Ruh roh:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The Obama administration on Wednesday sought to join two ongoing lawsuits against voting laws in Wisconsin and Ohio. In the filings, the Justice Department argued that a federal judge was right to strike down Wisconsin's voter ID law and that Ohio is incorrectly interpreting its duties under a provision of the Voting Rights Act.
Attorney General Eric Holder, who talked about the filings in an interview with ABC earlier this month, said in a statement on Wednesday that they "are necessary to confront the pernicious measures in Wisconsin and Ohio that would impose significant barriers to the most basic right of our democracy."
"These two states' voting laws represent the latest, misguided attempts to fix a system that isn't broken," Holder continued. "These restrictive state laws threaten access to the ballot box. The Justice Department will never shrink from our responsibility to protect the voting rights of every eligible American. And we will keep using every available tool at our disposal to guard against all forms of discrimination, to prevent voter disenfranchisement, and to secure the rights of every citizen."
The Justice Department argues in an amicus brief filed in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that a federal judge correctly determined that Wisconsin's voter ID law violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it has a discriminatory impact on black and Hispanic voters and also violated the 14th Amendment because it placed unjustified burdens on a large group of voters.
In Wisconsin, the state is currently appealing a federal judge's decision to strike down a GOP-backed 2011 law that imposed photo ID requirements on voters in the state. DOJ's filing in that case encourages the appeals court to look at the "totality of circumstances," including examining whether "social, political, and historical conditions in Wisconsin hinder minorities' political participation." - Huffington Post, 7/30/14
Walker, like all GOP Governors, really doesn't want minorities coming out to the polls so he should be nervous. By the way, Walker is getting hammered in the press on this:
http://www.jsonline.com/...
Gov. Scott Walker is no economic populist though he plays one, it seems, in the campaign for governor. Since he was elected in 2010, Walker has been the state's biggest cheerleader for business.
And that's why his campaign's recent attack ads over outsourcing are so laughable and why his support for a proposal to make outsourcing a factor in the awarding of state grants suspect.
The campaign's recent television ads have attacked Democratic opponent Mary Burke, a former Trek Bicycle Corp. executive and member of the company's founding family. But those ads also attacked Trek, a respected Wisconsin business founded by Burke's father in 1976, whose contributions to the state Walker so far has declined to acknowledge.
"Mary Burke is trying to sell us on her experience at her family business, but she forgot to mention they make 99% of their bikes overseas, in places like China, where her company has outsourced jobs for years," says a narrator in one of the ads.
Walker's defense? Burke criticized his administration for giving tax credits to businesses that then sent jobs overseas, even as her own company did the same thing. "We're not criticizing outsourcing itself," Walker said in a recent interview. "We're pointing out the hypocrisy of the Burke campaign."
But there is a difference between answering the demands of competition — as Trek has — and taking a state handout only to turn around and ship some of that same work to an overseas plant.
With heat from the outsourcing controversy threatening to singe Walker, the governor on Monday said he would back a proposal by Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) to block state money and incentives from going to companies that move jobs abroad. Is that a proposal he would have backed during his "Wisconsin is open for business" incarnation earlier in his term? Probably not. - Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, 7/29/14
And even the Tea Party is getting fed up with Walker:
http://host.madison.com/...
A local tea party organizer said “the fence riding” by Gov. Scott Walker over the Common Core education standards has to stop.
“We're not interested in playing games with our children's education,” said Sun Prairie’s Jeff Horn, who belongs to a group called Prairie Patriots. “A significant portion of the governor's base is only interested in an actual repeal of Common Core and Wisconsin pulling out of the oppressive Smarter Balanced Assessments. The fence riding has got to stop.”
On July 17, Walker announced in a single-sentence press release that he was calling for lawmakers to convene in special session and repeal the standards in early January.
Many, including Horn, said politics was at play, given that a January session is after the November election and the start of the next school year. Horn told the Cap Times for a story on Walker's announcement that he was “cautiously optimistic” that Walker was not pulling the same move as Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
He became the first governor to repeal the Common Core standards in April, but conservative critics said the new standards were essentially a rebranded version of Common Core.
Walker said on July 18 during a visit to Milwaukee Area Technical College in Oak Creek that “whatever is adopted may not differ significantly from Common Core standards,” according to an Associated Press article. - The Cap Times, 7/28/14
And Walker keeps getting hit with this:
http://www.fdlreporter.com/...
A statewide advocacy group on Tuesday asked Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to investigate allegations that guards at Waupun Correctional Institution have abused inmates in the prison’s segregation unit dozens of times since 2011.
“It is now clear that the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, as a matter of policy, routinely engages in torture,” said the letter from Wisdom, a faith-based group with chapters around the state. “As governor, you have the authority and responsibility to end the torture now.”
Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick declined comment, referring questions to the state Department of Corrections. DOC spokeswoman Joy Staab declined to comment on Wisdom’s letter but issued a statement: “Every allegation of assault that is brought to the attention of staff is investigated. The Dodge County Sheriff’s Department routinely investigates allegations. During the past several years there have been no substantiated allegations of staff on inmate abuse at Waupun Correctional Institution.”
Wisdom’s letter was prompted by a series of articles released last week by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and published or cited by 29 news organizations around the state. The Center identified 40 allegations of physical or psychological staff-on-inmate abuse involving 33 inmates in the prison’s solitary confinement unit over the past three years.
The letter from Wisdom president Sandra Milligan said Wisconsin’s use of solitary confinement, in which prisoners spend months if not years with little human contact, “is by definition torture.” She cited the Center’s series in saying that the problem is “particularly acute at Waupun.”
“The exhaustive five-month investigation by the independent Center for Investigative Journalism found that many of the inmates in solitary confinement are mentally ill and subject to alleged routine abuse by guards and indifference by staff,” she wrote. - FDL Reporter, 7/30/14
And Mary Burke (D. WI) is hitting Walker on this:
http://chippewa.com/...
For the first time in a marathon series of campaign ads, Democrat Mary Burke went after Gov. Scott Walker's promise to create 250,000 jobs by the end of his first term in an ad released this week.
Walker famously pledged during his 2010 campaign to create a quarter-million private-sector jobs in Wisconsin during his first four years in office. According to calculations from Politifact Wisconsin, the governor has reached 40 percent of that goal, with 100,313 jobs.
The Burke campaign released an ad Tuesday with footage of Walker saying that he'd like voters to hold him to that promise.
"Absolutely," Walker answered when asked by reporter Mike Gousha if the number represented a campaign promise. "And it's one of those where, just like as county executive, I made bold promises and we kept those."
The ad says not only does Wisconsin lag in job growth compared to other Midwestern states, it hasn't seen those 250,000 new jobs.
Wisconsin ranked 35th in the nation in private-sector job growth from December 2010 to December 2013, and 37th in 2013.
Burke touted her own jobs plan as one that would make Wisconsin a "thriving, top-ten economy."
"The path to a stronger Wisconsin starts with creating more good paying jobs and making sure workers have the skills necessary to fill those jobs," Burke said in a statement. "Succeeding on those fronts strengthens and grows the middle class. And when the middle class thrives, businesses grow — generating more jobs, opportunity and prosperity for everyone." - The Chippewa Herald, 7/29/14
We can beat Walker but we have to get the base out for Burke. Click here to donate and get involved with her campaign:
http://burkeforwisconsin.com/