Former Gov Scott Walker and former AG Eric Holder go on a twitter tussle

If anyone tells you that @EricHolder is “fighting against gerrymandering” and for “fair maps,” just look at the form his organization filed with the IRS. The truth: their mission is to “FAVORABLY POSITION DEMOCRATS FOR THE REDISTRICTING PROCESS.” pic.twitter.com/1f6J2SnIlX

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) August 22, 2019

As opposed to what you hypocrite. “Favorably position Democrats in the redistricting process” in order to fight the kinds of unAmerican things you did to make Wisconsin the most gerrymandered state in the country. And if we don’t fight-you’ll do it again. Not this time Scotty. https://t.co/5UkCiThZIn

— Eric Holder (@EricHolder) August 22, 2019

Sounds like he’s (fast) and furious 🤣 over us exposing the true partisan mission of his organization. https://t.co/CCToUgFMVC

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) August 23, 2019

Nope. Just furious about the way in which you’ve tried to destroy our democracy. But if you really want to raise guns Scotty tell everyone where you stand on an assault weapons ban, expanded background checks and barring the sale of large capacity magazines. Your turn. Go ahead. https://t.co/DHl8GA1dvk

— Eric Holder (@EricHolder) August 23, 2019

"Five Years Later, Scott Walker's Reforms Have Saved Taxpayers Billions"

Forbes contributor Patrick Gleason...

Like North Carolina, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Wisconsin was a state where, following a lengthy period of Democrat rule, Republicans took control of all levers of state government in the 2010 midterm elections. Confronting a more than $3 billion budget deficit upon taking office in 2011, Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators responded with Act 10, also referred to as the Budget Repair Act, which helped put Wisconsin’s finances in order by doing the following:

• Limits collective bargaining to wage negotiations, and requires annual union recertification.

• Requires government worker pay increases in excess of the rate of inflation be subject to voter approval.
• Ends automatic deduction of union dues, requiring union bosses to make the case to workers why they should join and financially support a union.

• Requires government workers to start contributing something toward their health insurance and retirement savings.

According to a recent report by the MacIver Institute, a free market think tank based in Madison, Act 10 has saved Wisconsin taxpayers over $5 billion.

The MacIver Institute illustrates what these savings mean for taxpayers:

“$5.24 billion in savings works out to $910 in savings for every man, woman and child in Wisconsin, or $2,291 for every household in Wisconsin. The DOT could build 2,912 more roundabouts. The savings could fund over 68,000 four-year degrees at UW-Madison, or install 42 separate Milwaukee-style streetcar systems throughout the entire state. Thankfully, however, Walker and the legislature have used the Act 10 savings to provide more than $2 billion in direct tax relief for Wisconsinites.”

What really stands out in the MacIver Institute report is how Act 10 brought savings to government entities of all sizes, from small towns to large state departments, with nearly 500 units of government each achieving over $1 million in savings. To commemorate the tremendous savings that Act 10 has generated for Wisconsin taxpayers, the MacIver Institute is celebrating this month as Wisconsin Taxpayer Appreciation Month.

"Scott Walker tells undocumented worker..."

"... that immigrants must follow the law"

"We're a nation of laws," Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, repeatedly told Jose Flores, 38, who was joined by two of his four children, Luis, 7, and Leslie, 13, who had tears rolling down her cheeks throughout the exchange. Flores, who lives in Waukesha and works for a medical supply factory, said he and his wife live in fear of being deported and separated from their children, who he said were all born in the United States.

"My point," Walker said, "is that you have to follow the law, follow the process."

"No man or woman is above the law in this country," Walker said. "That's the beauty of America."

Trump may not make it to the end, but he has been a blessing on this issue.

"Supreme Court ends John Doe probe that threatened Scott Walker's presidential bid"

"Walker has characterized the probe as a "political witch hunt" designed to intimidate his allies."

Clearing a potentially serious obstacle from Gov. Scott Walker's intended path to the White House, the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a secret investigation into millions of dollars spent on financing of recall election victories by Walker and other Republicans.

The ruling comes three days after Walker officially announced his candidacy for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, an effort that leans heavily on his status as the only U.S. governor to survive a recall and his successful battle with unions.

Governor Scott Walker

Governor Scott Walker jumps in the race for president

 

Link to video

"Wisconsin Might Destroy Tenure For Professors"

"The Wisconsin legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted 12-4 Friday to approve a proposal that would eliminate tenure from state law and allow tenured faculty to be laid off even if a school isn’t in a declared financial emergency. The proposal would also weaken faculty influence in setting policy and would cut the University of Wisconsin (UW)’s budget by $250 million over the next two years, down from a $300 million cut that was proposed by Walker."

The elimination of tenure protections was first suggested by Walker back in February, but was considered a longshot proposal. The Joint Finance Committee, however, is tremendously influential, and its decision to send the rollback to the floor of the legislature is seen as making passage much more likely.

By itself, the measure wouldn’t end tenure, but it would remove the current protections it has under state law and allow universities to set their own policies on the matter.

Intapundit writes...

UW faculty are fighting mad. I have mixed feelings about this, and it’s not because I have tenure (which I do). Undoubtedly, tenure inherently creates some “dead wood”–faculty that slack off and lose interest in their jobs once they know they have a presumptive job for life. And it would be nice to have a higher education system that reflects a real world ethos of rewarding excellence and punishing lethargy–among faculty, staff and administrators.

On the other hand, the original justification for tenure in higher education (and notice that this emphatically does not apply to lower education, where elementary, middle school and high school teachers do not undertake scholarship as part of their job) is that the job does generally require and involve scholarship, and sometimes that scholarship is politically controversial. Tenure was designed to ensure that scholars could feel free to express their views, without fear of retribution based on viewpoint discrimination. And frankly, it’s conservative professors who need this protection the most, as they are inherently swimming in a sea of progressive colleagues/deans/administrators/sharks who would be tempted to “punish” conservative scholarly viewpoints and activities. These concerns potentially could be allayed with robust statutory protections against viewpoint discrimination, but this encourage expensive litigation whenever a faculty member is fired. Whether these costs would outweigh the benefits isn’t as clear as it may seem initially.

In any event, the Wisconsin legislature’s proposal represents a thoughtful beginning to an important discussion about what tenure means, and when it is needed (if ever).

"Why do GOP candidates keep stumbling on evolution?"

"Of course Republicans would be naïve to expect that will put an end to all questions. There will undoubtedly be questions designed to draw them into a detailed discussion of evolution and religion. A candidate will probably have a great majority of the public on his or her side if he shuts down those questions pretty quickly. The candidate could simply explain that there are lots of good people who have different opinions on this, and that for him, the key thing is believing that God guided our creation. Beyond that, it's not the role of the president of the United States to tell people what to believe about evolution."

"Candidates can give that answer secure in the knowledge that, whatever some reporters might think, evolution simply isn't very important as a campaign issue."

Tonette and Scott Walker take ice bucket challenge

KLEM FM

I see you've got your fist out 

Say your piece and get out 

Yes I get the gist of it but it's alright

Sorry that you feel that way 

The only thing there is to say 

Every silver lining's got a touch of grey

I'm not going to be a party to it... I'm done with the NY Times

@ScottWalker has been cleared, yet @nytimes continues a smear campaign http://t.co/k0qOsxaCvB I'm #CancelNYT today.
— Lem (@Lemang01) June 21, 2014

News From Down The Interstate

There's all kinds of news from down the interstate highway that runs from here to over yonder in Madison, and then beyond.   We'll just hop off in Madison today, because that's where the news is.  It's the news of shitty people doing shitty things.  And as is often the case in Madison, the shittiest people who do the shittiest things are the Democrats and their allies.

Set the Wayback Machine for 2010 and remember that Scott Walker won the gubernatorial race with 52% of the vote.  Governor Walker then enacted reforms that among other things, reduced the power of unions to strongarm public employees for monthly dues, and then use those dues to buy elections.  Union membership dropped drastically, as state and local government workers opted out.  Several union locals voted to de-certify.  Numbskulls took over the state capitol, made murder threats against the Walker family and so forth.  You remember all this, of course.

This led to Governor being recalled in a very acrimonious election, which he won, this time by 53%.

The Milwaukee County DA, a staunch Democrat, wanted to throw the recall election, so a trumped-up "John Doe" investigation into Walker and  several aides was launched.  Mucho secrecy, hush hush, leak leak.  After looking in every possible place for evidence of Walker's having committed a crime, no crime was found.  It was all very STASI - agents kicking down people's doors in the wee hours, seizing computers and telephones and filing cabinets, and so forth.  But the prosecutors got bupkus.

That investigation is over.  But for revenge, the hack judge running the sham of an investigation decided "secrecy, schmecrecy" and released to the news media some 27,000 pages of emails that had been seized during the investigation. All the usual media suspects are now winnowing through the emails, proclaiming that this or that will require apologies and bowing and scraping and must surely end Walker's career.  Here's the NYT article, for example.

Audition?

Is Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker auditioning for presidential candidate?  Ed Rollins thinks so.

Go here  and scroll down to the sixth video.  Sorry about the scroll, but I can't find the Walker video as a single entity.

Whadaya think?

Quashing Conservative Political Speech In Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a politically schizophrenic state.  It is equal parts liberal and conservative, with a tiny moderate segment that can move election outcomes in either direction.  Sometimes it has Democrat leadership; sometimes Republican.  The carving to take the statehouse is like fruit on a tree for the hungry party that is out of power.

As you witnessed during the unsuccessful campaign to recall Governor Scott Walker, the progressive left is unhinged by Walker.  They have stopped at nothing in their attempts to thwart laws Walker has signed, and to defeat him in regular elections and a recall election.  Their behavior has been contemptible.

And it's starting again. 

In October Mary Burke, a Trek Bicycle heiress with no political experience and plenty of money, announced that she is running for Governor against Scott Walker in the 2014 election.  Two days later, as if on cue a secret John Doe investigation into Walker's 2012 campaign was started by Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf. 

ADA Landgraf proudly displayed a "Recall Walker" sign at his residence during the 2012 recall campaign, and signed a petition urging Walker's recall.  He also headed a "secret John Doe" investigation intended to find crimes Walker committed.  There were none.

Landgraf is a political hack.  His new inquiry is nothing more than an attempt to suppress free speech on the part of conservative political groups through intimidation, harassment and seizure of those groups' computers and emails.

This is nothing short of opposition research being done by the government to benefit the candidate of the Democrat party in her bid to unseat the governor.  It is one-party fascism.

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article about it here.

Copies of two subpoenas we've seen demand "all memoranda, email . . . correspondence, and communications" both internally and between the subpoena target and some 29 conservative groups, including Wisconsin and national nonprofits, political vendors and party committees. The groups include the League of American Voters, Wisconsin Family Action, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Americans for Prosperity—Wisconsin, American Crossroads, the Republican Governors Association, Friends of Scott Walker and the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

One subpoena also demands "all records of income received, including fundraising information and the identity of persons contributing to the corporation." In other words, tell us who your donors are.

The investigation and the subpoenas do not name a specific crime that is being investigated.  They are a fishing expedition.  Give us everything we want so we can investigate every bit of it and look for anything even remotely criminal to charge you with.  And you may not talk about this.

The subpoenas don't spell out a specific allegation, but the demands suggest the government may be pursuing a theory of illegal campaign coordination by independent groups during the recall elections. If prosecutors are pursuing a theory that independent conservative groups coordinated with candidate campaigns during the recall, their goal may be to transform the independent expenditures into candidate committees after the fact, requiring revision of campaign-finance disclosures and possible criminal charges.

Remember the Cincinnati IRS?  There has been no punishment for the government employees who used IRS authority to harass and intimidate conservative political groups in an attempt to suppress conservative voter turnout.  The same thing is happening in Wisconsin.

The left cannot win public office without using corruption.