scope of rules it is writing to reduce health hazards from hundreds of millions of gallons of manure spread on farm fields each year. 

An industry representative said the DNR’s initial plan for rule-making would have been much too costly, in part because it would have generally reduced the amount of manure that could be applied per acre, requiring dairy operators to obtain more land.

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No one who saw the film "Field of Dreams" will forget that Kevin Costner says "It's Iowa" when asked by the ghost of his father if the lush, surrounding corn field is heaven.

I fully expect a Wisconsin trade association TV ad crew to rip off that conceit, ask a dairy operator with an industrial-scale milking herd the same question and get back the scripted and so-true response "this is heaven and Wisconsin." 

Why? Because the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources - - backed up by another corporate captive, the Wisconsin Attorney General - - has decided it doesn't have to guarantee drinking water quality near animal feeding operations whose thousands of animals may legally drain the groundwater away without regard for the cumulative impact on downstream waterways and multiple users' needs. 

Look to Walker and the GOP Legislators who never tire of carrying the corporate sector's water successfully lock down their out-in-the-open water resource privatization agenda later in 2016.

Not to mention that factory and farm owners have been basically relieved of paying Wisconsin state income taxes while manufacturing equipment in the state has long been exempted from taxation:

A measure tucked into Gov. Walker’s 2011 budget that effectively eliminated state income taxes on owners of factories and farms in Wisconsin is costing way more than predicted and contributing mightily to the current budget shortfalls.  

The Manufacturing and Agriculture Tax Credit was hailed at the time as a job-creating effort that would let businesses invest the savings in new hires and equipment.  

But recent figures from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau show the credit will cost the state at least $275 million in additional lost tax collections over the next biennium, or more than double what was originally estimated….  

After the credit was included in the budget and signed by Gov. Walker, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce called it the "most exemplary public policy initiative in support of manufacturing in more than 35 years.” 

With the full windfall now coming to fruition:

Wisconsin’s sweeping tax credit that shields manufacturers and farmers from paying state income tax hits its apex this tax year following a three-year implementation plan of progressive rate hikes.

And that dreamy Wisconsin TV ad could be changed to show a power plant executive in front of the smokestack saying heavenly things about Wisconsin, since Walker and the Attorney General are fighting proposed federal clean air rules, and Walker appointees to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission have watered-down the Commission's public service mission by approving huge increases in rate-payers mandatory monthly charges (a poke in the eye also to solar customers) and awarding monopoly operators fat, 10% guaranteed profit margins.

 

Friday, May 27 update, italicized: 

Perhaps the ad could feature Menard's, whose chain of hardware and outdoors supply megastores has just received an environmental award nomination from a business trade association committee committee despite the firm's long record of fines for environmental violations, reports the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign:

A billionaire businessman who set consecutive records for the highest penalties ever paid for environmental violations in Wisconsin has been nominated for an environmental award from the state’s largest business group. 

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce says Menard Inc., which is founded and owned by John Menard Jr., is among 32 businesses nominated for WMC’s Business Friend of the Environment awards. Nine winners will be selected from among the nominees by a panel, which includes representatives from the Department of Natural Resources and the University of Wisconsin... 

Both Menard and his company have paid about $3.9 million in fines over the past 20 years for violating environmental rules.

That's how large big money with friends in high places is allowed to live and prosper in Wisconsin these days.

*  Some of the big health-care institutions in the state are hauling in the big bucks, too, as it was recently reported that many medical services in Wisconsin cost 81% above the national average. My favorite line in this story:

A representative from the Wisconsin Hospital Association was not immediately available for comment.

* And don't forget that faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Marquette University separately have published data showing that to the extent there is job growth in Wisconsin the gain is in low-wage employment.

Meaning simply that if you own a business in Wisconsin, you can pay your employees peanuts.

A reality cemented by Walker's refusal to allow any increase in the rock-bottom minimum wage level of $7.25 an hour - - he's called the concept of a guaranteed minimum wage "lame" - - and by wage-depressing legislation he signed rolling back prevailing, family-supporting pay levels on public works projects, and across the board through a union-and-collective bargaining 'right-to-work' law he also signed and which, despite a lower court injunction, is likely to be upheld by the current Wisconsin Supreme Court whose elected conservative majority is especially beholden to major trade associations.

As you process the news that the conservative majority on the Wisconsin State Supreme Court Justices today validated Wrong-Way Walker's rollbacks of voting and collective bargaining rights - - and that several of the same Justices' campaigns were significantly funded by the WMC and other corporate special interests which also heavily back Walker - - do not forget that these same Justices let the WMC and the Realtors write for the Court a new ethics rule defining - - basically, never - - when recusals were in order by Judges and Justices to reduce conflicts-of-interest and enhance the appearance of fairness. 

Yes, you read that right.

And let's not forget that Walker created and chaired a quasi-public agency that threw millions of dollars in business loans and grants to favored recipients without adequate tracking and oversight - - and WEDC is still mired in scandal without helping Walker created more than 60% of the 250,000 new private-sector jobs he pledged to achieve in his first term - - but has created work for key industry and trade association insiders by naming them to top state government policy-making and senior administration positions, including:

Update: Information released on 5/27 shows that there has been so little oversight at the agency-cum corporate piggy bank that $400,000 in tax credit overpayments has been traced at less than 10% of the 222 companies receiving them which have been reviewed. 

*  The leadership team at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is still run by former home-builder Cathy Stepp. Atty. Matt Moroney, Stepp's long-time Deputy Secretary, is now a Walker staff policy aide; Before his state government work, Monroneyran the Metropolitan Builders Association of Southeast Wisconsin.

*  Pat Stevens, the current DNR bureau chief of air management, waste and some additional duties, had served with the Wisconsin Builders Association, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association. Some details about those who fulfilled Walker's pledge to install a "chamber of commerce mentality" atop the DNR is here.

*  Bob Seitz, a lobbyist for both Americans for Prosperity - - a Koch brothers advocacy group - - and GTac, the mining company which nearly succeeded through a company-influenced bill and law to carry out 35 years of open pit iron ore mining in the water rich Bad River watershed near key Native American rice-growing and other land - - is now the Executive Assistant to the chair of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.

No wonder Charlie Pierce always throws into his Esquire pieces this description of Walker's takedown of Wisconsin:

Governor Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their Midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin...

* GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel hired in 2014 as his top aide a lobbyist who was representing Wal-Mart and a dozen additional businesses and trade associations.

In other words, the Walkerites have used law and policy and political power in Wisconsin - - this GOP/corporate control has been an under-covered, carefully crafted take-over operation - - to tilt benefits and access in a heavenly way towards big business and the executives who own them.

WI GOP Chickensh*t Caucus enabling Trump The Insultmeister

[Updated] Donald Trump - - now scheduled to speak in Green Bay later this week - - is attacking the Muslim couple whose son died protecting Trump's First Amendment right to make an complete ass out of himself - - and The New York Times only yesterday had counted 250 people The Little Generalissimo had already insulted.

But the timid willingness of GOP leaders - - like the Walker/Ryan/Johnson/Duffy/Priebus WI Chickensh*t Caucus to continue enabling and emboldening Trump and his divisive campaign by refusing to withdraw their endorsements - - is equally appalling.

As was recently reported:

Walker: No problem supporting Trump, despite differences