Scott Walker Personally Sought to Kill the Wisconsin Idea and Lied, New Docs Confirm
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker sought to legislatively eviscerate the Wisconsin Idea in 2105 and lied publicly in denying he attempted the scheme, new documents the adminstration tried to keep secret show, (Beck, Wisconsin State Journal).
The attempt to kill the Wisconsin Idea was followed in 2015 by Walker's aborted attempt to legislatively kill Wisconsin's Public (Open) Records law. See also Wisconsin Public Records law.
The Public/Open Records case is Center for Media and Democracy, Kathleen Meter Lounsbury, The Progressive, Inc., and Jud Lounsbury v. Scott Walker, Office of the Governor, Wisconsin Department of Administration, and Scott Neitzel, (Case No.: 14 CV 1289), (Wisconsin State Journal document).
The release of the new documents confirms Scott Walker lied about his effort to destroy the long-cherished Wisconsin Idea.
Documents released last year also show Walker's duplicity, (Wisconsin State Journal (DeFour)).
Walker 2105 Aborted Attempt to Kill Wisconsin Idea
"Gov. Scott Walker's administration gave detailed, line-by-line
instructions about how to strike the decades-old Wisconsin Idea from
state law — even as top university officials objected — according to legislative drafting notes reviewed by the State Journal." (DeFour, Hall, Spicuzza and Simmons, Wisconsin State Journal, Feb. 6, 2015)
"First Walker defended the change. Then he backtracked and said it was a 'drafting error.' Then, after multiple news reports showed his staff's fingerprints were all over plans to delete wording from the UW's mission in the 2016-17 budget bill, he issued a lengthy and tortured statement Thursday [Feb. 5, 2015] saying it was all just a miscommunication," notes Rob Thomas. (The Capital Times)
The story on Walker's attempted radical transformation of the world-class University of Wisconsin System was broken by the Center for Media and Democracy's PRWatch, (Jonas Persson and Mary Bottari), on February 4, 2015.
Truth and Rule of Law Alive and Well
Much to acclaim in developments this week.
The Center for Media and Democracy, Kathleen Meter Lounsbury, The Progressive, Inc., and Jud Lounsbury fought the ever-desperate-for-secrecy Walker administration and won.
Dane County Judge Amy Smith ruled for transparency and the rule of law.
Local newspapers are becoming more aggressive in reporting the efforts of a mendacious Scott Walker from whom, no reasonable person can conclude, we can expect candor.
Showing posts with label Wisconsin Walker Wisconsin Idea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wisconsin Walker Wisconsin Idea. Show all posts
Aug 11, 2015
Scott Walker Brings McCarthyism Back to Wisconsin
Scott Walker cannot stand the expression of speech, political activity or as Michael Mann and Randi Weingarten point out in The Guardian today, scientific inquiry surpassing the confines of Walker's evangelical worldview.
Walker now routines boasts of taking on the Wisconsin citizenry as though popular sentiment and civil rights are defects in society to overcome.
Of course in Scott Walker's worldview, this neo-fascist outlook is precisely what drives Walker to use the machinery of government to destroy the rights and common wealth of the people of Wisconsin.
That the University of Wisconsin System should ever face such fervent and fetid opposition as Scott Walker and the Republican Party is a nightmare project that not even Joe McCarthy dared attempt.
Note Mann and Weingarten:
Fred Harvey Harrington (1912–1995), Wisconsin needs you.
Walker now routines boasts of taking on the Wisconsin citizenry as though popular sentiment and civil rights are defects in society to overcome.
Of course in Scott Walker's worldview, this neo-fascist outlook is precisely what drives Walker to use the machinery of government to destroy the rights and common wealth of the people of Wisconsin.
That the University of Wisconsin System should ever face such fervent and fetid opposition as Scott Walker and the Republican Party is a nightmare project that not even Joe McCarthy dared attempt.
Note Mann and Weingarten:
In Wisconsin, legislators have just lowered the high bar for dismissing tenured faculty at the direct demand of Scott Walker and the state Republican regime. Shared governance, in which the Wisconsin university system once led the world, has been reduced to a mere advisory process. In practice, this means that decisions about academic programs – and the faculty who work on them – will be made by administrators who are either themselves political appointees or who serve at the leisure of these appointees.Scott Walker is a candidate for the presidency of the United States and wishes to inflict onto the nation what he has wrought onto Wisconsin.
Fred Harvey Harrington (1912–1995), Wisconsin needs you.
Jul 12, 2015
Scott Walker—Authoritarian and Vindictive Is Now an American Problem
On the eve of Scott Walker's announcement for the presidency from the white citizens' stronghold of Waukesha, Wisconsin (DeFour, Wisconsin State Journal), it's apt that the New York Times runs a preview of a film on Philip Zimbardo's social psychological Stanford Prison Experiment (Murphy, New York Times).
The capacity of 'normal' human beings to inflict sadistic actions and suffering onto fellow human beings had astonished and repulsed thinking human beings, emphatically after the Holocaust and the United States invasion of Vietnam, and social psychologists have studied this phenomena of systematized savagery.
But for Scott Walker (and political allies, such as former governor Tommy Thompson [1987-2001]), demonizing and inflicting suffering onto disfavored citizens have been the vehicle by which these two Wisconsin governors have launched political careers and presidential campaigns.
Assaults on the working-class citizens of Wisconsin abound in Scott Walker's administration: the right to collective bargain; massive cuts for the University of Wisconsin; bans on abortions after 20 weeks, regardless of rape or incest; drug testing for aid recipients; repeated targeting of the city of Milwaukee, maintaining it as the most segregated urban area in the United States; attacking the open records laws; and avoiding and evading the populations' right to ask him questions about any of these policies (Walker has held no listening sessions for any of this legislation, even though none of it was mentioned in his election, recall, or re-election bids).
Super-max prisons, Thompson's vow to make inmates' lives a "living hell," and former State Rep. Walker's (1993-2002) peripatetic legislative push to create harsh prison sentences, expand the criminal code, create the authority to send nonviolent 'offenders' to out-of-state private prisons went on with little opposition from the Wisconsin citizenry or the Democratic Party.
"Walker pushed dozens of proposals in the state house to lengthen criminal penalties, for everything from perjury to privacy invasion to intoxicated boating. In just the 1997–98 legislative session, Walker authored or co-sponsored twenty-seven different bills that either expanded the definition of crimes, increased mandatory minimums for offenders, or curbed the possibility of parole," notes Scott Keyes in The Nation.
Walker openly bragged about his bill, the infamous Truth-in-Sentencing law, which limited early parole, as having come from the corporate bill mill, the American Legislative Exchange Committee.
Scott Walker is the classic "double high authoritarian" who takes pleasure in deceiving and hurting perceived incarnations of the wrong [black] type of people, while also marked by the inclination and "willingness to submit to established authority, (and) their aggressiveness on behalf of that authority" (Dean, part one, CounterPunch and Dean, part two CounterPunch).
To understand Scott Walker is to comprehend the history of Scott Walker's inclination to lie and evade.
As a profile in racism, Scott Walker presents to social psychologists an experiment in how a superstitious, cruel and callow politician with little understanding of public policy can rise to the level of serious discussion of becoming the nominee for a major party for the presidency of the United States.
Now that Walker is in the national arena, the heartless and senseless changes he has wrought in Wisconsin will be exposed to a wider audience and shown to be consonant with twentieth-century fascism and the "double high authoritarianism" discussed by Dean.
The capacity of 'normal' human beings to inflict sadistic actions and suffering onto fellow human beings had astonished and repulsed thinking human beings, emphatically after the Holocaust and the United States invasion of Vietnam, and social psychologists have studied this phenomena of systematized savagery.
But for Scott Walker (and political allies, such as former governor Tommy Thompson [1987-2001]), demonizing and inflicting suffering onto disfavored citizens have been the vehicle by which these two Wisconsin governors have launched political careers and presidential campaigns.
Assaults on the working-class citizens of Wisconsin abound in Scott Walker's administration: the right to collective bargain; massive cuts for the University of Wisconsin; bans on abortions after 20 weeks, regardless of rape or incest; drug testing for aid recipients; repeated targeting of the city of Milwaukee, maintaining it as the most segregated urban area in the United States; attacking the open records laws; and avoiding and evading the populations' right to ask him questions about any of these policies (Walker has held no listening sessions for any of this legislation, even though none of it was mentioned in his election, recall, or re-election bids).
Super-max prisons, Thompson's vow to make inmates' lives a "living hell," and former State Rep. Walker's (1993-2002) peripatetic legislative push to create harsh prison sentences, expand the criminal code, create the authority to send nonviolent 'offenders' to out-of-state private prisons went on with little opposition from the Wisconsin citizenry or the Democratic Party.
"Walker pushed dozens of proposals in the state house to lengthen criminal penalties, for everything from perjury to privacy invasion to intoxicated boating. In just the 1997–98 legislative session, Walker authored or co-sponsored twenty-seven different bills that either expanded the definition of crimes, increased mandatory minimums for offenders, or curbed the possibility of parole," notes Scott Keyes in The Nation.
Walker openly bragged about his bill, the infamous Truth-in-Sentencing law, which limited early parole, as having come from the corporate bill mill, the American Legislative Exchange Committee.
Scott Walker is the classic "double high authoritarian" who takes pleasure in deceiving and hurting perceived incarnations of the wrong [black] type of people, while also marked by the inclination and "willingness to submit to established authority, (and) their aggressiveness on behalf of that authority" (Dean, part one, CounterPunch and Dean, part two CounterPunch).
To understand Scott Walker is to comprehend the history of Scott Walker's inclination to lie and evade.
As a profile in racism, Scott Walker presents to social psychologists an experiment in how a superstitious, cruel and callow politician with little understanding of public policy can rise to the level of serious discussion of becoming the nominee for a major party for the presidency of the United States.
Now that Walker is in the national arena, the heartless and senseless changes he has wrought in Wisconsin will be exposed to a wider audience and shown to be consonant with twentieth-century fascism and the "double high authoritarianism" discussed by Dean.
Jun 24, 2015
Scott Walker Blasted by Conservative UW Profs for Attacks on University
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| Sifting and Winnowing Plaque on Bascom Hill Photo by UW-Madison, University Communications |
Writing in a national political journal, two conservative and long-tenured UW-Madison professors blasted Scott Walker's continued assault on the University of Wisconsin System, singling out Walker's move to eliminate tenure protections from Wisconsin state statutes and the consequences of imperiling academic freedom.
"[W]e’re increasingly worried that in trying to take up another conservative crusade, our governor, Scott Walker, is going to silence the very voices he claims to support," write Donald Downs, professor of political science at UW-Madison and John Sharpless, professor of history UW-Madison write in The Politico.
Downs and Sharpless say, "We harbor strong concerns about Walker’s proposed tenure revisions. Without tenure protections, professors like us who fight for free speech and liberty—values Walker himself espouses—could be even more at risk of being targeted on college campuses for our beliefs ... As leaders of a free speech and liberty movement at UW-Madison that has enjoyed considerable success over the course of the past 20 years, we can attest to the positive effects of tenure for those with conservative and libertarian beliefs."
Conclude Downs and Sharpless: "Standing in front of [the "sifting and winnowing"] Plaque [on Bascom Hill], one can see the state capitol dome less than a mile to the east. But today that very dome casts a long, sinister shadow on the university."
Jun 13, 2015
Walker Flack Confirms UW System-Audit Bureau Link in Forbes Mag. Online
Updated - A Scott Walker spokesperson confirmed yesterday that Walker intends to remove all references to the University of Wisconsin System from the Wisconsin statutes.
It is noted at this site that the Wisconsin legislative Finance Committee's proposed abolishment of the Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) also would have the effect of nixing academic freedom guarantees contained in a section of the 1965 statute creating the Legislative Audit Bureau.
Hence, the assertion Walker's objective of destroying academic freedom would explain the bizarre call for the proposed demolishment of the LAB.
This assessment is confirmed yesterday by Scott Walker's spokesperson, Laurel Patrick, in comments made to Forbes Business online in a piece by Steven Salzberg.
Said Ms. Patrick to Forbes in an email: "... the Governor’s original budget proposal removed all references to the UW from state statute in order to allow for the proposed authority to create its own policies. This would allow the UW Board of Regents to address the issue of tenure going forward."
But Walker missed one huge reference in the LAB statute. Surrogates in the Joint Finance Committee took care of the omission.
Abolishing the Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) and removing the statute does remove a major reference to the UW from state statute, one that specifically protects academic freedom, and gives previously statutory guarantees to the heavily Scott Walker-appointed and politically vetted UW System Board of Regents and of course politically vetted inspectors general.
It is noted at this site that the Wisconsin legislative Finance Committee's proposed abolishment of the Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) also would have the effect of nixing academic freedom guarantees contained in a section of the 1965 statute creating the Legislative Audit Bureau.
Hence, the assertion Walker's objective of destroying academic freedom would explain the bizarre call for the proposed demolishment of the LAB.
This assessment is confirmed yesterday by Scott Walker's spokesperson, Laurel Patrick, in comments made to Forbes Business online in a piece by Steven Salzberg.
Said Ms. Patrick to Forbes in an email: "... the Governor’s original budget proposal removed all references to the UW from state statute in order to allow for the proposed authority to create its own policies. This would allow the UW Board of Regents to address the issue of tenure going forward."
But Walker missed one huge reference in the LAB statute. Surrogates in the Joint Finance Committee took care of the omission.
Abolishing the Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) and removing the statute does remove a major reference to the UW from state statute, one that specifically protects academic freedom, and gives previously statutory guarantees to the heavily Scott Walker-appointed and politically vetted UW System Board of Regents and of course politically vetted inspectors general.
Matt Rothschild Calls for Resignation of Chancellor Blank and UW System President Cross
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| Matt Rothschild calls for resignation of Chancellor Blank and UW System President Cross in the face of Scott Walker and the Republican Party's attacks on the UW System. From For the Record Show with Neil Heinen (WISC -TV) |
Said Rothschild in response to a question that UW faculty tenure and related faculty governance issues such as academic freedom can be protected by the UW System Board of Regents [dominated by politically vetted Scott Walker appointees]:
"I think it's hard to sift and winnow if you're a professor if you got the Board of Regents breathing down your back constantly. I was really kind of shocked and appalled that President Cross and Chancellor Blank didn't do do more to defend the University of Wisconsin System and tenure. Because when the decision came down from the Joint Finance Committee that they were to cut five/sixths of what they said they were going to cut, $250 million, and when they came down with, 'you know, we're going to get rid of tenure,' what did they get from the president and the chancellor? Statements of gratitude to the Joint Finance Committee! That was I think appalling to people who are in the University System, I actually think they should resign."
Rothschild made his comments on the For the Record Show with Neil Heinen, also to be televised on Sunday morning at 10:00 (WISC TV- Madison).
After Rothschild's call for the resignations, Heinen tried to make an argument that this unprecedented attack on the UW System by Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Republican Party's elected legislators was really bipartisan and begun under Walker's predecessor, Gov. Jim Doyle.
Rothschild will be making several appearances in the coming days including on Monday morning on the Joy Cardin Show on WPR at 7:30 talking about the Legislative Audit Bureau, and in La Crosse, speaking this coming Monday afternoon at 5:00 p.m. at the north end of Copeland Park about saving "democracy in Wisconsin."
Rothschild is also a former editor at the The Progressive Magazine based in Madison.
Walker is expected to sign the state budget in the coming days, and then announce his candidacy for the presidency in the coming weeks.
Scott Walker's Attacks Are as Perverse as Ideological
Trying to comprehend why Scott Walker is attempting to destroy the UW System is akin to attempting to comprehend the violent criminal mind.
After a heinous violent crime, a healthy person—a victim or somebody reading a piece in the paper—might be wondering: Why did the perp do that, wasn't he afraid someone would get hurt?
Varying experiences of astonishment, shock, trauma and disgust might follow the acts of a criminal with bad intentions.
This what is happening now with Scott Walker and his unrelenting war on the University of Wisconsin System reportedly now becoming mobilized as Summer classes begin next week.
There is no context for most people, no way to empathize that a sitting governor would purposely destroy the pillars of what makes Wisconsin a great state. How do you understand a sociopath? We're not FBI profilers.
Defensive Posture
Make no mistake, the public political posture by the UW System administrators has been defensive and reactive as Wisconsin newspapers and TV 'news' across the state mostly present Walker's attack as a budgetary squabble among politicians, not as diverting a spectacle as Lebron and the NBA Finals.
No one is going to mistake UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca M. Blank and UW System President Ray Cross as the political equivalent of George Patton.
The usual suspects, the literate and politicized across the nation, are of course calling to arms the people of Wisconsin as the menace of Scott Walker and his surrogates in the gerrymandered Legislature toxify a world class center of learning, embedding the seeds of destruction into what historian Paul Buhle called a "verdant intellectual oasis."
This a political fight, its scope and importance, eloquently described by national political journalist, Joshua Marshall, in his follow-up to Marshall's widely noted piece last week:
Wisconsin People Are Suckers
Marshall also gently chastises the Wisconsin people for being the suckers they are for electing Scott Walker and his lackeys in the Wisconsin Legislature: "At the end of the day, the people of Wisconsin aren't victims here. They elected Walker and his no less aggressive GOP legislatures. Indeed, they've reelected them, albeit in low turnout off year elections."
That's a fact, Walker never managed to garner much more than one in four of Wisconsin voters.
It's also letting the people off too easy who stayed away from the polls the last four years (especially in Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin), mumbling 'they're all crooks.'
The "full-scale political disengagement of a substantial chunk of the American population" persists.(Greenwald, The Intercept)
This applies emphatically to Wisconsin, and this foolish political disengagement is what Scott Walker relies on when he burns down the next pillar of Wisconsin in his efforts to uphold his promises to the billionaires to whom he promised he would "divide and conquer" the Wisconsin people, caught on video.
After a heinous violent crime, a healthy person—a victim or somebody reading a piece in the paper—might be wondering: Why did the perp do that, wasn't he afraid someone would get hurt?
Varying experiences of astonishment, shock, trauma and disgust might follow the acts of a criminal with bad intentions.
This what is happening now with Scott Walker and his unrelenting war on the University of Wisconsin System reportedly now becoming mobilized as Summer classes begin next week.
There is no context for most people, no way to empathize that a sitting governor would purposely destroy the pillars of what makes Wisconsin a great state. How do you understand a sociopath? We're not FBI profilers.
Defensive Posture
Make no mistake, the public political posture by the UW System administrators has been defensive and reactive as Wisconsin newspapers and TV 'news' across the state mostly present Walker's attack as a budgetary squabble among politicians, not as diverting a spectacle as Lebron and the NBA Finals.
No one is going to mistake UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca M. Blank and UW System President Ray Cross as the political equivalent of George Patton.
The usual suspects, the literate and politicized across the nation, are of course calling to arms the people of Wisconsin as the menace of Scott Walker and his surrogates in the gerrymandered Legislature toxify a world class center of learning, embedding the seeds of destruction into what historian Paul Buhle called a "verdant intellectual oasis."
This a political fight, its scope and importance, eloquently described by national political journalist, Joshua Marshall, in his follow-up to Marshall's widely noted piece last week:
I'm more interested in the practical effect of what Walker is trying to do than a discussion of tenure in the abstract. Because what Walker is doing is basically like lighting your own house on fire. States can get into financial jams and need to cut spending, either because of budgetary mismanagement or rough economic times. But if you look closely at what Walker is doing there's no real budgetary imperative behind it. It's just a desire to destroy a great public institution for the sake of doing it, driven in part by right-wing ideology and in part by the palpable animus Walker himself holds to people who managed to get an education.
A big part of what is happening here is that, to people like Walker, Madison is an anchor of Wisconsin liberalism. But not just liberalism in the partisan political sense, also scarier things like empirical thinking and new ideas. And it's not just the humanities. What really comes out in this article is how much of the scythe is aimed at the sciences. (emphasis added)
Wisconsin People Are Suckers
Marshall also gently chastises the Wisconsin people for being the suckers they are for electing Scott Walker and his lackeys in the Wisconsin Legislature: "At the end of the day, the people of Wisconsin aren't victims here. They elected Walker and his no less aggressive GOP legislatures. Indeed, they've reelected them, albeit in low turnout off year elections."
That's a fact, Walker never managed to garner much more than one in four of Wisconsin voters.
It's also letting the people off too easy who stayed away from the polls the last four years (especially in Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin), mumbling 'they're all crooks.'
The "full-scale political disengagement of a substantial chunk of the American population" persists.(Greenwald, The Intercept)
This applies emphatically to Wisconsin, and this foolish political disengagement is what Scott Walker relies on when he burns down the next pillar of Wisconsin in his efforts to uphold his promises to the billionaires to whom he promised he would "divide and conquer" the Wisconsin people, caught on video.
Jun 11, 2015
Josh Marshall Says Goodbye to One of America’s Great Public Universities
Perhaps time for Scott Walker and Republicans for some critical thinking and reevaluation.
Check out Goodbye, Madison in case you have missed Scott Walker's proposed destroying what took generations to build.
Consider do we want our Summer to begin with this obscenity, followed shortly by Scott Walker announcing for the presidency working to replicate this?
Chancellor Blank may be in tough position watching the University of Wisconsin-Madison become another great public institution destroyed by Walker, but better to go down swinging.
Check out Goodbye, Madison in case you have missed Scott Walker's proposed destroying what took generations to build.
Consider do we want our Summer to begin with this obscenity, followed shortly by Scott Walker announcing for the presidency working to replicate this?
Chancellor Blank may be in tough position watching the University of Wisconsin-Madison become another great public institution destroyed by Walker, but better to go down swinging.
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| Goodbye, Madison |
Author of Abolish-the-Audit Bureau Bill Refuses Comment on Academic Freedom Guarantee
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| Omnibus Motion 521 regarding the UW System authored by Sen. Harsdorf and Rep. Schraa |
This morning State Rep. David Craig (R-Big Bend), the author of the bill to abolish the Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB), declined to comment through an aide when asked if Craig would offer his assurance his bill would retain the section of the LAB statute guarding academic freedom for the UW System in the operations of the LAB. (Mal Contends)
In a related development, Rep. Craig's office also told a Capital Times reporter that his "proposal to abolish the Legislative Audit Bureau ... didn’t have anything to do with scathing audits of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation," and is simply a good government move to prevent "spending abuses." (Elbow, The Capital Times)
The LAB proposal is directly related to the proposed restructuring of the UW System though the dissolving of the LAB guarantee of academic freedom at the University of Wisconsin System, a freedom codified in several statutes of Wisconsin.
Omnibus Motion 521
The budgetary Omnibus Motion (motion 521) regarding the UW System restructuring is authored by State Senator Sheila Harsdorf (R-River Falls) and State Rep. Michael Schraa (R-Oshkosh) both of whom are members of the powerful Joint Committee on Finance.
The Joint Committee on Finance's "primary responsibility is to serve as the principal legislative committee charged with the review of all state appropriations and revenues," as described on its webpage.
Reads the Omnibus Motion introduced by Harsdorf and Schraa.: "Suspend current law…requiring the Legislative Audit Bureau to conduct an annual financial audit of the UW System. Instead, require the UW System to contract with an independent accounting firm." (Vinhout, Uppity Wisconsin)
Item 12 of the Hardorf-Schraa-Scott Walker initiative reads in part: "12. Tenure: Approve the Governor's recommendation to delete the definition of a 'tenure appointment' and language establishing the conditions under which the Board of Regents may grant a tenure appointment to a faculty member. Delete current law specifying that a person who has been granted tenure may be dismissed only for just cause and only after due notice and hearing."
University faculty tenure guarantees and limitation are codified in state statute.
Under the GOP-Walker scheme, these guarantees which attract world class researchers and faculty would transfer to the whim of the politicized UW System Board of Regents, most of whom have been vetted and appointed by Scot Walker.
Contract Employees or Tenured Faculty
This raises the question that without statutory protection, without Board of Regents support, how does the UW embed tenure in the appointments of 'tenured' faculty? An employment contract?
Does 'come to the UW System as a contract employee' really seem appealing to lure world-class researchers and faculty?
No, and that's Scott Walker and the GOP's point.
One can only hope public support for the University of Wisconsin System kills the project of Scott Walker and Republicans.
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| Items 26, 27 of GOP Omnibus Motion 521 regarding the UW System |
Jun 8, 2015
Audit Bureau Attack Is Sucker Punch to Academic Freedom of UW System
Political Payback in Proposed Audit Bureau Dissolution Is Cover for Assualt on Academic Freedom
Updated - The proposed abolishment of the Legislative Audit Bureau following the Bureau's revelations of incompetence and corruption in Scott Walker's Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), Walker's flagship 'jobs' agency, has another policy objective. (Elbow, The Capital Times)
Abolishing the independent, 50-year-old agency would also nullify a major statutory protection of academic freedom of the University System, and under current GOP policy aims give massive power to the Walker-appointed UW System Regents. (Schneider, The Capital Times)
Reads the relevant section of the 1965 statute creating the Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) (13/IV/94/1):
This embedded statutory protection for the University System and academic freedom in the LAB statute would be eliminated, replaced by the analyses of proposed (and ideologically vetted) inspectors generals who would be free to proactively examine academic programs, courses within the University of Wisconsin System, instructional methods, research and public service activities and then make audits that could be used by the Walker-vetted Board of Regents for the purpose of breaking up UW-Madison, for instance, and replacing or eradicating academic programs ideologically unpopular with the GOP and political donors under the rubric of proactive fiscal action.
Notes Karen Herzog:
Seen in this light, Walker's move earlier this year to remove the Wisconsin Idea from state statutes, along with other attacks on the UW System, reveals a broader effort to diminish Walker's most potent political foe, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, UW-Extension Centers , Dane County and other Wisconsin college towns.
One wonders if UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank really regards the attack on faculty tenure as not a "disaster" in light of this further effort to destroy another statutory protection of academic freedom. (Sommerhauser, Wisconsin State Journal).
This is not a move to merely frighten or upset the Wisconsin people, as Blank has said, (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) it's another move in the GOP project to destroy the UW System.
Is it not clear that Walker and the GOP's objective is to eliminate the University System as Wisconsin knows it?
"The university’s Faculty Senate plans a special meeting Tuesday to discuss the legislative [tenure] proposal," notes Sommerhauser.
Updated - The proposed abolishment of the Legislative Audit Bureau following the Bureau's revelations of incompetence and corruption in Scott Walker's Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), Walker's flagship 'jobs' agency, has another policy objective. (Elbow, The Capital Times)
Abolishing the independent, 50-year-old agency would also nullify a major statutory protection of academic freedom of the University System, and under current GOP policy aims give massive power to the Walker-appointed UW System Regents. (Schneider, The Capital Times)
Reads the relevant section of the 1965 statute creating the Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) (13/IV/94/1):
In performing postaudits under this subsection, the legislative audit bureau shall not examine issues related to academic freedom within the University of Wisconsin System. A postaudit shall not examine into or comment upon the content of the various academic programs, including degree requirements, majors, curriculum or courses within the University of Wisconsin System, nor shall any such postaudit examine into the manner in which individual faculty members or groups of faculty members conduct their instructional, research or public service activities. This subsection does not preclude the bureau from reviewing the procedures by which decisions are made and priorities set in the University of Wisconsin System, or the manner in which such decisions and priorities are implemented within the University of Wisconsin System, insofar as such review is not inconsistent with s. 36.09. [UW Board of Regents] (emphasis added)
This embedded statutory protection for the University System and academic freedom in the LAB statute would be eliminated, replaced by the analyses of proposed (and ideologically vetted) inspectors generals who would be free to proactively examine academic programs, courses within the University of Wisconsin System, instructional methods, research and public service activities and then make audits that could be used by the Walker-vetted Board of Regents for the purpose of breaking up UW-Madison, for instance, and replacing or eradicating academic programs ideologically unpopular with the GOP and political donors under the rubric of proactive fiscal action.
Notes Karen Herzog:
Currently, tenured faculty can be dismissed only for just cause or if a campuswide financial emergency is declared. Both are difficult to prove.In the absence of academic freedom protections in the LAB statute, easy to contemplate a Walker or Dept of Administration, or GOP-dominated Legislative Committee-appointed inspector general conducting an ideologically charged audit giving a policy rationale for the Walker-appointed UW Regents to act against academic programs, professors without tenure protection, courses within the University of Wisconsin System, instructional methods, research and public service activities.
The GOP's proposed language deletes 'when a financial emergency exists' as a justification for laying off or terminating tenured faculty and replaces it with different conditions: 'due to a budget or program decision regarding program discontinuance, curtailment, modification (or) redirection.' (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
Seen in this light, Walker's move earlier this year to remove the Wisconsin Idea from state statutes, along with other attacks on the UW System, reveals a broader effort to diminish Walker's most potent political foe, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, UW-Extension Centers , Dane County and other Wisconsin college towns.
One wonders if UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank really regards the attack on faculty tenure as not a "disaster" in light of this further effort to destroy another statutory protection of academic freedom. (Sommerhauser, Wisconsin State Journal).
This is not a move to merely frighten or upset the Wisconsin people, as Blank has said, (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) it's another move in the GOP project to destroy the UW System.
Is it not clear that Walker and the GOP's objective is to eliminate the University System as Wisconsin knows it?
"The university’s Faculty Senate plans a special meeting Tuesday to discuss the legislative [tenure] proposal," notes Sommerhauser.
Jun 7, 2015
Scott Walker's Assault on Tenure Draws National Criticism
What's the matter with Wisconsin?
The question is not asked often any more as the answer is apparent: Scott Walker's anti-intellectualism, corruption, and a weak state Democratic Party precisely when Wisconsin needed an innovative, strong opposition to this fundamentalist governor's destructive agenda taken from the ALEC GOP bill mill and the Koch brothers.
Bear in mind Walker is so controlling and ideologically extreme that Walker rescinded his appointment of UW-Platteville student Joshua Inglet to the Board in August 2013 after finding out Inglet signed the Recall Scott Walker petition to show support for his mother who is a teacher.
From an editorial from this weekend's New York Times, Scott Walker's latest attack, sites the foundation of the Badger state: the University of Wisconsin System; aiming at the tenure system in this volley.
This follows Walker's attacks on funding and University's core mission: The Wisconsin Idea. (Mal Contends) (Persson and Bottari, Center for Wisconsin Media and Democracy) [Note: Persson and Bottari broke this story in February 2015]
Walker now has in place a University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents composed of a large majority of politically vetted members dedicated to destroying the very institution they are appointed to safeguard. In May 2017, Walker will have appointed 16 of 18 serving members of the UW System Board of Regents. (Mal Contends)
Used to be the University of Wisconsin-Madison drew 1,000s of applicants from the world-over to study at one of the nation's premier educational institutions and a verdant, cultural oasis in the Midwest.
Scott Walker never liked this state of affairs and is out to destroy an institution that took generations to build.
From the New York Times:
Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal for weakening tenure at Wisconsin’s highly respected state university system and undermining the faculty’s role in campus governance will appeal to conservative voters whose support he needs to win the Republican presidential nomination.
But if this proposal becomes law, it will damage the university, perhaps irreparably. It will make it harder to recruit top-tier faculty members, who have the pick of other institutions that respect academic independence and where they do not have to fear dismissal for taking controversial views or for doing research that might be frowned upon by politicians.
It has become fashionable to portray academia as a haven for people who enjoy job security while others are subject to layoffs and downsizing. But most college instructors are not protected by tenure. According to federal data, only 20.35 percent of instructional faculty at American colleges are full-time, tenure-track workers (down from 45 percent in 1975). Colleges rely heavily on miserably paid part-timers who flee the campus when class is finished so they can get to the next job.
Tenure protections were devised in the mid-20th century to protect academics from political reprisals. Current Wisconsin state law respects this tradition, allowing tenured faculty to be fired for just cause or in financial emergencies.
A committee of state lawmakers last week approved a new proposal that would remove tenure from state law, leaving the matter to the university system’s 18-member Board of Regents, 16 of whom are appointed by the governor with the confirmation of the State Senate. Under the proposal, the board would be able set new, vaguer standards for firing tenured faculty: “when such an action is deemed necessary due to a budget or program decision requiring program discontinuance, curtailment, modification or redirection.” Another provision would weaken the faculty’s voice in policy and personnel decisions.
Faculty members have ample reason to suspect Mr. Walker’s motives. Earlier this year, he issued a budget containing devastating spending cuts that also sought to amend the university’s mission statement to make it sound more like a trade school than a prominent research institution. He backed away from the new language after the state erupted in protest.
The Legislature, which will take up the new proposals later this month, can still reject them. Rubber-stamping them would set the state university on a course that Wisconsinites could regret for decades to come. #
UW System Board of Regents
John Robert Behling - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2012 (Regent Vice President)
Mark J. Bradley - Term expires May 2017
José Delgado - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2014
Tony Evers - Elected as Superintendent of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Margaret Farrow - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2013
Michael Grebe, Jr. - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2015
Eve Hall - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2014
Nicolas Harsy - Term expires May 2016
Tim Higgins - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2011
Edmund Manydeeds - Term expires May 2017
Regina Millner - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2012 (Regent President)
Janice Mueller - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2013
Drew Petersen - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2013
Charles Pruitt - Term expires May 2016
Anicka Purath - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2015
José F. Vásquez - Term expires May 2016
Gerald Whitburn - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2011
Andrew Peterson - Reappointed by Scott Walker in 2015.
Peterson is president of the Wisconsin Technical College System Board similarly dominated by Walker appointees.
The question is not asked often any more as the answer is apparent: Scott Walker's anti-intellectualism, corruption, and a weak state Democratic Party precisely when Wisconsin needed an innovative, strong opposition to this fundamentalist governor's destructive agenda taken from the ALEC GOP bill mill and the Koch brothers.
Bear in mind Walker is so controlling and ideologically extreme that Walker rescinded his appointment of UW-Platteville student Joshua Inglet to the Board in August 2013 after finding out Inglet signed the Recall Scott Walker petition to show support for his mother who is a teacher.
From an editorial from this weekend's New York Times, Scott Walker's latest attack, sites the foundation of the Badger state: the University of Wisconsin System; aiming at the tenure system in this volley.
This follows Walker's attacks on funding and University's core mission: The Wisconsin Idea. (Mal Contends) (Persson and Bottari, Center for Wisconsin Media and Democracy) [Note: Persson and Bottari broke this story in February 2015]
Walker now has in place a University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents composed of a large majority of politically vetted members dedicated to destroying the very institution they are appointed to safeguard. In May 2017, Walker will have appointed 16 of 18 serving members of the UW System Board of Regents. (Mal Contends)
Used to be the University of Wisconsin-Madison drew 1,000s of applicants from the world-over to study at one of the nation's premier educational institutions and a verdant, cultural oasis in the Midwest.
Scott Walker never liked this state of affairs and is out to destroy an institution that took generations to build.
From the New York Times:
Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal for weakening tenure at Wisconsin’s highly respected state university system and undermining the faculty’s role in campus governance will appeal to conservative voters whose support he needs to win the Republican presidential nomination.
But if this proposal becomes law, it will damage the university, perhaps irreparably. It will make it harder to recruit top-tier faculty members, who have the pick of other institutions that respect academic independence and where they do not have to fear dismissal for taking controversial views or for doing research that might be frowned upon by politicians.
It has become fashionable to portray academia as a haven for people who enjoy job security while others are subject to layoffs and downsizing. But most college instructors are not protected by tenure. According to federal data, only 20.35 percent of instructional faculty at American colleges are full-time, tenure-track workers (down from 45 percent in 1975). Colleges rely heavily on miserably paid part-timers who flee the campus when class is finished so they can get to the next job.
Tenure protections were devised in the mid-20th century to protect academics from political reprisals. Current Wisconsin state law respects this tradition, allowing tenured faculty to be fired for just cause or in financial emergencies.
A committee of state lawmakers last week approved a new proposal that would remove tenure from state law, leaving the matter to the university system’s 18-member Board of Regents, 16 of whom are appointed by the governor with the confirmation of the State Senate. Under the proposal, the board would be able set new, vaguer standards for firing tenured faculty: “when such an action is deemed necessary due to a budget or program decision requiring program discontinuance, curtailment, modification or redirection.” Another provision would weaken the faculty’s voice in policy and personnel decisions.
Faculty members have ample reason to suspect Mr. Walker’s motives. Earlier this year, he issued a budget containing devastating spending cuts that also sought to amend the university’s mission statement to make it sound more like a trade school than a prominent research institution. He backed away from the new language after the state erupted in protest.
The Legislature, which will take up the new proposals later this month, can still reject them. Rubber-stamping them would set the state university on a course that Wisconsinites could regret for decades to come. #
UW System Board of Regents
John Robert Behling - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2012 (Regent Vice President)
Mark J. Bradley - Term expires May 2017
José Delgado - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2014
Tony Evers - Elected as Superintendent of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Margaret Farrow - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2013
Michael Grebe, Jr. - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2015
Eve Hall - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2014
Nicolas Harsy - Term expires May 2016
Tim Higgins - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2011
Edmund Manydeeds - Term expires May 2017
Regina Millner - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2012 (Regent President)
Janice Mueller - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2013
Drew Petersen - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2013
Charles Pruitt - Term expires May 2016
Anicka Purath - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2015
José F. Vásquez - Term expires May 2016
Gerald Whitburn - Appointed by Scott Walker in 2011
Andrew Peterson - Reappointed by Scott Walker in 2015.
Peterson is president of the Wisconsin Technical College System Board similarly dominated by Walker appointees.
Jun 5, 2015
Scott Walker's Attack on UW System Draws National Attention
Updated - What do you with a world-class public University system in your state that took generations to build?
If you are Scott Walker and the Republicans, you take steps to degrade it into a large tech school.
There used to be a bipartisan consensus the University of Wisconsin-Madison works from Bascom Hall and the UW System Board of Regents was run out of Van Hise Hall under the principle of Shared Governance and the mission of the Wisconsin Idea.
Not anymore. The anti-intellectualism and the corruption of Republicans in the state capitol now dominate.
Monica Davey, Tamar Lewin and Dirk Johnson have a front-page piece in the New York Times this morning.
Notes the article:
An incensed friend said this morning, "How to they expect the UW to compete for top faculty with peer universities?"
The answer is Walker and the GOP don't expect UW to compete, the actions are meant to degrade and lower the quality of the UW System, especially UW-Madison, to lessen the political power of Dane County which wallops Walker or anything Republican every election.
The assault on the UW passed on a party-line vote, and follows Walker's attack earlier this year.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) as a protector of the UW System does not engender fear into the hearts of Republicans as the Democratic Party is run by incompetent political operatives whose mission appears to be drawing a pay check and maybe working for the Nation Consulting lobbying firm (Republicans are welcome there) one day.
Still, I doubt Scott Walker could successfully seek a third term as governor in 2018, one too many barns burned down.
If you are Scott Walker and the Republicans, you take steps to degrade it into a large tech school.
There used to be a bipartisan consensus the University of Wisconsin-Madison works from Bascom Hall and the UW System Board of Regents was run out of Van Hise Hall under the principle of Shared Governance and the mission of the Wisconsin Idea.
Not anymore. The anti-intellectualism and the corruption of Republicans in the state capitol now dominate.
Monica Davey, Tamar Lewin and Dirk Johnson have a front-page piece in the New York Times this morning.
Notes the article:
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who began building a national profile four years ago by sharply cutting collective bargaining rights for most government workers, has turned his sights to a different element of the public sector: state universities.
As Mr. Walker takes steps toward announcing his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, he and leaders in Wisconsin’s Republican-held Legislature have called for changes that would give a board largely picked by the governor far more control over tenure and curriculum in the University of Wisconsin System.
An incensed friend said this morning, "How to they expect the UW to compete for top faculty with peer universities?"
The answer is Walker and the GOP don't expect UW to compete, the actions are meant to degrade and lower the quality of the UW System, especially UW-Madison, to lessen the political power of Dane County which wallops Walker or anything Republican every election.
The assault on the UW passed on a party-line vote, and follows Walker's attack earlier this year.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) as a protector of the UW System does not engender fear into the hearts of Republicans as the Democratic Party is run by incompetent political operatives whose mission appears to be drawing a pay check and maybe working for the Nation Consulting lobbying firm (Republicans are welcome there) one day.
Still, I doubt Scott Walker could successfully seek a third term as governor in 2018, one too many barns burned down.
May 9, 2015
Scott Walker Lied about Wisconsin Idea, New Memos Show
The documents released Friday to the Wisconsin State Journal (DeFour) and other journalists flatly contradict Walker's evolving statements in February that Walker's crafted effort to remove the Wisconsin Idea from Wisconsin statutes was the result of a "drafting error," "a mistake" and "no big deal."
The new information comes as the scandal-plagued Walker comes under closer scrutiny for a possible run for the presidency.
In Wisconsin, Walker's tendency of evading questions and outright lying are well-known, a propensity the national press is increasingly noting.
Walker's proposed 2015-17 Biennial Budget was ballyhooed by the administration which called it a "Freedom and Prosperity Plan."
The story on Walker's proposed radical transformation of the world-class University system was broken by the Center for Media and Democracy's PRWatch (Jonas Persson and Mary Bottari) in early February.
The new documents include administration talking points showing a communications plan for specific questions defending the removal of the Wisconsin Idea, contradicting Walker's explanation that the plan was a 'drafting error," a falsehood later promoted by Walker's appointee, Budget Director Michael Heifetz.
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| Image - Wisconsin State Journal |
DeFour's piece in part resembles Walker and the administration's spinning Walker's misrepresentations. DeFour writes, "Walker initially described the change as a 'drafting error' but later acknowledged his administration botched the rewrite."
A botch does not come with talking points and line-by-line instructions deleting iconic language of a revered institution. DeFour appears to have forgotten in drafting today's piece he a journalist and not a Walker spin doctor. The same spin that Walker's intentional striking of the Wisconsin Idea was "botched" was printed in a February 6 piece co-authored by DeFour.
Widespread outrage and ridicule over Walker's proposal in February saw the Walker administration release a series of statements misrepresenting known facts.
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ran a report on Feb. 5 (Stein, Marley and Herzog) entitled Walker forced to admit UW objected to Wisconsin Idea changes. Reads the Journal-Sentinel's piece:
Gov. Scott Walker and aides scrambled Thursday to respond to revelations that his administration had insisted to University of Wisconsin officials on scrapping the Wisconsin Idea, the guiding principle for the state's universities for more than a century.
In a rapid revision to his own comments on Wednesday, the Republican governor acknowledged that UW System officials had raised objections about the proposal.
They had been told the changes were not open to debate.
While backtracking on earlier comments to reporters, Walker continued to insist in a statement that he hadn't known what his own administration was doing until after the proposal became public and caused a firestorm of criticism. ...
Update: PolitiFact Wisconsin rates Gov. Scott Walker's claim of a 'drafting error' a 'Pants on Fire'.
The State Journal pieces are framed like a Walker propaganda sheet even as its own and other media's reporting of facts show Walker lied about the Wisconsin Idea story.
"Gov. Scott Walker's administration gave detailed, line-by-line instructions about how to strike the decades-old Wisconsin Idea from state law — even as top university officials objected — according to legislative drafting notes reviewed by the State Journal." (DeFour, Hall, Spicuzza and Simmons, Wisconsin State Journal, Feb. 6)
"First Walker defended the change. Then he backtracked and said it was a 'drafting error.' Then, after multiple news reports showed his staff's fingerprints were all over plans to delete wording from the UW's mission in the 2016-17 budget bill, he issued a lengthy and tortured statement Thursday [Feb. 5] saying it was all just a miscommunication," notes Rob Thomas. (The Capital Times)
Walker still is hostile to the Wisconsin Idea as Walker targets the UW Extension in his proposed budget. (Mal Contends)
The search for truth remains popular with the Wisconsin people, with Walker and propaganda sheets not so much.
2015-17 Biennial Budget
2015-17 Biennial Budget
Apr 18, 2015
Scott Walker's Destroying University System Is Done with Malice Aforethought
"Add two more schools to the list of UW System institutions that are taking steps to cut staff because of Gov Walker's proposed budget cut of $300 million to the System. ... As a result of their foolish choices, Wisconsin is now losing jobs and reducing our competitiveness in developing human capital. So tell me again how that mentality is supposed to attract business and make
Wisconsin a better place to live in?," asks Jake at the Economic TA Funhouse.
Scott Walker's project is to degrade every university town economy because the populations around higher educational institutions tend to be better educated, and vote against Republicans.
That spin-off development—the most striking in Madison (Epic as an example)—creates a population accepting of other human beings, intellectually curious and apt to look more closely at the society they inhabit, never a good thing for Republicans.
If Scott Walker could benefit politically from the promotion of the University of Wisconsin System, he would be singing the praises of higher education. Instead, political expediency has Walker stripping the UW of its ability to perform its most fundamental functions, let alone advancing the research that could be among the greatest medical break-throughs of our time.
News that professors (WKOW-TV) and students are declining positions since they don't want to live in a University of Wisconsin targeted by Scott Walker pass without comment from Walker because Walker is all in favor of non-GOP-voting demographics leaving the state (Conroy and Shannon, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and Isthmus).
Take stem cells, discovered by James Thomson and his team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The promise of stem cells has only been touched.
Scott Walker should have been traipsing around the world hyping the 10th Annual Wisconsin Stem Cell Symposium on Wednesday, April 22, hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center and the BioPharmaceutical Technology Center Institute (BTCI).
Instead, Walker is on a fundraising tour, telling anyone who will listen that he wants to be president and do to the United States what he has done to Wisconsin.
Stem cells could be helping stroke victims (Reuters).
"Current studies are researching how stem cells may be used to prevent or cure diseases and injuries such as Parkinson’s disease, type 1 diabetes, heart disease, spinal cord injury, Duchene’s muscular dystrophy, Alzheimer’s disease, strokes, burns, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, vision, and hearing loss. Stem cells could also be used someday to replace or repair tissue damaged by disease or injury."
Stem cell procedures currently provide life-saving treatments for patients with leukemia, lymphoma, other blood disorders, and some solid tumors" (American Medical Society).
The fact that Scott Walker is a religious fanatic does not help matters, but Walker's attack on education and science is sociopathic. Real people are waiting anxiously for the medical and other break-throughs promised by research currently conducted at the UW.
Scott Walker's project is to degrade every university town economy because the populations around higher educational institutions tend to be better educated, and vote against Republicans.
That spin-off development—the most striking in Madison (Epic as an example)—creates a population accepting of other human beings, intellectually curious and apt to look more closely at the society they inhabit, never a good thing for Republicans.
If Scott Walker could benefit politically from the promotion of the University of Wisconsin System, he would be singing the praises of higher education. Instead, political expediency has Walker stripping the UW of its ability to perform its most fundamental functions, let alone advancing the research that could be among the greatest medical break-throughs of our time.
News that professors (WKOW-TV) and students are declining positions since they don't want to live in a University of Wisconsin targeted by Scott Walker pass without comment from Walker because Walker is all in favor of non-GOP-voting demographics leaving the state (Conroy and Shannon, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and Isthmus).
Take stem cells, discovered by James Thomson and his team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The promise of stem cells has only been touched.
Scott Walker should have been traipsing around the world hyping the 10th Annual Wisconsin Stem Cell Symposium on Wednesday, April 22, hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center and the BioPharmaceutical Technology Center Institute (BTCI).
Instead, Walker is on a fundraising tour, telling anyone who will listen that he wants to be president and do to the United States what he has done to Wisconsin.
Stem cells could be helping stroke victims (Reuters).
"Current studies are researching how stem cells may be used to prevent or cure diseases and injuries such as Parkinson’s disease, type 1 diabetes, heart disease, spinal cord injury, Duchene’s muscular dystrophy, Alzheimer’s disease, strokes, burns, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, vision, and hearing loss. Stem cells could also be used someday to replace or repair tissue damaged by disease or injury."
Stem cell procedures currently provide life-saving treatments for patients with leukemia, lymphoma, other blood disorders, and some solid tumors" (American Medical Society).
The fact that Scott Walker is a religious fanatic does not help matters, but Walker's attack on education and science is sociopathic. Real people are waiting anxiously for the medical and other break-throughs promised by research currently conducted at the UW.
Mar 6, 2015
Scott Walker Silent on Clinton and Walker Emails, Walker PAC Blows Message
Scott Walker and other Republican nominal candidates for president are reacting with awkward silence to news Hillary Clinton has called for the State Department to vet and release her emails transmitted during her tenure as Secretary. (Glueck, Politico) (Schmidt, NYT)
But no Republican candidate (as-yet-undeclared) is in as awkward a position as Scott Walker.
That's because Scott Walker's aides and appointees embezzled from military veterans (CBS News) and their families, and during Walker's Milwaukee County Executive tenure (2002 to 2010) Walker's administration installed a secret email-router system that Walker and aides used to campaign on the premises of a public office, a criminal probe revealed, after Walker first stonewalled the criminal investigation. (Bice, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
"Did you have your own personal email account," Chris Wallace asked Scott Walker last year. (Mal Contends)
Walker backed down, refusing to answer Yes or No.
Chris Wallace's question among many others remain as Scott Walker's shady dealings look to haunt his faux run for the presidency.
The answer to Wallace's question is: Yes, Scott Walker had his own email address and was in receipt of and sent many emails on this illegal system.
The public release of documents has already established these facts, but Walker won't acknowledge these facts publicly, though he claims he did nothing wrong or illegal.
The Democratic National Committee said, "If Walker wants to talk about emails, let’s look at his history first." (Hall and Savidge, Wisconsin State Journal)
History? That something liberal professors teach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that Walker is working to destroy.
The Hillary/Scott Walker email story took a strange turn a couple of days ago when the Daily Caller (Pappas) reported Walker's PAC was calling for answers about email questions from Hillary, not Walker:
Writes Dee Hall and Nico Savidge in this morning's Wisconsin State Journal (Madison):
"Bob Kiefert said that in 2002, when he was Milwaukee County human resources assistant director, he was called into Walker’s office by then-deputy chief of staff Tim Russell. Kiefert showed Russell how to set up a hard-wired Internet connection using a DSL modem and a telephone line. The network allowed county executive staff to send and receive emails and surf the Web outside the public system set up by the county’s Information Management Services Division in 1998," reported Matthew DeFour last year in the Wisconsin State Journal.
Kiefert broke this Scott Walker corruption story in the Green Bay Progressive.
Writes Kiefert:
But no Republican candidate (as-yet-undeclared) is in as awkward a position as Scott Walker.
That's because Scott Walker's aides and appointees embezzled from military veterans (CBS News) and their families, and during Walker's Milwaukee County Executive tenure (2002 to 2010) Walker's administration installed a secret email-router system that Walker and aides used to campaign on the premises of a public office, a criminal probe revealed, after Walker first stonewalled the criminal investigation. (Bice, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
"Did you have your own personal email account," Chris Wallace asked Scott Walker last year. (Mal Contends)
Walker backed down, refusing to answer Yes or No.
Chris Wallace's question among many others remain as Scott Walker's shady dealings look to haunt his faux run for the presidency.
The answer to Wallace's question is: Yes, Scott Walker had his own email address and was in receipt of and sent many emails on this illegal system.
The public release of documents has already established these facts, but Walker won't acknowledge these facts publicly, though he claims he did nothing wrong or illegal.
The Democratic National Committee said, "If Walker wants to talk about emails, let’s look at his history first." (Hall and Savidge, Wisconsin State Journal)
History? That something liberal professors teach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that Walker is working to destroy.
The Hillary/Scott Walker email story took a strange turn a couple of days ago when the Daily Caller (Pappas) reported Walker's PAC was calling for answers about email questions from Hillary, not Walker:
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s political action committee is hitting Hillary Clinton over the recent revelations that she used private email accounts for official business while secretary of state, saying she needs to address questions about the legality of the practice.Either Kukowski has an unconventional sense of irony or Kukowski just embarrassed herself out of a job (but that will have to wait).
“Hillary Clinton’s potential evasion of laws is something she should answer questions about,” Kirsten Kukowski, a spokeswoman for Walker’s new political action committee, Our American Revival, said in an email.
Writes Dee Hall and Nico Savidge in this morning's Wisconsin State Journal (Madison):
Walker has said that throughout his time as Milwaukee County executive, he had a clear policy that county employees were prohibited from using county resources or county time to be involved in political activities.Putting aside the questions what shady characters like Tim Russell (embezzled from military veterans) and Kelly Rindfleisch (convicted of misconduct in public office) were doing as top aides to Scott Walker and what this tells us about Walker, note that in 2002 Walker ordered the installation of another secret router to avoid public disclosure and campaign.
But investigative records released in February 2014 indicated Walker was aware his staff was communicating about campaign business using private emails during regular county work hours.
In one message, Walker aide Cindy Archer wrote to deputy chief of staff Kelly Rindfleisch explaining that she used a private email account to communicate with Walker and his chief of staff, Tom Nardelli.
“Consider yourself now in the ‘inner circle’ :) I use this private account quite a bit to communicate with SKW and Nardelli,” Archer wrote, referring to Walker’s initials. “You should be sure you check it throughout the day.”
In a May 13, 2010, email on which Walker was copied, campaign adviser R.J. Johnson gave the final OK to two county staff members — Rindfleisch and Nardelli — along with campaign officials on what to say about another Walker employee, Darlene Wink, who had been caught posting campaign-related comments online about Walker during work time.
The approved statement: “No one in our office had any knowledge that Darlene was posting any comments during work hours. The county executive and chief of staff expressly forbid staff participation in any campaign-related activity while on county time.”
That is the tip of the spear, as Walker's political allies attempt to shut down and censor deliberations of the Wisconsin Supreme Court's consideration of cases from another criminal probe involving Walker's scheme, John Doe II
"Bob Kiefert said that in 2002, when he was Milwaukee County human resources assistant director, he was called into Walker’s office by then-deputy chief of staff Tim Russell. Kiefert showed Russell how to set up a hard-wired Internet connection using a DSL modem and a telephone line. The network allowed county executive staff to send and receive emails and surf the Web outside the public system set up by the county’s Information Management Services Division in 1998," reported Matthew DeFour last year in the Wisconsin State Journal.
Kiefert broke this Scott Walker corruption story in the Green Bay Progressive.
Writes Kiefert:
During the 1990s, I was responsible for technology in the Department of Human Resources (DHR) and had set up a departmental network with email and a web site with it’s own ISDN line link to the internet. We were one of several county departments who had moved in this direction in the 90s in advance of a countywide system later developed by the central Information Management Services Division (IMSD).Baloney is something the rest of America is going to have to get used to as a steady diet if Scott Walker prays more and gets instructions to form a presidential exploratory committee in the coming months.
DHR was only one floor below the County Executive’s Office in the Courthouse, and Tim Russell wanted to know how I did it. During our meeting in 2002, I told him.
As I remember, Russell told me that Scott Walker was very appreciative of my help and wanted to thank me personally. Russell took me over to Walker’s office for the meet and greet, but he turned out to be busy and only smiled and waved from his desk as we stood outside his office door.
I have no doubt that Walker knew what he was smiling and waving about. Russell had certainly made it clear that we were doing this at Walker’s bidding.
I have not really talked much about that day over the years and was not contacted about this information during the recent John Doe inquiry. That I assisted other departments within the county on technology issues during this period was certainly no secret at the time.
But I can tell you one thing, if Walker continues to deny knowledge of this email system and its usage, he is giving you a line of baloney.
Feb 12, 2015
The University, Jobs, and Darwin Day v. Scott Walker
Update: Spring 2015 Evolution Seminar Series schedule at UW-Madison
Updated - An item in buried in the Wisconsin State Journal (p. 12) today shows Dane County leads the state in creating jobs between 2003 and 2013, accounting for a full 76 percent in the increase in average monthly employment, directly related to an educated populace.
Most of this increase was in the private sector (Pinkovitz, UW Extension via WORK.net (bill.pinkovitz@uwex.edu)).
That this information is buried in the Wisconsin State Journal [cannot locate online] and the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development data site [cannot locate online] is a consequence of ideology.
This quantity of jobs coming out of one Wisconsin county is pretty big news, but Republicans try to halt the dissemination of good news out of progressive Dane County.
Scott Walker has taken his war against high-tech, highly educated Dane County to absurd lengths since he began his first term, infamously rejecting $800 million dollars in federal aid for a labor-intensive rail project, (Cieslewicz, Isthmus) and slashing state aid to local school districts.
And now Scott Walker targets the University of Wisconsin System and its flagship University of Wisconsin-Madison world-class complex with another proposed $300 million dollar cut in a destructive, immolating policy move that Walker refused to campaign on because of popular opposition.
These moves by Walker come while Wisconsin still lags behind the rest of the nation in the recovery from the Bush-Cheney economic global crisis. "Over the course of the recovery, Wisconsin lagged behind the national job growth rate (4.0 v. 6.1 percent). That means every time national growth should have given Wisconsin three jobs, the state added just two. Wisconsin would have 58,000 more jobs today if state jobs had grown at the national rate" (Center for Wisconsin Strategy, COWS).
Evolution
Walker began his second term as governor, embarrassing himself and Wisconsin overseas by refusing to acknowledge the reality of biological evolution in London in response to a direct question. [See Walker goes for bland, ends up moronic, (Daily Beast) and Scott Walker dodges questions on evolution, foreign policy (Bauer, AP).]
Walker's bizarre and disingenuous response that evolution is a "a question a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or the other" is another demonstration of Scott Walker's anti-intellectualism.
Walker should be availing himself today of the work of the seminar J. F. Crow Institute for the Study of Evolution of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to understand not just the reality of evolution but also evolution's relevancy to myriad realms of human society and life. Today is Darwin Day.
More than a thriving Dane County, an educated citizenry is a political threat to Scott Walker.
Walker's move against the Wisconsin Idea is not just deplorable politics.
The statutory foundation of the Wisconsin Idea is a threat to the anti-intellectual, statist, religionist world that Walker wishes to engineer, a world bordering on outright fascism led by plutocrats and their corrupt sock puppets, should Walker achieve his societal vision that he claims to have been communicated from god.
The more knowledgeable the citizens and the more the citizenry thinks, the less chance that politicians of Walker's limited abilities can win the one-fourth of the electorate necessary to obtain office.
In London, playing a coy presidential candidate, Scott Walker may wish to consider the words of the great British thinker, Bertrand Russell on the objectives of a liberal education: "... to give a sense of the value of things other than domination, to help create wise citizens of a free community, and through the combination of citizenship with liberty in individual creativeness to enable men [and all genders] to give to human life that splendor which some few have shown that it can achieve" (Russell, Power: A New Social Analysis (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1938) p.305. Cited in Chomsky, Problems of Knowledge and Freedom, The Russell Lectures (New York: Pantheon Books, Random House) Introduction).
Scott Walker is a corrupt lightweight who has no business anywhere near public office.
Updated - An item in buried in the Wisconsin State Journal (p. 12) today shows Dane County leads the state in creating jobs between 2003 and 2013, accounting for a full 76 percent in the increase in average monthly employment, directly related to an educated populace.
Most of this increase was in the private sector (Pinkovitz, UW Extension via WORK.net (bill.pinkovitz@uwex.edu)).
That this information is buried in the Wisconsin State Journal [cannot locate online] and the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development data site [cannot locate online] is a consequence of ideology.
This quantity of jobs coming out of one Wisconsin county is pretty big news, but Republicans try to halt the dissemination of good news out of progressive Dane County.
Scott Walker has taken his war against high-tech, highly educated Dane County to absurd lengths since he began his first term, infamously rejecting $800 million dollars in federal aid for a labor-intensive rail project, (Cieslewicz, Isthmus) and slashing state aid to local school districts.
And now Scott Walker targets the University of Wisconsin System and its flagship University of Wisconsin-Madison world-class complex with another proposed $300 million dollar cut in a destructive, immolating policy move that Walker refused to campaign on because of popular opposition.
These moves by Walker come while Wisconsin still lags behind the rest of the nation in the recovery from the Bush-Cheney economic global crisis. "Over the course of the recovery, Wisconsin lagged behind the national job growth rate (4.0 v. 6.1 percent). That means every time national growth should have given Wisconsin three jobs, the state added just two. Wisconsin would have 58,000 more jobs today if state jobs had grown at the national rate" (Center for Wisconsin Strategy, COWS).
Evolution
Walker began his second term as governor, embarrassing himself and Wisconsin overseas by refusing to acknowledge the reality of biological evolution in London in response to a direct question. [See Walker goes for bland, ends up moronic, (Daily Beast) and Scott Walker dodges questions on evolution, foreign policy (Bauer, AP).]
Walker's bizarre and disingenuous response that evolution is a "a question a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or the other" is another demonstration of Scott Walker's anti-intellectualism.
Walker should be availing himself today of the work of the seminar J. F. Crow Institute for the Study of Evolution of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to understand not just the reality of evolution but also evolution's relevancy to myriad realms of human society and life. Today is Darwin Day.
More than a thriving Dane County, an educated citizenry is a political threat to Scott Walker.
Walker's move against the Wisconsin Idea is not just deplorable politics.
The statutory foundation of the Wisconsin Idea is a threat to the anti-intellectual, statist, religionist world that Walker wishes to engineer, a world bordering on outright fascism led by plutocrats and their corrupt sock puppets, should Walker achieve his societal vision that he claims to have been communicated from god.
The more knowledgeable the citizens and the more the citizenry thinks, the less chance that politicians of Walker's limited abilities can win the one-fourth of the electorate necessary to obtain office.
In London, playing a coy presidential candidate, Scott Walker may wish to consider the words of the great British thinker, Bertrand Russell on the objectives of a liberal education: "... to give a sense of the value of things other than domination, to help create wise citizens of a free community, and through the combination of citizenship with liberty in individual creativeness to enable men [and all genders] to give to human life that splendor which some few have shown that it can achieve" (Russell, Power: A New Social Analysis (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1938) p.305. Cited in Chomsky, Problems of Knowledge and Freedom, The Russell Lectures (New York: Pantheon Books, Random House) Introduction).
Scott Walker is a corrupt lightweight who has no business anywhere near public office.
Feb 7, 2015
Report on Scott Walker's Attack on Wisconsin Idea Means Journalism Is Not Dead
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| No problem,University of Wisconsin, this is just a flesh wound |
Most pointedly is that journalism is not dead in Wisconsin.
Two writers, Mary Bottari and Jonas Persson, reading through Walker's 2015-2017 executive budget and other documents demonstrated that crusading journalism shining light on extremist policymakers endures. (NYT)
Kudos to Bottari and Persson of the Center for Media and Democracy and their exploding story that Scott Walker tried to destroy the Wisconsin Idea, the essence of a world-class University System, eviscerating what took generations to create.
I.F. Stone would be happy today.
Scott Walker being Scott Walker backed down of course, denying destroying the Wisconsin Idea was ever his intention, claiming a "drafting issue," even as newspapers ran contemporaneous documents refuting Walker's claim.
Follow-up stories in the Wisconsin State Journal and Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) were run with emails and other documents demonstrating that Scott Walker's administration worked for months specifically to delete the Wisconsin Idea against UW System staff's stated wishes, and that Walker lied about his own administration's intentions.
"First Walker defended the change. Then he backtracked and said it was a 'drafting error.' Then, after multiple news reports showed his staff's fingerprints were all over plans to delete wording from the UW's mission in the 2016-17 budget bill, he issued a lengthy and tortured statement Thursday saying it was all just a miscommunication," notes Rob Thomas. (The Capital Times)
Bottari and Persson have a wrap-up in the Huffington Post.
One wishes both of these writers a happy weekend, as Wisconsin politicians, UW staffers, faculty and students and the nation's political world eying Scott Walker received a comprehensive report on who and what Scott Walker is.
Dropping the Bomb on the University
By Mary Bottari and Jonas Persson... The ideological sneak attack on a great public institution is classic Walker. While campaigning for governor with his brown bag lunch in 2010, he forgot to mention to voters that his first act would be to go after public workers and collective bargaining. Instead he "dropped the bomb" in February 2011 when he introduced a "budget repair bill" that took away collective bargaining rights from nurses, teachers and snow plow drivers. But this week's sneak attack on the university system blew up in his face when the Center for Media and Democracy published a screenshot of the Walker's 2015-2017 executive budget graphically illustrating the ideological assault on the mission of the University of Wisconsin system.
By noon, our story was taken up by the state's largest paper the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The Nation, argued that Walker "is launching a war on the truth. Literally." By early afternoon, the story had gone national through an AP wire and it was soon in the Washington Post. The "Wisconsin Idea" was trending on Facebook and Twitter exploded with indignation and gallows humor, while parodies cropped up of Walker going at it, editing other historical documents.
The first reactions from the professors and students at the university were disbelief and shock. President Ray Cross issued a statement suggesting that the Wisconsin Idea is "embedded in our DNA ... it is the reason the UW System exists," and history professor David McDonald called it "absolutely fundamental to our identity." Dean Underwood of the UW School of Education told CMD, "We are different than most of our research institution peers because we are dedicated to tackling the hardest issues in the state for the public good. It would be a tragedy and travesty to lose that."
Meanwhile, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were fuming. Why were they not told about the changes?
The next day the story was on the front page of every newspaper in the state with the screenshot and blaring headlines, such as "Walker Backtracks on Striking Truth and the Human Condition from the Wisconsin Idea." ...
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Other fall-out, read today's Democrats should welcome a Scott Walker-led GOP ticket (Downie, Washington Post)
Feb 5, 2015
Wisconsin Idea Fiasco—Scott Walker Says 'Staffer Did It', Record Shows Walker Lied
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| Wisconsin Idea drafting notes disconfirm Scott Walker's excuses (WSJ) |
Scott Walker lied; political appointee falls on sword after news breaks Scott Walker's administration directed abolishing Wisconsin Idea language - Walker still claims he did not know what his own administration was doing in Walker's ballyhooed 2015-17 State Budget proposal
Senate Democratic Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling said if Walker was going to blame "rogue staffers" for writing portions of the budget, it "raises serious questions about who is in control while he is busy running for president." (Wisconsin Public Radio)
What did Scott Walker know and when did he know it?
Updated: "Scott Walker forced to admit UW objected to Wisconsin Idea changes - Gov. Scott Walker and aides scrambled Thursday to respond to revelations that his administration had insisted to University of Wisconsin officials on scrapping the Wisconsin Idea, the guiding principle for the state's universities for more than a century."
In a rapid revision to his own comments on Wednesday, the Republican governor acknowledged that UW System officials had raised objections about the proposal."
"They had been told the changes were not open to debate."
"While backtracking on earlier comments to reporters, Walker continued to insist in a statement that he hadn't known what his own administration was doing until after the proposal became public and caused a firestorm of criticism." (Stein, Marley and Herzog, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) (Updated 7:02 p.m.)
For Scott Walker to remove the Wisconsin Idea mission of the University from Wisconsin statutes in his hyped budget proposal, and then as criticism mounted say a miscommunication resulted in a drafting error strains credulity.
The staffer who took responsibility for the "error," Michael Heifetz, is a Walker political appointee.
Surely such a potentially devastating error to the University of Wisconsin System will result in Walker's call for Heifetz' resignation. Of course not.
Scott Walker just as surly will hold a no-holds-barred question-and-answer listening session explaining Walker's understanding of the Wisconsin Idea, and Walker's complicity in [(ALMOST) removing language from the Wisconsin statute erasing the mission to "educate people and improve the human condition," as well as the language specifying that "the search for truth" is "basic to every purpose of the system." Of course not.
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For a guy claiming to be an outside-the-beltway candidate, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has learned cardinal rules of Washington politics: Blame a staffer; never take responsibility and never consider accountability.
Michael Heifetz is a Walker political appointee, named State Budget Director in November 2013. (Novak, Wisconsin State Journal)
Before that Heifetz was a health insurance executive and policy adviser to the Republican Assembly Majority Leader.
"Gov. Scott Walker's administration gave detailed, line-by-line instructions about how to strike the decades-old Wisconsin Idea from state law — even as top university officials objected — according to legislative drafting notes reviewed by the State Journal." (DeFour, Hall, Spicuzza and Simmons, Wisconsin State Journal)
"First Walker defended the change. Then he backtracked and said it was a 'drafting error.' Then, after multiple news reports showed his staff's fingerprints were all over plans to delete wording from the UW's mission in the 2016-17 budget bill, he issued a lengthy and tortured statement Thursday saying it was all just a miscommunication," notes Rob Thomas. (The Capital Times)
"On Wednesday, Walker initially expressed no concerns when questioned by a reporter about the proposed changes to the system's mission statements."
"'Learning's important, but ultimately it's most important for people to get the chance to get the education they need to succeed in the workforce and in life,' Walker said during a stop in De Pere, according to Wisconsin Radio Network." (Stein, Marley and Herzog, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
Even as Walker's initial defense crumpled, Walker's instructions were proven as facts.
But not according to Heifetz.
For public consumption, Heifetz has apparently agreed to fall on Scott Walker's sword, a sword that was to be used to abolish the Wisconsin Idea, following slashing of the UW System budget.
"Governor Walker never intended for the Wisconsin Idea language to be changed. In this specific case, there was clearly a misunderstanding and I take responsibility for this drafting error. I will work to fix this moving forward," said Heifetz. (DeFour, Hall, Spicuzza and Simmons, Wisconsin State Journal)
Walker issued a flat denial today. "The only discussion we ever had about mission was maybe adding something about career development. We never talked with my budget team about altering the Wisconsin Idea," said Walker.
So Heifetz, a veteran budgetary pol at the leadership level, and Scott Walker, a career Wisconsin politician, never had any idea that striking out the Wisconsin Idea language was occurring, and Heifetz divines Walker never intended that the Wisconsin Idea language be changed, though both Heifetz and Walker blame miscommunication as the real culprit.
This despite the record showing that Scott Walker's administration gave "line-by-line instructions about how to strike the decades-old Wisconsin Idea from state law." (DeFour, Hall, Spicuzza and Simmons, Wisconsin State Journal)
Scott Walker and his administration wanted to abolish the Wisconsin Idea, emails and legislative records prove it and Scott Walker still denies it.
UW System president Ray Cross has taken 'yes' for an answer, agreeing for the record with Walker's staffer-did-it chronology, something Cross and supporters of the UW System can use as leverage against Walker during the legislative session when UW System funding comes up.
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The Center for Media and Democracy's PRWatch (Jonas Persson and Mary Bottari) that broke the Abolish-the-Wisconsin Idea story has a piece out today entitled "Rumors of the Walker Probe's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated," by Brendan Fischer.
Recommend Fischer's piece because the nominally lead candidate for the nomination of the Republican Party for the president of the United States is at the center of a criminal scheme being investigated by a bipartisan John Doe probe. (Marley, Bice and Glauber, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
Four Republicans who sit on the Wisconsin Supreme Court are going to have to fall on their ethical swords to save Scott Walker from the probe.
No matter the judgment of the Court, Scott Walker stands exposed as just another lying politician who will say anything to save his hide.
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