The Wisconsin Republican Party really is completely corrupt, from top to bottom. Brendan Fischer f PRWatch, via The Madison CapTimes (h/t noblejoanie of the Eschatonians):
In ‘extraordinary’ move, WI Supreme Court fires Scott Walker prosecutor to stave-off SCOTUS review: Brendan Fischer of PR Watch writes: “‘What a mess this court has wrought!’ Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson declared in the latest chapter in the state’s John Doe legal saga. On Wednesday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s majority contorted itself to find a new way to protect both Scott Walker and the Court’s biggest supporters–not to mention itself–following its decision in July rewriting the state’s limits on money in politics and ending the ‘John Doe’ investigation into Walker’s campaign coordinating with dark money groups. Wednesday’s ruling was supposed to be a straightforward decision on a motion to reconsider, in light of additional evidence that Walker and his allies had violated the campaign finance laws that the Court upheld in July. The Court denied that motion, but then (in a lengthy unsigned opinion) went further, rewriting its July decision to fire the Republican Special Prosecutor who had led the investigation, Francis Schmitz, making it harder for him to challenge the justices’ conflicts-of-interest by appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Those conflicts arise from the fact that the same groups that coordinated with Walker’s campaign were among the majority’s biggest financial supporters, raising concerns under U.S. Supreme Court precedent about whether the justices should have heard the case at all. ‘The miscalculation I made in this investigation was underestimating the power and influence special interest groups have in Wisconsin politics,’ said Schmitz, a retired U.S. Army colonel and former counter-terrorism prosecutor.”
…
the Court’s four-justice majority was elected to the bench with at least $10 million in spending from precisely the same groups accused of coordinating with Walker, and precisely the same groups that were under investigation in the John Doe–namely, Wisconsin Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. –
…
The majority’s “rationale simply seems invented to justify the pre-ordained desired result,” Justice Abrahamson wrote in dissent.
With Schmitz off the case, it is unclear who can represent the prosecution moving forward. The Court previously denied motions by other members of the prosecution team to intervene in the case, even for the limited purpose of preserving evidence.
State Senate Republican Van Wanggaard had not conceded defeat as of late Wednesday morning.
Unofficial vote totals show that Wanggaard lost to the senator he defeated in 2010, Democrat John Lehman, by 779 votes with almost 72,000 cast.
The margin was around 1.1 percent – which means Wangaard’s campaign would have to pay for a recount if it wants one. Taxpayers only fund a recount when the margin is one-half-of-one-percent or less.
So the question is: Will the Wisconsin Republicans, having siphoned a big chunk of money (at the very least $40 million worth) from their national mother ship as well as from various billionaire donors to keep Walker in power, go to them one more time to pay for a recount that won’t change the end result?
They have until June 20 to decide, so they’d better hurry up if they’re going to pony up some more wasted money.
In other words, what I’d been hearing from some Sconnie friends is true: There are a lot of Wisconsinites of all parties who dislike recalls done for anything but criminal convictions and the like, or to redress a perceived imbalance (as happened when Wisconsin voters recalled enough Republican state senators to make the chamber even-steven). Anything that seems like mere political payback simply won’t fly.
So while the Republicans and their local and national media helpers will try to spin this as an anti-Obama vote, it was actually an anti-‘frivolous’-recall vote.
UPDATE: Elsewhere, I’ve used the term “recall resentment” to describe the force that enabled Scott Walker to survive the recall vote. Here’s what I mean by “recall resentment”:
Sixty percent of Wisconsin voters in today’s recall election say recall elections are only appropriate for official misconduct, according to early CBS News exit polls. Twenty-eight percent said they think they are suitable for any reason, while nine percent think they are never appropriate.
My Wisconsin friends had hinted this might happen: Essentially, a lot of them saw this second batch of recalls — which happened fifteen months after the first, when Walker’s betrayals were still fresh in everyone’s mind and people hadn’t got used to having him in power — as more political revenge/payback than a righteous effort to remove a guy unfit for office.
Following reports that Scott Walker’s criminal defense fund grew by $100,000 in May, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is today reporting major revelations in the John Doe criminal corruption probe, including Scott Walker’s mistaken admission that he is under investigation.
–Scott Walker mistakenly admits that he is a target in the John Doe criminal corruption probe
Walker, in a rare moment of candor, stated to reporters that he would not use the criminal defense fund to pay for the legal defenses of his aides, who have been charged with crimes ranging from child enticement, to theft from veterans and the families of fallen soldiers, to misuse of taxpayer resources to illegally campaign for Scott Walker, and would instead use the funds for himself or his campaign.
Wisconsin law is very clear: an elected official can only establish a legal defense fund if they, or their agent, are under investigation for, charged with, or convicted of violations of Wisconsin’s campaign finance and election laws.
Nothing provides for an elected official creating a legal defense fund for the sole purpose of campaign compliance, assisting the prosecution or aiding an investigation, as Scott Walker claims he is doing.
Since he is not paying for the defense of an agent acting on his behalf, it is now clear that Scott Walker is under investigation.
Mitt Romney’s campaign was asked during a press call this morning if Romney supported the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which assists women in working to get equal work for equal pay. This bill was the first legislation President Obama signed into law, and conservative Republicans of the sort that make up the GOP base have been agitating for its repeal ever since.
Somebody on Team Romney realized that this wasn’t the best way to try and prove to women voters that the GOP really isn’t at war on them, so an hour later, they tried again, stating that Romney did after all back the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
Of course, this might sound a little more convincing if the Republican female legislators Mitt’s using for human shields, Mary Bono Mack and Cathy McMorris, hadn’t both voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Act. It might also have helped a bit if Romney, when he was in Wisconsin cuddling up to the anti-woman Paul Ryan and his bad joke of a budget, had anything besides warm-and-fuzzy words for Scott Walker, who just signed the bill repealing the Wisconsin version of the Lilly Ledbetter Act.
…The Democratic recall drives in five Republican-friendly districts have yielded roughly 115,000 signatures. There are 33 state Senate districts. If the pattern were to hold statewide, that would yield roughly 760,000 signatures — probably considerably more when heavily Democratic areas such as Madison and Milwaukee are added to the mix.
The baseline number of signatures needed to recall Walker, in a process that can begin next January, is 540,208. Do the math and it becomes clear that, while 2011 is shaping up as a remarkable political year, 2012 could well be the year when Wisconsin shows the whole country what democracy looks like.
I think the English translation of this article is “Scott Walker fears getting his ass recalled next January”:
Less than four months after losing nearly all of an $810 million grant, Wisconsin is again seeking federal high-speed rail money – this time to upgrade the existing Milwaukee-to-Chicago passenger line.
Gov. Scott Walker’s administration will announce Tuesday that the state will seek at least $150 million to add equipment and facilities for Amtrak’s Hiawatha line.
The upgrades apparently would not increase the speed of the 79-mph line but could provide the capacity to increase the Hiawatha’s frequency from the current seven round trips daily.
In a bizarre twist, some of the money that Walker is now seeking originally was allocated for the Milwaukee-to-Madison route he previously turned down. That money is available because a fellow Republican governor rejected it, as well.
An Indiana deputy prosecutor and Republican activist resigned Thursday after the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism uncovered an email to Gov. Scott Walker in which he suggested a fake attack on the governor to discredit union protesters.
Carlos F. Lam submitted his resignation shortly before the Center published a story quoting his Feb. 19 email, which praised Walker for standing up to unions but went on to say that the chaos in Wisconsin presented “a good opportunity for what’s called a ‘false flag’ operation.”
“If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions,” the email said.
“Currently, the media is painting the union protest as a democratic uprising and failing to mention the role of the DNC and umbrella union organizations in the protest. Employing a false flag operation would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions. God bless, Carlos F. Lam.”
Now, either Walker or one of his staff read Lam’s e-mail and got the ideas for both these stunts, or (and what I think is more likely) they didn’t have to be told by anyone to try and pull false-flag stunts — it’s just something that’s hardwired into all Republican operatives to attempt whenever the chips are down.
Kos points out that while the Wisconsin Democrats have a serious shot at recalling six of the eight Republican state senators currently eligible for recall, the Republicans’ alleged effort to recall five eligible Democratic state senators is essentially doomed:
While Democrats provide regular updates on the progress of their recall petition gatherings, Republicans refuse to give the slightest indication of their progress. So is it a stealth Koch-Brother-funded effort, or are things so quiet on the their front because they have nothing to report?
The five Democrats supposedly being targetted are Minority Leader Mark Miller, Spencer Coggs, Dave Hansen, Jim Holperin and Robert Wirch. David Nir collated presidential results by district (that’s the district number in parenthesis):
Obama McCain Margin
Coggs (6) 89 11 O+78 Holperin (12) 53 46 O+7
Miller (16) 66 32 O+34 Wirch (22) 57 41 O+16
Hansen (30) 56 42 O+14
Not a lot of territory there for Republicans to mine. Holperin holds the most competitive district, and that was still +7 Obama. The rest are dominantly Democratic. Compare to the targeted GOPers:
Obama McCain Margin Cowles (2) 53 45 O+8
Darling (8) 51 47 O+4 Harsdorf (10) 50 48 O+2
Olsen (14) 52 47 O+5 Hopper (18) 51 47 O+4
Grothman (20) 36 63 M+27 Lazich (28) 39 60 M+21
Kapanke (32) 61 38 O+23
See the problem for Wisconsin Republicans? The reason that five of their guys are in trouble in the recall is because they represent Democratic districts. Not only is that important for the recall election itself, but offers petition gatherers a wealth of Democrats to sign those petitions. There are fewer Republicans in those Democratic districts to sign petitions, much less collect those signatures.
As exciting as the recall news is as a test of relative strength, the early test is happening right now, as Wisconsin Democrats work for JoAnn Kloppenberg in her bid to topple Walker ally and longtime Republican state legislator David Prosser from his position as Chief Justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. She could use some phonebankers, if you could spare a little time.
By now I’m sure you’ve heard that when the folks looking for signatures for the Randy Hopper recall petition came to Hopper’s house of record in his Senate district, Hopper’s wife told them that Hopper, a key ally of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, no longer lived with her in Fond du Lac, but in Madison with his 25-year-old lobbyist mistress.
[Hopper policy advisor Matt] Phillips provided The Capital Times with the address where Hopper is living in Fond du Lac on the condition the address would not be made public. He and Rebecca Hogan, Hopper’s chief of staff, cited ongoing threats against Hopper and his family as the reason.
According to the online Fond du Lac County property tax map, the address is not an apartment, as Phillips said, but a roughly $600,000 home owned by a high-ranking employee of Hopper’s media company, Mountain Dog Media.
Mercury Rising 鳯女 