Man, I want this thing to go down because it’s a shot across the bow at Scott Walker.
This law gets over turned, the Republicans are forced to rethink their over-reach. It starts the discussion about exactly how far right is “too far right” in the 2012 election.
But now that quitty-McQuitterslacks has stuck her babble into it? I REALLY want this law to get overturned.
A slap on the hand for the tea party AND Sarah Palin humiliation? What, is it Christmas already? C’mon, Ohio… if you can’t do it for your teachers, first responders and the people… can you at least do it for me?
Ohio’s Issue 2, a referendum on a controversial law curtailing collective bargaining rights for public employees, picked up the endorsement of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin Friday.
A “yes” vote on the issue would uphold S.B. 5, which bans public employees from being able to collectively bargain for benefits and requires employees to pay a certain percentage of their health and pension benefits. A “no” vote repeals the law.
Palin said on Facebook, “As a proud former union member and the wife, daughter, and sister of union members, I’m encouraging you to learn the facts about Issue 2 in Ohio.” She added: “To the hard working, patriotic, selfless union brothers and sisters in Ohio and throughout our country: I believe that Issue 2 is needed reform. It will help restore fairness to Ohio taxpayers and help balance the budget.”
Issue 2 looks, however, headed for defeated in next week’s vote. Recent polls show it losing by double digits.
Conservative nonprofits are spending their funds to pass the measure. Alliance for America’s Future, a conservative group whose leadership includes Mary Cheney, sent out mailers tying the measure to President Barack Obama.
“Liberals Want You to Help Him by Voting NO on Issues 2&3” reads one mailer showing Obama. The second page of the mailer reads: “This November, Stop Their Momentum Before it Begins,” showing a picture of Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. (Issue 3 is a state constitutional amendment that would prohibit a federal, state or local government from mandating people to buy health insurance, rebuking the president’s health care law.)
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R, of course) jammed this thing through the assembly in about four minutes (well, two months) and watched his poll numbers drop like a stone.
Couple that with the beginning of a recall attempt in Wisconsin, and things aren’t looking so spiffy in the middle of America for the Tea Party and their Koch corporate masters, is it?
This could be a great one-two punch. Here’s hoping Ohio lands the first of a knock out combo.
Note: I know it’s a repeat of a blog from six days ago. But… here. We. Go.
- - - -
Happy Halloween: Enjoy the evening. Because tomorrow, we all need to band together to make a ghost of Scott Walker’s job.
Dear #OccupyWallstreet - it’s time to #OccupyWisconsin.
The recall officially begins November 15th. Spread the word. Lead the charge. Be prepared to hit the ground running.
You can do it legally, quietly, simply by signing a signature and starting the process to make Scott Walker pay the price for being Scott Walker. You don’t even need to freeze your privates in the snow to make this statement.
Find a petition. Sign a petition. Get your friends and neighbors to do it. Make that number so undeniable, crushing and authentic that it’s impossible for the right to claim fraud. Start chatting up ‘em up now.
If you do… if that happens… watch the tea party start to fold like a deck chair.
Scott Walker is their poster boy. And by recalling him, you make him a Teabagging canary in a coal mine.
He goes, they’ll all fear for their political careers. He goes, Mitt Romney won’t be the only one changing his opinions in between heartbeats. They all will.
It will change the entire tone of the Presidential elections. Because the insane things you’re hearing come out of Perry and Romney… these are extensions of what Scott Walker is actually doing.
Which makes Walker the perfect person to be the example. It’s the perfect time to do it, right in the midst of the primary season.
This is a chance to make a statement that every GOP candidate needs to hear: Keep your fringe out of our politics. Act like an American, not a corporate spokesperson.
So let’s send this Walker guy packing.
And make that message resonate.
November 15th. Mark it on your calendar, folks. Two months. 540,208 signatures. That’s all it takes to fight back.
MADISON, Wis. — An effort to recall Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker over his contentious union rights law will begin Nov. 15, Democrats announced Monday, meaning an election could be held as early as next spring.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate said on the party’s website that recall petitions will be circulated starting Nov. 15, giving supporters of the effort until Jan. 13 to collect 540,208 signatures.
Walker has become a national hero to many Republicans and conservatives and is a hot ticket on the fundraising and speaking circuit. But he is the top target for unions and Democrats as he became the face of the anti-union movement this year with his proposal that took away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most public workers.
“It has become clearer than ever that the people of Wisconsin – the traditions and institutions of our great state – cannot endure any more of Scott Walker’s abuses. To preserve Wisconsin, we must begin the recall of Walker as soon as possible,” Tate said in a statement on the website.
Two Republican state senators who voted for the law lost recall elections this summer, while four other Republicans and three Democrats survived recalls. The nine elections attracted $44 million in spending from national unions, conservative groups and others.
Under Wisconsin law, a recall can’t be started until a year after the officeholder was inaugurated. Walker was inaugurated on Jan. 3, which made Nov. 4 the soonest the recall effort could begin.
Tate’s statement accused Walker of being “dishonest with the people of Wisconsin” when he ran for governor.
“Soon after he took office, he proposed a radical change to state law by trying to take away state workers’ rights to collective bargaining which he never mentioned once during the campaign,” Tate said. “We cannot sit back and allow Scott Walker to continue to dismantle our education system, run our government as an auxiliary of corporate special interests, put our clean air and water at risk, and ignore an unemployment crisis that his policies exacerbated.”
There have only been two successful gubernatorial recall elections in U.S. history. The first was in 1921 in North Dakota and the other was when California Gov. Gray Davis was removed from office in 2003.
In Wisconsin, once recall backers file the required paperwork to start collecting signatures, they have 60 days to return the 540,208 required to trigger the election. If the effort starts on Nov. 15, the deadline for supporters to turn in petitions would be Jan. 13.
Once signatures are submitted to the Government Accountability Board, it has 31 days to review them. It will likely seek an extension to review the large number or signatures, similar to one it received for the recalls targeting state senators.
Legal fights could also delay any election.
If the board certifies the signatures, the recall election must be held six Tuesdays from that date. If more than two candidates run, that election would be the primary. A general election would be four weeks after that.
“It is not possible to say with any certainty when the election would be, especially to say it could be in conjunction with any existing election,” said Reid Magney, spokesman for the Government Accountability Board. “There are many aspects of the process that would make it difficult to do that because of the unpredictability of the timelines.”
No Democrat has announced plans to run against Walker. People mentioned as potential candidates include U.S. Rep. Ron Kind of La Crosse, former U.S. Rep. Dave Obey of Wausau, Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca of Kenosha, state Sen. Jon Erpenbach of Waunakee, and former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk.
Tate did not say whether the recall would target both Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. The Government Accountability Board, which oversees elections, has requested an opinion from the attorney general’s office on how a recall against the governor would affect the lieutenant governor. Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run on the same ticket in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin has four previously scheduled elections next year: the spring primary on Feb. 21, the spring election and presidential primary on April 3, the fall primary on Sept. 11 and the fall general election on Nov. 6.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Herman Cain. I used to be worried about him. Guess what? Now, as someone who is 99% sure he’s voting for Obama based on the current pack of lunatics running on the right, I am absolutely pulling for him.
But first, a little history:
Actress and activist Janeane Garofalo threw down the liberal gauntlet while blasting Tea Party motives on MSNBC in 2009
“It’s about hating a black man in the White House. That is racism straight up. This is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks,” she said.
A YouTube video titled “Tea Party Racism” shows signs seen at past Tea Party events. They include:
- Obama as a witch doctor
- A monkey face next to the words, “Obamanomics: Monkey See, Monkey Spend”
- Obama’s Plan: White Slavery
- The Zoo has an African Lion
- The White House has a Lyin’ African
Former President Jimmy Carter claimed to NBC “Nightly News” that “an overwhelming portion” of the animosity aimed at President Obama is because Obama’s black.
However, author Ron Miller doesn’t buy it. He’s written the book “Sellout,” which is a label often tossed at him because he’s a black Republican who speaks at Tea Party events.
He points out that two of the Tea Partiers favorite politicians are a black congressman and a black presidential candidate.
“If the Tea Party movement, fragmented as it is, had an opportunity to select the one man that they’d want as president of the United States right now, it would be Allen West and followed closely by Herman Cain,” he said.
“I simply say two things. First of all, the accusation of racism within the Tea Party movement is ridiculous. Why? Number two — the black guy keeps winning the straw polls. So how could they be racists?” Cain asked.
“Would a racist organization take that much interest and be that passionate about two men who are obviously black?” Miller asked.
Fox News commentator Juan Williams can often be a little suspicious about the Tea Party embrace of West and Cain.
“Maybe sensing that they are very vulnerable on this racial issue, they’re taking to people like West or like Herman Cain because they’re seeking to defend themselves against those charges,” he said.
But Williams said he wished people wouldn’t always be dragging out the race card.
“And I just find it abhorrent to American ideals that you would try to defeat your opponent with some blanket charge of racism or bigotry when in fact there’s something else on the table, and it’s a very legitimate difference of opinion,” he said.
“It’s not about race. It’s about policies, it’s about issues,” Miller told CBN News.
This was back in September when it was written, long before Cain was elevated to the status of front runner, whatever that means in the pack of dimwits, zealots and snoozers the GOP is running. Man, they thought it would be easy, didn’t they?
And I’m okay with that. Because here’s who runs against Obama if Cain gets the nomination:
Herman Cain is heartlessly out of touch with main stream America: (statement about Occupy Wallstreet)
“Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself. It is not someone’s fault if they succeeded, it is someone’s fault if they failed,” the ex-Godfather’s Pizza CEO declared.
Hermain Cain is a typical right-leaning islamophobe:
He had to apologize to Muslim leaders for vitriolic remarks in which he said communities have a right to ban mosques because Muslims are trying to inject sharia law into the U.S. and that he would not want a Muslim bent on killing Americans in his administration.
And yet for all for his issues with Islam being used to make law in America, he’s willing to his faith to make law here:
“I believe that life begins at conception, period. And that means that I will have to see enough evidence that someone I would appoint shares that same view. “
And, of course, Hermain Cain is a mouth piece for the uber-rich:
IOWA CITY, Iowa — Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain has cast himself as the outsider, the pizza magnate with real-world experience who will bring fresh ideas to the nation’s capital. But Cain’s economic ideas, support and organization have close ties to two billionaire brothers who bankroll right-leaning causes through their group Americans for Prosperity.
Cain’s campaign manager and a number of aides have worked for Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, the advocacy group founded with support from billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which lobbies for lower taxes and less government regulation and spending. Cain credits a businessman who served on an AFP advisory board with helping devise his “9-9-9” plan to rewrite the nation’s tax code. And his years of speaking at AFP events have given the businessman and radio host a network of loyal grassroots fans.
So how does this guy rise to the top of the polls? Why is everybody talking about him?
Because, as Juan Williams suspects, Hermain Cain is a human shield for the Tea Party. The perfect defense against what Janeane Garofalo (and many others, including myself) have stated a long time ago: There’s a sick little undercurrent of racism going on in the tea party, and something had to be done to deflect.
To me, this is what it’s about: Being able to keep the hard-right agenda going, but neutering the race card. How many days did Rick Perry’s “N*****head” story get? A day and a half? The Texas Governor’s family getaway uses the N-word and this carries the news cycle less than 48 hours? C’mon, If Obama went to the Cracker Barrel for a soda, we’d hear about how he was calling white people “Crackers” through November.
What better way for the tea party to go “See? We’re not bigots!” than elevating Herman? It’s beautiful, beautiful strategy. And I hope it backfires.
I have grown to love Hermain Cain as the Republican Candidate for the United States of America. Do you hear me? I love him having to go toe-to-toe with Obama.
Because the election becomes race neutral. Obama’s skin color suddenly is no longer in the “plus” column for that bigoted chunk of Americans who don’t like a president who doesn’t look like their money — even if they don’t HAVE any money.
And if Cain wins the nomination, pow: Their party ALSO has a candidate with the same skin color. Now it’s about ideas. And who best represents the majority of Americans.
So for now, I’m pulling for him. Taking race out of this election is a PR move for the Tea Party. But it’s one of the best things that could happen to Obama. It makes this election about policies, the direction of the country, and who has the best interest for the majority of Americans.
So go, Herman. Go.
But honestly, by the time the GOP candidate is chosen, I think we all know he’ll be gone, Herman, gone.
Your heroes are liars. Your megaphones blare falsehoods. The only way you could be okay with this is if the people who built your foundation were not up to code.
By SCOTT BAUER 10/14/11 05:30 PM ET 
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who forced public workers to pay more for their pensions as part of a push to curb union rights, broke his campaign promise to pay the full cost of his state pension immediately after taking office in January.
The Associated Press requested copies of the governor’s pay stubs to see if he had fulfilled the campaign promise he made in June 2010. Walker said then he would begin paying the cost immediately in order to lead by example since he was proposing all state employees do the same.
“As governor, I’ll pay my share toward my retirement because everyone should pay their own way, including me,” Walker said during the campaign.
Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch made the same pledge and also didn’t pay as promised.
Walker’s pay stubs provided Friday in response to the AP’s open records request made in September had details about his pension payments redacted. But Walker’s spokesman Cullen Werwie said the governor did not start paying the full cost until August, when the state law he pushed required elected officials and other state employees to contribute more.
The requirement that state workers pay their 5.8 percent contribution was part of Walker’s bill that also took away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most public employees. The fight over that measure resulted in protests as large as 100,000 people, led to all 14 Democratic state senators fleeing to Illinois to block the bill, and made Wisconsin the center of the fight over union rights.
If Walker had fulfilled his campaign promise, he would have been paying his pension costs during that fight in February and March.
Werwie did not have an explanation for why Walker didn’t pay until the law forced him to. The law required Walker and other elected officials to make payments of 6.65 percent of their salary starting in August. That goes up to 7.05 next year.
Over four years, that will result in Walker paying $34,108.
But Walker didn’t pay anything between January and August when the law kicked in. When asked how he could say the promise was fulfilled given that lack of payment for seven months, Werwie said, “that’s a fair point to raise.”“Ultimately, we feel like we’re fulfilling what our campaign pledge was,” Werwie said.
Had the governor paid 6.65 percent of his salary during that time, it would have cost him $5,600.
Democrats were beside themselves.
“You’re asking people to do what you won’t do,” Democratic Party spokesman Graeme Zielinski said. “It shows you this is a person whose priorities are warped.”
Democrats, unions and others plan to start collecting signatures in November to force a recall election of Walker next year.
“It is indefensible Scott Walker promised to live by these rules and then broke his word to Wisconsin,” said Scot Ross, head of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now. “Scott Walker tore Wisconsin in two to pass these unnecessary changes and then tells us `Do as I say, not as I didn’t.’”
Marty Beil, executive director of the 23,000-member Wisconsin State Employees Union that fought bitterly with Walker over the collective bargaining changes, said the governor’s broken promise wasn’t surprising.
“Apparently Rebecca and Scotty boy want the world to believe they’re working men and women and treat themselves like everyone else, but clearly they didn’t do that,” Beil said.
This isn’t the first time Walker has run into trouble fulfilling promises related to his pension.
Immediately after winning election as Milwaukee County executive in 2002, Walker promised that any staff under his control would waive all salary and benefit increases enacted after 2000. But his opponent in 2004 revealed that Walker’s staff had been taking a higher pension benefit for two years. Walker then asked the county board to reduce it.
Walker also promised to return $60,000 of his $130,000 annual salary as county executive, which he did every year until winning re-election in 2008 when he dropped it to $10,000 a year. Democrats said that amounted to a broken promise, but when Walker made his original pledge he never said how many years he would return $60,000 annually.
Walker also collected pension benefits based on his higher salary for two years before having it calculated based on the lower amount.
Kleefisch also promised during the campaign to pay her full pension cost, but she didn’t start paying until August either.
“Just like Scott Walker, I’ll pay my share of my pension, because everyone should pay their own way including me,” Kleefisch told a tea party group in September 2010.
Her chief of staff Jeanne Tarantino did not explain in an email why Kleefisch didn’t make the contribution starting in January as promised.
And there is not a better example of the kind of detached, puppet of the rich, tool of the 1% than this guy right here: Scott Koch. I mean Walker. Walkroch?
The recall begins November 15th. Spread the word. Lead the charge. Make the change. Man the ramparts.
Dear #OccupyWallstreet - it’s time to #OccupyWisconsin as well.
And you can do it legally, quietly, simply by signing a signature. And then you can do it legally, constitutionally, provided that Kathy Nicholaus, a Republican stooge that has had to admit to “human error” that finds votes for Republican candidates, doesn’t do the same this time.
So let’s make it undeniable. Overwhelming. And crushing.
Let the battle spread here. And let the battle defeat him.
Want to watch the Tea Party crumble between November of this year and November of next? Send this guy packing and watch their spines follow.
Pun intended.
MADISON, Wis. — An effort to recall Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker over his contentious union rights law will begin Nov. 15, Democrats announced Monday, meaning an election could be held as early as next spring.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate said on the party’s website that recall petitions will be circulated starting Nov. 15, giving supporters of the effort until Jan. 13 to collect 540,208 signatures.
Walker has become a national hero to many Republicans and conservatives and is a hot ticket on the fundraising and speaking circuit. But he is the top target for unions and Democrats as he became the face of the anti-union movement this year with his proposal that took away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most public workers.
“It has become clearer than ever that the people of Wisconsin – the traditions and institutions of our great state – cannot endure any more of Scott Walker’s abuses. To preserve Wisconsin, we must begin the recall of Walker as soon as possible,” Tate said in a statement on the website.
Two Republican state senators who voted for the law lost recall elections this summer, while four other Republicans and three Democrats survived recalls. The nine elections attracted $44 million in spending from national unions, conservative groups and others.
Under Wisconsin law, a recall can’t be started until a year after the officeholder was inaugurated. Walker was inaugurated on Jan. 3, which made Nov. 4 the soonest the recall effort could begin.
Tate’s statement accused Walker of being “dishonest with the people of Wisconsin” when he ran for governor.
“Soon after he took office, he proposed a radical change to state law by trying to take away state workers’ rights to collective bargaining which he never mentioned once during the campaign,” Tate said. “We cannot sit back and allow Scott Walker to continue to dismantle our education system, run our government as an auxiliary of corporate special interests, put our clean air and water at risk, and ignore an unemployment crisis that his policies exacerbated.”
There have only been two successful gubernatorial recall elections in U.S. history. The first was in 1921 in North Dakota and the other was when California Gov. Gray Davis was removed from office in 2003.
In Wisconsin, once recall backers file the required paperwork to start collecting signatures, they have 60 days to return the 540,208 required to trigger the election. If the effort starts on Nov. 15, the deadline for supporters to turn in petitions would be Jan. 13.
Once signatures are submitted to the Government Accountability Board, it has 31 days to review them. It will likely seek an extension to review the large number or signatures, similar to one it received for the recalls targeting state senators.
Legal fights could also delay any election.
If the board certifies the signatures, the recall election must be held six Tuesdays from that date. If more than two candidates run, that election would be the primary. A general election would be four weeks after that.
“It is not possible to say with any certainty when the election would be, especially to say it could be in conjunction with any existing election,” said Reid Magney, spokesman for the Government Accountability Board. “There are many aspects of the process that would make it difficult to do that because of the unpredictability of the timelines.”
No Democrat has announced plans to run against Walker. People mentioned as potential candidates include U.S. Rep. Ron Kind of La Crosse, former U.S. Rep. Dave Obey of Wausau, Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca of Kenosha, state Sen. Jon Erpenbach of Waunakee, and former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk.
Tate did not say whether the recall would target both Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. The Government Accountability Board, which oversees elections, has requested an opinion from the attorney general’s office on how a recall against the governor would affect the lieutenant governor. Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run on the same ticket in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin has four previously scheduled elections next year: the spring primary on Feb. 21, the spring election and presidential primary on April 3, the fall primary on Sept. 11 and the fall general election on Nov. 6.
If this woman were any more disorganized she’d work for Delta Airlines.
She’d be fired, but she’s cozied up to Scott Walker’s jock strap.
How many MORE mistakes does this idiot have to make before she’s fired, and somebody qualified gets the job? Or at the very least, a more qualified Walker crony?
Remember: Means testing is for teachers and union members. But people like this? They get to continue to suck and suck and suck until they hit their pensions. Yay, Tea Party!
Waukesha County Clerk’s Latest Snafu Nearly a $1 Million Mistake
Embattled Clerk Nickolaus in hot water again after her office loses crucial letter.
Print&nbps;46 Comments Tweet Email
Add your photos & videos Tell Your Neighbors About Patch
Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus –already under investigation for a snafu in reporting votes in the state Supreme Court election – is coming under fire from county leaders again after an error made by her staff nearly cost the county $1 million.
The latest controversy surrounds a crucial letter that Waste Management Inc. sent to Nickolaus’ office in May regarding the expansion of a landfill the company operates in Menomonee Falls.
The letter notifying the county of the expansion should have prompted the County Board to take action to join a local committee that will have oversight over the expansion. By joining the committee, the county also will receive $1 million from Waste Management over the next decade.
However, that May 9 letter was lost by someone in the clerk’s office – even though it was delivered via certified mail and signed by someone in that office.
After not hearing from the county, Waste Management on June 29 sent a second letter to the Nickolaus’ office – and a copy to another county department. It was that department – not the clerk’s office – that ultimately brought it to the County Board.
But by the time county supervisors received the letter, the July 10 deadline for joining the committee was just around the corner. So a hastily-called County Board meeting was held on July 8 – with supervisors showing up during the lunch hour to take action on joining the committee.
County Board chairman: ‘Another flaw’
“The letter was forwarded to someone, but nobody in the clerk’s office knew who that was,” County Board Chairman Jim Dwyer said. “Yet again, it’s another flaw in the process with that office.”
County Supervisor Pat Haukohl said it appears to her the letter just got “lost in the shuffle” in the clerk’s office when it came in. But she said a County Board committee on Monday is going to review the policies and procedures in the clerk’s office.
”I can’t place blame because I can’t know for sure what happened because I wasn’t there,” Haukohl said. “But I will say that it should have definitely, definitely been forwarded. I’m concerned because a letter of that importance should have received prompt and immediate attention.”
If the board hadn’t approved the resolution on time, the county would have lost the ability to appoint two members to the committee, which negotiates and arbitrates with Waste Management about the landfill.
The committee also deals concerns about ground water, well contamination and wear on county roads used by trucks going to the landfill.
In addition, being on the committee means the county will collect about $1 million in fees to the county from Waste Management.
Nicklaus says lack of staff was the problem
In an e-mail to Patch, Nickolaus said she didn’t realize the letter was missing until the second one was mailed and brought to her attention by the other county department. But the clerk’s office has since changed policy to make sure certified letters don’t get misplaced again.
Certified mail will no longer be placed with interdepartmental mail, and any county departments receiving certified letters now have to come to her clerks’ office to pick them up and sign for them.
Nickolaus also said her staff was overworked because of its involvement in the recount of the state Supreme Court election. The May 9 letter was delivered when the clerk’s office was overseeing the recount.
“The office was under a lot of pressure and was very understaffed due to the recount,” she said. “A request was made to the county board chairman for his staff to assist, but (we were) not given the help requested. The pressure and lack of staff may have been the reason.”
But Dwyer isn’t buying that argument.
“I do believe the letter came during the recount process,” he said. “But when she has another person signing her name to say she received something, she should have had a process in place to know where that document is going.”
Because the county runs all resolutions and ordinance through committees before approving them at the County Board level, Dwyer said officials first called the joint committee meeting at 12:15 p.m. July 8 and then held a full County Board meeting at 12:30 p.m. in order to allow supervisors to attend during lunch breaks from their full-time jobs.
He said 23 of the 25 supervisors were able to attend the meeting and they approved the resolution and the appointment of two officials to the local committee for the landfill.
Nickolaus has been heavily criticized since the state Supreme Court election in April, when she made an error in reporting the results from Brookfield. Nickolaus did not include the city of Brookfield votes in her unofficial media report on Election Night — causing challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg to declare victory.
When the mistake was discovered, it was determined that incumbent Jusitice David Prosser won the election by about 7,000 votes, a figure that was upheld after a statewide recount.
The mistake prompted accusations of misconduct by Nickolaus, who is now under investigation by the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board.
Related Topics: Kathy Nickolaus, Waukesha County Board, and Waukesha County ClerkWhat’s your take on the latest controversy involving Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus? Tell us in the comments.
So, it was pretty much revealed that Governor Scott Walker is a whore for big money, and that his “principled stand” for a deficit problem that does not exist in his state (Even Fox News’s Shepard Smith has let this slip) is all a smoke-screen for him to go after unions.
How do you know? Because someone posing as a fake “Koch Brother” - one of the two billionaires behind the “regular americans” propelling the Tea party - called, got him on the phone for 20 minutes, and through joking, vulgarity, and flat out bribery got him to admit - it’s all about screwing the little guy.
Enjoy the transcript, all courtesy of Murphy at the Buffalo Beast.
WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO WITNESS IS REAL. NO NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT. THERE ARE NO INNOCENT.-MURPHY
“He’s just hard-lined—will not talk, will not communicate, will not return phone calls.”
-Wisconsin state Sen. Tim Carpenter (D) on Gov. Walker (source)
Carpenter’s quote made me wonder: who could get through to Gov. Walker? Well, what do we know about Walker and his proposedunion-busting, no-bid budget? The obvious candidate was David Koch.
I first called at 11:30 am CST, and eventually got through to a young, male receptionist who, upon hearing the magic name Koch, immediately transferred me to Executive Assistant Governor Dorothy Moore.
“We’ve met before, Dorothy,” I nudged. “I really need to talk to Scott—Governor Walker.” She said that, yes, she thought she had met Koch, and that the name was “familiar.” But she insisted that Walker was detained in a meeting and couldn’t get away. She asked about the nature of my call. I balked, “I just needed to speak with the Governor. He knows what this is about,” I said. She told me to call back at noon, and she’d have a better idea of when he would be free.
I called at noon and was quickly transferred to Moore, who then transferred me to Walker’s Chief of Staff Keith Gilkes. He was “expecting my call.”
“David!” he said with an audible smile.
I politely said hello, not knowing how friendly Gilkes and Koch may be. He was eager to help. “I was really hoping to talk directly to Scott,” I said. He said that could be arranged and that I should just leave my number. I explained to Gilkes, “My goddamn maid, Maria, put my phone in the washer. I’d have her deported, but she works for next to nothing.” Gilkes found this amusing. “I’m calling from the VOID—with the VOID, or whatever it’s called. You know, the Snype!”
“Gotcha,” Gilkes said. “Let me check the schedule here…OK, there’s an opening at 2 o’clock Central Standard Time. Just call this same number and we’ll put you through.”
Could it really be that easy? Yes. What follows is a rushed, abridged transcript of my—I mean, David Koch’s conversation with Gov. Walker. Listen to the whole call here:
Walker: Hi; this is Scott Walker.
Koch: Scott! David Koch. How are you?
Walker: Hey, David! I’m good. And yourself?
Koch: I’m very well. I’m a little disheartened by the situation there, but, uh, what’s the latest?
Walker: Well, we’re actually hanging pretty tough. I mean—you know, amazingly there’s a much smaller group of protesters—almost all of whom are in from other states today. The State Assembly is taking the bill up—getting it all the way to the last point it can be at where it’s unamendable. But they’re waiting to pass it until the Senate’s—the Senate Democrats, excuse me, the assembly Democrats have about a hundred amendments they’re going through. The state Senate still has the 14 members missing but what they’re doing today is bringing up all sorts of other non-fiscal items, many of which are things members in the Democratic side care about. And each day we’re going to ratchet it up a little bit…. The Senate majority leader had a great plan he told about this morning—he told the Senate Democrats about and he’s going to announce it later today, and that is: The Senate organization committee is going to meet and pass a rule that says if you don’t show up for two consecutive days on a session day—in the state Senate, the Senate chief clerk—it’s a little procedural thing here, but—can actually have your payroll stopped from being automatically deducted—
Koch: Beautiful.
Walker: —into your checking account and instead—you still get a check, but the check has to be personally picked up and he’s instructing them—which we just loved—to lock them in their desk on the floor of the state Senate.
Koch: Now you’re not talking to any of these Democrat bastards, are you?
Walker: Ah, I—there’s one guy that’s actually voted with me on a bunch of things I called on Saturday for about 45 minutes, mainly to tell him that while I appreciate his friendship and he’s worked with us on other things, to tell him I wasn’t going to budge.
Koch: Goddamn right!
Walker: …his name is Tim Cullen—
Koch: All right, I’ll have to give that man a call.
Walker: Well, actually, in his case I wouldn’t call him and I’ll tell you why: he’s pretty reasonable but he’s not one of us…
Koch: Now who can we get to budge on this collective bargaining?
Walker: …I think the paycheck will have an impact…secondly, one of the things we’re looking at next…we’re still waiting on an opinion to see if the unions have been paying to put these guys up out of state. We think there’s at minimum an ethics violation if not an outright felony.
Koch: Well, they’re probably putting hobos in suits.
Walker: Yeah.
Koch: That’s what we do. Sometimes.
Walker: I mean paying for the senators to be put up. I know they’re paying for these guy—I mean, people can pay for protesters to come in and that’s not an ethics code, but, I mean, literally if the unions are paying the 14 senators—their food, their lodging, anything like that…[*** Important regarding his later acceptance of a Koch offer to “show him a good time.” ***]
[I was stunned. I am stunned. In the interest of expediting the release of this story, here are the juiciest bits:]
Walker: …I’ve got layoff notices ready…
Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. Gotta crush that union.
Walker: [bragging about how he doesn’t budge]…I would be willing to sit down and talk to him, the assembly Democrat leader, plus the other two Republican leaders—talk, not negotiate and listen to what they have to say if they will in turn—but I’ll only do it if all 14 of them will come back and sit down in the state assembly…legally, we believe, once they’ve gone into session, they don’t physically have to be there. If they’re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they’d have quorum…so we’re double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that’s the only reason why. We’d only do it if they came back to the capital with all 14 of them…
Koch: Bring a baseball bat. That’s what I’d do.
Walker: I have one in my office; you’d be happy with that. I have a slugger with my name on it.
Koch: Beautiful.
Walker: [union-bashing…]
Koch: Beautiful.
Walker: So this is ground zero, there’s no doubt about it. [Talks about a “great” NYT piece of “objective journalism.” Talks about how most private blue-collar workers have turned against public, unionized workers.]…So I went through and called a handful, a dozen or so lawmakers I worry about each day and said, “Everyone, we should get that story printed out and send it to anyone giving you grief.”
Koch: Goddamn right! We, uh, we sent, uh, Andrew Breitbart down there.
Walker:Yeah.
Koch: Yeah.
Walker: Good stuff.
Koch: He’s our man, you know.
Walker: [blah about his press conferences, attacking Obama, and all the great press he’s getting.] Brian [Sadoval], the new Governor of Nevada, called me the last night he said—he was out in the Lincoln Day Circuit in the last two weekends and he was kidding me, he said, “Scott, don’t come to Nevada because I’d be afraid you beat me running for governor.” That’s all they want to talk about is what are you doing to help the governor of Wisconsin. I talk to Kasich every day—John’s gotta stand firm in Ohio. I think we could do the same thing with Vic Scott in Florida. I think, uh, Snyder—if he got a little more support—probably could do that in Michigan. You start going down the list there’s a lot of us new governors that got elected to do something big.
Koch: You’re the first domino.
Walker: Yep. This is our moment.
Koch: Now what else could we do for you down there?
Walker: Well the biggest thing would be—and your guy on the ground [Americans For Prosperity president Tim Phillips] is probably seeing this [stuff about all the people protesting, and some of them flip him off].
[Abrupt end of first recording, and start of second.]
Walker: [Bullshit about doing the right thing and getting flipped off by “union bulls,” and the decreasing number of protesters. Or some such.]
Koch: We’ll back you any way we can. What we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.
Walker: You know, well, the only problem with that —because we thought about that. The problem—the, my only gut reaction to that is right now the lawmakers I’ve talked to have just completely had it with them, the public is not really fond of this…[explains that planting troublemakers may not work.] My only fear would be if there’s a ruckus caused is that maybe the governor has to settle to solve all these problems…[something about ’60s liberals.]…Let ‘em protest all they want…Sooner or later the media stops finding it interesting.
Koch: Well, not the liberal bastards on MSNBC.
Walker: Oh yeah, but who watches that? I went on “Morning Joe” this morning. I like it because I just like being combative with those guys, but, uh. You know they’re off the deep end.
Koch: Joe—Joe’s a good guy. He’s one of us.
Walker: Yeah, he’s all right. He was fair to me…[bashes NY Senator Chuck Schumer, who was also on the program.]
Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. You gotta love that Mika Brzezinski; she’s a real piece of ass.
Walker: Oh yeah. [story about when he hung out with human pig Jim Sensenbrenner at some D.C. function and he was sitting next to Brzezinski and her father, and their guest was David Axelrod. He introduced himself.]
Koch: That son of a bitch!
Walker: Yeah no kidding huh?…
Koch: Well, good; good. Good catching up with ya’.
Walker: This is an exciting time [blah, blah, blah, Super Bowl reference followed by an odd story of pulling out a picture of Ronald Reagan and explaining to his staff the plan to crush the union the same way Reagan fired the air traffic controllers]…that was the first crack in the Berlin Wall because the Communists then knew Reagan wasn’t a pushover. [Blah, blah, blah. He’s exactly like Reagan. Won’t shut up about how awesome he is.]
Koch: [Laughs] Well, I tell you what, Scott: once you crush these bastards I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time.
Walker: All right, that would be outstanding. [*** Ethical violation much? ***] Thanks for all the support…it’s all about getting our freedoms back…
Koch: Absolutely. And, you know, we have a little bit of a vested interest as well. [Laughs]
Walker: [Blah] Thanks a million!
Koch: Bye-bye!
Walker: Bye.
And now, back to me.
I wonder, if the two of them had met in his office, would Koch have just left a wad of money on the dresser as he left?
Had this brown-nosing money whore done this anywhere else, I’d assume the story would die but this is Wisconsin. And this pasty, duplicitous shill of a Governor decided to be the first domino in an attack on the little guy in a state where the little guy likes to get together with other little guys and tell the big guys to act like human beings.
Watching the story with interest. But more importantly, watching to see if there’s repercussions to Walker’s clear violations of power.
It is rare when there’s an issue where “Right” and “Wrong” are so clearly defined. But the above phone call, and Walker’s cozying up to money and revealing that he’s there to do the bidding of corporate masters, not the people, is one of them.
The morning starts as the evening ended for me, hoping real people can tear this paper dictator down.
