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Keith takes aim at Wisconsin again and the buffoonery of the Republican's who claim to cut the budget while padding their nests.
As is often the case, Keith's column has some homework.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal
Even though the state is supposedly broke, top officials in Gov. Scott Walker's team were able to scrape together enough money to give a state job to the woman identified as Sen. Randy Hopper's girlfriend.
Anything for a political ally.
Valerie Cass, a former Republican legislative staffer, was hired Feb. 7 as a communications specialist with the state Department of Regulation and Licensing. She is being paid $20.35 per hour. The job is considered a temporary post.
Keith's commentary begins with a long and withering sentence.
The ham-handed self-serving greediness playing out in the background of Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to make Wisconsin into the central battle zone in the Koch Brothers’ attempt to end collective bargaining in this country, roared to the forefront Sunday night when the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that the supposedly financially imperiled state had enough money to hire State Senator Randy Hopper’s mistress.
Alysia, the estranged wife is accusing Hopper, 45, of beginning an affair with Cass, 26, last year. He filed for divorce in August.
Keith asks, who recommended Ms. Cass for the post?
The Governor's spokesman has confirmed that it was Keith Gilkes, Walker’s chief of staff. She was then interviewed by the Department of Regulations and Licensing’s executive assistant and deputy and hired by Secretary Dave Ross, a Walker cabinet member.
And here comes the best part. The scandal reaches all the way up to the national Republican Party.
And when you thought this couldn’t get any sleazier, the saga of the hiring of the married Senator’s young girlfriend during a supposed fiscal crisis of biblical proportions, manages to reach to…the election of the new chairman of the Republican National Committee!:
When Cass was working in Washington helping Reince Priebus win the chair of the RNC, She wrote this note to a Walker's staffer,
“Things are really heating up with Reince’s campaign and shaping up nicely,” she wrote. “With the RNC vote coming up in a few weeks and Governor-elect Walker’s inauguration this week, I was wondering if you had any more details about when you would have a spot ready for me?”
Keith concludes with this penetrating observation.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The greatest defense of our way of life and our democracy is not vigilance nor protest nor political skill, but the rampant and always-to-be-relied-upon stupidity and avarice of the Republican Party. God Protect their devotion not to murdering freedom, but to shoplifting a $4.00 can of soup.
When the best thing we have going for us these days is the stupidity and greed of our Republican opponents, the Democrats need to step up their game.
And to rub salt in the wound of any Wisconsinite worried about losing their jobs under the Walker budget axe.... Valerie Cass got a raise.
Carlson said she filled a vacancy created by a previous limited-term employee who left in January. These temporary workers can put in no more than 1,043 hours during a fiscal year, which ends June 30. According to a Madison TV report, Cass received a substantial pay raise over her predecessor.
If she were to put in a full year in her current job, she would make about $43,200. Her predecessor was paid at a rate of $31,200 a year.