Things haven't been going well for Governor Scott Walker and it's been getting worse lately. So bad, in fact, that he's on a media tour today touting his jobs agenda. He's been running away from the media for a few months now, but it seems they're back to being his faithful stenographers again.
He's about to be recalled, the John Doe Probe has issued 15 indictments of those closest to him and is nipping at his heels, Wisconsin has led the nation in job losses for the last 6 months, he's facing a huge deficit and talking out of both sides of his mouth about it, one meelyon eligible voters (nearly double the amount needed) signed petitions to remove him from office despite a massive media campaign about how great he is and how "it's working", the Courts are after several of his shiny new laws, and now he can't ram through all the rest of his extremist agenda before the Legislative Session ends on March 15.
Karma can be a bitch.
Being a Republican, he follows the Karl Rove playbook: lie and whine.
Todays current lie and whine involve the loss of his precious (to mining interests) Mining Bill which essentially allows iron ore mining by removing environmental and other protections. Republicans still have a massive majority in the State Assembly, but only a 1 vote majority in the State Senate thanks to the summer recalls. And Dale Schultz didn't like the extremist Assembly version of the Mining Bill. Assembly and State Senate Republicans refused his attempts at compromise so the bill is, essentially dead in the water. They won't hold a vote on it either because they don't want a losing vote (those headlines must be avoided) so Walker steps up:
Gov. Scott Walker laid the blame for the collapse of mining legislation on the failure of Democrats to compromise, but more significantly, he faulted those who oppose his policies, especially parties from outside of the state.
It's those pesky "outsiders" again. He can't admit that it was native tribes and Wisconsin citizens fought like hell to protects our water, air, and environment.
In the end, Walker said Gogebic Taconite (the mining company who recently said they would drop their interests the mine that was promoted by the bill) could not go along with the changes pushed by 16 Democratic senators and a lone Republican, Dale Schultz of Richland Center as unacceptable.
(I added the information in italics.)
Of course! We love legislation that benefits only one company (not) that trashes our environment in the process.
On top of that, one of his recall opponents, Kathleen Falk, has been pointing to Walkers secret schedule, a first in Wisconsin.
It’s true that Walker does not post his schedule ahead of time. For some events, he gives advance notice to reporters. And under the state open records law, he also issues a monthly calendar -- after the fact -- to reporters and others who request it.
That calendar, which lists Walker’s official activities as governor, is usually distributed about 10 days after the month ends, said Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie.
That calendar doesn't include political events either even though it's published belatedly. Werwie said that the schedule isn't posted ahead of time because "it can change". Hahahahaha! It's not published because taxpayers in Wisconsin would be shocked to see how much time Walker is spending on fundraising and outside political activities rather than on state business.
We have a long tradition of openness, transparency and honesty in government which has been sorely lacking under the FitzWalkerKochStan Empire.
There is no need to separate concerns about Walker’s assault on collective bargaining rights from concerns about his assaults on democracy. They are closely related. The same authoritarian impulse that leads leaders to try to structurally disable their political critics leads them to try to prevent citizen participation in the choosing of elected officials and holding them to account.
But it is important to recognize that, in addition to the damage Walker has done to labor relations and the economy of the state, he has done severe damage to Wisconsin’s open government tradition.
The Courts haven't been on Walkers side either. A 3 judge panel, after
giving the GOP 2 opportunities (they said NO) to meet with plaintiffs in the Redistricting Lawsuit and consider their concerns in the secretly drawn, GOP input only legislative map, held a hearing which ended late last Friday and have been deliberating since (awaiting decision). It may be the court that ends up redrawing our legislative districts.
In another decision, an injunction was issued preventing the Republican Voter ID Law from being used in the April municipal and presidential primary elections. Of course, there were no objections to Judge Flanagan when the lawsuit was assigned to him, but now that he's issued an injunction - let the whining begin.
Yesterday, the GOP filed a complaintagainst the action of Judge Flanagan because ... wait for it .... he signed the Scott Walker recall petition.
The GOP complaint, filed by lawyer Kristina Sesek, alleges that because recall group United Wisconsin made the voter ID law one of its "Top Ten Reasons to Recall Scott Walker," Flanagan's "public demonstration of his distaste for Gov. Walker calls into question his appearance of impropriety, especially to persons with knowledge of the facts and circumstances surrounding the case."
He wasn't alone, either. A million Wisconsinites also signed the petitions.
Richard Saks, one of the lawyers representing the NAACP and Voces, .... state Supreme Court rules don't prohibit judges from signing such petitions or voting in elections because they are fundamental rights. He said the rules do prohibit endorsing political candidates or raising money for them.
He said Flanagan could have disclosed signing the petition, "but it begs the question whether it was necessary to disclose it because the petition was a public record, anyway."
DOJ had ample opportunities to object to Flanagan's participation in the case, he said, and noted that Flanagan had ruled against the NAACP and Voces in a decision just last month.
"I don't know whether (DOJ) knew that at the time, but they certainly had no problem with the judge then," he said.
Already being called
absurd, it's Republican pearl clutching and fainting couch seeking at its politically thinnest.
But now that Flanagan has issued a temporary injunction blocking implementation of the voter ID law — on the basis of well-established law — he is suddenly being attacked by Republicans as an irresponsible partisan. The Republican Party of Wisconsin has gone so far as to file a formal complaint against Judge Flanagan with the Wisconsin Judicial Commission.
Why?
Because he signed a petition to recall Gov. Scott Walker.
Here's the problem: 46 percent of the electorate in the last gubernatorial election signed the petition to recall Walker.
Failing in their attempt to block wind energy (they just love fossil fuels and the campaign payola that comes from Big Oil and Coal), expect more gnashing of teeth.
They're not donein their last minute ram throughs. Of course, now that wolves are off the endangered species list, the GOP wants to have open season to hunt them, more funds for private and charter schools (and eliminating them from the testing and accountability that public schools are subjected to), trying to put business and County Executives of surrounding (Republican) counties in charge of the local taxpayer funded Milwaukee Area Technical College (while not making changes in other counties vocational schools), eliminating voter registration at Wisconsin high schools, making recalls of public officials nearly impossible (requiring "serious criminal charges" of the elected official), among other measures they frantically want to pass before the end of the session a week from today.
Walker needs all those millions of dollars in ads that have been airing since November. Outside of those ads, he's left only with whining. It's so Republican of him.
On top of ads, he needs a great big crying towel.
Update: Mixed news for Walker in the release of the jobs numbers. Wisconsin saw a net gain of jobs in January, the first time in 6 consequtive months of job losses. The bad news for Governor Snotty, is that the numbers of job losses in 2011 were worse than reported with Wisconsin losing almost 10,000 jobs in 2011. All of those losses came after Walkers policies were in place.