Wisconsin recount futile in Koch Brother’s Dismal Dairyland of GOP corruption

On November 8^th, Donald Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win Wisconsin in nearly 30 years.  Due to the massive anomalies in the Wisconsin election process since the GOP takeover of 2010, Green Party candidate Jill Stein has requested a recount of the votes cast in the state.  According to the Washington Post a recount of the votes in Wisconsin will take place.

Excerpt:

Election recount will take place in Wisconsin, after Stein files petition

An election recount will take place soon in Wisconsin, after former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein filed a petition Friday with the state’s Election Commission, the first of three states where she has promised to contest the election result…

Trump scored upset victories in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and seems on the path to declare a victory in Michigan as well, though the result of the election in that state will not be certified officially until Monday. Had Clinton won those three states, previously seen as part of the Democrats’ “firewall,” she would have secured enough electoral votes to win the election…

While the group had no specific proof of hacking, they noted anomalies suggesting Clinton routinely did more poorly in Wisconsin counties that used voting machines, as opposed to those that relied on paper ballots.

Election fraud committed at the highest levels in Wisconsin’s government has been rampant since 2010 when the GOP took control of Wisconsin’s government.  In 2011 after the GOP takeover of Wisconsin’s government, the right-wing extremist and former Republican Speaker of the Assembly, Justice David Prosser was running for reelection to the Wisconsin Supreme Court where he has been a Justice since 1998.  Prosser whose violent outbursts had made the high court a national laughing stock, lost his reelection to Joanne Kloppenburg.  But shortly after the announcement, Waukesha county clerk Kathy Nicklaus, who had been an aide to Scott Walker proclaimed Prosser the winner.  From Forbes:

Excerpt:

Something Smells In Waukesha County, Wisconsin-- And It's Not The Cheese

Suspicious evidence is beginning to emerge calling into question last week’s controversial state Supreme Court election between incumbent Justice David Prosser and challenger, JoAnne Kloppenburg.

Kloppenburg, the Democrat, had initially been thought to be the winner by the narrowest of margins – approximately 200 votes – in the election that was viewed as a referendum on Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-collective bargaining policies.

However, hours after the challenger declared victory, the Waukesha County Clerk, Kathy Nickolaus, announced that the votes of an entire city within her county had been accidentally omitted in her counts. When those votes were added into her totals, Justice Prosser emerged with a victory margin of roughly 7,500 votes –almost precisely the number needed to deny Ms. Kloppenburg an automatic, government-funded recount…

It turns out that there was a similar error in Waukesha County in 2006 during a Republican primary for State Assembly. Candidate Christine Lufter had been leading in the election until an alleged computer error discovered by Nickolaus was found to be placing votes in the wrong candidate’s column.

My, isn’t it interesting that every “mistake” uncovered by Kathy Nickolaus favors candidates backed by the Koch Brothers.  How is it that Nickolaus was able to control the election results in Waukesha County during her ex-boss’ recall election?  From Mother Jones:

Excerpt:

Will Scandal-Plagued Election Clerk Supervise Walker Recall in Key County?

Republican Kathy Nickolaus may be the only county clerk known by name across Wisconsin—and not for a good reason.  Last year, Nickolaus, the top election official in Waukesha County, a solidly Republican suburb outside of Milwaukee, blamed "human error" for the late discovery of more than 14,000 missing votes in a bruising state Supreme Court race.  Those votes erased liberal favorite JoAnne Kloppenburg's lead in the race, handed victory to conservative incumbent David Prosser… 

This April, Nickolaus resorted to posting election results on strips of grocery-receipt-like paper after the county's reporting system failed on election night.  After the April controversy, Nickolaus pledged to step down from handling the county's election operations. But ahead of Gov. Scott Walker's recall election on June 5… recent evidence suggests Nickolaus still has control over the county's vote-counting... WTMJ news station reported that Nickolaus "appeared to be very much in charge of the count…"

Kelly Steele, a spokesman for the labor-backed We Are Wisconsin group, says it would be "criminal" to allow Nickolaus to have any role in the county's June 5 election. "After Kathy Nickolaus earned her reputation as the most incompetent or corrupt election clerk in America, Waukesha County assured the world she would no longer administer elections…"

All evidence from the May primary suggests she's fully in charge and reporting out results to the world."  The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board has also demanded Nickolaus' resignation…   But although Nickolaus has said she won't run for reelection, she remains in her job—and, if the May 8 primary is any indication, she's still supervising elections.

Yep, in Wisconsin there’s no getting rid of the corrupt Republicans, they control every branch of government.  What’s particularly egregious has been the takeover of the Wisconsin Supreme Court whose GOP majority was funded by the outside groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Wisconsin Club for Growth.  The Club for Growth’s funding of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s recall campaign was the subject of a John Doe investigation. 

Members of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court whose campaigns were funded by CFG refused to recuse themselves when the high court ordered the investigation be quashed.  The corruption on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has not gone unnoticed nationally.  From Newsweek:

Excerpt:

CAN YOU BUY JUSTICE? IN WISCONSIN, IT APPEARS YOU CAN

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is facing harsh criticism for a blatant conflict of interest in a July 16 ruling to shut down a campaign finance investigation of Gov. Scott Walker’s 2012 re-election campaign.  One headline referred to the court as a “crony court.” A Wisconsin columnist called the justices “self-serving” and concluded, “Justice bought is justice denied.”

Why? The justices in the majority have benefited from $10 million in spending by the same special interest groups that were suspected of conspiring with Walker.  The Wisconsin high court has become THE MOST CORRUPT COURT IN THE NATION SINCE THE GOP MEMBERS TOOK CONTROL.  

Yes, indeed another milestone for Republicans, according to Newsweek “the Wisconsin high court has become the most corrupt court in the nation since the GOP members took control.”  And what does Wisconsin look like under GOP control?  Let’s start with the GOP’s 2010 “redistricting” scam.  From Riverwest Currents:

Excerpt:

It took Republican legislative leaders only 12 days to go from unveiling their redistricting plans to passing them into law. The consequences of the redistricting legislation, however, may affect politics in Wisconsin for the next decade.  After presenting redistricting maps on July 8, the Senate passed the redistricting legislation on July 19, and the assembly on July 20 along predictable partisan lines…   

When asked why the redistricting legislation was being rushed to a vote, a representative of Sen. Scott Fitzgerald’s (R-Juneau) office said the rush was necessary to proactively counter a lawsuit against the Government Accountability Board (GAB), pending in US District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. The lawsuit requested that a three-judge panel be appointed to redraw the district lines…

Every ten years, after new census data is released, the districts need to be equalized based upon the most current population data.  Under the new legislation, the chief responsibility for redistricting falls upon the state legislature rather than local official.   The prior law required local officials and state legislatures to perform these duties… and taxpayers incurred no special charges for this work.

Michael Best & Friedrich and Troupis Law Office were hired by the state at taxpayer expense to redraw the various districts. So far the law firms have charged the state about $350,000. The redistricting process was conducted secretly.   On July 21, the 15 residents who filed the lawsuit against the GAB in federal court amended their original complaint to argue that the new maps violate the US Constitution and the Voting Rights Act by carving up cities and splitting minority communities.

So the GOP hired a special interest group to redistrict costing taxpayers $350,000 and the process was done in secret.  Isn’t that interesting, minorities were forced to pay a private law firm to redistrict their communities to dilute their vote. My, my, my.  And diluting their votes wasn’t enough for the GOP, they wanted to make sure any Democratic leaning voter would be unable to vote at all.  And voila, the GOP “voter ID law” was born in the bowels of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Koch Brothers modern day version of the Ku Klux Klan.

And years later what does Wisconsin look like after Walker and the GOP redistricted the state and instituted their Jim Crow voter ID law?  From Salon:

Excerpt:

The quiet, vicious racism of Scott Walker’s Wisconsin

With a voter-ID law passed by the GOP-controlled legislature and signed by Walker and threatening to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of mostly minority voters in this election, the last thing the Koch brothers’ favorite governor wants is people who are going to say the quiet parts out loud…

The New Republic took a deep dive into Walker’s world two years ago. What the magazine found was a city and its suburbs even more segregated than most, where the chairman of one county’s Republican Party could still refer to one mostly African-American neighborhood in Milwaukee, in 2014, as “the colored section.”

Where white flight between 1960 and 2010 was so high it tripled the population of three formerly rural counties around Milwaukee, while the percentage of African-American residents in those three counties is under 2 percent. Where the black poverty rate within the city is the second-highest in the country.  This is the world that has coddled Walker as he traveled up through the ranks of the Republican Party.

As a member of the state Assembly, the executive of Milwaukee County, and now governor, he has spent his entire career deeply slicing budgets for programs that benefit inner-city African-Americans, such as public transportation. He has also pushed for private-school vouchers that decimate public education and advocated for privatizing prisons, all while cutting taxes to ensure that funding levels for these civic outlays are unlikely to be restored anytime soon, if ever… 

That this is all happening during the first election in which Wisconsin’s new voter-ID law is in effect only increases the irony. The law is part of the broader effort by Republicans both in Wisconsin and other states to limit the voting power of traditional Democratic constituencies. The Wisconsin law could disenfranchise as many as 300,000 mostly minority and student voters who want to cast votes today…

That’s right, in Wisconsin if you are a minority or a student why even bother to try to vote?  Republicans in Wisconsin control the elections and if you are lucky enough to overcome the onerous hurdles laid out by the GOP and actually cast a ballot, your vote won’t be counted anyway.  Election after election, as the GOP increases their control through election fraud, the Democrats just stand down and capitulate to the GOP. 

If the Democrats refuse to fight for your right to have your vote counted, why should you?  That is what happened in Wisconsin in the 2016 presidential election.  The voters were abandoned by the Democratic Party.  From the New York Times:

Excerpt:

Many in Milwaukee Neighborhood Didn’t Vote — and Don’t Regret It

MILWAUKEE — Four barbers and a firefighter were pondering their future under a Trump presidency at the Upper Cutz barbershop last week...  They admitted that they could not complain too much: Only two of them had voted. But there were no regrets.

“I don’t feel bad,” Mr. Fleming said, trimming a mustache. “Milwaukee is tired. Both of them were terrible. They never do anything for us anyway.”

As Democrats pick through the wreckage of the campaign, one lesson is clear: The election was notable as much for the people who did not show up, as for those who did. Nationally, about half of eligible voters did not cast ballots.

Wisconsin, a state that Hillary Clinton had assumed she would win, historically boasts one of the nation’s highest rates of voter participation; this year’s 68.3 percent turnout was the fifth best among the 50 states. But by local standards, it was a disappointment, the lowest turnout in 16 years. And those no-shows were important. Mr. Trump won the state by just 27,000 voters.

Milwaukee’s lowest-income neighborhoods offer one explanation for the turnout figures. Of the city’s 15 council districts, the decline in turnout from 2012 to 2016 in the five poorest was consistently much greater than the drop seen in more prosperous areas — accounting for half of the overall decline in turnout citywide.

The biggest drop was here in District 15, a stretch of fading wooden homes, sandwich shops and fast-food restaurants that is 84 percent black.  In this district, voter turnout declined by 19.5 percent from 2012 figures…   It is home to some of Milwaukee’s poorest residents and, according to a 2016 documentary, “Milwaukee 53206,” has one of the nation’s highest per-capita incarceration rates.

So what do you think a recount in Wisconsin will show?  Why even bother, the only votes to be recounted are the ones that the GOP allowed to be counted in the first place.  I for one believe that Donald Trump won the vote in Wisconsin.  Donald Trump came to Wisconsin several times, even while he was dissed by Paul Ryan and the Republicans.  Hillary Clinton didn’t even bother to visit Wisconsin even once during the campaign. 

Donald Trump earned the votes he received in Wisconsin.  If you really want to see the kind of corruption happening in Wisconsin, bring in the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the voter suppression laws and the constitutional violations that are taking place along with the re-segregation of Milwaukee.  A recount of the votes will show what the GOP wants it to show, there’s nothing to see here folks.  Everything is hunky dory.

By Patricia Baeten

Deaf, dumb and blind GOP just made Trump President

First published in Blasting News:

A hard rain is gonna fall on America and it can’t be stopped, Donald Trump will be the next President.

On Monday the GOP establishment met behind closed doors to conspire against Donald Trump.  Tuesday morning Washington Journal, C-SPAN’s flagship call in program posed this question to Republicans only “should the GOP stick with Trump?”  One hundred percent of callers, which included Democrats who support Trump want to dump the “weasels” (their words not mine) in the GOP who have abandoned Trump. 

Oligarch’s reign will end

The oligarch owned establishment has lost control over the people and will never get it back.  The phenomena is unlike anything ever seen in this country before.  The people hate our establishment politicians who care nothing about the people.  Trump has unleashed the sleeping beast that is the American people, who refuse take on the shackles of a congress that passes lethal laws that kill and maim ourselves and our children.

Congress serves rich and powerful

The signs have been there for a long time, in 2014 the Business Insider wrote “The U.S. government does not represent the interests of the majority of the country's citizens, but is instead ruled by those of the rich and powerful, a new study from Princeton and Northwestern universities has concluded.”  In 2016 Paul Ryan’s GOP passed HR933 the "Monsanto Protection Act.” 

Five terrifying facts about HR933

Here is what the International Business Times had to say about “five terrifying facts about the Farmer Assurance Provision -- Section 735 of the spending bill.”

1.)    The "Monsanto Protection Act" effectively bars federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of controversial genetically modified (aka GMO) or genetically engineered (GE) seeds, no matter what health issues may arise concerning GMOs in the future.

2.)   The provision's language was apparently written in collusion with Monsanto.

3.)   Many members of Congress were apparently unaware that the "Monsanto Protection Act" even existed within the bill they were voting on.

4.)   The President did nothing to stop it, either.

5.)   It sets a terrible precedent.

It sets a terrible precedent indeed, barring federal courts from halting the sale of Monsanto’s cancer, morbidity and mortality causing chemically engineered foods from killing Americans.  How many Americans supported that bill?  Zero, and that is just one example of who our congress is looking out for.  That is what you get from a congress that has no worries about being reelected because they control the election and the election outcome.

Politicians choose the voters instead of voters choosing politicians

Through redistricting, voter ID laws and decimating campaign finance laws the congress has denied the people their inherent right to elect their leaders.  And what do the people get?  From the Washington Times: “Rep. Paul Ryan defends cuts to military retirement in budget bill.  Rep. Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, defended controversial cuts to military retirement pay in the budget deal, saying that the need for military compensation reform is “undeniable.””

The American people have finally had enough, the rage that has been bubbling under the surface has erupted and Paul Ryan and the GOP have lit the fuse.  Their arrogant disregard for the American people was on full display when the GOP demanded Trump step down and allow his GOP chosen running mate, Mike Pence to take his place.  The super storm that has been on the horizon is here, and a hard rain is gonna fall and there is nothing that can stop it now.

By Patricia Baeten

Congressionally protected financial terrorism

Wells Fargo’s CEO testimony exposed government complicity in the ongoing congressionally sanctioned financial terrorism and the war on the CFPB.

It was a sight we’ve seen before, congress critters feign outrage as yet another CEO smugly sits and listens to a litany of their crimes.  There will be no reprimand, no fines, and no legislation to ensure the crimes won’t be committed again.  At the end of the day, they all shake hands and agree to maintain the status quo with an understanding the campaign contributions will continue to roll in.

CFPB on hit list

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the brainchild of Elizabeth Warren, was created to protect consumers from the congressionally protected banksters’ illegal activity.  It was a CFPB investigation that uncovered massive fraud by Wells Fargo that resulted in a $185 million dollar fine. The CFPB uncovered was a scheme where low level employees were instructed to open millions of accounts for customers without their knowledge or consent in order to fatten the profits of the bank.

Fraud pays big time

The illegal accounts generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profits for the CEO and shareholders in overdraft fees and penalties levied against unsuspecting customers.  As a result, Wells Fargo was ordered to pay $100 million to the CFPB, the largest fine the federal agency has ever imposed, $50 million to the city and county of Los Angeles and $35 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). 

Ryan and GOP outraged

Paul Ryan and the GOP are outraged, not by Wells Fargo, but by the CFPB.  When the CFPB was created it was deliberately set up as an independent watchdog, shielded from congressional and White House control.  According to The Washington Post, “Under the Dodd-Frank law, the CFPB gets its money from transfers from the Federal Reserve System, up to specific caps set by the law. The Fed can’t turn down requests under that cap.  The caps are fixed percentages of the Fed’s operating expenses, which works out to the following:

–10% of Fed operating expenses in fiscal 2011 or $498 million — 11% of Fed operating expenses in fiscal 2012 or $547.8 million — 12% in fiscal 2013 or $597.6 million

–12% each fiscal year thereafter, subject to annual adjustments for inflation.”

In 2008 Wall Street banks laundered three-quarters of a billion dollars into the campaign of Barack Obama who was backed by Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy.  The banks printed up over $700 million dollars in untraceable, unreportable campaign donations via $200 or less prepaid credit cards.  $300 million in these “small donations” was funneled into the Obama campaign in October 2008 during the banking collapse.

Warren and CFPB become whipping boys

Once the agency was formed, Obama refused to name Elizabeth Warren to head the independent watchdog agency.  After Kennedy’s death Warren ran for and won his Massachusetts Senate seat.  The agency and Warren have been under fire by not only Paul Ryan and the GOP, but by the Obama-Biden wing of the Democratic Party.  

Fraud is Wall Street’s business model

William Black, a top US white crime expert who prosecuted over 1,000 S&L executives and jailed them for fraud, recently confirmed what bloggers and citizen journalists have said for years:  the business plan of Wall Street is fraud.  The banks are calling in their congressional chits, they want Warren and her CFPB gone.  Congress has initiated a PR blitz to sour the people on the watchdog agency.  After the rigged November election the same congress will return and the congressionally protected financial terrorism will continue.

By Patricia Baeten

The Birther of a nation by a basket of deplorables

Why is “Birther” a subject when months ago we were told that Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen because he was born from an American uterus in Canada?

Once again the media has manufactured a controversy out of thin air, a controversy that is meaningless because just months ago Americans were told an American woman’s uterus is an American territory.  We were told Ted Cruz, born in Canada to a Cuban father and American mother was a natural born citizen because he came out of an American’s uterus.  So what’s going on?

Follow the shiny object

Why are American’s attention being diverted by the media with the birther issue?  The Guardian has obtained documentation of massive corruption in Wisconsin from the governor, to the legislature to the state supreme court.  Corruption so pervasive it has the potential to blow apart Citizens United, so voila Birtherism is reborn.

The corruption of Scott Walker and Club for Growth

The Guardian has uncovered a mountain of corruption, election fraud, cronyism and conflict of interest that took place in Wisconsin during Walker and the GOP’s 2011 recall election.  The documents are the result of a John Doe probe into Walker and Wisconsin Club for Growth, a probe that was shut down by Walker’s state supreme court in 2015.  What does that have to do with birther rebirth?  Donald Trump’s financial advisor is Stephen Moore, the founder of Club for Growth.  What better way to divert attention than to bring back the birther issue, and smear both Trump and Clinton at the same time.

Corruption in the Dismal Dairyland

In 2011 when Walker was facing a recall he needed cash so his main fundraiser, Kate Doner devised a plan to go after “corporate” money.  She advised Walker to “Take Koch’s money. Get on a plane to Vegas and sit down with Sheldon Adelson. Ask for $1m now.”  And the money poured in, not to Walker’s campaign but into the dark money group Wisconsin Club for Growth.  By funneling the cash through the CFG, Walker didn’t have to disclose who was financing his campaign.

A John Doe probe was launched into the possible campaign finance violations between the Walker campaign and the CFG.  Then in July 2015 the state’s Supreme Court ordered the termination of the investigation before any charges could be brought.  The Walker majority on the court, all of whom received significant campaign contributions from Club for Growth declared Walker and CFG “wholly innocent of any wrongdoing”.  They went even further ordering the prosecutors to “permanently destroy all copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation.”

A real basket of deplorables

WI prosecutors have appealed the decision to the US Supreme Court and it is currently pending.  The documents leaked to the Guardian contain the substance of the case for the appeal.  It consists of email exchanges between Walker, his advisers, Republican leaders and major donors, one of which was coincidentally was Donald Trump.  The crux of the case before the US high court is, the GOP members of the WI high court were required to recuse themselves.  

What’s the precedence?  In 2009 in the case Caperton vs Massey Coal, the US high court found “if there is a serious risk of bias, such in that case where a party to the litigation who makes a substantial contribution to a judge, under 14^th Amendment due process a judge is required to recuse themselves.” In Wisconsin all of the GOP judges were bankrolled by Wisconsin Club for Growth.  The justices should have recused themselves.  Thus the Birther issue has once again reared its ugly head.  

By Patricia Baeten

Colin Powell and the Potemkin election system

U.S. elections have devolved into a Potemkin Villages constructed by oligarchs to deceive the people into believing their votes count.

With the overthrow of the US government in 2000 the Bush Administration dismantled over 200 years of government of, by and for the people.  Clinton is the last president in the US elected by the people.  The Help America Vote Act turned elections into Potemkin Villages constructed to give the appearance of democracy while protecting the two parties from the people.

White washing Colin Powell’s record

No war criminal has ever been so protected by the media as Colin Powell.  The NY Times’ coverage of the Powell’s hacked e-mails speaks volumes. According to the Times, “Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has long been one of the high priests of the Washington establishment, staying quiet in this year’s raucous presidential campaign while tending to his reputation as a thoughtful officer and diplomat.”

Powell’s real record

In 1963 Colin Powell, as an advisor in South Vietnam, promoted the idea that the way to discourage support for Viet Cong was to burn villages to the ground, or to “drain-the-sea.”  Other U.S. military advisers found the Powell strategy “brutal and counter-productive.”  In 1968 Powell returned to Vietnam as an officer where he investigated a complaint by a U.S. soldier claiming there were atrocities committed in My Lai. 

According to Consortium News, “after a cursory review Powell wrote "There may be isolated cases of mistreatment of civilians and POWs…. this by no means reflects the general attitude throughout the Division." Powell went on to say, “relations between Americal (sic) soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent."  Powell had told his superiors exactly what they wanted to hear, he lied.

It was a US infantryman named Ron Ridenhour who, upon his return to the US that conducted his own investigation into events in My Lai.  He interviewed participant soldiers who witnessed the slaughter and uncovered the truth. In 1968 with helicopters circling overhead, a US Division stormed into a hamlet called My Lai, rounded up old men, women and children, herded them into irrigation ditches and emptied their M-16s into the civilians and killing 347. 

Powell behind Iraq Wars

In 2003 when Powell presented his cartoonish drawings and vial of powder before the UN as proof of Saddam’s nuclear weapons, Counter Punch that recalled Powell’s previous lies to promote war. 

“The setting was eerily reminiscent of the presentation of the key propaganda event that justified the first Gulf War. At that time, also at the United Nations, the Hill & Knowlton propaganda specialists concocted the “throwing babies out of incubators” charade, starring the daughter of the Kuwait ambassador…  A bit of historical context should perhaps guard us from lending too much credence to “evidence” concocted by the US and presented by Powell himself.”

The disastrous results of Colin Powell’s lies live on today as does the media’s white washing Powell’s legacy.  The media has gleefully repeated Powell’s attacks on Donald Trump calling him “a national disgrace” and an “international pariah.”  America’s Potemkin village elections, constructed to give the appearance of democracy while protecting the politicians, will go on.  The only uncertainty is whether the American people will continue to buy the lie.

By Patricia Baeten