Wisconsin Dead-Last for Middle Class; Outrage Grows over Dark Money

Wisconsin is worst among 50 states as middle class shrinks

"Wisconsin ranks worst among the 50 states in terms of a shrinking middle class, with real median household incomes here falling 14.7 percent since 2000, according to a new report," notes Mike Ivey in the Capital Times.

The Pew Report Ivey cites reports a declining Wisconsin economy made worse under Scott Walker as the Wisconsin brain drain—children fleeing the state looking for work—continues. (Murray, WTMJ; Mills, WPR)

"Youthoside," one Wisconsin grandparent tells me as younger generations appear to be targeted by Walker's policies for not voting for him. "Walker is killing our children's future for the benefit of special interests who fund his political campaigns."

The report of Wisconsin's shrinking middle class comes as Michael Isikoff's piece on John Menard Jr.'s $1.5 million dark money contribution to Walker's frontgroup, Wisconsin Club for Growth, was revealed this week.

Scott Walker's budget proposal provokes astonishment about where Walker's radical proposals attacking workers, education and the environment are coming from as Walker runs for president (Opoien, Captial Times). The answer is a few special interests looking out for themselves from whom Walker takes orders.

Walker's proposed radical demolishing of education and environmental protection are coming from billionaires' secret money directing Walker what to do.

"George Meyer, a former secretary of natural resources under Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, said the hardware baron [John Menard Jr. president of Menard Inc.] made no secret of his views on environmental enforcement. 'He told me he just didn’t believe in environmental regulations,' said Meyer. “He was upfront about it.'" (Democurmudgeon) quoting Michael Isikoff who broke the Menard dark money story.

Walker Statement on Pay to Play

Here's what Scott Walker had to say about John Menard Jr.'s secret contribution: "I haven't engaged in any of that and there's going to be lots of stories going forward," Walker said before walking away as an aide told reporters that he would not take questions. (AP, New York Times)

"When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money," warned the great journalist, H.L. Mencken, the Sage of Baltimore. Mencken's dose of common sense from the early 20th century fits Walker perfectly, the slippery man from Wisconsin who can't think on his feet.

Walker's confused statement on Menard's dark money contribution is similar to Walker's statement after the second John Doe II probe was reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in October 2013: "We expected that with a new Democrat candidate for governor in the race that there would be stories like this along the way," said Walker referring to Dan Bice's 2013 piece reporting law enforcement's probe of Walker and dark money, (Mal Contends) a probe Walker's allies are trying to kill at the Wisconsin Supreme Court. (Kilgore, Washington Monthly)

Boycotting Menard Inc. 

Menard Inc. is headquartered in Eau Claire, Wisconsin employing some 35,000 employees across the nation. (Reed Elsevier Inc.). Menard Inc is a privately and closely held S corporation, a subchapter S partnership (IRS), allowing profits to flow through to the partners without the corporation being taxed as a business entity. (Applebaum, New York Times)

Across Wisconsin, there is anger and a growing commitment to boycott Menard Inc., aka Menards.

"The corporations that show no civic responsibility and hide their actions from the press and public deserve no loyalty. Over the years I have shopped at the Menards Store and spent a bundle on home repair items. It stops today!," said writes a multi-generation Wisconsin family man. "If you are a corporation owner and truly believe in your political position, why not show it, why hide it from public view? On the other hand, if we, your customers, don't agree with your position is it not also correct that we show our displeasure?"

As John Menard Jr. prospers, other Wisconsin residents' grandchildren won't be living in Wisconsin long after they graduate from college.

One hopes the Republicans don't get their way and destroy Medicare and Social Security or the GOP's decimation of the older generations' earned benefits are going to resemble their grandchildrens'.

Isikoff: Scott Walker Got Secret $1.5 Million, Dark Money Contribution

Michael Isikoff's story on a massive contribution to a Scott Walker-aligned dark money operation is breaking hard.

This is Scott Walker, taking dark money from the One Percent and ripping off the 99 percent.

The recipient is Wisconsin Club for Growth, a GOP-front group to which Scott Walker helped direct money.

Both Walker and Wisconsin Club for Growth remain the subject of a John Doe probe which Republicans are trying to kill.

The contributor is John Menard Jr., the richest billionaire from Wisconsin looking for more.

"In the past two years, Menard’s company has been awarded up to $1.8 million in special tax credits from a state economic development corporation that Walker chairs, according to state records," notes Isikoff.

National Press Hits Another Scott Walker Myth

Nate Cohn demolishes another Scott Walker myth: That winning gubernatorial elections in Wisconsin means Scott Walker has broad appeal for a presidential general election, bringing electability to a GOP presidential ticket.

"[Walker's] electoral record — three wins in governor’s races in four years in Wisconsin, including a recall election — isn’t as impressive as it looks," writes Cohn in the NYT in his column, The Upshot. "Mr. Walker’s electoral performance was average for a Republican running for governor in 2010 or 2014. His showing — a modest victory in a modestly Democratic state — was highly consistent with the extent that Republican candidates for governor outperformed Mr. Romney’s showing from 2012."

Cohn points out off-year turn-out adequately explains Walker's statewide success, and notes, "One could even argue that Mr. Walker’s performance was the least impressive of any Republican candidates for governor in the Midwest."

These facts are not lost on Wisconsin.

Nor is the fact that Walker garners his electoral success from the racially segregated counties, the WOW counties, outside Milwaukee and in rural Wisconsin where younger generations don't stay around that long as Walker continues to demolish community institutions that took generations for Wisconsin to build.

So, Walker continues his ambush on Wisconsin through his ludicrous 2015-2017 budget proposal that seems as much as a tool to bash political and ideological foes, as a thoughtful document to solve the deficit Scott Walker created.

Scott Walker is working to accumulate as much power as he can in his politicized Department of Administration.

Office of State Employment Relations

Walker's budget, for example, eliminates the "Office of State Employment Relations (OSER)" and transfers "the funding, positions, and functions of OSER to a new Division of Personnel Management in DOA which is attached administratively to the Department of Administration (DOA)." (Legislative Fiscal Bureau, p. 330)

The OSER is already sending risk notices to employees that they might be canned by Walker.

Wisconsin Division of Hearings and Appeals

And, administrative law judges in the Wisconsin Division of Hearings and Appeals (DHA) which hears complaints from Wisconsin citizens about many state agencies, such as the DNR would be moved to Walker's Department of Administration.

"According to the Budget in Brief, the Governor recommends that DOA conduct all administrative hearings for state agencies, with the exception of the Public Service Commission and unemployment insurance." (Legislative Fiscal Bureau, p.41)

This proposal can be understood as payback against Administrative Law Judge Jeffrey D. Boldt who hit the DNR for not considering "the accumulated effects of groundwater use when the agency reviewed an application for a high-capacity well for a $35 million dairy farm," a decision unpopular with Walker campaign contributors. (Bergquist, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

Less citizen recourse against a more corrupt state government. Walker would never run on this, and does not enjoy a broad mandate for most of his agenda.

Any suggestion that Walker has cross-over appeal and electability as political assets is absurd.

Appellate Panel Knocks Down Judge Randa Hard in Scott Walker, John Doe Case

John Doe Probe Is Open as Rudolph Randa Is Rebuked

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa's ruling halting a state John Doe investigation last May is reversed by a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit today in O'Keefe and Club for Growth, Inc v. Chisholm and Schmitz. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel document)

The ruling rejected Randa's innovative theory of the First Amendment under which Randa asserts coordination between campaigns and independent issue groups is legal, no matter how states regulate such activity that has resulted in numerous criminal convictions in recent years.

The John Doe probe is open, as it was in January.

The John Doe probe was halted between May and September 24 by Judge Rudolph Randa's corrupt order and opinion in May that few objective observers contacted believed would stand, and would be reversed in months.

"Results-oriented" is the euphemism for corrupt is public legal statements by jurists making public observations.

Writes Judge Easterbrook for the panel:

...neither a state nor a federal court had held that Wisconsin’s (or any other state’s) regulation of coordinated fundraising and issue advocacy violates the First Amendment.

  Starting with Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 46–47, 78 (1976), the Supreme Court has stated repeatedly that, although the First Amendment protects truly independent expenditures for political speech, the government is entitled to regulate coordination between candidates’ campaigns and purportedly independent groups. See also, e.g., FEC v. Colorado Re-­‐‑ publican Federal Campaign Committee, 533 U.S. 431, 447 (2001); McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93, 202–03, 219–23 (2003), over-­‐‑ ruled in part on other grounds by Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010). This is so because Buckley held that the Constitution allows limits on how much one person can contribute to a politician’s campaign. If campaigns tell potential contributors to divert money to nominally independent groups that have agreed to do the campaigns’ bidding, these contribution limits become porous, and the requirement that politicians’ campaign committees disclose the donors and amounts becomes useless.

Although press reports that an overseeing Judge Gregory Peterson had effectively shut down the probe by quashing subpoenas in January, acquired evidence made public (and likely evidence and testimony not yet made public) point to Scott Walker being implicated in a criminal scheme, the point of the John Doe probe determining if and by whom crimes may have been committed.

Documents made public in June, months after Judge Gregory had squashed subpoenas, made clear that Wisconsin Constitutional law enforcement officials, district attorneys, and investigators believed Scott Walker appeared to be a the center of a "criminal scheme." (Marley, Bice and Bill Glauber, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

The scope of the criminal scheme under investigation "is expansive," (Republican Special) Prosecutor Francis Schmitz wrote. "It includes criminal violations of multiple elections laws, including violations of Filing a False Campaign Report or Statement and Conspiracy to File a False Campaign Report or Statement."

Reversal Is Likely of Judge Randa's Ruling on John Doe Probe

In oral arguments today, Judge Diane Wood and Frank Easterbrook both dismissed major elements of two cases cited of the Wisconsin Club for Growth's Eric O'Keefe's attorney and the rationales behind a federal judge's involvement in the Wisconsin John Doe-law enforcement probe of Scott Walker and coordination among Walker, the Walker campaign and third party groups.

Legal scholar Rick Hasen writes a reversal of Judge Rudolph Randa's May 6 ruling halting the probe is likely.

The Randa May 6 ruling can be found here.

Judge Wood challenged the attorney for the rightwing group for whom Randa ruled, "Should a federal court step in and enjoin a state," (57-minute, 50-second of mark of Eric O'Keefe v. John Chisholm (14-1822)) a sentiment and stated skepticism immediately echoed by Judge Easterbrook.

Then, minutes later Easterbrook asked: "Let me tell you what the problem is. If what your client has done is simply not illegal under Wisconsin law at all, why should a federal court issue a [federal] constitutionally based injunction?"

John Doe Oral Arguments Online at Seventh Circuit Site

Oral arguments of the Eric O'Keefe v. Francis Schmitz  and Eric O'Keefe v. John Chisholm cases are available online at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit site.

The three-judge panel hearing the cases is composed of: Judges Frank H. Easterbrook,  Diane P. Wood and William J. Bauer.

Appellate Panel Hearing John Doe Probe Appeal Are Judges Easterbrook, Wood and Bauer

The same three federal appellate judges who heard the appeals halting the Wisconsin John Doe probe in an incredible three days in May 2014 will hear oral arguments this afternoon.

The three-judge panel is composed of: Judges Frank H. Easterbrook,  Diane P. Wood and William J. Bauer.

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit will hear oral arguments slated to begin at 2:30 on several cases related to the John Doe probe including whether documents will be released, and whether U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa erred when Randa halted the probe on May 6 this year in his corrupt ruling that halted a law enforcement investigation in which Scott Walker has been identified as a central figure in a massive "criminal scheme." (Marley, Bice and Glauber, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel; (June 19, 2014)

The cases to be heard at oral arguments are: 14-1822, 14-1888, 14- 1899,14-2006, 14-2012, 14-2023;
O’Keefe v. Chisholm; and 14-2585; O’Keefe v. Schmitz.

Randa's ruling also ordered the destruction of evidence collected by the law enforcement probe, an order that was quickly stayed by the federal appellate court on May 7, one day after Randa's ruling.

In response to May 7 appellate court ruling, Randa then issued a finding that the John Doe prosecutors' appeal is "frivolous," another incredible ruling (on May 8) that was necessary to halt the John Doe probe as stated in the May 7 opinion of the federal panel that noted unless there was a finding a frivolity of the John Doe officials' appeal, Randa had no authority to stop the probe. (Marley, Bice and Stein, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel; May 8, 2014))

This finding of frivolity means that the John Doe appeal is utterly unreasonable and the prosecutors' appeal contains no rational basis for argument.

Appellate Panel Composition Hearing Scott Walker John Doe Case to be Made Public Tuesday Morning

A clerk answering the phone in Chicago says the composition of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit's panel hearing oral arguments in the Wisconsin John Doe cases will be made public at 8:30 A.M.

This means citizens wondering which appellate judges will help decide the future of campaign finance, the rule of law, and whether Scott Walker is above the law won't know who the judges are until tomorrow morning.

Tuesday afternoon, September 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit will hear oral arguments slated to begin at 2:30 on several cases related to the John Doe probe including whether documents will be released, and whether U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa erred when Randa halted the probe on May 6 this year in his spectacularly corrupt ruling.

The late notice of the composition of the panel, the clerk said, is due to routine security concerns.

As for Randa, make no mistake his decision halting the John Doe probe is not misguided or overzealous as some have said, Randa's decision is corrupt and calls into question his fitness to continue serving as federal judge.

Wisconsin Press Misreporting Nature of Wisconsin John Doe Probe

Wisconsin's two largest newspapers, the AP, and the Gannett Co dailies are misreporting a major element of Wisconsin's biggest political-criminal justice story—The John Doe Recall probe investigating coordination among Scott Walker, the Walker campaign and outside groups that flooded the Wisconsin airwaves with Express Advocacy ads during the 2011-12 Recall Elections

Misreporting a major fact of the Wisconsin John Doe probe has led many Wisconsin readers to the perception that the bipartisan law enforcement officials conducting the John Doe probe are just playing politics, when the opposite is true under the rigorous and reformist John Doe statute that protects the innocent when looking into the possibility of criminal activity.

Wisconsin John Doe Statute

The journalistic mistake is repeating the fallacious and misleading line from the Walker campaign that Scott Walker is not a "target" of the John Doe law enforcement investigation carried out under the authority of Wisconsin Constitutional officers [district attorneys] and the Wisconsin John Doe statute.

Cody, our neighbor's dog who lives down the street is not a John Doe target; Packers coach Mike McCarthy is not a target; and neither is Scott Walker nor anyone else.

That's because the practice, statutory rationale and rules governing Wisconsin's John Doe's statute do not authorize designating 'targets' during the course of Wisconsin John Doe probes.

Federal grand juries in Wisconsin (and other states) do designate and notify targets as "putative defendants," state grand juries in other states designate targets.

In Wisconsin John Doe probes do not designate targets.

The John Doe statute authorizes a law enforcement investigation conducted with the compulsory authority of a quasi-judicial hearing to look into if and by whom crimes have been committed, precisely to determine whether someone should become a target of a criminal complaint on the basis of the facts and testimony gathered in the probe.

In fact, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has specifically recognized that the John Doe statute does not even "require that a witness be advised as to the nature of the proceeding," and does not require that the gathering of evidence and testimony reaches a point when someone must to be advised he or she becomes an effective target of the John Doe investigation, likely to be served a criminal complaint. (Ryan v. Wisconsin, (79 Wis.2d 83 (1977)).

This ruling has stood for 37 years without challenge because it is uncontroversial

Scott Walker's repeated I'm have not been told I'm a target statements are misleading and dishonest.

The Journal-Sentinel editorial this weekend advocating that the John Doe probe continue, notes Scott Walker has repeatedly asserted "that prosecutors have said he is not a target of their investigation."

This is not credible.

Walker won't be told he is a target until and unless he is served with a criminal complaint (likely just before).

In the middle of the for-now-halted John Doe probe Scott Walker surely was not told the status of the secret probe in a misuse of the term "target," while released documents of the John Doe officials reveal their theory that Walker appears to be at the center of a "criminal scheme."

John Doe probes are not grand juries, and they are not mini-trials requiring a reporting of the status of the probe or the disclosure of evidence that could be exculpatory in a hypothetical future trial, the Brady Rule; this imperative exists after the charging of a criminal defendant.

Alerting someone he or she is suspected of illegal activity in a John Doe probe is like law enforcement alerting a criminal suspect that law enforcement has accumulated a mountain of evidence that the suspect is running guns and manufacturing crystal meth, so heads up guys.

Target is a precise legal term used in federal grand jury proceedings, but the Wisconsin press has generally used the term target interchangeably in reporting on the current John Doe Recall probe as though the investigation is a grand jury proceeding.

Federal court opinions on the John Doe probe have used the term "target" and "subject," but by no means are the opinions intended to equate the use of target in grand jury proceedings with subjects and subpoenaed witnesses producing testimony and being investigated in the Wisconsin John Doe Recall election probe.

John Doe probes are begun when there is reasonable suspicion to believe a major crime has been committed, and conflict(s) of interests or practical difficulties—such as stonewalling in the first Walker administration John Doe probe (May 2010 - March 2013) resulting in criminal convictions against three former aides, one appointee and one campaign contributor to/of then County Executive Scott Walker—make a John Doe proceeding necessary as determined by a district attorney, judge; and in some cases as requested and initiated by Wisconsin citizens, a Wisconsin law enforcement jurist confirms.

If someone in a John Doe probe is charged like Tim Russell and Kevin D. Kavanaugh—Scott Walker's longtime political aides who were appointed by Walker to a military veterans' non-profit groups and proceeded to embezzle $10,000s donated and intended for veterans and their families (both were convicted in 2012)—the criminal charging then and only then causes someone to become a "target," at the discretion of the district attorney and judge overseeing the probe.

A quick phone call to a law enforcement jurist or Wisconsin criminal defense jurist will confirm these facts about targets and what John Doe officials reveal to the people to whom they speak.

In the meantime, the Wisconsin State Journal, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and most of the Wisconsin press are consistently misrepresenting this major element of Wisconsin's biggest criminal justice-political story right up to the last critical months before the November gubernatorial election.

Tuesday afternoon, September 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit will hear oral arguments slated to begin at 2:30 on several cases related to the John Doe 'Recall' probe including whether numerous documents should be released, and whether U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa erred when Randa halted the probe on May 6 this year in an incredible and spectacularly corrupt ruling attempting to salvage Walker's political career in a ruling that stains the federal judiciary in Wisconsin.

Walker has been shown to be at the center of a criminal scheme in the documents already released. (Marley, Bice and Glauber, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

Walker's fear, and Randa's fear is that if the probe were allowed to be continued (and no jurist to whom I have spoken can cite a Wisconsin John Doe proceeding that has been halted in this manner as Randa did in May), Walker and several others would be served with a criminal complaint, then Scott Walker and likely others would become targets.

It has already been established Scott Walker solicited money on behalf of outside groups, and coordinated with outside groups to benefit the 2012 recall campaigns of Republican state senate candidates. (Bottari, Center for Media and Democracy)

Reporting and repeating Scott Walker's line that Walker (and others) are not John Doe targets is an abdication of the commitment to reporting facts that underlie the best of American journalism, and effectively functions as a cover-up and propaganda for Walker and his allies.

This error is exacerbated in the context of Walker's allies' repeated assertion that coordination and solicitation among Walker, Walker's campaign and Walker's allies is not a crime, calling Wisconsin campaign finance regime, "zombie law," though numerous people have already been convicted and sentenced for the same crimes—laundering campaign contributions, misconduct in public office and filing false reports with the state Elections Board (now Wisconsin Government Accountability Board)—that Walker and others appear to have committed.

This is a grave matter for Wisconsin journalism assuming one takes matters such as the formal structures of Wisconsin democracy and the rule of law seriously; the issue is no less than the question: Is Scott Walker above the law?

When there is this much at stake, Wisconsin journalism has to get the story right.

Scott Walker Implosion May Be Imminent with New Release from Secret Comm System

Scott Walker's corruption featured
in February episode of Chris Hayes

Update: Milwaukee County Executive announces he will have possession of the emails within days of June 4, and then release as fast as possible.  Look for a late June-July release of Scott Walker and staff emails on secret and illegal router system, installed in Walker's office during his tenure as Milwaukee County Executive. One prediction: It will begin to dawn on the most dense D.C. pundit that Scott Walker will never become the GOP nominee for the presidency.
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Tens of thousands of emails will soon be released featuring communications among aides to Gov. Scott Walker when he was Milwaukee County executive (2002-08), current Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele announced.

The emails were seized in the first John Doe investigation that found massive misconduct in public office, and resulted in convictions of six Walker aides, appointees and associates.

The emails follow the February release of 28,000 emails that were made public as part of litigation by Walker's aide, Kelly M. Rindfleisch and her appeal of her conviction for misconduct in public office.

Walker in the past has refused to answer questions about ethics and criminality during his tenure as County Executive, pointing out the fact that the first John Doe investigation did not result in criminal charges against Walker as explaining away any questions why he used and allowed to be used a secret email communication system in the Milwaukee County executive's office.

This next release of emails will speak loudly, demonstrating a micromanager who ignored the law and any sense of ethics, and will be much more difficult for Walker to evade, and will almost certainly stop talk of Walker running for president, possibly torpedoing his run for reelection for governor as well.

The new release of secret emails also follows the March 1 revelation by Bob Kiefert that he worked at the Milwaukee County Executive's office as an employee and explained how to set up another secret Internet system in 2002 in the physical presence of Walker aide and convicted felon, Tim Russell, and Scott Walker himself, who smiled and waived at Kiefert when Russell tried to introduce the two as Walker was on the phone.

Russell explained to Kiefert that the Internet system was done at the behest of Walker, (DeFour, Wisconsin State Journal) who was to personally thank Kiefert for his help.

"Kiefert said the 3G broadband network described in the (criminal complaint against Walker aides) is a faster, more modern version of the equipment he helped install in 2002," reported the Wisconsin State Journal's DeFour.