If you want to read some fine writing about life and life in a newsroom, make sure you read this posting by Dom Noth today on the passing of his remarkable brother and fellow journalist Pierre-Rene Noth.
For those of you thought it inaccurate to call Walker's inaugural address goals "twisted." or who thought this blog item last week unfairly attributed "Soviet-model" to GOP/Walker administration plans and tactics, consider this timely example:
The State Journal has found that the final report of a state task force on tax reform chaired by Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch - - I'd earlier dismissed its 'work' - - had omitted data and citizen comment that contradicted the Walker administration's tax-cutting narrative, rendering the task force conclusion propagandized and bogus:
A series of tax reform roundtables Gov. Scott Walker’s administration conducted a year ago resulted in a fairly predictable 19-page report last month. (Spoiler alert: The public thinks taxes are too high and the tax code is too complicated.)
But a review of more than 300 online comments submitted as part of the process revealed at least one glaring omission from the final report: Almost as many people said they opposed further tax cuts as said they want lower property taxes.
If that isn't outright propagandizing, tell me what is.
If there's one thing you can count on today, Bucky, it's hearing self-serving spin from Scott Walker when he's sworn in as Governor and intentionally uses the resources of the state for personal, partisan self-promotion.
It will be the predictable new chapter in the story of a career politician who has made no secret of his ambition, even benefiting from a secret Internet communication system, secret campaign financing and coordination. secret illegal campaigning by staffers and secret defense fund donations to keep his ambitious path on track.
Tonight in his inauguration address he will twist, buff and otherwise camouflage his eerie blend of personal arrogance and policy mediocrity to tout - - :
* a consistent job-creation ranking in the bottom third of the states for four years;
* a jobs agency he conjured and chairs that has made more shaky loans, lost track of more money and suffered more top resignations than Lehman Brothers;
* only about half the 250,000 jobs he promised during that time;
* a multi-billion dollar projected budget shortfall;
- - and he will lipstick this dysfunctional mess as robotic GOP legislators and other acolytes bellow in unison into a 'big, bold' achievement available for sale to Tea Party voters by upscale consultants and their Fox TV allies who call word-smithed talking points and teleprompter propaganda 'news that's fair and balanced.'
Under Walker, Wisconsin has missed the full measure of the national recovery, in part because Walker from day one has been most dedicated to positioning himself as the anti-Obama regardless of the impact on people and jobs and quality of life in the state - - no increase in the minimum wage, no Amtrak rail-construction, equipment assembly and maintenance jobs and service extension, no state-sponsored Obamacare website, no expanded Medicaid funding, no added food stamp funding, no full unemployment compensation cushion, no functioning water quality program, diminished wind and solar power production and employment - - than in coordinating state, federal and business resources and best practices to clean the air, lift wages, expand health care, strengthen family stability and the cement the state's appeal as a relocation, employment, education or tourism destination.
Our job is educating the public and media about the pathological impact Walker has had on the state.
If we are successful, Walker will wilt in the sunlight, though we will have to absorb the full burden of his policies for four more years.
[Updated] The forecast for plunging temperatures got me thinking about the proposed GTac iron ore mine in Northwestern Wisconsin near Lake Superior, where last year, during very cold weather, people got a view of the ice cave phenomenon and an even greater appreciation of the big lake's beauty.
Which got me thinking that later this year, unless prevented by the collapse of iron ore prices, GTac might formally submit an application for a permit to deforest and dynamite the Penokee Hills near Lake Superior, dig what could become the world's largest open-pit iron ore mine.
And dump untold millions of tons of waste rock and other debris across 3,300 acres of pristine wetlands, lakes, streams in the Bad River and Lake Superior watersheds.
I note that Wisconsin's Ojibwe are holding a conference this week about alternatives to such mining - - an event worth following, given that:
* In a moment of unexpected candor, the mine's lead legislative supporter admitted it would damage the environment and the bill had been written to signal that very legislative intent to any judge asked to rule on it. * That legislator, State Sen. Tom Tiffany, (R-Hazelhurst), agreed at the request of the Governor's office to be the bill's go-to-guy with lobbyists, and later authored a companion bill and law that closed from public access forest land surrounding the potential mine site even though the land had received property tax subsidies in exchange for the access.
* The bill also contained language lifted from a contemporaneous anti-environmental law that made it easier to fill Wisconsin wetlands - - despite multiple assurances to the contrary by GOP legislators who said they would never do such a thing. * Among the conditions the mining company said were mandatory - - a requirement that mandates state regulators complete complex mine permit reviews in a relatively brief time frame. This is ironically called "streamlining," when actual streams would be filled with waste and debris in the millions of tons if the mine is approved.
* To make matters worse - - literally, legally and morally - - the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources - - now intentionally run by what Walker called a "chamber-of-commerce mentality - - says on its wetlands mitigation website that when damage is done to wetlands - - damage now made more likely through de-regulation and relaxed enforcement - - proximity to the damage is the least preferred of the "avenues" for compensatory environmental repairs, or so-called "mitigation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Types of compensatory mitigation
Wetland Mitigation Banking A wetland individual permit applicant can purchase credits from an approved bank to satisfy their compensatory mitigation requirement.
In–lieu fee program A wetland individual permit applicant can purchase credits from the DNR sponsored WI Wetland Conservation Trust in–lieu fee program to satisfy their compensatory mitigation requirement.
Permittee Responsible Mitigation A wetland individual permit applicant can satisfy their compensatory mitigation requirement by completing a mitigation project within the same watershed service area or within a half mile of the permitted unavoidable wetland adverse impact.
The new Wisconsin regulations identify participation in mitigation banking and in–lieu fee programs as the preferred avenues to satisfying compensatory mitigation requirements. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PolitiFact took a look at the ten most-read reviews of Governor and Eagle Scout Scott Walker's statements and found six had been rated "false." Two were "true" and two were "mostly true." Not many people survive professionally or academically with 60-40 false-to-true ratings or evaluations, do they? My favorite, given the spate of stories about the state's looming budget deficit, came with the kind of emphatic detail from Walker that often accompanies whoppers:
4. In a debate with Burke, Walker said, "The next state budget will begin with a surplus of over half a billion dollars -- $535 million to be exact."
We rated that False. That rosy number flew in the face of the official estimate based on a long-established method used by members of both parties, and the governor’s budget office.
[Updated from Friday, 12:54 p.m.] Wisconsin's far-right Republican leaders serving Gov. Scott Walker and his ideological funders cut early voting hours and approved a restrictive and suppressionist voter ID bill to tighten their grip on all three branches of government.
They also adopted a redistricting law to perpetuate gerrymandered districts that were mapped out in private attorneys' offices with legislators required to sign confidentiality oaths before they were shown what their districts' boundaries might look like.
Now they are moving towards two additional power grabs which need far more media scrutiny and citizen opposition as Walker uses his state paid website in Revered Leader style for a propaganda production timed to insert a raised profile into partisan presidential primaries and caucuses:
Her unpardonable sins? Liberalism and, more specifically, her unwillingness to line up in support of Walker's Act 10 surprise destruction of a half-century of state-approved public-sector collective bargaining.
The Republican solution in search of its Chief Justice problem, even thought right now the high court regularly approves the right's agenda by 4-3 or 5-2 majorities, and has adopted a procedural code governing conflicts-of-interest written by some of the same conservative organizations who put several of the justices, the Governor and key legislators in office?
Establish a mandatory retirement age, perhaps 75, and require any judge's resignation once that age was passed, even if that mark is hit prior to the end of the term to which the voters had approved.
It's a two-pronged attack, with a related strategy to end the state's practice of choosing the chief justice by seniority.
None of the Republicans pushing this proposal have the guts or integrity to admit what they are up to.
They talk about the need to implement a state constitutional provision which says the Legislature should to establish a mandatory retirement age - - something legislators' for years have correctly shown no interest in adopting because a) there is no need for it, and b) no sane legislator back in the day would have dreamed of undoing the actions of the electorate and thereby suggesting that voters - - especially older voters who vote routinely in big numbers - - know what they were doing when they cast ballots for judges and justices.
An investigation that emerged from its first phase that led to guilty pleas by a half-dozen Walker aides, associates or donors.
As with the scheme to remove the Chief Justice, or a redistricting plan hatched in secret and blasted by a Federal court judge nominated by Pres. Ronald Reagan, or ham-handed moves to end weekend voting hours that made it harder to vote in Wisconsin, Republicans are no longer guided by such pesky, red-white-and-blue matters as fairness, appearances or even a gesture towards bipartisanship.
Right now, the Republicans running Wisconsin have but one, all red goal: holding and embedding partisan power for corporate, special-interest servitude.
And they are willing to scrub off the books the results of traditional, legal elections - - even the election of the state's most senior justice on its court of last resort.
Or as staffers at the Governor's Mansion are calling the trip purportedly tied to Milwaukee's water technology hub: The Looming Ham Sandwich Drought. I mean, he won't be tweeting this from Jerusalem:
And by the way, there's no ham in hamtashen. But seriously, there's an up side to the completely non-political trip Walker says he put off for years when it wasn't politically-necessary: forcing him to tout he city he's bashed and drained of public school funding, Amtrak jobs, crime-fighting tools and transit options. Walker could use a broader world view: He's always thought the Middle East was between Zaffiro's Pizza on Farwell Ave. and Ella's on Cathedral Square, and occupied territory has meant the Village of Shorewood, Madison's west side or the Marquette neighborhood. But there are bigger challenges: * Walker will have to sound sincere - - there's a problem already - - about the virtues of clean water opportunities in Wisconsin when he and his administration have relaxed water quality enforcement, enabled polluters, and greased the skids for a huge, acid-leaching open-pit mine in pristine northwestern Wisconsin that will degrade the Bad River watershed and threaten Lake Superior. * And he will have to hope that The Google in Israel can't track "Walker...Act 10...divide-and-conquer...right-to-work...minimum wage...'" because Israel has a long tradition of trade unionism and even has - - gasp!! - - a Labor Party. So Molotov with all that, Governor. P.S. Investor Sheldon Adelson sends his blessing.
I've noted on more than one occasion that our mono-manically ambitious Governor will tax and otherwise humiliate the poor to advance a compassion-free career agenda.
In fact, Walker's wasteful and stigmatizing proposal to remove food stamp from recipients who couldn't present a drug-free urine sample - - modeled after a wasteful and stigmatizing law in Florida already struck down by an appeals court - - just made The Washington Post's of 2014's worst policy ideas.
He uses the word in a discussion of his evolving politics.
According to a documented review of his post-high school career, Walker lost a run for Marquette student body President in 1988 and dropped out of college in the spring of 1990. He was 34 credits, or slightly more than two semesters short of the 128 credits needed for his triple major.
Walker's campaign acknowledged his early departure from school with a 2.59 grade point average; he has steadfastly declined to release his transcript.
So let the record show that Walker did let "compassionate" slip from his lips nearly a quarter-century ago.
There are plenty of takeaways from a fascinating video posted by blogger Jud Lounsbury on the Uppity Wisconsin platform which shows a 1992 public TV debate between a young Scott Walker representing the Republican Party and David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard turned-GOP Louisiana state legislator. Duke is back in the news because a prominent Republican politician from Louisiana who is now the GOP whip, or #3 leader, in the US House of Representatives, was recently revealed to have spoken at a Duke-organized while supremacy conference. But back to the Wisconsin video: Duke was running in the 1992 Republican presidential primaries against President George H. W. Bush; Walker's role in the TV debate was to explain why the GOP was trying keep the ex-Klan leader off the Wisconsin GOP presidential primary ballot. (Duke ultimately won a lawsuit to get on the ballot but got less than 3% of the Wisconsin GOP primary vote, and didn't siphon serious attention from Bush, either.) It fell to Walker to do a dance as the party's fall guy that was filled with inconsistencies and stumbles, including a) condemning Duke's views as a former Klan leader - - OK, so far - - but then b) declining to label Duke's then-contemporary views on some issues as extreme - - uh, oh and - - c) defaulting to blaming the media - - oh, no, you didn't!- - for his party's PR mess. Nearly every caller to the show after Duke and Walker had laid out their respective positions on a ballot position for Duke backed Duke's politics and/or his right to a ballot spot, and slammed Walker and the party, with a satisfied and pretty confident Duke looking on. He even said Walker and GOP party bosses were behaving like Russian communist party bosses. Ouch. Here's where I think the video's value lies: * It's an early window into Walker's signature reflex to dodge and point fingers when the going gets tough. Walker's finger-pointing, blame-the-media, talking-point driven performance was reminiscent of the end of his failed, scandal-plagued student body presidential campaign four years earlier, and it hasn't stopped since. The latest example: Walker is blaming his inability to make and announce a decision on a possible new casino in Kenosha on agreements made by former Governor Jim Doyle - - out of office for four years. \
The distinction we're making is not one of saying his issues are extreme, they certainly are not.
Stick with the tape as Walker labors unsuccessfully to make some sort of procedural analogy to a 1988 irrelevancy involving Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. And, separately, Walker failed to wiggle his way out of the contradiction posed by the GOP's comfort with letting Pat Buchanan and his extremist baggage onto the 1992 primary ballot while trying to block Duke. Here's one list with plenty of Buchanan's pre-1992 examples of anti-minority and Jewish remarks. According to Walker, the tolerance for Buchanan's place on the had to do with how many times the accusations had been made, leaving Duke and his callers free to seize open election and ballot access high ground.
* Finally: listen as Duke explains his appeal at the time to some GOP voters on key issues - - welfare, affirmative action, immigration, Big Government - - and think about how similar those positions are to today's basic GOP/Tea Party message.
Final thought: It's interesting that there is at least one posting about this video dating to at 2012. I'd missed that - - but the writer did not miss one inescapable conclusion: Duke "mopped the floor with Walker."
To its uncharitable chief executive with his inflexible and unflinching certitude, "pardon me" these days in Wisconsin is only relevant in a crowded check-out lane, but still funny in an NRA kind of way, the always political Walker notes:
One issue on which Walker stood firm was his refusal, alone among at least the past six Wisconsin governors, to grant pardons to persons convicted of crimes. He feels strongly that he should not be able to "discount" the workings of the justice system by exercising this power, adding that systems of redress are already in place for those wrongfully convicted.
Walker said he most commonly gets pardon requests on behalf of people who made some youthful indiscretion but turned their lives around and now want to be able to go hunting with their children. He wonders, "What about all those other individuals who may not have an advocate but who have equally turned their lives around?"
Besides, he noted, somewhat jokingly, individuals barred from gun possession due to felony convictions can still bow hunt.
I've asked some grassroots Wisconsin activists whose groups have been featured on this blog to send a year-end updates. For example, I posted earlier this week about an effort to protect Dane County wetlands from further development. Here's a report from Kewaunee County, where people are confronting Concentrated Animal Feed Operations, (CAFO's), pollution impacts on land, water and air:
A Year of Success in Kewaunee County
The sentiment of a healthy discussion is appreciated but the views of Kewaunee County citizens are jaded at the moment. 2013 was a year of hell for our county as citizens watched as Hall's Calf Ranch was rewarded with a CAFO permit after years of polluting, CAFOs sued a township trying to preserve their water, a 76,000,000 gallon lagoon was installed, Dueschers CAFO was fined for years of violations, manure spray irrigation was proposed and 33% of our wells were found to be polluted.
A quick flip through Restore Kewaunee archives led me to a December 2013 a posting that laid out what the plans were for 2014. Let's see how we did:
December 2014 a group of concerned citizens established Restore Kewaunee, a website, blog and social media effort specifically designed to bring attention to industrial agriculture's impact on health and quality of life in Kewaunee County.
On Jan. 14, 2014 the WDNR renewed the Wisconsin Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (WPDES) permit at Ebert Dairy Enterprises, LLC. The permit allowed for the use of irrigation equipment to land apply manure or process wastewater as part of WDNR funded research. A group of Kewaunee County citizens petitioned the DNR's decision which moved the research and postponed manure irrigation in our county.
The Kinnards Dairy permit hearing took place in February 2013 followed by a DNR slammed by Administrative Judge Boldt for his decision of implementing a cow cap and groundwater monitoring. Kinnard Dairy has now petitioned Kewaunee County Circuit Court to overrule Judge Boldt.
Spring 2014 concerned citizens ran three citizens for county supervisor positions. Lee Luft was elected which has helped add a voice of reason to a board girdled by dairy stakeholders.
Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future wrote a letter on our behalf stating the health issues related to living in an area of dense agriculture activity.
Kewaunee Cares has complied three years of water sampling data which clearly points to runoff contributing to algae blooms and closed city beaches. Concerned city residents initiated the ordinance banning the spreading of liquid manure within Algoma city limits. Kewaunee County passed a winter spreading ordinance. Under the ordinance, farmers wouldn’t be able to spread manure on shallow soils, which the ordinance deems 20 feet to bedrock, between January 1 and April 15. Citizen attendance at health and land and water committee meetings is the only reason the depth to bedrock moved from 5' to 20' which is still not the recommended 50' stated in the 2007 KARST Task Force Report. October 22, 2014 Kewaunee CARES became one of six groups to petition the EPA to ensure drinking water security. The EPA Administrator is given certain emergency powers as set forth in the Safe Drinking Water Act (“SDWA”).
Scott Walker’s Milwaukee County staff had a code name for his gubernatorial campaign with which they secretly coordinated strategy and messaging nearly every day: “the dark side.”
Chief among those bandying the code name around: Fran McLaughlin, Walker's Milwaukee County Executive communications chief at the time.
McLaughlin now serves as media contact for Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke, Jr.
No references yet found to Scott Skywalker, and we're still plowing through the records to see if any operatives were called Boba Fett or IG-88. There's definitely no Obi-Wan or Yoda there.
Hey, it isn't all the glamorous stuff like visits to Sheldon Adelson or appearances with other Presidential wannabes for our guy: He's been sitting for year-end interviews this week and wants you to know he hasn't thought through running for President, wiping out private-sector union rights, endorsing or rejecting torture, or backing mandatory retirement ages for duly-elected judges and State Supreme Court in mid-term, as Bill Lueders reports.
Also on the cannot-clarify list: Specifics about immigration reform or diplomatic relations with Cuba, though Walker has bashed President Obama over both, as this summary post documents. Or whether the 14-shot killing of Dontre Hamilton was justifiable.
So what's on Walker's full plate? Let's see what we can decipher from his Twitter account:
Waukesha County, Republican pols failed to kill it.
The Calatrava Addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum
Sunset on the lakefront, summer 2018
Milwaukee River empties into Lake Michigan
Wisconsin wind farm, east of Waupun
86 turbines overcame Walker's blockade
Skylight illumination in Milwaukee City Hall
The historic 19th-century building has stone floors, copper decoration, and iron work by the famous artisan Cyril Kolnic. Stop in and walk around.
What water, wetland protection is all about
"A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body may be eaten away until it may no longer exist. Our navigable waters are a precious natural heritage, once gone, they disappear forever," wrote the Wisconsin Supreme Court in its 1960 opinion resolving Hixon v. PSC and buttressing The Public Trust Doctrine, Article IX of the Wisconsin State Constitution.
Lake Michigan in winter
Milwaukee skyline
James Rowen's Bio
James Rowen is an independent writer based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He worked as the senior Mayoral staffer in Madison and Milwaukee and for newspapers in both cities. This blog began on 2/2/ 2007.
A wetland individual permit applicant can purchase credits from an approved bank to satisfy their compensatory mitigation requirement.
Now they are moving towards two additional power grabs which need far more media scrutiny and citizen opposition as Walker uses his state paid website in Revered Leader style for a propaganda production timed to insert a raised profile into partisan presidential primaries and caucuses:
Chief among those bandying the code name around: Fran McLaughlin, Walker's Milwaukee County Executive communications chief at the time.
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