WALKER 2

915

new node see WI tag and WISC 2 node

AG ~ CPPboyden gray

pension: president of the Young America’s Foundation

WHEN WHY DID HE BAIL? eternal mystery

biker ride

oxford union?

trump re-election comm

lt gov klee---running for

---

an 12 23

no lnx

republican Scott Walker went down in history as one of the most anti-union governors in Wisconsin history. Act 10, aggressively pushed by Walker through the Wisconsin State Legislature, attacked collective bargaining for public-sector unions and required public workers to pay more for health care.

Act 10's critics challenged Act 10 in the courts. But in 2014, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a 5-2 vote, upheld the law as constitutional.

Since then, there has been a major change in the state's highest judicial body. Liberal Janet Protasiewicz, in April, enjoyed a double-digit victory in a Wisconsin Supreme Court race — giving liberals a majority.

In an article published on December 5, The Nation's John Nichols reports that Act 10's future may be in jeopardy given the Wisconsin High Court's new makeup.

"With the April 2023 election win by Justice Janet Protasiewicz," Nichols explains, "the (Wisconsin Supreme) Court now has a 4-3 majority that could well be inclined to reconsider the constitutionality of Act 10. And they will likely get a chance to do so."

Nichols elaborates, "Last week, a coalition of unions, including several affiliates of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, AFSCME, and the Teamsters, as well as SEIU Wisconsin and the Teaching Assistants Association (TAA/AFT) — which represents graduate student workers on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and is the oldest graduate students union in the world — filed a lawsuit demanding that Act 10 be struck down."

In an official statement, union members cited "low pay, staffing shortages and worsening working conditions" as some of their reasons for filing their anti-Act 10 lawsuit.

READ MORE: Wisconsin court case could end 'virtually impenetrable' GOP 'near-supermajorities' in state legislature

The Nation's full report is available at this link.

bing fail FF grab 7 23 an

How the odd and wonderful people of this small Wisconsin town are slapping Republicans back into reality

D. Earl Stephens

and Raw Story

July 31, 2023

I wasn’t going to get into all this small-town noise echoing off a borrowed song by a tone-deaf country music phony named Jason Aldean. Not because I don’t think it’s an important issue worth kicking around in earnest, but because I am not much interested in helping such an intellectual shrimp garner such big record sales.

So that’ll be the last mention of this three-chord poser. If you want more, hit Google, or better yet, wait until he undoubtedly becomes Trump’s opening act during one of those standup routines when he menacingly stalks an Iowa cornfield, shaking down his groupies to help pay for his endless supply of noxious gas.

All this did get me to thinking a bit about my town, Madison, Wisconsin, and I’d like to spend a few minutes telling you about it. After all, my town could well be the place the latest mega-election of our lives gets settled two Novembers from now.

Thanks to a career in journalism that took me around the world, and before that a nervous mom who was picking out our next place to live before we had even settled into the place we briefly inhabited two times before that, I’ve lived just about everywhere.

It took me about five minutes after walking away from my keyboard to count ‘em all. When I returned, the number I landed on was 22 — give or take.

I was born an Army brat in Ethiopia around the time Eisenhower was bowing out and Kennedy was strutting in. I’ve been bouncing around ever since. I’ve lived in mega-cities like Tokyo and New York City and small towns like Bloomsbury, New Jersey and Turner, Maine. I’ve lived in villages in Germany like Pfungstadt and Steinwenden, and big towns in Florida like Naples and Fort Myers.

I was living in Washington, D.C. when all hell broke loose on 9/11, and Winthrop, Massachusetts, when JFK was murdered.

I am now onto my 12th year in Madison, and I’ve never lived anywhere close to this long. It’s the first place I have lived since my mom finally put down roots in Plainfield, N.J., for a few years in the ‘60s and ‘70s, that feels like home.

When I arrived here from Germany to start another gig after finishing up my stint at Stars & Stripes, the editorially independent newspaper that serves the troops and their families overseas, Madison was positively up for grabs politically.

It took me about four days to realize I was in the right place at the right time as America began trying to sort itself out, and decide if it really was the land of the free and the home of the brave, or just some big-box empire owned by a clutch of judgmental, rightwing billionaires.

Republican Scott Walker was the governor here, and more important, the billionaire Koch Bros. No. 1 errand boy. He’d been elected the year before and was busy taking his gold-plated hammer to anything with a beating heart.

It was easy to see Walker was dangerous as hell, because of how effortlessly he overestimated himself.

I got to meet him a couple of times and came away from those encounters positively convinced he was dumber than dirt — with apologies to dirt. He’s vacant. Dead inside. He’s also one of these cats who wants you to know he leans on God, while at the same time stepping on the throats of the needy.

Turns out he was a useful Republican power tool until eight years later when he lost a race he figured he’d win, and ended up hanging on a hook in some worthless shed wondering where the power cord went.

And let me duck in here real quick to point out that this racist, Ron DeSantis, is nothing but a Scott Walker redo. Their loud music sounds great blaring from their speakers at home, but falls flat everywhere else.

There’s a lot of good news in that, because if I’ve got this at all right, by the time DeSantis is done patting the backs of slave owners on the campaign trail, he’ll be forced to return to Florida, a beaten, pathetic man — and a lot of the folks in the political middle in that state will have decided they’ve had enough of him.

That’s what happened to Walker in 2018, after his idiotic run for president in 2016.

Walker enjoyed about a three-week stint as one of the frontrunners for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016 along with the bumbling, Jeb Bush, before both of ‘em were shoved to the end of the debate stage in no time by an orange, nuclear-powered racist, who wasn't afraid of saying the horrific things out loud that they were only thinking.

Beaten to a pulp and finally exposed as the loser he always has been, Walker was washed away in the Blue Wave of 2018 and things have never been the same for him or the righteous people here in Wisconsin.

Democrats have been winning elections at an electrifying clip since then, and my town has had a whole helluva lot to do with that.

Madison is located in Dane County which is geometrically square, and socially wonderful and odd. Madison is so colorful and liberal, it was disparaged in 1978 by Wisconsin’s then-Republican Governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus as “30 Square Miles Surrounded by Reality.”

Madisonians didn’t much like that insult, not because they disagreed with the stuck-up, frustrated governor, but because it’s actually closer to 77 square miles in size.

Madisonians are a pain in the political Right’s ass, and we take a lot of pride in that. We are also home to the University of Wisconsin, top-flight music venues, museums, bars, restaurants, markets, low crime, and wouldn’t you know it: a destination for the folks in all those small towns looking for some action and vibrance in their lives.

That’s the real reality.

You could also call an election in my town for literally anything and within minutes there’d be lines wrapped around every corner of the city. We are furious voters who have fought to reclaim what’s good and right about Wisconsin and America.

Choice for one thing.

We stand with the women and the right to vote. We stand up for the climate and put down racist hate. You could throw a rock in any direction around here and hit an activist. We are everywhere, and we are paying attention.

We are also growing by the second, which I can tell you positively terrifies Republicans.

I’d argue we have the most organized get-out-the-vote machine in the country, which is really saying something for such an odd group of people.

In the most recent statewide election here in April to decide the majority of our Supreme Court, Dane County and Madison voters showed up and pushed the liberal justice, Janet Protasiewicz, to an 11-point thumping of Trump’s conservative candidate, Dan Kelly.

Protasiewicz got 82 percent of the vote here in Dane to Kelly’s pathetic 18, winning 197,029 votes to Kelly’s 43,372. Our turnout was 63 percent. Those are remarkable numbers for an off-year election in the spring with no other state or national races on the ballot.

Just in case I haven’t impressed you yet, consider this: When Joe Biden beat Trump in Wisconsin in 2020, the turnout for registered voters here in Madison was an incredible 89.3 percent. The turnout across America was 66.1 percent.

Biden beat Trump by more than 20,000 votes statewide, but he beat Trump here in Madison by more than 181,000 votes.

Madison and Dane County are the engines that have led the Democrats’ resurgence in this battleground state. Since the disaster of 2016, liberal voters have flipped the Supreme Court, elected and reelected Democrat Tony Evers as governor and elected and reelected Democrat Josh Kaul as the state’s attorney general.

Currently, you will find us at all the choice spots, drinking beer, knocking back brats, hiking our beautiful parks, fishing our pristine streams, and readying ourselves to put in the necessary work in 2024 in this the battlegroundiest of all the battleground states.

We aren’t much about toxic masculinity or bragging about the size of our guns. We will put on a pink hat, however, organize and drive people of all shapes and colors to the polls.

Mostly, we are winners.

You don’t come around my town unless yer lookin’ to vote.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. Follow @EarlofEnough

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pension plan

no lnx

Walker’s New Job Will Pay Plenty

National group he will run has lots of money. But Walker won’t be able to run for office.

By Bruce Murphy - Jul 15th, 2019

The Scott Walker era is over in Wisconsin.

After threatening to run for either governor or senator in Wisconsin in upcoming elections, Walker has announced he will be taking a job as president of theYoung America’s Foundation,a national non-profit based in the Washington D.C. area (northern Virginia) that works to promote conservative ideas among young people and is perhaps best known for running the Reagan Ranch.

“This would preclude me from running for governor in this next cycle or running for the U.S. Senate if Ron Johnson’s seat is open,” Walker told the Journal Sentinel. “I won’t be engaged in anything else. This will be my sole occupation.”

That’s because it’s a full-time job and Walker agreed to serve in the position for four years. But he won’t be starting the job until January 2021, when the group’s current president, Ron Robinson, steps down after more than 40 years.

Walker has campaigned for political office in 15 elections over 29 years. Why would he agree to abandon his political hopes, which still seemed to be burning as hotly as ever, and wait that long for this position?

Walker told the newspaper that he and his wife, Tonette, have spent “a lot of time thinking about and praying about” the move. “But it just feels like God’s calling us to take on this mission.”

But the money he will earn might also have something to do with his decision. Walker’s past financial disclosure statements show he’s not a wealthy man. Going into his 2016 reelection campaign for governor Walker “reported a Barclays credit card with a balance of $10,000 to $15,000 at a high interest rate of 27.2 percent; a Bank of America credit card also with debt of $10,000 to $15,000; andfederal loans of up to $250,000 to pay for college for his two sons,” as Politico reported.

The salary for his current job, as fundraising chairman for the National Republican Redistricting Trust, is not known, but the likely compensation for the job with Young America’s Foundation will be quite lucrative. The group’s most recent federal tax form, for 2017, shows that Robinson earned slightly more $1 million a year in total compensation.

The group is very well funded, with total assets of $69.5 million in 2017, and a $23.7 million annual budget, with $5.9 million of that going to salaries and expenses. The group had some $24 million in investments, which earned $2.7 million in investment income in 2017.

The intended use of the endowment funds, the group notes on its tax form, is to support its program activities, including the Reagan Ranch, National Journalism Centerand national conservative student programs and seminars.

Young America’s Foundation calls itself “the principal outreach organization of the Conservative Movement.” Founded in 1977, it merged in 2011 with Young Americans for Freedom, a group launched in 1960 by conservative icon, William F. Buckley. The group has been active in battles over speech at universities and in sending conservative speakers to college campuses.

omg

https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2021/08/23/conservative-think-tank-end-wisconsin-elections-commission/

looks legit

conservative think tank — run by a former staffer for then-Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and connected to former Gov. Scott Walker — has called for abolishing the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) and moving the administration of state elections to the elected secretary of state.

The think tank, the Institute for Reforming Government, called for the change to state election law in a news release Monday morning.

“It is time to abolish WEC and implement good government accountability when it comes to Wisconsin’s elections and work to restore confidence among Wisconsin residents,” Chris Reader, executive vice president of IRG, said in a statement. “When unelected bureaucrats oversee Wisconsin’s elections it can lead to the erosion of faith and confidence in our electoral system. Thirty-three other states have elected officials overseeing the election process, providing a good measure of accountability by empowering people across ideological spectrums to provide a check on who manages elections. This is a good government measure that will benefit all Wisconsinites.”

The think tank’s president is CJ Szafir, who previously worked on Fitzgerald’s staff and served as the executive vice president for the right wing legal outfit, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. Walker is named on the think tank’s website as its former national honorary chairman.

According to the think tank’s most recently available :{tax records:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, it paid Walker’s consulting firm, the Walker Group, more than $164,000 in 2019.

The call comes as Republicans continue an effort to delegitimize state election administration in the wake of the 2020 presidential election and former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen.

This weekend, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) :{met with Trump:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:to discuss an ongoing investigation into the election led by former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman. Gableman recently traveled to South Dakota for a conspiracy theory-laden convention, run by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, where lies were spread about the 2020 election.

Gableman was joined by a state lawmaker and Robert Spindell, a member of the Elections Commission who has frequently spread conspiracy theories about last year’s election as well.

The conservative group’s call to disband the Wisconsin Elections Commission — made up of six members, three appointed by Democrats and three by Republicans — comes just six years after Republicans themselves created the commission. Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls), who chairs the Assembly Campaigns and Elections Commission, has continued an effort to hold a “forensic audit” of the 2020 election — similar to the widely derided audit held in Arizona.

Fitzgerald, now a member of Congress, and Walker were behind the creation of the WEC in 2015 after they disbanded the Government Accountability Board (GAB) over some similar complaints to the present complaints about the WEC. The GAB was made up of members appointed by a panel of appellate judges and was responsible for administration of the state’s election, ethics and campaign finance laws.

Republicans disbanded the GAB after it began investigating Walker for violations of campaign finance laws through so-called John Doe investigations.

GOP leaders, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, :{directly cited:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: those investigations as the reason for the disbanding of the GAB and the creation of two new commissions to take its place — the Wisconsin Elections Commission and Wisconsin Ethics Commission.

The legislation that created the WEC was introduced by then-Rep. Dean Knudson (R-Hudson). Knudson is now a member of the WEC and its former chair.

The current Wisconsin secretary of state is Democrat Doug La Follette. The office is largely responsible for maintaining government records, as Republicans took nearly all of the other responsibilities — and most of the staff — away from the office they now want to run elections under Walker, moving La Follette to a storage room in the Capitol basement. In 2015, a different right wing think tank, the MacIver Institute, called for :{abolishing the position:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:.

The Institute for Reforming Government did not respond to a request for comment.

1119

WT BS

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/nov/21/bringing-conservatism-back-to-colleges/

yaf

~ hoefeller?(stacy abrams pod save million$?)

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-friends/fox-news-joins-scott-walkers-disinformation-campaign-smear-eric-holders-effort-make

A Fox & Friends segment about redistricting efforts led by former Attorney General Eric Holder falsely characterized his efforts as an attempt to rig elections. Holder is involved with several Democratic groups -- the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), the National Redistricting Foundation (NFR), and the National Redistricting Action Fund (NRAF) -- that are seeking to eliminate the impact of partisan gerrymandering on state and federal elections.

During its October 8 broadcast, Fox & Friends invited formerWisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on air to smear Holder and his group’s efforts. Walker is the face of a group called the National Republican Redistricting Trustthat has fought to preserve partisan gerrymanders that favor Republicans.

Fox & Friends co-host Pete Hegseth introduced the segment by hyping a Wall Street Journal editorial that called Holder’s initiatives a “redistricting coup” and claiming that the former attorney general is leading efforts to “turn districts blue in time for the elections,” citing a recent legal victory one of Holder’s groups had in North Carolina. Walker then provided a litany of false or misleading information about what has been going on in that state.

First, some background: North Carolina has an ugly history of Republican legislators drawing maps for elections along racial lines to diminish the power of Black voters. In 2017, the Supreme Court struck down two Republican-drawn congressional maps in the state, upholding a lower court decision that found them to be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. However, that ruling did not solve all of the unfairness plaguing elections in North Carolina, where electoral maps were still largely drawn to advantage Republicans. Recently released documents indicate that following the 2017 Supreme Court ruling, North Carolina Republicans continued their racial gerrymandering efforts while lying to the district court overseeing the map-drawing process.

The effects of unfair district maps in North Carolina are obvious: In the 2018 federal elections, Democrats won 50% of the vote statewide but only 23% of the state’s congressional races, taking just three of North Carolina’s 13 U.S. House seats. In the state legislature, Republicans lost the statewide popular vote but still ended up controlling 29 of 50 Senate seats and 66 of 120 House seats.

In response, Holder’s National Redistricting Foundation sued in state court, challenging the state legislative maps as an unlawful partisan gerrymander. In September, NRF won its lawsuit and has followed up by filing a second lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s federal congressional maps along similar lines.

While appearing on Fox & Friends, Walker complained about the NRF lawsuits as part of a “sue until it’s blue mentality,” saying, “So even a state like North Carolina where Republicans are in charge of the Assembly and the Senate, the two houses there, they’ve gone to court.” But the whole point of those lawsuits is that the current makeup of the state legislature represents an ill-gotten advantage for Republicans precisely because they achieved their majorities using unfair district maps. Under Walker’s tortured logic, the fact that Republicans were able to achieve majorities in the state legislature by using obviously unfair maps is reason enough to keep those same partisan maps to decide future elections. (Walker has deployed similar mind-bending logic before when defending unfair election outcomes in his home state of Wisconsin.)

[vid]

Then Walker got conspiratorial.He said that Holder’s team “now controls who’s on the Supreme Court in North Carolina.” Walker seemed to be referencing the fact that in North Carolina, Supreme Court positions are determined by partisan elections (which are decided by a statewide vote, and therefore can’t be gerrymandered to give candidates supported by Holder or anyone else an unfair map advantage). A wide range of interest groups can participate in these state Supreme Court races through outside spending, but again, that doesn’t give Holder’s groups any special ability to determine Supreme Court election outcomes.

Walker’s bad-faith attacks on Holder continued throughout the segment. In once instance, after Hegseth extensively quoted a statement from Holder at NRF, Walker falsely claimed, “The irony is if you look at the forming files of the IRS they actually say, not that they’re fighting for fair maps, they talk about giving Democrats an advantage in this.” In reality, NRF, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit, states on IRS forms that the organization “seeks to oppose racial and partisan gerrymandering.”

Towards the end of the segment, Hegseth made the allegation that Holder’s efforts are an attempt to rig elections, claiming that if he is successful, “Election Day becomes sort of a rigged process if the districts are determined beforehand in a partisan way.” Walker responded, “And that’s what Holder wants, he’s not talking about redistricting places like Maryland.”

Setting aside the bizarreness of Hegseth and Walker appearing to agree that partisan gerrymandering is wrong on principle -- given that it is employed far more often by Republican-controlled legislatures -- Walker was lying again. Maryland is a prominent example of an exception to the rule as a state where Democrats have engaged in gerrymandering for unfair partisan gain. But Holder has spoken out about Maryland, comparing unfairness in that state to the unfair maps in North Carolina.

On July 4, Holder published an opinion piece in The Washington Post criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling that it has no jurisdiction over legal challenges to partisan gerrymandering. In his piece, Holder said, “As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her powerful and prescient dissent, the partisan gerrymanders in Maryland and North Carolina ‘debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people.’”

Walker’s appearance on Fox & Friends is the latest example of the dishonest tactics he employs in his media tour for the National Republican Redistricting Trust. Walker’s go-to argument is that Holder’s groups favor partisan gerrymandering that benefits Democrats, while his own group just wants fair maps. But the real-world actions of the groups indicate just how brazenly dishonest Walker is. For example, in Pennsylvania, Holder backed efforts to have electoral maps drawn in an independent nonpartisan fashion. Walker’s group, however, was also involved in litigation in Pennsylvania, and attempted to preserve a partisan gerrymander that benefitted Republicans. (As governor of Wisconsin, Walker himself participated in drawing unfair maps in that state to benefit his party.)

In essence, Walker is guilty of the very partisan gerrymandering misdeeds he often accuses Holder of participating in -- but in media appearances, he flips reality and his own record to claim the opposite. The only consistency in Walker’s arguments is that he will say anything to give the Republican Party an unfair advantage.

mma 719

Walker admits it: Former Wisconsin governor argues votes in metropolitan areas shouldn't count as much as votes in rural areas

NEW

https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/the-bizarre-link-between-wisconsin-and-russia/

no lnx

Daily Kos Staff / Daily Kos April 22, 2019

The Mueller Report had plenty of information as to how Russians worked to subvert our elections and gained influence in our current US government. But what jumps out to me is how much of that story and related Russian affairs connected back to Wisconsin.

Our state appears in the Mueller Report as one of a handful in the Midwest that former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort passed information about to a Russian intelligence agent. The report indicates that this was done to tell the Russians the best way to boost Trump’s chances in those states.

View image on Twitter

Bob Cesca

@bobcesca_go

Jesus! Mueller: "Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Minnesota" were discussed between Manafort and GRU operative Kilimnik.

7,595

9:01 AM - Apr 18, 2019

And you may recall that Trump did surprisingly well in all of those states in November 2016. Funny, that.

One of the biggest assists Trump got was in the form of a record investment by the National Rifle Association. Keep that NRA support in mind when you hear about this story from Friday night.

Maria Butina, who has admitted to working as a Russian agent to infiltrate an influential U.S. gun rights group and make inroads with conservative activists and Republicans, asked the court to sentence her to time served ahead of her April 26 sentencing, according to court documents.

Butina, 30, a former graduate student at American University who publicly advocated for gun rights, pleaded guilty in December to one count of conspiring to act as a foreign agent for Russia. She has remained in custody since her arrest in July 2018.

Prosecutors filed a memo on Friday ahead of this week’s sentencing. And check out this segment of that report, which might be familiar to you.

Soon after [Butina] drafted the Diplomacy Project proposal, in April 2015, she traveled to the United States to attend the Gun Rights Organization (aka the NRA) annual meetings with the Russian Official, where she highlighted her experience as a gun-rights advocate in Russia and was introduced to influential members of Political Party 1, one of whom announced his Presidential campaign shortly thereafter. Statement of Offense at 3. She did so in furtherance of the conspiracy’s goal to establish the back channel of communication as laid out in the Diplomacy Project. Id. at 3. Butina attended this announcement event in July 2015 and, after being tasked by the Russian Official to do so, wrote a report to him in which she emphasized the fact that she was introduced to one of that candidate’s three advisors for matters concerning international politics. A copy of the Twitter chats, along with the report, is attached hereto as Exhibit 4. According to her notes from a meeting with then-Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak in May 2015, she said she would “send the name of the advisor [to the candidate whose announcement event she later attended] who can come to Moscow.”

Looks like those Twitter chats will be released when the Butina file is redacted, likely after the sentencing happens on Friday.

But who was this candidate that Butina and Putin-appointed central banker Alexander Torshin met up with, and whose presidential announcement event did she go to in July 2015?

After Walker washed out of the 2016 election race, the sentencing memo describes how Butina organized a meeting with the NRA back home in Mother Russia.

In December 2015, Butina invited powerful members of the Gun Rights Organization to Moscow as part of the conspiracy’s plan to establish the unofficial channel of communication. Statement of Offense at 3. She actively sought out meetings for this group with high-level Russian government officials, as arranged by the Russian Official. Id. As part of this endeavor, the defendant sought information from U.S. Person 1 about the degree of political influence held by the Gun Rights Organization members in the United States and stressed the need for a “political program” as part of the Gun Rights Organization trip to Moscow. Id. at 3-4.

Following the Gun Rights Organization trip to Moscow, the defendant and the Russian Official discussed the need to “hold the spot” now that “everyone has realized that [the Gun Rights Organization] is a valuable contact,” and she noted that there will be “attempts to seize the initiative.” Exhibit 2. Butina has since confirmed that she was worried about others within the Russian government or a political group or activist noticing that the contacts she had built with the Gun Rights Organization were valuable and cutting her and the Russian Official out of the loop. Just days later, Butina noted to the Russian Official that they would “quietly press” or “put pressure on [members of the Gun Rights Organization] later.”

Guess who was in Russia in December 2015?

View image on Twitter

David A. Clarke, Jr.

@SheriffClarke

Red Square near the Kremlin with a Russian officer. Met earlier with Russian Foreign Minister who spoke on Mid East.

1,078

11:42 AM - Dec 10, 2015

Also don’t forget that a couple of Wisconsin politicians knew about these Russian efforts before the 2016 election, but hid it from unsuspecting Wisconsin voters.In late Summer 2016, President Obama organized a “Gang of 12” to let them know about potential Russian hacking and interference, and 2 of the members of that meeting were then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Senate Homeland Security Chair Ron Johnson. That meeting that was kept from public knowledge before the elections after complaints from Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell.

I’ve referenced this Bruce Murphy article in Urban Milwaukee from January 2017 in the past, and that’s because it continues to link back to developments in the Trump-GOP-Russia connection. It also points to Johnson being complicit in keeping Wisconsinites from knowing about the Russian garbage that was being sent to their computers, and flat-out lying later on about what intelligence agencies told him.

Russia’s interference with the American elections fit the pattern of a country engaged in disinformation and destabilization efforts across the globe, as Johnson has described it. And Russia’s leader was someone Johnson already suspected of nefarious acts. Johnson had previously sponsored resolutions calling for a full investigation into the murder of a Russian political opposition leader and for an investigation of Russia’s attacks on the Ukraine.

Johnson, in short, had an opportunity to be a patriot and condemn the fact that Russia was now engaged in such activities in the United States. But he issued no resolutions — in fact, not one word — on Russian’s cyber attacks on America.

Worse, he has engaged in his own pattern of misinformation on the subject. After the CIA publicly released a report in January concluding that Russia meddled in the presidential election to help Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election, Johnson issued a statement to the Wisconsin State Journal saying he would “would need more definitive information before drawing further conclusions.” Johnson did not reveal that he had been informed back in September this was happening.

Johnson went on to complain to CNBC that the CIA refused to brief him on Russian hacking, saying “I have not seen the evidence that it actually was Russia,” while failing to note the CIA report’s echoed the briefing he’d received from other intelligence leaders in September.

In addition, Ron Johnson was 1 of several GOP Senators who decided last year’s US Independence Day was a great time…to visit the Russians.

Sounds like investigative media might want to ask some questions of these Sconnie Republicans, why many seem to have no problem hanging out with high-level Russian officials, and ask what’s being done to prevent Wisconsinites from being targeted and propagandized against in 2020. The (non)-answers they give might be quiteilluminating.

I’d also like to see Walker, Clarke, Paul Ryan, ex-Trump Chief of Staff Reince Priebus (named several times in the Mueller Report) and Ron Johnson go before Congress and answer some pointed questions in the coming months. They have a lot to answer for in how they’ve allowed our democracy to be threatened over the last few years, and why they don’t seem too willing to do much about it.

11/18 ding dong chedder mafia dead; wonder what kind of pension plan gig, koch think thank?

https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/scott-walker-wont-go-away/

Scott Walker won’t go away.

The former Republican governor of Wisconsin, once seen as a leading presidential contender before his short-lived 2016 campaign flamed out, appears poised for a political comeback, only months after he was ousted as the Badger State’s top executive in last fall’s midterm elections. Walker announced this week that he is re-entering the political fray with a series of new endeavors aimed at strengthening the Republican Party and promoting conservative policies nationwide.

On the same day that a Wisconsin judge ruled against Walker and Republican legislators — who tried to strip power from the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general during a lame-duck session late last year —Walker announced that he will be the chief fundraiser for a Republican group dedicated to protecting partisan gerrymandering across the country. The group will focus on drawing maps for Congress and state legislatures.

“There is not nearly the level of intensity right of center as there’s been on the far left,” Walker told Politico, admitting that his new job is a direct response to Democratic efforts to fight partisan gerrymandering. “I know firsthand the impact the other side’s efforts can have on this,” he said.

After years of Republican dominance, Wisconsin staged close to a clean sweep last fall. Democrat Tony Evers defeated Walker, and voters also re-elected Sen. Tammy Baldwin and a Democratic secretary of state, along with voting in a new Democratic attorney general. But even as Democratic candidates for the state assembly garnered 54 percent of the popular vote, Republicans held enough seats to control 66 percent of the legislature due to extreme gerrymandering. That didn’t save Walker, and Evers, the new governor, has proposed a nonpartisan redistricting process in his new budget. Walker now appears to blame national Democrats for his political misfortune.

“Barack Obama and Eric Holder want to gerrymander Democrats into permanent control, so we are working to ensure that our side has the organization and resources to combat their efforts,” Walker said in a statement.

Holder, who was Obama’s first attorney general, has overseen a national effort to redistrict gerrymandered districts across the country. Last year his group helped liberals in Wisconsin sue Walker to force him to schedule special elections for two open seats in the state legislature. Holder’s group, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, is back in the Badger State this year for an upcoming race for the Wisconsin supreme court.

“We’re not here to gerrymander for Democrats,” Holder said at a stop in Milwaukee last week. “I just want to have a fair process and I’m confident that if we have a fair process, Republicans, conservatives, will not do as well as progressives, as Democrats in a fair fight.”

Litigation over Wisconsin’s maps began in 2011, the year Walker signed off on them as governor. By all accounts they are among the most extreme in political history. His new effort to stave off nonpartisan redistricting commissions comes as the GOP prepares for the 2020 census, after which politicians will redraw congressional and state legislative district maps. Walker’s group, the National Republican Redistricting Trust, plans to raise $35 million to fight court battles over political maps.

Before he left office in January, Walker signed three controversial bills to limit Evers’ powers as governor and pushed through 82 appointments to various state boards and commissions. These lame-duck moves were immediately challenged in court and a Wisconsin judge ruled on Thursday that the entire session had been unconstitutional. The GOP had attempted to prevent newly empowered Democrats from withdrawing from a multistate challenge to the Affordable Care Act. The law signed by Walker also stripped the state’s attorney general of discretion and gave the legislature powers usually and exclusively reserved for the attorney general. After the judge’s Thursday ruling, Evers withdrew Walker’s 82 appointments the next day. It was an ignominious end to Walker’s comeback week.

On Monday, Walker garnered profiles in major publications for his other new job when the Center for State-Led National Debt Solutions, a nonprofit established by a former tech executive in 2015, announced the former Wisconsin governor as its new chairman. The group advocates for the so-called Article V movement, a push for an unprecedented national convention to amend the U.S. Constitution to require a balanced budget amendment. In 1995, a proposed amendment passed the U.S. House of Representatives but failed by one vote in the Senate.

Under Walker, Wisconsin became the 27th state to pass a resolution in support of an Article V convention — named for the article of the U.S. Constitution that allows such a process. According to the Constitution, two-thirds of the states must request such a convention for one to occur and three-fourths of states must vote to ratify any amendment. Walker has been tasked with convincing six other states to follow suit.

“This is really going to have to be state driven,” Walker told the Washington Post this week. He said he plans to “elevate” the issue during the 2020 presidential election and intends to campaign for the issue in states like South Carolina, Virginia and Minnesota this year.

Walker, who often boasts that he balanced Wisconsin’s budget every year in office, drastically cut public school funding — including to the University of Wisconsin system — to do so. Since coming into office, however, President Trump has overseen a major increase in both the national debt and deficit, as Republicans passed a massive corporate tax cut without making significant cuts in government spending.

So Walker’s most recent push could set him up as a credible outsider equipped to take on profligate spending by Republicans in the Trump era, as the Washington Post’s James Hohman noted.

“Common-sense conservative ideas are making a comeback and they are turning our states around,” Walker said to announce his new weekly column in the conservative Washington Examiner. As the Post reported, Walker’s also signed with a speaker’s bureau and is eyeing an opportunity to guest-host a news-talk AM radio show in Milwaukee. He’s running for something; we just don’t know what

Walker told the Post that he might be interested in running for governor again, or perhaps for the U.S. Senate seat that Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican, has hinted he will vacate in 2022.

“I would defer to him,” Walker said. “If he chose to run again, I wouldn’t run.”

With Robert Mueller’s report now complete (if not yet released to the public), Republicans may soon start seriously looking around for a conservative challenger, either to run against Trump or succeed him. Don’t count Scott Walker out just yet.

ref

off bs omg

Gov. Scott Waker Named National Finance Chairman for the National Republican Redistricting Trust

March 21, 2019

Alexandria, VA – The National Republican Redistricting Trust (NRRT) announced today that former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will serve as the group’s National Finance Chairman. In this position, Governor Walker will help lead the effort to raise the resources needed as the NRRT prepares for the next round of redistricting in 2021.

The NRRT was formed in 2017 and serves as the central resource to coordinate and collaborate with Republicans on a 50-state redistricting effort, focusing on the party’s legal and data needs ahead of the 2020 redistricting process.

Adam Kincaid, Executive Director of the NRRT, said, “Governor Walker will be a tremendous asset to the NRRT as we prepare for the next round of redistricting. There is no legal strategy the Democrats won’t try in order to litigate their way into power. To fight back we need Republicans like Governor Walker who believe in the future of our country and our party. When Democrats don’t win at the ballot box they are determined to sue until it’s blue. Governor Walker’s support and work on behalf of the NRRT will help us fight back against the Democrats’ nationwide judicial power grab.”

Governor Walker said, “Republican reforms work. We need to make sure Republican candidates have a chance to make that case to voters across the country. To do that, we need fair legislative districts. I am honored to help lead the NRRT as we fight for fair maps in the next round of redistricting. The far left is highly organized and well-funded. Barack Obama and Eric Holder want to gerrymander Democrats into permanent control, so we are working to ensure that our side has the organization and resources to combat their efforts. Our reforms work, and if we have a fair chance to make our case, we win.”

The purpose of the NRRT is to fight for fair, constitutional redistricting for all Americans. For more information about the NRRT, click here.

More Scott Walker Coverage

*:{

For more coverage of Gov. Scott Walker and the 2016 presidential race, from news stories to videos and interactive features, go to jsonline.com/scottwalker

}:*

===

For more than a century, the university system has been guided by the Wisconsin Idea, a tradition first enunciated by University of Wisconsin President Charles Van Hise in 1904. Van Hise declared that he would "never be content until the beneficent influence of the university reaches every family in the state". Today that belief permeates the UW System's work, fostering close working relationships within the state, throughout the country, and around the world.

In 2015, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's budget proposal included the removal of the Wisconsin Idea from the University of Wisconsin's mission statement. Walker proposed replacing the mission's goal to "extend knowledge and its application beyond the boundaries of its campus" and to "serve and stimulate society" with a goal "to meet the state's workforce needs". After negative reaction from politicians and the public, the Wisconsin Idea was restored to the budget proposal.^[4]

===

yikes

digby

seems like a million years ago that the political world was convinced that the most formidable Republican in all the land was Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. He was the ultimate mainstream Tea Party "reformer" of the Obama era, slashing taxes and regulations and defeating his state's Democratic machine up and down the ballot. He was what I called the Great White-Bread Hope, a nice young conservative Christian Midwestern governor with appeal across all factions of the Republican Party. For many months he led in the early polling, and political pundits considered him to be the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2016.

Walker first vaulted to political superstardom back in 2012, when he faced a recall election during his first two years as governor and managed to survive. Why this was considered to be a sign of his tactical genius was always a mystery, since facing a recall in the first place would normally suggest that an elected official has done something wrong. But that made Walker's name as a politician destined for greatness. As the New Republic swooned back in 2014:

Scott Walker, the battle-hardened governor of Wisconsin, is the candidate that the factional candidates should fear. Not only does he seem poised to run — he released a book last week — but he possesses the tools and positions necessary to unite the traditional Republican coalition and marginalize its discontents.

The bloom began to come off the rose just a little when Walker was hit with corruption scandals that dented his "reformer" image, including charges that he illegally colluded with some big-money national conservative groups, including the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity. Three of Walker's close aides were indicted for felony embezzlement, and charges were brought against a major campaign donor along with one of his appointees. It was a mess that had the Walker boosters at the Wall Street Journal editorial page screeching about suppression of free speech and warning him that he'd better not settle the case or he'd risk losing his luster as a right-wing hero. (He settled it and they forgave him.)

Walker was a gaffe machine, churning out memorable lines such as his response to a question about what he would do about ISIS: “If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the globe.” He once said that Ronald Reagan's greatest foreign policy achievement had been taking on the air traffic controller's union. Nonetheless, Walker was widely assumed to be the choice of the Koch brothers, the right-wing bogeymen of the Tea Party era. They had talked him up for years, and their PAC had backed him to the hilt in Wisconsin.

But Walker made an aggressive move in the spring of 2015 that apparently alienated the Kochs and many members of the Republican mainstream — he consulted with then-Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions and adopted an extremely hard line on immigration. At the time, it seemed to be an appalling lurch rightward into Ann Coulter territory, but it turned out Walker was actually prescient about where the 2016 race, and the Republican Party, were heading.

Walker abruptly dropped out of the race in September 2015, surprising everyone by being the first casualty of the primaries. Then he shocked the political world with the revelation that he'd burned through vast sums of money during his short run. According to the Washington Post:

[M]oney went toward a payroll of more than 80, generous paychecks for top staffers, dozens of consultants and vendors who were paid tens of thousands of dollars, and elaborately staged campaign events. For a candidate who bragged on the campaign trail about finding deals at Kohl's and packing sack lunches to save money, the reports show that the campaign spent lavishly even as fundraising dollars began to disappear.

Recall that Walker had risen to fame as a fiscal conservative who drastically cut services and government jobs as governor. After that spectacular crash and burn, national office did not seem to be in his future.

Well, it looks as though he may be planning a comeback. The Washington Post reportedthat Walker is running for a third term as Wisconsin governor, and he seems to be dazzling Beltway journalists, just like in the good old days. He may have spent like a Saudi prince during his presidential campaign, but once again reporters are taken with his "regular Joe" ways, talking about how he doesn't have any money of his own and charmingly eats homemade ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch every day, which he charmingly tweets on his charmingly homespun Twitter feed.

Walker went back to Wisconsin after his fall from grace, where his approval rating was mired at 37 percent, and then traveled the state on a "listening tour." He's now in the mid-40s and believes he can win again, despite his unpopularity, because he "gets things done," unlike those losers in Washington. He's counting on his enthusiastic endorsement of Donald Trump and his close relationship with Vice President Mike Pence to put him over the top.

Well, so what is Walker's assessment of the president today?

His actions speak louder than words. A lot of people get hung up on his words or his tweets. If you look at the actions from where I sit in Wisconsin, this is a solid administration with a good Cabinet.

Walker hopes to put together the "Trump coalition" for the Wisconsin governor's race, which essentially means running up huge numbers in rural areas and suppressing the vote in the cities. He's raising tons of money already, with the Koch brothers back on the team. Walker is a Trump man through and through, which means he's happy to wallow in the swamp while pretending to be a populist. Republicans seem to like that.

But by affiliating himself so closely with President Trump in what has always been a purple state, which Trump won by the narrowest of margins, Walker is taking a huge risk. There are a number of Democrats already running, and the hope is that one of them will finally be able to take down Walker in the "big blue wave" that everyone prays will continue to swell into 2018. Clearly, Walker still has presidential hopes, and if Trump is not on the ballot in 2020 — which remains a possibility — it's unlikely that any Republican who backed him so fervently will be chosen to replace him.

Still, Walker has some things going for him. For obscure reasons, the media can't get enough of this guy and rich people just love to throw millions his way. He's still very young by political standards — he will only be 59 years old in 2024. If the Democrats are smart and focused, they'll be sure to put a stake in his zombie career so they don't have to face him later when he's regained full strength.

===

nat sheriff deploy on recall?!

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/27/leaked-documents-reveal-security-firms-counterterrorism-tactics-at-standing-rock-to-defeat-pipeline-insurgencies/

===

On September 14, the Guardian newspaper which published the Snowden revelation, published a massive set of documents from the Scott Walker dark money probe know as the "John Doe" investigation. We highly recommend the lengthy expose on secret money and backroom deals, which you can access here. If you don't have time to read all 1,500 emails and documents in the cache, our staff has picked out some of the most illuminating.

At the heart of the matter are three men. Scott Walker,RJ Johnson (who simultaneously worked for Walker and the dark money machine Wisconsin Club for Growth, say prosecutors) and Keith Gilkeswho was Walker's chief of staff in 2011and his campaign manager in 2012. Prosecutors were investigating whether campaign money was channeled through a purportedly "independent group" in order to circumvent state and federal rules that set limits on political contributions and require them to be publicly revealed, explains the Guardian.

1. National Club for Growth's David Keating questions RJ Johnson of Wisconsin Club for Growth, who becomes Walker's top campaign advisory shortly after this email, about the legality of his activities way back in 2009 prior to Walker's run for Governor in 2010. (2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1, p.25)

2. Nick Ayers of Republican Governors Association outlines a coordinated "battle plan" to Gov. Walker and Reince Priebus at an early date March 2011. RGA would go on to spend a whopping $9.5 million on the recall as an "independent" expenditure group. (2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1, p.28)

3. RJ Johnson, gives talking points to Gov. Walker that boast about the success of the coordinated efforts in the 2011 recalls. No talk of "issues" here, just bare-knuckled politics. (2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1, p.55)

4. Scott Walker talks to Karl Rove. "Bottom Line: RJ helps keeps in place a team that is wildly successful in Wisconsin. We are running 9 recall elections and it would be like 9 congressional markets in every market in the state and twin cities." (Key-Misc-Set-One, p.16)

5. RJ Johnson talks to Keith Gilkes, Walker campaign manager, and Gov. Walker about why they need to keep activities of the 3rd party groups under their command. (2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1, p.2)

6. Fundraiser Kate Donor explains the strategy of locking down commitments from a host of supposedly "independent" groups like the Koch Brothers Americans for Prosperity to Keith Gilkes, RJ Johnson and Gov. Walker. (Fundraising-Coordination, p.14)

7. Keith Gilkes forwards "oppo" opposition research on controversial potential donors, including Harold Simmons, Dallas-based CEO of a lead pigment company, to Gov. Walker. After this exchange, some checks from these givers are sent to Wisconsin Club for Growth where they will remain secret and not be publicly disclosed as a campaign contribution to Walker. (2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1, p.61)

8. Harold Simmons, NL Industries/CONTRAN, scheduled contact with Walker plus his personal and corporate checks. (2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT2, p.127; Corporate-Checks-Sanitized, p.5-6)

9. Affidavit of Wisconsin Club for Growth director Eric O'Keefe who explains its all about "liberty and fiscal responsibility" not winning elections. (WICFG-Quash-Aff)

10. Jay Rosser, a representative of T. Boone Pickens, email to RJ Johnson and Kate Doner. Interestingly, declines to give: "we recognize the opportunity to give anonymously, but frankly that is just not our style." (Fundraising-Coordination, p.4) It is likely that not all the people mentioned in these documents gave secretly to Walker.

Campaign Finance

Corporations

Democracy

john doe

no img link

...

At the heart of the John Doe files is Scott Walker, the governor who shot to national prominence – a hero for conservatives, pariah for liberals – soon after taking office in February 2011 when he introduced the hyper-partisanAct10. The legislation instantly made Wisconsin the battleground state in the fight between boardroom might and union muscle.

The state capital Madison erupted in weeks of protests in which the legislative building was overrun with thousands of protesters. Democratic lawmakers fled the state and took up residence in neighboring Illinois in a failed attempt to foil Walker's plans.

In the fallout of Act 10, progressive groups retaliated by dragging Walker and several other Republicans through a series of bitter recall elections. Six GOP senators were forced to defend their seats in 2011, and Walker himself was put through the recall furnace in 2012.

Those recall elections, and the question of whether Walker flouted campaign finance regulations in order that he and other Republican politicians could stay in office and preserve their anti-union legislation, were the focus of the investigation that generated the files now leaked to the Guardian. It was run by five Wisconsin prosecutors, led by Francis Schmitz, a former federal counter-terrorism expert.

It was known as a John Doe investigation because, much like a grand jury, its subjects were kept anonymous while officials weighed whether or not to press charges. In this case, prosecutors alleged that there was evidence to indicate that Walker and his team of advisers and associates had set up a coordinated effort with lobbyists and major donors to swing elections by secretly pouring huge amounts of corporate cash into the races.

The money was channeled through a third-party group, the DAs alleged, in order to circumvent state and federal rules that set limits on political contributions and require them to be publicly revealed.

The documents show the governor and his fundraising team going after, and receiving cash from, many of the most prominent rightwing donors in the country. In addition toAdelson, there was business magnate Carl Icahn who was approachedfor $100,000 though nothing in the files indicates that he donated; the hedge-fund billionaire Stephen Cohen, whoarrangeda wire transfer of $1m; and Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone who gave $25,000.

...Morgan Stanley, a hedge fund, a corporate law firm, and the residence of publishing tycoon Steve Forbes. He also enjoyed a 45-minute audience with Trump in his Fifth Avenue lair.

There is no record of the conversation between the two men. But it appears to have been a warm encounter, as the John Doe files show that Trump wrote a check for $15,000 on the same day. Who was the beneficiary of Trump's generosity? Wisconsin Club for Growth.

Another example of the pattern is the casual comment Walker dropped into an email to his fundraiser dated 14 June 2011:“Also, I got $1m from John Menard today”. Eight days later a check for $1m is cut on a corporate check of Menard Inc, the billionaire John Menard's home improvement chain Menards, and made out not to the governor's campaign committee but to Wisconsin Club for Growth. There the donation remained a secret until the publication of the Guardian's leaked files.

Friends of Scott Walker, Wisconsin Club for Growth and other parties named in the John Doe investigation have all vigorously denied any legal violations. They point out that no charges have been brought against any subject of the inquiries.

John Fadness, spokesman for the Scott Walker campaign, told the Guardian: “As widely reported two years ago, the prosecutor’s attorney stated that Governor Walker was not a target. Several courts shut down the baseless investigation on multiple occasions, and there is absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing.”

In June 2014, the special prosecutor Schmitz said through a lawyer that Walker was not a target of his John Doe investigation. Yet legal documents contained in the John Doe files identify as the anonymous “Movant No. 1” of the investigation “Friends of Scott Walker, the personal campaign committee of Scott Walker.”

David Rivkin, the attorney representing Wisconsin Club for Growth and its director Eric O'Keefe, said in a statement to the Guardian: “As the Wisconsin Supreme Court explained, the John Doe prosecutors made up crimes 'that do not exist' under Wisconsin law in order to target 'citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing.' Because the U.S. Supreme Court does not review matters of state law, it should be obvious that the John Doe prosecutors' appeal is legally frivolous and just another publicity stunt intended to tarnish their targets' reputations and salvage their own.”

Further insight into the position of the subjects of the investigation – the “movants” as they are technically known – is given in court papers including in the Guardian's John Doe Files. They criticise the prosecutors for making fundamental mistakes in their reading of campaign finance law. They said that regulatory restrictions on the size and source of donations only applied to groups that were expressly advocating for or against a named political candidate.

WCfG's director Eric O'Keefe said in an affidavit that the club's involvement had stemmed purely from its commitment to “advancing liberty and fiscal responsibility”. Its role in the recall elections was “to educate Wisconsin citizens ... The Club paid for advertisements that advanced its pro-liberty, fiscal responsibility, pro-Act 10 beliefs. None of the advertisements expressly urged voters to vote for or against any candidate.”

The movants also complained that in issuing over-broad subpoenas for evidence and conducting pre-dawn raids on the homes of some individuals, the prosecutors strayed well beyond their legitimate powers and into the realm of governmental abuse.

In the course of the John Doe investigation, the prosecutors obtained hundreds of emails and bank records under subpoena. An email sent by Kate Doner, Walker’s fundraiser, in April 2011, summed up the strategy. She said the aim was to raise $9m in six weeks, to pay for political advertising – she called it “issue advocacy efforts” – in the senatorial recall races.

Walker, she said, wants all the ads “run thru one group to ensure correct messaging”, and that group, the governor declared, should be Wisconsin Club for Growth. “The Governor is encouraging all to invest in the Wisconsin Club for Growth [which] can accept Corporate and Personal donations without limitations and no donors disclosure.”

The email trail shows a pattern of behavior developing: Walker meets up with big corporate donors and encourages them to contribute unlimited sums of money through WCfG in secret, then shortly after the checks start to flow. In June 2011, the emails show, the governor had dinner with the CEO of the largest privately owned trucking company in the US, Schneider National, in the hope of getting him and his peers to donate $250,000.

“Stress the donations to WiCFG are not disclosed and can accept Corporate donations without limits,” Walker's talking points said....

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/us/politics/emails-show-bigger-fund-raising-role-for-gov-scott-walker-of-wisconsin.html?_r=0

Emails Show Bigger Fund-Raising Role for Wisconsin Leader

By :{ADAM NAGOURNEY:(style="white-space:nowrap"):}: and :{MICHAEL BARBARO:(style="white-space:nowrap"):}:AUG. 22, 2014

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Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin played a greater role than previously known in arranging for wealthy contributors to donate to a powerful conservative organization in his home state as it battled a two-year campaign to recall Mr. Walker and Republican lawmakers, according to court documents released Friday.

The documents — part of a long-running investigation into whether Mr. Walker’s campaign improperly coordinated the spending of outside groups — include emails among Mr. Walker’s top aides that suggest a frenzy of fund-raising activity, including a trip to Las Vegas, to solicit unregulated contributions for the Wisconsin Club for Growth, a nonprofit conservative group, as it helped him in the successful effort to fight back recalls in 2011 and 2012.

The investigation has pulled back the curtain on the ways politicians and their aides seek to get around the welter of state and national campaign finance restrictions to accommodate donors, and it has clouded the White House prospects of Mr. Walker.

In an email to Mr. Walker in June 2011, Kelly M. Rindfleisch, who was his deputy chief of staff when he was Milwaukee County executive, offered a list of talking points the governor should use on a fund-raising trip in talking about the advantages of contributing to the Club for Growth.

Continue reading the main story

“Stress that donations to WiCFG are not disclosed and can accept corporate donations without limits,” the email said, using the acronym for the Club for Growth. “Let them know that you can accept corporate contributions and it is not reported.”

As rendered in the court documents, another email between senior staff members described Mr. Walker’s taking a personal interest in how the work of conservative committees was orchestrated, saying that Mr. Walker wanted all contributions to go to the Club for Growth.

“As the governor discussed ... he wants all the issue advocacy efforts run thru one group to ensure correct messaging,” Kate Doner, a fund-raising consultant for Mr. Walker, wrote to R. J. Johnson, the campaign consultant and a major adviser to the Club for Growth. “We had some past problems with multiple groups doing work on ‘behalf’ of Gov. Walker and it caused some issues.”

PhotMs. Doner also sent an email to Mr. Walker and top campaign aides in September 2011 with “quick thoughts on raising money for Walker’s possible recall efforts.” The email included this suggestion: “Take Koch’s money,” a reference to Charles G. and David H. Koch, the conservative industrialists and generous Republican donors. It also directed Mr. Walker to “get on a plane to Vegas and sit down with Sheldon Adelson,” the wealthy casino magnate and the single largest Republican donor in the last presidential campaign.

Of Mr. Adelson, it said, “Ask for $1m now.”

Such requests from the governor, prosecutors argue in court documents, encouraged donors to support him through anonymous, unlimited donations that circumvented the state’s disclosure and contribution limits. Mr. Walker, who has inflamed unions and their liberal allies with his agenda, beat back the recall efforts, galvanizing Republican support, raising his national profile and stirring speculation that he may run for president in 2016.

The documents were released as part of a legal battle as the Club for Growth has sought to stop the investigation, contending that it is a politically inspired witch hunt targeting legal campaign activities. The investigation has been halted by Judge Rudolph T. Randa of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, who ruled it violated the rights of the Club for Growth and other organizations.

The prosecutors released the information as part of a filing late Friday with the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, as it sought to reverse Judge Randa’s ruling.

Laurel Patrick, a spokeswoman for Mr. Walker, referred questions about the documents to Mr. Walker’s campaign, which issued a brief statement playing down the significance of the emails.

“As previously reported, the prosecutor’s attorney stated that Gov. Walker is not a target, two separate judges have dismissed the allegations, and the Friends of Scott Walker campaign is not a party to the lawsuit in the Seventh Circuit,” said Alleigh Marre, a campaign spokeswoman.

David B. Rivkin Jr., a lawyer for the Wisconsin Club for Growth, said the latest batch of documents offered “no evidence of any attempt to circumvent campaign-finance limits.” He said that by targeting supporters of Mr. Walker, Wisconsin prosecutors had “violated our most fundamental values of free speech and association and revealed their own bias and bad faith.”

The emails, with such boldface political names as Mr. Adelson and Paul Singer, another wealthy contributor to conservative causes, illustrate the high-stakes nature of the attempted recall and the degree to which it became a proxy battle ahead of that year’s presidential election.

Document: Case File on Fund-Raising for a Group Helping Gov. Scott Walker

More broadly, the case is a reminder of how unsettled the 2016 Republican presidential field is at the moment, in part because three potential top-tier candidates face legal troubles. In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie is under investigation by federal prosecutors about whether he played a role in his aides’ closing of lanes of the George Washington Bridge, as part of an act of political punishment of an enemy. Last week, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas was indicted on charges of abuse of power for moving to cut funding from an aggressive Democratic prosecutor.

Each of the Republicans may overcome his difficulties, but they represent a distraction, at the very least.

The documents portray Mr. Walker as a hands-on and relentless solicitor of donations from the country’s wealthiest Republican campaign donors, who made large contributions to the Wisconsin Club for Growth after speaking with him, sometimes within just hours.

On April 10, 2012, according to an email, Mr. Walker spoke by phone to Kenneth G. Langone, a billionaire co-founder of the Home Depot chain. Bank records showed that Mr. Langone donated $15,000 to the club that same day.

A meeting with Donald J. Trump, according to a March 30, 2012, email, yielded a $15,000 contribution from him.

At times, the donors seemed eager to help. On March 10, 2012, for example, Mr. Walker sent Ms. Doner, his fund-raiser, an email explaining that Bruce and Suzanne Kovner, wealthy Republican activists, had told him that “they want to give more.” Two weeks later, they did, with Mr. Kovner giving the Club for Growth $50,000.

But in few cases, Mr. Walker and his aides seemed to plot out their overtures carefully. In March 2012, Ms. Doner informed Mr. Walker that Mr. Singer would be at a resort in Georgia. “Grab him,” she said. Mr. Walker apparently did: Mr. Singer gave the Club for Growth $250,000 not long afterward.

A few weeks later, an aide to Ms. Doner specified in an email to Mr. Walker the size of a contribution that he should request from an unidentified donor. “This meeting is for WiCFG Funds,” it read. “THE ASK: contribute $100k to WiCFG.”

2010 aspen/koch 1.6$m ~ dems incumbent state reps, got 80% incl Feingold

WI flipped

Justice Prosser 2.7M$ kochs, broke tie to uphold walker kill collective bargaining. 68

afp 1.5M$ on ads alone to beat recall; bus in ppl10 m total; printed absentee ballots w/ wrong date 68

cut 800m from schools, stopped min wage up, added work req

for food stamps (lost 30k ppl) voter ID... KTM

dk $ mayer:

WALKER: koch ind #2 (also RGA); also 16 state legis, all won, so both houses gop. Also Bradley (Grebe his mgr!?) 307 bradley $ to 2 anti-union orgs; afp big chapter in WI, TP rallies; wi 1st 1969 public unions. 2 Ga-Pac mills in wi; Menard richest guy, got 1.8 tax credits 309. 1.7$ fines haz waste (arsenic mulch idea for playgrounds; will not hire anyone who had ever been in a union. tax dodge.

Diane hendricks ~ union; tax dodge

Legis dem fled state; recall ~ AFP wi CFG. Bradley $ backed o’keefe

Recall win → 1012; coalition w/ 17 rw orgs? Most expensive in history but also tip pt to outside$; koch network 400m$

“Governor Walker, before he withdrew from the presidential competition, said he thought abortion should be forbidden even if the mother dies as a result, " Judge Richard Posner said to a lawyer for the state, in remarks first reported by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "Is that kind of official Wisconsin policy?

“That perhaps is Governor Walker’s personal view, but it’s not a state policy,” Assistant Attorney General Brian Keenan replied. Keenan insisted requiring doctors to have admitting privileges was a reasonable precaution to aid women

“The admitting privileges would benefit the continuity of care for the woman when she goes to that hospital,” he said.

Posner said the fact that the law was intended to kick in one business day after it was passed made clear the authors' intentions. “That statute can’t be justified in terms of women’s health,” the judge said.

gerrymander

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/wisconsin-redistricting-lawsuit-could-reverberate-nationally

After a century as a trailblazer for progressive democracy reforms, Wisconsin has become what one local union leader ruefully calls “a kind of laboratory for oligarchs to implement their political and economic agenda.”

This assessment, delivered by David Poklinkoski, president of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2304, captures Wisconsin Democrats’ dim view of the brazenly partisan redistricting plan masterminded by GOP Governor Scott Walker.

But the redistricting plan, so central in empowering Walker and his legislative allies to roll back social reforms in Wisconsin, is now the target of a federal lawsuit. First heard by federal judges in May, the suit is now before an appeals court that is expected to rule this summer. That ruling could reverberate in other states around the country with heavily GOP-tilted electoral maps. While a few Democratic-controlled state governments have district maps that favor their party, the 2010 Republican electoral sweep set off a nationally-coordinated and harshly partisan round of redistricting in states where both the governor and legislative majorities were Republican.

Now, Republican-imposed plans in a number of other states—including Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Texas—stand to be affected by Wisconsin’s redistricting ruling, which will be handed down by the U.S. Seventh Court of Appeals. Such redistricting experts as Michael Li, chief counsel on the issue for the Brennan Center for Justice, predict the case could eventually land before the Supreme Court. The death of conservative Justice Antonin has altered the ideological balance on the now evenly divided court, and Li says Justice Anthony Kennedy has shown a strong interest in the case.

“The Wisconsin lawsuit is the most significant gerrymandering challenge in 30 years,” says Li. “This lawsuit could be a rare opportunity to contest unfair redistricting. It comes at a time when both the Supreme Court and the public are aware of the dysfunctionality of our legislative bodies.”

In Wisconsin, the redistricting plan imposed in 2011 was conceived in tight secrecy behind a private law firm’s closed doors as part of a large-scale national Republican strategy to block Democrats from power through the careful manipulation of state legislative district lines. The plan exaggerates actual GOP electoral strength and marginalizes Democratic voters, critics say. Indeed, it takes partisan gerrymandering to new heights, transforming what would otherwise be majority votes for Democrats into overwhelming Republican victories.

The Republican-rigged electoral map has been crucial in enabling Walker and the state’s GOP-controlled legislature to gut labor laws, weaken environmental protections, bestow new tax breaks on corporations, attack women’s reproductive rights, and reduce funding for the University of Wisconsin and public education in general.

Known as**Whitford v. Nichol**, the suit was brought by 12 Democratic plaintiffs who argue that the plan unfairly discounts the values of votes cast by Democrats. The Wisconsin Attorney General’s office has defended the map on the grounds that it is not a “gerrymander,” typically defined as a set of district lines with illogical and strangely-shaped borders, and drawn for ideological advantage.

But the state’s district map exemplifies the extremes to which Republicans have taken the political practice of gerrymandering districts for maximum political advantage. The result has been an indirect form of voter disenfranchisement.The plaintiffs charged that the redistricting violated their right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment. Further, as they asserted in their brief: “Extreme partisan gerrymandering is also contrary to core democratic values because it enables a political party to win more legislative districts—and thus more legislative power—than is warranted by that party’s popular support.”

Refracted through the lens of redistricting, electoral outcomes in Wisconsin fail to reflect voters’ intent, the suit alleges. “By distorting the relationship between votes and assembly seats, it causes policies to be enacted that do not accurately reflect the public will,” the plaintiffs asserted. “In the end, a political minority is able to rule the majority and to entrench itself in power by periodically manipulating election boundaries."

The Republicans’ heavily disproportionate share of legislative seats has represented a particularly blatant trampling of the popular will, critics say. For example, in Wisconsin’s 2012 Assembly races, Democratic candidates gathered 1.4 million votes to the Republicans’ 1.2 million. Yet the Republicans walked away with 60 state Assembly seats, while the Democrats were left with just 39. In 2014, Walker won re-election as governor with 52 percent of the vote, but Republicans won 63 of 99 Assembly seats, while the number Democrat-held seats shrank to 36.

The dramatic gap between Republicans’ actual share of the electorate and their vastly higher level of representation threatens democratic representation, the plan’s critics say.

In his closing statement May 27 to the judges in defending the GOP electoral map, Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Brian Keenan insisted that this is what democracy looks like. “This is actually democracy,” Keenan stated. “The Republicans won the 2010 election. The Constitution gives them the right to [draw district lines].”

But the plaintiffs countered that the plan subverts democracy. “When a minority party stays in power, even though they garner fewer votes, then the health of our democracy depends on our courts to fix the problem,” declared Earle Peter, an attorney for the plaintiffs, at a news conference. “We have one of the worst partisan gerrymanders in modern political history.”

In drawing their controversial Wisconsin map, state Republicans ignored the successful model used in neighboring Iowa for the past 35 years. That state uses a nonpartisan state agency to adjust districts to keep pace with population shifts reflected in the Census held every 10 years.

But back in Wisconsin, the GOP super-majority created by the map has pushed through a conservative agenda that arguably does not enjoy strong public support. Even the right-of-center Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2015 noted in an editorial the close linkage between the GOP-drawn map and Walker’s successful enactment of legislation that severely weakened unions: Wisconsin’s new “right-to-work” law “is a reminder of the role redistricting has played in forging the party’s ironclad legislative majorities.”

The heavily-tilted Wisconsin redistricting has its roots in a national effort known as REDMAP(the Redistricting Majority) project, launched shortly after Obama’s 2008 election by the the Republican State Leadership Committee, a tax-exempt political group that backs GOP state legislative candidates.Led by former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie and supported by GOP operative Karl Rove, REDMAP coordinated a national effort to provide sophisticated technical support to Republicans drawing district lines at the state level. The project was designed to both magnify Republican representation in state legislatures and to carve up U.S. House districts in such a way as to give the Republicans a pronounced edge.

In developing their redistricting plan, Wisconsin Republicans received assistance from such friendly experts as University of Oklahoma political science professor Ronald Keith Gaddie. In testimony videotaped for the Seventh District judges considering the case, Gaddie explained that he had provided detailed data based on sophisticated mathematical formulae so that Republicans could shape districts to strengthen their hold on the legislature. Gaddie called the redistricting plan approved in 2011 “a map that makes an assertive move towards a Republican advantage.”

Gaddie’s work, like the entire redistricting process, was conducted without any public scrutiny. The immensely significant electoral map was crafted entirely behind closed doors at the Republican-linked law firm of Michael Best & Friedrich. The process of developing the plan, which cost state taxpayers about $2 million, was so secretive that Republican legislators were required to sign a pledge of confidentiality before being permitted to look at the map. And even then, the GOP legislators were allowed only to see the maps for their individual districts.

No members of the general public, news media, or Democratic legislators, were permitted to review the redistricting plan until days before it was rushed through the legislature with only one hearing by the Republicans in charge. The shroud of secrecy continued to envelop the districting plan when the redistricting plan was firstchallenged in 2011 by a lawsuit brought by the AFL-CIO, the Fair Elections Project, and Latino rights group Voces del la Frontera. In 2012, the three-judge panel considering that suit fined the Michael Best firm nearly $17,500 and warned its lawyers to stop “the sort of disinformation, foot-dragging, and obfuscation now being engaged in.”

In 2013, the judges again found that “fraud, misrepresentation, or misconduct” had likely taken place, and ordered a post-trial investigation into thousands of missing records. Ultimately, however, the federal judges in that lawsuit ordered only limited changes, to protect two primarily Latino districts covered by the Voting Rights Act. However, the judges’ ruling excoriated the Republicans’ redistricting process, and stated that “the people of Wisconsin deserve better” than this “peculiarly furtive process adopted by the majority party.”

Five years later,political scientists are testifying in the current lawsuitthat Republicans employed strategies known as “cracking” and “packing” to diminish the number of seats that Democratic candidates could plausibly win, and throwing their legislative representation out of whack with their share of the popular vote. “Cracking” refers to breaking up concentrations of Democratic votes and diluting Democratic strength by parceling them out in small pieces to larger GOP bastions to virtually guarantee that Republicans win election. “Packing” is the process of concentrating as many Democratic voters as possible into a limited number of districts, so that their votes affect the outcomes of only a limited number of races.

The success of the Republican plan can be measured in what the plaintiffs’ lawyer and University of Chicago Law Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos labeled, in remarks to the judges, the “efficiency gap.” This is the percentage of votes that effectively do not count when districts are so thoroughly dominated by one party. In almost 800 state legislative elections that Stephanopoulos has studied over the last 40 years, the average “efficiency gap” has actually been zero, suggesting that neither party gained an advantage from redistricting.

But the “efficiency gap” in Wisconsin after the state’s 2011 redistricting plan went into effect was a full 13 percent in favor of the Republicans in 2012 and 10 percent in 2014, according to research by Stephanopoulos.

“The 2012 figure is the 28th worst score in modern American history, out of nearly 800 total plans,” Stephanopoulos testified.

Defying precedent, the Republican-drawn electoral map splits up 58 of the state’s 72 counties, points out Matt Rothschild, director of the clean-government group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

But Democrats aren’t the only ones complaining about Wisconsin’s electoral map. While filed by Democrats, the lawsuit is backed by several former Republican legislators who have denounced the redistricting plan. The GOP ex-legislators argue that the imbalanced redistricting has made incumbent Republican lawmakers more vulnerable than ever to pressure from big-money campaign contributors. Since the lawmakers no longer have to pay attention to a diverse constituency, special-interest donors expect that legislators will automatically deliver on legislation that serves their narrow agendas, says Rothschild, of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

“The majority of our legislators have been relegated to nothing more than pawns awaiting bills written by special interests themselves, and told how and what to do,” former Republican state Senator Dale Schultz told the Wisconsin State Journal.

The Wisconsin case illustrates one of the ways Republicans engage in voter disenfranchisement, voting rights advocates say. While progressives have focused heavily on the proliferation of “voter suppression” laws in Republican-controlled legislatures, redistricting has given the GOP yet another, if subtler, means to block the popular will and negate voting rights.

“Their [the plaintiffs’] right to vote is fundamental,” thundered the Campaign Legal Center’s Gerry Hebert, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, in his closing arguments before the court. “It's our voice in the government. It's the only voice many of us have. It's not right to target people and harm them because of their voting history. What did they do? They had the nerve to participate in the political process and go to the polls.

Roger Bybee is a Milwaukee-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in numerous national publications, including Z magazine, the Progressive, American Prospect and Foreign Policy in Focus. His e-mail address iswinterbybee@gmail.com.

subpoena's in John Doe Wisc(eric o'keefe?)

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/09/12584/leaked-audio-suggests-afp-violated-law-wisconsin

Leaked audio from an invite-only Koch donor summit highlighted the role of the billionaire brothers in boosting Scott Walker in Wisconsin-- and suggests that David Koch's Americans for Prosperity Foundation may have violated its charitable status during the state's 2012 recall elections.

Phil Cox, Executive Director of the Republican Governors Association (RGA), told a gathering of right-wing donors this summer that Americans for Prosperity (AFP) was a "tremendous partner" and "heavily involved" during Wisconsin's 2012 recall elections. He also thanked David Koch for "his very strong support of the RGA," according to a recording obtained by The Undercurrent.

AFP spent at least $10 million touting Walker's policies during the 2012 Wisconsin recalls, much of it from the group's "charitable" arm, which is organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code and barred from any political intervention. AFP's television ads, bus tour, phone banks, door hangers, and door-to-door canvassing during the recall certainly looked like electioneering, but AFP's leaders claimed that its activities had nothing to do with "any candidates, political parties or ongoing races."

Yet, if AFP's charitable arm coordinated during the recalls with the RGA, a 527 Political Action Committee that spent $9 million expressly calling for Walker's reelection, the Koch-backed charity may have run afoul of federal tax law.

An "IRC 501(c)(3) organization should not coordinate its activities with a non-IRC 501(c)(3) organization for partisan political purposes," according to IRS guidance, "including any coordination with a candidate or IRC 527 organization."

"In Wisconsin, it was a really tough battle in 2012," Cox said at the Koch gathering. At the time, the RGA was led by former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who is currently on trial on public corruption charges.[convicted]

"AFP was a tremendous partner" to RGA during the recall effort, he added.

AFP "Not Dealing With Any Candidates, Political Parties or Ongoing Races"

AFP consists of two legal entities.

One is a "social welfare" organization incorporated under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, a group legally permitted to engage in some political activity and which serves as the conduit for most of AFP's ad spending on the national level.

The other is the AFP Foundation, a "charity" organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code. Much of AFP's $10 million in spending during the Wisconsin recalls came from its 501(c)(3) charitable arm, despite facing an absolute bar on political intervention. (The $900,000 AFP has spent on Walker ads so far in 2014 has also come from its charitable wing.)

AFP did not report its expenditures in 2011 and 2012, so the precise breakdown of spending between the 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) is not known, but AFP's Wisconsin leaders went out of their way to claim the group's activities had nothing to do with elections.

"We're not dealing with any candidates, political parties or ongoing races," AFP's Wisconsin director, Luke Hilgemann, told a Hudson, Wisconsin online news site in late May of 2012. It was apparently a coincidence that the AFP Foundation hadlaunched a ten-city bus tour, shipped 80 paid staffers into the state, and sent hundreds of AFP canvassers door-to-door in the weeks before the June 5 recall election. "We're just educating folks on the importance of reforms."

As activists began circulating petitions for Walker's recall in late 2011, the AFP Foundation launched a huge television ad buy that carefully avoided naming Walker, yet promoted his signature anti-union legislation and budget cuts with the slogan "It's Working!" The "Its Working" ads pushed a message consistent with that of the Walker campaign, ran through the spring of 2012, and cost the AFP Foundation an estimated$3.7 million. (This campaign came on the heels of AFP's "Stand With Walker" ads in Spring of 2011, as protests were at their peak; however, that spending appears to have come from AFP's 501(c)(4) arm.)

As the June 5 election day pulled closer, AFP brought in staff and volunteers from around the country. AFP's ten city bus tour included mobile phone banking, where volunteers read from a script that included lines like, "did you know that Governor Walker's reforms have saved taxpayers more than $1 billion?" Businessweek reported that "AFP ground troops knocked on 6,500 doors in the three days before Walker prevailed," carrying Samsung tablets loaded with voter information, maps, and scripts. Just before election day, AFP volunteers distributed door hangers that pictured Walker and Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, under the message "Policies That Work for Wisconsin."

At an AFP national convention held in Washington DC a few months after Walker survived the recall, Hilgemann boasted of his group's role in Walker's reelection -- describing how they "beat back the liberal hordes that had taken over" the state with ads, rallies, bus tours and canvassing -- but again emphasized that "we don't advocate for politicians."

AFP Foundation May Violate Tax Law if It "Improperly Coordinates or Colludes" With 527 Group Like the RGA

Taken alone, the AFP Foundation's activities pushed the envelope on impermissible political intervention by charities. The Center for Media and Democracy noted this at the time, and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign filed an IRS complaint in 2011 asking the agency to investigate.

Yet if the AFP Foundation coordinated with the Republican Governors Association -- organized under Section 527 of the tax code, a provision designated for political groups -- it almost certainly would have violated rules barring political intervention by charities.

According to the IRS, a charity like the AFP Foundation "might indirectly intervene in a campaign or operate for a substantial nonexempt purpose if it improperly coordinates or colludes with" a 527 group such as the RGA.

Improper collusion can include "coordinating the content, timing, or distribution of information materials," or distributing one another's materials.

"While coordination may often be difficult to prove, any public statements or private memoranda . . . indicating coordination between the officials or agents of the two organizations would be damaging," the IRS has stated.

Cox calling AFP a "tremendous partner" at the secret Koch summit was not the first time an RGA official made such a reference. Four months after the recall election, then-RGA Chair Bob McDonnell said:

"We spent $9 million in Wisconsin . . . the combination of the Walker team, Americans for Prosperity, the NRA (National Rifle Association), formed a formidable grass-roots coalition."

Separate Investigation under State Law into Campaign Coordination

Cox's possible admission of coordination between the RGA and the AFP Foundation comes amidst a separate criminal coordination investigation in Wisconsin.

For more than a year, a bipartisan group of Wisconsin prosecutors have been examining whether Walker and his campaign violated state campaign finance law by coordinating with independent groups like Wisconsin Club for Growth during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections. Under Wisconsin law, expenditures coordinated with a candidate are counted as campaign donations, and must comply with disclosure laws and contribution limits.

The alleged coordination between the Walker campaign and outside groups like Wisconsin Club for Growth could be a violation of Wisconsin campaign finance law. In contrast, if the RGA and AFP-Foundation improperly coordinated with one another, it would mean that AFP violated federal tax law.

Wisconsin prosecutors may not looking at federal tax law violations. Yet, both the RGA and AFP have reportedly received subpoenas in the state criminal probe, and the RGA's name has recently been mentioned in connection with the investigation. Taken together, the allegations indicate how closely many Republican groups worked together during the recalls.

According to newly-unsealed court documents, prosecutors allege that the Walker campaign -- in addition to coordinating with Wisconsin Club for Growth -- worked with the RGA-run Right Direction Political Action Committee in 2012, which ran at least eight ads attacking Walker's opponent Tom Barrett.

Prosecutor Francis Schmitz, a former federal prosecutor with Republican credentials who voted for Walker, alleged in court filings that agents of the Walker's campaign "were regularly conducting meetings and conference calls with the RGA to discuss campaign strategy, including polling.” Schmitz also alleges that the campaign worked closely with the Republican State Leadership Committee which, like the RGA, receives Koch funding.

David Koch Is Top Funder to Both AFP and RGA

David Koch and the privately-held Koch Industries have been major funders of both AFP and the RGA.

AFP does not disclose its donors, but documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy show that David Koch -- who founded the group -- has been its top single donor in some years, giving as much as $1 million annually during the early 2000s. Koch Industries has also been a top AFP donor, giving nearly $1 million in 2000 and 2001. It is not known how much Koch Industries or David Koch may have provided to AFP in more recent years, as the group has played an increasing role in elections and its budget has grown exponentially. David Koch, as well as top Koch Industries executives, are on the AFP Foundation's board of directors.

David Koch is also one of the RGA's top donors. In 2010, David Koch wrote a $1 million check to the RGA, as the Center for Media and Democracy noted at the time, and in 2012 he gave $2 million. (The RGA reported spending $5 million getting Walker elected in 2010, and another $9 million during the 2012 recall.) In the first half of 2014 Koch has donated $3.75 million, and Koch Industries has chipped-in another $525,000.

Cox acknowledged this financial backing when addressing the Koch summit in June.

"I want to thank David specifically for his very strong support of the RGA and AFP’s great partnership over the last four years," he said.

http://motherjones.com/print/149261 Michigan DARK $ state CoC launders $

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/04/13081/alec-right-work-law-tossed-out-wisconsin

WI Dane County Circuit Court Judge William Faust struck down the state’s private-sector “right-to-work” law late today.

In February 2015, Governor Walker and the Wisconsin legislature pushed through a private-sector right-to-work bill over the objections of thousands of workers and 450 Wisconsin construction firms who rallied against the bill. Workers in right to work states have significantly lower wages and fewer benefits. The battle over "right to work" and the future of Wisconsin's workforce was the subject of a New York Times magazine cover story.

CMD quickly exposed the bill as a verbatim American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) measureauthored by ALEC member legislators, including ALEC's National Chair and Wisconsin State Senator Leah Vukmir.

The Wisconsin AFL-CIO, Machinists Local Lodge 1061 in Milwaukee and United Steelworkers District 2 in Menasha filed the lawsuit challenging the measure. The groups argued that the law was an unconstitutional seizure of union property because it required private-sector unions to extend benefits to workers who don't pay dues.

In his ruling today, Judge Faust found that the unions had “a legally protectable property interest in the services they perform for their members and non-members.”

“When members pay their dues and non-members their fair share fees, all would say the union is building a treasury that it holds as property. When it expends those funds to perform services, as it must, no one would dispute that that money is the union’s property. Plaintiffs will be obligated to spend treasury—their property—on services for which they cannot legally request compensation. This is enough to establish that unions do have a legally protectable property interest at stake,” read the ruling, in part.

“Right-to-work goes against the Wisconsin principles of fairness and democracy and hurts all of Wisconsin by eroding the strength of our middle class. Right to Work has always been unjust, now it’s proven unconstitutional,” said Phil Neuenfeldt, President of Wisconsin AFL-CIO, late on Friday.

Classic Koch-ALEC Power Play

The Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy reported at the time that the passage of right-to-work in Wisconsin was a classic Koch-ALEC power play.

A short time before ALEC member Rep. Chris Kapenga dropped the bill, Koch operative Lorri Pickens announced a new 501(c)(3) "charitable" organization called "Wisconsin Right to Work." While the group claimed to be "a grassroots citizen engagement organization," it consisted of a P.O. Box and a website registered byKurt Luidhart, an Indiana resident whose media firm had run online fundraising for Walker's campaign. Luidhart, like Pickens, had worked with the Koch frontgroup Americans for Prosperity.

There were so few businesses and citizens in favor of right to work that it was pushed through the legislature with help from a traveling team of out-of-state Koch allies, including an ALEC "scholar" Richard Vedderwho rolled out a misleading cookie-cutter study on the alleged benefits of the bill. “Expert” James Sherk, with the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation, also flew out to testify. Sherk's effort to devise a local right-to-work strategy and peddle it though ALEC was featured on the front page of the New York Times in 2015 in an article entitled "Foes of Unions Try Their Luck at the County Level."

Greg Mourad from the National Right to Work Committee also flew in. Mourad’s group received $1 million from the Koch brothers' "secret bank" Freedom Partnersin 2012. State Senator Chris Larson grilled the Koch crew in the Senator Labor Committee, which abruptly cut off testimony and abruptly ended its hearing fearing demonstrators.

Americans for Prosperity popped up its usual TV commercials in support of the bill and Governor Scott Walker, who called right-to-work "a distraction" during the 2014 campaign, then rapidly reversed course to support it shortly after the election.

In the meantime, the real grassroots, the actual 450 Wisconsin construction firms that formed a coalition to fight this interference into private sector contracts, were sidelined and ignored.

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel has already said he will appeal the measure, and the issue may be settled by the right-wing Supreme Court which was elected to office with massive expenditures by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and Wisconsin Club for Growth, both supporters of the bill.

- See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/**2016/04**/13081/alec-right-work-law-tossed-out-wisconsin#sthash.JZu1hAYc.dpuf

Scott Walker, wearing a politician’s standard pale blue shirt, red tie, and dark slacks, casually paced the stage. In a midwestern accent that embraced the Tea Party activists gathered for the :{Iowa Freedom Summit:(style="font-weight:400"):}:, he gave an emotional about how their prayers protected his family when it came under siege by opponents in the Occupy movement. At one point, he said, the protesters reminded him of why he became Wisconsin’s governor in the first place, spurring him to remember to “go big and to go bold.”

Two months later, even before Walker announced his :{presidential:(style="font-weight:400"):}: bid, :{Go Big Go Bold:(style="font-weight:400"):}: became the official name of a super PAC supposedly backing him. Walker had an impassioned base of :{grassroots backers:(style="font-weight:400"):}:; when he did get into the race, almost 40 percent of his funds came from donors giving $200 or less. Go Big Go Bold exploited that support to reel in donations from people who likely thought they were helping Walker run for president; 65 percent of its funds came from $200-and-under donors.

This isn’t the first time that the group’s treasurer, Bob Adams— a 2008 West Virginia state Senate candidate (he lost that race in a :{split-hair vote:(style="font-weight:400"):}:) — has set up a super PAC that appears to pad :{his pockets:(style="font-weight:400"):}:. Go Big Go Bold might be considered the latest embodiment of Adams’ political hucksterism.

In 2015, Go Big Go Bold spent only $5,637.10 in ways that seemed to directly support Walker’s campaign. All of that money went for…lapel pins.

It did spend a pretty penny, however, on…other stuff.

Go Big Go Bold’s operating expenditures came to $153,639 in 2015, according to its Federal Election Commission reports. More than $100,000 of that went to Adams’ own company: Opinion Strategies LLC. That included $75,000 for “PAC Management” and $15,000 for “email list rental.” The rest went to travel, food and accounting; some of it ($1,511 for meals) was paid to another Adams-controlled super PAC, Revive America.

Another $15,000 went to a questionable Delaware-based media company, Troublemaker Media. (See sidebar.)

Meanwhile, Go Big Go Bold’s mailing address puts it in the same building as anti-tax powerhouse Grover:{ Norquist:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:. Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform provides office space — or at least an address where a receptionist greets visitors and answers the phone — for a number of conservative organizations (see, for example, the Judicial Crisis Network).

After the big expenses, Adams spent about $10,000 on hotels and transportation.

Adams told OpenSecrets Blog that Opinion Strategies “provided an exceptional service at fair market value” to Go Big Go Bold. Its work included “fundraising, grassroots development, copywriting, digital media, email distribution and list rentals, compliance and overall PAC management,” he said in an email. Adams maintained that Opinion Strategies built “a significant grassroots infrastructure of conservative activists nationwide who supported” Walker.

That’s a claim that is difficult to verify. Whatever the case, Walker’s campaign seemed eager to put distance between him and Adams. “Governor Walker and his campaign had absolutely zero connection to Go Big Go Bold PAC at any time,” according to Joe Fadness, the campaign’s current spokesman..

Adams’ targeting of Walker supporters is one illustration of a growing problem since the :{2010 Citizens United:(style="font-weight:400"):}::{ Supreme Court decision and other legal developments have led to a proliferation of super PACs, most of which spend little or no money supporting candidates. Many are simply jokes (see “Just Drink the Koolaid,” for example).

The big super PACs are big business. They can raise funds at $1 million or more a pop, and spend a good percentage of their proceeds to benefit candidates. But scam PACs, as we’ve written, prey on small donors who may not be savvy about politics or campaign finance, peppering them with mailers that play to their fears and make urgent requests for money. These desperately needed contributions, they write, will go toward supporting some candidate for office. Often, though, the only people benefiting from the money are those who started the group in the first place and others linked to them.

(Historically, they have lots of company. Scam artists have been using scare tactics since America’s earliest days.)

All in all, by the end of 2015, Go Big Go Bold had raised $161,553 and spent $156,023. Walker himself :{left :(style="font-weight:400"):}:the presidential race in September, and a month later was asking supporters to chip in to help pay off an estimated :{$1 million:(style="font-weight:400"):}::{ in campaign debt.

As for Adams, he announced last :{July:(style="font-weight:400"):}: that he’s :{running:(style="font-weight:400"):}: to represent West Virginia’s :{66th district:(style="font-weight:400"):}: in the state legislature. By the end of the year, though, he reported raising no money whatsoever — other than a $15,000 loan he made to his own campaign.

:{http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/01/scam-pac-treasurer-profited-from-walkers-presidential-bid

“In the donor world, it is primarily a love of economic freedom,” said Chart Westcott, a Dallas private equity investor who has contributed $200,000 to UnintimidatedPAC, a group backing Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. “That’s the biggest drive for most donors — more prosperity for the country as a whole, as well as for themselves.”

At least $13.5 million of the $20 million raised by Mr. Walker’s super PAC came from just four donors: the Wisconsin roofing billionaire and union foe Diane Hendricks; the Ricketts family of Nebraska and Illinois; the New York investor Len Blavatnik; and the Uihlein family of Illinois, whose members descend from the founders of the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company.

...

The largest single donation to America Leads, a group supporting Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, came from a Boston investor seeking to build a $4 billion casino resort there. At least five donors to Mr. Walker’s super PAC are companies that received hundreds of thousands of dollars in aid from Wisconsin’s economic development agency, according to state records.

working theory: dropped out of prz race b/c knew he could not keep bad actioons secret?

Walker Administration Finding New Way to Deny Public Records Chippewa Herald -- Gov. Scott Walker’s administration has found another novel method to deny the public access to government records. Read here >>
Unprecedented: Wisconsin Supreme Court 'Fires' Investigator Probing Walker, Rightwing Cronies BradCast -- The Wisconsin Supreme Court drops the next amazing shoe in the mindblowing case against the "John Doe" criminal probe into campaign improprieties by Gov. Scott Walker and his Koch Brothers-funded rightwing crony organizations during the 2012 recall elections in the state.

Walker Administration Finding New Way to Deny Public Records

Chippewa Herald -- Gov. Scott Walker’s administration has found another novel method to deny the public access to government records.

Read here >>

Unprecedented: Wisconsin Supreme Court 'Fires' Investigator Probing Walker, Rightwing Cronies

BradCast -- The Wisconsin Supreme Court drops the next amazing shoe in the mindblowing case against the "John Doe" criminal probe into campaign improprieties by Gov. Scott Walker and his Koch Brothers-funded rightwing crony organizations during the 2012 recall elections in the state.

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/09/scott-walkers-labor-plan-aims-at-major-democratic-fundraising-source

in ze bunker http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/gop-leaders-were-on-board-with-act-10-b99572648z1-326350011.html

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/scott-walker-was-coward-during-2011-wisconsin-protests

At that point, Sen. Rubio interjected to take issue with being called a “denier” by Tapper, but Tapper clarifies that he used the term “skeptic.” Rubio said, “You know you can measure the climate. You can measure it. That’s the not issue we’re discussing. I’m skeptical of the decisions that the Left wants us to make because I know the impact that those will have on the economy. They will not do a thing to lower the rise of the sea. They will not do a thing to cure California of the drought. But what they will do is make America a more expensive place to create jobs and today with millions of Americans watching this broadcast struggling from paycheck to paycheck that do not know how they are going to pay their bills at the end of this month, I am not in favor of anything that is going to make it harder for them to raise their family.”

Then, Gov. Scott Walker chimed in, disparaging U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s rules to address climate change. He said the rules would result in the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs in his state, as well as other states to enforce and would only “have a marginal effect on climate change.”

While Rubio at least acknowledges that California is in a drought, he clearly doesn’t take the issue very seriously. At the beginning of the debate, he made light of his “water-bottle-gate moment” in 2013 when his drinking a glass of water became an instant Internet meme. Last night, he joked “I’m aware California has a drought. That’s why I brought my own water bottle.” Nobody appeared to laughed, though.

The candidates basically acknowledged that the climate is changing, but they all “objected to federal action to address it,” says ClimateTruth.org. And Rubio and Christie both argue that it’s foolish to think humans can change the climate. Rubio awkwardly declared that “America is not a planet,” which :{Slate:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:‘s Eric Holthaus quips is “the only thing Marco Rubio got right on climate change.” And Christie believes it’s “some wild left-wing idea” to “fix the climate” by ourselves.

Needless to say, many were not pleased with the Republican candidates’ responses. “Tonight, Republican presidential candidates got a question on the most critical challenge facing our country and the world—climate change,” said Tom Steyer of NextGen Climate.

“But the candidates got it all wrong: left unchecked, climate change will devastate our economy. Citigroup estimates climate change could cost the global economy as much as $44 trillion. We already have the clean energy solutions at hand. Now we need candidates with a plan to accelerate the transition to clean energy, creating millions of jobs and ensuring economic prosperity while preventing climate disaster. It’s irresponsible to do anything less.”

Many people are having a field day with Rubio’s “America is not a planet” gaffe. “So, Rubio’s logic seems to say that since America isn’t a planet, it shouldn’t have to address the global crisis that is climate change,” said Bustle’s Josephine Yurcaba. “The U.S. is actually second in carbon-producing countries, according to Statista, but for some reason Rubio thinks that not being first should mean that we aren’t responsible at all, which just doesn’t make sense.”

As for Rubio’s claim that federal action will do “nothing to change our climate,” FactCheck.org takes issue:

Rubio is correct that “America is not a planet,” of course, but that does not mean that policies at the national level will have absolutely no effect on the climate. When we covered this issue in January, an expert told us that U.S. emissions alone, if left unchanged, would cause about half a degree Celsius of warming by the end of the century. Efforts to cut these emissions, including the recently released Clean Power Plan, which would limit emissions from power plants, and other policies such as fuel efficiency standards, will have a small but non-zero effect on that temperature change, and related sea level rise.

Furthermore, many experts say that U.S. leadership on climate is important in convincing other nations to also cut their carbon pollution. In both senses, Rubio is wrong that cutting emissions will do “absolutely nothing” to fight climate change.

Fox News Host: Obama Is so Obsessed With Climate Change He Should Work for the Weather Channel

Cole Mellino

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Not everyone is thrilled that President Obama is addressing climate change while visiting Alaska this week. Environmentalists have accused the President of hypocrisy for talking about the urgency of climate change while at the same time approvingArctic drilling. On the other hand, some conservatives don’t think he should be talking about climate change at all.

“To me, it’s such a glaring example of priorities askew,” said Kimberly Guilfoyle, one of the hosts of Fox News The Five. “I fail still at this point to understand where he’s coming from because I don’t speak the language he speaks. … He thinks the biggest threat to national security is climate change. Whoa. Where do you even go from there?” Guilfoyle feels that the increasing crime rate is a much more serious issue than climate change.

Co-host Greg Gutfeld agreed with Guilfoyle, saying the President is more concerned with the “academic, climate change-obsessed community” than communities that have seen an increase in crime.

“He should work for The Weather Channel,” offered Guilfoyle. “He’s like, obsessed with cumulus clouds.”

The two hosts aren’t the only ones who think the President has misplaced priorities. Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican presidential candidate, told a crowd gathered in North Charleston, South Carolina today that he has to “respectively disagree” with the President that climate change is the greatest threat we face. “The greatest threat to Americans is radical Islamic terrorism and we need to do something about it,” said Walker.

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