Friday, July 17, 2015

Wisconsin is a no-nonsense bastion of integrity and transparancy in all things and is not corrupt at all

In today's "stuff to yell about" file, for anyone poking in from out of state wondering what the big deal is about this Scott Walker yahoo:

Justices who dismissed John Doe investigation received over $8 million from the groups being probed

For those who haven't been paying attention: Walker's been the target of internal state investigations surrounding "alleged" collaboration with various advocacy groups during his initial campaign for Governor and during his recall battle in 2012. One of the groups his campaign is accused of collaborating with is Wisconsin Club for Growth, who have also doled out plenty in contributions to many Wisconsin supreme court justices' campaigns.

The main issue in these probes involved the Walker campaign coordinating with these groups regarding how they spent their money, which is a no-no under Wisconsin campaign finance law.(You can read more about the reasons behind the investigation here. It's all sortsa fun bedtime reading.)

This article from The Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch summarizes what this all means. If you couldn't guess, it means that Wisconsin has become a freer and more awesome state for corporate interests to exercise their political speech their checkbooks:
For years, Wisconsin has banned corporations from donating to campaigns.
Yet the majority’s opinion just opened a giant loophole. Because the court held that “issue advocacy” is entirely beyond the reach of Wisconsin campaign finance law, foreigners, corporations—and foreign corporations—can now spend on Wisconsin elections, as long as they bankroll groups whose ads stop short of saying “vote for” or “vote against.”
And the public will have no idea this is happening, because their donations won’t be publicly disclosed.
Here's a list from our initial link showing which justices have had how much money spent on them:
 Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce spent about $5.6 million on these four conservative justices:
$500,000 in support of Roggensack
$1,100,000 in support of Prosser
$1,760,000 in support of Gableman
$2,200,000 in support of Ziegler.
Wisconsin Club for Growth spent about $1.75 million on the four conservative justices:
$350,000 in support of Roggensack
$400,000 in support of Ziegler
$500,000 in support of Gableman
and $500,000 in support of Prosser.
Citizens for a Strong America spent about $1 million in support of Prosser in his tightly contested reelection race against JoAnne Kloppenburg in 2011.
But hey, nothing to see here. All's well in our sleepy little Midwestern paradise or whatever.

2 comments:

  1. Will you be selling t-shirts with your slogan UNINTIMIDATED: Wisconsin Musicians Against Scott Walker? I would love to purchase one. I'm sure there are others musicians like me who would love the opportunity to purchase such as shirt to help fund your cause. Please advise

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    Replies
    1. Hi Dan! We hadn't considered doing shirts but if there's demand we can certainly entertain it! We'll see how interest percolates in the next couple months!

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