Walker Tweet-forgets his wealthy NYC connections

Scott Walker tweeted a sarcastic dig at Mike Bloomberg on Thursday:

Good move because what a bunch of wealthy, elitist New Yorkers think is exactly what will move voters in America’s heartland! @MikeBloomberg is so out-of-touch with reality outside of New York City and Washington, D.C.

Walker was reacting to a Twitter dust-up between Bloomberg and Trump:

The Hill

@thehill

· 16h

JUST IN: Bloomberg fires back at Trump: New Yorkers "laugh at you & call you a carnival barking clown" http://hill.cm/2RHwCvR

I can remember, before irony had died that Walker helped fund his recall campaign with NYC donations and later chased his presidential fantasy all the way to wealthy elites with New York addresses:

* You'll find several major New York City donors on his presidential campaign donor list.

* Before Walker's bid flamed out, The New York Times had tracked his big-donor appeal:

Roughly half of the nation’s top 250 Republican donors have given money to Mr. Walker in his campaigns for Wisconsin governor, according to an Upshot analysis of Federal Election Commission records and state records. By comparison, 30 percent have given to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, 20 percent to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and 10 percent to Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.

* While most of another story is behind a paywall, The Wall Street Journal noted Walker's earlier successes with New York financiers:

GOP Contender Walker Draws Wall Street Cash

* And there were others, like hedge fund magnates Stephen Cohen and Paul Singer, who supported Walker during his recall battle:

Walker and his fundraisers also solicited money from hedge-fund billionaire Stephen Cohen, who gave the [Wisconsin Club for Growth] $1 million...and hedge-fund manager and Manhattan Institute for Policy Research Chairman Paul Singer, who gave $250,000. 

* Not to mention these folks with whom Walker had hung out with:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is slated to be the “special guest” at a New York Republican Party fundraiser co-hosted by billionaire David Koch next month. 

Invitations to the $1,000-a-plate lunch at New York City’s 21 Club on Nov. 1 have been sent out, billing Walker as a “special guest” at the effort to raise funds for the Empire State’s Republican Party, reported Capitol Tonight, a New York political blog. Guest are invited to contribute $2,500 for lunch and having their picture taken with the Wisconsin governor.  

* Oh, and does this wealthy New Yorker ring a bell, perhaps? 

According to leaked documents from a controversial investigation into Walker’s recall election obtained by The Guardian, Walker had a 45-minute scheduled meeting with Trump in the billionaire’s Manhattan offices on April 3, 2012. Walker was raising funds for Wisconsin Club for Growth, a dark money nonprofit group aiding his campaign, as part of an effort to avoid disclosure laws, contribution limits and solicit corporate contributions. Trump wrote a check to the nonprofit group for $15,000 that same day.

-------------------------

 

Ron Johnson continues his cheerleading for Trump

Comfortable with acquitting Trump of abusing Congress without being informed by a single witness or subpoenaed document, a plastics magnate from Oshkosh and Tea Party cheerleader 

who also masquerades as a United States Senator just refused to cast even a symbolic vote on behalf of his constituents to remind the increasingly-dictatorial President that the power to instigate war conferred by the Constitution rests with the Congress.

Eight Republicans join Democrats to pass Senate measure to limit President Trump's war powers against Iran

The eight Republicans who voted “yes” on the resolution were: Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Todd Young of Indiana. 

Johnson has promised not to spend another six years after 2022 in the Nation's Capital he allegedly finds distasteful, yet even with that kind of freedom from a primary challenge, Johnson cannot and will not break with Trump. Which speaks volumes about his devotion to the leader of what has been aptly called a cult. 

The Cult of Trump

A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind ControlBy Steven Hassan

Vos continues game-playing over leading, legislating

The GOP-led Wisconsin Assembly is like the monopoly cable provider which screws up your service, intentionally ignores a simple repair and then tells you the fix you didn't order includes pay channels you don't want - - and a land line you didn't ask for, either.

This is Speaker Robin Vos's method, too: playing self-serving, party-enriching games rather than performing straight-forward public service.

His latest partisanship-over-policy charade: moving a bill that purportedly would prevent another backlog of untested rape evidence kits like the one created by Brad Schimel, the GOP's defeated State Attorney General.

But rather than simply give Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul the basic procedural tools needed to make sure there will not be another mess like the which Schimel's sloth left behind, Vos's bill throws in some GOP hot-button school choice and immigration items designed to provoke a veto from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers - - no doubt to produce distorted GOP campaign copy later this year designed to put Evers in a negative light.

Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul has been pushing legislation laying out kit protocols for a year.  

He alleges Republicans know the immigration and choice provisions are non-starters with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers but attached them anyway as a means of killing the legislation.

We've seen this Vos tactic before.

Remember when Vos denied Democratic State Rep. Jimmy Anderson the right to easy telephonic participation in certain meetings - - Anderson had suffered paralyzing injuries in a severe car crash - - so Vos's eventual 'solution' to a problem of his own making was...a grudging Assembly rule change which Vos allowed.

It somewhat accommodated Anderson (and Anderson's constituents), but also turned what should have been a simple change into a package of Assembly rule changes that gave incumbent Vos's GOP majority new privileges in other matters, such as additional opportunities to override gubernatorial vetoes.

In other words, Anderson's dilemma was used by Vos and his party to gain partisan advantage and boost GOP leverage against Gov. Evers.

Which cheapened what should have been a simple and humane resolution and degraded the democracy which Vos and his party - - just like their GOP counterparts in Washington - - are devaluing in Wisconsin on a daily basis.

Walker's Trump re-election role makes WI Dem turnout more important

[2/11 update: Attorney General Barr's interference in ongoing cases involving Trump's henchmen is another reminder that candidate Trump - - whom Walker is pushing for re-election - - isn't just placing himself above the law - - he's  smashing it.]
-------------
As the Ron Johnson/Susan Collins/et al enabled Trump continues to contaminate everything he touches - - this time it's the definition of the US Justice Department and role of the AG in a democracy - - it's a good time time to remember that Scott Walker is co-chairing Trump's Wisconsin re-election campaign.

Walker wants to ensure we get for more years of Trump's increasingly dictatorial reign, using Wisconsin's ballot as the tipping point.

The 2020 election has got to reject Trump and the acolytes we've already sidelined.

A Trump 2020 win would elevate Walker again and give generational permanence to a VosGerald corporate welfare state in Wisconsin has which transferred money, power and public resources through gerrymandering to insiders, CEOs, and GOP donors.

The 2018 election was the first Walker defeat; along with sending Trump packing, 2020 in Wisconsin can be provide the vital Walker Defeat 2.0.

GOP-run WI legislative OK with kitchen taps running brown

Wisconsin GOP legislators, bellhops to corporate agriculture, will continue to serve brown tap water to rural constituents and the back of the hand to residents statewide.

Manure flows from a Kewaunee CAFO. It's a repetitive health hazard in several counties statewide.

Consider these two comprehensive proposals in which GOP leadership has no interest:

One Assembly bill would expand eligibility and financing for private well improvements, boost state bonding authority to speed up lead pipe replacement and facilitate other drinking water and environmental upgrades.

0. Under current law, an individual owner or renter of a contaminated private well may apply for a grant from DNR to cover a portion of the costs to treat the water, reconstruct the well, construct a new well, connect to a public water supply, or fill and seal the well.
1. 
   
2. To be eligible for a grant the well owner's or renter's annual family income may not exceed $65,000. A grant awarded under the program may not pay more than 75 percent of a project's eligible costs and may not pay any portion of eligible costs in excess of $16,000. 
   
   In addition, if the well owner's or renter's annual family income exceeds $45,000, the amount of the award is reduced by 30 percent of the amount by which the annual family income exceeds $45,000.
   
   The bill increases the family income limit to $100,000 [and] a well owner or renter whose family income is below the state's median income may receive a grant of up to 100 percent of a project's eligible costs, not to exceed $16,000. 
   
   The bill also eliminates the requirement to reduce an award by 30 percent if the well owner's or renter's family income exceeds $45,000 [and] increases the amount appropriated to DNR for payments under this program by $1,600,000.

A second Assembly bill would provide more clean water funding through an increase in the ridiculously-insufficient annual Wisconsin CAFO operating fee of $345, in addition to other anti-contamination measures

...the bill creates several sum sufficient appropriations to ensure rapid response time for the State Laboratory of Hygiene to perform testing relating to water contamination; for DNR and the Department of Health Services to perform emergency testing of public and private water supplies near areas of known contamination from perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)....

These measures to bring about safer drinking water face three, fatal obstacles:

* The bills have no Republican co-sponsors.

* The GOP is politically-attached to CAFO proliferation.

Vos, Fitzgerald go to bat for 'existing and expanding CAFO operations'

* The legislative session is drawing to a close, which guarantees that common sense measures from safer state water supplies to vital assistance homeless kids and veterans - - during the winter - - will remain delayed, ignored and buried.

All of which underscores the need for a clean sweep of legislators this November who draw a state salary but won't a priority on basic human needs. 

GOP attacks 'socialism' - while shoveling state benefits to wealthy allies

The GOP noise machine continues its attack on Bernie Sander's Democratic Socialism.

Walker's been at it. Ron Johnson, too, on Twitter last March:

Understanding the risk of Democrat socialistic tendencies should provide motivation to re-elect Republicans up and down the ballot in November 2020. #wiright

Even the State Assembly Speaker proved that the Junior Varsity got the talking point and turned it into a mud ball aimed at Gov. Evers:

As President Ronald Reagan once said, “As government expands, liberty contracts.” He also said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Republicans in the legislature won’t forget Ronald Reagan’s sentiments. We won’t let government grow out of control and we won’t let socialism to take root in our state. 

For the record, let's remind these Badger State apologists for corporate socialism of rhe millions and billions they have shoveled to their friends and campaigns.
 

Amazon, expanding in Wisconsin, pays zero in federal taxes.

Amazon, already open in Kenosha County with the help of substantial public subsidies, will also scooping up similar subsidies as it prepares an expansion to Oak Creek. 

Ron Johnson bad mouths Socialism. Except when it works for him.

Johnson says The Democratic Party chose Milwaukee for its "socialistic tendencies" - - but I don't recall any such negativity when Johnson's company received $4 million in low-interest lending through a government-sponsored financing program, and, separately, benefited from a $75,000 federal grant for rail line construction.

Wisconsin's $4.1 billion Foxconn boondoggle 

Gov. Scott Walker promised billions to get a Foxconn factory, but now he’s running away from it

Foxconn smashes Walker's crystal ball

On August 2nd, Walked took to Twitter and raised the ante to "at least 13,000 jobs."

Wisconsin landed Foxconn – and with it comes at least 13,000 good-paying, family-supporting jobs throughout the state! Check out the direct impact it’s having on northeastern Wisconsin and circle back here tomorrow for even more! 

And while Walker says the contract he signed before the voters booted him out of office is "iron clad," here's a recent video where he easily shrugs off Foxconn only creating half the jobs he and the company repeatedly promised.  

A complete Foxconn archive is here. 

Lack of alerts abets Wisconsin's dirty drinking water crisis

If justice delayed is justice denied, what do we call years of delay in simply setting up a system to get the word out to local officials that a feedlot is polluting nearby drinking water?

Case in point:

There has been recent reporting that the Wisconsin Legislature is finally close to implementing a system that would require the DNR to notify county officials within seven days if a health hazard has been detected.

The bill would also require the DNR to create a notification system for county health departments, county land conservation departments and residents who sign up for alerts of water standard violations.

Seven days? Why not seven minutes or seven hours?

But you say, well, this is still progress.

Until you realize that there was an uproar about the lack of required notifications which I wrote about in 2017:

Now the La Crosse Tribune is reporting that Scott Walker's 'chamber of commerce mentality' DNR has no policy in place to let people know that contamination is coming their way: 

Sadly, we need to keep expressing concerns about enforcement of clean water regulations, because the Tribune’s report last week on elevated nitrate levels near a huge hog operation in La Crosse County was very troubling — and the DNR’s response to the potential groundwater problem is embarrassing.

Babcock Genetics has a permit to raise more than 4,000 hogs in the town of Holland near Holmen. 

Since at least 2005, according to a report by the Legislative Audit Bureau, the nitrate levels measured in test wells near the hog operation have exceeded limits set by the state — as much as five times that limit as recently as 2010.  

Here’s what DNR spokesman Jim Dick told the Tribune: “The DNR doesn’t have a policy regarding notifying municipalities or private well owners in the vicinity when a CAFO violates a permit.”

I suspect that Kewaunee County clean water activist Nancy Utesch would say, as she did more than a year ago, and again several months ago, that this is more of what's way overdue:

Months ago, Kewaunee County clean water activist Nancy Utesch said enough was enough.

We asked the US Environmental Protection Agency for an investigation into the cause and source of well water contamination in our 2014 Safe Drinking Water Act petition, but the EPA has yet to address it... 

Central Sands has the Wysocki CAFO. We have 16 CAFOs. Wisconsin should long ago have stopped acting confused as to the cause and source of known, widespread contamination and moved instead to protect Kewaunee County residents and water resources of people statewide... 

Without real investigations, will we ever know the full extent and costs from the illness and suffering resulting from agribusiness here? 

Why has it taken this long?

We have waited long enough. 

Vos-Gerald, awakened by Evers, discover WI farm crises

Well, well, well.

After ignoring farm bankruptcies and small dairy operators' crises during their power-sharing reign with Governor DoNothing, GOP legislative leaders Vos and Fitzgerald now want to outdo Gov. Evers who has proposed a comprehensive aid and reform package.

Set aside for a moment that the GOP plan is heavy on their all-purpose, election-year bumper-sticker-drive favorite handout - - tax breaks - - and the underlying question, 'is that really what businesses plummeting income really need down the road? - - and look at the teeth-grinding hypocrisy that underlies the Vos-Gerald bid and overlooks what they and Walker tolerated when they ruled - - 

So here's the state of the Dairy State in one new headline:

More than 4% of Wisconsin Dairy Farms Call It Quits in 2018—So Far

Meaning that almost two WI dairy farms are closing every day this year - - 382 through July 31.

Echoing this late 2017 headline:

Western Wisconsin Had Most Farm Bankruptcies in the US

While Gov. Walker helps expand the big CAFO dairy operations, embraces the Tariff King who's closing off export markets, and assigns no priority to stemming the leap in farm-country well-water and waterway contamination.

- - to principally overshadow Evers' initiative.

Remember that Vos-Gerald are the same two captive enablers of Big Ag special interests who just three months ago signed a public letter - - you can see and read it here - -

Vos, Fitzgerald go to bat for 'existing and expanding CAFO operations'

- - lauding the continued expansion of the very industrial-scale /groundwater-draining/drinking water contaminating/barely-regulated dairying operations known as CAFOs whose production and state-promoted, politically-driven market advantages have helped push small farms and dairies out of business.

I noted Walker and his party's ideologically-driven ag policy failure in part nine -

Walker's 8-year war on Wisconsin's environment. Part 9. CAFOs 

You may remember that I began this series focusing on moves Walker made in the first hours of his administration to ease wetland protections and even to suspend the rules so a campaign donor could quickly get a permit to fill and wetland and build a development.

Fast forward to this year, when Wisconsin Democracy Campaign discovered that major Walker donors were getting permits basically in perpetuity to acquire all the groundwater they wanted to fuel their CAFOs.

The bigger the CAFOs, the bigger the Walker-driven supply/over-supply of milk, driving out smaller farms and leaving the big operators more ready to weather that storm.

Here is a link to the entire, 21-part series, and finally summary takes note of perhaps-forgotten Vos play to protect CAFOs, including one of Wisconsin's largest, from a modicum of public-interest oversight:

Begin with what I wrote in December 30, 2010, in this blog's third year but only hours before Walker's first-term swearing-in:

Stepping on open space, wetlands, forests

For the environment in Wisconsin, this is the day the music died.

With anti-DNR zealot Cathy Stepp's preposterous (read: management by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the home builders organizations) nomination as Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources, Walker's legacy as the environmental destroyer of the land of Gaylord Nelson, John Muir and Aldo Leopold has begun.

Then take note of this unbelievable, no, very believable story published just yesterday about Walker's DNR, aided by GOP AG Brad Schimel and GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos:

Wisconsin permits wells in areas judge ruled pumping would harm trout streams

I'd written about this lever-pulling-industry-to Vos-to-Schimel-to the DNR-and back-to-industry-judiciary-and-the-public-be-damned network before, and it's back. Because it never left.

Wisconsin officials tilt land, water, conservation to corporate goals

...Including [Schimel's] issuance of a favorable opinion that granted large-scale groundwater withdrawals to big operators which they had openly demanded GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos deliver. 

While Wisconsin is abusing, over pumping and contaminating our groundwater, the Legislature's GOP Assembly Leader Robin Vos - - a leading Wisconsin corporate water-carrier - - is seeking an opinion from GOP Attorney General and fellow corporate water-carrier Brad Schimel that could turn over more groundwater to corporate control and away from public oversight...

And big business hasn't been shy about its demands, noted in October:

A pretty stunning memo was sent last week by multiple trade groups and corporate special interests to the State Legislature in advance of today's hearing about the fast-tracked Wisconsin water giveaway bill I wrote about yesterday that puts groundwater and downstream users' access in private hands.

Here is the full text of the Vos request...

Remember - - the State Constitution says the waters of Wisconsin belong to everyone and the DNR is obligated to put the public's rights first.

Trump's 'Eighth-Wonder-of-The-World' SOTU speech

When Trump riffed and rambled and repeated self-aggrandizing lies in his State of the Union Speech Tuesday - -  

President Trump’s State of the Union speech once again was chock-full of stretched facts and dubious figures. Many of these claims have been fact-checked repeatedly, yet the president persists in using them. Here, in the order in which he made them, are 31 statements by the president.

- - all I heard was an expanded version of the FUBAR Foxconn fiasco he came here selling as "The Eighth Wonder of The World."

 

Wisconsin's Massive Foxconn Boondoggle is Getting Worse

Eight years of preening, self-serving 'Eighth Wonder of The World' propaganda is dangerous and unthinkable.

Lower Menominee River cleanup hailed while big open-pit mine upriver nears approval

Imagine you live on a popular lake where authorities have finally cleaned up a chemical complex's contamination - - only to find out clean water 'regulators' are going to let an insecticide factory build on the other side of the water.

OK - - not an actual insecticide factory - - just a deed, open-pit metals mine which could release pollutants into a river listed in 2017 as one of America's Most Endangered.

In recognition of Earth Day, the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin applauded American Rivers, a Washington D.C.-based conservation group, for including the Menominee River to its 2017 America’s Most Endangered Rivers List.

According to the Menominee Indian Tribe, the conservation group included the Menominee River to the list because of the proposed Back Forty Mine, which is planned to be an open metallic, sulfide mine located 150 feet from the banks of the river, near Lake Township, Michigan. 

Read on.

The Wisconsin DNR Monday is hailing the long effort to remova pollutants from the Lower Menominee River, a federally-designated waterway Area of Concern, or AOC.

MADISON, Wis. - After 30 years of pollution cleanup and restoration efforts, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) are proposing to remove the Lower Menominee River Area of Concern from a list of the 43 most polluted places on the Great Lakes.

Sources of pollutants were controlled by improving industry practices and removing contaminated sediments within the boundaries of the AOC. Cleanup efforts took place at the Lloyd Flanders paint sludge site from 1993 through 1998, where 30 million pounds of hazardous waste and contaminated sediment were removed from Green Bay. 

Major cleanup in the Lower Menominee River included removing 302,000 cubic yards of arsenic-impacted sediments at the Ansul/Tyco site, plus removing 15,000 cubic yards of coal tar wastes at the Wisconsin Public Service Corporation site between 2012 and 2015. The final AOC cleanup step was removing 59,000 cubic yards of contaminated and excess sediment from Menekaunee Harbor from 2014 through 2015.

In addition to pollution cleanup, many habitat restoration projects were also completed in the AOC. For example, fish passage was restored over the Park Mill and Menominee dams in 2016, returning an 18-mile stretch of prime spawning habitat for lake sturgeon. More than 133 acres of shorelands, wetlands and uplands were restored at Menekaunee Harbor and the South Channel, providing vital habitat for fish, birds and other wildlife. 

Yet we know that Michigan and the US EPA want to approve a permitting process to allow a heavily-contaminating sulfide mining project on the same river upstream:

Wisconsin activists again take to Michigan media over toxic mining planned for the Menominee River along the WI-WI border. Note the comment process link, too:

Alert citizens are warning us that an ill-advised proposal for a massive metallic sulfide gold mine located on the banks of the Menominee River, an important tributary of Lake Michigan, would bring intolerable and long lasting risks...

The Walker 'chamber of commerce mentality' DNR had disengaged from any regulatory interest even though the project would threaten state water supplies and native culture. 

More from the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, here: 

As a result of our undeniable ties and long occupation of the Menominee River area, we have numerous sacred sites and burial mounds up and down the Menominee River, including the area of the proposed Back Forty Mine.... we also know that water is essential to life. 

The Menominee River is, in fact, the very origin of life for the Menominee people. It also provides life to Michigan and Wisconsin residents and the natural wildlife within the Great Lakes ecosystem. 

The harmful threats to this area and all who depend on it far outweigh the corporate interests of a Canadian exploratory company and justify the denial of the necessary permits for the proposed mine. 

The Menominee Nation is steadfast in its opposition to the proposed mine and its commitment to preserving the Menominee River. We ask you to stand in solidarity with us as we continue our fight to protect our place of origin, our sacred sites, the wildlife, water and environment for future generations. 

Walker's DNR had waived any interest in intervening, though there has been bi-partisan opposition in Wisconsin since 2017:

Bi-partisan opposition to the proposed mine is growing in Northeast Wisconsin due to increasing concerns about the potential harm it could cause to the Menominee River and Green Bay as well as the employees and businesses that depend on those waterways for their livelihood.  Several city councils and county boards including Brown County and the City of Marinette have passed similar resolutions opposing the mine.

“[State Senator Dave] Hansen said...."Because it is a sulfide mine the potential for great harm to our lakes, rivers and Green Bay is significant. 

The mine could result in polluting the river, the Bay and area drinking water, not to mention the harm it could have on our area tourism industry and the families who earn their living from it.”

And Walker's DNR in 2017 had fallen into line. Call it regional 'cooperation.'

Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources has no authority over Aquila permitting. However, a DNR staff review of a permit Aquila was issued in April to discharge storm water and treated waste water into the Menominee River indicated it met Wisconsin standards, said DNR spokesman Jim Dick.

More data, sources and citations are here:

• The open pit would be as deep as five Statues of Liberty standing on top of each other. Milling would leave behind a permanent tailings impoundment at least 140 feet tall, with walls made of (reactive) waste rock, holding 4.9 million cubic meters of wet tailings. The tailings dam uses the risky “upstream” design that has resulted in catastrophic dam failures around the world. The mine’s total footprint covers 1087 acres....

• Because the Back Forty would be a sulfide mine, it threatens to leach sulfuric acid, which is extremely hazardous to freshwater rivers, lakes, streams and groundwater. The Center for Science in Public Participation warns that the mine’s “ARD (Acid Rock Drainage) risk is very high. Most material contains sulfides… (…) All tailings are expected to generate acid, with the exception of tailings produced in year 3 of mining. Additionally, over 75% of the waste rock is expected to generate acid.” Sulfide mining could pollute groundwater or devastate the Menominee River, which drains into Lake Michigan.

And there is additional, related information at this blog post: 

The corrupted behavior of federal and Michigan officials and the environmental protection agencies they have handed over to corporate control is now on full display as toxic metallic mining appears imminent on the shoreline of the Menominee River - - 

- - and close to Lake Michigan, the Detroit Free Press is reporting.

Upper Peninsula mine approved despite major concerns from DEQ and EPA staff, records show

Over and over, Michigan environmental regulators sounded alarms as they reviewed a proposed large, open-pit ore mine in the Upper Peninsula near the Menominee River, prized for walleye fishing and a major tributary to Lake Michigan.  

The mine would send acidic mining wastes into the river and surrounding waterways, which would then spill into the Great Lake, staff said. More acres of wetlands would be harmed than the mining company was projecting, evaluators found.

Then the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and then-Michigan Department of Environmental Quality approved the mine anyway.

I have followed this threat to the Menominee River and posting about it several times, including here and earlier, here.

Mine opponents put up this display on Lakeshore State Park visible from Summerfest in 2017.  

Say, Ron Johnson: Sen. Albert Gore Sr. had a message for you

2/5/2020 update from 2/3: Sherrod Brown gets it right on Trump's impeachment trial, again:

In Private, Republicans Admit They Acquitted Trump Out of Fear

One journalist remarked to [Brown], “How in the world can these senators walk around here upright when they have no backbone?” 

----------------------------------

The message is a half-century old, but it should be must-reading for Sen. Johnson 


and his equally contemptible GOP partners in self-serving impeachment trial dereliction of duty.

I found the message in a very readable new book which Ohio Democratic US Senator Sherrod Brown has published about American history, progressive legislation and the US Senate.

The book is cleverly organized around biographies of eight Senators who had occupied the Senate chamber desk at which Brown now sits:

Desk 88: Eight Progressive Senators Who Changed America

Senators inscribe their names in their desks' drawers; Brown picked Desk 88 because some of his heroes - - among them Hugo Black, Robert Kennedy, Wisconsin's Bill Proxmire, and George McGovern - - had previously occupied it.

(Disclosure: Sen. McGovern was my father-in-law)

(Separate side Note: the chapter on Bill Proxmire is stand-alone must reading for students of Wisconsin political history, as Proxmire's career touched, or overlapped with the Madison Capital Times, Joe McCarthy and plenty of other Wisconsin political figures whom Brown includes.)

Brown appends after each chapter personal interactions, where available. which he'd had with his subject, and adds evaluations and criticisms which give his book an even-handed credibility.

And now for the message in Brown's book which at least 51 Republican Senators should read to their shame (I am giving Maine's Susan Collins and Utah's Mitt Romney a pass, for now).  

The same day last week when the GOP-run Senate - - including Wisconsin's Ron Johnson - -  gave Trump a pass at the expense of the mission of the Senate, I read these concluding lines about the Senate career of Democratic Sen. Albert Gore in 1970.

The Tennesseean had lost his bid for a fourth term as the south was turning deeply rightwing, reactionary and Republican, but left behind an admonition for today, which Brown has passed on:

After his defeat, Gore wrote: "A senator can ill afford to forget he is a politician, but, above all else, he must always remember that he is a senator. Unless he can meet this test he should never have been elected in the first place."

As I said, Brown acknowledges his subjects' shortcomings, and finds fault with Gore's civil rights and labor records, but moralizing Gore's directive is an historian's gift.

On Senate floor, RoJo's stance was, nothing to see. Like the incumbency he hid.

So Wisconsin's senior 'US Senator' 

helped block that body's acceptance of witnesses and evidence which documented the behavior for which Trump was impeached and about which Johnson had direct knowledge:

Despite Involvement, Sen. Ron Johnson Will Not Recuse Himself From Impeachment Trial

That's about what you'd expect from a politician who ran for re-election to the Senate in 2016 by pretending he was still an outsider, not an incumbent

Roll Call reported:

Republican Ron Johnson is a first-term U.S. senator from Wisconsin. The voters back home wouldn’t know it watching his re-election campaign’s first TV ad...It doesn’t once mention his work as a lawmaker or even identify him as a senator...

The Republican’s re-election ad is carefully designed to give viewers the impression that he’s not already a senator. 

In the spot, Johnson makes literally no references to any work he’s done while in office; he doesn’t identify himself as a senator; he doesn’t note any Senate achievements; and he doesn’t mention that he’s running for re-election.

Instead, the far-right Wisconsin lawmaker and committee chairman boasts in the ad, in the present tense, “I manufacture plastic,...” 

He goes on to say, “I’ve stayed put, right here in Oshkosh, for 37 years.” Left unmentioned: the last six years in which he’s been a powerful Beltway insider.

Represent the people? Respect an oath of office?

Contempt for both apparently feels better.