Ok, I'm surrendering and calling this what it has turned out to be on most past Fridays: a news dump day. The day of the week that "bad news" get announced in hopes that it will be completely ignored because news staff and us regular folks are busy going to Friday fries, planning our weekends, and weekend news coverage is incredibly thin for those of us even paying attention. Newspapers and news don't have a big viewership on weekends so bad news doesn't get much press or attention from the citizenry.
So they "throw out the garbage" on Fridays, usually late afternoon hoping and praying that no one notices. Well, they throw it out and I go through their trash.
Things are starting slowly, but I'm hoping that the pace of big tidbits picks up as the day moves along.
Out of the starting gate is Wisconsin State Supreme Court Justice David (The Choker) Prosser
He has now officially submitted motions for Justice Ann Bradley (his victim) and Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson (she's the one he called a "total bitch" last year) to recuse themselves from his upcoming ethics trial in front of the State Supreme Court.
Prosser alleges in the petitions that both Bradley and Abrahamson are biased against him.
PDF file submitted against Justice Bradley can be viewed
here.
PDF file submitted against Chief Justice Abrahamson can be viewed here.
In an interview, Prosser said he likely will file additional petitions for recusal that, if successful, could kill the case since only the Supreme Court can mete out discipline to judges in Wisconsin.
The Supreme Court has been asked by the Judicial Commission to find Prosser guilty of three ethics violations for the June 13 incident. The physical altercation occurred in Bradley’s chambers during an argument over the timing of the release of a 4-3 Supreme Court opinion that upheld passage of the state’s controversial collective bargaining law.
The complaint alleges Prosser “willfully” violated the Supreme Court rule that requires a judge be dignified and courteous to people “with whom the judge deals in an official capacity,” the rule requiring judges to “promote the satisfactory administration of justice” by cooperating with each other and the requirement that judges personally observe “high standards of conduct.”
Prosser has called the ethics charges “partisan, unreasonable and largely untrue.” He has sought to paint Bradley as the aggressor in the incident.
No, he doesn't even want his ethics case even heard by what would be a RW majority of justices on the State Supreme Court if his 2 motions are granted. He doesn't want the lingering suspiscions that linger over fellow RW Justice Gablemann whose own ethics violations, heard before the State Supreme Court, ended with a political ideology 3-3 tie and died because of that deadlocked decision. No, he wants everyone to forget that an impartial panel even filed charges. Let's move on, nothing to see here, seems to be his goal.
He's being represented by Wauwatosa law firm Gunta & Reak SC. I don't know if he's getting the sweet deal that Gablemann got during this ethics case by being represented for free (and later voting in favor of that law firm in every case they brought before the State Supreme Court - a coincidence, he says).
Moving on....
Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (Teabagger - Wis) is having some staffing and collegial issues
This came out last night and it's just gotten more interesting today. As of last night, there was an expectation that Johnson would be firing most of his Washington DC legislative staff.
As of last night:
Roll Call - a D.C. newspaper that covers Capitol Hill - described Johnson's conflicts with his staff as "one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington" in recent months. But the paper said the situation has escalated recently.
The story said Robert Duncan, Johnson's legislative director, has already left. A Senate Republican committee may be trying to help some of the first-term Republican's staffers land jobs in other offices, according to the story.
“He’s an interesting case study of someone who has talked more than he has listened, lectured more than he has developed relationships with his colleagues, and now he’s having a tough time because of that behavior in advancing his policy goals,” one senior GOP aide told Roll Call. “It’s kind of like watching a temper tantrum by a 2-year-old in the middle of the grocery store.”
Today,
Johnson strikes back:
"This story is categorically untrue," said Brian Faughnan, press secretary to the Wisconsin Republican. "The allegations come only from unnamed sources reporting second and third-hand rumors. Senator Johnson has had very little staff turnover."
"He is also proud of the relationships he has built with his Senate colleagues - which was shown pretty clearly when he garnered 22 votes in his recent Republican Senate leadership race," Faughnan said.
"You can’t do that without establishing relationships. He's also quite proud of the outreach he has done to Members of the House, with whom he is working to develop a coordinated agenda."
Sounds like damage control is Full Speed Ahead.
My take is that Ron Johnson, who married the daughter of the owner of the business he now owns (which conflicts with his meme that he's a self made businessman), has been one of those guys whose word has always been law among his employees. He dictates, orders, and isn't questioned. It's not the same when you're in public office. You need to work with people, listen to those with knowledge and expertise, and learn new skills. In other words, you have to get off your high horse and work with other people. Sounds like Johnson never learned to play nicely with others.
See more under Update 2.
Scott Walker signs another devastating bill into law
Late yesterday, Walker privately signed into law a bill that essentially moves control of the county tax payer funded Milwaukee Area Technical College into the hands of the GOP and business.
Gov. Scott Walker privately signed a bill Thursday to overhaul the board of the Milwaukee Area Technical College.
Republicans passed the bill in the Assembly last month in a 33-hour session over the lengthy objections of Democrats, who called the proposal a power grab that singled out the college.
Republicans have said the bill would tighten the connection between the MATC board and business by reshaping its membership and giving more spaces to members with business connections. The bill would not affect the state's other technical college boards.
(emphasis mine)
As opposed to other bills gleefully signed in public, starting the day after the Wisconsin Presidential Primary and municipal elections Walker started signing a slew of outrageous bills into law in complete privacy. These bills included the notorious repeal of Wisconsins previous law to ensure equity for womens wages, sex education programs which will emphasis abstinence, and others he wanted the media to ignore.
Under the legislation, the Milwaukee County executive and the county board chairs in Milwaukee, Ozaukee and Washington counties would appoint the new MATC board. Currently, a 20-plus-member committee of K-12 school board representatives picks the board.
For those not in the area, Ozaukee and Washington counties are heavily Republican. They now will be in control of the Milwaukee (and State of Wisconsin) taxpayer funded technical school. Yup, you read that right.
Michael Rosen, an economics instructor at MATC and the president of the union representing teachers at the college, said the school and its students were unfairly criticized during the run-up to the bill's passage. He said MATC compares well with other technical colleges in southeastern Wisconsin, and the current board contained members from businesses such as the staffing firm Manpower Inc.
"As far as I'm concerned, this was an unethical power grab by the Republicans who do not understand Milwaukee, our students or the urban community," Rosen said.
Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), a lead sponsor of the bill, said it was supported by business groups such as the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce because they want changes from the technical college.
"This is a bill that was supported by the business community to improve the quality of employee coming out of MATC, and I was proud to be part of it," Grothman said.
The bill would reshape the MATC board to consist of one school administrator, one elected official, two at-large members and five people appointed to represent for-profit businesses or nonprofit medical facilities. At least two of the five would come from manufacturing.
The board now is required to have one school district administrator, one elected official, three at-large members, two employers and two employees.
And remember, this bill targets the Milwaukee Area Technical College and doesn't affect any of the other publicly funded technical colleges in the state.
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Stay tuned, the day is still young. I'm clicking my heels hoping for an awesome news dump day. Some John Doe Probe news would be nice.
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Update: The Tea Baggers are Coming Edition:
Up oh. The Tea Baggers are going to show up tomorrow at our State Capitol in Madison for their annual Tax Day Rally. Of course, RW speakers are already lined up and you can bet the farm that the bussed in crowds will be fully featured on our local RW talk stations as well as Faux Made Up Newzzzz.
"I can tell you since the conversation started four years ago, we have added 100,000 members to our chapter," said Luke Hilgemann, Wisconsin state director of Americans for Prosperity. "We now have 115,000 folks registered with AFP. The grass-roots movement is strong, alive, energized. You're going to see that Saturday and all the way through 2012."
The article doesn't say whether or not this group is being required to have a permit, pay for police, and submit themselves to being charged for "damages" the way that the Peoples Protest is under new regulations from Walkers Department of Administration.
I wonder how many dozens are going to show up.
Update 2: Ron Johnson Damage Control in Warp Speed Edition:
Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson is plenty mad and apparantly not satisfied with the job his spokesmouth is doing. He's taken to issuing his own proclamations:
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Friday that a Roll Call newspaper report that said he was planning to fire most of his legislative staff was "laughable and false."
"I don't know who planted this story, who pushed it. I'm not going to assign motives. But it's pretty clear there is some discomfort with an independent voice pushing for solutions," Johnson said in a telephone interview.
Johnson said the story came from anonymous sources. "The only true part of the story is they called me impatient," Johnson said. "I'm impatient because we're bankrupting this nation and the political class in Washington is not owning up to that fact."
Insert foot further in mouth:
Johnson was also criticized by anonymous aides for failing to build relationships with his Senate colleagues. But Johnson pointed out that he had received 22 votes in an election for a Republican leadership post.
"You don't run for leadership and get 22 votes in the U.S. Senate without having good relationships," he said.
Ohhhh Kaaaay. You get 22 votes out of 49 Republican Senators and that gets touted as good relationships?
Update 3: Foot in Walker Mouth (again) Edition: Poor, pitiful, pandering Snotty Walker is attacking his 4 Democratic recall opponents because they had a debate on a minor Catholic holiday that most Catholics ignore.
Walker said as much in an interview with Charlie Sykes yesterday when he critized Dem candidates "when they were at that forum on Maundy Thursday, when most of us were at church."
Maundy Thursday - normally called Holy Thursday (despite being raised Catholic I had to look it up) is a minor church holiday celebrating Jesus washing the feet of the poor. It is not a day when parishoners are required to attend church. It isn't observed at all by protestants.
The Catholic Church hasn't commented or condemned any events ever held on that day in the past.
Update 4: Walker's Got a Brand New Ad Edition: Here it is - lies and all:
On top of the brand new shiny ads, he's apparantly not running his anti-Falk ad. Earlier this week I posted both Walkers attack ads and remarked that it was interesting that he was doing attacks himself rather than letting the RW astroturf groups do that dirty work for him.
Today, it's been discoveredthat while he announced the anti-Falk and anti-Barrett ads, he's only running the ad attacking Barrett. Why?
Ken Goldstein, president of ad-tracking firm Kantar Media CMAG said Friday none of the anti-Falk ads are running. That means the Republican governor either believes Barrett with be the Democratic nominee or views him as the stronger opponent and wants to prevent him from becoming the nominee, Goldstein said.
"Advertising is a tell," he said.
Ciara Matthews, a spokeswoman for Walker's campaign, declined to comment why two ads were announced but only one was run.
Barrett spokesman Phil Walzak said Walker's strategy shows he views Barrett as the frontrunner.
Here's Barretts new ad:
Full disclosure: I'm undecided in the Democratic Primary and don't care who wins. I will fully support whoever wins.
Update 5: Non Update Edition: It's 6 PM Central time so I don't expect anything new coming out tonight. I haz a sad that there was no end of Friday bombshell, but if anything does come up, I'll update again. I'm still looking at the WEAC/Walker stuff and I've been waiting for another shoe to drop to clarify what's at the heart of this wrangling or what made Walker start the fight in the first place.
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