What They Heard In That Room

I think I have this thing figured out with the Republicans and their formerly-secret redistricting meetings in the Michael Best offices across the street from the Capitol in Madison.

It appears in June and July 2011, each Republican in the Assembly and the Senate was brought into a room at the law firm individually and shown a map of their newly-gerrymandered district.  One of the leaders was there (in the case of the Assembly, Rep. Robin Vos), and probably other people from the law firm and staff involved in the put-the-fix-in-for-Republicans redistricting project.  Vos was given talking points, drafted by an aide who, in a further outrage, now spends most of his time at the firm's offices instead of at the Capitol.

The talking points were meant for Vos to run the meeting.  The first part of the talking points is strictly ass-covering.  Under the heading "General Map Goals", Vos pretended to embrace three of the legitimate, statutory goals of redistricting -- equal population, "properly drawn" minority districts and "compact and contiguous" districts.  You could imagine the winking, smirking and laughter around the room as Vos recited the empty rhetoric so that, if asked, the legislators could all say they were told those were the goals. But, seriously, folks...

Then Vos proceeded to the meat of the meeting -- why the districts were really drawn the way they were.  As far as that's concerned, the talking points are silent on the content of what was relayed, but completely clear about what to do with the information -- don't tell a soul and, by the way, sign this secrecy agreement, just to be sure.  I can hear it now: "Your brains or your signature are going to be on that paper..."  You'd hope that nobody ended up with a horse head in their bed -- this bunch of Republicans are so obedient anyway, probably not necessary.

[UPDATE: Or maybe some were coerced into submission. Check out this nugget from Zac Schultz at Wisconsin Public Television:

According to one lawmaker who asked not to be named, the logic they were given was the maps and the documents would be protected by attorney-client privilege, and the secrecy pledges were needed to protect that. But this lawmaker told me he felt part of the pledge was intimidation, to keep the rank and file from complaining. He was even shown two versions of the map, one more favorable and one less favorable, and was told if he didn’t go along, the less favorable version would become law. 

h/t: Blue Cheddar]

"Public comments on this map may be different than what you hear in this room," the talking points pronounce ominously.  "Previously signed [secrecy] agreement applies to this meeting." Jesus Christ, what the hell were that talking about in there? What was so damn dirty about What They Heard In That Room that they had to move ahead of time to cover it up by pretending a meeting between legislators is entitled to the attorney-client privilege, just because it is taking place in a law office across the street?  If their chief public legal apologist Rick Esenberg is right about how much power they have to gerrymander and design their own future success through redistricting, given the sorry state of the federal and state Supreme Courts, what are they so afraid of? Sounds like a lot of guilty behavior for some awfully guilty people.

Imagine being soon-to-be ex-senator Van Wanggaard, carted into the room and being told that your friends in the leadership and law firm had eliminated all those icky minorities in the city of Racine and instead carved out a special non-urban area  in western Racine and Kenosha counties just for you. (My favorite nugget from the Craig Gilbert piece: "The one section of the city of Racine that's kept in the Wanggaard district is the one where Wanggaard lives." Precious.)  There you go -- from barely winning your "community of interest" Racine County district by 300-some votes in 2010 (and getting creamed in the forthcoming recall), you can come back in November and suckle yourself to all those creamy white breasts in those safe parts of two counties.  You don't even have to apologize for you and your party being such a bunch of pussies you have to run from a fair fight.  Of course you signed the secrecy agreement.  Maybe they'll even let you hang out at the law firm until you "win" "your" seat back.

So many interesting stories from so many formerly-secret meetings.  That sound you heard from the Capitol this week is 76 subpoenas hitting the doors of Republicans in the Assembly and Senate who are going to be asked all about this.  The chance of any of them honoring all that "the truth and the whole truth" crap is slim-to-none, but it's worth a try.  More interesting would be the discussions with the leadership and law firm about how to screw with the Democratic districts -- none of those legislators were invited to Michael Best for so much as a cup of coffee.

Speaking of Michael Best, the Republican law firm that has its mitts all over all three branches of the radical Republican jihad, James Rowen -- who writes the best chronicle of the Walker Horrors on the net -- wondered out loud this week whether Wisconsin lawyers might want to sign a petition to protest the creative legal stunts of the firm.  Well, as someone who represents people accused of sex offenses and homicide, I know that lawyers should not be known by the sins of their clients -- necessarily. On the other hand, isn't having your clients set up shop in the law firm in an attempt to avoid legal culpability (much less open records requests) how the mob does it?

No, Jim, no petitions.  But there is one interesting way available for the Wisconsin community of lawyers to show their contempt for Michael Best giving us all a bad name.  I got an blast e-mail from someone I know in Michael Best asking for the support of one of his partners who happens to be running for State Bar president in an election in April.  Both houses of the legislature, the governor, the Supreme Court...now they want the State Bar, too?

The guy's name is Bill White and his resume is fairly innocuous.  For all I know, they may have him up in an office somewhere, doing real estate work or something far away from the political circus his firm is hosting on another floor.  And, in 26 years in the Bar, I have never voted in a State Bar election due to complete lack of interest.

But, this time, I think I'm going to break that pattern and encourage others to do the same.  White's competition for the largely figurehead position is Patrick J. Fielder.  Interestingly, he was Tommy Thompson's Secretary of Corrections before he was a Dane County Judge.  He is now in another silk-stocking firm in Madison (there is a reason I don't vote in these things).  But, what the heck.  He's running against a guy in Michael Best, which is currently the prime legal mover-and-shaker in a state that is being moved and shook by a a bunch of out-of-control radicals.

Pat Fiedler for State Bar President!

A Recall -- Not a Re-Do

When I first saw Richard Foster's column in the Sunday paper, my liberal knee reflexively jerked.  So, the Journal Sentinel was running a column supporting its anti-recall campaign from a proclaimed liberal who used to write editorials for them.  What a surprise.

Usually, that's when I haul out my snarky anti-Journal Sentinel wisecracks; remind people that the paper endorsed Scott Walker for governor and has been covering for him ever since; pile on about how it's just like them to sneak behind supposed liberal skirts to hide the true Republican nature of their pro-Walker-by-default position; reminisce blissfully about the glory days of the Milwaukee Journal, when the newspaper took on issues great and small with grace and competitive writers, and Doonesbury ran in the Green Sheet and in color on Sunday...

All true -- but, not this time.  I want to give the ideas in Foster's column the respect they deserve, because the piece is an excellent expression of a sentiment us recall supporters will have to find a way to address.  I have a very dear friend who feels the same way.  Sure, we have a million signatures on our petitions.  But how do we reach the legitimate middle, who hates what Walker and the Republicans are doing and have done, but figure the whole thing is the product of a legitimate election in 2010 that we lost -- badly?  The side that loses the election is stuck with the results until next time, aren't they?

This is not an easy one to answer, but it can be done.  The answer lies in the radicalism of the Republicans in Madison; their drastic restructuring of state government; the seizure of control away from local governments; the dictatorial process used by ramming legislation through without a quorum, in the middle of the night, without regard to the rights of the minority (and, as we now know, with signed secrecy pacts to protect their illegal deliberations); Republicans taking their marching orders from right-wing think-tanks in Washington, rather than from their own Wisconsin hearts.  And, yes, the deliberate destruction of the historic and positive collective bargaining relationship between public employees and their employers.

We can't assume that everyone "gets it", this need for recall that has been so obvious to the rest of us since Walker, in his words, "dropped the bomb" exactly one year ago.  We have to make the case to those who should be with us -- to those who hate what the Republicans have done and are doing almost as much as we do but are not convinced a lost election allows a re-do.  What I hope they come to understand is that the recall movement is not an attempt at a re-do.  We need to convince some that the recalls are a legitimate response to the radical actions of legislators and a governor with an extreme agenda, the likes of which this state has never seen.

As much as I respect his overall concerns, Foster is off on at least one point.  The standard for recall under the Wisconsin constitution isn't anywhere near the "high crimes and misdemeanors" required to remove a president under the U.S. Constitution, and it shouldn't be.  Leaving aside for a moment that we may well get there with Walker, as the vultures circle the political operation he at least condoned in his county executive office, there are no such notorious prerequisites for recall under the Wisconsin Constitution.  The only thing required is one-fourth of the number voting in the last election to sign petitions indicating they want one.  Foster is right that recall should be "an extraordinarily rare and grave step". But he's wrong when he writes "You don't remove an officeholder before an election simply because you disagree with his or her official acts." Well, you can and you do.  It depends on the "acts".  Just ask Tom Ament.

In a way, Scott Walker is just the figurehead for a perfect storm that has led to disastrously bad governance.  He wouldn't be in the political predicament he is now if both houses of the legislature hadn't also flipped from Democratic control to an obedient cadre of similarly bought and schooled radical Republicans who were willing to rubber-stamp his drafted-in-Washington agenda.   Even with control of both houses of the legislature and the governor, the Republicans could have driven a moderately right-wing agenda without running roughshod over the loyal opposition like they were irrelevant gnats.

You'd expect them to do stupid things like concealed-carry, Photo ID, giving tax breaks to the rich, raising taxes on the poor, making it harder for regular people to sue the GOP's giant corporate constituents and try to make it easier for mining companies to dig 4-mile wide holes by weakening our historic environmental protections.  I mean -- they're Republicans -- bad government is what they are paid to be there for. But it's quite another thing to ramrod the most radical versions of all of that, plus everything in the right-wing handbook, as if Wisconsin were some kind of Laboratory for Bad Nut-Right Ideas.  Which is just how the right-wing Washington think-tanks thinks of us.

I was just thinking today when I was reading about the outrageous GOP secrecy agreements Republicans were required to sign to hide the true intentions of their hyper-political redistricting map -- Who ARE these people?? More to the point, who do they THINK they are?  Really -- trying to make a meeting of the legislature protected by attorney-client privilege? It's one thing to have control of the entire Capitol building -- it is quite another to swing that power like a bludgeon, without regard for or compromise with a large and legitimate minority in the legislature and an outraged majority in the rest of the state.

And then there is the end of local control on what have always been local issues.  Walker could have just taken collective bargaining rights away from state employees outright -- he alluded to doing that between the election and his inauguration.  But he did so much more than that.  He took away local control from every local unit of government -- including school boards -- by dictating that they can no longer engage in meaningful collective bargaining with their employees (the remaining "right" to bargain wages only, up to the rate of inflation, is a joke)  or allow their employees to have union dues deducted from their paychecks like the United Way, even if they ask for it.  Threatening the cut-off of state funding if they don't comply, the Heavy Hand of the State now limits the ability of schools to run referendums even if, as a community, the voters want to fund their schools better.

This goes far beyond what he had to do to get the health insurance and pension contributions he dictated. All Walker and the Republicans had to do is pass a law saying that pension and health insurance contributions were no longer subjects of collective bargaining for public employees.  There would have been a lot of noise, sure.  But what they did instead is use the desired health and pension changes as an excuse to destroy organizations that have done nothing but promote labor peace within public employment sector for the past 50 years, and their mostly positive relationship with the school boards and public employers they bargained with.  The only reason for this was to advance the national right-wing agenda to destroy public labor unions.  The decimation of the public unions does nothing to solve any fiscal problem -- it is all about power and destroying a perceived enemy of the Republican agenda.  Like so many of the actions of the radical Republicans in Madison, it had nothing to do with finances or good government and everything to do with a mad power grab.

As Wisconsin citizens, we don't have to put up with that kind of radical, unchecked governance for four years.  The recall process gives us the option, if we can meet the heavy burden of gathering 540,000 some-odd signatures (better -- we doubled it), we have the right -- no, the responsibility -- to try to stop the bleeding.  Some of what the Republicans are doing in Madison could have been predicted but so much of the worst stuff could not.  The first recalls last year have already served to moderate the Republican onslaught by carving the Republican margin in the Senate to one vote and making the senators now facing recall to think twice before rubber-stamping the rest of the right-wing agenda (see the hesitance of the Senate to approve the Assembly's attack on the environment in the mining bill).  In this year's recalls, the Senate will almost certainly flip -- and then the radical Republican revolution is over, whether Walker prevails or not.

This is the way it should work, I think.  The Madison Republicans have definitely gone too far in too many areas, and now Walker, Kleefish and the 4 senators will have to face the public in a recall election they brought on themselves.  Richard Foster and my good friend may continue to think that, as an electorate, we get what we deserve for what we let happen in 2010.  Elections have consequences, sure; but so do radical actions taken after the election.  I hope they and others come to believe that the extreme nature of the Republican agenda calls for an extreme remedy -- RECALL.

At least Foster admits that he's not going to go into the recall polling booth, hold his nose, and vote for Walker to survive, just on the general principle that there shouldn't be a recall in the first place.  He says he'll probably vote to recall him, if it comes to that -- and I think my friend will do that too.  We'll appreciate and count their votes.  But we really need their support.

---

Hey, we might even be doing Walker a favor.  If, with the ten of millions of dollars of out-of-state money he is going to be able to spend to lie his way out of this, he survives, the ridiculous Rebecca Kleefish almost certainly will not.  Sure, he'll have to deal with a Democrat as lieutenant governor, but at least he'll be rid of that albatross around his neck.  Maybe he'll even thank us later.

Excuses of the Doomed

The screeching voices of the radio right have been mostly silent about the alleged criminality in Scott Walker's County Executive office.  Apparently, the defensive talking points have yet to be developed and the well-paid Republican mouthpieces on the radio just don't know what to do about it, as the dirty water circles down the drain of his soon-to-be short-lived governorship.

So they squawk about a few recall petitions that seem a bit off as if it proves massive fraud and partake in a few of their other usual and tired diversions.  They don't seem to have any problem going after an African-American Milwaukee County supervisor allegedly accepting a small bribe in a simple sting operation and pretending that's the End of Times.  But, when it comes to skilled prosecutors closing in on their favorite puppet-governor for putting active political fundraisers on the county payroll and in his office suite -- complete with a separate wireless router and other hardware to try to hide their activities -- well...crickets...

Into the vacuum steps Bradley Foundation beneficiary and blogger Rick Esenberg.  Swinging his supposed academic credentials like they mean something to anyone (which is always and only, sadly, the Journal Sentinel), the once "visiting", now "adjunct" (read: part time) Marquette law professor has taken it upon himself to publish several think pieces on his blog lately, presenting an extremely amateur, scattershot legal defense of the charged Walker political operatives and generally ruminating about the supposedly dubious need for criminalizing of political behavior in government buildings in the first place. 

It goes without saying that, in a game of What If A Democrat Did It, Esenberg and the other members of the scripted right-wing megaphone universe would be exposed as hypocritical frauds. A Democrat caught doing the same thing would already be in jail, at Esenberg's insistence.  But, if it's one thing the well-funded right-wing Walker apologists are, it's shameless.

Esenberg first dipped his toe in the water of "analysis" of the criminal complaint against Kelly Rindfleisch on January 27th, looking down his elitist nose at this whole notion of criminalizing any behavior that is can ever be attributed to a Republican.  "I continue to dislike dealing with this type as a criminal matter," he snoots, even after admitting, yeah, well, fundraising, that's like a bright line.  And, charged as four felonies, I mean, that's just too much for him.

After flirting with "what's the big deal" about this Big Deal, he moves on, without any proof whatsoever, to attack District Attorney John Chisholm for daring to bring the charges.  "It [the law] leads to the threat of partisan use of the prosecutorial process...the timing - on the eve of a recall election..." he says of Chisholm, who is and always has been totally beyond reproach. Then, after that unfounded hit-and-run, he lurches into imaginary "they all do it" fantasy. "What would you find if you subjected the offices of Tom Barrett, Jim Doyle or Kathleen Falk to this kind of scrutiny?" Well, probably, you'd be pretty bored.  And you certainly wouldn't find their staffers blatantly fundraising for favored candidates 25 feet from the boss's desk.

At this point, if I'm Esenberg, I realize I'm writing circular nonsense and I either hit delete and start over or at least quit while I'm behind. But, no.  "There is still nothing that implicates the Governor in anything," he writes hopefully.  Wrong.  As we have discussed, the one e-mail in what is truly a fascinating complaint attributed to Walker, written to the head of his Courthouse operation while he was supposedly (heh) Director of Housing (if you asked Tim Russell a housing question, what are the chances he'd be able to answer it? Not much.), telling him to cool it (and, according to the complaint, many things cooled the same day) is all you need to know about who was in charge and who wanted things done exactly the way they were doing it -- until discovered, that is.

The first post ends with a whimper, not a bang, with rote speculation about the widespread use of the kind of separate campaign IT infrastructure that Russell installed in Walker's office suite in the Courthouse. "I wonder how many public officials use this or other tactics in an attempt to engage in communications that won't be subject to open records requests," he wonders.  Well, how about "none"?  This comment is interesting -- how does he know the secret infrastructure was "an attempt to engage in communications that won't be subject to open records"?  Remember, Esenberg is a proud member of the Republican legal brain trust that brought us Act 10 and so many other wonderful products of the Walker regime, including various defenses to the Brave Wisconsin 14 leaving the state.  Perhaps he was consulted ahead of time about how they could get away with fundraising on the taxpayer dime and gave them lousy advice.  Again.

In his second kick at the same cat in the next post, Esenberg elaborates on the "sure they did it, but who cares" meme.  He first declares that whatever Rindfleisch and Wink (and Russell and probably Walker) did are technical violations of the law rather than "a threat to the republic".  "The offense here is malum prohibitum (wrong because prohibited) rather than malum in se (intrinsically wrong)," he declares.  Sez who?  Besides throwing around Latin phrases (the last refuge of the legal writer trying to impress -- I haven't used Latin since I was an altar boy in second grade [pre-Vatican II] and certainly never in court, lest the laughter from judges and DAs drown out my argument), setting up a separate IT infrastructure to escape the discovery of your illegal fundraising while on the County dime -- especially if on of you were granted immunity in the caucus scandal and another (Walker) was one of Scooter Jensen's closest associates in the legislature at the time -- is certainly boldly, proudly and intrinsically malum in eff-ing se.  Besides, the distinction is legally irrelevant -- except when you get to sentencing.  Let Walker make that case when he gets there.

Almost as amusing and pathetic as Esenberg's excuse-making is the appearance of "school" "choice" whore George Mitchell in the comments section.  Besides arguing that we should legalize all forms of politicking and fundraising in public offices (whatever happened to the supposed conservative protection of the public dollar?). Mitchell laughably alludes to dark secrets he knows from a time long ago when some people foolishly let him in the room, smearing various Democrats without providing any detail.  "[Journal Sentinel Managing Editor] George Stanley was so surprised and offended by what I knew and did he said I was 'lucky the statute of limitations had expired,'" he claims.  While I wouldn't be surprised if Stanley said such a thing -- he and his paper have been buying too much of Mitchell's "school" "choice" bullshit for years, I don't know why he wouldn't fall for this load too -- the necessary discussion of the political ramifications of official acts is a far cry from spending hours and days in the County Executive suite sending (literally) thousands of e-mails arranging the grand and minute details of fundraisers (drafting invitations, even) for Walker's favored lieutenant governor candidate. The funniest line of all is Esenberg writing "George's views can't be easily dismissed."  Hilarious.

Although he gets paid well to be an apologist for anything the Republicans do or get caught doing, I don't envy the heavy task Esenberg has taken upon himself.  This is a tough one for the Walkerites to crawl out of, and they know it.  Luckily for Walker, Esenberg isn't really offering him legal advice -- he's just helping the Republicans soften up the public for the very real possibility of a Walker indictment by putting a legal gloss on a sow's ear.  It's a partisan prosecution, it shouldn't be criminal, everybody does it -- whatever works, the facts be damned.  

Walker himself isn't fooling around.  He's got a real criminal defense lawyer now -- Mike Steinle was in my Trial Ad class in law school and is one of the best in town.  Walker is going to need all the real help he can get.

Walker Haunted By The Ghost of Frank Wills

Courthouse security was not what it should have been when Scott Walker was pretending to be Milwaukee County Executive and in deep in the throes of his mad clawing to become Wisconsin's first Koch-bought governor. In one of the many actions found to be illegal under his grandstanding, worthless term, in early 2010, Walker declared an "emergency" and laid-off the fine County employees who man-ed and woman-ed the entrances to the Courthouse in favor of low-paid rent-a-cops from Wackenhut, the executives of which were -- naturally -- political contributors. 

I mourned the loss of the familiar faces that greeted me at the doors of the Courthouse every morning when it happened.  In short order, the head of the Wackenhut Courthouse effort was found to have a bunch of criminal convictions and had to be replaced. And, in January 2011, an arbitrator ruled, not suprisingly, that Walker's privatization stunt was illegal and ordered the County employees reinstated, with back pay.  By then Walker had escaped to the Capitol in Madison, far from where he would be held accountable and from where anyone could ask how he could defend his costly made-for-campaign pose.


At the time, the failed effort to farm-out the security of the courthouse seemed like just another attack on public employees, something we have now come to expect from the most anti-middle class governor in Wisconsin history.  But – maybe something else was afoot.  Perhaps the turning over of courthouse security to near-minimum wage, part-time amateurs was designed to deliberately make the courthouse less secure, so that, when the Walker campaign IT people were let in in the middle of the night to install the separate server and wireless, they would be less likely to be discovered monkeying around in the County Executive suite.

Or not -- this theory may be giving Walker too much credit for devious design. I think the security detail clears out of the courthouse after 5 p.m. anyway, although you’d think maybe at least one person works the second and third shifts, checking doors and listening for odd noises in the night.  If so, what do you think the Milwaukee version of Frank Wills would think coming upon people with black bags, computer equipment and screwdrivers in Scott Walker’s office in the middle of the night?

Frank Wills, you’ll remember, is the security guard in the Watergate building who noticed tape on a door in the complex and eventually found the Nixon burglars cowering under desks in the DNC office, caught in the act of trying to bug Larry O’Brien’s phone.  It’s never been at all clear what the paranoid Nixon campaign thought it would learn by the wiretaps, but Frank Wills’ brave exercise in securitizing eventually resulted in the exposure of a criminal president and his removal from office one step ahead of certain impeachment and conviction.

Imagine what courthouse security would find, if they were touring the third floor on the night the hardware was installed.  No doubt, someone with real credentials would be there to shoo them away; Russell, Nardelli, Rindfleish – perhaps Walker himself.  You can almost see the stunned looks on the faces of the installers when faced with a real security guard in uniform.  “Just fixing some wires and stuff, nothing to see here,” they would claim while the security guard runs through the catalog of known county IT personnel in his head.  None of those folks look familiar.  Hmm...

Oh, stop, this ain’t Watergate, they’ll say.  Nixon was senselessly bugging the opposition; Walker was prophylactically debugging himself.  But, as always, it’s the cover-up that sinks the ship.  In Walker’s case, he was covering up ahead of time – trying to prevent the discovery of the full-time campaign operation being run from the County Executive’s office by outrageously creating an entirely separate IT infrastructure.  To pretend he didn’t know about the IT setup and intense campaign activity of his staff is ridiculous, especially considering his e-mail to (significantly) then-Director of Housing Russell. "We cannot afford another story like this one," he wrote to Russell.  No kidding.  As it turns out, he couldn't even afford that one story, once DA John Chisholm and his excellent staff started following the leads.

Walker’s entire time as County Executive had nothing to do with managing Milwaukee County and everything to do with his lifelong ambition to be the governor.  He would send up absurd budgets that were immediately rejected and redone by the grown-ups on the County Board.  He used his limited power to strike tough-guy poses, like the illegal security privatization scheme.  Nothing was done without both eyes on the governor’s race, whenever he got his chance.

Milwaukee's version of Frank Wills never got the chance to discover the dark-of-night hardware installation in the County Executive's suite.  Walker's undoing will be a combination of his own staff's lameness (Darlene Wink just had to post those comments on JSOnline, didn't she?), his and his campaign's arrogance that they could get away with such a thing as rigging a separate IT infrastructure and the quiet, patient competence of a DA following the trail.  No amount of lame excuse-making from the usual suspects will protect his sorry ass (Esenberg: "I continue to dislike dealing with this type as a criminal matter." Oh, Please.)  There is the now-more-likely recall, of course, but that is the least of Scott Walker's problems.  He may have to fight to try to stay out of jail.  Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

The Illusory Tenant Has Left The Building

Sad news from the blogosphere.  Just when we need him most, Tom Foley has headed off to gloriously greater climes, taking a good job in an exotic location and leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves as the denizens of FitzWalkerStan kick and scratch and cheat to try to maintain their ungodly grip on Total Power. In a typically short, obtuse and self-effacing final post, he leaves us only with the glorious solo piano of Art Tatum playing "Over the Rainbow".  Which is where Foley is going, by the way.  I've seen pictures.

With all due respect to everybody else who is trying to make some sense and points with their various blogs out here, nobody holds a candle to Tom.  He is consistently brilliant, hilarious and right on-the-money.  A king of the short-form post, when he puts his mind and time to it, he can write a devastating long treatise on complicated legal subjects that entertain as well as destroy the pompous musings of a certain part-time law professor.

Speaking of Rick Esenberg, the latest winner of the Right-Wing Money Sweepstakes (his newly-minted "Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty", neither an "institute" nor much interested in law or liberty, is funded by the Bradley Foundation and other right-wing moneybags) tries to counter Foley's arguments by personally attacking him in his latest post.  The well-heeled Esenberg botches a snarky aside to Foley, writing nonsensically about a "law school graduate (and suspended lawyer)" without naming him, before lurching into yet another defense of the embarrassing middle-finger-to-ethics Justice Michael Gableman and how he didn't get the free legal services from Michael Best that he certainly got.  What are you going to believe, says Esenberg -- me, or your lying eyes?  Esenberg is obviously going to keep trotting out this line of apologist bullshit until somebody believes it.

Pointing out Foley's irrelevant state bar status is the kind of politics-of-personal-destruction diversion you expect from right-wingers who are losing the argument (which Esenberg always is).  The fact is that Tom -- who I have had the pleasure of showing around the Courthouse and could tell would have been a good lawyer if someone would have just hired him -- let his law license lapse when he realized he was moving on to better things.  The fact he isn't a current member of the bar doesn't affect his well-reasoned arguments on any subject one bit.  The fact Esenberg would resort to catty asides like this shows how weak he thinks his doomed position really is.

Tom Foley regularly had the goods on both Esenberg and Gableman -- not to mention Walker, the Fitzgeralds and everyone else making our lives miserable, locally and nationally.  I have encouraged him to use the wonders of what he called "the internets" to stay in touch with Wisconsin politics in this critical year and keep posting. Alas, he has declined, for now, not knowing the state of technology in his future slice of Paradise and figuring he'll be too busy working in the bright tropical sunshine.  But I hope he finds some time to share with us his unique and brilliant perspective.  Or at least drop us a line from time to time.

I'll miss his friendship and his bass and keyboard playing in my ad hoc semi-annual bands (we kicked ass on "Like a Rolling Stone" at Nod to Bob this year).  We'll all miss everything else -- his essential contribution to the Wisconsin conversation.  Terribly.

Why Does Marty Kaiser Want To Be My Friend?

I have written a lot of awful songs through my many years of amateur folk-rock pretension.  But one I wrote over 30 years ago seems to have some staying power, even though the subjects of the song have not.  It's an ode to the three network anchormen (yes -- men) who dominated TV news dissemination from their desks and chairs after the pioneering days of Walter Cronkite and Huntley/Brinkley had passed.

These were the days before Ted Turner's revolutionary CNN created the 24-hour news cycle, eventually leading to the current niche-ification of the news, where you can now browse per your preference for the trivial (sadly, CNN), the (sometimes) thoughtfully substantive MSNBC and the nut-right fact-and-attitude alternate universe of Fox News.  As helpfully instantaneous as these news outlets often are to the chronically vicarious  ("Let's go live to Los Angeles, where a car appears to be going the wrong way down a one-way street...wait, we are breaking away to Ames, Iowa, where Newt Gingrich's head is about to explode..."), more means less in a world where there is no longer a standard set of news-facts we can all argue about and work to change.

Anyway, my song -- "(Why Does) Dan Rather (Want To Be My Friend)" --  is about the three network news anchors as they existed in the post-Cronkite, pre-cable '80s and how they tried to sell themselves to a too-salable public. As essential rock critic Robert Christgau used to write (or still does), here are some Inspirational Verses:

Why does Dan Rather want to be my friend?
I can tell by the way he smiles right at the end...

Why does Tom Brokaw wanna get to know me?
If he's got some news, man -- I wish he'd show me...

Why does Peter Jennings want to read my mind?
I'm just a demographic -- I'm just a certain kind...

...and so on. These days, only Brian Williams on NBC maintains the traditional anchor gravitas, albeit with the occassional knowing smirk.  The revolving chair at CBS has made the Cronkite network irrelevant and over at ABC, former Nixon speech writer Diane Sawyer is still, well, Diane Sawyer. But the network anchor as cultural icon or anything but an occasional curiosity is over.

But, in this post, we are not concerned with TV heads trying to charm us (or, in the case of Fox and Friends, right-wing nobs providing us enough comic fodder for a month of Daily Shows).  We are immune to their supposed charm anyway, bombarded as we are with promotional shots of news show hosts posing in front of the Hoover Dam or in coffee shops. 

No, today, Journal Sentinel President/Publisher Elizabeth Brenner and Editor Martin Kaiser are the ones who want you to like them -- really, really like them. The newspaper, you see, is about to jump off the cliff of pay-for-content in its on-line offerings, starting January 4th.  To prepare you for this abrupt change of paying for the crap you now get for free, the paper ran a full-page ad for itself this morning [can't get a link to it], explaining (sort of) the change and trying to convince you how great it is. Details about how to give them your credit-card information to begin the extractions will follow in due course.

In the ad, er, "letter" (not available at JSOnline and, although there was no companion story in the business pages or anywhere else in today's paper, a story popped up on-line this morning), "Betsy" and "Marty" are featured in glossy pictures like the kind you would see in a Flomax or funeral home ad.   After patting themselves on the back for making themselves irrelevant by endorsing Scott Walker and fighting the recall campaign -- oops, I mean for winning Pulitzers and covering the Brewers' and Packers' playoff runs (tough job, that), they drop the bomb. "Now, it’s time to look ahead," they write.  Oh, oh.  Here it comes.  Hold on to your wallet or prepared to be less informed about the Journal Sentinel's version of Milwaukee and Wisconsin.


The pay-for-content scheme is branded as JS Everywhere -- who, after all, could argue with that, being everywhere, isn't that wonderful? The dwindling number of people who subscribe to the dead-tree version of the paper can be everywhere for no additional cost. And, like the current scheme at the New York Times, you can be everywhere on the website, until you've hit 20 links in a month, then ya-gotta-pay, somehow.  Wonderful apps are promised for all mobile devices "or whatever the next big thing is". Oh, that Journal Sentinel -- always looking forward, except when it comes to radical Republican governors who they could have predicted would run roughshod over Wisconsin tradition, progressivism and bipartisanship.  

I understand all legacy news content providers (i.e.: newspaper companies) around the country are stuggling with a new world where people no longer need their publications to stay what they consider to be informed.  And there is no substitute for the numbers of reporters built up over the years (even with the decimation of staffs at the J-S and everywhere else) to report on local, national and international events.  The economic model has obviously collapsed. 

But much of the Journal Sentinel's increased local coverage (encouraged by newspaper industry consultants to sustain relevancy) has devolved into simply providing hysterically sensationalized stories to give right-wing talk radio something to talk about.  This is especially the case when it involves the struggles of underclass African-Americans, whether it's co-sleeping or child-care providers.  Interesting information to a point, but there is nothing a racist like Mark Belling enjoys more than sneering at the failures of blacks in the inner city.

As long as Journal Communications Inc., through Charlie Sykes and its other wing-nut squawkers on the radio, the rest of their properties -- including the Journal Sentinel -- will always be compromised.  JCI also contributes to the poisoning of the airwaves in other parts of the country, sending the reprehensible J.T. Harris to its station in Tucson and former WISN part-time wing-nut Nick Reed to Springfield, MO.  The question isn't whether the Journal Sentinel will survive in its increasingly-digital form, but whether it deserves to.

As James Brown once said, Take it to the bridge:

I grew up -- with space shots and assassinations
Saw riots in the street -- I watched with fascination
I watched the revolution -- on my TV
Watching Walter Cronkite at my daddy's knee

There, on the floor while we watched Cronkite, were the afternoon Milwaukee Journal and the Sheboygan Press.  That was back when newspapers were newspapers -- not audience-seeking multi-media conglomerates, using consultants rather than news judgement to squeeze every last dollar out of their collapsing circulation.  The Journal Sentinel's pay-to-read experiment will rise or fail on the merit of its content, not because of Betsy and Marty's sugar-coating their own harsh reality.

620 WTMJ Can Run But It Can't Hide

Democratic Spokesperson Graeme Zielinski is on to something with his direct challenge to the WTMJ radio station for its pathetic hosting and promotion of Charlie Sykes on their valuable airwaves.

If you haven't heard his excellent sandbagging of the hapless 620 news dweebs last week, take 5 minutes and listen to it now.

Here it is.

Zielinski digs in from the get-go, lumping news director Jon Byman and morning host Gene Mueller (who he repeatedly calls "you guys") in with Sykes, whose daily Walker Protection Show immediately follows them on the Journal Communications Inc. flagship biggest-stick-in-the-state radio station.  You can almost hear Byman and Mueller's eyes roll as they try to control the unexpected and badly-needed attack on their straight news credentials.  As the obedient Byman tries to promote the GOP-designed multiple-signature-and-Mickey-Mouse-signing meme to smear the recall effort, Zielinski was having none of it. "You guys are doing a great job hyping the case," he said. "You guys are running around 24 hours a day with this false narrative...promoted by your friends at the MacIver Institute..." The whole performance was a beautiful take-down of the TMJ brand, which has been forever tarnished by their association with the likes of Sykes, Jeff Wagner, and all of the other False Prophets of The Nut-Right.

Gene Mueller has been a welcome voice on Milwaukee morning radio for decades -- especially his many years teaming up with the legendary Bob Reitman on the late WKTI.  His everyman-from-Sheboygan shtick is still a welcome addition to the 620 morning show, but, as Byman tries to getting a word in edgewise with the on-a-roll Zielinski, Mueller says the stupidest thing in the segment.  "Graeme, what happens on this station after 8:30 is none of my concern," he said.  This from the guy who makes happy-talk with Sykes about his upcoming lies at 8:25 every morning.  This from the guy who often sticks around to provide supposedly straight news reports during the Sykes hours.  If the kind of poison Sykes spews into the air every day after 8:30 is really none of his concern, maybe he should make it of his concern.  Gene Mueller's formerly rock-solid reputation as a regular-guy-on-the-radio and a half-decent newsman is put in jeopardy every time he engages with or promotes the Garbage Within his own radio station.

TMJ radio honcho Steve Wexler -- who is responsible for much of the poisoning of the Milwaukee airwaves, from his days at WISN where he promoted, if not hired, the reprehensible Mark Belling, to today where he promotes Republican causes through Sykes, Wagner, (until recently) the ridiculous J.T. Harris, and runs national wing-nuts such as failed comedian Dennis Miller and the knuckle-dragging Michael Savage -- responded to Zielinski's hijacking of the segment by claiming "Our listeners are smart enough to understand that our news programs consistently present opposing viewpoints but that our talk programs have a different mission."

Well, no.  First of all, anybody who listens to Charlie Sykes and believes any of the GOP talking-points he drives on a daily basis isn't "smart enough" for anything, much less making a distinction between straight news and Sykes' blather.  And, what exactly is the "different mission" of the talk shows?  It must be the promotion of nut-bag radical Republicanism and the protection of the FitzWalkerstan.  Nowhere does the station provide a disclaimer, such as "Charlie Sykes' insipid reading and artistic rendering of Republican press releases does not represent the views of station management..." Which can only mean it does. 

On all the Journal Communication entities -- including and especially the newspaper -- talk-radio is the tail that wags the news dog.  From Byman and Mueller in the morning to John Mercure in the afternoon, the so-called "news" programs are only there to provide context and material for the Sykes show, setting up stories he wants to talk about to continue his Save Walker campaign. [Another great element in the Zielinski rant is his reference to "millions of dollars of in-kind contributions" that the station provides to the Walker campaign via the Sykes show.] Do you think, if they wanted to, one of the news guys (I'm looking at you, Gene Mueller) could get on the air and speak un-Sykes heresy or, god-help-us, do a PolitiFact-type fact-check on Sykes' daily lies? 

Don't kid yourself.  Sykes is TMJ's biggest asset in the angry-white-man demographic and is paid accordingly.  He is the Face of WTMJ and every other on-air personality is just his support staff.

As if to prove Zielinski's point, Scooter Walker himself visited the WTMJ studios this morning for a full-fledged love-fest with the supposed newspeople.  Hey, Governor -- you who destroyed careers and schools, drove your agenda like a bulldozer through a pliant legislature, who is about to kick tens of thousands of poor and working class children and adults off of BadgerCare, who is about to remove women's access to cancer screenings -- let's have some of those yummy frosted pecans of yours. After more than three minutes of this happy holiday drivel, the Sykes Support Group on the morning show set up a few softballs for their beloved Scotty, with no follow up to his deliberate lies about the source of the recall effort (out-of-state union "bosses" and blah de blah blah) or anything other questions worthy of a radical, damaged, beseiged soon-to-be former governor. 

After that, the morning team handed Walker off to -- you guessed it -- Charlie Sykes, who "interviewed" the governor in the same studio, with the extra enhancements, I would hope, of mood music, scented candles and flavored oil for the romantic encounter to follow.  I mean, I hope Sykes had the good sense to warm him up a bit instead of just diving right in.  He was hosting, after all.

Yesterday, the Democratic Party launched a brilliant fundraising effort based on the Sykes/TMJ pro-Walker team, encouraging recall supporters send in $6.20 to support the recall effort.  I think we can do better than that: how about $6.20 squared.  That would be $38.44. Graeme Zielinski, congratulations.  The check is in the mail.