He's gonna have some "splainin" to do.
The hits just keep coming for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R-I want to be
President re-elected. Just trust me, I have noooo intention of running for President). It's started with
bad news in the latest poll, and then
OMG my election year tax cuts are causing a deficit, and then his humerous election year
"maybe" back peddling on his long standing and loud opposition to marriage equality which isn't playing well to his rabid supporters, and on to the
revellations of a secret deal his lawyer is making with John Doe prosecutors that's got RW undies in a bunch.
Ow! That hurts and it went national. And then Blam.
Today there's another turd in his punchbowl.
Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele has announced he will release the original John Doe documents.
Tens of thousands of emails and documents! 2 terabytes (2,000 gigabytes) of data that were seized during the 33 months of the original John Doe probe were recently unsealed from secrecy last week and ordered returned to Milwaukee County. These were documents and emails created using an illegal, secret, private router to prevent them from being archived and available to the public via Open Records requests.
When 27,000 pages of documents from Kelly Rindfleisch were released because of the appeal of her conviction, there were shocking, headline grabbing revelations that made national news earlier this year. And those were only Rindfleisch's documents.
Multiply that shitstorm by the sheer volume and number of people whose emails we'll see. Including Scott Walkers.
One person's records consist of 25,000 to 40,000 emails, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele said in an interview Thursday. Prosecutors seized the computers of multiple people, but Abele said he did not know how many emails those others had exchanged.
Abele's comments marked the most detailed explanation yet of the scope of the records in question.
Because the records were deliberately left off the system, investigators in the John Doe seized computers and dumped their contents. Photos, programs, music, personal emails, etc. were included in the dump and Abele is considering hiring some lawyers to sift through it to determine what records need to be withheld because of privacy concerns (like medical information).
Abele said he was considering hiring outside lawyers to speed up the review of the records.
"I believe in public access and I believe in protecting privacy," he said. "There's so much gray area. I want to be efficient, I want to be responsible, I want to get it right."
Yes, that means we'll have to wait. I don't mind a bit. I don't want to see Walkers (or anyone else's) play lists, emails to their mom, Christmas card list, or family photos.
I want to see the information they hid from the public by using their secret router, what they were up to on the taxpayers dime, what they were talking about and planning. I want to see what they were doing for the citizens of Milwaukee County or was their time solely focused on getting Walker statewide name recognition and support through statewide visits on taxpayer money. Were they spending all their time on a perpetual campaign?
I'll wait. It's 6 months to the election so there's no hurry. I just want to see what they've been up to. I can just imagine .....
It's been a very bad week for Scott Walker and a very good week for the forces of truth, justice, and the American way.
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PS: I wrote and then scheduled this for publication very late last night (the news came out very late) because I've got several errands that I need to do today. I've been postponing these all week because of all the other big news and they need to be done before the weekend. I didn't post the diary immediately because I didn't want it to be missed with the low activity in the wee hours of the morning.
Keep my seat warm until I get back.
1:18 PM PT: Update: Just back (putting off grocery shopping until tomorrow despite bare cupboards). Thanks for keeping my seat warn.
Update:
Yet another lawsuit filed to try to kill John Doe II.
A conservative group and its treasurer have filed another lawsuit seeking to knock the state elections agency out of a secret investigation into the 2012 recalls that is targeting them.
Eric O'Keefe, a director of Wisconsin Club for Growth, filed the lawsuit Friday in Waukesha County Circuit Court seeking a declaratory judgment in the probe to block authorities who he syas are infringing on his rights.
The lawsuit seeks on behalf of O'Keefe, the club and "all taxpayers in Wisconsin" to show that the Government Accountability Board, the state elections and ethics agency, is spending tens of thousands of dollars illegally on the secret John Doe probe and violating his rights under state law. The lawsuit seeks to remove the GAB from the John Doe.
O'Keefe lives in Iowa County, but filed the lawsuit in Waukesha County under a law passed shortly after Republicans took complete control of Wisconsin Government.
That law allows a plaintiff to file their lawsuit where ever they want. And the most Republican of all Counties in Wisconsin is Waukesha where a Republican jury (which is what O'Keefe is demanding) and Republican Judge will give him the verdict he wants.
The lawsuit has been assigned to Judge Lee S. Dreyfus Jr., a former Republican district attorney in Oconto County and son of former GOP Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus.
Reid Magney, a spokesman for the GAB, had no comment on the lawsuit Friday.
The Government Accountability Board is a non partisan body (mostly retired judges) that oversee Wisconsin elections. They also are charged with collecting campaign finance reports and enforcing campaign and election regulations.
The more lawsuits that fly, the louder the RW screams about this John Doe Probe, the more we should realize that they're trying to hide a whole lot of wrongdoing.
Stay tuned.
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Update 2: Friday News Dump Edition:
Scott Walker is going out of the way to reassure RW dark money groups that he won't throw them under the bus. They have been screetching from the rooftops after it was revealed recently that Walkers lawyer was in negotiations in John Doe II prosecutors.
Gov. Scott Walker said Friday that he won't back away from key allies amid a continuing secret John Doe investigation.
Walker also expressed surprise with a recent Wall Street Journal editorial that criticized alleged settlement talks between the Walker campaign and special prosecutor Francis Schmitz.
"I'm certainly not going to undermine people who share my same beliefs and I'm certainly not going to undermine anyone's First Amendment rights. I'm frankly kind of shocked for anyone to suggest that," Walker said after delivering a keynote address at Hope Christian High School senior signing day.
Walker also touted his record "as strong economic and fiscal conservative," policy positions that align with the Wisconsin Club for Growth.
"I've been tested on that," he said. "I've been pushed on that. I haven't backed away from from keeping that commitment to the people of this state. I think there is no evidence that would otherwise suggest in any way I would back away from not only that position but from supporting people who support the same position."
Uh huh, yeah, right. Translation: keep funding those ads on my behalf because I'm in trouble. I need the billionaire bucks to keep rolling in.
Two for the Price of One:
Adding to the continuing bombardment of the John Doe Probe (4 lawsuits and counting), Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is chiming in, too, demanding to know how much money is being spent on the secret investigation.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) sent a letter to Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm Friday, demanding to know how much Chisholm's office has spent on a John Doe probe since 2010.
"As a public servant and prosecutor, you work for the people of Wisconsin and they have the right to know the number of attorneys and employees who have been utilized for what has proved to be a political witch hunt," Vos wrote.
The big questions is: Why is Robin Vos, who lives in another part of the state, worried about costs for the County of Milwaukee? Answer: To get headlines in a newspaper!
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Update 3:
Ed had a nice segment on his show, but I can't embed the new MSNBC video, so I can only give you the link. Ruth Conniff and State Senator Erpenbach were interviewed.
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