GOP controlled assembly passes bill to limit recall

The bill passed, with the vote stuck in the rut that has deepened with each passing wheel through the partisan convoy of agenda items that have seeped away at the firm base of Wisconsin’s foundation of ethics and fair play – the bill passed along party lines 60-37. Surprise, surprise! The bill seeks to specify new limits on the “types” of behavior an elected official must exhibit, like “malfeasance in office”, before a recall can be initiated.

The definition of the word “malfeasance” suggests that any recall effort would only serve to pour money into the pockets of lawyers in an costly effort to initiate a recall – as GOP legislatures have want to do, judging from the hundreds of thousands of dollars poured into Michael Best Law firm for drawing vote district maps and litigating the voter ID law.

WIKI
Malfeasance has been defined by appellate courts in other jurisdictions as a wrongful act which the actor has no legal right to do; as any wrongful conduct which affects, interrupts or interferes with the performance of official duty; as an act for which there is no authority or warrant of law; as an act which a person ought not to do; as an act which is wholly wrongful and unlawful; as that which an officer has no authority to do and is positively wrong or unlawful; and as the unjust performance of some act which the party performing it has no right, or has contracted not, to do.

High Stakes Poker Game – Betting Against Trust of the People

What do many of the legislative initiatives of the GOP hold in common? What protections are sought through the voter Id law, limiting collective bargaining, drawing gerrymandered district maps and, now, redefining the recall statutes? Oh, and here is another recent example of the same:

MADISON (WSAU) Wisconsinites will no longer get to see their Supreme Court justices discuss the way they set their policies. The court’s four-member conservative majority voted yesterday to move its public administrative sessions behind closed doors. That’s after the open sessions exposed some of the bitter disagreements the justices have had on various issues in recent years, which culminated in a brief shoving match last summer between justices David Prosser and Ann Walsh Bradley.

The court also rejected Bradley’s request for a public hearing on the change.

The GOP seems to be playing poker with the Wisconsin long held tradition of trusting the voice of the people by limiting access to the polls (voter ID), ending the threat of people joining together to lobby for salary and benefits (Budget Repair Law) shifting vote districts for political advantage (Vote district law), adding a nebulous “malfeasance” requirement to the recall statutes (Recall law), and moving administrative sessions of Supreme Court back into the closet. All this, from a party who is hell bent a eliminating government intervention in matters of individual rights? Yet, every legislative move they make seems to be a direct intervention limiting individual rights, by reducing access to government, denying organized lobbying of workers, limiting transparency in the conduct of the courts, and, now, adding blurry barriers to the recall process.

Time to Call and Up the Stakes

Recall efforts have been myopically focused on the prime targets of the Wisconsin Senate and Governor. The stakes could well be raised to the congressional, and Senate representatives of the State with prime focus on Ron Johnson.

Who Can be Recalled?
Any elected officeholder who has served one year of the term for which he or she was most
recently elected, as of the date the recall petition is offered for filing, can be recalled.
§9.10(2)(s), Wis. Stats.
After one recall petition and recall election, no further recall petition may be filed against the same official during the term for which he or she was elected. §9.1 0(6), Wis. Stats.
If the regular term of an elected officeholder’s position is scheduled for re-election at the fall election to be held within six weeks of the date the recall petition is filed, a recall election may not be held.

Recall of Congressional Officals

You want malfeasance?

Wisconsin has been so focused on its back door step, that little light has been shed on freshman Senator Johnson.

Is it surprising that this tea party favorite has already shown his manipulative, self serving, Ayn Rand, behavior of bending the rules and dumping ethics to further the agenda of the Koch Bros, ALEC, and the greedy money holders?

Senator Ron Johnson gave himself a 10 million dollar loan from his own company, Pacur, shortly after he spent 9 million on his “self financed” 2010 election campaign.
Aside from election law violations, Johnson’s $10 million payday also may violate the Internal Revenue Code’s requirements that any deferred compensation agreement must be in writing – even if it’s between the top executive and the company he owns.

Johnson, who ran on his ability as an accountant and business man, demonstrates how he has mastered the ability to cook the books, manipulate figures, and fool the IRS under a hidden cloak, in a back room tax scam.

Read more about Johnson’s Accounting Tricks

Ron Johnson is an embarrassment as he stands up, again and again, with fringe right wing comments at hearings like the one below.

Take a breath – and recall Johnson

That’s right. The Protester was selected as Time Magazine’s person of the year.

“Massive and effective street protest” was a global oxymoron until — suddenly, shockingly — starting exactly a year ago, it became the defining trope of our times. And the protester once again became a maker of history.”

In a most fitting twist of fate or judicious irony, “the protester” usurped the placement of Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan from this cover of Time magazine. “The protester” spared Wisconsin from more embarrassment of association with far right, ultra conservative attack on the middle class. All this at time when the people of Wisconsin are entrenched in an effort to recall a governor who drinks from the same well as Ryan; a well that has been poisoned by the ALEC consortium as a national covert campaign was orchestrated to bring the middle class to its knees. Breath a sigh of relief. This could well have been the story:

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan has been named a runner-up in Time magazine’s Person of the Year.

Paul Ryan: The Prophet

Time said Ryan was the most influential American politician of the year.
Here’s a curious fact: in a year of political gridlock, when Congress could get nothing done — not even pass a budget — the most influential American politician was House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan. Through a combination of hard work, good timing and possibly suicidal guts, the Wisconsin Republican managed to harness his party to a dramatic plan for dealing with America’s rapidly rising public debt. He brought an ugly issue out of the foggy realm of think tanks and blue-ribbon panels and dropped it into the middle of the national debate in time to define the next presidential election. Time Magazine

Paul Ryan and the Conservative Right have gone from upsetting to downright scary

A very scary incident happened during a recent GOP debate. It was the kind of mob rule motivated reaction to a question posed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to Rep. Ron Paul, that smoked out a rather diabolical truth behind the fringe conservative hatred of Obmacare.

The smoke of truth smelled very much like it had risen from a reignited flame from the past. You can put nitro together with the glycerin by watching the short video below.

Two national leaders of Wisconsin have publicly embraced the thinking of Ayn Rand Senator Ron Johnson refers to her book “Altas Shrugged” as his foundation. Paul Ryan calls her philosophy the basis of capitalism. Can we free ourselves of these fanatics soon enough? Unless, you align yourself with her views as they do…

If the accusation is that the fringe elements of failed European socialism is pervading the polices of the Obama administration’s push for health care for all, then what would you call, Paul Ryan’s reference to Ayn Rand as a standard bearer for conservatism? I would call it just plain scary.

Thanks to “The Protester”, Wisconsin has been spared association with the cold, inhuman views of Ayn Rand, Ron Johnson, and Paul Ryan – views that simply do not reflect the spirit of the people of the state.

“It is a call for patriotism and higher ideals of citizenship. The patriotic citizenry of the country must take a stand against wealth to demand it conduct its affairs lawfully.” Fighting Bob La Follette

Not so long ago, I would go to my face book page and read posts about new babies, a friend’s favorite music but only an occasional mention of the politics of Wisconsin. That was before Walker, Fitzgerald, and the GOP control of the legislature. Yes. That was before. Why was I so unaware of the first rumblings of the massive quake about to devastate a pattern of fair play, compromise, and respect that I had grown up with in my home State of Wisconsin? The media and the polls began to suggest that Feingold and Barrett were in trouble and this news was reinforced by an inordinate number of green “Johnson for Senate” signs along the highways and by ways of my travels. Somehow, I could not or would not believe it. Would Wisconsin really give up a leader like Russ Feingold? Would this pale, uneducated, candidate for Governor ever get more votes than Barrett? No. I would not believe it.

So, the people went over the loses, as after a poor round of golf, checking the score card of their district and State. We all had lost Russ Feingold to a barrage of attacks that, we thought surely, no one would believe. Some districts did fair better than others: Ron Kind over Kapanke was the saving grace of my little world. We all had to face the loss of Barrett to Walker and met the facts with attitude; we would grin and bear it. We had survived Thompson and other Governors. This would pass. We would be more watchful, and surely this would pass.

Then it got scary. The refusal to accept the federal funding for rapid rail, and stoppage of the clean burning incineration project could almost be expected. Then came the unimaginable. The slap in the face of all that was Wisconsin; Walker’s budget repair bill that would hinge on the curtailing the collective bargaining rights for most public employees; a threat which came with a icy authoritarian stab of calling out the National Guard to curtail any public protest. At first, it was like a punch in the gut taking the wind right out of the air itself. A shock was followed by a moment of quiet disbelief. After the quiet, came the storm of unity, solidarity and protest that rocked the State.

And no words can capture a manifestation of human truth, although we may come close from time to time, yet the scientific expression of eternity is not a digit but a looped, bow-tie symbol. Some called it “The Awakening of a Sleeping Giant” or defined the unity of spirit with slogans; “We Are Wisconsin”, “This is What Democracy Looks Like”. New worlds were created, “Fitzwalkerstan” and “Walkerville” where palm trees flourished as fire fighter’s bag pipes, and a contentious circle of drums declared the new boundaries for a longing for freedom that stretched all the way to Egypt. All I know is that times such as these, these moments, open a portal of light and hope when it is a gift to be alive.

I was so anxious get behind Joanne Kloppenburg in the first election since Walker, that I miss spelled her name in my first post. The goal was set high; to defeat a long time incumbent Supreme Court Justice. Finally, the solidarity and new activism could be put to a unified purpose to win an election against all odds… and the election was won, but only for hours, before an off hand prediction of Walker, “Votes found out of the blue”, came to pass. An apologetic County Clerk from Waukesha, found 14,000 votes…somehow. The “somehow” raised the eye brows of the national press and sparked a state-wide recount. The discovery of ripped and torn vote bags, gaping breaks in the chain of custody, and impossible comparative voter turn out numbers left questions, suspicions, and anomalies that remain unanswered to this day. The air of fraud and incompetence surrounding the Waukesha vote count seemed to trip into another dark dimension of a hidden cloak room of the Government Accountability Board, and hand to hand violence in the chambers of the highest court. Attorney Verhoff filled months with a few pages of explanation that a did not rise to remedy but left a want for justice to be reckoned with on another day.

By some secret stroke of irony the “open meetings – collective bargaining ruling” of July came after a violent encounter behind closed doors in the Supreme Court Chambers, that we would only hear of days later. Even as Walker signed his bill into law, any celebration of victory was hushed. It was a hollow fantasy of words on paper, having won the battle but lost the war, and the trumpet sounded to carry the theme of fantasy forward, before the ink had dried on paper. Dr. Seuss might have written the script. Let’s have a fake election! We will get fake GOP’s to run as fake Dems or fake candidates in a fake election. The whole fake idea failed when each Dem Candidate beat each fake in each district in every case to the tune of a wasted a non-fake $400,000. Now the real history is upon us. The real 1st in the long story of Democracy. There is no precedent for the decision of August 9. The greatest number of state legislators ever to face recall on a single ballot was two, we look at six Statewide!

The Conservative Right has gone from upsetting to downright scary

A very scary incident happened during a recent GOP debate. It was the kind of mob rule motivated reaction to a question posed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to Rep. Ron Paul, that smoked out a rather diabolical truth behind the fringe conservative hatred of Obmacare.

The smoke of truth smelled very much like it had risen from a reignited flame from the past. You can put nitro together with the glycerin by watching the short video below.

Two of leaders of Wisconsin have publicly embraced the thinking of Ayn Rand Rob Johnson refers to her book “Altas Shrugged” as his foundation. Paul Ryan calls her philosophy the basis of capitalism. Can we free ourselves of these to fanatics soon enough? Unless, you align yourself with her views as they do…

If the accusation is that the fringe elements of failed European socialism is pervading the polices of the Obama administration’s push for health care for all, then what would you call, Paul Ryan’s reference to Ayn Rand as a standard bearer for conservativism? I would call it just plain scary.

“It is a call for patriotism and higher ideals of citizenship. The patriotic citizenry of the country must take a stand against wealth to demand it conduct its affairs lawfully.” Fighting Bob La Follette

12/06/2010

Koch “Candy” Cain’s campaign’s outside law firm is representing Americans for Prosperity (AFT) in a case challenging Wisconsin campaign finance regulations.

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.Who Are the Koch Bros.- Why Should I Care?

AFP tapped Cain as the public face of its “Prosperity Expansion Project,” and he traveled the country in 2005 and 2006 speaking to activists who were starting state-based AFP chapters from Wisconsin to Virginia. Through his AFP work he met Mark Block (pictured below and left as “convicted felon), a longtime Wisconsin Republican operative hired to lead that state’s AFP chapter in 2005 as he rebounded from an earlier campaign scandal that derailed his career.

Block and Cain sometimes traveled together as they built up AFP: Cain was the charismatic speaker preaching the ills of big government; Block was the operative helping with nuts and bolts.

When President Barack Obama’s election helped spawn the tea party, Cain was positioned to take advantage. He became a draw at growing AFP-backed rallies, impressing activists with a mix of humor and hard-hitting rhetoric against Obama’s stimulus, health care and budget policies.

Ex Convict, Block (who gave us Ron Johnson) is now Cain’s campaign manager!

Even though the mainstream press has failed to mention it, Mark Block is an ex-convict. He was the leader of the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity, and a mover and shaker in conservative political circles, with deep ties to the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
Read more

Block was banned from politics, and fined $15,000, for his role in an illegal scheme in the campaign of Supreme Court Justice Jon Wilcox.

Can you guess what his role was in the Wilcox campaign” – He was the campaign manager. Now he holds the same position for Herman Cain.

A blast from the past

What was Cain’s campaign manager convicted for?

In 1967 an “independent” group, the Wisconsin Coalition for Voter Participation (WCVP), raised $200,000 to mail 354,000 postcards and conduct a phone campaign disguised as a non-partisan get-out-the-vote effort. It was illegally coordinated with Wilcox’s campaign and helped him defeat challenger Walt Kelly. Mark Block got caught. He was fined with the largest sum ever assessed against any campaign in the history of Wisconsin — $60,000 in all. Block himself was fined $15,000 and barred from campaigns in Wisconsin for three years.
Read more

Does this Ring a bell? The same tactic was employed in the recent recall elections in Wisconsin.

Rolling Ground Resident Displays Fraudulent Mailing

From the Crawford County Independent – Thursday, August 4, 2011
by Erin Martin

Lamar Janes holds the suspicious absentee ballot application received by his wife on Saturday. Neither Janes nor his wife Lynda Shaller are members of American For Prosperity as the accompanying letter states. The application he’s holding states clearly absentee ballots must be submitted to “city clerks” by August 11. However, absentee ballots cannot be submitted after the election, which is scheduled for this Tuesday, August 9.

This Fraudulent mailing is showing up in county after county throughout the state of Wisconsin in a attempt to suppress the vote for the recall elections. Read more

Some 10-15 people were arrested while attempting to seek an audience with Senator Ron Johnson at his Milwaukee office earlier today.

A group of approximately 30-40 Milwaukee citizens had gathered outside Johnson’s office today to protest his vote against the American Jobs Act, which would cut the payroll tax and invest heavily in infrastructure, as well as extending unemployment benefits and providing significant financial aid to states.

Johnson did not see fit to allow a group of unemployed people to “seek audience” about his vote against the job bill. Perhaps, Johnson feels he has been elevated to the status of POPE?
Read More Arrested

Johnson is attempting to climb the ladder

Last week, the fiscal conservative who espouses tea party principles — if not the label — announced he would seek the No. 5 leadership position in the Senate Republican hierarchy. As vice chairman of the Republican Conference, Johnson would have a hand in crafting and disseminating the party’s message.

Johnson said in a statement that seeking the position was consistent with the goals that drove him to run for the Senate.

read more

Those present at a debate find themselves caught up in the same sort of pulsing energy as any mob, and sometimes the core truth of the mob escapes in the words of a single statement.

In the instance, of the Tea Party Sponsored debate of the Republican Candidates, the statement “Let him die!”was scary enough, but when it was followed by the burst of laughter it was downright psycho. It began to carry an eerie resemblance of the kind of almost gleeful cruelty of racist mobs in history that lynch, torture, and abuse their victims as they feed off each others hateful energy.

Does this crowd or Congressman Paul really believe that most people who can afford health insurance choose instead to go without it? Has it been that long since they sat at an American kitchen table and tried to figure out how to keep their benefits after a layoff? Or how to get care when they’ve never had insurance, ever? Or even how to schedule an appointment with an overbooked doctor in an HMO system? Maddow Blog

Senator Ron Johnson and Paul Ryan Do they seriously not know anyone who has struggled with those questions, even if they themselves have not?

Is Poverty a Hilarious Death Sentence? If so, Are You Ready for the Really Big Joke?

A new census report:
The United States has both the highest overall poverty rate and the highest childhood poverty rate of any major industrialized country on earth.

More Opportunities for GOP Tea Party Laughter

You see the posters, and fliers in all the restaurants, convenience stores, and community centers, and you see them all the time. Not a week goes by when you don’t see a poster for yet another benefit to ask for help for a loved one who is deathly ill and can’t afford further treatment. Sometimes you even see an “update” note of the current condition of the person. For most of us, it is really heartbreaking to read the specific and personal messages, but for the tea party crowd it is another opportunity to laugh at the irresponsibility of the poor sucker getting himself in such a situation and expecting his fellow citizens to take care of him.

Back in October, if you drove around the county roads and byways you couldn’t miss the dominating presence of signs to vote for Johnson or Walker. The signs were in the same people’s yards who called the health care bill “Obamacare” and want it repealed. I know some of these people well enough to expect they do not agree with psycho tea party “Let Him Die” laughter that chilled my spine.

I hope they were watching the Tea Party death panel of clowns last night, laughing and laughing.