When People In Politics Forget The Rules

Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article today about the antics practiced in Wisconsin in recent years by those attempting to remove and tarnish Governor Walker. The (so-called) legal basis for the attacks was the John Doe law.  In a 2015 article, I told the story of the John Doe Law being used as the basis for a swat-team-like invasion of a home where a teenager was home alone. The pretext for the invasion was coordination between conservative groups and Scott Walker’s campaign for governor. Please follow the link to the article to read the entire story–it is chilling.

Scott Johnson reports:

On Wednesday, a Wisconsin judge unsealed an 88-page report on the state Department of Justice’s (WIDoJ) investigation into a leak of sealed evidence from the politically motivated “John Doe” investigation of Gov. Scott Walker, his supporters, and various conservative groups related to his recall election campaign. The 88-page report is posted here.

The report lacks an executive summary. The pseudonymous Warren Henry summarizes and comments on the report for the Federalist in “Bombshell report: Political persecution of Scott Walker swept up high-level GOP officials.” Mike Kittle summarizes and comments on the report for Wisconsin’s MacIver Institute in “DOJ report: Wisconsin’s infamous John Doe was more sinister than first reported.”

The events reported in this report do not belong in a representative republic. Unfortunately, I suspect some of these intimidation tactics are being currently used to block the agenda of President Trump. They were not successful when they were used against Governor Walker, and hopefully they will not be successful when used against President Trump.

The article concludes:

The wrongdoing now detailed in the WIDoJ report is of the deeply fascist variety that exceeds my poor powers of denunciation. Suffice it to say that it combines the instruments of tyranny — physical torture omitted — in the service of the suppression of conservatives. The story is shocking almost beyond belief. One might ask where the outrage is, but at this point we should probably ask if anyone is paying attention.

All of the people involved in these activities belong in jail. I’m not holding my breath, but they belong in jail.

There Will Be More Of This To Come

The Weekly Standard posted an article today with the following headline, “NYT Columnist Blames Scott Walker for Teacher Layoffs That Occurred Before He Was Governor.” Details, details, details.

The attack on Scott Walker is moving full speed ahead. It is up to Americans to do their homework and figure out how many of the horrible things this man is being accused of actually happened.

The article at The Weekly Standard quotes a New York Times article by Gail Collins. Ms. Collins describes a recent speech given by Scott Walker in Iowa:

Mainly, though, The Speech was about waging war on public employee unions, particularly the ones for teachers. “In 2010, there was a young woman named Megan Sampson who was honored as the outstanding teacher of the year in my state. And not long after she got that distinction, she was laid off by her school district,” said Walker, lacing into teacher contracts that require layoffs be done by seniority.

Well, there are some problems with that description.

The Weekly Standard reports:

There are two problems in this section of Collins’s column: First, she accuses Walker of dishonesty, but she’s just quibbling over semantics. Is it really inaccurate to describe someone named an “outstanding first-year teacher” by the Wisconsin Council of Teachers of English as a “teacher of the year” for short? I’ve never seen much of a difference: In the headline of this 2011 piece, I described Sampson as a “teacher of the year,” but in the body of the piece I precisely described her award. Walker has been telling this story for four years, and no one thought his description of Sampson was dishonest until Gail Collins heard about it.

But the big error in Collins’s piece is her claim that “those layoffs happened because Walker cut state aid to education.” As you can see in the excerpt above, Collins is talking about teacher layoffs that occurred in 2010. Walker did not become governor until 2011. 

If you are a casual reader of the New York Times, the newspaper of record has just misled you. I seriously doubt they will bother to correct their mistake, so you are left with the impression that Scott Walker cut education funding and laid off teachers. What a horrible person! Only, what you have been told is a lie.

The article at The Weekly Standard also points out:

The truth is that Walker’s reforms actually saved teachers’ jobs. Right before the 2012 Wisconsin recall election, Walker’s Democratic opponent Tom Barrett couldn’t name a single school that had been hurt by Walker’s policies. When Walker’s 2014 Democratic opponent Mary Burke was asked to name any schools hurt by Walker’s collective bargaining reform, she relayed an anecdote she’d heard secondhand about one school. Burke’s story didn’t check out, and the superintendent of that school wrote a letter telling Burke she didn’t know what she was talking about. 

The message here is clear–do your own research.

 

Something To Consider

As a conservative (and as an American), I am not yet ready to decide who I would like to see run for President as a Republican in 2016. There are a lot of good conservative young leaders in the Republican party who would run a good campaign and do a good job as President. To name a few (but not all)–Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, and Rick Perry. You will notice that Rand Paul is not on my list. That is simply because I don’t know enough about him or his policies. The people on the list are state governors with experience in running a state that they could bring with them to being President. Rand Paul and Ben Carson are both extremely smart men who have run medical practices, but I don’t know enough about their administrative abilities or policies to be convinced–yet. However, that could change.

Last night I attended a fund raiser for Congressman Walter Jones where Rand Paul was the main speaker. There were a number of comments he made about our current state of affairs in America that impressed me.

Senator Paul spoke about the Boston Marathon bombing. As someone who was living in Massachusetts at that time, that event was earthshaking. He reminded us that the Russians had warned us about the brothers who set off the bombs. The brothers had recently traveled to a part of the world known for terrorism. Because of a variation of the spelling of their last name, Homeland Security was not tracking them. How hard would it be to create a computer program that would account for variations in spelling? Senator Paul also pointed out that the government has gotten so busy spying on Americans’ cell phones and emails that it cannot find the terrorist threats in the midst of such enormous amounts of data. He stated,”Sometimes we make the haystack so big we can’t find the needle.” That sounds like basic common sense to me!

Senator Paul also pointed out the need for a debate in Congress before we send American troops into war. The Constitution puts war powers in Congress–not with the President. We need to get back to the Constitution on deciding when and where to send our troops. He also reminded us that in every Middle Eastern country where we have toppled a secular dictator in the name of democracy we have brought instability and chaos. We also need to get back to political leaders who put the good of America ahead of their own political ambition.

Senator Paul also cited some egregious examples of government’s wasting of American taxpayer’s money.

I left the event wanting to know more about Senator Paul’s foreign policy and his specific plans to bring America back to the limited government our Founding Fathers envisioned. I hope to hear more about those things in the future so that I can make an educated choice in the 2016 Republican primary election.

Eliminating The Republican Candidates For 2016 By Misusing The Court System

I am not a lawyer, so much of what I am about to report I do not totally understand. What I do understand is that our judicial system can be used for nefarious purposes by those with political goals. That is one of many reasons we need the kind of tort reform that makes the person bringing a lawsuit with no merit pay court costs and damages. We have a bogus lawsuit going on in Wisconsin designed to oust Scott Walker from the 2016 presidential race.

Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted a story explaining how much of the press is misleading the public about the charges against Governor Walker.

I am quoting the article extensively because I don’t have the legal background to explain exactly what is going on.

The article reports:

Here is what is going on: a group of partisan local prosecutors launched a never-ending “John Doe investigation” into essentially every conservative group in the state of Wisconsin. The “investigation” is a scandal, a naked effort to shut down conservative speech. Federal Judge Rudolph Randa described how the investigation proceeded in an Order dated May 6, 2014.

…The case in which Judge Randa ruled was brought by the Club For Growth and Eric O’Keefe. Plaintiffs alleged that the purported investigation was in reality an unconstitutional infringement of their First Amendment rights, intended to deter the expression of conservative speech. Judge Randa agreed. In his May 6 Order, he found that the partisan “investigation” had no legal basis:

“The defendants are pursuing criminal charges through a secret John Doe investigation against the plaintiffs for exercising issue advocacy speech rights that on their face are not subject to the regulations or statutes the defendants seek to enforce. This legitimate exercise of O‘Keefe‘s rights as an individual, and WCFG‘s rights as a 501(c)(4) corporation, to speak on the issues has been characterized by the defendants as political activity covered by Chapter 11 of the Wisconsin Statutes, rendering the plaintiffs a subcommittee of the Friends of Scott Walker and requiring that money spent on such speech be reported as an in-kind campaign contribution. This interpretation is simply wrong.”

Judge Randa analyzed the law as it relates to campaign finance. He noted that the conservative groups denied any coordination, and their denials appear to be well-founded. But, in any event, their activities were constitutionally protected and cannot be the basis of a criminal investigation.

After Judge Randa made that ruling, the people who brought the case against all of the conservative groups appealed.

The article continues:

The Court of Appeals issued an order to the effect that Judge Randa would need to make a finding that the defendants’ appeal was frivolous in order to retain jurisdiction. That resulted in another Order, dated May 8, 2014, in which Judge Randa described the discredited prosecutors’ appeal as “the height of frivolousness.”

The article concludes:

An appellate judge has now ordered certain pleadings in the case to be unsealed, an order to which the Club For Growth did not object. The hysterical accusations against Scott Walker that the Associated Press, the Washington Post and others are now gleefully celebrating are simply the unfounded assertions that the prosecutors made in a failed effort to justify their partisan investigation. They are precisely the allegations that have been resoundingly rejected by the federal judge who has presided over the case and who has found the defendants’ investigation to be a naked violation of the conservative groups’ constitutional rights.

So the reporters who are now trumpeting the discredited prosecutors’ assertions either have no understanding of the case, or they are part of the partisan witch hunt that gave rise to the unconstitutional investigation in the first place.

This type of lawsuit brought against conservative groups has two purposes–as the groups fight it, it costs them tons of money, draining their resources that would be used to get their message out. The other purpose is to discourage other conservative groups from speaking out. This type of lawsuit has also been used to quell free speech in other areas–anyone who says something negative about Islam is likely to be sued by the Council on American–Islamic Relations ( CAIR).

Our judicial system works, but it can be abused. We need to follow the example of Texas in instituting tort reform to prevent people from using our court system for political ends.

Good Government Makes A Difference

When Governor Scott Walker took office in January 2011, he began a wave of reforms that have advanced Wisconsin’s economy. Wisconsin added over 63,000 private sector jobs in 2011-12 following the loss of about 134,000 private sector jobs during the previous four years. The private sector job gains under Governor Walker are the best two-year gains under any Governor in over a decade.

Yesterday, the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune posted an article about Governor Walker’s plan to use part of the state’s surplus to reduce taxes on the residents of the state.

The article reports:

Assembly Republicans put the finishing touches Tuesday on Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to devote a huge chunk of the state’s surplus to tax cuts, approving the proposal one last time before sending it to the governor to be signed.

…The bill calls for using the state’s projected $977 million surplus to cover property and income tax cuts. The measure would send $406 million to technical colleges to reduce their property tax hit and cut income taxes by $98.6 million. The changes would translate to a $131 reduction on a median-valued home’s property tax bill this December and save the average worker $46 in annual income taxes.

Admittedly, that’s not very much–a little over $200 for a family where both parents work–but it represents movement in the right direction. How many years have the residents of Wisconsin watched their taxes increase by that much?

Governor Walker created an environment in Wisconsin that attracted businesses, and businesses came. The irony of this is that many ‘experts’ have attributed the migration of Americans to southern states to warmer climates–frankly, I am not sure you could convince anyone to go to Wisconsin based on climate alone.

Congratulations to Governor Walker for a job well done!

 

 

 

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When Government Works

Yes, government can actually work. You haven’t heard about this one example because it really does not illustrate what the media wants illustrated, but government can work.

Yesterday The Blaze reported on some comments made by Rush Limbaugh about what is happening in Wisconsin. You haven’t heard much about this, but the state has done an amazing turn around.

The story reports:

The state of Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is “rapidly falling” and the government’s budget ended the year with a $912 million surplus, Limbaugh explained. He says the dramatic turnaround is due in large part to the conservative policies of Gov. Scott Walker.

What’s even more amazing, he continued, is the fact that Walker is going to “rebate the money in the form of tax cuts to the people, who he said own the money.” Limbaugh says the news is “earth-shattering” because, in one of the bluest states, Walker was targeted for removal twice but continued to implement conservative policies that he was confident would help his state — and his strategy appears to be working.

If you think back a little bit, you remember what Governor Walker went through to implement his plans for the state. He had protestors trashing the capitol, he survived recall elections, and personal attacks, but he just kept on moving forward.

The article reminds us:

“He’s going to cut income taxes and property taxes, and he made the point that it’s not just a gimmick of budgeting or accounting. It’s the result of serious, significant policy changes,” Limbaugh argued.

“Now, folks, what I just told you was not reported once anywhere in what you would consider mainstream media. It was not reported on one cable network, much less all of them. It was not reported in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the LA Times,” he added. “It was reported in Wisconsin. There was an AP story on it, maybe some local papers picked it up, but just as a filler.”

“And to me, for us as conservatives, Wisconsin and Governor Walker, I mean, everything that we want to happen, happened there,” the radio host concluded.

When government is done right, unemployment goes down, taxes go down, and everyone gains. When government is done wrong, unemployment goes up, taxes go up, the number of people receiving food stamps goes up, and everyone loses.

It is, in the long run, up to the voters to decide what they want.

“He’s going to cut income taxes and property taxes, and he made the point that it’s not just a gimmick of budgeting or accounting. It’s the result of serious, significant policy changes,” Limbaugh argued.

“Now, folks, what I just told you was not reported once anywhere in what you would consider mainstream media. It was not reported on one cable network, much less all of them. It was not reported in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the LA Times,” he added. “It was reported in Wisconsin. There was an AP story on it, maybe some local papers picked it up, but just as a filler.”

“And to me, for us as conservatives, Wisconsin and Governor Walker, I mean, everything that we want to happen, happened there,” the radio host concluded.

Listen to the segment via the Daily Rushbo:

Walker is proposing a $504 million property and income tax cut plan as a means to return some of the surplus money to the people of Wisconsin. Some Democrats and Republicans are already criticizing the plan and are calling for changes.

“The budget surplus is really your money,” Walker recently said at a meeting of the Wisconsin Grocers Association. “You earned it.”

However, some lawmakers are concerned that Walker’s tax cut plan would increase the state’s projected budget shortfall from $700 million to $800,000 million. The Republican governor argues the estimates don’t take into account any revenue growth, which he says will cover the difference.

The unemployment rate in Wisconsin dropped to 6.2 percent in December and has been dropping steadily since 2011.

Featured Comments

  • Shreknangst

    A $912 million surplus, turns into a projected $700-$800 million deficit … a $1.6 Trillion negative shift.
    Somehow that sounds like Reagan era traditional GOP math and economics … Where are the Tea Party and their idea of cutting deficits? This guy seems to be creating a massive one, and, naturally, Rush doesn’t see it.
    A 6.2% unemployment rate doesn’t leave much room for growth in the economy. To wipe out that $1.6 Trillion negative shift, the state would need to get to nearly zero unemployment.

    Shreknangst

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Why Elections Matter

The Chippewa Herald reported on Sunday that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has signed a $70 billion, two-year state budget.

The article reports:

The budget approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature includes all Walker’s priorities, including a $650 million income tax cut, expansion of private school vouchers and changes to the state’s Medicaid and food stamp programs.

…Walker made 57 changes to the budget using a veto power that allows him to cut words from sentences to change their meaning and remove individual digits to create new numbers. His two most significant vetoes eliminated provisions creating a bounty hunter program and kicking an investigative journalism center off the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

I live in Massachusetts, where our taxes are going up and the gasoline tax is going to be indexed to inflation so it can be automatically raised without the Democrats who control the state having to take responsibility for the tax increase. Massachusetts has some of the best schools in the country and obviously some of the least educated voters. I don’t know anything about schools in Wisconsin, but obviously their voters are pretty smart.

 

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The People Have Spoken, The Courts Aren’t Listening

Yesterday Legal Insurrection posted an article about the court’s decision in Wisconsin to overturn the changes made to collective bargaining laws by the State Legislature. As you remember, we have gone through recalls of legislators and the governor of that state and the people supported them. Well, the court decided not to.

The article reports:

First it was Dane County Judge Sumi who interjected herself into the legislative process by striking down the collective bargaining reform law, only to be overturned by the State Supreme Court which rejected challenges to the process used to pass it

Now a different Dane County judge has struck the law down again (decision here), this time on the ground that state employees have a constitutional right to collectively bargain, and has reinstated the law as if the legislature never passed the reforms.

This is Governor Walker‘s statement regarding the decision:

The people of Wisconsin clearly spoke on June 5th.  Now, they are ready to move on.  Sadly a liberal activist judge in Dane County wants to go backwards and take away the lawmaking responsibilities of the legislature and the governor. We are confident that the state will ultimately prevail in the appeals process.”

He is right. It is just a shame that we have to fight this battle again and again. The voters have clearly stated their choice, and the state is recovering from a financial disaster. The judges decision needs to be reversed.

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Why Walker Won

Last night, National Review Online posted an article stating their opinion of the reasons Governor Walker won in Wisconsin. The recall election was a very expensive race–nearly $62 million spent by the end of May.

The article reports:

Walker won because his reform program is popular, and because it is working. The governor’s personal approval numbers in Wisconsin hover around 50 percent — not bad for a man whom most Wisconsinites have seen Photoshopped into a Hitler mustache and Nazi regalia at least once in the last year. But more telling is the popularity of Walker’s reforms. According to one recent Reason-Rupe poll, 72 percent of Wisconsinites favor the requirement that public-sector workers increase their pension contributions to 6 percent of their salaries. And 71 percent favor making government employees pay 12 percent instead of 6 percent of their health-care premiums.

These are actually modest reforms that did nothing more than bring the public sector employees more into line with what private sector employees receive as benefits. The savings on reforms like this can make the difference between a state having a balanced budget or sliding deeper into debt. Governor Walker brought fiscal sanity to the state budget.

The article at The Hill commented on the amount of money spent and where it came from:

Walker won because he represented the taxpayer, while his opponent represented the groups whose livelihoods depend on bilking the taxpayer. Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett served as less of an alternative than a vessel for Big Labor’s unmoored wrath. Barrett raised a mere $4 million on his own, while outside PACs did the heavy lifting — We Are Wisconsin raised more than $5.5 million in the last month alone, including seven-figure donations from AFSCME and the AFL-CIO, six-figure donations from the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, and a mere $720 from its three (that’s three) individual donors. The Left will complain that Walker outspent Barrett handily, but this is no vice considering Walker also handily outraised Barrett in individual donations, about three-quarters of which were for less than $50. It was Walker’s strength, after all, that convinced national Democrats to stop spending on a race they didn’t think they could win.

It was a very good night for conservatives, but this was just one battle in a very long war. We need to understand that bringing sanity back to public employee benefits is going to be a long, hard road.

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Today In Wisconsin

Today is the day that Wisconsin voters finally get to go to the polls and put an end to the seemingly endless debate about whether Scott Walker is an angel or a devil. Today’s Chicago Sun Times posted a story about today’s election. The story reminds us that the original issue that caused the recall of Governor Walker— reform of public employee unions–hasn’t been talked about much during the campaign. There is a reason for that–the reforms have been highly successful. One of the things that Governor Walker changed was the health insurance for teachers in the state. Previously teachers’ health insurance and retirement were handled exclusively by the the WEA Trust, a creation of the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), As reported in rightwinggranny.com in February 2011, the WEA Trust has come under investigation for tax violations and unreported political donations. Governor Walker moved the teachers to the same health insurance program that covers other state employees.

The article at the Sun Times reports:

Public service employees are finally making reasonable contributions to their pension and health benefits. Government employee unions no longer dictate work rules. Local school districts and governments with new latitude to renegotiate contracts have saved Wisconsin taxpayers $1 billion, according to the governor’s office.

The article concludes:

Walker never trailed in the polls but some surveys showed a tightening of the race in the final days. The voters have the final say Tuesday. They will decide whether Wisconsin will lead the nation in rescuing taxpayers from grasping government employee unions and the self-serving politicians who have appeased them by caving to their demands or return to policies that risk bankruptcy for government budgets, endangering vital government services and leaving taxpayers with the staggering bill.

What Governor Walker has done in Wisconsin is needed in almost all states. Unfunded liabilities in state budgets caused by unfunded public pensions are bankrupting the states. In some cases, towns and cities are spending more money on pensions for police and firefighters than they are for active police and firefighters. I don’t have a problem with pensions for police and firefighters, but money for those pensions needs to be set aside during the time those people are working–it should not be an unfunded liability.

Wisconsin will be an interesting bellwether.

 

 

 

 

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Whoops!!!

There has been an October surprise in Wisconsin, in June, that has gone horribly wrong for the perpetrators. Gateway Pundit posted a story today about the Democrats latest attempt to recall Scott Walker. The Wisconsin Citizens Media Co-op posted a story yesterday entitled, “Integrity: The Child Scott Walker Left Behind.” It is the story of a college co-ed who got pregnant by Scott Walker, who later ignored her, denied the child was his, and never paid child support. The Wisconsin Citizens Media Co-op posted the young woman’s testimony and cited that testimony to show that Scott Walker was not a man of integrity. Well, maybe the Wisconsin Citizens Media Co-op is not a newspaper of quality investigative reporting–it was a different Scott Walker! The person who fathered the child was Scott Alan Walker–not Governor Scott Kevin Walker.

I can understand how this sort of mistake can be made, but when dealing with a fairly common name, shouldn’t a publication make sure of its facts before printing or posting a story. Usually October (or in this case June) surprises are effective because there is little time to dispute the story. All of us as voters need to take everything with a grain of salt that is said within a week of an election.

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